As has been mentioned previously on this blog, we are big fans of the Apple platform. Ask 15 people across North Point why this is, and you will likely get 15 different answers. However, from an IT perspective there are two main reasons:

1. It puts lots of creativity into the hands of our users. Sure, you could accomplish this with a Windows machine as well, but not with out of the box software. We put a very high value on creativity around here, so the more that’s available to the fingertips of our users with minimal additional cost, the better.
2. Viruses, Adware, and Malware oh my.

I am sure you all have your arguments with me on this topic. So, don’t take it from me, take it from the Enterprise Desktop Alliance. And as always, feel free to disagree with me by commenting below!!

The shoot itself took us to Buckhead and then into downtown Atlanta, where we could take advantage of some urban scenery, graffitti walls, deserted underpasses and cool-looking tunnels. It was freezing and a long day, but we got some gorgeous footage on the Canon Mark II 5D. Did I mention we had to make the flag fly in the wind? Fortunately, it was actually very windy that day so we got some excellent shots of the flag rippling. (Which, of course, got cut.) At one point, the entire crew jumped a fence, walked over some deserted train tracks, hiked up a steep under-pass and filmed in between two busy highways. We also had a spectator. A homeless man, who called himself Lighting. He saw us filming with a white flag and immediately told us he knew we were making a video about surrender. The situation gave us a lot of perspective about the meaning of the video we were filming.

In addition to capturing some excellent footage, we had a little bit of an adventure and a great story to tell. Check out the video below.

Camera: Canon Mark II 5D
Producer/Director: Heather Breslin
DP: Josh Peters
Actor: John Saddington
Click here to view the embedded video.

This post is a long time in the making, but a recent article from Google renewed my passion for the topic, so I thought I would share our journey into the clouds with you.

Step back with me, way back to 2002, when I began my employment here at North Point. At that time all of our email was handled through a Mac clone running EIMS. People only used POP on this bad boy, so all email was contained within the individual Entourage databases of our users. If this doesn’t strike fear in your heart, then you might be reading the wrong blog.  On top of this, there was no real contact or calendar sharing to speak of.  And to make matters even worse, we were (and still are) an all-Mac shop on the end user side. So to move to something like exchange was a very difficult idea for us to swallow.

We went on like this for the next 4 years until…one day…. we hired…a windows guy to run our IT department….

dum dum dum…..

Fear not though… we quickly assimilated him into our undying devotion to the Apple platform. This turned out to be great because he had the best of both worlds. He had the experience of the real world, and the love of the pretty one. So, we began our search for a replacement of EIMS.

Fast forward a few years to the end of 2007 when a friend of mine asked an alarmingly simple question, “Why don’t you guys use Google Apps? Its free?” What?!? I did a double take to make sure he was serious. After I casually blew him off, I quickly ran back to my desk to ponder the idea. Eventually, we set up a test domain, added some key users in the ministry, and quickly fell in love. Here’s why:

1. It democratizes technology: people only use what they need of Google apps. They don’t have to wait on the IT department for upgrades and feature additions.
2. They have more cash than me: they can provide backups and D/R sites that I will never be able to afford.
3. No infrastructure required: need I say more?
   
4. Its free: as in the First Amendment.
5. Spam filtering: it’s by Postini/Google, and it is awesome and crazy cheap for NPO’s. This also provides us with 1 year of email archiving.

There are many other reasons but these are the big five as I see them.

Over the next year or so, we migrated all of our users from Entourage POP to Mail.app/gmail/imap. We migrated all of their calendars to Google and provided training sessions of about 10-15 people per session until everyone was migrated.

As with any major move, we had many challenges.

• Google has not been the greatest customer service organization. Getting in touch with someone when a real issue arises has its problems.
• We are one big organization with many parts (campuses, and domain names), and Google apps only gives you one domain for everything to fall under. However, they also allow you to have alias domains. So, we created a parent domain to configure everything, and we set everyone’s default alias/domain to the campus/domain where they work.
• We had to develop our own training materials and migration plans. I only mention this because since then Google has created a deployment center for this. I highly recommend it.

The move to Google apps has been an overwhelmingly positive experience for us. As Google continues to shore up current features and add awesome new ones, it only gets better. The only problem we are having these days is how to get all this new information into the hands of the users that want/need it. Despite everything though, I would much rather have this problem than sending emails to my users about my exchange server being down.

Disclaimer: We were a bit unique with our move in that we went from nothing to something amazing. Most people already have Exchange, so moving to  Google apps may be a little more difficult for them because it may not solve all problems. Furthermore, your users already have certain expectations of a product that mine did not. Here is a great source of information on this point. http://citrt.pbworks.com/Google-Apps-Pros-Cons-Other

By Casey Ross, Director of Ministry Services, Browns Bridge Community Church

As a younger leader, I oftentimes led by myself, even though I had bosses, peers, and volunteers working around me. I felt like it proved I was a leader. I processed information and made decisions in isolation. And it actually worked most of the time. But just because it worked did not mean it was the right way to lead. My desire to prove I was a leader was causing me to miss out on a better way, and it was causing others to miss out on a better way too—collaboration.

