Unfortunately, I find it difficult to read when conversational interviews occur nearby at a loud volume, so I was intermittently dragged into the content of the program. The segment that distracted me the most was the program’s farewell to curmudgeonly commentator Andy Rooney. I heard his responses to several questions. One of his statements struck me.

“A writer’s job is to tell the truth,” said Mr. Rooney.

I will not delve into the irony of that statement emanating from a program that, to my mind, is one of the most flagrant transgressors of that very sentiment. But Mr. Rooney’s words are well-taken, regardless of the source. A writer is an educator, and an educator has a responsibility to convey truth in order to advance people’s well-being.

Perhaps this hit me so hard because of my recent stop at a local bookstore. Like most authors, I am drawn to bookstores. As my wife will attest, a “quick stop” at a bookshop is 30 minutes; a more typical visit lasts well beyond an hour. During last week’s experience I was blown away by the sheer volume of pabulum and outright lies being sold to the public. Volume after volume, especially in areas concerning politics, history, religion, sociology, culture, arts, and parenting – the subjects which I perused at length – conveyed distortions that would be laughable if not for the fact that millions of ill-advised people innocently embrace those half-truths and full-on lies.

Of course such a criticism is difficult to sustain these days. Where there is no absolute moral or spiritual truth that we universally or even generally accept, then one man’s truth is no better or worse than any other man’s truth, as long as he firmly embraces it. Mr. Rooney’s statement needs to be updated for today’s world: “A writer’s job is to tell his truth” or perhaps “his version of the truth.” Consequently one could argue that a reader’s job these days is simply to consider the various truth versions available, identify which one she likes the most, and own it.

I would like to give Mr. Rooney the benefit of the doubt and believe that he really meant what he said, that his words could be taken at face value. He comes from a generation that still generally contends there are absolute truths that exist whether people acknowledge and accept them or not. Sadly, that perspective is losing ground faster than we realize. And that rapid and seemingly unrestrained redefinition of truth is a sad commentary on the depth, engagement, and influence of the Church today.

What are some likely contours of the future of book publishing? This is a debate that has caused tremendous stress among publishers, authors, bookstores, and even some consumers. To get a handle on that stress we have to realize that such anxieties are generally attributable to two primary causes: fear of the unknown and the resultant uncertainty about what to do. If we do our homework, though, we can reduce much of that stress. Here are some thoughts to stimulate your thinking about what lies ahead for books, focusing on trends affecting each of the four primary actors in this play.

What the Future Holds for Authors

This is a moment of great opportunity for anyone who wants to be an author; every day delivers new and seemingly limitless options for those who are willing to let the past go and seize these burgeoning possibilities.

Publishing is changing quickly. Those who are expected to provide reliable analyses of the emerging changes cannot agree on where things stand, even on such simple matters as how many new books are being published each year. While the estimates vary, one thing the analysts do agree upon: more than one million new titles are being published each year, and most of those are self-published editions.

In fact, thanks to the availability of new technologies, novel marketing strategies, and new business models, it appears that self-published books now outnumber conventional by 5-to-2 margin. It’s not like the old days, with a handful of gatekeepers limiting who gets onto the playing field and how they will play the game. It’s a wholly new game because now everyone has equal access to the means of publishing. At long last, the long-held notion that “everyone has a book in them” is being put to the test.

But recognize that the expanded pool of opportunities is balanced by heightened competition for resources such as book buyers, reader attention, publishing contracts, marketing dollars, shelf space, or the other ingredients required for publishing success. As those in the business well know, there is a massive distinction between publishing a book and achieving meaningful sales of that resource.

In this mix, then, one of the most important shifts is that the fundamental definition of “published author” is changing. Because of the myriad changes in the industry and the publishing process, it is increasing less feasible – and in many cases, less desirable – to be an author who simply writes a manuscript and hands it off to a publisher to complete the process (e.g., editing, design, legal, manufacturing, marketing, sales, warehousing, distribution, sales accounting, and so forth). Increasingly, a successful author will be one who fills the role of a project manager – envisioning, lining up, and orchestrating the contributions of a team of partners who each handles one or more of those publishing functions.

Consequently, it will become more common – and important – for authors to know freelance professionals who can perform those various tasks in a manner that serves the manuscript well.

Embedded within this massive shift of responsibilities is one particular transition that is perhaps the most important recalibration of them all: no matter what format and distribution route an author chooses these days he/she must also be the chief marketer of their book, especially through new technologies (e.g. social media platforms). To succeed, an author must write like John Grisham and market like Steve Jobs. Sales success mandates that the author commit personal time and resources to promoting the book for a prolonged period of time. The brief, three-month marketing window that has characterized boom publishing for decades is outdated; now, the author must persevere and perform a slow build for his/her product.

In the near future, growing numbers of authors will circumvent traditional publishers altogether because the value of what they surrender in a traditional publishing deal exceeds the value they receive – especially in light of these heightened marketing responsibilities and newly-accessible means to manufacturing and marketing.

New models will be developed and implemented – some of which we are already seeing in the marketplace. For instance, e-books can be easily and quickly created and sold, and for higher payouts than traditional publishers offer to authors. Serial publishing – selling books by the chapter – will become common and benefit an author by building a sense of consumer urgency regarding their book. Print-on-demand (POD) removes the need for manufacturing and warehousing and expedite getting a book into the marketplace.

And writers should get comfortable with the idea of producing “living manuscripts” – that is, books that endure continual revisions based on new ideas, current information, reader feedback, and cultural changes. Such real-time republishing is made possible by strategies such as e-books and POD. Thanks to social media, and especially to the advent and exploding popularity of e-books, the distance between author and reader is being eliminated – and you can bet that each will use the closing of that gap to their advantage.

