As usual, all AM 3.0 templates are fully customizable including the ability to change the number of columns, colors, fonts, etc. If you would like to use a simplified version of your home page, edit your template, click the Layout Tab and choose "Show All Columns (Simplified Home Page)". Resource files for the new template can be found in the "Download Materials" menu under "Template Resource Files".
To change your template at any time, login to your AdvancedMinistry account and select “Choose My Template”.
Welcome to the first edition of Show & Tell, a new weekly feature that focuses on the work of ministries within the Electricurrent and AdvancedMinistry clientele.
This week's feature is SEND International, a missions organization that serves in over 20 countries throughout the world.
We have had the privilege of working with SEND for the last couple of years on branding and web initiatives.
You can read more about their ministry by visiting www.send.org.
Monday Morning Misdemeanors is a series of weekly posts written by Graphic Designer, Derek Gyssels. In this series, Derek is going to hone in on a number of common problems that crop up in graphic designs and then give you the tools to avoid them which will give your designs a professional polish.
This case is a little obscure, but I know there are a handful of you out there that are going to appreciate me covering this. This topic is a bit of a nitty-gritty detail but it is also one that can cause quite a bit of grief if it is overlooked. It is a bit of a head scratcher, but the color black needs to be treated with some care in your design projects, especially print projects. Let's start by looking at a few fundamentals.
All design projects can reside in a number of color modes but the one we are concerned with is CMYK which stands for cyan, magenta, yellow and black. What you need to understand is that all printed materials, unless specified by pantone colors, are made by those four colors in various halftones and line screens. All four of those colors can have a value between 0 and 100 which is a range of intensity of application from least to greatest.
Now through no fault of your own, if you were working in photoshop and wanted to fill the background of your design with black your natural compulsion would be to set the black value to 100 and all the other color values to zero, however this would be wrong. That result would give you a very dark grey. If your looking for a black as dark as the night sky it requires a color formula involving all four colors (as seen in the image provided).
There was a time that this was a huge problem in the printing world because the software would display black the same way regardless of the color formula involved. Then Adobe made an improvement in their software to account for this making sure that a black with a value of only K100 would appear grey in nature (again see the image provided). This leads me into the first of two points I want to leave you with.
It doesn't matter what the black looks like on your screen, the numbers making up the black are king. If you're not sure about the values involved in a color, use the 'eye dropper' tool in Photoshop to find out what the formula is. The numbers are going to be fed into a computer or printer and those numbers will be translated into ink coverage so always keep that in mind.
The last point is only use K100 for type. If your have a print piece and there is a lot of black text at 10 or 12 point you should never us a black made up of more than one color. On a press the four colors are printed separately and the registration will be to hard to line up accurately and you will end up with some ghosting around your copy. The only time you can use a true black formula on type is for a large headlines of more than 24 points or so.
At the end of the day if you have any questions talk to your service provider and have them help you out. You shouldn't be on your own with this, especially if you're unsure about what your doing. Just be careful with the color black because if you impersonate it with the wrong values you could be disappointed in your final printed work. As I have learned in my career, once ink is on paper there is no going back. Don't learn it the hard way.
As reported on CNN, a funeral was held last night for Internet Explorer 6 (better known as IE6). “Attendees were expected to eulogize the Microsoft browser by sharing remembrances, some of which have already been posted on the company's website – see www.ie6funeral.com.
"The early 2000's will go down as the MC Hammer of decades. It started out all confident and flash, and ended in bankruptcy. Then came the grunge era. The global economic meltdown might give us the distance we need to fully absorb the absurdity of dog jewelry, pimped rides and man-made island resorts in the desert. As a generation of young people cope with the double-digit unemployment, they might embrace a new set of values that are a break from the past. A break from status that can be bought and mortgaged. People may once again start looking for things that are 'real'. Status may once again have to be earned. I'm already seeing a lot of people wearing plaid."
- Barry Quinn, executive creative director, brand design, Juniper Park
I love this quote. In no small part because plaid is in fact, making a comeback.
For the last couple of days I've been carrying a cold around with me and among the other unpleasantness of a good virus, the one thing most noticable over the last day and a half has been the fact that I lose my voice if I talk for a while.
It gets frustrating too for a guy who's job it is to communicate all day. But my situation pales in comparison to what I just read about film critic, Roger Ebert and the cool new technology in his life. Click here to check it out.
Once you get back from visiting, reading and viewing that link, I'm guessing at least some of you are also immediately thankful for the voice that you take for granted each and every day...and it's true, we all do it. Our voices are an amazing tool for us to communicate with and we take for granted that it will always be there...that we'll always have a chance to use that wonder of communication to clearly convey the thoughts that we want to.
But what if you were to lose it? What if you weren't able to communicate using your voice anymore? Would you regret how you had used it when you had it? Would you wish you'd done more with it?
I think the same attitude needs to be taken with all our communications, personal and organizational. Don't treat what and how you communicate as just something that's a throw away. Value it. Treat it with respect by communicating well. Don't let neglect lead you to regret. We have a plethora of communication options these days - let's use them for all their worth to communicate the greatness of our God and His calling in our lives!
Last week I wrote about the “Own the Podium” program that the Canadian Olympic Committee, VANOC (Vancouver Organizing Committee) and Canada's sport federations established back in 2005 which involved greater funding for our athletes than they had ever had before and also provided a really aggressive goal for the athletes.
Thing is, it just wasn't us. It isn't a Canadian thing to go around chanting, “We're #1! We're #1!”.
Then, halfway through the Olympics, the “Own the Podium” program was rescinded because it was clear that there was no way that we would actually end up winning the Olympic games which quite frankly, was embarrassing. So, even though after the program was rescinded our athletes went on an unbelievable run to win the most gold medals by a country in the history of the Winter Olympic games, our bold strategy at winning the Olympic games outright left us with a bit of mud on our faces.
