Bittersweet Road

The "road" we have journeyed down, has landed us literally just off Bittersweet Road.

After several years of having the opportunity to serve on staff here at Granger Community Church, this week also marks a bittersweet moment. I have had a great time, met great people, been exposed to great leadership and served a great God. When he moves, he generally moves pretty quick (think band-aid) and he's definitely on the move in the lives in our family.

We will be relocating to the Northern part of Indianapolis, IN over the next few months and launching business there with some great partners early 2007. As we ramp up for our operations there, I will be doing some IT Consulting and business development activities.

Please note that my new contact information is andy.hosier{at}gmail.com.

Countless thank you's to the GCC staff and volunteer team, our beloved friends and teammates and all of the great relationships that have developed over the last several years. We look forward to your continued prayers and encouragement as we chase the dreams He has placed in our hearts.

Writing the next chapter,

Andy Hosier

Godcasting and Granger

WSBT, a local news station, just released a story featuring Granger Community Church and the work of our technology teams to broadcast information over the web.

The key initiatives over the web include our podcast, video broadcast of last weeks service, and the Simply Strategic Show by Tim Stevens & Tony Morgan.

COUPON : FREE HUG

Have you heard about the Free Hug Campaign?

Well, I know two things about the Free Hug Campaign...

#1 - Tony Morgan is probably not going to be holding a sign anytime soon

#2 - The idea of writing this post without giving you the video from YouTube.com sounds corny. But, I think you will see the impact of this campaign if you hit play below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vr3x_RRJdd4

The verdict is in...

Well, the Dr.'s are 99% sure it is anyway.

Now we need to formulate a name... post a comment if you have any recommendations :)

Scrubs & Such

Today, My best friends (my beautiful wife Mandy and our daughter Lauren) are off to the doctors office...

Have NO FEAR, if you haven't heard, we are expecting Baby # 2 next March and today we find out if this go around is a boy or girl.

When Lauren was born, we held out to the very end, not knowing if we were going to have a son or daughter until she was born. During this pregnancy, Mandy has been very persistent about finding out early, so thanks to some great friends (the Elgo's), we have a game plan to make the announcement memorable.

What about you, did you find out or wait for the surprise?

Go and change the world (for Non-Profits)

ChangeThis.com recently posted a new round of Manifesto's includes a great article titled "Change the world of Not-for-profits."

One powerful statement they make is that if we change the way we TALK, it changes the way we THINK and ACT.

Here is a snapshot of their recommended changes:

Old Words -> New Words
Not-for-Profit -> For Impact
Charity -> Cause
Survival -> Vision
On the board -> On board
Donor (Donation) -> Investor (Investment)
Ask for Money -> Present the Opportunity

It is a great read!

Some other manifestos that I have enjoyed are: Web 2.0 Strategies for Business Leaders, Going for the go point, Get out of the technology hex, the Bootstrappers Bible, and Guy Kawasaki's The Art of the Start.

IT Roundtable - WiFi, Content Filtering, Training

Content Filtering
Indian & Dan's Guardian Content Filters
8e6 - mobile content resource
Safeeyes
Burst Technologies

WiFi
WiFi @ GCC is by Proxim, both access points and wireless adapters.
Don't try bookstore manager on wireless

Training
Tony - Training is enormous @ Perimeter - training is 1/2 day Outlook and several Shelby trining classes.

IT Roundtable - Multi-site, outsourcing, desktop management

5 multi-site churches represented

Discussion of tech landscapes
VPN w/ SonicWall
T1 connection for locations
Verizon Wireless cards
Terminal Services for some CMS tools
Wireless Point to Point for phone & data (domain members)

Outsourcing
(Tony Dye) - struggled with outsourcing / contracts but seeing success with John.
(David) - utilizes 2 individuals in key spots. Has hesitant to bring roles in house because of their response & success

Desktop Management
Ghost was a great tool for Clif, but has limits now at 200+ machines. How to manage patches?
Group Policy + System Management Server
Desktop streaming from a server (Ardence)
ScriptLogic

IT Roundtable - Support

Discussion Points:

Support Discussion
Phone Support ?
Help Desk Method ?
Training Certs ?

Mentioned Resources:

Software: Kalmstrom, Track-it

Books: Time management for sys administrators

Service Level Agreement Examples
Clif Guy
- Normal Response = 7 days
- Urgent = 24 hours
- User down = 4 hours
- All users down = all hands on deck immediately

IT Roundtable - Topics

Discussion topics identified during the roundtable include:

Desktop Management
Standardization
Policies & Procedures
How to leverage volunteers in Technology
Telephone VoIP systems
Network Monitoring
Vendor Management
Mac Support
Workflow Automation / Processing
Content Filtering
Inventory Management
Web Stuff
Internal Staff Communications
How to define top priorities
WiFi best practices
Multi-Site ? ?
Outsourcing
A/V Equipment + Copiers
Guest / Volunteer access
SSL + VPN
Who gets what = laptop, desktop, etc.
STORAGE
Virus / Spyware
How to manage mobile devices?
End User policies
Streaming
Sarbanes Oxley

Social Networking and church?

