“Emerging Adulthood” from an Emerging Adult

There was a thought-provoking article in the NY Times the other day that called for a new life-stage between adolescence and adulthood, called “emerging adulthood”. The Psychologist Jeffrey Jensen Arnett says that some of the reasons for this new life-stage “are the need for more education to survive in an information-based economy; fewer entry-level jobs even after all that schooling; young people feeling less rush to marry because of the general acceptance of premarital sex, cohabitation and birth control; and young women feeling less rush to have babies given their wide range of career options and their access to assisted reproductive technology if they delay pregnancy beyond their most fertile years.”

Interesting. And very true. So, as a twenty-something and supposed “emerging adult”, allow me to respond to this. I have noticed this trend, that my friends and year-mates are tending to spend more time “finding themselves” than in generations past. However, this idea of taking ones twenties to find oneself and ones place in the world seems very American (as we are the most individualistic nation on earth) and also very middle-upper class. Maybe that is just me, but I would imagine that the only ones who can take the time to “find themselves” are the ones who can afford it.

Another reason why we might be taking more time to reach these supposed adult milestones are that those “milestones” don’t seem all that great to reach. My husband and I are comfortable renting an apartment. And while I know our kids will need a house someday, we are in no hurry to buy a house simply for that reason; we’d rather be out of debt and buy a house when we can afford it (I know houses are insanely expensive to keep up). We’ve seen too many houses become a burden too heavy to bear, so we will buy a house when we are ready and can afford it; not a moment sooner.

Perhaps this reluctance to reach these adult milestones is simply a cynicism born from seeing the adults make these mistakes and our reluctance to do the same? I think of owning a house and I don’t see the “American dream” that previous generations saw; I see HOA fees, property taxes, breaking appliances, heating expenses, yard care, etc., etc. Maybe I’m a cynic, but at least I’m an almost debt-free cynic. I’m sure this is true for the other “adult milestones” as well.

It seems that the article tried to give psychological and sociological reasons for this later entrance into traditional adulthood, whereas I’m beginning to think that being considered “adult” by social mores is simply the act of giving up and giving in. I don’t know about you, but if that is “being adult” then I don’t know if I’ll ever be one.

My name is Laura Francabandera

Hello all:

I am a 27 year old stay at home mom of two crazy little boys (1.5 and 3.5 yrs old), a closing retail manager in the evenings, a youth pastor, and in my “free-time”, I manage a handful of websites (this one included) and am currently dabbling around in iphone app development and sewing iphone cases.

I have a BA in European History and am about halfway through my slis program. When I am finished, I plan on starting a non-profit church library, based on the public library model, as a neutral, non-denominational space for all the local churches to meet and share resources. I am planning on gearing my assignments and interfaces and such toward this goal, so don’t be surprised if you see a lot of church library talk coming from my corner . . . as I’m currently writing the business plan, it seems to be on my mind a lot.

Best,

Laura Francabandera

Knowing and Caring

A story to start:

It was a Sunday morning and church was moving on as usual. The worship was, well, worshippy, and the announcements went without a hitch. And then I noticed them. The guy in the back row who kept nodding off, his head jerking up reflexively as he vainly tried to stay awake. The kid off to the side who played his gameboy throughout worship. The young woman with the kids that would not stop crying, but she never took them out of the service. I sighed. I pursed my lips in disapproval. I kept giving the young mom that look to take her screaming kid outside. I mean seriously, it’s church, people. Get in line, or get out. Right?

Right?

Scene #2: You’re a youth leader and proud of it. On fire for youth. Crazy to get this generation saved from the horrors that Satan uses to enslave them. Youth group was going great. Worship was kickin’, revival was in the house! It was awesome. And then he walked in. The kid who has autism, or asbergers, or something. You never really paid that much attention in psychology, but all you know is that when he walks in, the youth group self-destructs. His chaos breeds chaos in others and suddenly it’s not a youth group but a free-for-all. Why did he have to come?

*****************************************

These two imagined scenarios may offend you. Good. To be offended means that something is not right with the situation. It means that some ineffable part of our soul knows what the correct response is and realizes that it is not occurring. That something here is broken.  That is what it means to be offended. That is why Kierkegaard and so many other theologians have been so obsessed with the “Offense of the Cross”. Because it’s pivotal. Because it’s life-changing. Because it utterly destroys our pride.

