IT / Web http://insidenorthpoint.org/it A look inside Information Technology at North Point Tue, 10 Apr 2012 21:03:16 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.7 en hourly 1 Google Fonts and Dynamic CSS Files http://insidenorthpoint.org/it/2011/08/16/google-fonts-and-dynamic-css-files/ http://insidenorthpoint.org/it/2011/08/16/google-fonts-and-dynamic-css-files/#comments Tue, 16 Aug 2011 15:06:02 +0000 admin http://insidenorthpoint.org/it/?p=616 We recently had to figure out how to use google fonts for a specific page on one of our sites. We did not want to load in a CSS file that would only be needed on one page, so we had to find a way to dynamically load the CSS and thought we’d share the solution. The script snippet that google included didn’t work for some reason (perhaps some conflicts with existing scripts on the site), so we found a jQuery solution to load a CSS file when you don’t want to add code to the <head> for the entire site.


<script type="text/javascript">
/* <![CDATA[ */
var link = $("<link>");
link.attr({
        type: 'text/css',
        rel: 'stylesheet',
        href: 'http://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Architects+Daughter'
});
$("head").append( link ); 
/* ]]> */
</script>

Go here (http://www.google.com/webfonts) to select the font(s) you want to add, then it gives you the standard <link> you can add to your page if you want it in the head. But if you need to add that inside the <body>, use the above code and just replace the href attribute with the link google gives you.

Then just use CSS as normal:


.classWithGoogleFont {
font-family: 'Architects Daughter', cursive;
}

Enjoy!

]]> We recently had to figure out how to use google fonts for a specific page on one of our sites. We did not want to load in a CSS file that would only be needed on one page, so we had to find a way to dynamically load the CSS and thought we’d share the solution. The script snippet that google included didn’t work for some reason (perhaps some conflicts with existing scripts on the site), so we found a jQuery solution to load a CSS file when you don’t want to add code to the <head> for the entire site.


<script type="text/javascript">
/* <![CDATA[ */
var link = $("<link>");
link.attr({
        type: 'text/css',
        rel: 'stylesheet',
        href: 'http://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Architects+Daughter'
});
$("head").append( link ); 
/* ]]> */
</script>

Go here (http://www.google.com/webfonts) to select the font(s) you want to add, then it gives you the standard <link> you can add to your page if you want it in the head. But if you need to add that inside the <body>, use the above code and just replace the href attribute with the link google gives you.

Then just use CSS as normal:


.classWithGoogleFont {
font-family: 'Architects Daughter', cursive;
}

Enjoy!

]]> http://insidenorthpoint.org/it/2011/08/16/google-fonts-and-dynamic-css-files/feed/ WordPress and Version Control http://insidenorthpoint.org/it/2011/01/10/wordpress-and-version-control/ http://insidenorthpoint.org/it/2011/01/10/wordpress-and-version-control/#comments Mon, 10 Jan 2011 17:40:33 +0000 admin http://insidenorthpoint.org/it/?p=605 wp-iconOne of the things we’ve been trying to figure out is how to use version control with CMS platforms like WordPress. We had several discussions on whether or not we should place the entire installation under version control, but ultimately decided that would be wasteful and unnecessary. We really only need to consider the themes and plugins that we deploy, but they are very intertwined within the WP folder structure with all of the WP files, image uploads, etc. So we are trying out the layout below and so far it seems to be working well.

We have two scenarios where we use wordpress - one is when we have a static site managed outside of WP and then /blog is our WP blog, and the other (more typical) is where WP is managing the entire site. Since the latter is more common I’ll address that here.

Our folder structure:

  • {WWW_ROOT}/domain.org
    • plugins
    • themes
    • uploads
    • web

The document root for the site is the web folder, and then we can version control the plugins and themes folders. In order to get WordPress to work with this setup I created symbolic links from those folders to their normal location in the wp-content folder:

$ cd {WWW_ROOT}/domain.org/web/wp-content

$ ls -l

index.php
plugins -> {WWW_ROOT}/domain.org/plugins
themes -> {WWW_ROOT}/domain.org/themes
uploads -> {WWW_ROOT}/domain.org/uploads

The one caveat to this setup is that some WP plugins do not play nicely with those symbolic links, notably the WP-Contact Form plugin. A minor change to that plugins settings fixed that.

More later on how we’re using Coda and SVN to manage this.

]]> wp-iconOne of the things we’ve been trying to figure out is how to use version control with CMS platforms like WordPress. We had several discussions on whether or not we should place the entire installation under version control, but ultimately decided that would be wasteful and unnecessary. We really only need to consider the themes and plugins that we deploy, but they are very intertwined within the WP folder structure with all of the WP files, image uploads, etc. So we are trying out the layout below and so far it seems to be working well.

