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These guys kick out websites like new media matters
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Fellowship One.
At Sanctuary, we’ve recently signed on with Fellowship One. Fellowship One is an online Church Management System that has helps you do the “work” of the church, so you can focus on the ministry of the church.
Today was a big day for us to dive in to what Fellowship One has to offer. I think I speak for the rest of our staff when I say that I was refreshed, relieved and excited as we began moving ahead with Fellowship One today. Their implementation plan is what has sold me on the product.
Basically, they take the first 5 months to make sure we get it. Not just get it, but live it. They learn and listen to who we are. Then, they customize the software to meet our needs. And they hand hold us in the process to make sure we’re ready to be on our own at the point of church ownership. The point when we’re comfortable enough to take off the training wheels and ride away from mom and dad on our own.
Of course, these are early accolades, but compared to our last system, I feel like we’re taking a giant step towards clarity and ease of use. Now it’s just up to us to really use it…
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Hyper-Blogging: Loud Message + Deaf Ears = No Communication
I’ve previously let the air out on twitter about how much I dislike hyper-blogging. Hyper-blogging is forced blogging. When you blog often with little new to say. When you keep bombarding with messages, until no one can hear them anymore.
Hyper-blogging is rampant. One of my favorite marketing minds, whom I look to for wisdom, puts up new posts, sometimes twice daily. Why? He doesn’t have an overwhelming amount of new ideas. Rather, it’s the same basic principles tweaked in new ways. I can get excited about this for a few weeks, but it quickly fades. The over-stimulation of even having to clear my RSS reader every day is annoying.
I think there’s a point at which you need to stop the bombardment of messages. If you’re blogging daily, or for those of you who are blogging multiple times daily, you need to know something:
You don’t have as much to say as you think you do. You’re message is like a fine cocktail. Putting it out there too often is like diluting it with water: It’s losing it’s flavor…and effectiveness.
This graph below is just for me, by me, based on my own personal tastes of the bloggers I love to read. No matter how much I love your content, I’m not going to devote all my time to it. I’ve got other things going on in life. I think you need to find your sweet spot.
Share your message less often, and strive for higher impact.
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A Few Ways Twitter has been useful…
Twitter.com is not just fluff. There’s a fair share of “Making a sandwich” and “drinking my seventh Starbucks,” there’s also a lot of useful ways to use Twitter.
A few ways i’ve seen Twitter be a useful little web app.
- Comcastcares – Comcast has a person on twitter who scans twitter for complaints about Comcast. I’ve done my fair share in the last 3 months. Comcastcares actually responds, and apparently is a customer service big wig who can make things happen and get problems resolved. This is a great customer service tool, even if you’re usually pissed with the service by the time you make a post on twitter (tweets as us nerds call them)
- I put up a post on twitter about how I love getting food from our CSA share (community supported agriculture – we own a share with some friends and get a bag of veggies straight from the farm each week). One of my twitter friends was interested but had never been able to get connected to a farm before. I was able to quickly pass on info to her and hopefully she’ll be supporting a local farmer soon too.
- A while back I posted on twitter that I was working on some new web strategy ideas. A twitter friend, and well respected authority on the issue, responded that she would review my strategy docs and give feedback. It was very helpful in framing this new project.
- Had a friend who needed a recipe for chicken breasts. Hit reply, great dinner.
- Book suggestions
- Music suggestions
- Software suggestions
- Idea sharing
- Link sharing
- Useful work-related connections
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Grab up – Amazing Screen Shot Software
I saw this software over at The Apple Blog.
Grab up is a Screen Shot software that allows you to take a screenshot, upload it to the grab up server and get a url within a matter of 3 seconds. I love this.
Here’s my first screenshot as I was working on a refresh of the logo for our Youth Ministry:
This is incredible. I will start using this for customer proofs right away…I can’t believe how simple it is.
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Content isn't enough for me. I want to see your personality through design.
I don’t know about you, but viewing blogs in a newsreader is ok, but I at least try to be a designer so I need a little more.
I use the built-in newsreader in Safari. I primarily use it to so if there is anything interesting to read…if so, I actually click in. Reading all content through the lens of the same basic RSS page isn’t enough. Design lends itself to the character, personality and style of the individual. So when I read your blog through the backdrop of an RSS page or the backdrop of your flower page or your clutter free page or your web 2.0 page…it makes a difference in how the content affects me.
Don’t be satisfied by bloglines, google reader, rss bandit or the rest. Taste your content with a little extra flavor. It makes a difference.
All that to say, in May, before I leave for France at the end of the month, I will be moving to a new domain, new design, and hopefully leave you with a new way to frame the content you see here.
I’ll let you know when the big launch will be…big to me at least. or fun I should say…
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AMP
Today, I got rid of Joost and downloaded Adobe Media Player, realeased today…
(AMP).
It’s cleaner looking and cleaner in the sense that there isn’t all the smut that Joost has.
I think Adobe is going to do well with this product. It’s on par with adobe’s other apps. Nice GUI, simple, and modern. As long as they continue to grab good content, they’ll do a good job in the market.
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Church Relevance – List of top 80 Church Websites
Church Relevance has a nice list of church websites…makes me excited for the refresh we’ll soon be knee deep in at the Sanctuary…
Below you will find Church Relevance’s favorite church websites. Chosen for design, usability, and innovative ideas, we hope that these websites will also inspire you.
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Design and the Elastic Mind
This is a truly brilliant interface design. It’s so effective and representative for the content it displays.
Design and the Elastic Mind is an interactive exhibit through MOMA (Museum of Modern Art).
The exhibition highlights designers’ ability to grasp momentous changes in technology, science, and history—changes that demand or reflect major adjustments in human behavior—and translate them into objects that people can actually understand and use. This Web site presents over three hundred of these works, including fifty projects that are not featured in the gallery exhibition.
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2008 – Get ready, or eat Sanctuary's dust.
Things that are happening at Sanctuary this year:
- We launched Love Minneapolis. A place for people to “just show up and serve.” There’s been two events and already we’re extending far beyond our doors.
- We have a series of Amazing Hip Hop Sunday’s featuring the 3 of the hottest acts in Hip Hop. Starting this weekend with The Ambassador also of Cross Movement. This guy is amazing. The real deal. Not “Christian Hip Hop,” but Hip Hop that’s Christian. We can’t advertise it, because we already know that there won’t be any open seats unless the temps drop below 0 again. Soon to come Phil Jackson and his crew from Tha House. Urban D and others from Crossover Church (#21).
- We’re adding another service. We’ve been maxed at 1000 for a long time. It’s time to open the doors a little earlier. I’m betting we’ll double in size this year.
- Efrem will be speaking somewhere that might shine a bit of a spotlight on what we’re doing.
- We’re tightening the belt. We’re moving to a new office. We’ll start a capitol campaign for our first semi-permanent facility.
- IT. IT. IT. First ever server (OS X of course).
- Updating our database.
- Bringing giving online
- Bringing event registration online.
- Helping design our video structure and bringing streaming video online.
- Finding better communicators than me to be on my team.
- Finding more talented designers than me to help polish the rough spots.
- Moving towards a multi-nodal staffing structure in the areas of IT and Communications in one grandios place called the Communications Technology Department.
- Moving our website to Media Temple with imap mail (yeah! offsite and still imap with our domain name!)
- Moving to a new domain…you’ll see…hopefully this is smooth.
- A refresh
- Taking my DAWG day every month to remember why I do what I do (Day Alone With God).
