#andy abramson

[crowdfundingprcampaigns]

@Crowdfunding_PR @VelocityKick Rolls Out #Powerful #New #Marketing, #SocialMedia #Tool for #Crowdfunding #Platforms

@Crowdfunding_PR @VelocityKick Rolls Out #Powerful #New #Marketing, #SocialMedia #Tool for #Crowdfunding #Platforms

Entrepreneurs, startups, academics and non-profits can use this social media scoring tool/CRM software tools to streamline crowdfunding campaign outreach and improve efforts to collect the first 30% of fundraising

By Robert Hoskins

Velocity Kick is cool a new marketing service that every crowdfunding platform should take a look at.   To date, the team has assimilated a lot of cool marketing tools…

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[vergeministries]

Ministry Success and Obedience

  Have you ever had one of those moments where the Bible just wrecks you?  I mean wrecks you in such a way that you find yourself spinning for the rest of the day.  Today was one of those days for me.  As I was listening to my Bible in the car (which is wonderful for me because I travel a lot), I came across a passage that I have read, taught and preached on a large number of times.  But this time, for me, a new truth came across.

But before I get to the passage, let's talk shop!  Doing ministry in today's world is hard.  It's unbelievable, that in the culture we live in, with so many resources, that technology can actually hurt you.  I love social media!  I love seeing people be connected and in conversations about life, ministry and the world we live in.  I use them all…. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and many more.  For us, we have actually had new connections for ministry because of social networking.  The bad part of social networking is we can become deceived with what is really going on with people.  Let's be honest, we only put what we really want people to know about us.  And even beyond that, for myself, I can see jealousy and envy creeping into my life if I don't guard my heart.  I can see these high profile ministry leaders, see there interactions, see all their perceived success and begin to ask myself the question, "What is wrong with me?" These people must be doing it right and I'm not! These people must be truly following God that pales in comparison to myself.  But I know, if I were to sit-down with any of them, they probably would show me a side of them that many don't think about.  Their churches have problems.  They don't do everything right.  But the problem I find, it in my mind I can equate MINISTRY SUCCESS WITH OBEDIENCE.

Now back to the passage I eluded to earlier.  So I'm in Numbers 20 with a passage that has been all to familiar with me.  Like I said before, I have used it in so many contexts within my ministry.

Numbers 20- 

2 Now there was no water for the community, and the people gathered in opposition to Moses and Aaron. 3 They quarreled with Moses and said, “If only we had died when our brothers fell dead before the Lord! 4 Why did you bring the Lord’s community into this wilderness, that we and our livestock should die here? 5 Why did you bring us up out of Egypt to this terrible place? It has no grain or figs, grapevines or pomegranates. And there is no water to drink!”

6 Moses and Aaron went from the assembly to the entrance to the tent of meeting and fell facedown, and the glory of the Lord appeared to them. 7 The Lord said to Moses, 8 “Take the staff, and you and your brother Aaron gather the assembly together. Speak to that rock before their eyes and it will pour out its water. You will bring water out of the rock for the community so they and their livestock can drink.”

9 So Moses took the staff from the Lord’s presence, just as he commanded him. 10 He and Aaron gathered the assembly together in front of the rock and Moses said to them, “Listen, you rebels, must we bring you water out of this rock?” 11 Then Moses raised his arm and struck the rock twice with his staff. Water gushed out, and the community and their livestock drank.

12 But the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, “Because you did not trust in me enough to honor me as holy in the sight of the Israelites, you will not bring this community into the land I give them.”

Here is what stood out to me! Here we have Moses doing something pretty incredible.  I'm not sure last time you tried to get water from a rock but I'm guessing it didn't go very well.  The crazy thing is, as you look at the text.  Moses was failing to obey and honor God in the situation.  I'm not really sure why God chose to continue to do something miraculous in that situation.  I mean, if I was God, I would have let Moses hit the rock and have nothing happen, but he didn't, he used Moses even in his disobedience.  MINISTRY SUCCESS DOES NOT ALWAYS EQUAL OBEDIENCE!  Now can it? Yes!  But what we must realize is, they are not always tied together.   The think the warning on the other end is just as valid.  If we do have ministry success, to look around and think that we are doing something right and others are not is a slippery slope that is dangerous.  Look at all these miracles!  Look at how many people are coming!  Look at how much influence I have!  The problem is, even God moved through Moses and he was ultimately punished for disobeying God.

So I translate that into my own life.  I look at these high profile ministry leaders, because they have a big ministry does that mean they are obeying God?  Maybe… maybe not!  Because Joe Pastor has a small church does it mean he is not obeying God?  Maybe… maybe not!  What we need to realize is, those two principles are not always connected.  

So what is our job?  I would argue that OBEDIENCE is our job.  If we have a big ministry or small, high profile influence or not, if 1000 people comment on our Facebook posts or none, our job is obedience.  We need to be faithful to obey God and leave any ministry success up to Him.  I would be willing to bet anyway, we are going to get to heaven someday and find out the God's standard for ministry success was ultimately different than ours.

Andy Abramson (Director of Verge Ministries)

[webrtc-blog]

eTel 2008 Cancelled

Wow, Andy just reported that the eTel '08 conference has been cancelled. I never made it there myself but I heard great things about it. Someone really needs to pick up the pieces.

