At Patriot Academy this year I gave a talk about how technology has changed the world. While everything has changed, nothing is new under the sun. Everything that is has been before. By studying the past we can predict the future even when it comes to social media. Here are the slides for the talk. I’m sorry if they don’t make much sense if you missed the talk.

Slides

Twitter Tips

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One of my favorite things in the world is teaching. Now I (sometimes) get paid to do something I love.  If you would like to learn how to use Twitter better you are invited to come hear me speak. I’m just getting started as a professional speaker and so many of my classes are still free.

I have also added an upcoming speaking events widget to the sidebar.

Upcoming Classes:

• July 27, 2009
  • Introduction to WordPress (If you ever wanted to learn how to use wordpress better come to this free class)
    
• July 29, 2009
  • How to Use Twitter Class (this class costs $35 and comes with a free lunch. Download Flier)
• July 30, 2009
  • Tech Talk With Rick Green on KLGO (tune into 98.5 or 99,3fm or listen on KLGO.net)
    
• August 4, 2009
  • New Media and Politics (only for Patriot Academy Students)
    
• August 6, 2009
  • Tech Talk With Rick Green on KLGO (tune into 98.5 or 99,3fm or listen on KLGO.net)
• August 13, 2009
  • Tech Talk With Rick Green on KLGO (tune into 98.5 or 99,3fm or listen on KLGO.net)
• August 20, 2009
  • Tech Talk With Rick Green on KLGO (tune into 98.5 or 99,3fm or listen on KLGO.net)
• August 27, 2009
  • Tech Talk With Rick Green on KLGO (tune into 98.5 or 99,3fm or listen on KLGO.net)
• September 11-12, 2009
  • NTCW Writers Conference (I’ll give a very short talk at this conference and then give 15 minute consultations)
    

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The following video is by Lia who is only 12 years old. She gave this speech to her 7th grade class. Are the public figures emerging?

Generation Y, my generation, is much more pro life than Generation X and the Baby Boomer generation. I can’t wait for the male baby boomer pro-life establishment to be augmented and replaced by young women.

From a public speaking standpoint I want to point out some observations.

• Lia has a great original introduction that grabs your attention and sets up the rest of the talk.
• Lia uses short stories to impact her argument.
• Lia doesn’t get bogged down in citing sources although she could briefly mention a few more particularly right before her statistical barrage towards the end.
• Lia kept her message short.  If this talk were 10 minutes long she may have only received a few thousand views. As it is it has already received over 500k views.
• Lia could have impacted the numbers a bit more. She shares a few statistics and the millions tend to get lost.What is the difference between 10 million and 45 million. Without impact they are both just big numbers.
• Lia is authentic. This video would not have been as powerful if delivered by a 12 year old boy.
• Lia is passionate without sounding extreme.
• Lia is cute. Her attractiveness fosters attention.  Conservatives often overlook the importance of physical appearance in the arena of ideas. We prefer hard facts and cold reason. We get defeated by good looking actors who tell stories. Is it stupid? Sure. But its how the world works.
• Lia stays focused on the main point and does not get distracted on side issues.

Those are my thoughts on the video. What do you think?

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So what is wikipedia? Why is it so important? How can you use a wiki and even wikipedia? These questions and more will be answered in today’s New Media Monday.

Wikis in Plain English

• Wiki Tutorial Video 3m
• Filter Friendly Video Link

What is Wikipedia?
Wikipedia is the source of truth for many people. When they look for the facts they ask google and google sends them to Wikipedia. Anyone can edit wikipedia. That means YOU can edit wikipedia. Each wiki page has a discussion page where users debate what the content should be.

At one time the 3 page Wikipedia post on abortion had over 80 pages of discussion. Every word has been a struggle. Is it a fetus or a baby? Pro Life or Anti-Abortion? The Wikipedia discussion page is on the front lines of the abortion debate.

Disagreements on wikipedia are settled democratically so the side with the most people wins. Wikipedia leans left because conservatives don’t edit it.

What is wikipedia good for?

• Arena of Ideas: The debate pages on wikipedia are some of the most important on the internet.
• Candidate Information: Some candidates have lots of accurate information about them on wikipedia. Some do not. This is where the press will goes to look for details and sources. Google any politician and their wikipedia page will in the top three sites on that politician.
• Driving Traffic to Conservative Sites: Each wikipedia page has a links section at the bottom. You may find it useful.