We have two scenarios where we use wordpress - one is when we have a static site managed outside of WP and then /blog is our WP blog, and the other (more typical) is where WP is managing the entire site. Since the latter is more common I’ll address that here.

Our folder structure:

  • {WWW_ROOT}/domain.org
    • plugins
    • themes
    • uploads
    • web

The document root for the site is the web folder, and then we can version control the plugins and themes folders. In order to get WordPress to work with this setup I created symbolic links from those folders to their normal location in the wp-content folder:

$ cd {WWW_ROOT}/domain.org/web/wp-content

$ ls -l

index.php
plugins -> {WWW_ROOT}/domain.org/plugins
themes -> {WWW_ROOT}/domain.org/themes
uploads -> {WWW_ROOT}/domain.org/uploads

The one caveat to this setup is that some WP plugins do not play nicely with those symbolic links, notably the WP-Contact Form plugin. A minor change to that plugins settings fixed that.

More later on how we’re using Coda and SVN to manage this.

]]> http://insidenorthpoint.org/it/2011/01/10/wordpress-and-version-control/feed/ Web Design Standards http://insidenorthpoint.org/it/2010/11/02/web-design-standards/ http://insidenorthpoint.org/it/2010/11/02/web-design-standards/#comments Tue, 02 Nov 2010 18:35:01 +0000 admin http://insidenorthpoint.org/it/?p=568 One of the awesome things about being on the web team is that we get the opportunity to work with practically every ministry area in our organization. It seems like nearly every ministry has something they want to do with technology or the web. From the weekly Sunday morning routine tasks to the quarterly, annual, and one-time events, we get to be involved.

Working On It, Not In It

This keeps us busy, to be sure, but it is the best kind of busy imaginable. A continuous flow of technological challenges that, when solved, honor the name of Christ? Sign me up!

Twice a month we step out of the fray as a team and exercise the principal “Work on it, not in it.” We spend a few hours on Friday locked in a room together, sharing new discoveries, hashing through concerns, and grinding on ways to bring order to our collective work so that it doesn’t spiral into chaos.

A Common Set of Challenges

It was during these meetings that we were able to identify a common set of challenges that seemed to present themselves in the average web site project. Certain questions came to the surface over and over again. Things like:

  • Is that font size too big or too small?
  • Should we use proprietary software or open source?
  • What size should the video be on a page?
  • How tall or wide should a page be?
  • How many pages should be designed, and to what detail?
  • What are the preferred technologies to use?

The next step was pretty obvious.

The Solution: A Guide

We needed a guide! A standards document. Something to articulate our default position on the common decision points that our web projects face.

standards

Ugh. A document? Really? Nobody likes large, unwieldy SOP/Process documents heaped upon them, especially not for creative projects. Would it be followed? Would it even be read? We discussed it and came up with these goals for our Web Design Standards document:

1. Must be quick/easy to read and under 2 pages or it will be more of a burden than a help.

2. Must honor the autonomy that empowers our ministries. Basically, avoid dogma if possible and be clear about our motives.

3. Must not read like it was born in 1994. Writing a document for designers that looks like a “TPS Report” is not going to encourage buy-in.

Very quickly we realized that we could not fit everything into 2 pages. So, the decision was made to split the guide into 2 documents. One to cover Design and one to cover Implementation (coding, technologies, deployment). We often sub-contract these parts out separately anyway, so the delineation was natural.

Today the web team would like to share with you the first document born of these efforts.

Download: North Point Ministries Web Design Standards (PDF)

Download: Source ZIP (Pages, DOC, PDF)

Feel free to use it for your ministry, pass it around, carve it up and swap out items as you see fit. If nothing else, use it to start a conversation. And if you do use it for one of your projects, let us know! Most importantly, if you noticed anything we missed, please share in the comments.

]]> One of the awesome things about being on the web team is that we get the opportunity to work with practically every ministry area in our organization. It seems like nearly every ministry has something they want to do with technology or the web. From the weekly Sunday morning routine tasks to the quarterly, annual, and one-time events, we get to be involved.

Working On It, Not In It

This keeps us busy, to be sure, but it is the best kind of busy imaginable. A continuous flow of technological challenges that, when solved, honor the name of Christ? Sign me up!

Twice a month we step out of the fray as a team and exercise the principal “Work on it, not in it.” We spend a few hours on Friday locked in a room together, sharing new discoveries, hashing through concerns, and grinding on ways to bring order to our collective work so that it doesn’t spiral into chaos.