What the Future Holds for Publishers

In the same manner that the experience of being an author is being recalibrated, so is the notion of being a publisher changing dramatically. There are new products and formats, new competitors, two new generations of readers who are oblivious to the old ways, new distribution channels, and new means of marketing. Consequently, the standard business models that have driven the publishing industry for decades can no longer hold up. New technologies, new types of vendors, new types of authors, new development and distribution arrangements, and new ways of reaching and connecting with the audience must be embraced and refined.

In essence, we are watching the re-invention of publishing and publishers are at the heart of this new reality. Incremental change will fail; playing it safe will hasten one’s demise.

So this has become a time to re-conceive the product itself. A book is an experience, one that tells a personal story of some type. To succeed it must make a connection with the target audience. We have to re-imagine the book as something more than paper and ink, or even digital bytes; it is a competitive entertainment product that must meet needs, even if its primary purpose is best served in an educational setting, a business environment, or the pews. The content must capture the heart and mind of the reader if it is to have any lasting influence and marketplace longevity.

Those of us who work in the publishing industry have to remember that consumers do not think in the same linear, bounded categories that those in the business do. Our target customers are not locked into product categories like book, movie, song, TV, or video game. They have an itch and they want something to scratch it. They think about the benefit they need that moment and are just as satisfied with one solution as another.

That mind set has changed the way that product development and marketing work. Whatever we produce must address those very real felt needs. For instance, people have less time to read, so shorter books often make the most sense to them. People’s time is frantic and fragmented, so providing them with bundled options, optimizing their use of technology devices at their whim, is gaining popularity. Sometimes it makes sense to integrate multiple media and devices in what is offered. Including value-added components to address multiple needs (author interviews, research findings, biblical lessons, etc.) attracts many people.

With these changes comes the need to redefine the self-perception of a publisher. Such an entity is no longer the protector of paper content; these days a publisher must be format agnostic, viewed as a content provider rather than a publisher of ink on bound pages. Such an entity must pay closer attention to the clock, recognizing that the culture is moving at warp speed. No longer is it acceptable to consume two years time from the acceptance of an author’s idea to sale of the final product. Such an entity must realize that design is now a significant part of each project. Consumers have a heightened interest in design – whether it is to enhance the comfort of reading, to increase the pure readability of the product, to escalate the intimacy of the message, to attract attention to the product in the first place, or to expand the versatility of the layout.

Fortunately for book publishers, they need not learn these lessons through hard-won experience. Their survival can be made easier by learning from the experience of sister industries. For instance, digital rights management and piracy issues have hit the music and movie industries hard; there are direct applications for publishers. Video stores – you remember them? – lost their foothold in the marketplace because of their insistence on retaining dying formats. Most media industries have discovered that with a fragmented marketplace and such dispersed media opportunities it is important to invest sales, marketing and promotional dollars generously but wisely. Cutting back on such spending simply hastens an entity’s demise in an age when the competition for consumer attention is so fierce.

Perhaps the most sensitive area relates to the connection between publishers and their life blood – authors. That relationship is in the midst of a holistic and often painful transformation.

Many authors – especially those who have worked their entire career in this mold – will choose to stick with the traditional “writer only” role, due to lack of entrepreneurial interest or the diversity of skills and relationships necessary to succeed in the new world of author-as-publisher. It is highly likely that the number of “writer only” authors will diminish fairly rapidly over the coming two decades.

In their place is emerging an entire universe of what we might call entrepreneurial authors. They are more like farmers than factory bosses – involved in the planting of the seed for their product through to its harvesting, incorporating and supervising the efforts of specialists en route to the final product.  To work effectively with the traditional authors, publishers will need to expand their toolbox to facilitate the development of a reader community and providing new-era marketing services and guidance.

Regardless of what camp an author comes from – the author-in-charge or the publisher-dependent author – publishers need to realize they have to prove their value to authors with every project. Such value is no longer evident, assumed, or automatically credible. In order to verify their value to authors, a new currency is emerging: flexible partnership. Advances and royalty scales used to rule the day; in this new era of personal independence the rules have changed dramatically. As authors assume more of the responsibility and risk, even in a traditional publishing deal, they will need to be part of a publishing partnership that reflects these redefined roles. For publishers this is a drastic transition: they are no longer in charge, they no longer set the rules, and if they threaten to take their ball and leave the field, they may be invited to do so without hesitancy on the part of the author.

Realize that this means the standard publishing contract offered to an author is becoming irrelevant. Think about some of the clauses the pub houses routinely include for authors to agree to; they are changing as we speak. An example is multi-media rights, which are no longer a throw-in, part of the boilerplate that publishers expect and authors ignore. The new media and technology options provide authors with many ways of cashing in on those opportunities without the participation of a publishing house. You can expect to witness far fewer full-service, one-stop deals between publishers and authors as those who create the product instead parcel out various responsibilities to those who add the greatest value to their work.

The guerilla in the corner of the room, of course, is digital production and distribution. Publishers must embrace digital publishing, but must do so sensibly. The last few years have introduced all kinds of wild projections about the growth of digital books. While this is clearly one of the most important domains of the industry’s future, it is also just as clear that many analysts, even some who are typically responsible, have grossly overstated the growth curves and immediate importance of e-books. Granted, this format has grown from nothing to something seemingly overnight. But be realistic; digital book sales will not be 50% of sales by 2015, as some researchers are stating. Note that most people are not switching all their reading from physical to digital. And while bundling is an important strategy it is not the only strategy to employ.

We are still in an exploratory phase regarding the place of digital books. In fact, we are currently in that uncomfortable zone where the format of choice has yet to be determined. With more than a handful of digital formats in use, each with its own following and dedicated equipment, we’re still in the Beta versus DVD era, the DOS/Windows vs. Mac competition. Investing heavily in one approach or another will have long-term implications.

Another serious element to consider is the other guerilla in the room: amazon.com. Amazon’s goal is to not just dominate the digital book market but to control it. Whatever strategy a publishing unit develops must have worked through how it will tangle – or tango – with this monster.

