The Golden Compass

I'm assuming most of you have heard of movie 'The Golden Compass' by now, since it has made the morning news, at least here in Kansas City. My thanks go to Phillip Pullman for giving me something to blog about. :)

I first heard about this movie through a chain e-mail referencing snopes.com. Earlier this week my wife saw the trailer on television and said, "Ooo. We have to go see that!" I messed up and in a knee jerk reaction said, "No, we're not." Doh! Yeah ... that doesn't work with my wife. So I get the look, we "discuss," and I try to explain how the writer is a devoted atheist who purportedly targets children in attempt to "kill God" in their minds. She argued that it was just a fantasy movie, and no worse than The Devinci Code, which we did watch. It's just a movie. Hmm. I still disagree on some levels, but she has a point in whether or not we go watch the movie.

So after this morning's newscast mentioning it, I was pushed to learn why an Archbishop would support the movie, which has been touted as "anti-Catholic." Williams even goes so far as to say the book should be taught in schools! I found this online article. Wow. What a world we live in where educators are trying to throw religion out of schools, and Archbishops are trying to get atheism in them.

Now, little of this seems to be hearsay, if you believe the sources and the source's sources. So why on earth would you condone and support a movie "watered down ... so as not to offend faithful moviegoers in the United Kingdom and United States" thats center is in an anti-religious theme written by a professed atheist whos purpose in life is to convince children that God is false?!?!? All for the sake of keeping an open mind? Wha ... bu ... huh?

Ultimately, no one is going to affect whether or not people go see the movie. For the first time though, I find myself with pretty strong convictions to boycott this movie. It is just a movie, but I can't rationalize away the guilt I'd feel by supporting it.

Why it's difficult for IT to love Apple

I've posted before regarding the difficulty we've faced when needing service, tech support, or parts for our Macs. With time and experience I think we're learning to cope better, but Apple's service still isn't remotely comparable to Dell's. We pay hundreds for AppleCare, yet it doesn't include on-site service like we get bundled at no extra charge with our Dells. This is definitely a reason it's hard for us to love Apple, but I think it's not the biggest reason.

Given that Apple is such a strong company in design, engineering, and innovation, why are my main emotions toward them disappointment, irritation, and frustration?

Earlier this week Robert Scoble gave a great answer to this question: Apple over-promises and under-delivers. In reality, I think Apple probably delivers as well or nearly as well as any top-tier computer company. The problem is that it promises so much more. The arrogance is what sticks in my craw. If they were to compete humbly, recognizing their shortcomings and working hard to overcome them, they would earn my respect and I'd be likely to cut them some slack. As it is, every time we have a Mac issue, I'm freshly irritated by Apple's consistent, brazen promise that their stuff never breaks. Thank you Scoble for articulating so well this nagging sense I've had for a long time. Now I know I'm not alone in that.

Why Church Tech Matters

Flash back to last Wednesday. I'm working on my workshop proposal for MinistryTECH and I think of a related blog conversation earlier this year. Jim Walton's blog, Church Tech Matters, was at the heart of that conversation (posts, comments, and links to other blogs). So I go to Church Tech Matters to refresh myself on the conversation and I find nothing but an error message where Jim's blog ought to be. No posts, no comments, no blog at all. Oh no! So I wait and keep hitting F5 on my browser hoping to see it all return so I can finish my little project. The error messages keep changing, which tells me that Jim must be aware of the issue and working to resolve it. Then I start seeing posts from Jim about what happened and what he and Mary are doing to restore everything. I feel bad for Jim, but mainly I just want the blog to be back! (How selfish is that?)

I couldn't finish my workshop proposal for Terrell because Jim's blog was down. Is this not a weird world in which we live? Thankfully, Jim and Mary have fully restored everything now so I can get back to my proposal and Terrell won't have to wait much longer. Thanks Jim for your tireless efforts to restore it because Church Tech Matters really does matter!

Why most conferences suck and why the CITRT doesn't

Dave Winer:  "... the problem with most conferences is that except for the people putting it on, we don't have enough to do."

Dave's job for the next conference he attends:  "My job is to help get a flow of interesting pictures from the community to appear on the big screen on stage ..."

This reminded me of our blog post aggregator we had running on the big screen at the RoundTable. Any blogger there could post and it would show up on the screen within 5 minutes or so.  We're ahead of everyone on this stuff, even Dave Winer.  Cool!