A Common Set of Challenges

It was during these meetings that we were able to identify a common set of challenges that seemed to present themselves in the average web site project. Certain questions came to the surface over and over again. Things like:

  • Is that font size too big or too small?
  • Should we use proprietary software or open source?
  • What size should the video be on a page?
  • How tall or wide should a page be?
  • How many pages should be designed, and to what detail?
  • What are the preferred technologies to use?

The next step was pretty obvious.

The Solution: A Guide

We needed a guide! A standards document. Something to articulate our default position on the common decision points that our web projects face.

standards

Ugh. A document? Really? Nobody likes large, unwieldy SOP/Process documents heaped upon them, especially not for creative projects. Would it be followed? Would it even be read? We discussed it and came up with these goals for our Web Design Standards document:

1. Must be quick/easy to read and under 2 pages or it will be more of a burden than a help.

2. Must honor the autonomy that empowers our ministries. Basically, avoid dogma if possible and be clear about our motives.

3. Must not read like it was born in 1994. Writing a document for designers that looks like a “TPS Report” is not going to encourage buy-in.

Very quickly we realized that we could not fit everything into 2 pages. So, the decision was made to split the guide into 2 documents. One to cover Design and one to cover Implementation (coding, technologies, deployment). We often sub-contract these parts out separately anyway, so the delineation was natural.

Today the web team would like to share with you the first document born of these efforts.

Download: North Point Ministries Web Design Standards (PDF)

Download: Source ZIP (Pages, DOC, PDF)

Feel free to use it for your ministry, pass it around, carve it up and swap out items as you see fit. If nothing else, use it to start a conversation. And if you do use it for one of your projects, let us know! Most importantly, if you noticed anything we missed, please share in the comments.

]]> http://insidenorthpoint.org/it/2010/11/02/web-design-standards/feed/ No Is The New Yes http://insidenorthpoint.org/it/2010/10/23/no-is-the-new-yes/ http://insidenorthpoint.org/it/2010/10/23/no-is-the-new-yes/#comments Sat, 23 Oct 2010 12:23:28 +0000 admin http://insidenorthpoint.org/it/?p=562 This simple statement was just a small part of one of the talks during last week’s (refresh)cache conference, an unofficial conference for the Arena developer community. Jon Edmiston, one of the original Arena developers from CCV, gave  a talk on strategy, and this short phrase has stuck with me so I thought I’d share it.

“No” is the new “yes.”

This is one of those principals that is not new and is fairly obvious, but somehow we don’t think about it as we make everyday decisions. The gist of the statement was that every time we say “no” to something, we’re also saying “yes” to something else. We are constantly making decisions about where we will spend our resources - time, money, & energy - and we only have a finite amount to spend. None of us likes to say “no” to our ministry partners, but if we view it through the lens of “no, and here’s what we’re saying ‘yes’ to” we can get on the same page about what we’re doing as a ministry.

Again, this is certainly not new information, but the corollary of this principal is what has really got me thinking. If the above is true, then when we say “yes” to something we’re also saying “no” to something else. So every time we agree to work on a project, build something, or spend our resources on a ministry initiative, we’re likely saying “no” to another idea.

The other part that has stuck in my head is that this is as true at home as it is at work.

I guess it all boils down to stewardship - we are stewards of our own time and energy and also of our team’s resources, and we are accountable for those resources. So we’re going to be thinking about how we can apply these principals to our decision making process so that we can utilize our resources to better help fulfill our ministry’s mission.

How are you managing your limited resources?

]]> This simple statement was just a small part of one of the talks during last week’s (refresh)cache conference, an unofficial conference for the Arena developer community. Jon Edmiston, one of the original Arena developers from CCV, gave  a talk on strategy, and this short phrase has stuck with me so I thought I’d share it.

“No” is the new “yes.”

This is one of those principals that is not new and is fairly obvious, but somehow we don’t think about it as we make everyday decisions. The gist of the statement was that every time we say “no” to something, we’re also saying “yes” to something else. We are constantly making decisions about where we will spend our resources - time, money, & energy - and we only have a finite amount to spend. None of us likes to say “no” to our ministry partners, but if we view it through the lens of “no, and here’s what we’re saying ‘yes’ to” we can get on the same page about what we’re doing as a ministry.

Again, this is certainly not new information, but the corollary of this principal is what has really got me thinking. If the above is true, then when we say “yes” to something we’re also saying “no” to something else. So every time we agree to work on a project, build something, or spend our resources on a ministry initiative, we’re likely saying “no” to another idea.

The other part that has stuck in my head is that this is as true at home as it is at work.

I guess it all boils down to stewardship - we are stewards of our own time and energy and also of our team’s resources, and we are accountable for those resources. So we’re going to be thinking about how we can apply these principals to our decision making process so that we can utilize our resources to better help fulfill our ministry’s mission.