Church, in its modern incarnation, can be a bit of a paradoxical place. We know that we are Christ’s ambassadors to the lost and that it is our great commission to bring the Good News of Jesus Christ to the ends of the earth. But does “the ends of the earth” really include sleepy men, harassed moms, gameboy obsessed kids, or Autistic teens?

It should, and yet, being completely honest and authentic before you, it can be one of the most difficult things to accept. As Pastors and Leaders, we work hard on our system. Our presentation is flawless. The ushering is in step with the worship. Everything is going without a hitch. And then something, someone, comes in and messes up our carefully planned, delineated program. And it hurts. It offends our pride. The flawed, fallen human in us wants to kick them out if they can’t adhere to our cultural mores.

But really, Jesus didn’t care too much about “cultural mores”. Actually, He was particularly harsh with the religious leaders who were too involved in themselves to listen to His message. Think about the two previous scenarios while you read this:

“Another time he went into the synagogue, and a man with a shriveled hand was there. ²Some of them (Pharisees) were looking for a reason to accuse Jesus, so they watched him closely to see if he would heal him on the Sabbath. ³Jesus said to the man with the shriveled hand, “Stand up in front of everyone.”

⁴Then Jesus asked them, “Which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?” But they remained silent.

⁵He looked around at them in anger and, deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts, said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was completely restored. ⁶Then the Pharisees went out and began to plot with the Herodians how they might kill Jesus.”  — Mark 3:1-6 (NIV)

Sound familiar? The Pharisees were just “doing church” (of a sort) until this guy Jesus walks in and disrupts their way of life. They couldn’t accept Jesus’ way, and Jesus was “deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts.”

It’s hard to be a Christian, a Jesus-follower, in the modern world. On one hand, it’s super easy to be a Christian (because, y’know, 80% of America considers themselves “Christian”). To be a true Christian, however, takes guts. It takes patience to show unconditional love. It takes humility to show compassion. The world, as my Pastor likes to say, doesn’t care what you know, until they know that you care.

And to care is to pause. To care is to understand that we do not have the entire story. To care is to realize that the seeming “annoyance”, or “disruption” is a living, breathing, hurting, broken child of God. That there most often is a very good reason why that guy is falling asleep during church, or why that young mother seems so overwhelmed. And yes, it may be difficult to minister to Autistic and other similarly challenged youth . . . but if we don’t, who will?

So, my challenge to you is to bite your tongue. The next time something disrupts your world, I want you to do an experiment and try seeing this person through the eyes of Jesus. Try to imagine why they are acting like they are, and maybe, we can figure out how to help them. Think of this as an exercise in humility to realize that we are just as flawed as others.

Because once we can show people that we care, then they may listen to what we know. But until then, I’m just another fake, passing judgment on situations that I know nothing about. And really, who wants any part in that?

Strategic Planning for Churches

Nobody wants to admit that the church is a business. Honestly? Deep-down, in our hearts, we all want to believe that churches should exist ex nihilo, abiding in God’s fiat word and needing no external mandate beyond that which God supplies.

While that is a nice dream, we live in a fallen, imperfect world where churches often struggle to simply prove their right to exist and operate. Thinking of the church as a type of business will help those churches move forward in these harsh economic times. Don’t know where to start?

Start with a plan. All good businesses start with a Plan. It may not have a fancy name, or the suggested number of bullet points, but a good church knows exactly three things: Who it is, What it is doing, and Where it wants to go. Ignore, for a moment, the specialized vocabulary people use (like mission, vision, purpose). If a church knows these three key statements, it is well on the way to success.

But don’t stop there! A good business has a strategic plan. This is the document, or “the Plan” that gets the business from where it is now to where it wants to be. It’s no different for churches. There are several key areas to a good strategic plan, but I’ll simplify them and streamline them to make it easier for churches.

First: Decide what makes your church tick. A list of values that drive your church are called your Core Values. These core values dictate which path the church will take. Do you value family? Then go from that. Honesty? Authenticity? Spirituality? Work toward your strengths.

After you’ve decided who you are, it’s time to think about where you want to go. What are your goals and objectives? Where do you want to be in 1 year? 2 years? 5 years? The rule of thumb is that you should have a vague idea of where you will be in 5 years, a better idea of where you’ll be in 2 years, and a definite idea for 1 year.

Finally, compare the two. Think about where you are now, where you want to go, and figure out what you need to do to get there. This is your Plan. Is it more programs? Better marketing? Finding the lost and saving them? Whatever it is, that is your priority until you get where you want to be.