[webrtc-blog]

Mobivox and SightSpeed

Andy points to a great little ditty from Mark MacLoed, CFO at Mobivox as he recounts the 6 months that it took for them to successfully raise $11M. Nice to see we are not the only ones going through this ;)

[webrtc-blog]

iPhone SDK, VoIP APIs et al

Andy contemplates a potential surge of VoIP apps likely to be written for the iPhone due to the latest announcements from Apple and KP.

I happen to agree with Andy on just about everything in that post, but I do have some comments that potentially relate more to the Canadian market.

It's true that mobile costs are going down for users in the US but the opposite is true for mobile users in Canada. Here, the mobile carriers are not facing the same level of competition as the carriers in the US. Local overages and long distance usage is still at a premium and not one carrier offers an unlimited North American-wide calling plan, at least that I am aware of or has been published. Also, the iPhone is not being offered in Canada at all, so one would have to hack it to get it to work, which means a loss in some functionality along with the other side-effects.

This actually presents a larger opportunity then some may realize for middleware VoIP service providers / developers and not just for iPhone but for any Smartphone. In the next post, I will explain myself a little better and go into some detail about what some companies like Lypp are doing about it.

[webrtc-blog]

VON-less?

 Om wrote a story about the potential demise of Pulvermedia (creator of VON), taking lead from Andy and Marc Robins.

I remember having a conversation with Andy months ago and even though he did not come right out and say it then, it's clear now what he might have been eluding to. I have fond memories of the early days of VON. Xten (now Counterpath) got a head start via the Free World Dialup community and Jeff was always there doing what he could to help out my tiny little startup. Over the years the show grew at a colossal rate and small companies like mine were soon dwarfed by the monsters of VON. I understand why, it's just too bad it happened that way. Andy swears that eComm is different but I am not at all convinced. The format of these shows could use an overhaul. Where is the "Real Tools You Can Use Today for Building a Real Business" conference? Everyday business owners need something more interesting and useful that appeals to them in order to get something out of it that actually matters. On a different note, there were a couple of posts around this alleged Pulvermedia exodus referring to the over-hyped VoIP industry and how there is no money to be made. Some of it is certainly true, too much marketing not enough substance. For others it's exactly the opposite. Lypp for instance is doing quit well. Almost anyone who makes a call overseas these days is certain to be using VoIP in one fashion or another. We can thank Jeff Pulver and VON for making VoIP something that people wanted to be involved in. Jeff and his hard working crew, lead by Carl Ford, have done a great job bringing VoIP to the center stage over the years! Carl, if you are reading this, go do something great!

VoIP is telephony. Telephony is an extension of the most natural means of human communication, the human voice. Which is why you will not stop hearing about advancements and/or newly developed voice offerings for some time to come. Besides, we can't stop until I get my !@#$% Star Trek communicator :)

by Erik 

[webrtc-blog]

Microsoft's VoIP Strategy, Less Desktop More Telephone

Andy makes some valid points as he ponders the world of SIP without Microsoft. It would seem to me that with many of the service providers bailing out of the softphone services business that maybe the market is either already saturated or that the offers in the market are still not seamless enough for the average user to get excited about it. From my own experience I know that getting people to strap on headsets or talk into a laptop is not only confusing for the user but even when you get them there the quality usually isn't that great or predictable, regardless of the softphone you are using. Sometimes this has more to do with the connection and bandwidth and less to do with the softphone. At any rate, I think softphones have a future but they need to be invisible to the user and QOS (Quality of Service) must be addressed. I think the boys at Microsoft might agree as they get ready to roll SIP Trunking for their new Response Point SIP-enabled SMB PBX. Response Point is probably the best SMB PBX I have had the opportunity to install, configure and play with recently. Btw, the customer I installed this for is loving it. So, is Microsoft throwing in the towel on the VoIP front? No, I don't think so. They are likely focusing on what they know best, bundling software with hardware to fill a niche. Response Point is a great example of that.

[webrtc-blog]

Andy's 2.0 Telco Top 10

Thanks for the mention Andy, I have been busy with my own projects for the last couple of years but I appreciate the fact you still remember some of the projects I had some significant success with, just a wee bit disappointed you forgot to mention them, that's what I get for not speaking at eComm I guess :) The list of course is bang-on, considering the source that should be no surprise. I will in fact see become more active this year as my latest startup "SMB Phone" ramps towards general availability and launch. My last conference calling service provider startup "Lypp" is on auto-pilot and is growing nicely, thanks in part to Jay Phillips and adhearsion. The next stop for me will be at Internet Telephony Expo in Miami where I will be talking a bit about why we chose to build a new ITSP "SMB Phone" serving Microsoft's new Response Point PBX. Here is the Response Point Seminar schedule: Tuesday, February 3rd Presentations:

4. An Integrated Solution: SMB Phone Goes to Marketwith Response Point

3:00 pm

SMB Phone is a unique VAR and ITSP. Come learn how they identified Response Point as a key technical and business component in their nation-wide go to market programs focused on SMBs.

Presenter(s): Trent Johnsen, VP Business Development - SMB Phone

Wednesday, February 4th Presentations:

3. Response Point Service Provider Roundtable

Interact with the key members of the Response Point Ecosystem. Service Providers will be represented and open to discuss their service offerings and VAR/Agent programs.

Presenter(s):Bandwidth.com, Cbeyond, Junction Networks, NGT, Packet8, SMB Phone, TotalTel

If you will be attending the show and would like to schedule a meeting, please email Trent Johnsen or myself or call us toll free: 1.866.473.0516 , say either “Trent” or "Erik".