Collaboration takes a group of players and turns them into a functioning team. And like all winning teams, it’s what happens before the game that makes them champions. Collaboration is working together before the game starts to come up with the game plan. It’s relying on each person to contribute to the plan that will lead the entire team to a win. It’s gathering people you trust to contribute to the plan.

http://www.ajc.com/business/content/business/stories/2009/03/31/emory_healthcare_cutbacks.html?cxntlid=homepage_tab_newstab

JumpStart is a 30-minute presentation for both kids and parents where we teach children what it means to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. This is an important part of our strategy to lead children and parents into a growing relationship with Jesus Christ. You can find out more about JumpStart here.

We invite our kids and parents to attend JumpStart in several different ways.

· We have a printed information cards that we give to kids and parents when they ask us about JumpStart.

· We create a special piece to talk to the kids about JumpStart whenever we are sharing the gospel in our curriculum.

· We advertise the dates and times in the bulletin.

· We talk about JumpStart during KidStuf.

· We send out an e-blasts several times a year to all of our UpStreet Parents to keep them aware of upcoming dates.

Here is an example of the email that we sent last week:

UpStreet Parents,

Have your kids been asking questions about faith or how to have a relationship with Christ?  If so, JumpStart is a great place to start.  JumpStart is a unique 30-minute presentation where parents and children (grades K-5th) can learn what it means to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.  JumpStart is a prerequisite for a child to participate in Family Birthday Celebration, a special baptism service for children who have made the decision to trust Christ.

Here is a glimpse of what JumpStart and Family Birthday Celebration are all about:

Click here to view the embedded video.

We would love for you and your child to have the opportunity to participate in these special events with us.  Here are our upcoming dates for both events:

JumpStart

March 21

May 16

Family Birthday Celebration

May 16

For more information or if you have any questions, please contact us at jumpstart@northpoint.org.

UpStreet Staff

We believe that it’s important to include parents in the most important decision that their child will ever make.

How do you invite parents into the process of leading their children into a growing relationship with Jesus Christ?

Find out how!

While I was in South Africa I met a couple of real life heroes. They would never call themselves heroes – but they are. They are people that you will probably never meet in person and will never hear about on the evening news.

You won’t see them walking down a red carpet at an awards ceremony and they won’t be given a gold medal. But they are heroes. Not showy, flashy, Grammy-Award-winning, or slam-dunking performers. Real. Life. Heroes.

Meet Allison and Liz.

Allison raises her own support to live in Cape Town and has worked her way into a public school system in District 9. There are about 450 kids in this school. These kids attend school in classrooms that are actually temporary storage units built fifty years ago. The classrooms house 35-40 kids each with one teacher.

Girls in front of their classrooms. Yes, these are classrooms.

Allison started by providing Camp SonShine as an after school and summer vacation program. She quickly learned that there was a much bigger need. Kids were coming to school hungry, so she figured out how to get food and make them breakfast. Kids were heading into 5^th grade and they couldn’t read or write their name. So she figured out how to get them a teacher. That’s where Liz comes in. Then created a program to teach the kids who needed the most help.

Kitchen

Allison and Liz understand that these kids need to be able to read and write if they are going to have any chance to have a better future. But more important, Allison and Liz realize that these kids need to know their Heavenly Father.

Do you know why they are heroes? Because they have decided these 450 kids are worth the effort and energy that it takes to show up early, work all day, stay late, and care for these kids during school vacations. They take small groups of kids and teach them, one by one. They take small groups of kids and love them, one by one. They take small groups of kids and introduce them to their Heavenly Father, one by one. They don’t get paid to do this. They raise money and figure out a way to do this because they believe that God can use them to make a difference.

We need your help!

As you can see from some of the pictures, the buildings that these kids are in everyday are less then acceptable. Allison needs two new classrooms to be able to provide the programming and the teaching that she knows they need.

These two classrooms will only cost a total of $4000.

We have a team going back to South Africa on March 19^th and I think we should send them with the money that Allison needs to build these classrooms. Really. Just $4000 will provide two brand new spaces that these kids will benefit from for a long time to come.

How can we pass up this opportunity to do something that is so easy for us to do?

Give here. (Under country choose “globalX.” Under trip choose “most needed.” Under individual type in “South Africa Intersect Project.”)

Give today. I’m going to give right now.

I’ve met Allison in person. I’ve seen the work they are doing. I’ve seen the space on the property where they will build the classrooms. I’ve seen the programming and teaching. I’ve seen the potential. I’ve seen the kids’ faces.

Let’s do this! Give right here. Give right now!