How to Edit Wikipedia

Editing wikipedia, or any wiki for that matter, is not as hard as you might think. Belive it or not wikipedia has a great article on how to edit wikipedia .

Careful:
Wikipeida does not look kindly on vanity pages. Unless you are running for a major office (State rep and up) and a party nominee a page on you will likely be deleted. It is better to edit other pages than to create one about yourself.

Wikipedia is not the place to fight for your point of view. Wikipedia is your place to fight for fairness.

How & Where to find time to edit Wikipedia

How to Use a Wiki for a Debate Clup
The Austin Rhetoric Club has started using a wiki to handle all our research. So far it has saved us a tun of time and the students seem to enjoy editing it. We tried Wet Paint but found that it was lacking several important features (such as an easy way to print) to work well for a debate club.

We settled on Deki Wiki which is also free and powerful. It lacks a to-do feature but we bypassed our need for it by having a to do page that the students themselves can edit.

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Chances are you’ve heard someone talking about Skype . But what is it anyway? In short, Skype is a way to call anyone in the world for free.

How Skype Works
Skype uses a technology called VOIP that uses the Internet to place a phone call instead of a traditional land line.  This cuts the cost of the call down to virtually nothing for the VOIP provider. The most famous VOIP provider is Skype but there are others such as Gizmo.

Skype lets you call any land line in the world for pennies a minute but it also lets you call any computer for free. This is the best way to communicate with your missionary friends over seas. All you need is to download Skype and have your friend do the same and then you can call each other. It’s about as easy as instant messenger.

How to Use Skype

1. Go to Skype.com
2. Download Skype
3. Install Skype
4. Pick a username and password (don’t forget these!)
5. Add your friend’s skype usernames to your friends list.
6. Add me. My skype name is ThomasUmstattd

What You Need

1. A Windows XP or OS X Computer. You don’t need much of a computer, just one with a sound card.
2. A Microphone Headset. A traditional mic is not enough since your computer speakers will feed back into the microphone. They have some good headsets at the Skype Store.
3. A Webcam (optional). Skype doesn’t just let you talk it also lets you to video chat like they do in Star Trek. If you don’t have a webcam already Logitech is a great brand.
4. A broadband connection (for video) .

Tips for Hosting a VOIP Debate Match
Skype Matches are the new big thing in NCFCA. Since homeschoolers live so far apart having practice roudns on Skype is a great way to save money. Here are some tips for pulling off a great practice round:

1. Plan ahead. It’s a lot easier to have a Skype Match when all competitors have a few days notice.
2. Dry Run. Test everything before the round starts. That means connecting to the other teams computer and making sure you can hear each other.
3. Join your partner. Even though Skype lets you have up to 9 different computers all in the same conversation being at the table with your partner helps you learn how to prep like a team.
4. Use video. Using a web cam can help you get much better feedback particularly if your judge is not in the room with you.
5. Use a Good Mic. This Polycom Skype Mic sits nicely on a podium/sturdy music stand, filters out background noise and provides a way for both team members to be a part of the Skype call without passing the headset back and forth (or having two headsets).  This microphone is comparable in quality but much less expensive than most phones that Polycom makes. Remember this mic will save you gas money. (Thanks to Mrs. Jumes for tip #5)

Skype Video Tutorial

I found this video on YouTube that gives a detailed guide to using Skype. Sorry for those of you behind filters the only videos I could find were on YouTube.

Other Cool Uses for Skype

1. Record a conversation as an mp3 (great for podcast interviews)
2. Schedule a Skype Wakeup Call
3. Setup a Skype Home Security System
4. Switch to high resolution skype video chats .
5. Send a Text Message to a regular phone.
6. Replace you landline phone with a Skype WiFi Phone .
7. Hold a 9 member research brainstorming session using Skype’s free phone conference feature.

What do you think?
Do you use Skype? Do you like it? Do you have any Skype tips I’m missing?

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Before I begin, I just wanted to thank all of you for your comments, prayers and emails. You have made this season a lot easier than it could have been. You have demonstrated our need for the body of Christ.

It has now been almost three weeks since my dad’s heart operation. He just seems a lot healthier now that his heart is getting 25% more blood. But, I can tell he doesn’t have as much steam as he used to before the heart attack. I have spent a lot of time at home these last few weeks and my parents are both feeling better overall. But I can tell they are not as young as they used to be. Parenting young children is not as easy at age 51 as it was at age 30.