Enter the closing ceremonies and at one point, a small, kinda shaky guy in glasses, jeans and a sport coat stood in the middle of the ice and said: “Hi, I'm Mike”.
“Mike” in this case, was Michael J. Fox, one of Canada's most famous actors having starred in shows like Family Ties, Spin City and Boston Legal and films like the Back to the Future trilogy. But what many know him for today is his courageous battle with Parkinson's and advocacy on behalf of finding a cure for that disease.
So here's a guy with a lot to brag about if he wanted, but instead, he kinda humbly, almost sheepishly gets out on the ice of BC Place and introduces himself to a global audience as if we were all standing in his front foyer and he was welcoming us individually.
And immediately, I was struck with the thought that the reason everyone was cheering was not just because it was Michael J. Fox, but it was also because that in that demure statement, he embodied so much of who Canadians are. We identified as a nation and we cheered at how refreshing it was to just be ourselves along with Mike down on the ice.
But that kind of identity isn't just a Canadian trait. It's a human one.
Wouldn't it be refreshing if we would just drop all the pomp and circumstance around our brands (personal, corporate and organizational) and just approach the people we interact with in our personal lives and at our work by saying our own version of “Hi, I'm Mike”?
It's a long way from “Own the Podium”, but it goes a lot longer of a way to creating trust and a lasting positive brand impression.
Monday Morning Misdemeanors is a series of weekly posts written by Graphic Designer, Derek Gyssels. In this series, Derek is going to hone in on a number of common problems that crop up in graphic designs and then give you the tools to avoid them which will give your designs a professional polish.
This crime is certainly a petty one but it is one that I want to call attention to nonetheless. For some reason in high school keyboarding classes we were taught that it is correct to put two spaces after a sentence. This was a lesson that I carried with me into my college years in graphic design, where I was taught that this practice is actually incorrect. So what's the deal? After having been taught both and having implemented both practices, I live by what I was taught in design school. Let me give you a couple of reasons why.
From an aesthetic point of view, it looks better to use one space instead of two. When you leave two spaces after a sentence you end up having little holes in your blocks of type. This is especially true if you are laying out a brochure with some large blocks of body copy. The image at right demonstrates this.
Another reason to not use two spaces is space itself. If you happen to be type setting a large report or book, you end up saving pages worth of space. Over the course of a 100 pages of type you can save hundreds of spaces which can end up saving a few pages by the end of the report or book. To be honest with you, most of the copy we receive from our clients comes with double spaces, and we remove them. My coworker type sets books and says its not uncommon to save well over 500 spaces from a book's worth of type.
At the end of the day, its going to be your call as to whether or not you push the space bar once or twice after a period. The graphics police aren't going to write you a ticket, but I suggest that it is more professional to use single spaces. Any knowledgeable designer or agency you provide copy to will remove double spaces. Truthfully, double spacing is more of an old-school, typewriter-era practice.
So stop abusing your space bar and start loving your designs!
There's nothing casual about the message in the video above other than the fact that it's a lot easier for me to post a video than to dream up and type out a coherent post late on a Friday...so happy casual Friday to me :)
But being the Friday that I get paid, I'm about to walk out of the office and head over to the bank to cash my paycheck. As I do that and by God's grace as I go through every day that He grants me on this earth, I want to be thinking about the challenge in this video.
Although I didn't have designs on this, and the inspiration for todays and yesterdays posts came from entirely disparate sources, this post is actually closely tied with the thoughts I shared yesterday.
Back in October of last year, Christian Computing Magazine published an interesting article that contained statistics indicating that the most used portion of church websites is the “I'm New” section - pages related to people attending for the first time, those who are looking for service times or locations, those looking for other information about the church and its beliefs and doctrine, or those who have no knowledge of Jesus Christ.
I think a lot of people would read the statistics supporting that article and even if it's only in the back of their minds, presume that they indicate that churches are doing a great job at outreach on the web. However, just like website hits aren't a measure of a sites success, but rather quality of those hits are, this statistic requires qualification.
The truth of the matter is that “more than 80% of the current growth registered by Protestant churches is biological or transfer growth – very little of the growth comes from penetrating the ranks of the unchurched.” (George Barna, Grow Your Church from the Outside In)
That's a critically important piece of information to consider because it makes you ask the question, 'Are the “I'm New” sections of our sites truly representative of us doing a great job of serving those outside of our church communities, or are they just examples of us serving a modern desire to jump from church community to church community?'
If it's the latter then these stats, although valuable, become more of an argument to change or adjust the strategy than they are a statement of web usability success.
It's disconcerting that in 2010 we still have to talk about this, but the fact is, we do, so here goes:
The number of clicks that you get on your website is not the measure of success of the website. You have to begin to consider the quality of those hits.
Is the person hanging around on pages, are they coming back again and most importantly, are they 'converting' (a.k.a. taking some measurable action on the site like signing up, donating or filling out a contact form)?
You could have 1,000 hits an hour but if they aren't converting or gaining something valuable from you in the experience, then they aren't a sign of success...in fact, quite the opposite is true.
Google Analytics can help with that so think about using that free tool to help evaluate the state of your site.
Back in 2005, the Canadian Olympic Committee, VANOC (Vancouver Organizing Committee) and Canada's sport federations established a very aggressive program (especially for Canada) called 'We Own the Podium', which was meant to inspire Canadian athletes to push harder than they ever had before and set Canada up to win the Vancouver Olympic Games.
Yesterday, only half-way through the Games, the Canadian Olympic Committee rescinded the program acknowledging that there was no way Canada could win...a fairly embarrassing thing to have to concede.
As I was driving home from Toronto yesterday, I heard the announcement and some commentary on a local radio station and I was immediately reminded of a rule of branding that I have come to have great respect for but isn't appreciated by many:
Self-aggrandizement is a dangerous and most often unsuccessful communications and branding strategy.
