To my RefreshCache friends… are you the same person you were in October?

I’m happy with my effort, but not necessarily my output. Still much to do… If you’ve made progress let me know.

(For everyone else… sorry for the cryptic reference. Attend RefreshCache. It’s not only an Arena conference this year… All church developers welcome.)

What is a nanosecond? Or more importantly, why does it matter? Developers spend milliseconds (1000000 nanoseconds) like the government spends money. The cost is slooow software. Speed is a primary feature of the Rock ChMS, we covet each millisecond. This video helps put it all into perspective. Note: Keep in mind when she compares a nanosecond to a microsecond a millisecond is 1000 microseconds.

An example of our dedication to speed is Rock’s differed transaction capability. In any web application there is work that needs to be done, but doesn’t require the user to hang around to wait. We built a transaction queue that can take these transactions and process them after the page has been sent to the user. A quick example… we’re building in basic page analytics into the CMS portion of the app. A way to track how many times a page has been loaded. If we were to write this into the database during the normal lifecycle of a page we could expect it to take 12ms. Adding it to the differed transaction queue only takes .15ms (you will be able to turn off analytics all together if you’d like).

Our first impressions team just created these training videos. Thought I’d share them here in case you’d like to pass them on to your host/first-impressions teams. If you have similar videos, on any topic, I’d love to see them and share them with our staff.

Introduction

Parking

Ushers

Info Center

Greeter

Communion Prep

On my research list for this week was the best way to embed video directly into email. For a long time this was impossible, but now the HTML5 video tag opens up some possibilities. The best info on video in email is this blog post from Campaign Monitor. It discusses to pros/cons and html needed. Support is still pretty limited, but something to think about…

If doing all of this yourself seems like too much trouble you could also use a service like Bomb Bomb.

Big news today. Today we announced the creation of a new non-profit organization entitled the Spark Development Network at the RefreshCache conference. The goal of this entity is to support the development of quality open-source software for churches. The initial project will be the creation of an open-source church management solution called Rock ChMS.

While a usable solution is still a ways off, we’re very excited about the future. I encourage you to head over to the Spark website to find out more and to register to recieve periodic updates on our progress. We’re also very interested in help with this project. If you have C# development experience or are an experienced web designer please let us know!

A leader is best when people barely know that he exists.
Less good when they obey and acclaim him.
Worse when they fear and despise him.
Fail to honor people, and they fail to honor you.
But of a good leader, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled,
they will say, “We did this ourselves.”

Lao-Tzu

Our Director of Security (think physical security) ask me if I could put together 10 points for information security for an upcoming conference he is presenting at.  These points are mainly for small churches without IT staff.  I wasn’t going to post them here as they’re pretty basic, but as I wrote them I couldn’t help but think how much improvement we could still make in some of these areas… I won’t say which ones 

Anyways… for what it’s worth, here they are.

1. Train employees not to give out personal information on attendees
   Speaking Notes: Most breaches come through “Social Hacking”.  Someone calls the organization with a “good story” and the employee hands out proprietary information.
2. Check what leaves the building through the trash
   Speaking Note: All of the information security in the world is a waste when information can be printed, put in the office trash and then placed at the curb of the street.
3. Limit access to servers and network equipment
   Speaker Notes: The first layer of IT security starts at physical access.  Servers and switches should be behind locked doors / cabinets.
4. Implement password changes / sharing
   Speaker Notes: Passwords should be required to change every 45 days and should not be shared with volunteers or other staff.  Each person should have their own.
5. Protect computers from viruses and spyware
   Speaker Notes: Every server and computer on the network should have anti-virus / spyware  software installed and up to date.  This doesn’t have to be expensive.  Small churches can use AVG and Malware Bytes.
6. WiFi networks should be protected
   Speaker Notes: WiFi access points should be configured by someone familiar with the various types of encryption available.  WiFi networks for use by attendees should not be on the same network as the office.
7. Access to backups should be secured
   Speaker Notes: Access to backup hard drives / tapes should be secured.  A good off-site option is to use a safety deposit box at a bank.
8. Laptops with attendee private information on the local drive should be encrypted
   Speaker Notes: Computers with attendee information on them should have their hard drives encrypted.  This is built into Windows 7 Ultimate, but other free tools exist like TrueCrypt.
9. Educate volunteers on your information security practices
   Speaker Notes: Anyone with access to attendee information should be instructed on the proper use of it.  Never assume that they know right from wrong.  There have been several cases where a volunteer has used the church’s attendee information for their network marketing business and never thought twice about if it was right or wrong.  It would be best to have them sign a documenting that they understand and agree to the policies and procedures.  We call this the “Ministry Partner Form”.
10. Never feel like you’re finished
    Speaker Notes: These are the very basic of tips.  Always realize that it takes work to keep up with these 9 items and there is always more that could be done.

Seth Godin often writes about getting promotion tools/information into the hands of those who are on fire for your organization.  They can’t help but spread the word.  For a long time our team has been wanting to focus on this.  We finally made the time to tackle one such idea.  Here’s how it works.

As soon as Baptism photos come back from the volunteer photographers they are added to a person’s record in Arena.  That night the person baptized will receive an email with a personalized link to a page where they can view it (image below, names and faces blurred for privacy)

They can also, with one click, share the photo and link on their Facebook page, Twitter, email and Google +.  They also can download a digital copy of their picture.  The individual person still receives a printed photo and certificate in the mail.

For years we’ve been looking for tool to help us audit and manage our PCs.  There’s a lot out there… (Spiceworks, ManageEngine, etc.) but none of them come close to what we need.  That is until we found LAN Sweeper.  It quickly scanned, audited and reported on our network.  The more I use the tool the more I say, “These guys get it”.  It’s obvious they have managed a network and created a tool based on experience. Here’s just a few of my favorite features:

• Scans by looking at both Active Directory objects AND scanning entire networks.
• Easily allows you to remote control a machine, grab a screen shot remotely, or open the machines c drive.
• Allows you to customize devices by SNMP OIDs
• It not only pulls in computers, but also their owners.  This allows you to quickly search on a person and see what computer they’re logged into.
• Tracks hardware, software changes made to a computer over time.
• Tracks licenses
• Easy to customize
• Easy to make reports

LAN Sweeper costs $300/yr.  It’s installed on your network, but you must license it each year.  Check it out…

I have a minor addiction to magazines.  I love to flip through them looking for new ideas and products.  I even flip through the US Postal Service’s Deliver magazine, which actually is better than you might expect.

In the latest issue (available on-line) they have a article on recent demographic research done by Peter Francese.  In it he states:

My research found that there is no longer an average American. When I was a child, people used to talk about John Doe; he was the average American in a relatively even society where vast numbers of people had the same sort of needs for consumer products and services. There was a significant uniformity of society that has really never been matched. But I can predict with a high degree of certainty that the 2010 census will essentially put the last nail in the coffin of the average American, because he or she no longer exists.

This makes thinking about target marketing even more important.  Thought I wonder if having just a single target is enough these days.

Feel free to read the rest of his article which starts on page 17.