Personal retreat

I took a 24-hour personal retreat at Tall Oaks on Monday.  While there I read Ephesians and Colossians as part of a study I'm doing on ecclesiology in connection with preliminary work on Resurrection's Internet Campus. 

I planned the retreat for early November because it's typically near the peak of Fall color here in the Kansas City area.  Sure enough, the trees were spectacular and God provided an equally spectacular day for me to enjoy them.  The day was completely cloudless with temperature in the high 50s.  I shot nearly 90 pictures.  Here are a few of my favorites.

 

Andrew Conard also posted about a day he took at Tall Oaks a couple of days before me.  In his post he explains the origin of these one-day personal retreats for staff.

It's Arena

This afternoon our executive management unanimously approved my recommendation to go with Shelby Arena as our new church management system. Here are some of the high-level features and benefits that attracted us to Arena as compared to Shelby V5 that we're running now:

• Web-based – access from anywhere with improved usability
  
• Greatly improved management reporting
• Improved congregant connection and re-connection process
• Improved management of confidential notes about people
• Improved management of prayer requests
• Integrated event registration
• Integrated small group management
• Integrated mapping of households
• On-line giving

At the end of the day, our decision was strongly influenced by Arena's .NET platform, the ability to get the source code and create our own extensions and modifications, and the Arena Community. Though it's still based on commercial, for-profit technology, the Arena Community represents a very promising first step toward the open ChMS marketplace I spoke about last year. Although there are many ways the Community can get off track and ultimately fail to reach its potential, the opportunity to get involved in this is just too compelling to ignore.

Alfred, it's going to be an adventure. Let's hope to have some fun along the way too, if that's not too much to ask. ;-)

ChMS selection coming to a close

This afternoon I meet with Resurrection's executive management team to present my recommendation for our next church management system (ChMS). I've already spoken with the vendors regarding my choice. As soon as it's official this afternoon, I'll post about the decision.

Until then, let me just say that ChMS suppliers truly are our partners in ministry. They care passionately about the local church and its role in the Kingdom of God. We couldn't do ministry without them. At the beginning of this I knew that I would be making one of them happy and disappointing everyone else. To their credit, all of those we didn't pick have been extraordinarily gracious.

The most surprising thing I've learned through this process is how other churches our size, churches that are thriving and making an impact in the community and world, churches that I respect with IT staffs I respect, can use very well planned and well executed selection processes and end up making different choices of ChMS. When we IT directors discuss this subject privately, it seems we all pretty much agree with each other's analysis, yet our conclusions are different. I believe that's partly because we have different selection criteria or place different priorities on the various criteria. For myself, I think this is good news for the ChMS marketplace and for the Kingdom. It's quite valuable for us to have multiple healthy competitors, each with its own strengths.

If you're in the process of selecting a ChMS, don't copy our selection. Rather, I would strongly encourage you to use a very rigorous selection process so that you can proceed confidently with your implementation. If you get the selection process right, then you will make the right decision. Simple as that. If it would help you, we're happy to share documents or any other aspects of our selection process with anyone who requests them.

PC shipments are down in Japan

According to MSNBC, PC sales are declining in Japan due to consumers preferring handheld devices and other electronics. If the trend continues and spreads beyond Japan, we will look back on this as a sea change. How well does your church website work on a smartphone/PDA?

Everyone is talking about OpenSocial

I hate being so busy that I don't have time to read everything being said about OpenSocial, much less comment on it. Check out:

Jim Walton - OpenSocial - A Facebook Killer?
Cynthia Ware - OpenSocial Challenges Facebook’s Platform
Joe Suh - More Interoperability in Social Networking
Dave Winer - Why Google launched OpenSocial

All of this relates to my prior comments about interoperability among social networking systems.

If OpenSocial is actually implemented by all of the sites that announced support, it will be a way for churches to reach people through multiple sites in a single application. That would be very significant.