For years, companies and organizations loved to set themselves up as the #1 in their industry or area of service, but that strategy doesn't have legs, especially in these days of blogging and Twitter feeds where customers have voice to mass audiences in moments.
People don't want to hear you tell them you are #1, they want you to make them #1.
We rationalize ourselves into thinking that by saying we are #1, the internal team of the organization will be motivated and use that challenge to move forward and actually become #1. But imagine walking into a party of people you'd never met and saying, "Hey everyone, you should come talk to me because I am the best." Ridiculous right? And yet, this is exactly how many organizations choose to position themselves.
Spend your time making the people that you serve #1. Do that, and you'll not only be first in your hearts and minds, but more importantly, you'll be first in theirs. That's effective branding.
Monday Morning Misdemeanors is a series of weekly posts written by Graphic Designer, Derek Gyssels. In this series, Derek is going to hone in on a number of common problems that crop up in graphic designs and then give you the tools to avoid them which will give your designs a professional polish.
Before I get started I would like the record to show that I myself am a former and rehabilitated drop shadow abuser. This has been an issue I have noticed for a long time but it seems in the last few weeks my attention has been drawn to how often drop shadows ruin a design. A long time ago, before I even knew graphic design as a job option, drop shadows were hard to produce for graphic pieces. Then in the early/mid 90's technology and software advancements made them achievable with a few clicks of the mouse. Since then, drop shadows have become as prevalent in design as cheese hats are at a Green Bay Packers game, and not to mention, just as stylish.
What is the actual infraction here? Most times it's one of three things to do with the application. For an example I will draw on something I saw in a menu at a restaurant two weekends ago.
Issue 1: Whoever had designed the menu took the time to take pictures of most of the menu items and crop them out to place them into the menu. Then they foolishly thought to add drop shadows in what I will assume was an attempt to make them "pop" (a term I really dislike) or add some dimension. The problem here however was that the pictures were shot from a 3/4 angle so the drop shadow actually served to make the food pictures look like flat cutouts floating off the page.
Issue 2: The second problem with them was the colour of the drop shadow. There was a nice background to the menu and the colour of the drop shadow did not mesh well with it. My guess was that they just used the default black that Photoshop or other design apps provide you with when you first apply the style. To correct something like this think about your own shadow on a summer day on the grass or the sand at the beach. While your shadow is for the most part a black/grey elements of the environment play a role in the final colour of the shadow. Light bounces all over the place influencing colour. Thats why your shadow isn't solid black, because other light reflecting from different sources in the environment reduce how dark the shadow is. This leads nicely into the third infraction.
Issue 3: The edges or "feathering" of shadows is a major issue as well. Again, let's imagine you're outside on a summer day. Have you ever seen your shadow with a big fuzzy edge? I don't think so, because neither have I. If you are adding a drop shadow to something like a well-lit plate of food you should have a drop shadow with a fairly crisp edge.
All three of these problems originate from a single issue, “auto styles”. Most applications give you the ability to simply add styles to layers or objects but those defaults don't do work for all scenarios. As the designer, it is up to you to adjust your settings to make things work. A lot of times your design would benefit from a custom shadow using layers, filters and blending modes. But that is a whole different ball of wax and I believe points to a final issue.
Drop shadows are best used for flat objects like a book on a table, photograph or any other object your looking at from directly above. Drop shadows are also great on menus or boxes in website design that you're simply trying to add a little extra emphasis to do. Occasionally you can even use a drop shadow on type if the type is on an image or busy background, but even that takes some caution and finesse.
So there you have it, a fairly simple over view of drop shadow use and abuse. I would be happy to answer any questions or comments, simply leave one on this post and I will reply.
I mean, if you were to stumble onto something that pretty much changed your life, you'd drop me a note wouldn't you?
Well, it's on the basis of that mutual care and concern for each other that I bring you today's post.
You see, I've been a coffee drinker for a number of years now. Admittedly, I have tried to stop drinking that beverage on a few occasions over the past year for a number of reasons, but of late I've found myself once again succumbing to it's Siren call. I had designs on another attempt at a cold turkey quit, but as of yesterday, I fear those designs have been replaced with an even greater commitment to the bean beverage.
What happened to cause such a drastic change in my approach to coffee? In a word: Tassimo
We often compare new inventions as being the best thing since 'sliced bread'. Well, move over bread, because now you are just the distant relative (a few times removed) to the new measure of best inventions.
For those of you who aren't familiar, the Tassimo machine is a modern technological wonder. Within about a minute of addressing the machine, one can have a perfectly controlled and brewed cup of steaming hot coffee in his or her hand. There is no argument over how many scoops of grinds need to be added to the machine, you simply place the drink disc in the machine, your cup in the dispensing area and hit go. It's so beautiful and easy, just thinking about it has caused my eyes to glisten.
Do I have what amounts to an unhealthy relationship with coffee and now this new coffee-making machine? Perhaps.
But for you coffee lovers out there who share in my desire for a quality cup of Joe each morning, late morning, early afternoon, late afternoon, and evening (and late evening), the Tassimo will be a life-changing experience.
Hello fellow blog readers. This is Derek writing you with the announcement of a new recurring post that will be appearing on day one of your work week. Starting on Monday you can look forward to “Monday Morning Misdemeanors” which are going to being looking into the petty crimes committed in the world of graphic design.
So often a design that could hold some merit is robbed of its dignity by a handful of details that are either overlooked or unnecessarily forced onto the page. Well, those days are going to be long gone in the next few weeks because you are going to get your education on the law books of graphic design.
Most of us have heard that ignorance of the law is not justification for breaking it. We know this to be especially true of God's law. Once we came to know the truth, we saw the error in our former selves and conduct ourselves in a new way. The same is true here, once you start to apply some better principles to your design work and become conscious of the most common errors you are going to see design in a whole new light. There will come a day when you will look back at the work you used to create and see a professional difference. We know that a lot of you out there run on tight budgets and often find yourselves doing more than just your job. That may see you straying into the realm of design. These posts will help you take your work to a new level.
