A Liddle Good News – Page 31 – The Wycliffe ministry of David and Katherine Liddle

Before there was Facebook

On Friday, I signed up for a Facebook account. Within hours, I connected with a best friend from high school. By this evening, I had thirty friends. Facebook is pretty addicting! I’m impressed with the site not just as an IT guy, but also as a simple, social human being — and as someone trained in social science research.

When Katherine I were on furlough back in 2000, we took a class called “Language Development”. In that class, we studied and discussed the things that influence language use and change. One of the concepts that caught my attention was that of “social networks”.

University of Michigan professor Dr. Leslie Milroy used social networking to study the use of the Irish language in that society. Once she was introduced to one Irish speaker, she established a rapport with that person and slowly worked her way through that person’s network and those of the people she met.

Dr. Milroy was able to learn a lot about “who knows who”, “who talks to who”, and “who uses what language with who”. Other important information included “how who knows who” and “how well who knows who” — are you tired of the Who’s yet? Dr. Milroy used the data she collected to paint a portrait of the Irish-speaking community she had visited, and she was able to draw conclusions about how the Irish language is used and how language change works its way through the community.

Such information is what we sought in our language surveys in Africa, and I felt that the idea might be fruitful if used among the very social African peoples. My research paper for that course focused on the ways we could employ social network theory in making decisions about Bible translation projects. Using it a village context, though, would be very different from making contacts on the Internet.

Facebook allows you to move through social networks around the world as easily as moving around your own living room. If I could add anything to it, I would add a meter that indicates how frequently you get in touch with each of your friends. The old language surveyor in me wants to add your choice of language, too (from the Ethnologue) — but that might be asking a bit much. Give it a try!

It’s not easy to say “no”

My department has fled the campus entirely for three days this week to be together for a workshop. Since we IT staff have such a big impact on day to day operations in Wycliffe, we let people know well in advance that we wouldn’t be available. I’m not entirely sure how folks reacted to that, but I know that some people would have been a little worried.

Despite the notice, there were some people I had to tell personally that I couldn’t help them. That hurt. I’m the type of person who really wants to fix the things I can — and I especially like doing it when it benefits someone else.

But I had to tell one woman over the phone that I couldn’t possibly fix her email problem myself until Monday. I referred her to my colleagues in North Carolina, who I’m certain can also help her. Another woman — who is visiting the campus — has what is probably a hardware problem with her laptop. However, I didn’t have enough time with it this week to come up with a diagnosis. She and her husband work from Washington, D.C., so I had to tell them to contact Dell Technical Support directly when they return home this weekend.

I have no idea what part of Wycliffe’s larger ministry of Bible translation will be affected by these delays in computer support, but the experience has certainly reinforced my desire to serve God by helping my Wycliffe co-workers.

My out-of-office experience

A while back, I wrote about my department’s need to move out of our building so that parts of it could be renovated. It’s now Week 3 in our new location, and I have to report that all is going pretty well. Choosing what tools and resources to bring with me was difficult, but I believe that I now have everything that I need to do 99% of the work that I do.

Aside from the limited resources, the only negative aspect to our little office is the fact that we’re positioned right over the main entrance to the building. There’s a buzzer in the door that sounds when it’s been left open for a little too long – about five seconds. If it continues to remain open, then an alarm sounds. Most of the visitors to the Helpdesk comment on how annoying it must be. I won’t disagree with them.

There are two positive elements to our location, one of which will get only a passing mention. We have a very nice view of Joe Pool Lake through the large window that forms one side of the room. That window is right in front of me, so I get to look out at the water all day long.

The other good part is the exposure that we’re getting to all of the people who work in the Key building, the largest on campus. The Helpdesk is very easy to find now, being at the top of the main staircase. Many more people have commented on the convenience of our location than have mentioned the annoying buzzer. Our colleagues are enjoying the new access they have to us and our services.

For me, that means that I am often much busier than I have been in my regular workspace. However, that increased work typically involves answering questions and solving small problems that a person would not normally bring to our attention. In the long term, being available to help with the small matters now will reduce the number of big problems that folks experience, since we “headed them off at the pass”. I’m finding that a five-minute walk to another building can make a big difference.

The effect that our presence here has created causes me to wonder if it wouldn’t be helpful to either: a) continue the presence of one or two people in this building, or b) hold a regular “urgent care clinic” for computer users each day during specified hours. The key concept is to maintain our accessibility. What do you think? Let me know by posting your comments.

P.S. I would like to publicly thank my friends, Loren and Kensey Ledebuhr, for their gift of an extensive, portable toolkit; it has proven to be invaluable in our new situation. As for them, they’re somewhere in remote Papua New Guinea learning how to live without electricity, so I have no idea when they’ll see this post.