I don’t give hat tips regularly enough because I figure that my readers are already reading what I read, and that’s an assumption that I just can’t make.  This edition of techlesia is inspired by ripped off from Cynthia Ware’s post at the Digital Sanctuary.

I’ve already had conversations with four or five colleagues this week that had me quoting Cynthia’s post, so I wanted you to benefit from the wealth of ideas that Cynthia provides.  Below are some of the most important pieces from Cynthia.  You can read the whole article here.

Since Christian leaders, especially pastors, are often “wired” for serving others, it’s not really a surprise that online communication technologies can sometimes trick us, tempting us to serve them rather than serving us.

Mastering your email is absolutely essential for freeing your time for other things.  Furthermore, several fundamental principles provide a simple way to get ahead of your inbox and stay “in control” of your email.

She then points us to Michael Hyatt, Thomas Nelson Publishers’ President & CEO.  Hyatt has some simple tips to stay on top of your e-mail. (Again, I’m quoting Cynthia, quoting Michael, who works for Thomas)

1. Empty your inbox everyday.
2. Don’t get bogged down, keep moving.
   • Do—take action on the task now. I follow David Allen’s two-minute rule. If I can do what is being requested in less than two minutes, I do it immediately. This gets stuff off your to-do list before it ever gets on it. This has the added advantage of making you look responsive.
   • Delegate—pass the task along to someone else. I’m not talking about “passing the buck.” But oftentimes someone else is better equipped to fulfill the sender’s request. Dawson Trotman once said, “I purposed never to do anything others could or would do when there was so much of importance to be done that others could or would not do.” In other words, try to focus on where you add value and offload everything else.
   • Defer—consciously decide you will do the task later. This only applies to asks you cannot complete in two minutes or less or can’t delegate to someone else. You can either add the task to your to-do list or schedule an appointment with yourself to complete it. Fortunately, in Entourage, I convert an email message to a task or an event (i.e., appointment) with a single keystroke. [Two keys in Outlook, by the way]
   • Delete—determine if you might need the information later. If not, delete it. My own assumption is that if it’s really important, someone, somewhere else in the world, has a copy of it.
   • File—if you think you might need the information, file it. But do not create an elaborate set of file folders. This is the single most important piece of advice I can give you. Just file everything in one folder called “Processed Mail.” If it is more complicated than this, it will lead to procrastination. Trust me on this. You will have to decide, Should I file this under Tami because it is from her or under Max because it is about him? And then what happens if the email covers more than one subject? Do you make copies of the email and put one copy under each folder? Things can get complicated fast.Forget all of that. File your email in one folder and let your email or system software (e.g., “Spotlight”) find it when you need it. The search capabilities of almost every modern email program will enable you to put your hands on any message whenever it is necessary. It may take you a few minutes longer to find the message using this method, but this is offset by the hours you waste trying to figure out how to file your messages.
3. Use keyboard shortcuts and avoid the mouse.
4. Let email rules filter the low-priority stuff.

I’ve been keeping pretty well on top of my inbox lately. I’m down to 18 messages waiting for action today, compared to the thousands that used to hang around in my inbox. Life is much better this way - much better.

A couple days ago, I made the accusation that most church Web sites flat-out stink, and I gave three tools to start the process of evaluating your church Web site and discovering God’s intent for your Web site. I know it sounds a bit cliché, but you better believe that God works through the Internet to reach lives.

I’m still not ready to talk about publishing platforms.  Most pastors that I talk to want me to jump past all the other stuff and head right to “what do I need to buy.”  The problem is that you can’t buy a successful Web presence - it’s an ongoing investment.  It’s a strategy.  For most, if not all, growing churches, the Web site is the central hub of information.

So, how do you de-stinkify your current church Web site.  By the way, if you scored under 10 on WebsiteGrader.com, take heart - so do most other church Web sites.  Now, do something about it.  Here are some action items for your consideration.

1. Determine your target audience.  You need to know who you’re marketing to before you throw stuff onto the Web.  Lifechurch.tv’s Tony Steward details this way better than I can in this post.
2. Plan out your site’s core content and navigation before you enlist any techie geeks.  Don’t just post every piece of information imaginable.  Bobby Gruenewald suggests that we design our mobile site first, before we do anything else.  This forces us to cut the fluff and stay on target.
3. Realize that while techie geeks are necessary for the technical aspects of a Web site, you cannot expect them to own the site and run solo with it.  The geek is not a skilled writer or marketer, he is a skilled designer or developer.  Here are some tips from Jason Reynolds.
4. View the Web as a central communication tool for your congregation and community.  It shouldn’t be a one-man-show or a place that’s neglected.  The Web is not your business card.  Allow it to be the hub that other sources pull from.  For instance, in the weekly bulletin, direct people to the Web for more information rather than giving a phone number.  This saves time for the person responsible for the event by not having to respond to so many calls about an event.  That time can be re-invested in their ministry.  The shift to the Web being the central hub of information will not happen overnight, but you must work to patiently make this ever-important shift.
5. Encourage the entire staff to have ownership.  Everyone should be a contributor.  Jason Reynold’s  post (above) encourages all ministerial staff to write three articles per week for the Web site.  Kevin McCord’s also weighs in here with his post on Web presence.
6. KISS - Don’t have a Web site developed that takes a rocket scientist to update.  Make Web maintenance easy enough for Betty Sue and Reverend Mike.  MeanDean’s got a list similar to mine concocted here.