Once churches do this, they are well on their way to progress and growth. Churches will grow stagnant and stale without the progressive momentum of a plan behind them. Without the guiding principles and goals of a strategic plan, a church will wander inefficiently. And really, inefficiency is bad for business, so why wouldn’t it be bad for churches too?

Extra Tips:

Environmental Evaluation: This is a written evaluation of the town, city or community where the church is located. Look at demographics, statistics, and local traditions. What works best in your town? What kinds of businesses are there? What issues are people in your town talking about? Each town is different, and it would behoove you to note what makes your town unique.

SWOT: Stand for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats. This analysis looks at things both internal and external and can be very useful in thinking outside of the box. Strengths and Weaknesses are internal to the church. Look at programs and processes already in place. How can you improve on them? What are your weak links? What do you do well? Opportunities and Threats are external: Other competing churches? Harsh economy? Internet marketing? What about opportunities? Is there a segment of the population that your church can reach? Can your church help out in a problem where no one else can?

Goals: Broad, overarching goals (i.e. To double our membership)

Objectives: Smaller, measurable steps that help us get to the goals (invite twice as many people to our small groups, publicize our events in the newspaper, have surveys after events so we can evaluate), etc.

Once a church does this, it’s simply a matter of sticking to it, constantly evaluating and revising, and getting where you want to go!

The Improbable God

Or, why it’s a good thing that we can’t understand God.

I am a confirmed cynic. I ‘m not entirely sure why; perhaps a cross of breeding and my career choice (studying history is never an exercise in optimism). My entire being rebels against the thought of believing in something without thoroughly understanding it. I’m a horrible facebook rebel – I never play any of the games, I always ignore any hugs, pokes, and flying sheep, and I never, ever repost any of the status messages that tell me to. I am not of the hive mentality and if I am not convinced of the complete veracity of the message I will not repost it. I don’t really like to debate politics because no side ever has any of the facts (and, really, what are “facts” in politics) and I can never be comfortable arguing from any position unless I have all of the facts.

Except religion, apparently. Christianity is so wrought with seeming contradictions and mystique that churches have fractured because different people believed different things. These seeming contradictions are usually resolved under a detailed study about the verse or topic in question, especially when taken in context with the surrounding verses. But what about what we don’t understand? How can God be one in three persons? How can taking the wine and the bread in any way link us to God? How can the earth be 13 billion years old and yet still have had a loving, invested Creator? How, in all mankind’s glory, can we be less than an iota in our galaxy and yet He knows the hairs on our heads? I can understand living forever, but who can understand being Uncreated? Never having been born? That the meek can truly inherit the earth? That through all this pain and suffering of life on earth, God truly has an overarching plan of salvation?

And yet, I believe. I believe so strongly that I will fight to the death for my God. Even though I, an awful rationalist, cannot even begin to fathom the faint edges of God, I do not doubt. How can this be? How can we believe in something we don’t understand? It’s human nature. Consider the magic of belief in things that do not make sense. Come with me on a journey of the imagination.

Consider gravity. Most children learn about gravity and why things fall by elementary school. It’s common knowledge that things that go up, must also come down. If, say, an apple fell out of a tree, it would be seen as the work of a scientific process. Before we knew about gravity, however, people didn’t know why things sometimes fell to the ground. Maybe some god was angry at the person and started causing things to fall on them. Maybe there was a whole spirit world causing things to move around without any visible interference. The possibilities were endless. And people believed because there was mystery. Once the mystery was stripped away, however, the magic failed and people no longer believed. We could understand it.

Or consider the Wizard of Oz. In the beginning, the Wizard was such a powerful being, able to seemingly do anything and affect anything. To fix their plight, everyone told them: Go to see the Wizard. So they went, braving horrible odds and adversities. And they were suitably awed by a swirling vortex of green energy, a monstrous face, and a booming voice. And then the curtain was pulled away and they understood. And they despaired because they no longer believed.

Truly, who wants to believe in a God they can understand? If to understand something is to prove that we know how it works, doesn’t that logically mean that we are smarter, or somehow “above” the object? Understanding a thing leads to banality. Maybe it’s a good thing we cannot understand God; cannot define Him or fit Him into a tidy box. In Blue Like Jazz, Donald Miller likens it to an ant trying to make sense of us. We are too huge and too high for an ant to see, much less understand! How much more so is that like us and God? Tennyson wrote something similar in his poem Vastness:

Many a hearth upon our dark globe sighs

after many a vanish’d face,

Many a planet by many a sun may roll

with the dust of a vanish’d race.

