Nixa

Hello, Nixa! Thought we’re far away from you now in Colorado, we haven’t forgotten about you.

While we were in Missouri, we met a father who last summer had grounded his teenage daughter from her cell phone. We sat down with their whole family one afternoon to talk to them about a second potential grounding.

The conversation was engaging and funny, but as with many video interviews, lacked interesting visuals. Over a recent lunch, Mary and I came up with a new way to present this conversation: Wordle.

Stay tuned at The Young and the Wireless for the full story. In the meantime, here’s a teaser:

Huskey Family Interview

courtesy of www.wordle.net

I’m not sure if it’s all the coffee I’ve been drinking or something more natural, but I’ve been buzzing with energy these days. Pursuing stories with all these new tools is bringing fresh energy to my work as a journalist. As pesky as they are, these electronic gadgets bring you out into the world, away from your writing desk and computer screen. Here in an unlikely place, techie storytelling has brought me more fully into the world around me.

Maybe it’s simply the fact that I just don’t have the time to sit still. Reflection has become a luxury — like free hours, phone conversations with loved ones, homemade meals. This makes it difficult, as a writer, but electrifying as a multimedia journalist.

Then again, maybe it’s just the people we’re meeting. Nixa, for all its suburban stillness, has its share of voices not afraid to speak up.

Like Mary, a rural grandma who just signed up for Facebook. Like the Huskey family, patiently wading their way through the new issues technology has raised in their family of four. Or like Jackie and Cory, two 20-somethings who disagree about how technology should be used in church services. 

I may need coffee to kick start my day, but I need moments with people like these to keep me going as a storyteller.

I’m finding that this type of work is the opposite of tourism. You don’t always get to spend time in the prettiest places. You don’t always get to eat well. Sleeping in is impossible, and you’re never without piles of tasks. The world around you pulls at you like a small child at the hem of a skirt, begging to be noticed.

But there seems to be a just reward for gumption. We’ve turned over numerous stones, and spent many wee hours lugging video cameras into town squares and church lobbies. Stories have a way of coming together, and out on a little patch of land called Canaan Bluffs Farm, there’s more than just a pot of coffee brewing.

After spending a day showing up at churches and introducing ourselves, the truth of an Esquire editor’s recent advice rang even more true: Be an “in person person”; don’t hide behind emails and phone calls. 

Email and cellphones make contact easier and faster, but they don’t neccessarily make it more effective. We dropped in on a youth event on Wednesday night and ended up on bar stools in front of the group for the pre-basketball discussion. Fifteen minutes in the youth pastor’s office at Nixa First Assembly yesterday, and we’d been invited to his home to meet his group of young Christians. 

In our discussions with young people so far, we’ve found that those in the top end of the spectrum (20 and up) seem to be more articulate in talking about technology in their lives. The younger teens seem indifferent, as though the internet has lost its novelty. It’s been interesting to apply Don Tapscott’s ”Net Generational Norms” and watch how, even within the generation, there are so many differing attitudes.  

We introduced ourselves, and explained why we were in Nixa (they all agreed with the Evangelical Epicenters tag!) We laughed and joked together about our reliance on gadgets, grandparents on facebook, and some of the things we wished we didn’t have to read on our friends’ walls or text messages. We talked about losses and gains in human connection. We asked questions and tried out our awkward theories. 

It was “raw,” as the youth pastor said of why he loves working with young people. Raw, honest and just a lot of fun.

-Jen

Hey Springfield-area film buffs! We’ve got a summer challenge for you: the chance to make some dough while sharing your creativity. Author Don Tapscott  has offered $1,000 in prize money for the best video exploring your relationship with technology. Remember all those great soap operas, like Days of Our Lives and Young and the Restless? Here’s your chance to mock, challenge, or copy their style in your own voice. 

Don Tapscott

The simplified rules:

1. Create a 90-120-second video or multimedia story in soap-opera style (we’re “The Young and the Wireless,” after all!) Think about how your relationships–how has technology helped your relationships, or how does it get in the way? We want you to have fun with this, nothing is too silly or serious, playful or profound.  Just be sure your point is clear, relevant, and insightful in some way.

2. Your video must be in “.mov” format (we also encourage HD) and can be submitted to Mary and Jen, who will be here in Nixa until the 30th of May. You can also upload it to our YouTube page. 

3. If you don’t have equipment, contact us. We have a basic camera you can borrow.

4. The videos will be screened, and then posted to our website.

5. The best video will win $1000 and has the potential to be mentioned in Don Tapscott’s next book.

Let us know if you have questions, and happy shooting! See the full rules here.

Get inspiration here.

-Jen

Hello world … this is Mary Buttolph and I have been in Nixa since Mother’s Day. Sunday was spent getting here and then situated. Monday was spent with Lori Elliott from Nixa’s Schools. She took me to just about every school in the district to meet with her movers and shakers, I met a lot of great teachers and students and I am working on responding to all of them this evening.

On Tuesday I spent the day with Anchit, a gifted autistic student, who is using a keyboarding tool to communicate with his classmates and teachers. Earlier this year he was very disruptive in his mainstream classrooms because he was extremely frustrated (he has a hard time speaking), now through the use of a simple typing tool he has flourished…he even had one of his clever poems read by the principal to the entire school during this afternoon’s announcements. I am looking forward to spending more time with Anchit, he is a beautiful and complicated person who has many gifts. It should be an interesting few weeks getting to know this young man.

Tomorrow I will be meeting with the Nixa Ministerial Alliance at noon, I am excited to get the word out about news21 to the pastors in the area. Also, I’ll be spending the remainder of the day with Anchit…it will be a full day of shooting.

-Mary