These kids may never fully realize the gift that Allison and Liz are giving them as they give them an education that will help them get a job in the future and has the potential to lift them out of their existing poverty and neglect. There is a really great chance that many of these kids will grow up and know what it means to have a relationship with their Heavenly Father.

Here’s the really cool thing about Allison and Liz. They are going to keep doing what they are doing whether you ever know them or not. They are going to keep giving of their time personally. They are going to keep scraping together the money they need for these kids. They are going to continue to love them and through that love many of these kids will have a very real picture of what the love of their Heavenly Father must look like.

Like I told you…heroes.

We record to tape as our primary archival system–DVCPRO50 format on DVCPRO tapes for SD & HD.  The Production Team also records the messages to an Omneon system as an additional backup.  On top of that, we capture every service live through Log & Capture in Final Cut Pro, straight to DVCPRO50 for SD (side screens - live switcher cut) and DVCPROHD for HD (center screen - locked down wide shot).  We use several of the media team’s computers to simultaneously capture the services, and now with the introduction of a new North Point Online rebroadcast, we also use multiple computers to compress the 11AM live service to FLV format and get it uploaded so that it can be viewable again at 6PM for the rebroadcast.  All this of course happens on a Sunday and involves a bunch of running back and forth, routing, labeling, pressing buttons, paying attention to details, and most importantly, troubleshooting.

Ryan Tabor usually does this every week, and somehow manages to hold it all together.  We got his process visualized (left) so that I could fill in for him last week while he took a vacation day, and it became my roadmap to a formidable world of responsibility.  The process of course goes a LOT deeper than this in terms of routing systems and filenames and labels and edits and settings and service flow, but this is essentially the gist of it.  If we miss any of these steps, archiving and reproducing our message for DVD, TV, partnerships, or the web becomes nearly impossible.

How do you guys record your services?  Have you ever been in a situation where you FORGOT to hit record??

Are you paying attention to your blind spots?

A few weeks ago I got a chance to talk with a staff team about their individual strengths and how those strengths work together to create their overall team dynamics. As we were talking, we got into a great discussion about how your strengths can also lead to your greatest blind spots.

Here are a few things about blind spots:

You can’t see them! Seems obvious, but YOU aren’t in the best position to see your blind spots or to know how they are affecting the team.

Your greatest strengths can also do damage to your team dynamics.

You tend to think that everyone values the same things you value and that everyone is good at the same thing that we are good at. Not true!

A few months ago I shared my results from the Strength Finder 2.0 test. I’ll give you a brief description, but if you want more information, I recommend that you buy the Strength Finder’s book. It’s a great tool to have on your shelf.

What I really want to talk about are a few of my blind spots. This isn’t all of them, but I hope this discussion will encourage you to become more aware of your own blind spots.

Strengths & Blind Spots:

#1 Maximizerr

This basically means that I always see how something could be improved. When I look at something or experience an environment, I’m thinking about how it could be done better.

The Blind Spot: I can come off as critical…maybe even arrogant (ouch!). Thinking that I know how to make things better. When I am leading a team, I can crush their enthusiasm over an event by giving feedback and making a list of how to make it better BEFORE celebrating and letting everyone know how much I appreciate a job well done.

When I asked my teammates where they saw this blind spot show up, one of them told me that it can be discouraging to work so hard on an event and have me move too quickly to evaluation and problem-solving instead of taking a moment to let everyone celebrate and relax from a job well done.

#2 Strategic

#3 Responsibility

For me this means that when I’m given a responsibility for something I take full ownership. I’ll work long and hard to complete it and do it to the best of my ability.

The Blind Spot: BUT! Sometimes I don’t share well. If I own it, even if my workload is too great, I have a hard time giving it up. (Especially if I don’t trust you to follow through to the extent that I would.) This can be very frustrating for those around me who want to help me.

But I think my greatest blind spot is that I hold everyone to a tough hard-working standard. My team has told me that sometimes they feel like they can’t tell me when they need a break. Yikes! That’s not good.

#4 Focus

I can see through a lot of “stuff” and decide where I want to end up. I like to set goals. I like to break projects down into steps that lead to a clear end result.

The Blind Spot: Once I decide where I’m going, it’s hard to get me off of that path. I’m not easily distracted, even when the distractions are important. I can be annoyed when I’m interrupted and impatient with distractions.

The biggest weakness for me is that I can be so focused on the end that I miss out on the people and their needs along the way. This has been pointed out to me before, and I hate when I do this!

#5 Achiever (Yes, I have major blind spots in this area. For another time!)

My Challenge To You!

1. Get into a discussion with your team. You don’t have to take the “official” test. It’s helpful, but you know your basic strengths. Talk about them with your team.

2. Then get into an honest discussion about your possible blind spots. Ask for real input. Ask for specific examples.

3. Do something about it! Once you are aware, you’ve got to put some reminders, some mental cues, some friendly accountability into place so that you don’t allow your blind spots to become a WEAK spot for your overall team.

What are your blind spots?