The Big Read – Dr Bexl Revamp

Tweet Impact for @biblesummary #biblefresh

In July, I started working for CODEC (University of Durham, although thankfully I only have to commute to Premier Radio in London!). My brief is to work with the text “Matthew for Everyone” by Tom Wright (former Bishop of Durham), to produce “blended learning” material (i.e. online/offline) to work with this text, with the potential for future texts.

The Vision
Over Lent 2010, “The Big Read” was carried out in Durham, and it was so successful, there was a clear need to make this national, and the project for 2011 ties in with Biblefresh: “Our vision is to make 2011 a year of the Bible to help individuals and the whole church gain greater skill in handling the scriptures and a greater passion for hearing and obeying the Bible.” Biblefresh was partly inspired by the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible, the first time that the Bible was translated into English (rather than Latin). I have spent the first month talking to various people about ideas for the project, and we’re planning on doing a crowd-sourcing project… as a Twitter addict, one of my first ideas was to do “something with Twitter” (we have an account: @bigbible)… and then this week decided that one idea was already going to happen much better (although of course there’s potential for more than one person to do this, people will have different interpretations)…

@biblesummary
Seven days ago, Chris Juby sent out his first tweet via @biblesummary:

I was alerted to the project through a Tweet from @pmphillips (director of CODEC!), and immediately followed (one of the first 80!) & Tweeted about it, as well as posting comments on the website, suggesting that Chris use, e.g. ‘&’ rather than ‘and’, but apparently he’s a ‘glutton for punishment’. Wonder if I have any part to play in the success story… I got quite a few retweets from various tweets sent throughout the week… but really, the project is genius in its simplicity and stands on its own feet:

A Success Story
A lot of which I reckon is down to good old fashioned press coverage… and of course plenty of Tweets:

Northern Echo
Guardian
Daily Mail
Telegraph
and as Chris Juby says (and can be seen by a Google search, stories all over the world)

The biggest coup, however, is getting @Mashable to talk about it, the most influential man on Twitter: “One Man will Try to Tweet the Bible over Three Years“.

When I started this article 25 minutes ago, he had 999 followers, he now has 1084 followers (9:52am), and I expect his numbers to shoot sky high. A real success story – congratulations!!

How can I get involved?
Follow @biblesummary on Twitter, a stream which is PURELY for Tweeting the Bible – to comment & interact go to the website.

CODEC, The Big Read, #CNM10, #CMN10, #CMN11

Lots of feedback from a post by ‘The Church Mouse’ in regards to #cmn10 indicating that there was little on new media at the conference… I missed the original post as I was busy talking to another group who are working with others who need some persuasion in using ‘new media’ – those in Higher Education! There was a fair bit of “New Media” (whatever that may be these days), it just wasn’t central stage, but believe me, after giving this talk, I have never been so in demand to be spoken to s0 the interest is definitely there. I also pushed hard getting Twitter into the conference, using pre-advertising of the hashtag #cmn10, and from last year, when we had around 6 people tweeting, this year we had around 40, including at least 10 who were trying for the first time! Here’s my summary of the conference… and I am looking forward to preparing for MediaLit which is all next week – and then onto The Big Read!

Here is Pete Phillips reply to the Church Mouse:

“But I wasn’t there and nor was Mouse. I have to say that I was able to pick up a new media vibe from the Conference through receiving lots of tweets about what was happening (several saying that CODEC seemed to get a good few mentions during the Conference). If you’re interested, Bex Lewis kept a record of the tweets made with the #cmn10 hashtag here: http://export.twapperkeeper.com/cmn10-4c1365ca31c75.tar. Don’t you just love the name ‘twapperkeeper’?

Although CODEC wasn’t officially there, Andrew Graystone, CMN Chair, is a good friend of CODEC and is on our Steering Group. Andrew is working with us next week on our Media training event for clergy and Christian professionals (Medialit). And the indefatigable Bex Lewis (a polymath, no less) was there and fielding some questions about CODEC and the work we are doing – more on Bex below.

Having said all that, certainly, we’d be more than happy to talk with CMN about #cmn11 and increase our involvement in this important conference. It is important to push into new areas of thinking (and yes, I think there is a difference between traditional media and new media) – cloud networking, the implications of new technology and the age of distraction, the instantaneous nature of contemporary news media, and the democratization of reporting are key factors of how the media engages with the contemporary world. I heard of the West Cumbria shootings on Twitter long before the BBC had picked it up.

And talking of the news, Mouse says I can plug some of what CODEC are doing at the moment – so briefly…

Bex Lewis and the Big Read

While I’m posting, Bex Lewis is starting work with us from July 1^st for 2.5 days a week based at Premier Christian Media in Pimlico, London. Bex is going to working with a number of agencies (Premier, SPCK, Biblefresh, Methodist Church, and others) to develop a national version of The Big Read – an initiative launched by Bishop Tom Wright in the NE of England last year. Watch this space for lots more in preparation for Lent 2011.”

There’s lots more exciting things on, so keep an eye on Pete’s blog too!