success story
Humorist and cookbook author Peg Bracken once described the difference between a gourmet cook and her own humble efforts this way:
[The gourmet's] assignment had been dessert. So, at dessert time, she brought out big plastic bags of old-fashioned plump chocolate-marshmallow cookies.
“I adore these, don’t you?” she beamed, handing them around. And everyone did, thinking, moreover, How original, how posh! But if someone else had done this they’d have thought, Poor child, how naive!
The same principle applies in other areas—people already established as successes in a particular field can often do no wrong, while an unknown but equally-talented counterpart couldn’t pull off the same thing.
This struck me Monday as the buzz began building around Ben Arment’s announcement of his new STORY conference scheduled this October in Chicago. Until this week Arment served as the “Innovation and Experience Director” at Catalyst and is now going out on his own to create a production company for live events and film. STORY is his first project in this new role.
As soon as the news hit, so did the twittering:
@Church Relevance: Ben Arment is putting together another fresh ministry conference called STORY.
@mknisely: #STORY is going 2 do something significant 4 church communicators & open the possibilities 2 a new way of thinking.
@vjProctor: check out STORY by @BenArment – a first-of-its-kind experience -
@GBrenna: I’m pretty excited about this!!! (thanks @BenArment)
@mknisely: dude. #STORY is going to be off the hook. i cannot wait.
I’m not knocking the conference; in fact, Monday I emailed Christian Standard and offered it to cover it if they would pay my expenses and registration. (No response yet.)
But what I find amazing is that within minutes, hundreds of people around the world were not only talking about this new venture but singing its praises. It’s true Arment has a history of successes, and that influences us; J.J. Abrams was able to get the new Star Trek movie made in part because of his track record creating TV shows like LOST, Alias, and Fringe. We all build on past successes and Arment’s work speaks for itself.
So kudos to him. But I wonder what would happen if someone else, someone less well known and less affiliated with other hip initiatives, created the exact same conference. How much do we miss out on because it’s new or needs better branding? Is it that loser’s fault for not doing a better job grabbing our attention, or ours for being so hard to impress?
In the investment world, past performance does not guarantee future results. But in marketing and personal branding, past coolness predicts future acceptance. “Mrs. Tiffany can wear paste beads, and J. Paul Getty can wear out-at-the-elbow sweaters, too,” Bracken writes. “That’s the way the world wags, and no one has yet discovered what to do about it.”
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Jennifer Taylor
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im not a church staffer, so take this with a grain of salt.
why do we need so many church conferences?
all my friends twitter, and many of them aren’t staffers either. they get excited about these conferences and take time off from work to attend.
it all comes off like a popularity contest. pastors and high powered members of “cool” churches name drop conferences all the time. they retweet cliche tidbits of knowledge and say AMAZINGG!!!!! or LIFE-CHANGING!!!!!1991! afterward. i just don’t quite get it.
part of what bugs me is the money spent and where it could go. but i have a house payment and a car payment etc so i’m guilty too. i better keep my mouth shut
another part of what bugs me is that most of these conferences are centered upon creativity or freedom or how to freshen things up. is it fresh if you walk into any megachurch in america and they’re using the same ripped off idea as every other megachurch that sent someone to the PURPLEALCHEMYMANUSCRIPTPHOTO conference.
is that really what it’s all about? it seems like the conferences and conventions have people fooled into putting more stock into the ideas presented there than they put into what God himself said about community, caring for others and how we should live and interact.
barton stone and alexander campbell make more sense to me every day.
sorry for the rant
As my brother would say, I smell what you’re steppin’ in. In other words, I tend to agree. There will always be conferences because we will always value the opportunity to hear the wise and/or well-known among us in person rather than just on video. But I do think the trend is toward fewer events, not more, and shorter (therefore theoretically less expensive) rather than longer.
To the bigger point of your rant, my take is the pendulum is always swinging–in church circles, in popular culture, even in our own lives. To quote another family member (dad this time), “Balance is an elusive goal.” I sense a BIG time return among our churches to so-called “simplicity” that has been helped along by the recession but started before that. I think people are weary of the megachurch show, the 50,000 programs, the spiritually shallow, the entertaining but ineffective. Already there has been a big return to cutting things away (a la “Simple Church”), “getting back to essentials,” unapologetic exegetical preaching, hymns and a few instruments, liturgy, fasting and other spiritual disciplines, service, etc. I predict we’ll see more and more of this, because the pendulum is swinging. Where it swings back to in 15 more years in anyone’s guess.
I was thinking the same thing earlier this week when “Story” became the main topic of pastors’ blogs and Twitter feeds. I’ve read Ben’s blog for a few years now and really enjoy his concise ideas. Through this platform he’s developed an amazing network of ministry connections. It’s exactly what is necessary to enable the word of mouth marketing campaign needed to sell out the conference.
That said, I find it difficult to imagine that this conference will be any different than most others; sure, the marketing presentation has a movie feel to it, but I don’t necessarily find it any more compelling. To prove the point, look at the list of speakers: it’s the same group that’s assembled at every other conference around the country.
I believe our generation has exhausted our allotment of hype. As Koheleth reminds us, it’s all been done.
I’m a little late to the party, but thanks for the feedback.
For the record, however, I want to point out that I have a much longer string of failures. =)