Okay – I promised network specifics.

What do we need to do differently?

First visit Blogs4Life.

This interesting conference has a dual purpose – speakers covering the pro-life blogging topics in the morning – then covering the Annual March for Life in the afternoon.

That’s not instantly apparent. (I understand the site is still being developed.)

You’ll also find a long list of pro-life bloggers, yet how many are currently active, what’s their posting frequency? How many unique visitors do they have? To what extent do they cover certain aspects of the issues? Do we know who is covering what?

(Standardized life icons/badges indicating 7-8 categories would help) Visit a pro-life site, look for the badge-bar and you know what’s usually discussed, and by how much.

Any efficient graphic designer available for a worthy cause?

Which bloggers are best in conveying which aspect of the pro-life message?

For instance – I go to Dawn Eden for chastity issues, Jill Stanek for news coverage opinion, Secondhand Smoke for broad perspective,

How about tech savvy – do some understand scripting and code better than others? How many tool makers visit pro-life blogs, but don’t volunteer in this area?

Back to the long list of blogs: do they link to each other? If each blog is a node, what’s the relationship between the nodes? Are there a cluster of blogs that focus on one particular aspect of the message, as I just mentioned?

What’s the total number of active participants – both bloggers and subscribers out there?

Knowing the answer to that and drawing them together into a network would provide advertisers (and content creators) a potential market with a serious commitment to put their money where their heart is – into the pro-life cause.

Backgrounder – see this discussion about Creating the ThruFire Network.

Productivity strategy, tactics, thrufire network

Every “message” organization desiring to reach a broad audience has to use a medium – some technology. Usually the more sophisticated the technology, the larger the audience reached at a greater distance – ie. a satellite cable network reaches much further and faster than a published pamphlet.

Yet any message organization leveraging off an existing network is subject to editing and skewing of their message by the existing network. The guest is at the mercy of the host.

For instance, with Live Action Film’s Lila Rose appearance on Fox’s O’Reilly Factor, it appears Bill O’Reilly isn’t so interested in conveying the message, as much as he finds the event an audience attention grabber, another “feather in his cap” so to speak. I could be wrong, but that’s the way it comes across – a newsman riding the wave of the latest controversy.

So the benefit of borrowing/using existing networks is very low cost distribution to a pre-existing audience at the risk of message alteration or dilution.

In the absence of genuinely neutral news networks, there is a great need for a comprehensive pro-life network that will not compromise the message of life.

There are two major key factors that need serious consideration:

Editorial control – clarity of message
Audience feedback – determination of audience impact.

The only reason O’Reilly delivers what he does, the way he does, is because someone is gauging audience reaction via commercial sponsorship and continued viewing of the show.

Both Martha Stewart and Oprah Winfrey manage these key factors to devastating effect.

With the internet we have the capability to both deliver an edited message that can be rich and deep, over long distances at almost no cost. We can with the use of certain tools determine audience not only viewing but also participation. All of this can be done at a fraction of the cost of other systems, and mostly with off-the-shelf tools that are properly utilized.

What matters then is tactics, training, and technology.

I’ll try to give some specific examples next, using very specific tools.

Productivity strategy, thrufire network

… I should be writing a post, but recently I’ve been helping Jill out over at Jill Stanek’s site and I’ve been working on a short, 7 week Bible study entitled “Signs of Messiah in the Seven Feasts of Israel” – one feast per week!

I suppose I could kill two birds with one stone, but I’m still trying to figure out how to do that, and stay true to my idea that this blog consist of deeper reflective material than pile-on news commentary.

Do I post some my coursework up here – is there any interest?

Productivity blog

UPDATE – back in operation. Apparently the power supply was toasted – found the scorch marks inside. Thanking God it didn’t turn into a fire.

Currently, my computer is non-operational.
Email can be directed to my thrufire account at gmail.

Hope to be back up soon.

Productivity blog