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Years ago, several wards I lived in back in Ohio and Indiana used to help the missionaries by writing their testimonies in the front of a Book of Mormon, and then either giving the book to a friend or giving it to the missionaries so that they could give it to an investigator. The idea was that a personal testimony helped a non-member understand that there were real people who held the book to be sacred, and they weren’t afraid to share their conviction with others. Missionaries would report back that the “personal touch” was very helpful in their efforts to spread the gospel.

I don’t know if wards still do these types of missionary projects; I suspect that there are some that do. I’ve also heard of youth groups doing this as a project. Such projects are commendable, as they help both members and non-members to understand the depth of conviction that people have about the gospel.

I was reflecting the other day that with the rise of the Internet, we have a similar opportunity to connect with other people and share the gospel. We have the opportunity to, in effect, become “Internet missionaries.” All it takes is a few moments of time, and a desire to share your testimony with others.

What’s the idea? Why not sit down, in front of a video camera, and record your testimony. It need not be long–in fact, anywhere from ninety seconds to three minutes would be ideal. Then, upload your testimony to one of the video services, such as YouTube, so that others can share your feelings. Just like when people would read your handwritten testimony in the front of a Book of Mormon, they can begin to understand that real people (like you) have strong feelings about the gospel. If you know a language other than English, you could also record your testimony in that language, giving you two videos that will hopefully reach a more diverse group of people.

When you upload the video, you are given a chance to provide a title and keywords for the video. Make sure that you include a title and keywords that are relevant to what you are saying in the video. Perhaps keywords like Book of Mormon, Jesus Christ, Living Prophet, or Mormon Testimony could be relevant. (Just include what you think would be helpful terms to those who are not members of the Church.) The title and keywords help people search for and find your video more easily.

How long would all this take? Not long at all; you could probably do everything in less than an hour. It might take a little longer if you use these “video testimonies” as an idea for a youth project or ward project. What is the benefit? Someone may see your video testimony and you could “plant a seed” that will later produce fruit.

If you decide to upload your testimony, drop me a line (see our contact page) and let me know where it is; I’d love to see it.

Blogs are a great communication tool. The immediacy and individuality evident in blogs are, I believe, part of their draw. They allow individuals of all stripes to share ideas and generate discussion.

There is an interesting side effect to blogs, however: They attract lightning. When a high-profile individual thoughtfully shares his or her ideas and feelings on a blog, it is only a matter of time before people comment and a sort of “organized chaos” takes place. Some call such chaos an example of “community,” but often the divergence in views is anything but communitarian in nature. Indeed, some commenters have more in common with vandals, thugs, and despots than they do with respectful dialogue.

Take, for example, Mike Otterson’s blog at On Faith. The sponsors of the blog (The Washington Post and Newsweek magazine) invite people from various religious backgrounds (Mike is only one of many) to post answers to specific questions that they pose. The posts are to be short, preferrably about 250 words. In participating, Mike doesn’t speak officially for the Church (even though he works for the Church’s Public Affairs department), and simply offers his own ideas and feelings. It is my experience that his posts are thoughtful, concise, and reflective. They are enjoyable to read and to contemplate.

It is my observation that Mike’s posts invariably serve as a lightning rod. The comments that follow each of his posts, almost without exception, devolve into a “shouting contest” among people concerning the truth of the Church, the supposed evils perpetrated by the Church, and (from time to time) how Mormons aren’t Christian and barely rate as humans.

As an example, it is not unusual for commenters to accuse Mike of lying (”…misinformation is put out by PR hacks like Otterson that lie about the past history of the LDS church” and “Otterson’s column is a bunch of lies”), being inaccurate (”Each response Mr. Otterson has posted is full of inaccuracies if not outright lies”), lacking integrity (”Mr. Otterson, the problem is your lack of candor and integrity when it comes to the beliefs of your organization”), and–when Mike fails to respond to the liking of the gainsayers–he is despicable (”Otterson is despicable to not respond…”). These are not all of them; the lightning-rod effect of blogging is in full force in Mike’s postings at On Faith.

It is interesting that the nasty, visceral and totally unwarranted attacks on Mike led the Producer of the On Faith blog, Caryle Murphy, to interject himself into the “discussion” on January 20. In part, she said “some comments posted to the site have been otherwise. Some have been insulting and abusive to panelists. It is one thing to disagree with and critique another person’s views. It is quite another to personally attack that person or a group of people with insulting words.” It is disheartening to see Mike Otterson’s thought-provoking posts (and Mike himself) become the targets of such disrespectful behavior.