I have been doing design full time for over 10 years now and still learn new things. It takes a lot of work and effort to be a good designer. These weekly posts will be a step in the right direction. At the end of the day they will only serve to add quality and credibility to your branding efforts.
So before you commit 3 or 4 misdemeanors on a daily basis, resulting in a file being created in your name as a repeat offender and have your charges upgraded to felonious misuse of design, please check this post out on Monday mornings. It will be worth your time.
God is doing some great things these days in aligning like-minded men and women from across the continent to fight pornography. A good friend of mine, Francois Driessen is joining a number of leaders next week in Michigan at the Covenant Eyes headquarters to shoot a documentary called “Scratching the Surface”.
As a follow-up post to my blog entry last week entitled Google Buzz, you may want to use caution before diving right in. According to ZdNet, a popular internet news source, Google has really dropped the ball when it comes to privacy in its first Buzz release. Here is a quote from the article:
“Ever since questions about how safe your personal information is with Google Buzz started to pop up, it’s pretty much all that people talk about on the subject. That, and how to disable it that is.
This release of Google Buzz has started off badly, and when that happens, the barrier to adoption is significantly raised. The service may be cool, or useful, but all that people think about now is how unsafe it is, and make decisions based on those feelings.
Google has already taken some steps to make it better in reaction to what has happened, but I’m not sure anything they do is really going to help. Their best bet would be to take down the service, step back and analyze what has happened, and do a re-launch.”
Earlier this week, Google launched its latest invention, Google Buzz. The simplest way to describe Google Buzz is that it's Twitter integrated with your Gmail account. Many people think that Google has come into the social networking game a little late and that they can't compete with Facebook and Twitter. But historically speaking, Google always seems to find a way to make an impact on any market that it touches.
It will be interesting to see how ministries, churches and businesses use Google Buzz in the coming year. Will it be a success or a flop? Only time will tell.
Take a minute to stop and think about the relationship between your website and your actual physical building.
A website, like a building, is a vitally important part of who you are and how you do what you do as a ministry, but it's only as good as the roads that lead to it. You'd never build your church in the middle of a farmers field with no roads or paths to get to it. Similarly, it makes no sense to make a significant investment in a website without considering how you're going to get people to show up there.
S.E.O., or Search Engine Optimization is undoubtedly one of the things to consider here, but it doesn't stop there.
Offsite strategies like sharing content with other related ministries/non-profits, posting your video content on a YouTube channel and re-purposing it on your organizational site and even strategies like billboards and print materials can all be effective means to drive traffic to your site as well and they can draw in those people who didn't even know they were looking for you.
So think bigger picture. You'll maximize your return on investment in your website if you do.
One of the things that we often find ourselves encouraging our clients to do is to be true to their brand. Or in other words, to be true to themselves. It's an important reminder that we all need at times because we tend to get off track.
Our modern church culture is such that many smaller churches look to the model churches like Willow Creek, Mosaic, North Point, Mars Hill, Hillsong and LifeChurch.tv for inspiration in their activities and approaches to ministry.
But while looking to those churches for inspiration is a fine idea, you need to always be asking yourself the hard question: "Does what I'm looking at taking away from these other church communities fit who we (your church community) are?"
That can be a tough question because the answer might force you to abandon something that you personally are really attached to and excited about. But those kinds of bigger picture checks and balances will serve to keep you on track, doing things that your community will excel in because the play or the song the outreach activity or the small group structure is representative of who you are.
This is what our world needs to see. Church communities that are being real.
But to be real to those outside the church, we first have to get real with ourselves.
Over the course of the last year, we've made numerous additions and improvements to AdvancedMinistry. One of the most recent additions was the Secure Intranet, which has been very well received. As we press forward in 2010, we won't be slowing down any time soon when it comes to new improvements. In fact, we have a number of things already lined up for this year, some of which include:
A redesigned back-end admin panel with better statistical reporting
Conversion of most AM 2.0 templates to AM 3.0.
Addition of many new templates
A mobile browser version of AdvancedMinistry
Continued improvements to the recurring events engine
Continued improvements on the blog engine
Those are some of the major ones, with many minor additions in the works as well.
All of that said, our most important indicator for additions and improvements is your (client) feedback. We've had tons of it so far we welcome even more!
Please feel free to submit a ticket or post a comment on this blog if you have anything that you'd like us to be working on. We keep an ongoing list of client suggestions and it never hurts to add a few more (no matter how big or how small).
For years we've been getting asked by people as to whether or not we have a business version of AdvancedMinistry. Well the wait is finally over! Introducing BarkBuilder (beta), AdvancedMinistry's business platform. With BarkBuilder, entrepreneurs can now use the power behind AdvancedMinistry in their businesses!
BarkBuilder is named after Electricurrent's sister company, Bark Communications. Whereas Electricurrent (the creators of AdvancedMinistry) focus on building brands for ministries, Bark Communications focuses on building brands for businesses. Both companies employ the same group of people; it's simply two different marketing arms.
To view BarkBuilder, visit www.barkbuilder.com. From there, select an industry -- “Business Edition” will be the one you want. (We are currently in the process of forming partnerships in different industries so that we can offer specific versions of the platform to each industry, thereby enhancing the experience of each one.)
We are very excited to finally have BarkBuilder off the ground and into beta (testing) mode. Over the next few months, both AdvancedMinistry and BarkBuilder will continue to grow and expand in its service offering. Both platforms are built off of the exact same codebase, meaning that if we make a major addition to one platform, the other benefits as well! Additionally, if we find a bug in one platform, one simple fix will cover both AdvancedMinistry and BarkBuilder.
If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask. We are very excited to see what the Lord has in store for the upcoming year!
