Tech for the Local Church
Design
Interface Transformation: Things to Come “As the Ruin Falls”?
Oct 23rd
What will we call them when portable computers aren’t really meant to be “laptop-centric” anymore (as in that point in the near-future we can call ‘a week ago, last Thursday’ — last February, actually)? That “when” has already arrived, of course, but the ‘future-then’ was just a hint at the reality of the ‘future-now’.
Several of the particulars covered in our first podcast went well beyond my personal experience and technical expertise, but they were all things I’m glad I learned more about. Actually, the subject of “bringing your tech-friend to church” was especially interesting to me, in part because it’s a geek-factor game for me to guess what tech might be like in in the future-soon.
Now, here comes engadget.com with their usual, ahead-of-the-competition, insider-esque reveal of a game-changing development in the hardware we’ll be using to make precious little bits (and bytes) rain down on us from our connection(s) to The Cloud.
Up Next: No Screens is Good Screens. The story goes like this …
Printing a Building: the Future of Construction is Now-ish
Oct 20th
It is now possible to “print a house.” Not a picture of a house. Not a scale model plan for a house. While the input of construction design ideas has almost completely moved into the digital world, the output of some of these designs can increasingly go straight to actual materials. Software in. Concrete “Hard-ware” out. From clicks to bricks. For at least the last five years or so, the technology of building construction has been veering off on a skew line from the contemporary fashions of glass and stone and steel, and, in the process, may be offering the church a path to loving our neighbors as ourselves in a most remarkable way, esp. those neighbors who are “the least of these brothers of ours.” This technology may literally put new, affordable, secure, easily-built housing at our fingertips– with the click of a mouse button. Here are just a few links to demonstrate and confirm the concept:
Free Church Graphics and Priceless Inspiration
Oct 20th
creativemyk.com
What it is:
- Free Christian graphics for download, shared by artists around the world.
- Networking with Christian artists through critique or discussion.
I hate to call myself a graphic designer, because that title often conjures up visions of wildly artistic savants that live their lives effortlessly spilling creativity at every turn. Well, that’s not me. And maybe that’s not you. I need inspiration to riff off (not rip off!) of and punch up my work. If you relate to creativity-crushing deadlines, or the dull droll of mundane work week after week, you are like me – you need inspiration to get your graphic design work done. Creativemyk.com has a bunch of artists who show off their work – great for inspiration, and other GIVE AWAY their work. If you are using it for personal use, you can download it.
WARNING: Do check out their Terms of Service … it is – ahem – thorough. I prefer a less-litigious approach, but it’s great to see engaged users! Bookmark this site, add some great slides to your presentation this Sunday, or just get inspired to create. I really do believe imitation is the highest form of flattery!
Source for image: “faith hebrews 11″ by: Rich Aguilar
MediaShout 3.*, Part II: Puppy Dog Tears, Free-Floating Fears & a Couple of Reluctant Jeers
Oct 18th
There are MUCH bigger problems in the world than my troubles with MediaShout 3.5 (and the original version we started with), but there are ongoing problems with this program we paid good cash money for, so I’m cataloging my issues here. The troubles fall together in two categories: Glitch-Bugs and Interface-Fails.
In this post, I’m going to address the glitch-bugs which plagued us in the original version we bought.
Next time, I’ll look at what seem to me like glaring user-unfriendliness issues with text and layout formatting controls and defaults.
I am very happy to say, though, that very gracious contacts have been made by someone at mediashout by way of Twitter, and there is a good possibility that we’ll have a podcast interview with a company rep very soon. I hope to find out that it’s all a misunderstanding on my part. And if it is, I’ll spend at least twice as much time writing up heartfelt cheers for all the ways it works well and and sincere apologies for how wrong I was all along. I hope that’s exactly what happens.
In the meantime, I ain’t a hater, but …
MediaShout 3.*: How Do I Hate Thee? I Begin to Count the Ways …
Oct 16th
I honestly — sincerely — do not intend to be provocative or be seen as hostile with this title line or the content of this whole post, but, also, I wouldn’t write it if I didn’t mean it. I’m not trying to make anyone mad, hurt anyone’s feelings or cost anyone a job, but I am writing this because good money was spent in good faith, and the program’s performance was and is extremely poor. The simple fact is: it is NOT stable. It is so unstable, in fact, that it’s almost unusable, and I wish I didn’t have to use it at all.
And that’s a REAL problem, because, at our church, we had and have very little money to spend on this part of our service-support equipment, and we spent it in good faith on Media Shout 3.[something]. We don’t have money to buy anything else right now, and we definitely won’t consider upgrading to a 4th generation version of the program since what we have has been so problem-ridden.
