In the March edition of FastCompany (whose print edition is the rare publication to which I still hold a snail mail subscription), they profiled The World’s Most Innovative Companies.  In naming Facebook as #1, they offered an extensive profile of the attitudes of both the company as well as their young founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg.

At Facebook, they are “keenly aware of the importance of rapid deployment and iteration, even as the company has become too big for staffers to shout updates to one another across the room. At the heart of the process is the notion of “hacking,” which is not about breaking and entering: “It’s about being unafraid to break things in order to make them better.” It is a mix of arrogance and curiosity. “The root of the hacker mind-set is ‘There’s a better way.’  Just because people have been doing it the same way since the beginning of time, I’m going to make it better.’”

“Determined to keep that mind-set alive as the company grows, Facebook has raised the all-nighter to an art form. ‘Hackathons,’ which started when the site was just a handful of friends around a dining table, are now all-hands meetings held every other month or so. Any project, any idea is on the table. If you can find some friends to work on it with you, go for it. The company provides food, music, and beer. It sounds like so much code-boy BS, except that most everyone shows up, even the lawyers…”‘

I’d love to have deeper richer conversations …about confirmation – especially parents and sponsors …about adults in ministry in general and training and how the Catholic identity question rests completely with the previous generation, not the next …about if we are truly living up to the framework of Catholic Youth Ministry as proposed over a decade ago …about vocations …about adolescent catechesis …about social networking like Facebook and its impact on our ministry …about??? 

What about Catholic Youth Ministry should we be unafraid to break things in order to make them better?