25th anniversary

My 25th wedding anniversary is next summer, so Laura and I have been giving some thought to how we should celebrate. She loves tropical places and I love the mountains. The big island of Hawaii comes to mind as a place that would fit both of those. ;-)

Image my dismay when Laura came to me and said she thought we should celebrate our anniversary by going to Africa on a mission trip. Somehow, that seemed less romantic than ... well less romantic than almost anything. She said she had been feeling a pull to go to Africa for a couple of years. She is in regular e-mail correspondence with a couple of pastors of rural churches in Tanzania and Kenya. And of course we have Bill Hybels and Bono to thank for reminding us of Africa's AIDS crisis at least once a year! Before I knew it, Laura was putting down a deposit, gathering our passports, and making appointments to get immunizations.

Cape Town here we come

Yes, we're going to Cape Town, South Africa in January to learn about apartheid, visit AIDS clinics and orphanages, and meet people on the front lines of mission work there. We will be going with a group of professors, students, and alumni of Laura's seminary, Saint Paul School of Theology. Oh yeah, I have to enroll in the associated "immersion course" and pay the tuition too (but all I'll have to show for it is a couple of CEUs).

My arm is still sore from the Hep. A immunization I got last week. This is fun already!

Workplace profanity boosts morale

TechRepublic points us to a British study which concluded that workplace profanity can boost morale. Huh? For me, a completely profanity-free workplace is a huge benefit of working on a church staff, although we do allow the occasional minced oath for comic effect. ;-) We even sang a song in staff chapel with the word "freaking" in the lyrics (Words to Build a Life On from Jacob's Well here in Kansas City).

Foldera

Has anyone out there checked out Foldera? Does this technology address in any way Tony's series of posts about document management? For this to be useful, would it have to be integrated with Google Docs and Gmail?

Chuck Russell interview

Earlier this week Matt Carlisle of Big Heart Design did a phone interview with Chuck Russell, Resurrection's Director of Internet Communications, and edited it into a podcast. If you want to know more of the thinking behind our recent website redesign, you'll find this 41-minute podcast fascinating.

Viral stewardship campaign

Resurrection is in the middle of the annual campaign to get pledges for the next year's operating fund. I've personally been involved in a lot of data analysis and list generation for the different segments in our target. Since I have fund raising on the brain right now, Katya Andresen's post yesterday about convincing people to support your cause (church) caught my eye. She said:

Since nice is not enough, you’ve got to answer all of these for your supporters:

1. Why me? Why should people care about you, and how are you revelant [sic] to their lives, their values, their priorities?
2. What for? What do they personally get out of supporting you and what social good will result?
3. Why now? What’s so urgent about your appeal? Why should people act now?
4. Who says? How credible is the messenger? Who thinks this is worthwhile?

Her point #4 sparked a thought. I wonder if there is a way to get the lead donors of the congregation involved in encouraging others to give. Could we come up with some kind of viral campaign so that the message is coming from fellow congregants rather than the senior pastor and staff? Hmmm ...

Trip report

Monday through Wednesday this week the senior staff of Resurrection took a bus trip to visit Willow Creek and Granger. Andrew Conard, one of our pastors, blogged the trip well. He began with a post about the Willow Creek visit, then a post about the Granger visit, and finally a post explaining the purpose of the trip and some questions we considered after visiting Willow Creek and Granger. Adam Hamilton, our senior pastor, also talked about the trip in his weekly e-mail to the congregation.

It was great to see Jason Powell on Tuesday, even though we only had 90 minutes together. He seemed a bit stressed and was last seen mumbling to himself about budgets! At Resurrection our first draft budget for 2008 is due next Friday, November 2, so I can relate. Later we had a tour of Granger's facilities. Jason and Ed were no where to be found, but I did meet Kyle Sagarsee, their new desktop guy. He was prepping a bunch of Optiplex 745 boxes loaded with Vista. I think it's a bit brave to run Vista at this point, but Kyle seemed happy with it in spite of the fact that he has no way to image the drives so he has to build them one-by-one. Eeek!

The highlight of the whole trip for me was the Q&A with Bill Hybels. I'm always intrigued, challenged, and inspired by Bill's ideas. This time was no exception even though he had nothing prepared and just responded to our questions.

I appreciated the extensive time on the bus to talk with fellow senior staff people in groups of 2-3. Normally on our retreats we have a lot of agenda to cover. This time we had a total of 23 hours on the bus and only 3-4 hours of it were scheduled activities. That was nice.

