The rumor is out – I thought I’d make it official. This week I have started as the new Social Media Architect for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In summary, I am in charge of the architecture and integration of Social Technologies for the Church. I will be in charge of finding ways that make sense to integrate technologies such as Facebook Connect, the Twitter API, @Anywhere, OpenSocial, Google Buzz, Google Wave, FOAF, Google’s Social Graph APIs, OpenID, and just about any other Social technology you can think of in to the Church’s web properties. This is quite a task!
The LDS Church (also called “the Mormons” by others) has some of the most visited websites on the internet. I’ve talked about it before. As of now, LDS.org, the Church’s site for members of the Church, ranks at number 2,460 in Alexa rankings. The Church has the largest database of genealogical information in the world. The Church has one of the largest philanthropic organizations in the world, contributing significantly to the efforts in Haiti, Chile, and many other causes (you can donate over on the right). The Church’s Relief Society is the largest non-profit womens organizations in the world, contributing to the welfare, support, and moral guidance and relief of women throughout the world. The Church has a global audience, speaking just about every language you can think of, and the Church’s technology has to support that audience.
That’s why this is such an incredible opportunity. Never in my life have I had the chance to support such a large, global audience in a way that could impact so many. I see the use of Social Media enabling the Church to reach into areas and touch people in ways it was never able to do before. I see Social Media enabling the Church to help more people, strengthen, and make the world a better place without boundary. I will get to not only use Facebook and Twitter to help others benefit society, but on a global scale I’ll get to use Orkut, Hi5, Bebo, and other global networks, and find ways to deeply integrate these technologies into the work the Church is doing, on a global scale and to a mass audience.
Will this affect my business, SocialToo? I anticipate not. I am taking a leap of faith here for something I feel has an even greater effect to change the world, but my intention is to continue running SocialToo part-time (at least). As it needs more attention we will see where things go at that point. I don’t anticipate anything changing on SocialToo, and I also expect some really amazing new features, new partnerships, and more to appear, even while I am fulfilling my position at the LDS Church.
“I don’t like X about the LDS Church” — I don’t intend to respond to many of these comments, and if they’re persistent I may remove or block them – IMO they are irrelevant to the position I hold. I am responsible solely for the Social Media-related technologies of the Church, nothing else. Any post here I make in representation of that position will be technology focused, not Church Policy focused. I’ve made it clear my intentions are to make the world a better place with this position. It doesn’t matter what your personal beliefs or motivations are – I think we’re all in this purpose together, and IMO, that’s what matters most. I hope you can support me in this. I hope to work for better standards in the realm of Genealogy. I hope to work for better, more friendly International standards, and better ways people can communicate globally in different languages. I hope what I do can change the poverty levels, and the welfare of the world through technology. That is my purpose.
There is no better job where I can “do no evil” better than in what I’m doing now. This is something where I feel I can truly make a change for the better. Will it help my faith, my religion? You bet! What I’m most excited though is the effect this position will have on the world. My faith and my religion are entirely centered around that, and my hope is that I have an effect on this more than anything else.
Have any questions? Please don’t hesitate to ask in the comments and elsewhere. I’m very happy, as always, to answer questions and discuss these matters and my beliefs in the Church especially. You can definitely expect much more from me on some of the related technologies we’re working on as I am able. I’m excited to where this leads! There is something very powerful about Social Media technologies and the potential they have to change the world.
As always, the content of this post and any other post on this blog are my own opinions, not the reflections of my employer, nor an official statement on my faith or religion. Any comment or post outside official LDS Channels are my own opinion and views.
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Congratulations Jesse! Good to hear that you are moving into an excellent position. Good luck!
Jesse:
Your new position sounds like a fun and rewarding challenge, allowing you to use the skills you've worked hard to develop in the service of your beliefs. What a tremendous blessing!
I'm particularly eager to learn what you have in mind regarding “better standards in the realm of Genealogy,” since that directly effects an area I'm particularly passionate about.
Congratulations!
Dean Richardson
Genlighten.com
Your comment on Orkut, Bebo, etc. is especially illuminating. Whether you're dealing with a worldwide church or a worldwide business, you always have to remember that the software tools that we use in the United States might not necessarily be the software tools that are used in other countries. Not only does a worldwide organization's social media representative need to be familiar with all of these tools, but the representative must also ensure that all of the tools are used for communication – and knowing you, this does not only mean communication from the LDS to the people, but also communication from the people to the LDS.
Good luck in your new position.
I like the LDS's moves toward keeping quality genealogical records. I wish they'd make those records a bit more open or easily available in commonplace formats. I've always found them to be very difficult to use as they stand, though I realize it's a huge task. Still, it's a good thing.
