LDS Media Talk

This Sunday is my turn to teach. Since I have the chance to choose whatever topic I feel will benefit the quorum, I decided to choose President Dieter F. Uchtdorf’s talk from last April’s conference entitled A Matter of a Few Degrees. In his talk, he recounted a story of a large passenger jet that left New Zealand for a sightseeing flight to Antarctica. An error of two degrees in the flight coordinates placed the aircraft directly in the path of an active volcano. Unfortunately, by the time the pilots received the warning from the plane’s instruments, it was too late. The plane crashed into the side of the volcano, killing the pilots and all 257 passengers.

President Uchtdorf said: “The difference between happiness and misery … often comes down to an error of only a few degrees”. He also promised that the Lord will help us recognize and avoid these evils. He reminded us that we have the responsibility and the power of self-direction. And if we drift off-course, there is always a way back that is “certain and clear” and that is the Savior Jesus Christ.

So fill in the blank: what word, phrase, or thought would you replace “degree” with? Here’s what I have:

• A matter of a few clicks
• A matter of a few promptings
• A matter of a few channels
• A matter of a few thoughts

And on the positive side:

• A matter of a few minutes reading the words of the Prophets
• A matter of a few minutes making the Internet safer for me and my home

So what would you fill in the blank? How can you apply this in your life?

Gilbert Lee is a guest blogger and works as an interaction designer for the LDS Church. He is married to a wonderful woman and has three princesses for daughters.

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The Church has just distributed the 140 millionth copy of the Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ according to a news release on Newsroom.lds.org. The Church currently sells about 5 million copies a year.

The Book of Mormon is currently available in 107 languages. You can read The Book of Mormon online in nine languages: Danish, Dutch, English, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish. While there (at scriptures.lds.org), you can also listen to it (by clicking Listen at the top of any page) or download the audio files in English, Spanish, and Portuguese. Audio files in more languages are being prepared now.

The Newsroom also has a great story about Understanding the Process of Publishing the Book of Mormon. You can also read a general story about translating Church materials.

In 2003, Book magazine searched for the twenty novels and nonfiction titles that have had the greatest impact on the history of America–the ones that have led to concrete, definable changes in the way Americans live their lives. They named the Book of Mormon one of the “20 Books That Changed America.”

Have you personally taken Elder Craig C. Christensen’s challenge from last conference to use The Book of Mormon to share the gospel message with family and friends?

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The Church has announced a new manual for Primary nursery classes titled Behold Your Little Ones. In addition, this manual has been designed to be a great resource to help parents teach basic gospel doctrines to small children.

Each lesson contains activities that help children HEAR, SEE, SING, DO a physical activity, andVERBALIZE the doctrine of the lesson. Each lesson has two pages of visuals (a color picture and a line drawing) to visually reinforce the principles taught. Each page also has tips on how to teach the lesson successfully. Read pages 2-4 of the manual for more details about the features of the manual.

• Order a printed copy from LDSCatalog.com.
• Access the PDF (full graphic layout) in English and in multiple languages.
• Access the text online in English. (Language text will be available later.)
• View a short introductory video about this new nursery manual.

This manual will be translated into the following 25 languages: Cebuano, Chinese, Danish, Dutch, English, English Braille, Fijian, Finnish, French, German, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Portuguese, Russian, Samoan, Spanish, Swedish, Tagalog, Thai, Tongan, and Ukrainian.

It will also be available in audio format in the following 10 languages: Chinese, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish.

A notice about the manual has been sent to English-speaking units, and wards/branches will receive one copy automatically by August 29th. Units can order more copies on the annual ward/branch order. Individuals can order their own copy anytime at LDSCatalog.com.

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Crowdsourcing is an innovative business trend that takes collaborative work to a whole new level. Around the world, individuals are using online communities to identify people with similar experiences or interests who can share ideas, offer their expertise, and collectively accomplish work.

A lot of people have never heard of crowdsourcing. But if you’ve ever edited a Wikipedia article, uploaded a video to YouTube, or tried beta software, consider yourself an official participant. Crowdsourcing is the act of taking a job traditionally performed by an employee or a third-party provider and outsourcing it to an undefined, generally large group of people in the form of an open call. Using the technique, an organization can tap into the collective intelligence and expertise of the public at large to complete the task. Crowdsourcing can include anything from gathering feedback on a new idea, asking for help to solve a problem, or actually accomplishing the task at hand.

Crowdsourcing isn’t a magic tool for solving all problems, but consider the benefits of turning to a larger community to tap into their expertise or get feedback and new ideas. What ideas do you have that could benefit from crowdsourcing?

