What If Starbucks Used Church Marketing?

What If Starbucks Used Church Marketing?

The blog ThinkChristian  clued me into this great video from Beyond Relevance. It answers one of the great questions: what would it be like if Starbucks based its customer experience on churches?

How do you find it when you visit a new church? Perhaps, it doesn't alway go that comfortably. This video definitely brings back some memories for me. I'll have a new appreciation for the simple joy of buying a coffee (which I already quite enjoy).

Most Famous Stan McConnell

If you're anything like me, when you get bored you look up random things on Google. In the course of doing this, I discovered that this site is THE no.1 result for "stan mcconnell" (with my Bebo page in third place). Ok, I don't know if Google results are the ultimate measure of fame, but I reckon its the closest thing we have.  So, with that in mind, I hereby declare myself the most famous Stan McConnell in the world. Unfortunately, I do less well in the results for "stephen mcconnell", my real (official,non-nickname) name. but I'm ok with that since there are significantly less results.

I am shocked, unhumbled and in awe at this random achievement and welcome any challenges on my claim.

If you're another Stan McConnell, who like me, is vain enough to google your name and you stumble across my site, drop me a line. If I find you to be more famous then me, you can win the above plaquetificate.

Feel Good

I hadn't posted in a while and I was going to break the hiatus, I was going to post some long-winded article about how my quiet-time are now just focusing on one thing per day but I decided to abbreviate it. Here go:

I read lots of things in my bible-reading time; I remembered little.
I read and focus on one thing; I remember and get a chance to apply 100% of it.

SIMPLE: Focus on less, learn more.


Now, for the rest our time together, watch this:

April Fools

Well, yesterday was officially an event day. It may not be as celebrated as next Sunday (Easter) will be or is be as significant in any way, but it's still there.

I was quite surprised at how few people seemed to use the opportunity to mess around with no guilt. I taught a class of pre-teens completely oblivious to the power of this day. What? No pranks? For this one day, you could tell anyone anything, however inappropiate a joke it may be, and then get off completely scott-free simply by uttering the immortal words, "April's Fool". Just sit and let that soak in. No guilt.

Even if we, mere mortals, waste this opportunity, it's good to see that the internet giants fully embrace it. Google for instance, have chosen today to announce their new wireless internet service, which operates through any regular household toilet.

Even Gmail got in on the act: Gmail Paper promises to deliver any e-mail messages direct to your door free of charge - putting the mail back in Gmail.

Google have a long and fascinating history with April Fools Day. They used to launch such fake services as Google Gulp, a soft drink and Google Romance, a search engine for those who want results in more then just infomation.

Bizarrely, they've also used the day to launch real services including Gmail inself and the increasing size of Gmail's inbox. The idea was that the joke got people talking about it then everonewho was pleasantly surprised to discover that the service is infact real. Here's hoping that Gmail Paper actually happens. How cool would that be!

Here's Bebo contribution to this most foolish of days:

Yes, the Bebo logo is missing its trademark ears. Ok, not that funny.

Possibly, my favourite story comes from digitalspy.co.uk, is that Gromit (of Wallace and Gromit) is replace the dog in the HMV logo.

Strangely this turned out to be true.

A New Hope (for sitcoms)

This clip sums up in ninety seconds, all ten seasons of Friends, the undisputed sticom king of the nineties. Sure, it had it faults: not least of all, its disregard of anyone other then liberal, white Americans. However, at the bottom line, Friends was funny.

However, a darkness is rising off the plain of US sitcoms. It’s not quite there yet, but within a year, we could be devoid of any decent US sitcoms.

• Friends – over after ten seasons
• Will & Grace – over
• Fraiser – Over
• Joey – put out of his misery
• Stacked – dead before it had a chance
• Everybody Love Raymond – nobody likes Raymond
• The War at Home – characters aren’t likeable
• Scrubs – season 6 is rumoured to be the end for Sacred Heart

This brings me to the new kids on the block: Will and Gareth (those in the above clip).
These guys are the main character of Scrub’s creator, Bill’s Lawrence’s latest project. Nobody’s Watching is the story of two guys (fraternal lovers in the vein of Turk and J.D.) who love sitcoms and given the chance from WB to create their own sitcom while WB record their own show about the making of the sitcom. So, basically a very easy premise.

In an evil twist of fate, NBC (in reality) cancelled the show after the pilot. In a good twist of fate, the pilot made it onto YouTube and international interest was raised in the show. Now, Nobody’s Watching has started an internet campaign to get it’s show from NBC (ironically, the opposite of in the pilot). I watched these guys, they’re good, very good. Here’s the link to their site. Go there. Watch It. Tell your friends.


I want this show to make it to air. We need a light in sitcom land.