Marketing wisdom or commonsense

I've just finished reading Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping. It looks at human behaviour and the retail environment and attempts analysis of how human chopping behaviour works and why. To this how the store environment can work with or work against this behaviour. They call this the conversion rate, from someone wandering into a store to someone leaving the store with a purchase.

My friend Firman and I were talking this week about this in terms of getting clients. You don't just wait for them to come to you. You have to get out there and talk and meeting and get infront of them. If you're looking for someone who might want to become a Christian, you want them to comein and stick around. We want a conversion rate as well yet we are passive.

In retail it seems to be well known that men will wander into a store, look for information in brochures or displays, collect and generally leave without consulting or talking to anyone. Women are the opposite looking for advice and to consult someone who knows something about what they're looking for.

I realized this has huge ramifications for churches how they welcome men and women. When it comes to welcome desks, information points, and welcome personnel there are enormous changes needed in how things are done, if done at all. Churches are generally dominated numerically by women. Why? My boss once asked whether it's because the words of the songs (read excessive emotionalism) or the relevance of the messages or the packaging/environment is wrong? We asked this on one of our staff training modules why university Christian groups tend to be monocultures, particularly no "jocks"? So what is the purpose of the church? to become monocultures because that is what is most successful or to become reflections of the Kingdom of God?

information overload or obesity

...the average American on an average day, who consumes 34 gigabytes and 100,000 words of information Roger Bohn How Much Information? 2009 Report on American Consumers

I started reading a blogger running a site called infovegan. I was challenged because he was thinking about the consumption of information like food and calories. Rather than having the weight oppressing us, we are consumers of information and can become obese. The solution is a balanced diet. Many of his ideas originate from some research at the University of California by Roger Bohn (here). I think infovegan deductions are based on the fact that around 41 percent of information time is watching TV (including DVDs, recorded TV and real-time watching). But he fails to acknowledge that a higher percentage of the total time is spent on computer games.

Still there some interesting helpful suggestions which I been thinking in response to my internet time and bytes consumed which is vastly larger than the average American of the research. Infovegan suggests realizing we are choosing to eat and then looking at what we're consuming.

"...if you find yourself agreeing or disagreeing with the information you’re consuming, ... You’re consuming too much opinion and not enough fact. ... consumption ought to be limited such that you maintain a clear mind and the ability to form your own opinions."

So what do I need to do? Well I'm trying to read more books and some fiction. I'm trying to understand how I look at the world and respond to it. I'm trying to simplify in the pursuit of simplicity so I can be freer and more spontaneous because there is enough space to be so. I need to lose some weight in the information diet and eat more healthily.

In my prayers Wednesday morning I read this. It hit me deeply because Iris and I were talking about this exact area of our lives only 10 hours earlier.

It is so easy to get caught up
with the trappings of wealth in this life.
Grant, O Lord, that I may be free
from greed and selfishness.
Remind me that the best things in life are free.
Love, laughter, caring and sharing.

small and compact and meaningful

Terunobu Fujimori, Tokyo, Japan - Beetle’s House from Victoria and Albert Museum on Vimeo.

This Beetle House is small but it has that sense of simplicity and spaciousness that I feel is when my soul is headed.

feeling lighter and spacious

The last few days I've found new energy and my internal space you might say my psyche feels lighter and more spacious. It's the product I believe in God's intervention in my life, physical health in the medical and dental treatments, mental and emotional in the counseling, in the spiritual with my director, and the external spatial in beginning to clear up and get rid of stuff.

Today I had to help Auntie Mary, in her frailty. Finally I and her Veteran Affairs Canada counselor met with her together and got her to agree to accept help. But it's not that the help isn't there for her. I've talked at length with her, the VAC counselor, the community care counselor, and even there's the Neighbourhood Link social worker in the background. Today I started opening her mail and sorting her financial documents out. In that moment I realized I had the energy to face my own problems of organization. I am being changed through the experience of helping, serving, and realizing I don't want to be this cluttered and unable to cope. I found uncashed expired cheques and unpaid bills etc. After three and a half hours I cleared one chair and one third of the table. There's a long way to go but we've begun the journey.