Archive for October, 2009

Voxbiblia Videos – A Statistical Surprise

Sunday, October 18th, 2009

Sometimes statistics prove fun reading. And I got a report the other day that made me rather happy. Just before summer we made and launched three videos based on various passages in the Bible. Instead of doing them in the old (very old) way with marvelous natural scenery, a full orchestra, waves crashing in on the coast and with seagulls crying in the distance, we let a friend of ours play around with pure text.

Now, at least I thought they were stunning already from the start, but I like them even better now. I have loaded them onto my iPod and show them to people as often as I can. And I know that a few other people have as well.

How are they doing? Pretty good I think. Esepcially given that videos are seldom that marketing phenomenon that the press claims them to me. In many cases it is for sure about creating something, but far more about marketing the video itself. If everything works out, the video will hopefully market you as well. But it will be very much up to you and your hard work if that is going to happen.

What did we do in order to market our videos? Well, we didn’t do what we should have, that’s for sure. Summer came along. We were swamped with work. Biblesearch.org was coming up in its first iteration. So, we did exactly nothing, beyond posting them to a couple of video sites. And they still have been watched 8,500 times so far. I can tell you that is far beyond my expectations.

And, you know what, since it is the Bible, those videos will hold for years, maybe even decades to come. That 8,500 figure will increase and increase and increase.

Why don’t you take a look at them on Youtube?

Entreat Me Not to Leave Thee

In the Beginning Was the Word

The Lord is My Shepherd

Johan Jorgensen, CEO and Founder

Frankfurt – Book Fair en Masse

Friday, October 16th, 2009

Just back from the book fair in Frankfurt. Have you been there? If you have, you’ll never forget it. It is so enormous – the New York of book fairs. And just like New York, it is over-crowded, hot and full of action. The main difference is that most people speak German, and while mine is a little rusty, I still managed to get a lot out of it.

The first thought is – who are going to read all these books? Then, after a while you realize that probably you see all the major books that are brought to market at this specific moment. It is a rather mighty feeling.

Bibles? Yes, there were Bibles. Not too many of them. The Americans probably had most Bible related stands as far as I could count. But the Germans were not bad either. Even if you from time to time can feel greatful that there actually are anybody out there still, I wasn’t overly impressed with what I saw from the novelty perspective.

Once again I have to make an exception for the Germans. I think the German Bible Society (www.dbg.de) and their work with www.bibelonline.de is very promising. They showed several good digital products. It felt fresh and compelling.

I was also happy to note that we got a very good reception for our thoughts concerning Voxbiblia and Biblesearch.org everywhere we went. Except for Libreria Editrice Vaticana – the Vatican Library slash publishing house (www.libreriaeditricevaticana.com). On the direct question from one of his assistants if he was interested in digital publishing the director  answered a blunt “no”.

Well, I guess there still are some souls out there to win for the digital age.

Johan Jorgensen, CEO and Founder

Time to update “About Voxbiblia”

Tuesday, October 13th, 2009

Well, sometimes you get ashamed of yourself. When seeing our new frontpage and playing around with the links, I came to our “About” page. It was like being transferred in time to the medievals, or similar. Everything wrong. How come I have let it go this far? The only answer is that you get blind after a while. Please promise not to do the same misstake.

So, this is what it will look like online tomorrow.

About Voxbiblia

Voxbiblia was founded in February 2000 with a clear mission: to use the most advanced technology to bring down the thresholds to Bible usage. Today, we provide content-specific digital publishing solutions for the Bible in text, audio and combinations of the two. This includes audio-streaming, downloads and powerful search features, as well as an innovative new form of thematic Bible navigation and user-generated Bible recommendations/guidance.

Our solutions are offered to partners either by providing their Bibles through Voxbiblia’s domains (Voxbiblia.com, .co.uk and .se, as well as our new and up-coming Bible search service, Biblesearch.org), or by providing our partners with all the technology they need in order to reach out, which is then delivered through a Software as a Service (SaaS) model. This means that our partners actually never have to touch anything technical – Voxbiblia will build, host and maintain everything for you.

Voxbiblia is not affiliated with any specific church or other religious organization, but rather see every Bible translation as the “right” Bible.

Voxbiblia is incorporated in Stockholm, Sweden, but has the world as its working field.

Welcome to Voxbiblia!

Johan Jorgensen, CEO and Founder

The Power of Online Churches

Tuesday, October 13th, 2009

I have during the last few days had several meetings with the legendary Swedish pastor, Stanley Sjöberg, who has shared his new project with me – an online church. Now, this idea has been around for quite a few years, but in Sweden it has been a rather neglected phenomenon.

Stanley, who in addition to being a very kind man, also is a very strong defender of the faith, has throughout his career often taken a firm public stance. But then again, his early years working closely with the legendary Pentecostal leader Lewi Pethrus, has probably fostered him better than most in the virtue of not being afraid.

Now, is it hard to start an online church? Not at all. The underlying platform for Webbkyrkan.com, together with the graphical implementation, was bougth from a catholic church in the US for approximately $100. Then Stanley forked out another couple of hundered dollars from his own pocket to have a couple of people translate and adapt the content. Off he goes with an online church. Once a week he sits down and delivers a speech that is then quickly edited and published on Youtube. And subsequently embedded on webbkyrkan.com

Does he reach people? Absolutely. His clips are viewed by far more people than visit even the largest church in Sweden on any given Sunday. Should we learn? Even more so. I wrote the other day about a speech made by Gary Hamel in a Menlo Park church where he argued for re-inventing the church. We need to do that. What makes anybody believe that you can only be a good Christian if you go to church on Sunday? How many are locked out by that attitude? I don’t even dare to follow that question to the end…

www.webbkyrkan.com

Johan Jorgensen, CEO and Founder

Gary Hamel on Re-Inventing the Church

Friday, October 9th, 2009

The other night I spent an hour watching a web clip. It wasn’t anything from Youtube, it didn’t have a high entertainment factor, but it was nonetheless one of the best I have seen i quite a while.

It was quite simply Gary Hamel, the famed strategy guru, who spoke in front of an audience in his church in Menlo Park, California. The church’s name is Menlo Park Presbyterian Church, MPCC, and the congregation seems highly affluent, not the least when it comes to creativity, tech-savviness, etc.

Gary Hamel, who reach the status of world-famous a couple of decades ago through books that proliferated like wildfire through business schools all over, took his analytical skills to the world of the Church. It wasn’t all nice things he had to say of how the Church is conducting business, espcially its core business – reaching out to people.

With hard data he showed how the Church has a very different view from the peple on the outside, concerning what it stands for in terms of openness etc.

Gary furthermore put the awkward question if we tend more to focus on organizational issues and tradition, than to actively do what the Church should do – namely reach out. The comparison with corporations, that start out as agile beings and that later on become more and more sleepy before they eventually demise, was also to be had.

Gary encouraged us to put our creativyty and abilities to work in order to change the downward trend. And, as they say, everything starts with recognizing the problem.

I have put the film in the hands of everybody I think has the task of re-inventing the Church. Now, please pass it forward.

http://mppc.org/series/ripple-effect/gary-hamel/shifting-tides

Johan Jorgensen, CEO and Founder