II.

Raving politics, never at rest – as this poor

Earth’s pale history runs, -

What is it all but a trouble of ants in the

gleam of a million million of suns?

Humans have tried to understand God for thousands of years and continue to fail because it’s not a matter of having the facts, it’s simply a matter of reference. We have all the facts. God has given us every clue we need to fully understand everything, and yet we are consistently blind because we cannot see. If we are Tennyson’s ants, the our God is a million million of suns. We are too small and too finite to understand, and God is too big and too majestic to fit within our logical confines. And this improbable God, this unimaginably Uncreated One loves us enough to reveal Himself to us, mere ants. What love. What grace. What charity.

10 Free Media Tools for Churches

Every church has been in this position at one time or another: they have a need and have no funds to secure it. What I want is to give you the tools you will need for most of the major media needs of your church and how you can do it for free.

Website Design:

#1: A self-hosted Wordpress account : Wordpress is an open source blogging platform at it’s most basic. By adding pages, however, you can actually form a highly scalable website that is user friendly, admin-friendly, easy to update, and practically anyone can run the website.

#2: Free Wordpress Themes: Themes are designs and styles that come pre-packaged and are easy to install and use. There are millions of free themes out there, some “premium” (read: paid) themes, and many more that have little application for churches. The ones that I felt were most useful were the Living OS Delta theme (nice with minimal styling), and the seeming ubiquitous Ocean Mist theme. Put in some church photos, and custom logo, and voila: a church website.

#3 Google: Anything Google is great. Adding a tiny bit of Google maps script can show a real-time map of your church. Google Adsense (I hesitate on this one, as its usefulness to a main church website may be limited, but on derivative blogs, it’s golden. Google Analytics – statistics and benchmarks to show that all these free tools work just as good as the expensive versions.

Media:

#4 Recording: If your church doesn’t have a way to record the sermons, a quick and easy way is to have a computer or laptop set up with Audacity, a free audio editor and recorder. Just plug in an a/v cord going from the line out on the soundboard into the microphone jack on the computer. Open audacity, hit record. Easy as pie.

#5 Podcasting: Recently I fell in love with TruthCasting, a free podcast hosting website. It has simple software that you download, super-easy mp3 upload, plus you can attach video and sermon notes to your audio. Want to know the icing on the cake? It has an iPhone app. For Free.

#6 Facebook: Create a facebook page or group for each of the ministries in the church. That way it’s easy to share event calendars and photos in a private setting. just be sure to set the privacy settings correctly.

Odds & Ends:

#7 SurveyMonkey: Caveat: I haven’t actually tried this one out yet, as I haven’t had the need. But as soon as I need to toss up a survey, you can be sure this is the first place I’ll try. Their basic is free, but with more features comes a price tag.

#8 Form Generators: The easiest (and idiot-proof) is Response-O-Matic. Goofy name, sure, but you just fill in the names of the form fields you want, hit a button and presto, out comes your very own form script. just put that in the website and you have a nice, professional looking “contact us” form. Or “Prayer” submission. The possibilities are endless.

#9 Feedburner: Feedburner is an RSS feed aggregator that allows readers to “subscribe” to your feed. If you use a blog, or wordpress, this is useful so people can see your newest updates. They also have a nifty “subscribe by email” feature, and our church now puts out the church bulletin each week via blog post. Whoever subscribed gets the new bulletin in their inbox.

#10 Forums: This last one is a bit more technical than the other ones, and to utilize phpBB, you must have a working knowledge of your web hosting provider (or at least have good customer service there) and how to set up mySQL databases. That’s the hard part. Once phpBB is installed in one of the databases, it’s easy to set up admin accounts and moderators and such. The forums are easy to manage, it’s just the set up that requires technical knowledge.

Well, there you have it. Ten free, easy to use tools to help your church get online and gain visibility. As the world moves more and more online and open source, these tools are changing constantly and new ones pop up all the time. If you come across one that isn’t listed, comment and let me know. I’m always on the lookout.