That’s enough tips for now.  More to follow.  Bottom line, if your church Web site stinks, you need to fix it.  It’s time.

I read Nick’s post, “When Fruit Spoils” a couple of days ago, and I laughed, then I cried.  I felt bad for his experience but good knowing that the almighty Apple is not exempt from problems.

Unfortunately my fruit spoiled today.

Here’s my story, up to now, with updating my iPhone to the 2.0 software.

1. Plug in iPhone for Sync
2. Click “Check for Updates.”  iTunes tells me that an update is available for the iPhone but I must first update iTunes to version 7.7.
3. I run Apple Update to get the current iTunes.  All seems to go well, and Apple Update tells me to reboot.
4. I reboot.  Uh-oh, iTunes wasn’t updated.  So, I did it again.  Apple Update tells me to reboot.
5. I reboot again.  This time iTunes shows that it’s updated.  Hooray!
6. I go to sync my iPhone again, and now all of my data (music, etc) is listed as “Other Data.” and cannot be accessed through the iPhone or iTunes.  Also, when I click “Check for Updates” now, there is no longer an update available for the 2.0 software, 1.1.4 is the current release.
7. I forget about it for a while, because I need to work on Photoshop.  Oh, guess what - the iTunes update broke Photoshop too.  It hangs on “TWAIN Device - Apple iPhone.”  Grrr.
8. So, I do the only thing I know to do, an iPhone restore.  Everything seems normal, but…
9. When I go back into iTunes to finish the restore, it times out (every time) when trying to access the iTunes Store - even though I can get to the normal music store just fine.
10. So, now my iPhone can only make emergency calls.

Thanks Apple, for my revolutionary communication device!

UPDATE: After a bunch of tinkering (1.5 hours), it’s not a brick anymore.  Still no 2.0.  Still having problems with Photoshop, but the phone works.

When you go to buy something on eBay, you look at the seller’s reputation, their “Feedback Profile.” It’s that magic number that says this person is okay to buy from. What is interesting to me is that a rating of 97% is great, but you may not buy from the person if you see two people saying the same bad thing about the seller, even if there are 300 people saying the opposite same good thing about the seller.

If you’re looking at ChMS products for your church, don’t throw Fellowship One out of consideration because of one post that I’ve written.  For my church, ACS is the right solution.  For your church, Fellowship might well be the direction you need to head.  Weigh the pros and cons of each heavily before making such a spendy decision.  I write posts, good and bad, about what I know and who I’ve interacted with.  To me, not sharing what I know would be burdensome, so I hang it out there.  The decisions are always yours to make.

Please hear me well that I am not bashing Fellowship Technologies.  My interactions with them otherwise have always been positive.  They seem to be a terrific company overall.  In fact, I’ve personally recommended them to a couple of churches who have ended up purchasing the product.

I am very encouraged by the quick response of Fellowship on yesterday’s post, and I wanted to share that with you here.

Curtis Harris wrote in this morning:

Matthew, I can’t apologize enough for the blog comment that apparently came from our company.  This is nothing we would ever condone and certainly not something I would want to be a part of; for so many of us, me included, this is a chance to use our God given skills for His purpose… it is our mission field.  I am very embarrased that this type of thing has happened and prior to this took some pride that we were above all that.  Sorry again.  Curtis Harris, Co-Founder and Director of Product Strategy.

Ah, just as I’m writing this post, I noticed that Jeff Hook, the CEO of Fellowship Technologies commented on the previous one.  It’s certainly worth a read.
Read the rest of this entry »

I recently learned the five “P’s,”  one of the simplest and most useful acronyms I have ever heard.  So, what are the five “P’s?”

Prior Planning Prevents Poor Performance

The military version of this acronym actually adds a 6th “P,” but I’ll leave that to your imagination.  I don’t like working in “emergency mode” all the time, so I always encourage people to plan ahead and use the respective checklist for a task.  In effect, I’m telling them that a problem resulting from a failure to plan does not qualify as an emergency to me.

What really burns are those times that my failure to plan comes to bite me in the rear.  Today, I had planned really well for the steps of a project but I had not communicated those steps to the appropriate people.  This caused more than a little frustration on their part.

I learned an important lesson from this adventure: communicating well is just as important as doing good work.  Even though I studied communication in college, I sometimes have a really difficult time doing it effectively.