The Church uses crowdsourcing

The Family History Record Extraction program is an example of crowdsourcing. People around the world contribute their time and talents in a defined process to perform controlled work. The curriculum development process is another example of crowdsourcing. Committees of members are tasked with writing lesson manuals. Before lesson manuals are printed, lessons are sent to teachers in many countries to test the lessons in actual classroom settings and provide feedback.

In what new ways would you suggest the Church consider crowdsourcing?

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A year or so ago we did some “tech talks” in California, Washington and Utah where we got together with techies to discuss technology at the Church. We’ll be doing this online this week. This one is for people interested in technology and how the Church uses it.

More information here.

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Tell the New Era magazine what you think of their most recent covers by filling out an online survey. 

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The Church’s Ensign magazine has just posted on online survey to gather information to help make the Ensign even better. Please take a moment to take the survey.

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LDS.org provides a simple program that let you enter an address anywhere in the world and find the nearest LDS meetinghouse (place of worship). We are pleased to announce an upgrade to this program, which can be accessed beginning today through many links on LDS.org and Mormon.org, as well as directly at maps.lds.org.

This upgraded program provides many new features not available previously, including:

• A more visual, dynamic user experience. You can enter an address or simply point to a location on a map.
• On the map, you can switch between road, satellite, or aerial views. You can also zoom in or out and drag the map around.
• You can switch between Google and Microsoft maps to get the best map for a given location.
• When you search for a location, results are provided in two categories: “Closest Meetinghouses” shows the three meetinghouse locations physically nearest to your location. “Assigned Congregations” displays a list of available congregations you may attend for the selected location, such as language-specific wards/branches, Young Single Adult (YSA) units, and Student wards.
• You can select a ward/branch and get additional contact information (such as phone numbers), go to the unit Web site, or get driving directions.
• In places where accurate street information does not exist, you can locate meetinghouse chapels by using the “Place Marker” on the map to select the location rather than typing an address.
• Maps.lds.org also works on mobile devices through a simplified user interface.
• If you find a data error, you can report it directly using the Feedback button on the page.
• With each new selection, information on the page changes without reloading, thus speeding up response time.
• When you find a location, you can send a link to it to a friend.
• You can access the program directly at maps.lds.org.

Please feel free to try this new program and share it with your friends and neighbors.  Feedback, suggestions, and corrections to the data are welcomed and encouraged by using the Feedback link on the application.

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RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is used to distribute regularly-updated Internet content (such as news headlines, blogs, and wikis). People subscribe for free to RSS feeds to automatically receive content from a Web site or service without having to constantly visit a Web site to see what is new.

For example, you can sign up to receive an RSS feed from this Web site to view the new blog posts in an RSS-enabled browser, in an RSS reader, in Outlook, or by way of an online service such as MyYahoo or Google Reader.

See the Church’s Web feeds index at webfeeds.lds.org for a list of RSS-enabled Church Web pages.

Below is a short video that describes RSS in plain English. If you want to learn more, see the RSS entry in Wikipedia.

If you don’t want to use an RSS reader, or have a MyYahoo page to view the feeds, you can sign up at Bloglines as a place to collect and read all your online news, blogs, comics, newsgroups, e-mail newsletters, podcasts, weather forcasts, etc.

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We previously mentioned that the Church is now beginning to provide audio recordings in various languages for the manual Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Joseph Smith, Jr.

The following languages are now available online in multiple media formats in English, Cantonese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, Russian, and Spanish.

The Portuguese will be completed within a few weeks.

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A podcast is a series of digital media files that are distributed over the Internet using syndication feeds (subscriptions). These media files can be audio, video, PDF, text, or other formats. You can then play, watch, or read these files on your computer or other device. The term podcast (like broadcast), can refer either to the series of content itself or to the method by which it is syndicated. This syndication is also called podcasting. The author of a podcast is often called a podcaster. Learn more about podcasting on Wikipedia.

Here is a short video that explains podcasting in plain English: 

The Church has created a number of podcasts that you can subscribe to at rss.lds.org. You can also find many other Church-related podcasts at the iTunes store. Just search for “mormon” or “lds.”

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Ever want a PG-rated YouTube? Check out the video sharing community ItsAGoodDay.org. All their videos are filtered by a human eye to ensure that the site will be “a place where visitors may come to be uplifted, inspired, motivated and where they will feel comfortable with all the content” contained on the site.

The site also allows you to contribute videos, inspirational stories, quotes, and pictures. You can create family Web sites to share pictures, blogs, journal entries, and videos.

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Brazil is the Church’s most popular country Web site, with 250,000 visitors a year. Brazil is followed by Germany, which ranks very high, especially considering the relative number of members in that country. 

The top 12 country sites in 2007, in terms of unique visitors, are shown in the graph below.