What the Future Holds for Bookstores

The same fundamental challenges facing publishers face bookstores: the old business models are inadequate for the new era, consumer expectations and buying patterns are shifting, retailer relationships with authors need to be reconceived, the economic collapse has altered marketplace behaviors, and innovations in technology is affecting everything.

Christian bookstores cannot survive if they retain the attitude that they are simply an extension of a few local churches and that their product mix is so different that they have a built-in market. The truth is that Christian products are readily available in a wide variety of places, often more inexpensively, and with a nation of consumers for whom loyalty is a thing of the past, much of the long-time natural advantage held by Christian retailers has dissipated. That does not mean they cannot be successful retailers; it simply means that success now requires different strategy and tactics.

Changes in technology require Christian stores to provide a wider catalogue of products and services, such as print-on-demand capabilities or digital books and music. Changes in the economy merit serious consideration of shifts in product pricing, perhaps moving to demand-based pricing (sometimes called “dynamic” pricing). That approach is already deployed by airlines and hotels and is being tested for sports and music events. Changes in shopping patterns suggest that store location and the blend of products will more significantly influence revenue potential than before. Changes in database management capabilities mean that knowing each individual customer’s interests, tastes, patterns and preferences becomes a more critical differentiator than ever. Your database may be your single most valuable asset – if it is robust, current, and wisely and consistently utilized.

What the Future Holds for Book Readers

Reading and book buying are not the same today as they were even ten years ago. In a culture that demands more options, better options, and new options, readers are faced with a plethora of choices never before available.

Consumers may now pick either a physical book or a digital product. It’s possible to buy the entire book or selected chapters. They can purchase books online or at a brick-and-mortar book shop. They may read their chosen literature in the form of a physical book, on a mobile device (phone, e-reader, tablet), on a desktop computer, or listen to it via an audio book. If they prefer, they can make their way through the content using multiple devices, seamlessly picking up where they left off thanks to cloud computing. Increasingly, a reader can even participate in the development of the content by working with an author to provide pre-release input or helping to reshape a released product for an updated edition.

The types of content that people want to read at any given time will continue their eternal and generally unpredictable pendulum swing. As I write this the sales momentum has shifted toward biographies and novels while categories that were popular in the past (e.g., leadership) are in the doldrums. We now live in a story-telling period where people want to understand other people’s experiences. But this, too, shall change in the not-too-distant future as people tire of what they enjoy today and search for the next big thing.

Thanks to the growth of digital formats and the need for publishers and online retailers to generate a following, consumers are likely to show renewed interest in the classics – largely because so many of them are now free, public domain downloads. But we will also experience activity in new segments of publishing, such as “flash fiction” – very short stories delivered digitally that allow people to escape their present reality in bite sized pieces. Meanwhile, gift books will remain mostly physical books. And, thankfully, all the changes occurring these days will reduce the number of books with padded page counts; people lack the budget, time, interest in supporting excessive verbiage.

As always happens with the encroachment of new technology, users will become more adept and more comfortable with digital platforms and devices and transition into multi-platform readers. Today we are seeing many people purchase books they expect to read a single time (e.g. novels) via an e-reader, and purchase titles they expect to retain as part of their permanent collection via physical book.

One of the reasons digital books will continue their growth is their ability to satisfy the consumer’s desire for media participation and product customization. Before the end of this decade many of us will regularly read a book digitally, make highlighted text and margin notes alongside the digital text, then create a personal, abridged copy that incorporates our notations. After we save that new version on our computer, we can then share it with others (via email or the cloud), or even create a new physical book via POD that represents a unique product created by you and the original author.

The Future of Books

So, looking back at my original promise, how does understanding these transitions reduce your stress? By reducing the uncertainties and eliminating fear of the unknown.

Let’s be realistic. We are entering a new golden age for books. We are not seeing the death of books; we are seeing their renaissance and expansion. The decline in the sales of physical books through traditional outlets is not indicative of the death of that medium but of the extension of the medium into new alternatives.

Don’t lose sight of the fact that books are experiencing increased influence in our society due to improvements in accessibility, flexibility, convenient availability, multi-media integration, affordability, quantity of titles, expanded authorship, formats, speed to market, interior design, and even rising global literacy. These are gains to be celebrated by everyone, but especially by those within the world of book publishing.

The fact that popular technological innovations have included books within the sweep of their influence is a blessing. After all, it is better to be redefined by the popular advances than to remain stable and outside people’s frame of awareness. In other words, it’s better to play an unfamiliar position and still be in the game than to retain your familiar position in a game that has ended.

We need not worry about the durability of book publishing; it will outlive us both. It will do so because it is about identifying great ideas that improve lives, platforming the best representatives of those ideas, and effectively communicating and distributing those ideas. After all, societies breathe new ideas. Publishing provides the oxygen. Every vital culture relies upon a thriving publishing sector for a culture without stimulating, compelling, provocative voices and messages on some form of a printed page is an impoverished and impoverishing culture. Nobody wins in such a society.

Having noted the inevitability of the continuation of the book publishing, we must also recognize that the publishing industry and process will never return to the way it was. And we must also acknowledge how foolish it would be to attempt to retard progress or to try to force it back into the old box. This is a time of new wineskins; seeking to return to the old wineskins is a loser’s strategy. The train has left the station, friends; grab a-hold of the railing on the caboose and get on board or guarantee your irrelevance.

This isn’t as big a deal as some are making it out to be. Business models constantly change – and in this new global economy driven by technology and the speed it provides, such models are and will be changing more frequently and dramatically than ever. Get used to it. It’s a way of thinking that must be adapted and adopted in order to remain in the game.

Many have already learned how to do this. Apple transitioned from a manufacturer of user-friendly computers playing within the rules of the computer industry into a developer of digital communication devices in which it set the rules. E-bay read the trends correctly and transitioned from an online auction hub to an online shopping mall. You can make a similar transition if you are willing.

