Dr Bex Lewis will be speaking at #Digimanc in Manchester, 25th November (only £25, come along and connect!)…
Who is Dr Bex Lewis?
I am a ‘digital resident’ (very comfortable in the digital world), and a polymath, which means that I have multiple interests, so have to look for lots of different opportunities to dive into. I have a background in historical communications – and proudly claim that I wrote the original history for the Keep Calm and Carry On poster, as part of my PhD ‘British Home Front Propaganda Posters of the Second World War’, completed 2004 at the University of Winchester, where I’d done her first degree in History with Education Studies.
I’m an enthusiastic traveller, and spent 7 months travelling around the world (Asia, Australasia, South America), before working a summer season as a Tour Leader with Oak Hall Expeditions in 2007/8.
I have been deeply inspired by the LICC, and undertook their LICC Toolbox course, and love Mark Greene’s concept of ‘Life’s a peach, not an orange’ (Google it, it makes great sense)… and the need to be 24/7 Christians, in whatever space you engage with… to which I would add, online or offline.
What’s your experience in the digital world?
I am a portfolio worker with over 14 years of experience in the digital environment, having built my first website in 1997, publishing straight from Word, using materials from my embryonic PhD to provide content. In 2001 I first engage with web accessibility and usability projects, and always believe that ‘content is king’… the design needs to help the content to work, rather than overwhelming it. I am far more interested in people/ communication/ popular culture than programming, and therefore was delighted when social media took off!
Where do you work?
I am the Director of ‘Digital Fingerprint’, a social media consultancy, whose Christian clients include the Church of England, Arab World Media, 12Baskets, and Syzygy Missions. Over the past couple of years I have spoken at an increasing number of events… outside of the academic conference circle! I’ve found connecting with people so much more interesting, as connections have often been made before events via Twitter (sometimes Facebook, but I usually save that until I at least vaguely know someone), and therefore it’s easy to connect face-to-face and continue conversations we’ve already been having online.
I am a member of the CODEC team, employed half-time by St John’s College (University of Durham) as the “Blended Learning Project Manager” for The Big Bible Project. I am passionate about helping Christians be a positive presence in the digital world. In July 2011, I finished reading the Bible from cover to cover for the first time (took 3 years)… and now enjoy a variety of Bible apps to engage! I’m also about to become an internship mentor for Damaris, for whom I used to write cultural reviews.
I also work half-time at the University of Winchester, as a ‘Technology Enhanced Learning Fellow’ (finding tools for teaching using an appropriate mix of technology and face-to-face) with Associate Lectureships in Media Studies (particularly digital literacy) and History, alongside funded projects in student-skills and change management. I recently gained my Postgraduate Certificate in Learning and Teaching and am in the process of becoming a Fellow of the Higher Education Teaching Academy.
Have you ever been to Manchester?
Yes! I lived there for nearly two years, as I had a post at the University of Manchester as ‘Interdisciplinary Research Fellow’, from which I took voluntary redundancy (and went travelling!), but I’ve retained both a love for the city, and several friends there! I’m looking forward to a weekend there after #Digimanc!
Why are you so passionate about getting Christians online?
Because we need to be where the people are! There are over 800 million active users of Facebook, over 400 million users of Twitter (of which about 200 million are highly active and influential), over 640 million users of Skype, who knows how many blogs… and if we search for ‘Bible’ on Google, there’s a huge number of negative results appear (some may be fundamentalist Christians, so we need more Christians with grace to interact with the space)… so we need more positive content! As Richard Chartres, Bishop of London, said at the Christian New Media Awards this year “to all those who are serious about Christian mission. This is where the Church porch is now. It’s not so much those fly blown papers on the wall, the Church porch is now on your website.”
Tony Morgan also agrees in ‘Killing Cockroaches’, that a good church website is crucial. Most people check websites before choosing where to go these days, and the church is now competing for attention with the cinema, the bowling alley, the shopping mall. If people know they want to go to church, how are they going to know if they are going to want to come to your church, how are you going to get them past any fears that they have? Will the experience when they arrive match up to their expectations?
We live in an interactive age, not a broadcast age, so we need to think about how we engage people with the life-enhancing message that we have to share … whether that is online, or whether offline church practices also need a reconsideration… and can online tools allow those conversations to take place?
How can I contact you:
You can find Bex on lots of social media sites: Email ; Twitter ; Blog; Facebook; Academia.Edu; LinkedIn; Slideshare; Google +; Audioboo; Flickr; Digg;Delicious; YouTube; Entries on BigBible but also come and meet me face-to-face at events!
If you have ever had to make a difficult decision, you’ll probably empathise with me on this post.