My dad has orders from his doctors to take it easy and reduce his amount of stress. Not easy for a soccer coach, basketball coach, debate coach, manager of multiple companies, CPA, real estate investor, husband, father of five and son of an elderly mother. Compounding his stress is the fact that our house is in the middle of a renovation that stalled shortly after his surgery. We have been without a kitchen table for almost two months now.

I am just now beginning to appreciate what an amazing father I have. I never realized how much he did for my family and for others because he never complained about it. In fact the only thing I have heard him complain about is his ongoing lawsuit with AT&T.

It is hard for my dad to cut back. If I were in his position I would see the need to "take it easy" as an affront to my masculinity. Avoiding work is for old women. I feel that work is part of our identity as men. But as we age our work transitions from labor to supervision and advise. This transition is being forced on my dad.

Another challenge is conflicting medical advice. One the one side are rude medical doctors who advocate chemical solutions to medical problems.  On the other are naturopaths who advocate cleansing the body of toxins and helping it heal itself. These schools of thought are mutually exclusive. Who’s right? Only God knows.

I now have another reason to visit my home in Austin. I used to go because I didn’t want to miss out on my brothers growing into men. But now, I value my time with my parents because I don’t know how much time with them I have left. Maybe a year maybe thirty. Only God knows. Either way it is a sobering thought.

Overall, God has showed us his soverengty, provision and mercy throughout this whole situation. This has been a tough season for me for multiple reasons. But, God has recently given me peace again. I have been convinced that I can handle anything with God and nothing without Him. Thanks again for your prayer and support. I thank God for you all.

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"Success is a poor teacher." My dad must have repeated this maxim a hundred times as I grew up. There are some lessons that only failure can teach. If you want to mature, you need to fail. Jesus failed. So should we.

Jesus’ Failure
After bringing Jesus out of the desert, God calls Him to preach in Nazareth where he is unable to do many miracles because of their lack of faith (Matt 13:58). But it gets worse. He then preached in the synagogue and offended the people (Mark 6:3). They were so incensed by His sermon they tried to push him off a cliff (Luke 4:14-30).

So, Jesus was unable to do many miracles, offended the congregation, and angered the people into a murderous riot. If that is not a failure, what is? You could try to twist this passage to find some sort victory. But to do so you would strip the word failure of its meaning. If any of those things happened to you I doubt you would consider it a success.

Why did God have Jesus preach such a provocative message to such an unreceptive audience? Why did an all knowing God orchestrate this?

I think one of the reasons was to test or to prove him. God wanted to prove Jesus through failure. Jesus, the man, needed to know He could take it. Jesus, the Son, needed to know His Father loved him whether people were healed or not (and they weren’t). Jesus, the Most High God, needed to feel what it was like to be human so he could sympathize with us (Hebrews 4:15).

The Cup of Failure
In order to walk in confidence, we need to know that we are loved even when we fail. The only way we can know we are loved in our failure is to fail and be loved. Words are not enough. We must taste the cup. Failure is like hot, bitter coffee. It’s too hot to touch but not too hot to drink.

Children who never fail begin to fear it because they don’t know if they would be loved despite their failure. Parents who love conditionally often have cowardly children who take few risks and try to please everyone. Praise God we have a Heavenly father who loves us unconditionally!

In order to build self esteem, we have raised a generation that rarely tastes failure. We don’t keep score in sports and everyone gets a trophy. The result is a generation that fears failure, avoids risk and lacks ambition. We are raising a generation of cowards. When we yank the cup of failure from the hands of our children we splash them with the hot liquid in the process. By trying to help them we train them to hate failure.

The result? Our Churches are filled with cowards instead of men of God. Our statehouses are filled with cowards instead of statesmen. We have abandoned personal Evangelism because we lack the guts to risk rejection.

Failure is not sin. Disobedience is.
If God allowed Jesus to fail, should we not allow our children to fail? If failure has so much to teach us should we not embrace it? The path to success is paved with the stones of failure. We must be willing to walk that path if we want to reach the destination.

We need to stop giving trophies to the losers and start keeping score. Parents should love their children in their failure instead of protecting their children from it. When you don’t keep score you prevent winning and loosing and your children will flock to activities like video gaming where success and failure are both clear.

"If something is worth doing, it is worth doing poorly! " – G.K. Chesterton
You could call America the land of perfectionists. Many of us strive for perfection in everything we do. We apply this desire to our spiritual lives as well. The result is if we can’t do something well we don’t do it at all. This is just the opposite of walking in faith. Jesus modeled for us what walking in faith looks like. It means going to Nazareth, knowing failure is eminent. Success or failure didn’t matter to Jesus. They shouldn’t matter to us. Only doing the will of our Father. "For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me" (John 6:38).