There will be more than a few moments of confusion as you chart your new path. You may wonder what to make of the new developments since physical books, though no longer the only game in town, will remain foundational to the book world for years to come. Digital books, as rapid as their growth has been so far, still represent potential to be tested. Don’t get hysterical over audacious, unproven, unlikely claims about the future. Those who predict that e-books will represent 50% of all book sales within three years have little understanding of product growth curves, generational values, and new technology adoption rates.

This is a time of innovation, exploration and experimentation. Impact demands that you take some risks; the future of publishing, no matter which player you are, will require some risk. But this is a n era when true leaders will shine, as they capitalize on the emerging opportunities and move forward on the basis of wise strategy and nimble response. Remember, all new things are borne in the midst of chaos. Historically, the greater the confusion, the greater the opportunity, and the more likely a significant innovation is to emerge. It takes great leadership to work within the chaos to shape something of value from it, without attempting to deny, counteract, or disembody the chaos.

The only way to protect whatever assets you have is to embrace intelligent change. That does not mean jettisoning physical books or stores for an all-digital approach. That does not mean adopting a “ride out the storm” mentality of incrementalism. That does not mean investing more resources in media and marketing in an effort to delay, deny, or diminish the digital invasion. It does mean that you must bring some serious resources to the field, and organize them well. Start with vision, add creativity, have the strength and courage to take intelligent risks, be diligent in forging ahead, stay close to the other players.

Henceforth, no matter what role you play, you can count on the world of book publishing to provide a wild ride. Hang on and enjoy it.

Recent surveys have shown that a majority of voters are comfortable with the Republicans for playing the role of naysayer in the face of an aggressive push by Democrats toward expanded government and government spending. The media, whose liberal tendencies have been well-documented, has positioned Republicans as negative and unproductive because of their efforts to block the Democratic wish list from becoming law.

At the very heart of leadership is the determination to remain true to your vision. A crucial dimension of staying true is being able to say “no” to things that are do-able and sometimes even popular. The Republican vision may not be easy to discern these days, but it is certainly vastly different than the dreams of the Democrats now in power. Regardless of which approach you prefer, we have to appreciate the consistency of the Republicans for resisting government expansion as much as we appreciate the vision behind the Democratic dream of expansion. The challenge to us as individuals is to clarify in our own minds which vision reflects our own view of what is best for society. Neither party is bad for pursuing its vision. It is our constitutional responsibility to study those divergent strategies, embrace one of them, and get involved in the governing process.

At the same time, we have to be wise consumers of information and reject the temptation to accept media characterizations, often supported by public statements from one party or another, that Republicans are somehow inferior lawmakers because their primary response over the past few months has been the “no” vote. First, a more careful reading of the Congressional Record (which can be boring and long-winded but also revealing and insightful) indicates that Republicans have offered more than just “no” votes. Second, with media bias so entrenched – on both ends of the ideological continuum – that most Americans are no longer even aware of its existence, we have to become re-sensitized to the dramatic effect media filtering and embedded ideology can have on our perspectives. Third, we might be well-served by demanding a more objective reporting of events and perspectives in exchange for giving the media our attention and trust.

The democratization of information in America comes with a cost: i.e., that you and I must do a better and more diligent job of seeking the truth of events than what might be delivered to us by subjective media sources. Further, we have to take seriously our responsibility as the protectors and developers of our nation’s destiny by understanding the value and the power of “no” as much as the value and power of promoting new ideas and laws. Both of those approaches can serve us well and both reflect a different vision of leadership.

• 36 public workshops (including some streamed online) that elicited the involvement of more than 10,000 people. The input received formed the basis of the eventual bill.
• 31 public notices that incorporated more than 23,000 comments – some 74,000 pages of reactions to the initial proposal
• Nearly 1,100 ex parte filings that added another 13,000 pages to the discussion
• 9 public hearings
• Extensive interagency dialogue and collaboration to address the complexity of the task and compensate for the limitations of the FCC’s operations and expertise
• 130 blog postings on the FCC’s special website for this project, generating more than 1,500 comments
• Interaction with the 330,000 people who follow this via the FCC’s Twitter account?

If you want engagement in the process, it’s hard to imagine being more inviting than this! Why did the FCC go to such lengths? After all, its mandate is no different than it has been for years. My read of the situation points to several factors.

First, leadership changes at both the White House and FCC facilitated greater openness to broad external input. In a governmental process, people really only have a voice if the leadership provides them with the platform for using that voice. In this case, both President Obama and his FCC chairman Julius Genachowski offered people that platform.

Second, there is a burning need for something to be done about our broadband situation. The U.S. is currently 17th in the world in access to broadband connections. With an ever-increasing emphasis being placed upon the Internet for communications, we need a better system. By 2015 it is estimated that the amount of information we will be moving through the Internet each year will be the equivalent of the content contained in the Library of Congress – times 50! Right now, only 27% of Americans have high-speed access, and the average speed is not very fast – about 4MB per second. Most developed countries exceed that average. For the United States to remain competitive economically; to remain safe in a fast-paced, dangerous world; to have an informed electorate, government and commercial sector; and to enable people to remain connected with each other, we need a serious upgrade.

Third, the public has a personal interest in this matter. This plan would increase broadband connectivity to an estimated 100 million households by 2020, at speeds averaging 100 MB/second (25 times faster than today). With young people completely beholden to the Internet and all the mobile communications devices it empowers, millions of Americans consider this enhancement a necessity more than an option. A national broadband system might also lower the cost of connectivity. (I’m reluctant to accept at face value the government’s claim that costs would be reduced.)

Here are a few thoughts for church leaders about lessons we might learn from the FCC’s process.

