By D. Black

I have been around creative people and involved with marketing campaigns most of my career. I enjoy the process of coming up with an idea and then creating a platform for that new concept to bloom and grow into a product, promotion or platform.

Marketing people have a private vocabulary to describe the world. Ratings, shares, trends, retention, demographic, segmentation, and psychographic are just a few of the words that define and measure their efforts.

I jumped into this community more than 24 years ago and have flung these words around with the best. But as a spiritual man, I now realize that we are one word short.

The term demographic is defined as the characteristics of a human population or part of it, especially its size, growth, density, distribution, and statistics regarding birth, marriage, disease, and death

The term psychographic profiles the lifestyle habits and traits of an individual.

These terms deal with understanding the statistics and actions of people but we don’t have a word that brings those characteristics into light in perspective to their spirituality. So I purpose an addition to our communicators vocabulary handbook.

Pneumographic – the understanding of how personal spirituality impacts the attitude, behavior, and lifestyle choices of individuals, families, and communities.

Isn’t it prudent to spend time and energy to better understand how the most important aspect in life impact life? Not to manipulate for gain, but to facilitate for change.

For the purist, I realize that the word isn’t in Webster’s…yet.

After all what is in the Word?

By D. Black

Last week I packed my bags and traveled up I-75 from Atlanta to Nashville. I almost always choose to drive the 225 miles, because believe it or not, it is faster than flying. It is really quite a nice drive, winding through the North Georgia mountains, the Tennessee River and the city of Chattanooga, past Lookout Mountain the site of a famous Civil War battle and on up into South Nashville. My work has a presence in the “Music City” so I make the sojourn on a pretty regular basis.

This time I was driving up to attend the NRB (National Religious Broadcasters) convention held at Opryland, USA. This is an annual gathering of mostly ministry broadcasters and the stations that they air along with a potpourri of vendors who sell them hardware and software. And who knows, maybe even one or two strategic consultants may show up. This convention is a good opportunity to find tactical solutions, meet new people and network with old friends and colleagues.

I’ve been attending the show since the winter of 1984. It used to be always held in Washington, DC at the Sheraton Hotel, near Capitol Hill. Those were the days of Jim and Tammy, Jimmy Swaggart and other high profile television personalities walking the floor with their entourages. There was an air of celebrity and personal power as the “superstars” traveled from book signing to media interview. It was quite interesting to watch the parade. I was a young man attending graduate school at Regent University and working as a production manager for Victor King Marketing, CBN’s inside advertising group.

Now 24 conventions later, the atmosphere has changed dramatically. Gone is most of the glitz and glamour, replaced by a more businesslike, professional atmosphere. During my walk on the convention floor, I only saw three television broadcasters -James Robison, Charles Stanley, and Jeff Shreve, none of them are pretentious.

On my way home back down I-75 to Atlanta, I thought of the difference between my first and last NRB. It is a big change, but come to think of it, our world has also changed dramatically. But the fundamental reason that thousands of faith-based communicators come together once a year remains the same – to learn to more effectively proclaim the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The need for this truth hasn’t diminished, but the methods of communicating it certainly have.

Next time: The number one question asked this year at NRB!