But, there is a way to help counteract the lightning-rod effect. It obviously isn’t productive to argue with those who are so disagreeable in their comments, and such behavior doesn’t lead to “more good” content on the Internet. (Paraphrasing my dear old dad, “Never wrestle with a pig. You both get dirty, and the pig enjoys it.”) It is, however, beneficial to comment thoughtfully and—where appropriate—supportively of the issues that Mike raises. Surely there has to be more sane voices of reason than those that normally rally ’round the lightning rod. If you let your voice be heard, you are doing your part to help support civil discourse and dialogue.

I don’t mean to single out Mike Otterson as the only lightning rod in Mormondom; there are unfortunately many out there. Let’s all try a little hard to make our reasonable voices heard in support of those (like Mike) who are reasonable in what they post and share.

Video is a great way to share good Church-related content on the Web. Many people think that videos, in order to be effective, need to be very polished or take a lot of time. In browsing through some of the online video services, I’ve run across some good amateur examples of using video to help spread the word.

The following are a few videos that are concerned with temples. These are just a few; there are actually a good number of these on the Web.

• Tour of Las Vegas Temple grounds. Someone shot some videos as they walked around the Las Vegas Temple grounds. The natural audio accentuates the peace and quiet of the area. (4:06)
• Spain Madrid Temple. Basic slideshow made from still images, with music. The video has a title and prologue in Spanish. (1:40)
• Los Angeles Temple Travels. A couple visits the Los Angeles Temple. Great slide-show shots and music express the feelings they experienced as they visited. (2:48)

Another good topic for sharing good information about the Church (and one that is often related to temples) is the subject of temple marriages. These two videos were shared by couples who were happy about their temple marriages. (They do a good job of pointing out that temple marriages are not weird, strange, or totally secret. These are normal, average couples getting married in a way that they choose.)

• A Temple Marriage. Video shot after a temple marriage at the Salt Lake Temple. Shows happy family and friends, celebrating the marriage. No voice; just two popular songs played in the background of the video. (6:52)
• Courtship and Marriage at the San Diego Temple. This is a couple’s wedding video, shot at the San Diego Temple. Nice video with incidental music background. (2:59)

Some people are directly trying to share information about missionaries, mission life, and the fruits of missionary work. I thought the following were very good examples of this genre of shared video:

• Temple Square Mission. A documentary clip about missionaries on Temple Square. (1:47)
• Provo MTC. Documentary clip about what goes on in the MTC as missionaries prepare to serve. (2:31)
• BJ’s Conversion Story. A recent convert tells why he decided to join the Church and the happiness he has found in the Church. (3:14)
• Mike’s Conversion Story. Another recent convert tells why he decided to join the Church. (12:15)
• Finding Lost Sheep. Nice video montage (with background song) that shows pictures of LDS converts and missionaries. (4:32)

One thing I was surprised about is that there aren’t more videos online about visiting Church history sites. There are many such sites around the world (and especially in North America), and it would seem a natural for sharing information about the Church. I did find one short (0:36) video clip about the Sacred Grove.

How can you encourage such videos? Link to them from your blog or Web site. You can even embed them, if you desire. (Most of the above videos have embedding code available at the video’s site.) It could be even better if you were to share some of your own videos. Just upload them to places like YouTube or Google Video, and then they can be shared around the world.

Drop us a line (or leave a comment) sharing how you’ve used video to help put good LDS-oriented content on the Web.

-Allen

Today I ran across an article at eMarketer that I thought was pretty interesting. It talks about how people use the Internet to publish information about religion and how that information is found. There were three things in the article that I thought particularly interesting:

1. The Church’s Web site is the second most popular religion site on the Web, with a 5.07% market share, according to a Hitwise survey.
2. A full 25% of Internet users have searched for religious information.
3. Of those who have searched for religious information, 81% indicated their faith as “very strong.”

This is an interesting read. See if you agree that it simply underscores the opportunity that Mormons have to “tell their story” so that others can understand.

-Allen

There are many, many Mormon-oriented Web sites available. Some of them are good; some are not. Because of the wide disparity in the quality of sites, directories of LDS-oriented Web sties are starting to spring up. The More Good Foundation has a small sampling of some such sites in our directory, accessible from the Foundation’s home page.

