Repeating from day 1 notes:
These are my very raw notes from the Saddleback CITRT event. If you're looking for something specific, maybe you can search for it here. Otherwise, I can't really suggest that these are worth reading.
What was said, what I heard, what I noted
Please don't make the mistake of thinking I took great notes on everything that was said. (Of course, I wasn't in every room, so obviously a lot was missed) Likewise, don't assume that all my notes are directly tied to something that was said -- sometimes my mind goes down "related rabbit trails" and my notes may reflect that. Hopefully not too distracting.
Friday, March 12, 2010
[9:00] Serving those who Serve, Scott Smith “Serving Those Who Serve: Lessons from the Trenches”
• Story from Olympics of skier - didn't come to start a race, came to finish
• It’s ministry! Extend the kingdom
• …not to be served, but to serve…
• When we handle the technology, we free others for ministry
• Some company in the Northwest so well known for service: A Tire Company Lee Schwabb
• Nordstrom: extraordinary customer service, even on stuff that they don’t sell!
• How does this apply to us in Church IT?
• Tapping a song: What was it? (about 4 figured it out)
• Yankee Doodle. “Its obvious – they got it, why didn’t the rest of you get it?”
• When we talk to management, it often sounds like just “wah, wah, wah, $25,000.” Find another way to explain it! Ask others in CITRT, how did they solve it?
• Popcorn, 32g saturated fat. How to explain what “bad” means. Very fat breakfast, lunch, dinner is LESS fat than the medium bag of popcorn! “Bucket-of” popcorn is the equiv of about 4 days of such meals
• Book mention (above examples?) Chip and Dan Heath, Made to Stick
• Solerant uses "Succes" to reinforce:
o Simple (complexity kills messages); we want them asking “how?” Find the core, make it compact. Think of Proverbs! 100% accurate may not be the best goal!
o Unexpected: buckle up commercial; brain on drugs
o Concrete:
o Credibility: Not necessarily more facts.
o Emotional: Giving analytical data “turns off” emotional response!
o Stories: What Jesus did!
• To do our best (ski our best race) we have to remember our core. We have to serve
• Carter vs. Reagan. Carter, lots of facts and figure. Reagan: “do you feel like you’re better off than 4 years ago?”
[12:30] Open RT, 404, Trace Pupke moderating
• Training: Self (IT) vs. Staff on use of IT
• Lynda.com
• TrainSignal training
• Backup, DR, etc.
• ChMS quick survey. Dean and Mark: “Thrilled.” Some "OK." Products represented: F1, Arena, Shelby V5, ACS, MinistryPlatform, The City
• SmartSync Pro. $25/user. (Nick)
• SecondCopy for notebook syncing
• SonicWall CDP agent
• Content Filtering: OpenDNS vs. SonicWall vs. others
• Image Folio for picture management. http://pics.saddleback.com/
[2:15] Wrap-up
Bill Crane – CIO & COO: facilities, food, IT, operations
Robbie McCarrol – network operations, helpdesk, phone, etc.
Vicki Dematto: Saddleback Family info team (keep the data clean)
Doug Hart: IT Director
• Doug: Through Vicki’s team, there is some front-line ministry – actually touching people when calling to clarify database updates
• Vicki: “high” hundreds of data records changed per week. Christmas, Easter are much higher, but Vicki doesn’t count those any more
• Q: When is old info purged? A: Vicki. No, but we do tag records as inactive. We want to keep the history
• Q: how do you use IT to help close the back door? A: Bill – Back door is a big question that gets a lot of discussion. We “judge” activity on congregation by looking at any touch. Looking for any kind of activity. Want to have attendance at all services – can’t think of a valid way to do it, but can cross correlate to other activities. May not be able to tell if someone has left, but can tell that someone isn’t active. When small group goes to twitter, facebook, etc., then we lose the information about the group. Vicki: data and collection helps to keep the front door open and active. Bill: ID cards (barcodes, like Kroger, whatever) can be used to help recognize activity, including volunteer activity, to help “pay” the volunteers (recognize for service performed)
• Q: How many staff under the IT umbrella. A: 30-35
• Q: How do you measure the health of IT? A: Bill: up-time metrics, longest time a ticket stays in the queue, etc. We do a spiritual health assessment once per year. Personal check-ins, vs. task orientation. ROI is an important measure. Bill and Doug re-prioritize a list of hundreds of items to pick the 2 or 3 to focus on. Look at how to satisfy multiple ministries at the same time. Do post-mortems of the fire-drill projects to see if they need to be rebuilt for future use. Other litmus test is “we try not to say ‘no.’” “no” is considered unhealthy. (Yes, but is an acceptable response) OK to put a price on a ‘yes.’ Prioritize with the leadership team. Never want to hear “IT is inhibiting me from doing ministry.” When you hear that, have to address it head on, face-to-face (not email)
• Q: Articulate the ROI statements. A: Bill: Bill’s role is to identify the ROI, the Why. Doug, Robbie have to figure out the “how.”
• Q: Backup Strategy. A: Robbie. Moving from tape backup to disk-to-disk replication. Nothing goes off-campus. 50Gbit service is the limit.
• Q: How far back do you archive? A: Robbie: about 6 months. Don’t do long-term archiving
• Q: Do you store backup in a different building? A: Robbie: since backup is to different buildings, that’s all we do. Bill: next up is to replicate to a SAN down the street via 50MBit link to another building owned by Saddleback. (2-3 miles away) IT hasn’t provided a solution for video – Worship does that themselves (maybe, somehow?)
• Q: How do you choose vendors, etc.? (Dell vs. HP, for instance, knowing you may have members working for each organization) A: Doug: Staff directed church is not “controlled” by congregation. Decision is made by the IT teams; projects and budgets are presented to leadership, but not evaluated against member businesses. Best technology, best price, are the deciding factors. Not member businesses
• Q: Church Management – the economics of doing the homebrew system. What is the value proposition? A: Bill: In 2000, Bill couldn’t find any commercial solutions. Vicki had numerous Access databases, without any unification. All has been built since then. Have looked at all of them. Fast, Fluid, Flexible is a key. To maintain FFF requires being able to make changes, right now. Vendors don’t move that fast (or at all). Have to be able to come up with the new tools, quickly. TWO developers, full time. Could keep 20 busy all the time. Have 5+ years in the queue, right now, if never get another request. It’s very inexpensive to do what we do, for our scale. Very cost effective. (Developers are not making what they would make on the outside) Sometimes bring in contractors to help with “heavy load lifting.” Fluidity and unification are the driving forces. ~15K is the size where it starts to make sense to do your own. F1, etc. are all good. We steal their ideas, they steal ours. We share. We don’t care what their technologies are. We’re happy to share any of our ideas with anyone, but it’s not simple to hand our source code to anyone. When people ask “how do I build my own?” we don’t have an easy answer. You have to have a person to manage App Dev. Can’t imagine going to Rick and saying “I’m sorry, we can’t do that.”
[2:50] Jason P wrap-up
video: Zack Smith, Newspring. Cancer. Treated, cancer free, but now the cancer has returned
Future: fall, regionals again.
(over 135 last fall)
Spring 2011: probably FL or TX
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