Color-Coded Libraries: Throw Dewey out the Window

Books are amazing creations. In a single physical object, we can touch the past, transmit ideas and stories, memories, experiences, emotions. Books are wonderful, incredible things. I have special memories associated with certain books; either buying the book, or reading the book. Take, for example, Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy. I bought this book in college, I think, but never read it. The binding was pink and I was afraid it was a sappy romance (like a Harlequin), so I just kept it on my bookshelf. Years later, I finally read it. I remember it vividly – I was sitting in a Starbucks in Scottsdale Arizona, waiting out a rainstorm. The memory is so strong, and so closely related to that book, that every time I think about Tess, or read something about the story, or look at that book on my bookshelf, I am immediately back in Arizona, smelling the sweet desert rain.

Or consider my experience with The Faerie Queene. My first foray into epic poetry was from an old, 1960s mass market paperback with lime green binding. I know it was a college “textbook” because some poor student had marked it up heavily with red ink pen. That edition is the Faerie Queen to me.

Books are great mediums for these memories and intangibles, but they are at the most basic level physical objects – with dimensions and color schemes. As a librarian, I have my home library topically divided. My fiction together, non-fiction is subdivided into categories (i.e. essays, letters, etc.), each in its own place (my history books are currently residing in my kitchen cabinets). But I have a special favorite collection that only a true bibliophile can have: My books about books! I was leafing through a big photographic book of home libraries (At Home with Books: How Booklovers Live with and Care for Their Libraries) when I came across an interesting thought.

The library of interior decorator David Hicks is categorized not by topic, or genre, but by color. What an interesting thought! The photos of his library were pleasing to the eye, especially the bookshelves in his bedroom. He reserved his bedroom for the palest of colors – cream, string, tan, white. The bookshelf looks so relaxing! I would love to wake up to that sight. This idea of color-coding a library (while seeming blasphemy to most librarians) intrigued me. It enticed me. Completely arrested me. So at eleven o’clock at night, I was feverishly pulling books of my bookshelves and color coding them. I now have a white shelf and a red shelf (see pictures). And you know what . . . I think I like it.

We say that books relay ideas and connect generations. Books bring Plato to the new millennium and each new generation. If books are simply generators of ideas and connectors of society, wouldn’t it be an interesting experiment, then, to see where the books ended up if you color coded them? Would it be so wrong if Alan Ginsberg ended up next to The New Oxford Annotated Apocrypha: New Revised Standard Version, simply by dint of them both being bound in red? What new connections could pop up accidently if we loosened our bibliographic control? How fun could it be, then, browsing in your own library if all the books escaped their logical confines?

To me, much of the fun in browsing a bookstore is finding surprises. I like browsing in new sections (you’d be surprised what neat books you’ll find in the “law” section). It’s like creating a chain of thought, or following links on a webpage – who knows where you’ll end up next. Besides, doesn’t it sound so much cooler to say that Ginsberg is in the “Red Room”, rather than the “Fiction Room”?

When Someone Steals Your Vision

I suppose that all leaders have been in this place at one point or another, but for me, the first time was this past Saturday. Let me set the stage: You are struck with a vision. In my case, it was an event to collect donations for soldier care packages. I was really excited about this vision, and thought about it all day. I’d be at work, mechanically working, but mentally rolling out the details: We could have face-painting for the kids – a BBQ with donated food and the proceeds could go toward shipping costs! We could have a letter writing table! I pictured balloons and streamers and lots of excitment.

Then I realized (as in cold-bucket-of-water realized) that we don’t have the staff, the budget, the time, or even the institutional support to make this work. I was depressed for a while, but I mentally filed the idea for next year. Maybe if I started earlier, I could make it work.

I got to work the next week and found a flyer for something called “Stuff the Bus”, a cooperation project between Operation:MOM and Kiwanis. And it was my idea incarnate! I was aghast, and offended. That was my idea! The one that I spent days thinking about and mentally going through scenarios and planning out the details. And here it was, brought to fruition by someone else. It was an arrow through my heart.

I stewed on this for a week, and then the other shoe fell: My boss put me in charge of making sure things ran smoothly for them. Great, more contact with these idea thieves. The event turned out great – they had a BBQ with donations to cover shipping costs, they had balloons and streamers, and insead of face-painting, they had a magician. Of course, they also had a really cool bus. This is Kiwanis, after all.

Now that I am on the other side of the entire ordeal, I’ve had some time to reflect. I’ve realized that in non-profit organizations, ideas are always up for grabs. Whoever can mobilize quick enough will get the event. It was irrational for me to be offended, because I didn’t have the time, funds, or support to do what I had envisioned. I should have been grateful that someone was able to do it, and that the soldiers were still able to get their care packages.