If you want to walk in faith, if you want to walk like Jesus, you must be willing to walk in failure.

Success not Guaranteed
Just because God calls you to do something it does not mean you will succeed. Otherwise the prophets would have succeeded and swayed the children of Israel to repent. Joseph would have succeeded is staying out of jail. And Paul would have succeeded in convincing the people of Athens that Jesus was alive.

God sometimes calls us to do something because He wants us to learn the lesson that failure will teach us. We must learn some things the hard way, from the cruel tutor of our own mistakes. Paul learned a lot in Athens about preaching the Gospel. Joseph learned humility in that prison. And the Prophets are our example of faithfulness.

God has a way of taking our failures and using them for good. Yet we still avoid failure. We need faith. We need to trust that God uses us despite our best efforts.

The Challenge
Are you willing to live your life in such a way that it may take hundreds of years for people to realize your life was not an absolute waste? Jeremiah was. So were Isaiah, Ezekiel and Joel. These are our heroes of the faith. They resolved in their hearts that success or failure they would do the will of God. We should do the same.

We need to stop thinking in terms of success or failure and switch to a one of obedience and disobedience. It is only in doing this that will be like Christ

What do you think?
Do you embrace failure and try to learn from it or do you try to avoid it? What is the biggest lesson you have learned from failure? Leave me a comment and let me know!

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If you are a writer or a speaker this will help you understand how words work and how to make you message stick. This talk comes from the books Presentation Zen by Garr Reynold and Language in Thought and Action by S. I. Hayakawa.

Here is a recording and slides for the Ladder of Abstraction talk that I gave at the Austin Rhetoric Club a few weeks ago.

• Transcript
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Leave me a comment and let me know what you think!

The Ladder of Abstraction I got this blog and I set up a RSS syndication feed which means that you can subscribe to it though an RSS agrigator on your computer but I was having some trouble yesterday because I was also trying to syndicate the RSS feed from cgames.com podcast which is also a blog onto my blog so that you could see both feeds on the same page.

The problem was that the RSS feed that was on there was looking toward the wrong FTP server so the xemail link was bad. Who understood what I just said? Two people! That was exactly what I was expecting.

What I will be talking about today is something called the "curse of knowledge."

Believe it or not knowledge is a curse or it can be. Here are a few reasons why knowledge can be such a curse. #1 It can make us proud. "Knowledge puffeth up" is what the Bible says. #2 The other thing that knowledge does to speakers is it makes it hard for us to communicate. The way that it does that is when we have knowledge it’s difficult for us to understand that other people don’t have that same knowledge. So when we speak to them we speak in terms and abstractions that make perfect sense to us but that have no meaning for our listeners.

So when I talk about an RSS agrigator only a few people know what that means. If you know what that means it opens up a whole world of meaning in your mind but if you don’t know what it means you start to fall asleep. I was looking at some of your expressions and you were like "oh, no! This guy is talking about stuff that I totally don’t understand!" I don’t blame you. I wouldn’t of understood what I just said until my blog broke yesterday and I had to fix it. I was asking Google help and then I had a friend come over and fix it. So the talk that I’m giving is based off of two books. One is "Presentation Zen" which came out recently. It is amazing! The guy is Japanese so he mentions Zen but it’s not very Buddhist despite the name. He has some really great principles on simple communication.

The other one is by another Japanese guy; "The Love Langue of Thought and Action." That is what this talk is about in part and the Ladder of Abstraction. So most speeches are boring, right? Most speeches are boring. Why is that? What makes speeches boring? Because of the person that presents it? O.K. more specifically how does that person make it boring? Monotone voice? To fast? Some one has heard that talk before? They pause? There are lot’s of things about the way that we speak that can make it boring but it also a lot about what we say that can make it boring and unclear.

You see even if I was what I was saying earlier in that example was interesting and I was saying it in a good way because of what I was saying was unclear it was boring. So, I bet you are asking what is the "Ladder of Abstraction?" Well, let’s look at our good friend, Bessie, the cow. She is a key to understanding the ladder of abstraction. You see, Bessie, here is not any cow. This particular cow is Bessie! She is seperated from all of the other cows is Bessie the very specific, individual cow.

