The Author
Monica L. Coleman
Born in the “county” and living in the “city,” I have had the great privilege of seeing both the importance of a simple life and the benefits of variety. I thank God for each experience.
My Life Online
I started using the Internet, socially, about 12-13 years ago when Geocities (before it became a part of Yahoo) and Lycos were the hot spots to create your own personal website. At the time, I wasn’t even old enough to get a job or consider myself online for networking purposes. I simply created a page to share my “life story” online with others. I shared a couple of pictures of me and my family, my goals and aspirations, poetry, and random favorites. Each day after school, I’d eagerly check my guestbook and site visit counts; I guess I subconciously hoped to become an online celebrity.
I loved using Yahoo chat rooms to connect with people! I had a few aliases; I didn’t really trust folks online. Mostly, I was an online lyricist posting under the pseudonym, black_widow_xxx. This name was actually given to me after I “auditioned” to be a part of a lyricist “crew.” I spent 2-3 hours each day online with my “crew” as we battled other “crews” in chat rooms. We’d market the battles in other similar chat areas by dropping the date, time, place and crew names before the battle happened to make sure we had an audience. The actual battle would be a combination of posting rhymes in chat and saying rhymes via voice chat in Yahoo. Think online rap battles of the late 1990’s. The audience would then vote on which crew won. My crew almost always won! It was the life…until my crew fell apart!
After that, I stumbled into playing online games, specifically Spades in Yahoo. Later, I had an online kick with Scrabble. By then, I was old enough to get a job so I started using search engines to find jobs that matched my skills set, qualifications, desired salary, etc. When I discovered Craigslist years ago, I thought heaven had come to earth! I loved being able to track back the original posts to see who exactly was hiring. Then, I would approach the employer from a different angle as not to have my résumé piled in with the tons of other replies from Craigslist job hunters. I’d even research the company and present my résumé as the “perfect” fit. Then, there was Myspace, which I joined after it had already gathered a nice crowd. Disgusted with the pointless rants that often landed on my page and message box in Myspace, I quickly diverted to Facebook, where friends seemed more civilized, professional, and considerate. I didn’t have time or interest to join much more until this year (2009) when I joined Twitter, LinkedIn, Savor the Success, and a host of other sites specifically to brand my new business while building a network of friends and supporters. Of course, social media is also a nice way to attract clients, too!
Currently, I provide a variety of virtual services with emphasis on social media. I love to assist clients who, like me, love Jesus Christ and understand the value of authentic and organic relationship building. I also help Christian organizations develop strategic plans for social media and overall marketing. I firmly believe it is good practice to view social media as a part of an overall marketing plan rather than labeling social media as the sole marketing plan. My personal goal with each client is to make sure the client understands what they are doing, why it is important, and how to do it efficiently and effectively. While I offer some basic guidelines for every client, there is no one plan that fits all. And, I must say, I absolutely love what I do. You can learn more about social media and other services offered by my company here.
My Life Offline
Although I have a lot of posts here and there, I actually have a life outside of this box. I am a worshipper of Jesus Christ, and I pray and journal daily. I absolutely must spend time with Him each day so that I actually die to myself before self rises in me.
I’m a wife, daughter, sister, and friend. I’m a whole lot more but all else comes second to those roles. I currently reside in Houston, TX, where I fellowship with other believers at New Faith Church. I love volunteering; I currently serve as communications specialist for a Christian nonprofit, social media advisor for two authors, and an ESL tutor for a local literacy program. I recently committed to assist the youth pastor of my church. I’m excited about that!
Like I said, I love volunteering…but I also have to eat. I started The Servant Media this year after, by faith, leaving my corporate job of the past five years. Basically, I had a strong and undying urge to help Christian leaders advance and grow their ministries, churches, organizations, etc. I also wanted to share my testimony of how Christ really came into and changed my life when I learned to read by studying the Bible and using Christian literature. So, initially, my company would focus on helping others learn to read and write in a Christian environment. I had no clue that God would lead me to this area of social media and virtual services. Looking back, I can definitely see how He prepared me for such a time as this, especially when I consider my early and unintentional incidents with social media.
I earned a bachelor’s degree in communications from The University of Texas at Arlington. I minored in business administration and found that marketing was one of my favorite areas. In college, I learned so much about myself and how I respond others and how others respond to me. Mostly, I learned to never give up as it took me seven years to complete my degree. During the last stretch of classes, my husband and I lost one of our vehicles after a lady hit him while he was on his way to work one morning. He was fine, praise God! But determined to not incur any further debt, we opted to share one vehicle with two separate and awkward schedules. Many times, I found myself catching the bus and hiking a couple of miles to my night class after a long day’s work. When the sun wasn’t beaming 100+ degrees, the rain was coming down like no tomorrow. Needless to say, I was not the girl you wanted to sit next to in class. In the near future, I hope to go back to school to earn a master’s degree in instructional design for eLearning. This time around, I’m considering all online courses!
At my corporate job, I worked in a total of three different facilities during the 5-year total. In each facility, God placed a special annointing on me to have a supernatural ability to influence leaders. I have a very bold personality; I’m the least bit tactful. Thankfully, God even used those characteristics that the world would shun to bring glory to His Name. Initially, I would use my influence to benefit myself. I soon learned that this method would backfire on me. It wasn’t until I considered why God would bless me to be among leaders that I begin to see His true calling for me to share Him and His plans with these leaders. When I was a young girl, a Christian leader from my hometown told me that God had annointed me with a gift to interpret dreams and visions. I didn’t know to take that prophetic word literally. However, it is 100% true in its literal meaning. I have a supernatural ability to understand the dreams, visions, and missions of individuals and organizations. This ability to truly connect with the passion of others has been very instrumental in giving me access to the leaders that God has called me to serve. On that note, I should also mention that it is very clear that my influence has little to no appeal to the masses but rather those who do are influencing masses. It still totally bewilders me to think that God would use someone like me to speak to people who have such great influence to masses. By watching God work through the hearts’ of leaders for His glory, I experience the greatest joy on earth. Humbly, my focus in dealing with these leaders has completely changed from its initial mode of “what they could be doing for me” to “what they should be doing for Jesus.”
I love chocolate, reading, writing, and travelling. Well, I haven’t travelled much but I’d love to start! My favorite color is blue but I’m always wearing some version of brown. I recently (June 2009) cut my hair down to about an inch all over to start wearing my hair in its natural state. I had to cut out the chemicals. I’ll post updated pictures as we move along so you can see my new hair. I’m on a quest to serve others; that’s the way we serve Christ. I am mostly excited when God is speaking directly to me; you know when there is no way I can deny what He’s saying! I love Jesus because He first loved me. His death for me is motivation to let my light shine. I am fully convicted that Jesus is The (Only) Way, Truth, and Life; none of us can come to God, the Father, except through Him.
Questions? Comments? Email me anytime at info@monicalcoleman.com. The website, monicalcoleman.com, is coming soon! I’ll annouce it on this blog. You can subscribe here to make sure you receive my updated and new posts. I promise they won’t be nearing as long as this! For more details about what I’ll be sharing on this blog, check out the first post.
Serving You — Serving Jesus Christ,