Personally, I was intrigued by the extensive engagement that they sought in this process. Unlike past FCC efforts, it was not a simple posting of intent in a few poorly-circulated government bulletins and a couple of sparsely attended hearings on the Hill. They aggressively pursued the participation of many people. This was not a “build it and they will come” approach to getting feedback. They targeted different groups to get in the mix – from end users like you and me, to communications and technology lawyers, representatives of the business world, voices from the educational community, and so forth. The variety of means made available to the public showed how determined they were to give people a chance to add their ideas.

How aggressive – and inclusive – are you at getting valuable input when you have a new initiative you wish to develop?

By the same token, I think the scope of what the FCC undertook begs the question of how much input is too much? Bureaucracies do not blanch at the thought of dealing with more than 100,000 pages of documents to read, categorize and analyze. Yet I’m in the information business and I’m on the verge of passing out at the thought of handling that avalanche of data. Typically, such extensive information collection results in wasted time, dashed expectations, and a product that is compromised beyond true value.

Perhaps the question we need to ask is: how much information – and what kind – is needed to make the best possible decision?

Finally, I’d be willing to argue that the entire public’s participation is not necessary – or helpful – in every decision that the FCC makes. The same goes for ministry. Everyone has an opinion, but not everyone’s opinion on every matter is of equal value or usefulness. My neighbor has strong opinions about terrorism, but I’m not willing to let him – someone who has never travelled outside our county, never been involved in law enforcement or the military, never studied the mind of militant groups or the Muslim world – form national policy on this matter. There are approprioate times for an inclusive process for developing solutions and there are times when a more limited process is wiser.

What is the mechanism you have developed for figuring out when to involve everyone in your community, the full congregation, your lay leaders, the aggregate staff, or perhaps just you and a trusted confidante? How do you figure out when it’s smart to allow plentiful input and when it’s wiser to limit the flow of ideas?

Over the past couple of weeks I have been asked by several people what I do to attempt to stay aware of what’s happening in the world. My confession is that I am not as broad a thinker or nearly as curious as some of my colleagues. You can get buried alive in information, so I have felt compelled to focus most of my attention on aspects of life that seem to make a difference in the shaping of our individual and societal reality. Consequently, I focus on a few specific areas of interest: leadership strategy and application; the health and development of children and families; worldview content, expression and development; media penetration, messaging and presentation; life transformation; cultural trends; and faith movements.

As restricted a window as that may be, keeping up with that is easier said than done. But I have developed a routine over the years that has become comfortable for me, based on spending the first couple of hours of each day scouring a select group of sources through the Internet. Those sources are not always trustworthy and are certainly not ideologically compatible, but they provide me with a sense of what’s happening and alert me to trends and conditions to keep an eye on. I have a blend of “conservative,” “middle of the road,” and “liberal” sources that I follow, to stay attuned to the different perspectives people bring to the table.

Specifically, I pour through the online content of 6 newspapers, 4 blog sites, 7 magazines, 6 marketing research organizations, RSS feeds from 18 websites. In all, that’s exposure to about 41 sources of input. Among them, 35 provide daily coverage, 5 do so weekly, and 1 is a monthly. (These do not include a series of publications I also read faithfully related to personal interests, primarily sports and music.) The pool of sources changes occasionally, but generally remains intact over time.

One of my numerous weaknesses is that I have a very poor memory. To combat my forgetfulness, I capture a lot of the material in a personal database that I have been keeping for many years. Last year’s summary of the more important findings ran almost 800 pages (single-spaced, formatted into a single continuous paragraph per report, a format I prefer for storage). It is a searchable database that comes in handy on numerous occasions throughout the year when I need information for writing, speaking, praying, teaching, researching, and reflecting. Many of the ideas I’ve had over the years for national research studies and books have been sparked by data from this large and growing body of information.

What is your strategy for keeping up with current realities? Do you have any particularly good tools for organizing and storing and sharing the information that intrigues you?

By the way, the amount of time this process consumes each day is one of several reasons why I do not participate in Facebook, MySpace or Twitter. (Or, as my friends and colleagues know, turning on my cell phone…) Perhaps I’m incurably old school.

My take on it may be a bit different than that of my colleagues. I haven’t subscriber to a “hard copy” newspaper in more than 20 years, but I do review the headlines (and read the appealing stories) of 7 newspapers every morning via RSS feeds. If those publications were to vanish, it’d certainly be a loss for me, though perhaps not insurmountable – emphasis on “perhaps” for a reason I’ll explain.

What concerns me the most, though, is that our society seems to be headed toward greater reliance on the Internet for news from sources that are disconnected to any kind of vetting entity. I trust the Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, USA Today and other newspapers because I know they have a process of fact checking. They still get many things wrong, and the ideological bias each builds into their stories is undeniable, but at least I know it’s there and what slant to look for. If those publications die and instead I have to rely upon an endless series of untethered, unaccountable individuals and small organizations to provide current news, the chance of getting reliable reporting is greatly diminished.

In a world where almost everyone is a publisher and accuracy takes a back seat to immediacy, number of eyeballs attracted, independence, and personal expression, it will be hard to know what to believe. This has been driven home to me lately by the avalanche of misinformation about me – the only source of information whose veracity I can affirm without question – that I have come across in just the past few weeks. Here are a few examples.

“According to George Barna and his group of pollsters: 86% of Americans claim to be born again…”

Whoa, I would never even report that 86% of people in churches on Sunday are born again!

“Barna predicts that within 20 years, this House Churching group – one that he refers to as “Revolutionaries” – will comprise nearly 70% of U.S. Christians, leaving only 30-35 percent (primarily, aging Christians) in traditional church settings.”

Yikes! I have never provided any prediction about the percentage of people who will be in house churches at any given time in the future. Further, “revolutionaries” refers to a person’s commitment to their faith, not the type of faith community to which they belong. I think I know the data this reporter was drawing from, but he radically sliced and diced it in inappropriate ways and put words in my mouth that I would never say – and that nobody I know of can reasonally support.

“I just heard a George Barna stat about this recently less than 2% of the churches will hear their pastor preach a message on the Holy Spirit this year. Its alarming.”