As a follow up to the article I posted yesterday, I read an interesting article today on CNet entitled “HTML vs. Flash: Can a turf war be avoided?” If your interested in the future of Flash and how it will affect your ministry or organization, this article is an interesting read. Here is a quote from the article:
“HTML vs. Flash has the potential to become a religious war. As long as there have been programming languages, there have been arguments about which tool is the best for getting the job done, and this issue has some extra elements that add some emotion to the mix.
There are plenty of Firefox-using open-source fans who chafe at proprietary plug-ins, and they're accustomed to making their opinions heard. Another group enjoys bashing Flash as a conduit for in-your-face online advertising. Add a little Apple iPad love-hate invective into the mix, and you've got great potential for Flash bashing...
...Indeed, it's probably wiser to take a deep breath and accept that both technologies will prevail and neither will conquer the other any time soon.”
For anyone that's been following the recent news of Apple's new iPad, one of the most apparent things that people noticed (besides its lack of GPS and camera) was it's inability to display Flash within websites. Apple seems to blame it on Adobe, but Adobe today released a very interesting response which can be found here.
As we move into the next five years, it will be interesting to see whether or not Flash will play a critical role in websites as we know them today. HTML 5 offers a lot of new features and technologies, but as to whether or not it's a replacement to Flash, the jury is still out.
Here is the third fulfilled request for an Xpiritmental wallpaper. This one was from a friend of mine and it will be interesting to talk to him and see what he thinks and if it came close to any of the ideas he may have had. This design centres on Matthew 7:13-14 where Jesus explains the difference between the wide and narrow gates and where the paths lead for those that enter them. I was about to recreate a PowerPoint slide I did last year for these verses at a larger size, but then another idea hit me. I created this large labyrinth maze as a visual for the scripture. The cool thing here is that the maze actually works, there is a solution for it. So not only will it nicely decorate your monitor but when you have some free time you can actually work on finding your way through it.
I am looking forward to comments from those that are frustrated by it and and those that are able to solve it.
Xpiritmental No. 66 The Narrow Gate Matthew 7:13-14
Take a few minutes and walk around your office and without any set up, just ask five people: "If you were to explain who we are to someone outside the organization, what would you say?"
You might be interested to find out what each of them have to say...I know I am.
Communication is a two-way street right? Well, maybe. But there's lots of times when communication becomes entirely one-sided. It occurs when one person really wants to communicate something but the other has no interest in hearing it. Companies with garbage products do this a lot...and fail. Lots of them use tactics of repetition (read annoyance) in order to make sales happen, but that doesn't build brand loyalty and as such, it's an unsustainable model.
So it's important to ask yourself: “is my audience interested in the message I'm sending?” If not, then what? Well, at that point, it's time to stop and take stock of what it is that your audience does value and reconsider how to approach them with your message. It will feel a lot like being responsible for both speaking and listening...and that's perfectly ok...right where a good communicator needs to be.
We get asked on fairly regular basis if we can provide a complete list of everything that AdvancedMinistry has to offer. Typically we point people to the Pricing page which gives a list of everything, however, it doesn't provide a detailed account of each module does.
As of today you can now find a complete list of features along with a screenshot of each one. Click here to view them now.
For years now, we've been asked by many of our customers as to whether or not we have a corporate version of AdvancedMinistry. Our response up to this point has been, “No, unfortunately not... but maybe one day.”
Well, that day has finally arrived; the corporate version of AdvancedMinistry is finally here. The name of our new product along with its pricing model will be announced next week.
Here is another fulfilled request for an Xpiritmental reader. One of our readers suggested that we do a wallpaper for John 3:16. This is probably the most well known verse in the New Testament. It is one that had been on my mind for a while and I had to this point been avoiding doing something for this verse for that very reason. Because it is so well known I was having a hard time visualizing something that I thought would be appropriate or inspiring. So after some exploring I did something that I feel is simple and puts a lot of emphasis on the words. Then I surrounded the verse with a piercing, glorious light that could be interpreted as God's presence. The mission I gave myself going into this one was to create an image that made the word's look as important as they read. I think I was successful. I hope everyone enjoys using it as much as I enjoyed making it!
I can't remember if I've ever shared this before on Xpiritmental, so I'd better start today's post by explaining that I'm one of five band leaders involved in leading worship at my church. As a result, it falls to me to spend time picking sets of music that will set up the sermon and allow the congregation to respond to it through music.
I had the opportunity to lead this past weekend in church and had a really cool experience that I'd like to share with you all that really applies to what we so often talk about on this blog. To give it some context though, I'll have to let you in on some of the details of the process I take in leading worship.
The process starts about three weeks out from the actual Sunday I'm leading. The very first step is to find out who is speaking, what the topic is and get the sermon notes into my hands to help with song selection. Most often, detailed sermon notes aren't floating around for a sermon that's three weeks out, but highlight notes of the main points, Scripture references and takeaways often are. This past time though, no such notes existed and so I had a chat with our pastor and got a great idea for the direction of the set from him.
So off to work I went. Between picking a list of songs that could work for that Sunday, narrowing them down into a set that had a specific musical and lyrical flow, meeting with a friend to work out keys and maps, providing the team with the maps, charts and inspiration and then rehearsal the night before, I had easily invested 20 hours of prep before even showing up at the church for 6:30 AM last Sunday morning for rehearsal and service run-through.
That's a lot of work and planning to go into a 75-minute experience of corporate worship for a given member of our congregation...and no doubt, there's some of you asking the question: “is it necessary?”.
My simple answer to that would be: yep...and here's why: preparation leads to excellence and I believe that we are called to do all that we do to the best of our ability, for God's glory. The really cool thing though, is that time-after-time, despite all of the preparation put forward by myself and all the members of the band for a given weekend, there always seems to be a gap or two that I tend to find out after the fact that God has plans to fill.