In looking around the Web I’ve discovered a couple of directories that seem to be pretty good. They both feature “family safe” LDS Web sites, which means they can serve as a home page for your own browser.

The first directory is known as the LDS Family Gateway to the Internet. It is operated by Allen Leigh, out of Utah. (Allen has several other popular Web pages, most of which are accessible through his Mormon home page.)

The other directory seems to be a bit newer, and is known as Mormon Central. There is no contact name given on the site, but the variety of sites indexed provides a good indication that this is shaping up to be a very comprehensive directory. The site makes it easy to suggest links to other sites; all someone needs to do is browse to the category where the link should be located and then click “Suggest Link” at the top of the page. I’ve suggested a couple of links, and they were promptly added by whoever the admin is. (This site bears watching.)

These are just two examples of this genre of sites. Do you have other directory sites you regularly use? I’d be interested in hearing from you on the matter.

-Allen

Web developers (yes, even LDS Web developers) need to be concerned with how usable their sites are. Key to that consideration is designing your site with a purpose in mind. Sites that try to be all things to all people rarely succeed. The correlary to that truism is that if you can design your site so it is more targeted–more focused on achieving a specific purpose–the more chance you have of achieving that purpose.

I read a great article in this regard the other day entitled Flywheels, Kinetic Energy, and Friction.

Let me know what you think.

-Allen

I was recently reading a report from a well-respected research organization, and it indicated that a larger number of people are creating “content” on the Internet than ever before. Even more impressive is the fact that in the rising generation, over half of teens have created some sort of Internet content.

Wow! Think about that for a moment. If those sort of statistics hold as true for the LDS population as they do for the general population, that means that hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of LDS teens have created Web pages, published or participated in blogs, or created some other type of Internet content. Add to that the adults who do so, and the numbers become staggering. (And they are increasing.)

Are you one of this burgeoning population of “Netizens,” adding to the information available online? Do you have your own Web site? Do you publish your own blog? Do you contribute to a wiki or some message board community?

If so, I’d love to hear how you are using the Internet. I’m interested in seeing–in an unscientific way, of course–if the research statistics I’ve been reading are applicable to our More Good Foundation community. If you don’t mind, just send me a message at awyatt@moregoodfoundation.org and let me know what you are doing and where (what site, etc.). I won’t share the information with others, but if enough of you respond, I’ll report back the results, in aggregate, in a future newsletter.

I have a friend who loves to go to the temple. He loves the feeling he gets within its hallowed walls, and he loves doing work there for his ancestors. When he told me about his feelings about the temple, I was impressed and suggested that he might want to create a Web site about his temple so that others could learn of his love for temples and temple work.

He was excited about doing this, and went off to work on it. I didn’t hear from him for a couple of weeks, so one day I called him up and asked how it was going. He told me that shortly after our previous conversation, he had gone to the temple and mentioned to the Temple President that he was going to create a Web site about the temple.

The Temple President cautioned my friend that he may want to check with the temple department of the Church first. “After all,” said the President, “the Church doesn’t want Web sites about temples created.”

When I heard this from my friend, I realized that there was a lot of education to do. It is true that in March 2001 the Church sent a letter to ecclessiastical leaders instructing that all Church Web sites be taken down. This is the specific wording that was used in the letter:

…the First Presidency has requested that local Church units and organizations should not create or sponsor web sites. They have also determined that existing sites should be discontinued.

The policy was later clarified in a letter sent in December 2004, where it was stated that Church unites were not authorized to create sites apart from the official sites created by the Church. Further, it was stated that:

This restriction includes but is not limited to temples, missions, visitors’ centers, auxiliaries, quorums, classes, Scout units, and committees for special events.

This is obviously where my friend’s Temple President got the idea that my friend should not create a Web site about the temple. The Church policy states that the Temple President is not authorized on his own to create an official site about the temple, but there is no restriction on individuals and non-Church groups from creating or sponsoring their own Web sites about temples.

For instance, the Elder’s Quorum President in the Danbury Park East Ward cannot create a Web site for the quorum and post personal information, quorum events, and provide ability to sign up for welfare assignments. These activities carry potential problems with privacy rights and security issues. However, that restriction does not extend to individuals who could create Web sites that talk about priesthood quorums and the amazing work they can do. The difference is that you are creating a personal site *about* the Church, rather than an offical site *from* the Church.