It sure is alarming – although I’m not sure if it’s more alarming that this bogus statistic is attributed to me, or that this idea might have some basis in reality.

“According to a study done by the Barna Group, when a Chinese House Church pastor or leader is arrested or killed, the house church may disband, but out of it will form 5 other House Churches.”

It’s not bad enough that so much bogus research is attributed to me in the U.S. – now we have the digitali claiming that I have conducted research in China! I have visited China once in my life (last year) and I conducted no surveys while there.

George Barna taught for years at C. Peter Wagner’s Wagner Leadership Institute, and his writing appears in “Evangelism and Church Growth: Reference Library” published by Regal books, with contributions from the following notable authors: Elmer L. Towns, George Barna, C. Peter Wagner, Ted Haggard, Ed Silvoso, Jack W. Hayford, and Larry Stockstill. There’s no doubt in my mind that Barna is involved in a re-marketing effort which seeks to put a friendlier gloss on neo-evangelicalism, because its historically anti-gay virulence turns off many millennials.

I taught at the Wagner Institute for years? Man, I’d better request some back pay! In actuality, I taught a course there once, about 15 years ago, and I think it last two or three days; it may only have seemed like years to those who had to take my class. (Note: I was never invited back.) And the notion that I am involved in a “re-marketing effort to put a friendlier gloss on neo-evangelicalism” – well, let’s just say nobody has ever accused me of putting a friendly face on anything! It is quite an acrobatic leap, however, to go from noting that one of my books was included on a CD-ROM more than a decade ago to assuming that by writing about research on evangelism 15 years ago I must now be engaged in the re-marketing of “neo-evangelicalsim,” whatever that is.

George Barna, founder of The Barna Group, a research firm that specializes in studying the religious beliefs and behavior of Americans, calls Alpha an “anointed program in God’s appointed time.” According to Barna, Alpha is for anyone who thinks there may be more to life than meets the eye. People attend from all backgrounds, religions and viewpoints, investigating questions about the existence of God, the purpose of life, the afterlife and the claims of Jesus. Some want to get beyond religion and find a relationship with God that changes their lives, others come for the close, long-lasting friendships that are built during the Alpha courses, he said. Barna said the Alpha Course is being presented in 130 countries, with 6,000 courses in the U.S. and 25, 000 worldwide.

Well, I was very pleased to read this about myself because prior to the release of that article I knew very little about the Alpha program. I was surprised to have endorsed a program about which I knew next-to-nothing; to boldly cite statistics about that same unknown program; and to add a marketing pitch to boot. I guess I am simply more clever than I realized.

We also suspect that Focus may be feeling the pull of George Barna’s polling research denigrating “religious right” activism…

I did research that denigrates “religious right activism”? That’s news to me. I recall doing research that encourages Christians to get more serious about their faith, but beyond that, this is another of those “you stumped me” claims.

Our Lord Jesus preached until He was left with only the twelve, and He had no qualms about that. He is Sovereign, even if the devil and George Barna would try to use statistics to prove to us otherwise.

Now hold on a minute. Granted, I have had some pretty bad business partners in a few companies I started outside of The Barna Group. And sure, there were days when I thought one or more of my business partners were Satan. But in all fairness, I have never partnered with the devil to use statistics questioning the sovereignty of God – if for no other reason than the recognition that the last person you want to tick off is the One who is sovereign.

These are just a few of the errant claims about my work that others have made on the Internet in the past two weeks. I shudder every time I try to imagine how many bogus research claims and ignorant analyses of my work have been made on the Web. If people butcher my work this way, what would an information universe without news groups tethered to a semblance of truth be like?

Bad information presented in the media is nothing new. That’s as old as media itself. But as the last unregulated frontier of influence, the Internet is both a blessing and a curse. I am praying that somehow we will figure out ways of identifying the good from the bad that appears on the Internet – and that we do so sooner rather than later. I fear that I won’t miss the smudgy print of newspapers, but I will miss news groups that have a tradition of making a good faith effort to report facts accurately and with some degree of integrity.

On the plane ride home I wondered why there are not contemporary plays that reach audiences with a similar message and power to that of Les Miz. The book was written by Victor Hugo in 1862. I do not pretend to be an expert on theatrical history, but as I consider the various plays that have succeeded on Broadway and London stages in the past quarter century I am surprised at the paucity of contemporary dramas that have successfully addressed such themes. Has our obsession with movies and television precluded us from producing theatrical works as challenging as Hugo’s? Do our Christian colleges and universities prepare young men and women to create theatrical productions of this nature and quality? Do Christian parents recognize such efforts as a worthy calling for their sons and daughters? Are Christians willing to support such art, in the same way they might turnout for Fireproof or The Passion of the Christ? Are we content to anesthetize ourselves with entertainment that numbs the brain and ignores the soul?

There were many memorable moments. There were the wanna-be’s in the audience, dressed to attract attention. There were the performances of artists vying for awards. And there was the off-stage, off-camera antics of some of the musicians and other industry people in attendance, at the parties before and after. It was genuinely entertaining.

One of the most memorable experiences of the day for me was a comment made by Walter Miller, who produced the telecast of the event for network TV. After explaining what he was hoping to pull off with the day’s broadcast, he said, “On paper, this doesn’t work. It just doesn’t work.” And then he proceeded to pull it off – on time, within budget, and despite the antics of a relatively unruly group of performers and presenters.

How did he do it? Through incredible planning, precise execution, the united effort of a large team of talented specialists (several hundred strong), a huge budget, years of experience, and the ability and willingness to flex on a moment’s notice.

None of that would have been possible, though, if Mr. Miller did not have a clear and compelling vision of the outcome and the confidence of those working for him. After watching the process up close, trust me, the Grammy telecast is a disaster waiting to happen. But that’s where leadership comes in. Despite continually reminding his colleagues of the vision which they were pursuing together, and keeping them apprised throughout the day of the progress they were making, the live broadcast could easily have fallen apart at any of 100 junctures during the 210-minute show. The fact that it didn’t was less a testimony to the eye-popping or ear-pleasing performances of some of the artists than to the relentless behind-the-scenes leadership of a team whose names you’ve never heard – and never will.

