Maurilio Amorim

Month: May 2008

  • Tweevangelism: A New Use for Tweeter

    Lately, there’s not a day that goes by that I don’t introduce someone to Twitter. Mike Hyatt has a great blog about it here, if you don’t know what it is. Most people’s first reaction is almost always the same: “Do you really think anyone cares what you’re doing throughout the day?” Yes, I do, but that’s not the point here. The most import aspect of Twitterland, however is how it facilitates community through small, succinct posts of 140 characters or less.

    Recently I introduced a good friend and seminary professor, Mark Overstreet, to Twitter. At first he didn’t know what to do with it, but last night he called me with a proposal: “What if a church used Twitter for evangelism?” First I thought he was envisioning people sharing their faith through tweets (a twitter post). While I could see someone doing that, I’m not sure that it would be effective in this type of community, where the personal transparency and openness is valued over any other agenda. However, his angle was different.

    His thoughts centered around a congregation using Twitter as a way to encourage each other as they share their faith throughout the day. The way he envisioned it happening, the pastor and staff would use Twitter for thirty days as they share tweets about their ministry opportunities throughout the day. After the staff trial, the Pastor would then challenge the entire congregation to join them. Each time someone had a potential ministry opportunity they would post a tweet. From tweets about sharing their faith with a coworker, encouraging someone in need, or praying for a friend, members would post a tweet prompting the rest of his church group to say a quick prayer for them beforehand and/or celebrate with them after the exchange, while simultaneously, encouraging all members to find their own ministry opportunity.

    I slept on that idea and I still think it could be an amazing tool for a congregation to use. Now I need to talk my pastor, Pete Wilson, to lead the way.

  • Building a Winning Team: When Talent Isn’t Enough

    The 2006 Brazilian National team was favorite to win the World Cup. They were touted as, potentially, the most talented soccer team ever assembled. Yet, the world favorite was eliminated during the quarter finals much to the disappointment of Brazilians worldwide, including yours truly. What happened? How can so much raw talent, experience and stardom result in such a poor performance? While some blame Brazil’s coach, Parreira, most of us saw clearly the problem play itself out on the field: superstars who could not play together as a team. It was obvious that the players were more preoccupied in looking good than winning games.

    Individually, they were the best in the world; together, however, they were less than the sum total of their talents.

    All the pride and praise of Brazil’s “jogo bonito,” translated “the beautiful game” could not make up for the lack of team spirit and comradely on the field. Individually, these guys were the best in the world at their position; together, however, they were less than the sum of their talents.

    As I build my team at The A Group and as I help my clients build their teams of talented, creative and effective professionals, I’m keenly aware that talent alone does not cut it. It never has. These days I hire on three levels: character, competence and chemistry. Sure I want to hire the most honest and talented person I can find for the job, but not at the expense of the team chemistry. In the past few years, I have changed the way I interview for openings in my company. While each potential hire has to meet our toughest job standards, he or she will not be hired unless the entire department feels good about them–after all, we are a small collaborative group and even one odd person can change the entire team dynamics.

    It has taken me a long time to learn this lesson. I wish I’d learned it a long time ago. It would have saved me a lot of pain over the years. In last few years we have passed on some great talent because they were not a good “fit” for our creative and professional culture. I have learned to trust my team’s collective instincts, and have regretted when I’ve gone against them.

  • In Defense of the Techno Slut

    Lately I have gotten a lot of “feedback” from friends, family, associates and even complete strangers on my obsession with technology, as some have labeled it, specially my ongoing usage of Twitter. Since I syndicate my tweets (what we call a twitter post) on my blog, my Facebook page, and Plaxo, I can see how, for a non web-savvy person, it seems that I’m spending most of my days updating these sites with seemingly trivial information. Even, Gwen, my lovely wife, emailed me the other day with the indicting words, “if you have time to twitter, than you have time to . . .” and so it began my “honey-do” list. The truth is that it only takes a few seconds per post. I estimate that I might spend a total of 5 minutes–on a busy tweet day–on my social network posts.

    First of all, I’m in the communications business. I own a media and marketing firm whose job is to help develop communication strategies for our clients, helping them to be as effective as possible in what they do. Technology is often the best conduit for those strategies. Frankly, I’m tired of people who, like myself are in charge of communicating with culture, commenting, denouncing, or plainly dismissing tools they don’t understand or have never even used for themselves. Think about it as a child who affirms that he hates broccoli, but has never tried it once.

