communications

Something I posted on the Archdiocese of St. Louis' Development Website earlier today:

As technology has progressed in the past hundred years, the amount of information that is immediately accessible has increased at an exponential rate. As time goes on, people are more and more used to the idea of immediate gratification when it comes to images, text, and stories from events.

There is a new term phrased to wrap up this near-instantaneous stream of live information produced around the world: the 'real-time web.'

But what exactly is the real-time web? Wikipedia can help us here:

"The real-time web is a set of technologies and practices which enable users to receive information as soon as it is published by its authors, rather than requiring that they or their software check a source periodically for updates."

Basically, there are many new technologies available today that weren't even heard of just ten or fifteen years ago, including "RSS", "XML" and other ways of exchanging information.

What does this mean for you? Well, for your organization to stay at the fore online, and to reach the broadest range of people, you need to be able to participate in this real-time web.

Continue reading this post on the Archdiocese of St. Louis' Development Website: The Real-Time Web and Archdiocesan Websites.

Seen on the Catholic News Service wire, and mentioned on Whispers:

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Communications technology keeps changing, but the need to deliver a message with truth and charity is never obsolete, said Italian Archbishop Claudio Maria Celli.

As president of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, Archbishop Celli presided over a four-day meeting of cardinals, bishops and Catholic media professionals to discuss -- mainly in small groups -- new pastoral guidelines for church communications.

A recurring theme during the meeting Oct. 26-29 was what constitutes Catholic communications and what, if anything, can be done about those who use the word Catholic to describe themselves while using all sorts of nasty adjectives to describe anyone who doesn't agree with them.

Archbishop Celli said he didn't think a Catholic bloggers' "code of conduct" would accomplish much, especially when what is really needed is a reflection on what it means to communicate.

Upright, ethical communication is a natural result of a sincere desire to share the truth about God, about faith and about the dignity of the human person, he said.

The archbishop said that what Pope Benedict XVI has said about solidarity and development aid goes for communications as well: "Charity needs truth and truth needs charity."

"Anyone speaking publicly as a Catholic has to have those ethical values that are part of a serious, honest form of communication," Archbishop Celli said.

"In the past, the church's educational efforts included helping people decide what they should or should not watch. Now it must also help them decide what they should or should not produce" and put on the Internet, he said.

What I think they're trying to say is that we should not use false or inflammatory... or uncharitable kinds of rhetoric and language in what we produce online. I know of many Catholic bloggers and online personality who have struggled with the task of not only tempering their own uncharitable thoughts and words, but also often having to deal with the uncharitable (and often scathing) words of commenters and social media friends/followers.

How are we spreading the Gospel through our work? And are we doing it for Christ, or for our own good/needs/desires/wants?