The Stairway To Google Heaven
December 12, 2007 5:38 pm Funny Stuff, Google
This is Abbot Christopher Jamison from Worth Abbey, a monastery deep in the Sussex countryside. Author of the very popular book - Finding Sanctuary - he’s actually my old headmaster as I went to the school the monks run down there, but he’s now moved on to a loftier role, and is a bit of a celebrity here in the UK, having let cameras in for 40 days and nights to film a kind of reality TV show a couple of years back.
The Monastery saw a group of guys from different backgrounds enter the monks’ inner sanctum and live like them with some stunning results.
At the time Christopher had asked me to promote their website while the show was on TV, so I set him up with a Google Adwords account. He was especially keen to appear on keywords to do with vocation discernment for which they run spiritual retreats as well as a special course called Compass. All these quickly became oversubscribed.
A few weeks back he called me up and said they’d hit the jackpot! Not sure what he meant as I’m pretty sure Do Not Gamble is the 11th commandment, but he went on to explain that because of our search campaign, a guy had come along to one of the retreats, found some kind of “calling” and was now going to become a monk!!!
He even wrote down a testimonial which went something like this:
And so I began to feel that God might be
calling me to the priesthood.
I felt I really needed to talk to someone,
but I had no idea who to turn to.
Well, I turned to Google. I think I typed in something
like ‘retreat’ and ‘religious vocation’.
Top of the list was “The Monastery” website.
If it hadn’t been for THE INTERNET…
I would probably still be a software engineer!
So what is Microsoft or Google’s loss is God’s gain……
Just goes to show that it’s not all about cheap loans, holidays and digital cameras. People are actually using search engines to find a completely different way of life.
Ashley :
Date: December 12, 2007 @ 6:15 pm
I am inspired-get thee to a nunnery!
Joost de Valk :
Date: December 12, 2007 @ 6:49 pm
Hmmm, let’s do an ROI calculation on that
Joost de Valk :
Date: December 12, 2007 @ 6:50 pm
“cost per monk”
The Stairway to Google Heaven :
Date: December 12, 2007 @ 6:55 pm
[...] friend Mel Carson pinged me today with this story, a guy who became a monk in a pretty incredible way, go read it, it’s [...]
Emma :
Date: December 12, 2007 @ 7:08 pm
That’s so funny! excellent story!
Colleen :
Date: December 12, 2007 @ 7:30 pm
How fascinating.
Gilllian :
Date: December 12, 2007 @ 7:39 pm
And the last line reads like a punchline… a software engineer! Can’t wait to see what he develops for the monastery.
Michelle :
Date: December 12, 2007 @ 7:47 pm
Just goes to show you that when you show the right ad, at the right time, to the right person–you can change lives.
Ian N :
Date: December 12, 2007 @ 9:23 pm
cost per monk, haha!
Kristjan Mar Hauksson :
Date: December 12, 2007 @ 10:38 pm
This has been my point all along you can “sell” anything on the Internet, even Monk-hoods. Great stuff, but even so it is still a seccond runner up for the Joe C. Video. Man!! that was huge.
xavierv :
Date: December 13, 2007 @ 12:00 am
Nice story.
However, how many men of faith go against the will of God by checking out porn on the Internet?
Seofinance, seo web finance, search enigne optmization services blog » SearchCap: The Day In Search, December 12, 2007 :
Date: December 13, 2007 @ 1:47 am
[...] The Stairway To Google Heaven, http://www.melcarson.com [...]
Link It Up - Fun Links from the Inbox :
Date: December 13, 2007 @ 2:11 am
[...] Stairway to Google Heaven - Mel Carson from Microsoft was inspired by the Fishkins Rand and Gillian to write this blog post ode to what search marketing can do for good causes. The finer points of top rankings - podcast interview with small business marketing legend, John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing and myself on leveraging social media and networking channels such as Twitter, MyBlogLog and StumbleUpon. mp3 [...]
Boris :
Date: December 13, 2007 @ 7:03 pm
How can someone really state what the will of God is! If you knew what the will of god was then you would know that she isn’t interested in your opinions on porn!
Adam Lasnik :
Date: December 13, 2007 @ 8:04 pm
Well, that does it, then. All those folks who’ve been crazily suggesting that Google is God were now clearly proven wrong. We’re just God’s assistant
(Oh, Lord, let me not be quoted out of context here!)
Seriously, though, thanks for sharing. That’s a fun story
money news blog » Link It Up - Fun Links from the Inbox :
Date: December 15, 2007 @ 12:22 pm
[...] Stairway to Google Heaven - Mel Carson from Microsoft was inspired by the Fishkins Rand and Gillian to write this blog post ode to what search marketing can do for good causes. [...]
The Stairway to Google Heaven | Ask Salomon :
Date: December 15, 2007 @ 5:37 pm
[...] friend Mel Carson pinged me today with this story, a guy who became a monk in a pretty incredible way, go read it, it’s [...]
links for 2008-01-12 « i noted :
Date: January 12, 2008 @ 12:23 pm
[...] The Stairway To Google Heaven I visit Worth Abbey for retreats occasionally and I think this is a brilliant. Google brought in a new monk to the fold. The power of advertising my friends, it can change lives! (tags: 2.0 advertising Christian Christianity, community bbc google adwords religion tech technology) [...]
links for 2008-01-16 « Spirituality of Play :
Date: January 16, 2008 @ 1:40 am
[...] The Stairway To Google Heaven This is so great - Worth Abbey have generated their first vocation through the internet. I have been visit ing Worth for retreats (when they have space!) for a number of years, and I am very excited that the web is proving sucessful for them in such a dir (tags: vocation Christian google internet online Worth Abbey monks) [...]