    Secondly, there’s an objective, quantitative side of testing new technology. It’s called results. No matter what world we live in, whether market place or non profit, we are compelled, if not required to maximize our impact, to have the greatest return on our investment–investment not only of resources, but also of time and personal equity (relationships). I can pontificate all day long that I prefer a clean, streamlined design for a website which I happen to do. But that’s not always what works. Recently my company “junked up” a home page that was not performing to our expectations. Traffic improved. Unfortunately “preferencentricity” (term I coined to reflect judgment solely based on one’s point of view and tastes) has a way to hijack meetings and projects when outspoken and yet misguided people speak out of ignorance, fear or prejudice.

    Since I began Twittering, traffic has increased on my blog as well as on my corporate website. I have met some great new people as well, just to name a couple of benefits.

    Finally, I like gadgets and technology. I really do. As a matter of fact, things with buttons, touch screens, and cool shiny lights make me happy. When I run or ride my bike, I carry on me a GPS, a heart rate monitor, a cadence meter and a wrist watch that controls my iPod as well. I’m a techno slut after all. But at the end of the day if the new technology doesn’t deliver, it’ll be gone and I’ll be looking for the next big thing that will help my clients and me to reach people.

  • The Difference Between TV and Real Life Courtroom or My Day as a Juror-Wanna-Be

    This was my first day ever to be called for the dreaded, or loved, jury duty. It was something I hoped to escape altogether, but with only two days left in my window of service, I got called in. Being a product of our popular culture, I envisioned my experience as a juror playing out much like a scened from popular shows like Law & Order, Bones or CSI. Some of you followed my tweets (learn more about Twitter from fellow blogger and Twitter Master Mike Hyatt here) during my illegal postings from the courtroom throughout the morning. Here’s 6 ways real life courtroom is different from your favorite tv courtroom.

    1. No musical score. I’m not just talking about the high-energy, fast-beat fare heard in “Boston Legal” episodes. There’s no music, no sound, no nothing. We just sat in this cold room with no ambient noise. Musak would’ve been awesome.
    2. People are not as pretty as their television counterparts. No handsome lawyers in Armani suits, buff deputies or beautiful women of the jury like you’d see in Law & Order or in the old “LA Law.” This is Middle Tennessee, what can I say?
    3. No high-tech, CSI-like animated presentation of the evidence in cool flat screens. We had a Sony Triniton TV circa 1995 sitting on a cart, an easel with cardboard with black and white charts on it . I think I saw a flanelgraph for recreating the crime scene.
    4. Real-life lawyers are a lot less clever than tv attorneys. After listening to the prosecuting attorney de-briefing the jurors, I was under the impression he was getting paid by the word. So many words–so little meaning. He would not make it in Twitterland.
    5. Everyone knew the defendant was guilty of DUI before the trial got started. “It’s hard to walk a straight line if you’re nervous with blue lights all around you, don’t you agree?” Yeah, right. And with that pre-qualifying statement, I cast my vote: guilty.
    6. No drama. There’s more drama getting my kids up and ready for school than what happened today. No outbursts or even any name calling. [in all fairness, however, I didn’t stay for the real thing]

    Fortunately, I was dismissed before the real trial began. I might be called back tomorrow. If so, I’m taking my own musical score with me: remember Ally McBeal?

  • Birthing Websites

    Going live with a website is analogous to the birthing process–ok, ladies, please give me some latitude here. First, there’s a conception plan, then the site begins to take shape in the womb of a development server. A lot of work goes into creating and growing the new site that’s hidden from everyone but its creator(s), and then one day, the new site goes live after the DNS records propagate. And much like the birth of a baby, the site, no matter how large, will continue to develop and grow in the days to come.


    Over the past few days we have given birth to some great websites: www.eagledrygoods.com and their sister sites www.Tommybahamacs.com and www.calvinkleingolf.com. Beyond the clean, streamlined design of these sites, their most powerful function is something most people will never see: the back end custom programming that allows different people, from designers and product buyers to inventory managers, to manage the entire catalog from an easy-to-use, browser-based interface. Making it easier to train workers to change the entire structure of their website with just a few clicks of a mouse. As matter of fact, even the entire database structure of these catalogs, even from the root directory can be changed by user interface without a single call to our offices. Now, that’s flexibility.

    In a few minutes, we’ll be going live with www.soles4souls.org. Only after three short years of existence, S4S has given over 3 million pairs of shoes to needy people worldwide, and it continues to grow exponentially. Their communications’ strategy called for an easy-to-use site where no information is more than 3 clicks away, but with a powerful backbone to allow for its growing staff to post news, photos, videos, products, etc. and virtually all of S4S future communications. The site is integrated with their 3 warehouses across the nation for fast shipping and even inventory management. There’s even a cool feature where video is played within the rotating feature and cycles through along with still images. check it out for yourself.

    I’m often proud of the work our team puts out, but I’m specially proud of the new technologies we have developed for organizations we serve. Way to go team!