Online, the medium creates a cultural expectation of interaction. If we insist on using a broadcasting or narrowcasting strategy within a conversational medium, we will have very limited success.
Offline churches use a broadcasting strategy in their Sunday morning services. A few, very innovative churches, cloned this approach online. In Second Life, they bought land, built buildings, and set up times for speaker-driven services. Unfortunately, I think broadcasting online will have limited success in reaching the lost online because it runs counter to their cultural expectation for communication. (Lifechurch.tv is an exception, but I haven’t seen them account for the on-demand expectation of the conversational online culture. I think they will, though. They are pretty smart.)
Bottom line, we have to consider the culture of the Online Generation and adapt the form/delivery method (not content) in a way that meets their basic expectations if we want to see a widespread movement.
They want to talk. That’s not a bad thing. So let’s talk.