Kinda like this:
This past weekend, as I sat in the first of two services we have in our church, and listened to our pastor preach, he ended up reading a verse that was the direct inspiration for one of the songs that we had just finished singing. Bear in mind, as I outlined above, when I selected the set and narrowed it down from about 35 potentials to the 6 songs we sang, I did not have any of the supporting Scriptures that my pastor was going to use. I was so struck at that moment with how God had directed the set selection that I turned to my friend who was in the band and said: “Can you believe that? Of all the songs I could have picked and of all the verses that our pastor could have referenced, we landed on the exact same thing.” But it's clear to me, that it wasn't “us landing on it” at all...
And then, after the service, I was speaking with our pastor and he expressed how a quote that I had read to set up the final two songs before the sermon was one that he had considered adding into his sermon but had cut for the sake of time. The really cool part of that being, that I went home after rehearsal on Saturday night, still not knowing how I would set those two songs up. I even got to the point of getting into bed thinking I'd have to think something up in the morning. But before I shut off the light, I opened a book I'd been reading off-and-on for a while but hadn't touched for 3 weeks: and as I turned the first page, that quote was right there and as soon as I read it, I knew that it was the perfect set up for the songs before the sermon. I had no idea my pastor even knew of that quote, let alone had considered using it in his sermon.
And I believe that these kinds of things are the ways in which God honors our preparation. But it's a two-fold blessing. It's not just a matter of: “if I do the work, God will do His thing” (as if it's dependant on me and my work). Nope.
Rather, while I do believe that God honors our hard work and effort to give Him our best, the biggest blessing is the comfort that His blessing brings. Because, no matter how hard I work and how many hours I put into a worship set, I know that He is going to see His name glorified and will accomplish His purposes in the experience.
And I see that same principal applying in the work that you all do. As you work to fulfill the calling that God has given you, you are called to do so to the best of your ability, not accepting mediocrity because our God deserves our very best. But at the same time, be comforted in the knowledge that because of, and even at times in spite of all your hard work, God will see His plans come to fruition.
That's not an excuse not to try, but as a fallible human trying to lead and serve others, it's sure a comforting truth.
AdvancedMinistry is pleased to announce the official launch a new component available to all of its Orange, Red, Blue and Purple Suite users – a secure (password-protected) intranet at no additional cost.
What this means is that you can now setup an intranet for your ministry that enables you to create as many secure areas as you like. For example, you could have a secure area for Worship Arts Ministry, Children's Ministry, Men's Ministry and so on.
In order for people to access those secure areas, you can set them up with their own username and password. For every user that you create, you can either grant them full access to the intranet or simply give them access to certain areas (i.e Children's Ministry); it's completely up to you. Additionally, you have full control over whether or not the user has the ability to post files and messages to each area.
Here is a breakdown of the maximum number of users provided for each AdvancedMinistry Suite. (Note that the number of secure areas is “unlimited” in all available suites.)
Orange Suite customers – 10 users
Red Suite customers – 50 users
Blue Suite customers – 500 users
Purple Suite customers – Unlimited users
Regarding the amount of file space for your intranet, it is directly tied to the amount of file space available in your suite. For a complete listing and comparison table, click here.
Below are a few screen shots of the new component. To begin, login to your account and click on “Account Management” (on the right hand side of the screen), followed by “Secure Intranet”. Enjoy!
The first week back after the break I put out a message calling for requests for Xpiritmental wallpaper ideas. I received three responses; I was hoping for a few more but it's a start. :)
The first request I have fulfilled was Philippians 4:5. It was fun doing this and I appreciate the input. I hope you all enjoy it!
Don't get me wrong... I love Google. They have changed the face of the Internet in so many ways; some for the better and some for the worse – mostly for the better in my opinion. But personally speaking, I have a serious concern with putting all of my eggs in one basket. And with the latest cyber-attack to the Google infrastructure, it's got me thinking again.
About three years ago I asked many of my peers the following question (paraphrased):
“So let me get this straight... Google has all of your email correspondance for the last X number of years; they have most of your private documents through their Google Documents sharing application; they have all of your instant messaging conversations for the last X number of years through Google Talk; they know what you've been looking for and where you're going through Google Maps (and now Google Latitude); they have all of your website statistics through Google Analytics; and they have your entire search history for as long as you've been on Google. That's more data than any world government. Does that make you even a little nervous?”
Now I'm not saying, “Get up and move your files from Google.” All I'm implying is that when considering the digital strategy for yourself or your organization, it would be reckless not to evaluate all of your options. Consider the consequences if your data is breached – and when I mean “breached”, I mean copied or stolen. Most companies have a good backup plan in place in case your data gets hacked or if a hard drive fails – I'm not talking about that. I'm referring to the personal confidentiality of your data – things like contacts, social security numbers, private conversations, financial information, etc. If someone got a hold of that, would you be at risk? Additionally, if that service (i.e. Google) went offline for 1-2 weeks (or more), would that hinder your organization?
At the end of the day, I completely recognize that the Lord is in absolute control; He holds us in His hands. And regardless of where we put our data – we can't live in fear. At the same time, I don't think it's a bad idea to have a data strategy; ask yourself questions like:
- Do I have a backup plan if Google goes down?
- Do the files that I'm uploading contain any personal data that could cause harm to myself or another person? (Measure the risk factor.)
Once again, I'm not trying to generate fear by posting this; I'm simply trying to get you thinking in terms of a strategic data plan that covers as many angles as possible.
Last night I was at home after grocery shopping with my wife and we we're putting away what we bought from the store. While we we're doing so the radio was on and there was a steady dose of news coming in regarding the earthquake that occurred on January 12th in Haiti. At that moment I had a heavy heart thinking of all the people that had lost so much and there I am in my warm, dry house surrounded by an abundance of food and my family. It's a stark contrast that really got to me at that moment. So I started thinking about what can I do to help in any way possible.