The word cow is a little more generic. It’s a little more abstract. It doesn’t just include, Bessie, it also includes all of the other cows that are in existence. Now remember we are talking about words that make words make sense. Because if our words don’t make sense we don’t make sense and if we don’t make sense we are BORING! Right? So to explain the ladder of abstraction I have a slide.

On the bottom of the ladder I have "Bessie" A level up from that I have "cow" which includes Bessie and the other cows. Then I have "livestock" which also includes "Horton the pig" and all of the other pigs. Then up above that we have "farm assets which not only includes the livestock but also the tractors, the shovel, the elbow grease that the farmer puts in…well that isn’t really an asset……anyways, you go on up and there you have asset which not only includes stuff on the farm but his stuff in the bank and the real estate that he owns. And then finally we have "money."

So, Bessie, down here at the bottom is money in a kind of abstract way. Y’all laugh about this but so often we tend to be way up high on the ladder of abstraction. We say money but we’re thinking Bessie but we aren’t saying Bessie. One of the things that I want to warn you about is dead level abstracting. Dead level abstracting is very bad. Dead level abstracting is basically not moving up and down the level of abstraction. Dead level abstracting takes to forms. Number one is people who get stuck in the details.

Who gets stuck in the details? Team Policy people or Lincoln Douglass debators? Team Policy! Oh, we love those details! I have pieces of evidence to read in four minutes and by, Golly, you are going to hear all of those pieces in the first minute and a half! So, we try to cram in all of the details. Allot of you have read Science text books that cram in all of the details. What happens when you cuddle up at night with your Science text book? You have a great sleep! Some of my best naps were inspired by Science text books!

The thing is, and I do remember taking Science, and all I needed to grasp Science, and I did get this in Biology was the big picture. How does this information connect with everything else that I am learning? How does it apply to my life? In Biology they were like germs make you sick. You need to know what is going on in your body and what makes you get sick and I was, like, okay! I understood that! Then I took Chemistry.

I asked my Chemistry professor why I needed this. His answer was; "Well, you need it so that you can get into college!" Well, I went to a college that didn’t need it. So I didn’t need it and I didn’t get the big picture that I so desperately needed. The other temptation is to get caught up in the clouds. Who does this? Team policy or Lincoln Douglass people? Lincoln Douglass people! "Judge, I’m here to talk to you today about Justice.

I’m not exactly sure what Justice is or what exactly comprises Justice but it is very important. In fact, I value Justice!" So we then have very abstract, very unclear debates. What you’ll have is two Lincoln Douglass debators using such abstract terms that at the end of the round the judge had no idea what they were saying so they will vote for the person that they liked the best or who spoke the best and it will wind up being all about persuasive speaking. That is why for Lincoln Douglass people it’s all about being persuasive because the judges won’t know what you are saying half of the time! If they could understand you then they would vote for you a lot more. Does that make sense?

Also learning how to go up and down the ladder of abstraction can be helpful when you play games. Have you ever played "Twenty Questions?" Have you ever played "Twenty Questions" and not been able to figure it out even after forty questions?

If you’re doing dead level abstracting you will never win "Twenty Questions." "Is it a vegetable, animal, or mineral?"

"It’s an animal."

"Is it a cow?"

"No."

"Is it a bear?"

"No."

See you could do that all day and use up all twenty of your questions but if you understood the ladder of abstraction you could win "Twenty Questions" with far less questions than twenty. My mom once got the wax on top of the king of spades in her drawer back in her room within twenty questions. Her family is very compitive at this game and they have little machines, you can get a computer that will have you think of things and it will ask you twenty questions, with you answering yes or no and it will figure it out.

People will be, like, "It’s magic!" No, it’s not! It’s the ladder of abstraction! Okay, it’s this thing. The the ladder of abstraction is very helpful but not only that if you are ever using a filing system it uses the same type of thing. What the is this on the ladder of abstraction? You’ve got a really big filing cabinet for finances.

In one drawer you have you’re family’s finances and in that drawer you have you’re budget folder. In that folder you have you’re January budget and in that folder on a certain piece of paper you will have you’re January budget for food. You see how that is very specific and yet still a little piece of a larger more abstract system? Now we will focus more on how to use the ladder of abstraction.

The ladder of abstraction can help you win debate rounds. It can also help you to communicate better. The goal is to make your arguments sticky. If you’re judge can not remember your first speech as he’s casting his ballot you lose unless he remembers the other team even less. The goal is to get your arguments sticky.

