There is a major revolution underway which you need to be well aware of as it will affect how business is conducted going forward. I have recently founded an app company with some great partners. The app is designed for churches to better communicate with their congregations, and to be able to materially increase their revenue numbers. Yes, for religious institutions it is a lot about revenue. They are a business. They have staff and operating costs just like you do. They need to increase sales, but it is called contributions. The response from the religious community to our app has been well beyond what we projected, and our business and marketing strategy is very different than anything in the B to B or consumer app world. But all of that is another story for another day. You can go to our website theenspiregroup.com by typing that into your address bar, not on Google search.

What I have learned, and the point of this article, is that there is a very rapid shift underway in how people communicate, and how business communicates, which all of you need to understand, and quickly. Things are changing faster than you realize. PC sales are plummeting, and will decline faster and faster. They are down 14% last year and have been down for several years. With the advent of 4G, high speed transmission, and larger screens on smart phones, tens of millions of prepaid phones for those not able to buy a phone and a two year contract, and the proliferation of tablets, the world has been dramatically changed just in the past two years. When I was in China recently, I noticed that virtually everyone, no matter how well off or not, had a smart phone. I presume this is true all over the world. Just note how the Egyptian revolution happened. Note how Iran does anything it can to control communication by smart phone. Even in rural areas of the world, a high powered cell tower is all that is needed to bring instant communication to places where running hard wire is not feasible. Every young person in the US has a smart phone today. Communication is now mobile, not on a PC. Not by hard wire telephone. Not by newspapers or even TV. When the Zimmerman case was decided the tweets and Face Book messages flew instantly. This is the new world.

Some of you will say instant messaging has been here for several years so what is new. Online shopping is nothing new. What is new is that kids mostly were using social media, but now, as we are finding, even the religious institutions need apps to do their business successfully. Older people have smart phones now and are learning to use apps. The population of users of apps on high speed smart phones is increasing exponentially. We are able to materially increase church contributions by the app. Parishioners can virtually attend services live via our app. Just think about that, and the ramifications for all sorts of businesses if you can be present virtually in ways that are different than what you have seen so far on mobile phones. Without discussing what we do and how, I can tell you that we have created a new way to attend any meeting or event that will make a difference. You can be traveling or on vacation and still be sitting in church on Sunday morning. The recently completed instant and very high speed communication capacity of Verizon and AT&T, a software development we devised, and the larger screens, allow this, where it would not have worked just two years ago.