Good luck in your new role Jesse, it sounds like a pretty big time demand. Hope all goes well between your business and your day job. For me it's been quite a stretch to balance both worlds, mostly mentally as things begin to blur together. I started seeing pattern similarities between hyperspectral compression algorithms and lossy social media tagging. Most days it's quite alright 🙂
There may be some overlap with the efforts of the opendata initiative. Big data sets although available, need to be shaped into usable formats. I'd actually never heard of LDS genealogical records before Jesse's post today.
As a Church Employee in Seminaries and Institutes you have no idea how excited I am to hear this, I've enjoyed and shared many of your ideas in the past here at the Church Office Building and look forward to being able to work with you directly.
Congratulations Jesse! Such a wonderful opportunity for you and for the Church. Excited to see all of the implementation.
Congrats on the new gig! A great job and a great guy for the job.
Thank you John!
I have some ideas on that, which I think I'll post later.
Mark, all the data stored at http://familysearch.org is kept by the LDS
church. It is the largest genealogical store in the world.
Definitely! Let's keep in touch.
I think there are things I can learn from both. It's good to keep variety
in life. It's the best way to learn.
Excellent news! Congratulations! I wish you the best of luck.
Congratulations! Excellent news.
Are your responsibilities going to fall more toward social strategy or as more of a technologist using social tools?
My responsibilities will fall more towards architecture and strategy related
to the social technologies of the Church. It is technology specific.
Congratulations! I love the idea of the global connections, and I know the LDS church has them. Keep us posted on what you learn about how some of the social networks used in other parts of the world are different (or not).
Thank you Francine. I think I'll be able to provide some useful information
as I learn more about each social network.
+1
Congratulations Jesse! Wow talk about undertaking a huge digital strategy. Best of luck to you with your endeavors!
Jesse – Looks like a great opportunity with a fascinating future. Hope you will provide occasional updates as this could certainly could be viewed as a potential model for any and all religions …. and I'd say you are head of the curve. I hope you know I wish you all the best.
Thanks Charlie. I'll share what I can. I may be limited in what I share in
relation to what I'm doing exactly at the Church (hopefully we'll do some of
that in more official channels), but you can bet that much of the content of
this blog in the future will be based on technology I'm working with at the
Church.
I like the idea of religious organization using social media sites to share their identity across the internet. A lot of religious organization or followers are overshadowed by a web of mystery on what they do, who they are, what their intentions are. Other religious organization should embrace social media site to connect them to the wider audience in the internet
Jesse,
We look forward to watching as your plans for the Church roll-out…
I wish you great success, as you make a difference in the world.
Bruce
Thanks Bruce! It was great talking with Barrett today at the tech conference the Church held today.
[…] sharing this partly because I’m excited Mormons were mentioned (I am in charge of much of the social technology integration and strategy for the LDS Church as one of the many things I do), but also because there’s some truth to […]
[…] sharing this partly because I’m excited Mormons were mentioned (I am in charge of much of the social technology integration and strategy for the LDS Church as one of the many things I do), but also because there’s some truth to […]
[…] sharing this partly because I’m excited Mormons were mentioned (I am in charge of much of the social technology integration and strategy for the LDS Church as one of the many things I do), but also because there’s some truth to […]
Jesse Congratulations to both you and the Church!
One thing I've noticed over the years: no matter what one may think of the LDS Church, they are dedicated to their community. (And not just their congregation). So is Jesse.. And to me, it's not important what you believe, it's what you *do* that really matters. In my experience, both Jesse, and his Church *do* a lot for their communities. I've seen you do a lot with what appears to be fairly little, Jesse. I'm excited to see what you can do with this much energy & resource to support your efforts. It's a huge opportunity, for both of you. 🙂
Thank you Rob! I appreciate that sentiment.
Jesse Congratulations to both you and the Church!
One thing I've noticed over the years: no matter what one may think of the LDS Church, they are dedicated to their community. (And not just their congregation). So is Jesse.. And to me, it's not important what you believe, it's what you *do* that really matters. In my experience, both Jesse, and his Church *do* a lot for their communities. I've seen you do a lot with what appears to be fairly little, Jesse. I'm excited to see what you can do with this much energy & resource to support your efforts. It's a huge opportunity, for both of you. 🙂
[…] sharing this partly because I’m excited Mormons were mentioned (I am in charge of much of the social technology integration and strategy for the LDS Church as one of the many things I do), but also because there’s some truth to […]
Thanks Charlie. I'll share what I can. I may be limited in what I share in
relation to what I'm doing exactly at the Church (hopefully we'll do some of
that in more official channels), but you can bet that much of the content of
this blog in the future will be based on technology I'm working with at the
Church.