Event Announcement-- Third Annual Wesleyan Theological Forum: “Preaching Christ”

The Third Annual Wesleyan Theological Forum will be offered Tuesday, November 15^th, at 9:00 a.m. at Grace United Methodist Church in Franklin, Indiana.  Professor Mike Pasquarello of Asbury Seminary and Dr. Derek Weber of Aldersgate UMC will lead the Forum focusing on the theme “Preaching Christ in the Wesleyan Tradition.”  This continuing education event is open to clergy and laity in and beyond the Indiana Conference.  Cost is $40.00, which includes lunch. 

Dr. Pasquarello is the Granger E. and Anna A. Fisher Professor of Preaching and Biblical Interpretation at Asbury Theological Seminary.   He received his B.A. from The Master’s College and his M.Div. from the Duke Divinity School.  His Ph. D. is from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  Dr. Pasquarello has published many books on preaching and pastoral ministry, including a forthcoming book entitled John Wesley: Homiletic Theologian (Abingdon).  He and he wife, Patti, have two children.

Derek Weber received his undergraduate degree in Speech and Theatre from the University of Indianapolis.  His Ph. D. is in Practical Theology with a concentration on Homiletics and Media/Communication from the University of Edinburgh (Scotland).  Derek has taught preaching in the Course of Study in Indiana, and for fourteen years served the Dean of the Academy of Preaching in the former North Conference.

Following lunch Mike and Derek will be sharing in a preaching practicum to help participants hone their skills in preaching Christ in the Wesleyan tradition. 

For more information about the Wesleyan Connexion Project, click here or contact Andy Kinsey via email andy.kinsey@inumc.org.

To register for the event, click here.

UPDATED October 26, 2011: Learning from the HP TouchPad Fire Sale

Used by permission. CC 2.0.

Companions,

I'm thinking there may be lessons to be learned from the HP TouchPad fire sale fiasco a few months back and its HPs announcement at that time that it was likely to be exiting the consumer market almost entirely. 

The fire sale itself went badly enough. Yes, HP liquidated their inventory of their soon-to-be-orphaned tablet device in record time. But in the process, the crashes of its own servers and websites and the failures of its call centers to be able to process the traffic of their own fire sale raised real doubts about whether HP could even hold its own in enterprise IT systems.

Well, that was August. And that was under HP's previous CEO, Leo Apotheker. Now we have word that HP's new CEO, Meg Whitman of eBay fame, has announced that HP will definitely continue its PC business.

 
Why the turnaround on this point?

 Well, it turns out the PC business, despite its relatively low margins in the current markets, remains one of the most profitable divisions of HP. It also turns out that costs to spin it off would be rather steep ($1.5 billion was the estimate) with little guarantee that the newly formed company would be successful against the likes of the already resurgent Lenovo and Dell. That, and having a PC division internal to HP meant HP was in a better position to maintain favorable contracts for their supply chain in their enterprise server business (which they intended all along to continue).

Oh, and one more thing-- that "profitable" PC business was losing market share (to Lenovo and Dell!)  every passing day that its future seemed grim or undetermined.

Low margins, yes... but solid benefits to the company overall, and threats to the company if it were not decisively maintained. 

Whoever has ears...

Peace in Christ,

Taylor Burton-Edwards