Pioneer Week Challenge: Can you live without it?

I'm a geek. I love all things technology and new-and-shiny. If it has buttons, batteries, or does something I could have done with my own two hands then I want it. I have an eight year old son who complains of being bored unless he's watching a movie, or playing a game on my laptop or Android phone. Technology is integrated into our lives in such a way as to make us appear to be the first iteration of the Jetson's. The only thing we lack is a robot maid (my wife is waiting for one). We document our life in an almost exclusively digital manner. Analog is something that my kids will likely never understand.

Recently this addiction came to a head with my son (and myself) being at the receiving end of some serious talk from my wife. It seems we neglect Real Life when we stare at our glowing screens. Who would have thought there was life outside of Lego.com, Google+/Facebook/Twitter, and Angry Birds? So my wife said we were going to have an entire day without computer, TV, or cellphones. Being the "good husband" that I want my wife to believe I am I one upped (+1) her and said we should do a whole week without technology. Talk about putting your foot in your mouth. That taste will never leave. Sooooo here's the deal:

We will be shutting down our technology consumption from Pioneer Day (July 24th for those not aware of Latter Day Saint celebrations) and conclude on Saturday (which just happens to be our Ward Pioneer Day celebration). What does shutting down mean? Well this means that we will not have our cellphones, our TV, our computer, running for the entire week. This could result in some serious energy savings for our family. The lesson we'd like to learn from this is that there is more to life than 0's and 1's arranged for our entertainment. We may take this to a new level and even do as much of our cooking using less conventional methods (i.e. Dutch Oven, BBQ grill, solar oven etc.). We will either come closer together by weeks end or we will not see the week end. In either event I feel strongly that it's going to be quite the adventure.

So now the challenge to all who are willing. Join us. Take the Pioneer Week Challenge and turn off the digital world as much as possible. Take out the things that distract you from your family and focus on things that bring you together. If you survive then you just might be a Forever Family.

Are you going to take the challenge? Leave your ideas for "Pioneer activities" in the comments section and we'll try and do some of them during our experiment. When it's all over I'll post a blog about our experience.

NOTE: We are so digital that our only phones are cellular style so if you need to get hold of us during this week you'll need to come by and talk to us in person.

Facebook...it's been a good run. Google+ gives me so much more.

I was recently lucky enough to get an invite to Google's newest attempt at social networking. Google+ is the latest in a long line of mediocre and failed attempts by Google to compete legitimately with their newest and biggest threat to internet dominance - Facebook.

Google+ (G+ for short) is everything that Facebook should have become over the last several years...had they been listening. Which is exactly what Google appears to be doing with their early adopters at least. There are tons of new features and things to like in this social network and while I'd love to spend thousands of words on those features I will try and keep this short.

My favorite features:

First is the Circles concept and execution. Circles are your "circles of friends" sort of like Groups on Facebook but a million times easier to create and manage. Your circles act like individual streams for each group and gives you the ability to communicate the information you want with only the people you want. I know most of you Facebook-ers are saying that you can do the same thing on Facebook. My question is; how many of you are doing it? and if you're not why not? I consider myself pretty well heeled on almost every social media platform primarily Facebook and I don't break my friends into those categories because it's simply too time consuming and not very intuitive. Google has found the most intuitive way to not only conceptualize your groups but also curate them and execute their usage. You can create layers and layers of circles and share just the information you want with just the people that care about that information.
It's even got Twitter-like functionality. Twitter allows you to follow people that don't follow you back. Creating a source for news and information without forcing a "relationship". G+ also does this. You can add almost anyone to your circles and they aren't forced to follow you back. This means that you can get the same news and information feed that you have on Twitter without leaving the Facebook-like relationship network of G+. Admittedly G+ is new and as with all new things they glitter with awesome...but I see this network replacing both my Twitter and Facebook because it can do both functions for me on one site without a third party Hootsuite, or Tweetdeck interface.
The next innovative function (probably the next one to be mimicked by Facebook) is the "Hangout" feature. This feature allows people withe web cams to meet up and have a 10 way chat with each other. Built on the Google Talk product this is an awesome social integration that really takes things to a new level. While this feature won't stand long with Facebook playing catch-up very quickly it remains to be seen just how this will be executed in Facebook. I can tell you that it is very compelling in G+.
The next feature is deep integration with the mobile phone app and image sharing. Every time you use your phone to take a picture the image is immediately uploaded (not shared) to your Picasa web album and available to share. Another mobile feature is Huddle. This is a SMS feature that allows you to select one of your Circles and start a SMS chat with the circle. All of the responses are sent to all the circle members creating a complete conversation where everyone is privy to the conversation and no rebroadcasting is necessary. Very handy for organizing diner with some of your favorite people.
The long and short of it all is that Google has finally got social figured out. They will be a force and you'll find that your in a similar situation to when you left MySpace for Facebook. Below are some important links in learning more about this network and if you understand it all you'll be as excited about it as I am, maybe. One more reason to join...Ashton Kutcher is already building a following here.

Related articles

• Google+: Why I Think Mom and Dad Will Use It (jeanhsu.com)
• 9 Reasons to Switch from Facebook to Google+ (pcworld.com)
• How to turn Google+ into and online photography portfolio(thenextweb.com)
• Google Plus 50(chrisbrogan.com)
• 39 things you should know about Google+(webpronews.com)