Taylor Swift and Beyonce are widely considered to have been the stars of the show. In my mind, Walter Miller was the brightest star of the evening. None of us would have enjoyed them – or any of the other two dozen musicians – without the stellar efforts of him and his team.

As you consider your ministry and the difficult outcomes you seek to facilitate, take a look at the critical points on that journey. How clear is the vision? Are you so certain that it is a vision from God that you are going for it, full speed ahead, even though “it just doesn’t work on paper”? How invested in that vision are your colleagues? Is your team sufficiently prepared and resourced to produce the desired results? Is your plan capable of generating the desired outcome? Who is tracking the quality and timing of the execution? Is your budget realistic? Are there team members who have been through it before and can offer insight from experience? When things go wrong – and they will – are you and your team prepared to quickly and smoothly shift gears and stay focused on the ultimate result?

Vision without strategic action is worthless verbiage. Vision that empowers people to execute a well-conceived plan is priceless leadership.

According to the American Psychiatry Association, an addiction is a chronic disorder in which we are unable to control our need for the substance in question. The Association adds that addictions have a combination of several simultaneous components at work. Addictions literally change our brains. They do so by changing the chemical balance and flow within the brain, or by altering the brain structure, or by changing our emotions, motivations and memory capacity. Addictions cause withdrawal symptoms when exposure to the addictive item is eliminated and they cause us to lose control over how much exposure we seek to experience. The APA indicates that addictions may produce a desire to reduce our exposure – a desire that we are unable to satisfy. Another sign of an addiction is that it causes us to abandon or reduce our involvement in normal and healthy activities. And addictions are characterized by the addict’s repeated denials that a real problem exists. According to APA, when we experience the concurrent presence of three or more of these symptoms, we have an addiction.

To be fair, as we put the media under the microscope, it is important to note that the media can and sometimes do provide important benefits. For instance, we know that some media tools – such as training DVDs, movies, and music – can stimulate thinking and conversation, and often assist in the retention of information. One of the studies we conducted a few years ago showed that people are more likely to remember principles demonstrated in a brief, dramatic video clip than they are to recall the same principles described in a sermon. Media can also provide people with a healthy way of relaxing and decompressing after an exhausting or tense time. They can capture people’s attention and focus it upon items of great importance. And when properly used, media can be help facilitate language development, as well as reasoning and problem-solving skills.

But as often as not, media content winds up serving the lowest common denominator because that’s where the largest audience – and, consequently, the money and notoriety – is to be found. Sometimes that makes media content a distraction from more important or helpful matters. In more serious cases, however, media content can become a debilitating obsession for individuals, and a pathway to societal deterioration.

I arrived at this conclusion based on looking at a lot of data. For instance, if media content and exposure levels are at addictive levels, we would expect to see a steady increase in the amount of media exposure that characterizes the typical person’s life. Research consistently shows such an increase. Two decades ago, the average child under 18 spent about 15 to 20 hours per week digesting media content. Today, it has nearly tripled to almost 60 hours per week of unduplicated time. They now devote more time to media than to anything other than sleep.

We can see this as a generational trend, as well. The elder generation, the pre-Boomers, did not grow up with media ubiquity and never became accustomed to it. Boomers broke the ice, embracing media as their means to free expression. Busters championed technology, making media a dominant companion as they grieved the absence of parents and the thrill of expanding their world electronically. Mosaics, those 22 and younger, have known little else besides a media saturated universe, and look forward to blowing it out even more.
The continual expansion of consumer technology has created a felt need for more content. Americans don’t want to miss out on anything significant. If it’s out there, and has perceived value, they will seek it out.

Another sign of our media addiction is people’s resistance to reducing their amount of media exposure. If we were serious about reducing the amount of media exposure we would witness parents having boundaries on how much media time their children are allowed. Unfortunately, we see nothing of the sort. And if we were serious about reducing the amount of media exposure we would see diminishing expenditures on personal media and technology, on in-home media and technology and even forms of mobile media, such as video screens and satellite radio installed in cars. In each case, we actually see a per capita increase in such spending. In fact, the research shows that growing numbers of people are interested in making their home into a “digital nest.”

In fact, if we were serious about reducing the amount of media exposure we would find surveys showing expectations of future media purchases to be on the decline. We find exactly the opposite: consumers expect to add more electronic and technological goodies to their arsenal as soon as they can afford them.

Another angle on this resistance relates to the breadth of our adoption of new lifestyle components. In this regard we evaluate how people are redesigning their homes and vehicles, their occupational practices, their workplace environment, and their relational practices. In so doing, we find that Americans are increasingly committed to incorporating media tools and content into those dimensions of their lives. In 2009, American consumers spent in the neighborhood of $400 billion on media and technology. As a proportion of disposable income, that figure has remained consistent over the past decade.

Further evidence of our media addiction comes from the measurable physiological changes resulting from our exposure to substantial quantities of media. Studies by the American Academy of Pediatrics note that among children 2 through 18, the greater the media exposure, the fewer the hours of restful sleep they get and the worse the student’s school performance. Their work also shows that the more media a child is exposed to, the more aggressive their behavior and the more desensitized to violence and sexualization they become. Further, they report that the more media a young person digests, the more likely they are to become obese, their ability to engage in culturally normative moral reasoning suffers, and their average attention span is shorter. Add to that the Harvard Medical School research that has discovered a strong connection between the amount of media consumed and the amount of calories consumed. Extended interaction with media also reduces creativity and can result in anxiety due to information overload. Various medical research studies have revealed the effects of media in connection with illnesses such as anorexia and bulimia, and a variety of sexually transmitted diseases.