We needed it to work, and we needed it to be user-friendly for volunteers of varying computer-skill levels, and we needed it to solve problems and increase our effectiveness. We expected it to have some basic, common functions which have been standardized in word-processing and graphic presentation software for years. Unfortunately, it has never measured up to these needs and expectations.
Let me be sure to clarify that any and all comments here are ONLY my opinions based on my actual experiences, and they only apply to our registered copy of the 3rd generation — both the one that we bought and the version 3.5+ which was downloaded as an authorized upgrade after the morning services on Sunday, October 3rd, 2010. I can hope that our copy (and subsequent upgrade) was somehow incorrect, damaged or corrupted, but I don’t make that assumption.
Agapage: Good Call!
Oct 9th
Ladies and Gentlemen, we give you Mr. Jared Folkins (and friends), mastermind behind an ingenious example of elegant solution-ware™ called Agapage.
It’s possible to feel the love just from the name alone (esp. by you Greek-freaks out there– you know who you are), but it gets even better when finding out what it means and does.
caveat lector: when you see it for the first time, please take my recommendation to tightly hold a large nerf-ball (or similar soft object) behind your back with both hands. This safety measure may prevent a serious injury when the immediate reaction is to perform a rocket-force, mark-leaving, mild-concussion-inducing, ‘coulda-had-a-V8′-on-steroids face-palm. The kind that says, “Why didn’t I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I think of that?!” White-knuckle that nerf. The forehead you save will probably be your own.
Why the risk of this kind of quasi-self-aggressive response? It’s simple. It works. It helps.
It can also save a truckload of money (literally) for churches currently using or planning to offer a ‘parent-contact’ system to attenders.
Choosing a Web Designer
Aug 27th
Who do you trust? Who is the expert? How do you know if a web designer is worth his weight in salt?
FULL DISCLOSURE: I am a web designer. My policy is to give away information and sell a service. Early in the process with clients, I go through a “discovery” phase – finding out where they stand with their site, then I take them through a teaching phase- so that the decisions that follow are informed. This is when I often find that the clients have had a bad run with their last “webmaster” (I use that term lightly). Hindsight is 20/20 and this is a particularly hard lesson when a bad website is publicly displaying your decisions… for better or worse.
Here are a few questions you might ask to ensure your decision to hire a company or individual is a good one: More >
ChurchMediaDesign.TV
Nov 19th
ChurchMediaDesign.tv is a great site to learn more on how to use and create media for church.
Their newest episode #89 featured a documentary that Hillsong Television made about “Church News”. Church News is a 3-minute segment in their weekend services where announcements are made or ads as they call them. There area a lot of good tips on filming and producing video elements in this show along with the resources, technology, and programs they used to produce this seqment of their weekend services.
It’s worth checking out! www.churchmediadesign.tv
Attractive and Compelling Design
Nov 12th
Following my post a couple days ago on Going Where the People Are, I wanted to say that going where the people are isn’t enough, nor is content alone enough.
You need to be attractive and compelling. That’s why CSS and layout is important. Don’t worry you don’t have to really understand CSS, but think of it as code that organizes content in attractive and compelling ways. In lamen terms it is code that personalizes the layout and background to websites or social networking platforms.
IT SETS YOU APART
One of the best facebook examples that I have seen is Soul City Church’s fan site.
Yes, the photo to the left is a photo of their facebook fan site, not there website or blog.
Very attractive and compelling. It sets them apart from all the other churches on facebook. You can see more unique facebook fan pages at facebookdesigns.org.
THE ADVERSE EFFECT
The adverse effect of going from attractive and compelling look to a less than compelling layout is JesusCreed.org that has moved to belief.net. Even though Scott McKnight is brilliant, his content off the charts, the layout that belief.net has moved him to is distracting to say the least. It’s actually difficult from me to read his content now because of the poor and distracting layout.
Check them out below and let me know which one is more attractive and compelling?
The old JesusCreed.org look…
The new…
Guru’s Tutorial…
Oct 15th
One of the most creative designers I’ve crossed paths with is Barton Damer (Alreadybeenchewed.net)
At Guru’s conference Barton did some fabulous tutorials that are now online.
Here is a tutorial he did at the Echo conference…
BartonDamer-Tutorial 1 from Echo Conference on Vimeo.
Free Website Giveaway!
Mar 14th
Is your church website ugly? Need a new one?
Tony Morgan and Collide Media are giving a free website overhaul (valued at $1499) to whom ever has the ugliest website and the most interesting story.
Click here and register to win!
Antistatic | Free eBook
Nov 24th
My new friend, Mark Wells, at Antistatic Design is offering a free eBook he wrote.
He poses the question… “What Sets You Apart from the Static?”
If you need graphics or branding for your church check Antistatic Design out.
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