From the Garden to the City by John Dyer

From the Garden to the City by John Dyer

Believers and unbelievers alike are saturated with technology, yet most give it little if any thought. Consumers buy and upgrade as fast as they can, largely unaware of technology's subtle yet powerful influence. In a world where technology changes almost daily, many are left to wonder: Should Christians embrace all that is happening? Are there some technologies that we need to avoid? Does the Bible give us any guidance on how to use digital tools and social media?

An experienced Web developer and writer on technology and culture, John Dyer answers these questions and more by walking through the story of the Bible and introducing key ideas about how technology and culture interact. Dyer first analyzes the biblical, theological, and philosophical foundations of technology and then studies several examples that show how technology can influence the spiritual life. For youth pastors, college-aged readers, and anyone interested in understanding how technology fits with faith, From the Garden to the City fills a gap for biblically-informed literature in a technological world.

The burgeoning field of internet possibilities has very little written from a Christian perspective, much less from a gifted artist like John Dyer.--J. Scott Horrell, Professor of Theological Studies, Dallas Theological Seminary

Of all the voices speaking and writing on the subject today, John Dyer's is among the voices I most respect. His] unique combination of technological and theological passion, insight, and credentials make him an author and thought leader that people of faith need to hear from.--Scott McClellan, editor, Collide Magazine

John Dyer is president of the JD&A - Process Innovation Co. and has 32 years of experience in the field of improving processes. He started his career with General Electric and then worked for Ingersoll-Rand before starting his own consulting company.

John graduated in 1985 with an Electrical Engineer degree from Tennessee Tech University and by invitation joined General Electric's Manufacturing Management Program (a two year program to learn how to be an effective manager within GE that consisted of four, six month assignments in four different manufacturing functions). After graduating, he was assigned to the Major Appliance division as a Process Engineer and within a year was promoted to lead the Process Engineering organization. After showing an interest in a new initiative called continuous process improvement, John was asked to form the first dedicated team of engineers who were tasked with forming shop floor improvement teams.

The GE executives were impressed with the results of these initial teams and asked John to take on a special assignment to go out and benchmark other companies striving for improvement. He attended Stephen Covey's Principle Center Leadership, Brian Joiner's class focused on his Team Handbook and on multiple occasions, met with and attended training classes conducted by Dr. W. Edwards Deming.

John developed several training classes to pass along his findings to the GE executives. They asked him to take what he had learned and apply it to the Side by Side refrigeration plant. He became the leader of all of the technical functions within the plant and they implemented a new, team based organizational structure. This resulted in significant improvement in quality, throughput, and cost.

Ingersoll-Rand hired John away from GE in 1995 by offering to fully fund an international executive MBA provided through Purdue University and the University of Rouen in France. After achieving similar results by the use of improvement teams in several IR plants, John worked his way up to a Corporate Vice President role. The organization he led for four years at the corporate level was responsible for spreading lean and Six Sigma throughout the company on a global basis.

John left Ingersoll-Rand in 2005 to start up a new consulting company; JD&A, Inc. - Process Innovations. He has had the opportunity to work with a variety of organizations (both manufacturing and non-manufacturing) of various sizes to help them with their improvement efforts. For the past five years, he has been a Contributing Editor for IndustryWeek magazine and has written over 25 articles (several have been included in the list of top read articles for the year they were posted) as well as conducted workshops at three of the IW conferences and served as a judge in the past five IndustryWeek Best Plants annual competitions.

Outside of work, John has served in several leadership roles in his local church and served on the SE Board of Directors for AME (Association for Manufacturing Excellence). He has also partnered with Virginia Technology University to help provide Lean to city and state government agencies.

He can be reached through email at John_dyer@mi-connection.com and on Twitter at @JohnDyerPI.