I have had more extensive and in-depth tours of Willow Creek and Granger in the past, so I didn't learn much of anything new, but discussing a church site visit with all of the senior staff was a special experience that sparked a lot of strategic conversation. I hope we do it again and I would recommend it to other churches. It would be great to return the generous hospitality we received at Willow Creek and Granger to other churches on a similar trip.

13 questions

Some time ago I stumbled across TechRepublic's 13 questions to help you evaluate how you're doing as an IT manager. It's challenging and helpful for me to review every month or two. Here they are:

1. Technology changes everyday. Can you list three examples of things you’re doing to keep your technical knowledge current?
2. Your boss has a family emergency that’s going to keep him or her out of the office for a week. Your boss can call only one person to keep things running until he or she returns. Are you the one who gets that phone call? If so, why? If not, why not?
3. What specific steps have you taken over the past six months to either increase the performance of the bottom 20 percent of your staff or to move them to positions where they can be successful?
4. When was the last time you talked with the account reps for your three largest vendors?
5. What specific steps have you taken over the past six months to keep your star performers on board and motivated?
6. If your group services internal clients, what do they think of the work your department is doing? Are you guessing or have you actually asked them in the last 30 days?
7. If you suddenly get sick, do you have a subordinate you could trust to keep things moving until you get back?
8. When was the last time you checked on the financial stability of the outsourcing firms you use?
9. Do you know which of your department’s projects is furthest behind schedule? Do you know why?
10. Consider your direct reports. Does each of them know what your top three priorities are for them?
11. Consider your boss. When was the last time he or she asked you to take over a special project? If it’s been more than six months, why do you think that is?
12. Can you list three things you’re doing to help HR with recruitment or retention?
13. Personal networking is important for you and your organization. What professional associations do you belong to, and how active are you in them?

Final two RoundTable posts

I waited a few weeks to see if anyone else would post more about the RoundTable. Just two more have appeared. I'm linking them here so I have all of them in one place. (I still have a huge smile on my face from the event. Thanks everyone, it was really, really cool!)

Tony Dye:
http://tonydye.typepad.com/main/2007/10/fall-citrt-pers.html
http://tonydye.typepad.com/main/2007/10/roundtable-phot.html

Rolling hotspot

I'm with the senior staff of Resurrection on a bus trip to visit Willow Creek and Granger. My phone has EVDO and will work as a modem. But being the geek that I am, I just had to give my fellow staff way for them to also have Internet access during the 9-hour bus rides there and back. Fortunately, I have an EVDO-WiFi router I bought for my wife's church a few months ago.


The only thing I needed was a source of AC power. I called the bus company to inquire. No, they didn't have any outlets on the bus. Fortunately again, a few years ago I bought a 600 watt inverter that would do the trick. But then I worried about whether the driver would want to use the cigarette lighter outlet for his cell phone, GPS, or whatnot. Just to be safe, I bought a cigarette lighter Y adapter providing one socket for me and one for him!


Guess what? It worked! Here's my laptop browsing your favorite blog!


Here's my boss, Brent (right) being goofy while Andrew Conard blogs using his Mac.


Molly enjoying the WiFi:


I should also mention that Ian helped troubleshoot a problem this morning by connecting to Dave's RDP session. It was Ian's first help desk call to a moving bus!


One problem, though. I found out that a WiFi router uses quite a bit of power. When I added one laptop to the 600 watt inverter it was okay. When I plugged in a second laptop, the inverter screamed at me and shut down the router. So we have enough power for the router and one laptop. Everyone else needs to run off of battery!

Digital Ethnography

Tonight I'm thinking a lot about Kansas State University's "Digital Ethnography" program and the light it sheds on our Internet Campus strategy. If you haven't see them, check out these videos:

• Information R/evolution
• The Machine is Us/ing Us
• A Vision of Students Today

Church Community Builder responds

Chris Fowler, president of Church Community Builder, responded to my concerns this evening as follows:

I wanted to let you know that after speaking with multiple people yesterday and today about this issue, I heard lots of differing opinions - some saying we were doing smart optimizations, other saying some of what we intended to be optimization for search engines could be considered "borderline". After praying about it and getting that counsel, what I decided to do was to be "above reproach". I appreciate the fact that you were willing to communicate with me through these channels one on one. Thank you for being "iron sharpening iron". Changes have already been made at this point for the home page, but we will also be making changes to the footer over the next 24 hours or so on the non-home pages.