Still more signs of media addiction include the discovery of a reduction in people’s participation in normal and healthy social, occupational and recreational activities. One phrase may say it all in this regard: couch potato. Much research has found a strong link between time devoted to media exposure and a paucity of relationships and poor physical conditioning. Almost 80% of the TV commercials that kids see each year are for fast food, candy, cereal and toys. The result has been numerous studies showing a firm connection between exposure to such advertising and overeating. The preponderance of media teaches us that violence can be safe, fun, harmless and productive. A common (albeit covert) media message is that it is appropriate to resolve conflicts through disrespectful language, physical violence or other aggressive and intentionally hurtful behaviors that produce positive feelings within the aggressor. Out of more than 3,500 medical and behavioral research studies exploring the association between media violence and violent behavior, only 18 have NOT shown a correlation.

Scary media – whether that be in the form of slasher films, episodes about demonic possession or other portrayals of the dark side and sick behavior – have become the favorite genre of the Mosaic generation. One noted result is that feelings of fear about one’s environment are reaching record levels, manifested in nightmares, judgment of other people based upon appearance or stereotypes, and changes in daily behavioral routines to avoid scary places.

Media exposure has raised people’s willingness to experiment with substances that are intellectually understood to be potentially harmful – such as drugs, sex, alcohol, smoking and pre-marital sex. Further, the provocative dress styles of today’s young people reflects the overt sexualization of children.

Reading for pleasure has diminished substantially over the past 40 years, as the balance of people’s media diet has shifted. One dramatic consequence has been a severe loss in reading capacity among young people. A recent study showed that a majority of the nation’s employers deemed the recent high school graduating class to be deficient in their ability to write in English, to communicate with appropriate language, and to read basic instructions. A similar drop-off has been noted by employers in the communication and language skills of recent college graduates.

Finally, if we are addicted to media, you can bet that we will deny there is a real problem. And deny we do. Three-quarters (74%) of parents say the exposure of their children to inappropriate media content is one of their top concerns – yet they keep buying their kids media tools and allowing increased exposure. Two-thirds (65%) say they are very concerned that American children, in particular, are exposed to too much inappropriate media content – but a majority of those parents allow their children to have continued exposure to the very media content they are allegedly so concerned about. Perhaps this is because only 9% of parents believe that the media are the most significant influence on their children and only one out of every three enforce any limitations at all upon their children’s use of media.

By the time a person reaches the age of 21, it is estimated that they will have been exposed to more than 250,000 acts of violence through television, movies and video games. They will have viewed more than 2,000 hours, on average, of pornographic images that reduce the dignity and value of human life. They will have listened to several thousand hours of music in which the lyrical content promoted anger, hostility, disrespect for authority, selfishness and radical independence. But parents, teachers and other community leaders essentially allow that exposure to continue without limits.

Among teenagers and young adults, two out of three not only say that the media and technology they use make them happy, but a large majority of them admit that the thought of not having access to that technology causes them substantial emotional stress.
People in other nations, who probably see us more objectively than we can see ourselves, are amazed at not only our media infatuation but also the ever-increasing glut of morally and spiritually degrading content that we generate.

Do you still doubt that we’re addicted? Do a simple personal experiment. Ask a group of 12-year-olds to not watch TV for a week. Ask a group of juniors in high school to stay off the Internet for a week. Ask a group of 20-somethings to abandon their cell phone – and, of course, text messaging – for a week. You might as well ask them all to stop eating for a week: it’s just not gonna happen!

Media use has run the gamut, going from an oddity to a common practice to a habit to an obsession to an addiction in America. What can we do about it? What will you do?

How is it that so many intelligent and articulate members of the media consistently misunderstand leadership as well as the political process? A non-negotiable truth of leadership is that people must trust the individual before empowering them to lead. Should Huckabee be disqualified as a “serious candidate” because he has an accessible weekly talk show? Is it inappropriate for him to dispense political perspective in ways that the average voter finds more appealing than the mind-numbing and audience-repelling exercises that typify the content on Meet the Press and This Week in Washington? Should he be spanked because he does things in an unconventional way? Is he wrong to believe that Americans do not want a four-year presidential campaign? Was Ronald Reagan a lightweight because he had personality? Can we name a president in the last 40 years who has not had a book that he was “hawking” while he was not in office? Is it accurate to argue that to be a serious Republican contender one must be “the voice of an intellectually vigorous conservatism”? If a viable candidate must discuss serious proposal regarding the economy, why doesn’t Huckabee’s oft-mentioned support for the “fair tax” qualify, along with his weekly statements on his talk show and his daily radio program regarding unemployment, taxation, trade policies and federal bailouts? He has written extensively about his views on such matters as well.

Mr. Douthat describes President Obama as an example of a leader who “prefers the responsibilities of leadership to the pleasures of celebrity.” Really? It strains credulity to label Mr. Obama an effective leader at this stage of his presidency. Roughly one year into his reign millions of Americans have already lost their trust in Mr. Obama because of a string of broken promises. Among other campaign promises, the President told voters that he would allow five days for public comment before signing bills, eliminate capital gains taxes for small businesses, allow Americans to withdraw funds from 401(k) and retirement accounts without penalties, ban lobbyists from serving in his administration, reform earmarks, bring all combat troops home from Iraq in 16 months, sign the “Freedom of Choice Act,” give Americans $4,000 in credits for college, and run a “transparent” administration. (Of course, there were over 400 other campaign promises made, but fairness requires us to give him time to implement all those promises. It shouldn’t require more than two decades…) Great leaders are honest and transparent, qualities which millions of Americans hoped were part of the man they voted for. Sadly, the President has turned out to lack the strength of character to make good on his promises and to transform the political process.

So, what do you make of Mr. Douthat’s allegation that candidates like Ms. Palin and Mr. Huckabee are lightweights and are unqualified for the presidency because they are operate effectively within the mainstream of pop culture?