To illustrate this I’m going to give you to messages on the same idea and you can tell me which one is more sticky. Our mission is to become the international leader in the space industry though maximum team centered innovation and strategically targeted arrow placed intitiaves. Or we could say "Our mission is to put a man on the moon and return him safely by the end of the decade." The 2nd statement was from JFK. He said those word and our nation was like, "Yes! Beat the Russians!"

So we put a man on the moon and brought him back safely by then end of the decade. Allot of men died in the process but by Golly, we got it done! What it was was it was sticky! It stuck in the minds of Americans. It rallied us to a common purpose and we got things done.

Now, I’m going to quickly give you some principles from "Presentation Zen." One of the keys to a sticky argument is to keep it simple. There was a reason why Jesus’ talks in the wilderness were repeated and repeated and repeated to the edges of the earth. The reason why is because He kept His message simple. While we take it for granted how simple Jesus’ messages were can you imagine someone who contains all knowledge communicating to us?

Can you imagine how complex what He said could of been? Have you ever heard a college professor talk? A college professor doesn’t have a fraction of the knowledge that Jesus had and yet he is still so complex in what he says that sometimes you’re like; "I think what he just said was good or I might have disagreed with it. I don’t know!" Jesus was talking about very abstract concepts. How did He talk about concepts? Lets take the Kingdom of Heaven?

He used simple, simple langue. "The Kingdom of Heaven is like a pearl of great price that a man found. He sold all that he had so that he could buy that pearl." It’s very very simple. Another thing that helps make our arguments sticky is if they are unexpected. Who expected me to start talking about computer programming langue at the beginning of this talk? Sometimes what you need to do is do the unexpected. Jesus did a lot of unexpected things. He would be talking and then some one would ask Him if it is lawful to pay taxes and everyone would get quite wondering what he was going to say. Jesus said; "Give me a coin." It was so simple.

I would venture to guess that most people don’t have most of the Bible memorized. but that was so simple, so unexpected, so concrete that we would remember. If we can speak in those little proverbial terms such as "ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country." It’s those simple little things that are so concrete. Another thing that is helpful is to make it concrete. Jesus spoke in very concrete langue. He talked a lot about farms, farmers, shepards, coins, fig trees, things that we would all interact with. Things that are concrete.

He didn’t use big words. The theologians have taken Jesus’ simple words and have added big words to them. Jesus didn’t need big words. He was so smart. So cool. By Golly, he could talk about a coin and make it profound. Another thing is credible. People won’t listen to you much if they don’t beleive what you’re saying. I want everyone to listen to what I’m about to say; "Statistics do no make you credible." You can use statistics but what makes you credible is the contextuluzation of those statistics. Steve Jobs, I would encourage you to watch him.

He’s one of the better presenters in the more modern form with using slides. The best, I think, traditional speaker is Alan Keys. If you can find a recording of him, he’s great! They’re styles are very different. We need a kind of balance. Anyways, Steve Jobs presented statistics at the beginning of his most recent talk he’s talking about market shares. Instead of listing off how are market share was 26% or whatever he compared his market shares to other peoples’ market shares. That made it very credible. Very real. He told us a story and used contextulazation.

Here is an even better example. You can say; "66 grams of fat" and then you can talk about how fattening that is or you can say "66 grams of fat is equivalent to 3 big Macs." Suddenly, that can stick in my mind. "3 Big Macs! That’s a lot of fat!" That is what you need to do. Don’t just sight statistics. Break it down. Next is emotion.

What I’ve learned in my marketing classes is that we Americans think that we are rational beings and we think that we buy products for rational reasons and marketeers are very good at getting you to think that you are buying their product for a rational reason. When really you’re not. This is also true with sharing the gospel. I can think of only one person that I know that actually came to Christ by looking at the stats and the figures and logic.

This guy is an engineer and he’s very effective and he’s well very much an engineer. The rest of us are not engineers and we don’t make desicions based off of facts and reason. Most everyone makes their desicion based on emotion and then come up with a reason. It’s very important to learn to appeal to emotion. Let’s say that you’re talking about the devastation of the Hurricane Katrina or the war or immigration. You could share a lot of facts about how badly they are treated or you could tell a story about a family who came to the U.S. to keep from dying, to keep from starving to death.

They already had a few children in the U.S. who were citizens but when the came over the Immigration Services nabbed the family and thrust them back into Mexico, took the children who had been born in the U.S. and put them into foster care and absoulutly destroyed that family. Did you see how much more impactful that was them a bunch of statistics. You could tell about Katrina and how millions of people were displaced or you could tell a story of one person who you know who had to flee for their lives from the water. Connecting emontioally is so much more effective then just giving facts.