Yep, you read it right. I said the "s" word (which in some areas is associated with foul language).

I am even referring to Myspace (the teenie-bopper / garage-band hangout) and Facebook (founders of the school / community type yearbook).

Guts Church (from Tulsa, OK) uses their social networking accounts to market or promote their Sub30 college aged ministry. Specifically, they have an upcoming Fight Night event that they are creatively using MySpace to draw attention to it.

Via : Church Relevance

Bag O Tricks

Ok, I am working on a couple things at the moment, and identified there are some tools for busy people that are critical.

These are the tech tools that help make my life great:

• Vonage - VoIP home phone system and web browser voicemail system.
• Airset - Shared calendar with my wife & friends, also syncs with outlook
• Plaxo - Allows me to not send out any more of the annoying "my address has changed" emails
• LinkedIn - Just plain sweet!
• Blogger or Wordpress - Blogs, journals, etc.
• Dell Axim - JP You rock! This is handy!
• OneNote from Microsoft - Thanks Kem, Tony, and Mark for the nudge (I'm hooked)
• Bloglines - ROCKS!
• Gmail - for my personal stuff (andy.hosier{at}gmail.com)
• iPod / iTunes - So I can listen to Dave Ramsey & the Simply Strategic Show.
  
• Central Desktop - project management & tasks
• Google - enough said...
• Comcast - high speed surfing from my couch :)
• Firefox - Three words - Secure Tabbed Browsing
• FellowshipOne - The best church management system I have ever seen!
• Online banking - no link (security) but it saves me a ton of time.

What would you add to the list of technology advancements that make your life great?

1,000 Words or more

Ok, it has been said that "a picture is worth a thousand words".

In the volatile landscape of software and new technology developments, Dion Hinchcliffe is a name you should know because he can help difficult concepts seem easy.

My case in point is the diagram below defining the changing shape of technology solutions in a Web 2.0 world.

Its not what you think

Are we on the right track?

So we have been discussing several ways to leverage new generation technology and I just read about how eBay is using wiki software from JotSpot in a Business 2.0 post.

Interesting... Seems that collaboration tools are being sought after for a C to C (consumer to consumer) marketplace in addition to just personal or intranet functions.

I have had a chance to try jotspot and some of their features and recommend using their free family wiki to keep in touch with your peeps and get a great introduction to this tool.

The stud-muffin of collaboration tools in my book remains to be Central Desktop. They do offer a great non-profit discount and a lot of features that are great for an organization that is volunteer centric (meaning they don't have a network login).

Here are some other applications that we have been piloting / reviewing.

• Basecamp
• SocialText
• Sharepoint (from Microsoft)
• Foldera
• RallyPoint
• Zimbra
  

What do you use (or recommend not using) for collaboration or intranet functions?

Web 2.0 for the Enterprise

I just stumbled on an article from Optimize Magazine, called Web 2.0 Meets the Enterprise that is a must read if you lead technology teams and initiatives today.

It is a great overview of the cultural differences between classic software and the new frontier of collaboration / productivity tools. Howard Greenstein, author, highlights how organizations can utilize tools like wikis, blogs, mash-ups, and new development resources like Ajax to revolutionize your current systems.

Jesus IS the Killer App

Greg Sandoval, staff reporter for CNET & News.com, recently published an article called "Is Jesus the next killer app?" The article identifies that organizations are eager to work with growing ministries, because they are investing in significant systems to impact their worship experience. I guess the author is under the impression that tapping into the mega-church Jesus movement is a growing market.

My anwser is a resounding "yes - Jesus is the killer app" But wait... what is a "killer app"?

Wikipedia.org says that a killer app is:

"A killer application (commonly shortened to killer app) is a computer program that is so useful that people will buy a particular piece of computer hardware, gaming console, and/or an operating system simply to run that program."

So I guess the real question is... is Jesus useful? Well let's see:

1. He gives us grace
2. He came to save us from sin
3. He helps us discover the purpose for why we are still kickin
4. He teaches us how to live our lives to the fullest
5. He won the war thru his resurrection
6. He was an incredible prophet and recognized as one of the greatest Rabbi's ever
7. He is the way, the truth, and the life.

Yep, Greg, I think you nailed it. Jesus is in fact the (one and only) "killer app"

Cell Phone Frenzy

Here at GCC, our staff is moving away from a group plan and allowing individuals to establish their own accounts. This is a great opportunity, but also comes with a lot of decisions...

For example, Jason Powell is considering a Smart Phone Treo 700 with a data plan from Verizon.

I have been doing a little research and it seems like there are some great ideas and some pretty dumb ideas when it comes to the phones in both the phone itself and the plan / service.

For example: it seems like research is now going beyond ring tones & vibrate mode to include a new shock method to let you know when you missed a call.

Additionally, I would encourage you to rule out Malaysia Telekom as a service provider, because Yahaya Yahab just got a $218 Trillion phone bill.