BE HERE WHEN: FAITH BASED COMMUNITIES CONTEMPLATE TECHNOLOGIES FOR THEMSELVES
John D. Smith, Co-Author of Digital Habitats
Churches and faith-based communities live with many contradictions that are completely irrational depending on where you stand or what hat you wear. Their irrationality challenges our normal thinking about design, technology, and human interaction. To understand what’s going on as a community’s technology steward you need to stand inside and outside, be local and nonlocal, be in the organization and outside, be a newbie and an old-timer, have a short-timer’s view and play the long game, be both geek and technophobe, and observe it all as an actor and as a barefoot ethnographer. Every day.
About the Speaker
John (@smithjd) has been helping communities, their leaders, and their sponsors with research and coaching about technology, development and learning for the past 20 years. He has been involved the design and production of community events, self-assessments, and the selection, configuration, and use of all sorts of technologies. He co-authored Digital Habitats: Stewarding Technology for Communities with Etienne Wenger and Nancy White. Previously, he worked at the University of Colorado as an institutional researcher, technologist, and data administrator for 20 years. He is a buddhist meditation teacher. He received a Bachelor’s degree from St. John’s College and a master’s degree in planning and architecture from the University of New Mexico. He was born and raised in Humacao, Puerto Rico.
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Be Here When: Faith Based Communities Contemplate Technologies For Themselves from CHIFOO Communications on Vimeo.