'Vital Vine'  -- The Innovative Citywide Phone Tree...

Only for those who have COMMITTED to be a part of this citywide communications initiative.

• Quickly call those TWO people who you've already personally committed to call... and pass along the below message faithfully. 
• Refer them to IndyChristian.com (which is secured) for the straight story.
• Listen for any vital feedback -- and write it below if appropriate.  Otherwise, contact the Vital Vine leaders.  
• Please do NOT pass along unofficial messages during these specific VV calls.  We need this system to remain quick & 'on-message'.

Drafting a possible trial run...

• ___ (bible wheel)
• Neil (dare wheel)
• ____ (evangelism wheel)
• Eldon (disciplers wheel)
• Merlin (care wheel)
• ____ (pray-ers wheel)
• ____ (diverse teamworkers wheel)
• Christopher Elliott (TBA)

Drill-down (next person's) Wheel

Neil's Wheel

• Ellen (cafe wheel)
• TomH (geeks wheel)
• Scott (chaotic wheel)
• Joe (campus wheel) 
• TomM (   )
• Mel (      )
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Theory & other items below...   (optional)

[This combustible concept was 'lit up' a while ago and has been increasingly heating up ... and FHL Urban Projects Day... and we'd like to now move it into higher gear, by discussing it and sharpening it here... Then implement a pilot version of it as soon as possible.]

Specifications?  Thoughts?  Ideas?  Let's start at least enumerating key elements below...

• Purpose:   To create an optimal Christian communications network here in Greater Indianapolis... and especially for the most URGENT & IMPORTANT messages.
• Preface:   Whatever we have now is at best weak, fragmented, inefficient and non-effective (really) system... with a very low signal-to-noise ratio.  And worse yet, we live in an information explosion... worsening the signal-to-noise ratio.  Something has to be done.
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• Quantity:  Appx 150,000 core contacts?  If (big if) 10% of 1.5 million residents are vital Christ-followers... that would be an initial core set of 150,000 contacts here in the Greater Indianapolis area. Vital Vine Worksheet and Numbers
• Quality of Message:    (Since we've really never seen such a system, we really may not YET be able to envisage the optimal 'message' that would typically travel throughout this network.... but... )  Imagine getting urgent/important info re meeting needs during a disaster... or even some monthly or weekly level of primary communications.  How would we ensure that only the highest quality of message get prioritized and sent throughout the system?
• Quality of Conveyance:  Needs to be 'bulletproof'.  Simply building/buying a citywide Tiger-calling system may be a great early-shot across the bow, for those paying attention.  But it's far from bullet-proof... yes?  no?
• Needs to be low-maintenance.  Low cost.  Follow natural communications lines between relationships.  Think 'Fav-5' on your cell phone?
• Priority communications.  Again, think natural communications lines between solid relationships -- Think 'Fav-5' on your cell phone?
• Start with Networker Bees?  If Innovation, then we need to start with well-equipped networker-bees near the top of the chain.
• No one 'left behind' though.  Make sure the message gets to the least well-equipped.
• Use existing churches/ministries/cellgroups at some point.  Many may not have such a phonetree even inside their church group.
• Would Twitter or Facebook, etc. help? Actually, rBlock (http://rblock.typepad.com/) would probably be a better choice IF I understand how it works (it's ONLY available in Berkeley and Emeryville, CA at this time) I'm trying to get to know the founder on Facebook in hopes of encouraging him to let us try it in Indy. I'd like to try it with my neighborhood's crime watch.
• What other Web2.0 type components might be optimal?
  • Optimal New-Media Center, city by city... including (LIVE!) 'Community TV' capabilities.
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•   Some ideas from Scott Wilder
  • I think one of the keys to making this a reality is the acknowledgement that this system has to be used in the way that people want to use it. That means that there needs to be multiple paths to get announcements into the system and multiple paths to get announcements to recipients
    • email
    • text messages
    • jaiku/twitter/pownce
    • RSS/Podcast
    • Plain old telephone/phone trees
    • Skype/VOIP
    • Chat/IM
    • Facebook/MySpace
  • So then we need some sort of opt-in mechanism
    • Who are you?
    • How can you be reached?
    • Do we have permission to reach you?
    • Are there conditions where you may not want to be reached?
  • So now we have a content publishing platform and subscribers. Do we need a mechanism to filter, prioritize or reject content?
    • Who will oversee this?
    • What will the criteria be?
    • Or do we just have Pre-screened list of posters who have carte blache to post whatever they feel?
      • Are there any concerns with abuse of the system?
  • I know in this Web 2.0 age we live in that the ideal of minimal management is always a sort of Holy Grail. But we need some sort of mechanism in place to keep the quality of this service high while at the same time keeping the "noise" to a bare minimum.
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Then someone please go ahead and take a stab at adding order to this thought-train... and define the system?

Related Strays

• Big Question:   "How does INFORMATION itself CHANGE anything?"
• C4UI course:    "New Media for Urban Change"
• Article:    "Twitter, Facebook... A Higher Calling"
• Think how the internet index(es) work... proliferating updates index(es) at least daily.  Our common db could work similarly if easy (or automatic).