You know what else I did? I talked to them. I explained that I was a youth pastor and was wondering how they publicized their event for reference. I was particularly in awe that they got their event mentioned in the newspaper. I asked her how she did it. Her reply? She begged. She pleaded. She repeatedly called and told them why they must put this event in the paper. Huh, good to know.

So what do you do, the next time someone else hosts your vision? Learn from it. Encourage them. See how you can help. Ask them questions. Let this be a wake up call, to humble myself and put the community back in the forefront where it belongs, not my wounded pride. And in the end, be encouraged because it means that you are not the only one who cares. Be reminded that there are other people, even whole organizations, who care about the community and the spirit of giving. And after all, that’s what it’s all about, right?

Thinkers and Doers

Due to my leadership position in my church and some of the changes I’ve been advocating, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the different kinds of leaders (or managers) and why each one is important in its own right. I’m also re-reading Bill Hybel’s book, Courageous Leadership. He mentions a few types of leaders, so I figured I would expand upon them.

The first kind of leader is the one who visionates. The one who can see the end product. This is the person who says that we need a new website with all these neat tools. Or who envisions a community-wide Second Life space. Or libraries networking with local businesses and school. It’s the Edubloggers, the libloggers, and often, many tech-oriented people in general. It’s their job to come up with the great ideas.

Then there is the promo leader. This is the person with the social power to advocate the ideas and get people excited about them. This type of leader isn’t normally seen as a “leadership” type, but he is one of the most important steps. Without public and institutional support and excitement, the greatest of ideas will wither away in the storage room. Great ideas need to be marketed, and it is this leader who will garner the support (which, inevitably, leads to funding) to make the ideas become reality.

Finally, there is the details leader. This person understands how to get from “here” to “there”. It’s not enough to simply say that we’ll have a website redesign. There are hosting costs (which host shall we use?), there are marketing costs (which marketing route should we use?), should we have a department-specific blog (which blog platform? who should blog?). This person designs the operational steps that we need to take to get to that vision. It’s the one who helps in a strategic plan. They say that if we want to be “there”, we need to do this and this and this.

Each type of leader is integral to the success of an institution. Sometimes, especially in times of less funding, one person needs to be all three. It’s how the “somewhat-tech-friendly-I-use-email” person become the figurehead for the website redesign.  As Miko mentionsin a discussion on MetaFilter, it’s the “default tech-person” phenomenon that gets us into trouble. If there is one person with some semblance of tech-savvy, he gets the burden of leadership (all three kinds) in any tech-related project. That is a cumbersome burden indeed! Especially if this proclaimed techie really doesn’t have one of the leadership personalities. Then you’re trying to get projects done when the person doing them can’t see the big picture, can’t get people excited about it, and can’t understand all the menial details that make up the project. All in all, a complete recipe for failure; and enough tech project failures make for a tech-skeptic.

And the last things the Lib world needs right now are more skeptics.

Score Two for Social Media

Social Networking has been in the news a lot lately, particularly due to a couple of incredibly successful coups against big business. 

The first came a couple months ago when the Library conglomerate OCLC wanted to change their Policy on member records. Tim’s post, over at LibraryThing, gives a nice summarization of the relevant conversations, blog posts, and general social media outrage by the average person. And, amazingly, OCLC held off on their policy change. While they are still defending the changes, the fact that regular people speaking out online forced a large corporation to pause should be noted.

Especially since the same thing effectively happened this last week with Facebook’s Terms of Service change. And, like OCLC, Facebook stepped down in the face of public opinion.

So what do these experiences show us? That our voices are heard, and not only that, but heard in numbers unseen before the advent of social media. It means that while the blog of a well-known name, like Tim at LibraryThing (a former Mover and Shaker of Library Journal), will obviously carry the most weight, blogs from average people are also heard and the sheer aggregate data of people speaking out against these corporations is staggering.

Maybe this is a bit of a short post, but I don’t feel the need to belabor the point. Keep writing, keep talking, keep the social web going. In the words of the old labor protesters and other social reformers (and everyone else who stood up against the Institution): Organize! Agitate! Educate! And now with social media, we can organize, agitate, and educate right from our couch. What more can we bloggers, tweeters, facebookers, and myriad others ask for?