That is the best way to up and down the ladder of abstraction, it’s sticky and memorable. The best way is to tell stories. Jesus did this all the time and so did God. He had a book of 66 little books. What does He spend the whole first book doing? Telling a story! There is basically no preaching at all in Genesis. It’s the same way with the first part of Exodus and then around Exodus 20 He tells us how to live.

He talks about murder and you can look back to Genesis and see the first story of the first murder and you can see how that broke God’s heart and Adams’ heart. He says not to steal. You can look back and find stories about people stealing. You can look back and see what that means in the context of a story. They do this in Japan very well. The way they do training is they have a Sin Pi and a Co hie.

The Sin pie is the trainer or the coach and the Co hie is the greenie. The guy that doesn’t know anything. They match them together and the Sin pi trains the Co hie by telling him stories. Instead of saying here are all of these facts and how you are more likely to get hurt if you don’t wear you’re hard hat he tells him the story of that one poor fool who didn’t wear his hardhat and died.

So the Co hie always wears his hard hat and every time he takes it off he remembers poor Johnnie who didn’t wear his hard hat. It’s far more effective. Okay, back to the ladder of abstraction. Dictionaries do not give words their meanings.

Now this is really important when you’re competing and you’re saying I have Black Law’s dictionary or I have Webster’s. Dictionaries don’t give words their meanings. The meanings existed so we had to attach words to them. Sometimes there are meanings that words can’t hardly express so that is why we have art. That’s why God not only wrote the Bible but He also wrote the Clear Testimony of Nature.

Paul talks about this how the Gospel is clear in nature. You can look at a tree and be like what can this tree teach me about the Kingdom? It’s not that the tree is the Kingdom but if the tree can teach us things. That is why Jesus was able to use such concrete examples from the very beginning because God wrote those truths into nature from the very beginning.

If you’re looking and asking the right questions you can find the truth in nature but when you read the Bible and study nature you learn so much more. The Bible says that the Holy Spirit is like breath, like wind. So you’re like "I need to go learn about wind!" So you go learn about wind and suddenly what you learn about wind shows you more about the Holy Spirit. So the meanings existed and we simply attached words to the meanings.

There are different types of definitions. Extetionsal and Intentional . Extensional means that you can just point at something and say that is a pig and I mean a pink animal with four legs. But if I point at you and say that you are a pig it has a totally different meaning. Some words their connotative meanings speaks so loudly that their denotative meaning is lost. The denotative meaning of say the stars and the bars, that flag, is that it was a nation that existed and believed in states rights but the conative meaning of that flag is slavery and racial hatred.

You have to be careful with the words that you use, that their conative meaning is not offensive. A lot of time it simply depends on the context of the word. Like a note. The notes in a melody make sense in the context of the song just as the words make sense in the context of what we’re saying. That is how stories help. They give some context to what we say. Here is a real life example of how using the ladder of abstraction can help you. If someone defines something by going up on the ladder of abstraction take them into the clouds.

For example; "What do you mean by the word red?" "Well it’s a color!" (Go up on the ladder) "What’s a color?" "Well, it’s a quality." "What’s a quality?" "Hey, what are you trying to do anyways?" Form a definition loop around the other team. You can do this allot. This happens when the other team defines a word by staying on the same level of the ladder.

"What do you mean by democracy?"

"Democracy means the preservation of Human Rights."

"What do you mean by rights?"

"By rights I mean those privileges that God grants us , inherent privlages."

"Such as?"

"Liberty, for example."

"What do you mean by Liberty?"

"Religious and Political Freedom."

"What do you mean by religious and political freedom?"

"Well, it’s what enjoy under a democracy."

See? It’s gone in a full circle. Pull people down in cross examination and make them be more specific. Get them to reveal the true truth of what they are saying. A politician can get up and talk for a really long time and say nothing by simply staying abstract. "I beleive we should improve education in the U.S.!

We need to do this by making sure that the class rooms teach better materials and that the students learn better. We need a smaller government. We need to do things smaller! We need to have a better economy!(Everyone is like "yeah, better economy! Fix the economy!) But they never say how they are going to fix the economy. Be careful of that in a debate round. You can easily lose the round or bore you’re judge. You don’t want to be boring. Go up and down the ladder of abstraction.