Today I designed an Xpiritmental desktop for Haiti to inspire help, love and prayer for the nation and the people there struggling through this difficult time. At the heart of this image is the principle that we all have a responsibility to participate some way in helping a nation that has been nearly destroyed in a matter of minutes. Through prayer, giving or travelling to the area to help, it is up to us to be God's hands on earth to help a nation up from ruins. It's times like this that God's love can shine the brightest.
It's easy to be comfortable in our lives and be consumed with everything that we have going on. As believers we have to realize that we are going to be called to give account with what we did and equally as important, what we didn't do. Let this wallpaper provide an incentive for you and others to all play a positive part in this situation. No matter how big or small.
I just finished viewing some pictures out of Haiti that have really set the tone for my afternoon and made it clear to me what today's blog post should be all about.
As the Haitian Prime Minister reports that the death toll could easily be on the scale of hundreds of thousands of people, all I can think to do is provide links to a few organizations that we have relationships with (either corporately or as individuals) where your donations would be most welcome:
Over the last year or so, I've spent a great deal of time looking for better ways to be more efficient with the dollars that we spend on software – both in our company and at the local church that I attend. In my research I've found that there are many ways that ministries and businesses could be saving a great deal of money just by properly researching the software that they are purchasing (or not purchasing).
Long story short, I wanted to share with you one of my findings that I believe may be helpful to your ministry; it comes in the area of Office & Productivity Suites.
Our company and church have been using Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook) for as long as I can remember. I estimate that in the last 10 years, our company has spent in the range of $30,000 purchasing new and upgraded versions of Microsoft Office. About a year ago, we investigated the possibility of moving to OpenOffice, a free open-source software suite that generally speaking, does all of the same things as Microsoft Office. I am pleased to announce that not only have we switched to OpenOffice, most of us like it better the Microsoft Office. It's still able to open all of your old Word, PowerPoint and Excel documents (and save them in that format), and in our opinion runs a lot faster and smoother than Microsoft Office.
So if you're in the mood to try something different and don't mind getting it for free, OpenOffice could be the start of something good for you and your ministry. :)
As one of the designers of the Xpiritmental desktops I am curious to know what lifts you up and encourages you. If you have particular verses or anything else that’s appropriate that you would like to see incorporated into desktop backgrounds, we'd love to receive them and see what we can do.
It brings me great joy to design the wallpapers knowing thousands of people download them. Many people spend most of their days on their computers and the visuals can provide as inspiration and motivation in your daily endeavors. Coming into 2010 we're looking for some ideas to keep the library growing. So get us your ideas by adding a comment to this post and we’ll see what we can do!
A few of us here at the office are either familiar with, or friends with, a guy named Mike Tompkins. Mike's a pretty talented guy in the areas of sound production and beat boxing. So today, for our Casual Friday, we present Mike's latest offering…a remake of "Party in the USA" by Miley Cyrus. The catch being that every sound you hear was made by Mike's mouth, voice and a tambourine.
I'm not sure how many of our American friends found themselves glued to their televisions last night as the U.S. and Canadian Jr. Hockey teams squared off in the final of the IIHF World Junior Hockey Championship, but I can tell you that up here in Canada, there were lots of people who were fixated on the big game.
Canada was vying for a record sixth straight gold medal, but were unable to deliver as the Americans took them to overtime and scored in sudden death to end the game and win this year's tournament.
What inevitably comes out of a loss like that for any sports team is that the losing team can take comfort in having played competitively and hold their heads high for playing in a gracious and sportsmanlike manner that represents their club or country well and we all nod our heads dismissively recognizing it as both a basic truth and a classic sports cliche.
But in many cases, that accepted truism doesn't seem to want to stick in a ministry or a non-profit context.
What seems to happen instead is that although sportsmanlike competition is construed as a positive and possible thing in sport, it's not possible in a ministry or non-profit context. Somehow, as soon as competition is mentioned in those circles, the only thing that gets envisioned is the kind of competition that's dirty, low-brow and mean-spirited.
But the reality is that especially in these tighter economic times, for churches, ministries and non-profits to function, they absolutely must realize that they are not only in competition for a piece of a financial pie that has and will likely continue to get smaller over the next while (as far as personal philanthropy is concerned), but that they are in competition with a growing number of ministries and non-profits who are vying for those same dollars. Additionally, in an advertising saturated culture that moves at an unbelievable pace these days, it's critical to realize that you are even in competition for people's attention.
To ignore these truths is to neglect the condition of the current market and it sets you up for failure.
Embrace the concept that you are in fact, in competition, and then compete.
But while you're doing that, regardless of whether you find yourself winning or losing, just make sure that you compete in a way that at the end of the day, we can all say that you battled hard and you did it with grace and quality.
As we head into the first part of 2010, we just thought we'd whet your appetite with a few things that we're going to be launching within the next few weeks:
1. For everyone on the Ray of Hope template, we will be converting it to AM 3.0. This means that you will now have full control over all of your template colors, fonts, column sizes, backgrounds, etc.
2. Similarly, for everyone on the Ultimate Love template, we will be converting that one to 3.0 as well. (More templates will be converted in the near future as well.)
3. We will be launching the ability for every ministry to have their own secure intranet to share files and communicate with one another.
Many people look at January 1st as a fresh start. Many of those people make themselves a promise that they intend to see through for that entire year in an effort to better themselves. Sadly most of those promises are abandoned by Valentine’s day.
The point of this post is two-fold. First I want to share what my New Year’s resolution is for this year and secondly make an appeal for you to share your resolutions. I think there is value in sharing your resolution with someone else as it creates accountability. It’s easy to stop doing something or give up if no one else knew you were doing it in the first place.
This year I am quitting the fast food scene. No more burger joints, tacos or greasy chicken. For me fast food is a bit of a vice as I find it easy to eat that kind of food often. But as a guy going into my 30s and as a new parent I want to ensure I am being responsible to my family and the body God gave me.