It is in the Church’s interest for people like my friend to create Web sites that help to spread the word about how the gospel (or some aspect of the gospel, such as temple work or priesthood quorums) has positively affected lives and brought people to Christ.

Do you have a story to tell about the Church? The Church is supportive of stories being told in a faithful, respectful, and positive manner; this helps the Church.

So, spread the word–individuals and non-Church groups can be anxiously engaged in creating the type of Web sites that will help the Church.

Questions? Feel free to e-mail me at awyatt@moregoodfoundation.org

I’ve been a writer for years and years; everything from newspaper articles to full-length books. (Do a search for my name sometime in Amazon.) One thing that I’ve learned in all that time is that writing for the Internet is different than any other type of writing you can do.

Don’t get me wrong–writers always need to be concerned about such fundamentals as audience, tone, level, and person. They also need to be concerned about organization and approach to the subject at hand. But the thing that makes successful Internet writing different is that writers need to be mostly concerned with focus. Each article written for the Internet needs to have a tighter focus than anything written for the off-line world.

How is that focus implemented? Through the identification of a keyword or phrase that represents the target of your writing. Once you know that, you need to make sure that your writing keeps circling around that keyword or phrase, using it in natural ways that are recognized by both the reader and search engines.

Because of this need for tight focus, not all writers are successful in plying their craft on the Internet. (Where success is measured by the ability of search engines to recognize the focus of a piece of writing and the resultant ability of searchers to find that writing.) Writers need to give conscious thought to what focus they will be using, and let it affect every other aspect of their writing.

If you are concerned about how successful your writing is for the Internet, the More Good Foundation can help. We can examine your articles and give you feedback on how well you are doing at meeting the requirements of “tight focus.” If you’d like some assistance, let me know; drop me a line at awyatt@moregoodfoundation.org.

In that same regard, I’m quite excited about our upcoming Webmaster’s Roundtable, which will be held on Thursday, February 16. This meeting will feature the comments of Tom Dalton, Director of Consulting Services at 10X Marketing (recently acquired by Innuity). Tom will be leading a hands-on discussion of a how to optimize Web pages and sites. I’ve had a preview of what Tom will be discussing, and trust me–you won’t want to miss it! Tom has proven, concrete ways to make sure your pages are noticed by the search engines for the best ranking possible. Come with your questions; Tom will have answers borne from years of getting the best results for his clients.

As mentioned, the Webmaster’s Roundtable be on February 16, starting promptly at 4:00 pm. The meeting will be on the BYU campus; we are still trying to nail down the exact location. We’ll send a special notice to you when we have that detail secured. I hope to see you there!

Just a little over a week ago, my wife and I packed up the holiday decorations for another year. The holidays were over, the visitors gone, the dinners enjoyed, and the memories cherished. With the tree, presents, and other decorations all put away, our living room and dining room suddenly had a lot more space available.

It is the same way with our lives. When there are cyclical changes–a new year, another birthday, a new child come or gone, a job or class change, or a new calling–we pack up old things and survey the landscape of our time to discover that we suddenly have a lot more of it available.

As you charge into 2006, you may find that you are in such a situation. Let me invite you to consider allocating some of that newly found time to creating better LDS content for the Web. Do you have a story to tell? Can you help others tell their stories? I guarantee you that when we tell our stories well—those stories we know so well and should not trust others to tell in an unfaithful way–it can change lives.

When I remember the times I have been touched by the Spirit, every time it is because someone is conveying their “story” to me. That story may be in the scriptures, or in a conference talk, or in a testimony meeting. It may be in counseling with others in my ward, or it may be in hearing about life’s lessons from another. In each instance that the Spirit confirmed what was being said, the thing being confirmed was a story from someone’s life or experiences.

Tell your stories. Tell them truthfully and faithfully. You don’t need to cast your pearls indiscriminately, but you can share your stories with others and touch their lives; you can make a difference. As LDS people, we are not telling our stories in a way that they can be understood and appreciated by those not of our faith. We all need to do a better job of that.

When you tell your stories on the Internet, I’d love to hear about it. (You can e-mail me at awyatt@moregoodfoundation.org.) And, if you’d find it useful, the More Good Foundation is ready to help you tell your stories in the best way possible. We can help make sure the widest number of people can read and understand your stories. We can help you see how many people you are touching.

If you can help, let us know. If we can help, let us know. Either way, let us know.

My best to you and your families in the new year.