If you can tell an emontially compelling story to connect with the judge you can get them to vote for you. I used to tell a story of story of a blizzard and the currant IRS system and how they take up so much time. The judges were like "Yeah!" So you need to connect with judges.

In closing I would like to tell a story. Antioch in the Bible was located on the southern border of Turkey and the northern border of Syria. The church in Antioch was known for it’s church planting.

It sent out mission teams. It sent out Paul and Barnabas, John, Mark, and Paul and Sylas. That church planted all though out the Roman world. God allowed the lamp of the church to be exstinusished in that place. Two decades ago you could count the number of people in the churches by the dozens.

The lamp of the Gospel had completely gone out. He is allowing the lamps of Europe to also go out. If you look and see what has happened in Europe in the last 100 years we can see that His light is going out.

We can look and see the same thing happening here in the U.S. but God is wanting to do something with our generation. God has a plan but the enemy is fighting against Him. The enemy has a 3 fold plan to stop God’s plan. One way is though addictions. We can get distracted with addictions such as gaming, alcohol, or drugs. We can not do what God wants us to do if this addiction is consuming our passions.

The second way that Satan is trying to stop us is though abortion. He knows that we can not speak if we are dead. 1/3 or my generation has been killed. The enemy is serious. Dead serious. The third thing that the Devil is trying to do to destroy the light is though apathy. If he can’t kill us or addict us, he’ll get us to just not care, to keep the truth we know to ourselves. He’ll keep us out of the public square, out of the voting booth. Out of a world that is falling. I ask you to say no to these three things. Say no to addiction. If you know some one who is addicted pray for them.

Say no to abortion. Take a stand. Say no to apathy. We must make stand up and make a difference and help stop these dying children. So that we might defeat the enemy and also his third plan, that of apathy. We can stand up and say no. You can say no. You can say I will stand up for God’s purpose in this generation.

I will not let the lamp go out while I’m alive. Generations of Christians have died to see the light of their nation continue to b urn. The lam p in China is beginning to shine for after more than 1800 years. God wants to use you. Thank you!

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Since we are on the topic of confidence, here is another post from the archive.
The world says, “be self-confident.”
Jesus says, “put your confidence in me.”

The world says, “you can do anything you put your mind to.”
Jesus says, “you can do nothing apart from me and all things through me.”
The world says, “look out for number one.”
The Word says, “think of others as more important than yourself.”
The world says, “believe in yourself.”
Jesus says, “believe in me.”
The world says, “you deserve it.”
The Word says “you deserve hell for breaking God’s law.”
The world says, “trust your feelings.”
Jesus says, “trust in me.”

The world says, “enjoy entertainment.”
Jesus says, “enjoy me.”
The world says, “follow your heart.”
Jesus says, “follow me.”
The world says, “have fun and enjoy your best life now.”
Jesus says, “Deny yourself, pick up your cross, and come follow me.”
The world says, “you’re a good person.”
The Word says, “your heart is deceitfully wicked.”

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As you can see from my last post I am not a big fan of self confidence. So often presenters struggle with fear and so they compensate for their insecurities with self confidence. The Bible has a word for self confidence. The Bible calls it pride. Confidence might make you feel better but it can turn your audience off. Our confidence should be in Jesus Christ alone.

I found these not to long ago and they were so good I wanted to share them with you.

1. Confidence is about you – enthusiasm is about your subject
   As long as you’re focused on ‘being confident’, you are the focus of attention.
2. Confidence is about you (again) – enthusiasm is about others
   when you focus on your audience – whether one person, a roomful or a whole stadium – you stop worrying about your own performance. Instead, your attention is on the audience’s experience
3. Confidence is impressive – enthusiasm is infectious
   Think of a time when you heard someone talk about a subject you had previously no interest in, but they were so enthusiastic about it, you couldn’t help being intrigued, even fascinated. There’s something contagious about the body language of enthusiasm – when you see someone talking excitedly, smiling, gesturing, full of energy and keen to share what they know, you can’t help responding
4. Confidence is certain – enthusiasm is creative
5. Confidence is serious – enthusiasm is fun
   When you start talking or thinking about being confident, you’re likely to start taking things a bit seriously. When you want to be confident about doing something, it’s because you think it’s important.

Mark McGuinness goes into greater detail on each of these points in his blog wishful thinking.

I think reason #5 is why many students debate speeches are less interesting than their persuasive speeches. They are less enthusiastic about the topic.

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