So there you have it. Is anyone else brave enough to share their resolution? Does anyone have any success stories from resolutions they stuck to? We would love to hear them. Who knows, your story could help someone else. Maybe there is something you can resolve for this year that will directly benefit the ministry or church you work for and in that directly impact God’s kingdom.
Not all resolutions have to do with quitting smoking or losing weight. Open your mind and your heart to something that God may be asking you to do this year and see where you are after 365 days of obedience to that item. Leave a comment on this post and we hope you’re successful with this year’s new start.
'Twas the day before Christmas and all through the office
Not an employee was present...well, except me.
But I'm heading out in a few minutes and at that point, our offices will be officially closed for the holidays.
As such, we're going to take a break from the blogging world and barring any unforeseen circumstances, things will go quiet on the Xpiritmental blog front until January 4.
However, even though the blog will be quiet, if you’re an AdvancedMinistry user with a support issue, know that we're still here for you. Just continue to use the support system as usual and although we’ll be away from the office, we will be monitoring our support system for any critical issues. Non-critical issues will be tended to when we return to normal business.
Similarly, for clients of Electricurrent, if you have any major issues, please contact us using our online form as someone will be monitoring it for critical issues as well.
Have a blessed Christmas and a most excellent New Year celebration!
After the roller coaster ride of last year, 2009 has seen the world economy begin to turn around. And while many have been adversely affected, some of which have had to close their doors, we are so thankful to have been in a position to not only maintain our current staff, but to grow to be able to better serve our clients needs. For the team here at Electricurrent and AdvancedMinistry, 2009 held a number of important events:
Our family grew
2009 marked a year of growth as we added two programmers, Julie Exel and Walter Bax to our team. Our extended family also grew as Derek and Stephanie welcomed Lawson into the world on August 2nd, and Julie and Andrew welcomed Hailey Lynn to their family on November 13th.
The students
This past year, we've taken on a new opportunity by playing host to a few co-op students as they experienced a placement with us. Paul Mawdsley from South Secondary School joined us first and was with us from January til June, and we currently have Peter Argall from Banting Secondary School with us until end of January.
Our Marathon man
Our Creative Director, Hugh Pindur once again completed the Chicago Marathon. But this time around he shaved almost two hours off his time, coming in at a very impressive 3:19:34. Next up in 2010, he is shooting for entry into the Boston Marathon. No more M&Ms and cookies in the afternoon for Hugh.
But at this time we not only think of all memorable moments that we've experienced in 2009, we also engage the truth that we live in a time and place of great privilege while many across the world and even in our own backyard, don't even have enough to eat let alone a job to go to. And so, as we did last year, in lieu of holiday gifts, Electricurrent is once again making a donation to World Relief that will help to make a real difference in the lives of impoverished individuals across the world.
As we all take time to reflect on this past year and spend time with our families this holiday season, we wish you all a great holiday season. As in past years, our offices will be closed during the holidays. We will be shutting down at noon on Thursday, December 24th and returning Monday, January 4th. For those of you on AdvancedMinistry, the AdvancedMinistry team will continue to respond to support tickets throughout the holidays. Please understand though that there may be a longer-than-expected wait time in receiving a response.
From the entire team here at Electricurrent and AdvancedMinistry, we wish you and your family Merry Christmas! To God be all glory.
For those who don't know, the Davey Awards are run by the same organization as the Webby Awards (dubbed the Oscars of the Internet). The only difference being that the Davey's are specifically for smaller budget agencies who have billings of US $25 million or less.
That still puts us in some very esteemed company, as there are many smaller agencies who are doing work for major corporate accounts and many larger agencies have taken to creating mini-branches that are distinctly branded but are technically still part of the larger agency, they just have smaller billings. So for us to win recognition by the Davey Awards is a real honor and a great note to end the year on.
I have been blessed with 3 children who have Attention Deficit Disorder (A.D.D.) and am learning so many valuable lessons through them.
Because of this, I tend to be ultra-sensitive to this type of behavior in the people around me including the ministries we serve and don’t serve. There are so many roads I could go down to explain why this behavior is at the very least a waste of resources and at its worst, destructive, but I am not here to complain.
Rather, my hope is to encourage those that fall into this trap to take toll of their communications efforts and do the right thing. Plan, understand and stay focused.
If you are working with freelancers, make sure they understand your brand and the way you want to communicate that brand. If you have the privilege of working with a professional communications firm, listen, learn and don’t let pride get in the way. If you have the extreme privilege of having in-house creative capabilities, encourage them to hold fast and flex their creative muscle within the brand parameters and be willing to truly listen to and consider their suggestions.
I guess that’s why I encourage anyone who will listen to let the brand drive everything. It’s the only path to honest consistency.
Xpiritmental is a resource. It's a place to learn and to share thoughts on marketing, ministry, design, service, the Web, culture and more. We'll start the conversation, but we're looking forward to hearing what you've got to say.
Digg
Delicious
Facebook
Reddit
StumbleUpon
Now through no fault of your own, if you were working in photoshop and wanted to fill the background of your design with black your natural compulsion would be to set the black value to 100 and all the other color values to zero, however this would be wrong. That result would give you a very dark grey. If your looking for a black as dark as the night sky it requires a color formula involving all four colors (as seen in the image provided).
This crime is certainly a petty one but it is one that I want to call attention to nonetheless. For some reason in high school keyboarding classes we were taught that it is correct to put two spaces after a sentence. This was a lesson that I carried with me into my college years in graphic design, where I was taught that this practice is actually incorrect. So what's the deal? After having been taught both and having implemented both practices, I live by what I was taught in design school. Let me give you a couple of reasons why.
Hello fellow blog readers. This is Derek writing you with the announcement of a new recurring post that will be appearing on day one of your work week. Starting on Monday you can look forward to “Monday Morning Misdemeanors” which are going to being looking into the petty crimes committed in the world of graphic design.
Contact Us