How are you managing your limited resources?

]]> http://insidenorthpoint.org/it/2010/10/23/no-is-the-new-yes/feed/ One Crazy Summer http://insidenorthpoint.org/it/2010/10/11/one-crazy-summer/ http://insidenorthpoint.org/it/2010/10/11/one-crazy-summer/#comments Mon, 11 Oct 2010 14:24:45 +0000 admin http://insidenorthpoint.org/it/?p=557 Now that summer is over and Fall has arrived, we wanted to share a little bit about what we’ve been up to. One of the things we talk about at North Point is determining our strengths and trying to maximize those strengths, both individually and in our teams; well, clearly blogging isn’t one of our team’s strengths. It’s certainly not from a lack of things to share, so we are going to try to ramp things back up and (hopefully) reopen the conversation. Thanks for reading…

To start off, we’d like to highlight some of the sites and systems we’ve been working on for the past three months:

  • Arena ChMS - We’ve been continuing to tweak, stabilize and improve our new church management system. Any migration from a system that was used for over 10 years will come with it’s growing pains, and we’ve certainly had our challenges as we’ve incorporated Arena into our daily and weekly work processes. We’re on the cusp of getting the base system to a place where we can begin adding a lot of features and functionality to it, so we’re excited about the coming months.
  • store.northpoint.org - In August we launched our new web store, based on Magento. This was another large migration from an existing system and product that was used for several years, and we’ve gotten through the big challenges and are excited about the flexibility and opportunities our new platform gives us.
  • Family Birthday Celebration - We partnered with eyespeak to build a site and registration system for UpStreet. This site is based on Cake PHP and walks parents through the baptism process for their elementary-aged children. Check out this post on our kids blog for more details.
  • kidstuf.com - We also launched a new website for KidStuf based on WordPress, again in partnership with eyespeak.
  • driveconference.com - Last week we launched a new site for our Drive Conference. We tried out something new for this site and it worked very well: our events team worked with a designer to create the new look, and we used psd2html.com to convert his photoshop design files into xhtml. We also opened up a new registration system for the event, this time partnering with memberclicks on a hosted platform.
  • Short Term Finance Groups - We once again partnered with eyespeak to build an online registration system for a new type of small group at our three campuses. This Fall we launched a six-week finance small group, and we built a map-based group finder using Cake PHP for the registration and back-end administration.
  • Oh, and we also re-organized our IT team to better serve our customers. More on that later…

How was your summer?

]]> Now that summer is over and Fall has arrived, we wanted to share a little bit about what we’ve been up to. One of the things we talk about at North Point is determining our strengths and trying to maximize those strengths, both individually and in our teams; well, clearly blogging isn’t one of our team’s strengths. It’s certainly not from a lack of things to share, so we are going to try to ramp things back up and (hopefully) reopen the conversation. Thanks for reading…

To start off, we’d like to highlight some of the sites and systems we’ve been working on for the past three months:

  • Arena ChMS - We’ve been continuing to tweak, stabilize and improve our new church management system. Any migration from a system that was used for over 10 years will come with it’s growing pains, and we’ve certainly had our challenges as we’ve incorporated Arena into our daily and weekly work processes. We’re on the cusp of getting the base system to a place where we can begin adding a lot of features and functionality to it, so we’re excited about the coming months.
  • store.northpoint.org - In August we launched our new web store, based on Magento. This was another large migration from an existing system and product that was used for several years, and we’ve gotten through the big challenges and are excited about the flexibility and opportunities our new platform gives us.
  • Family Birthday Celebration - We partnered with eyespeak to build a site and registration system for UpStreet. This site is based on Cake PHP and walks parents through the baptism process for their elementary-aged children. Check out this post on our kids blog for more details.
  • kidstuf.com - We also launched a new website for KidStuf based on WordPress, again in partnership with eyespeak.
  • driveconference.com - Last week we launched a new site for our Drive Conference. We tried out something new for this site and it worked very well: our events team worked with a designer to create the new look, and we used psd2html.com to convert his photoshop design files into xhtml. We also opened up a new registration system for the event, this time partnering with memberclicks on a hosted platform.
  • Short Term Finance Groups - We once again partnered with eyespeak to build an online registration system for a new type of small group at our three campuses. This Fall we launched a six-week finance small group, and we built a map-based group finder using Cake PHP for the registration and back-end administration.
  • Oh, and we also re-organized our IT team to better serve our customers. More on that later…

How was your summer?

]]> http://insidenorthpoint.org/it/2010/10/11/one-crazy-summer/feed/ Triage http://insidenorthpoint.org/it/2010/06/25/triage/ http://insidenorthpoint.org/it/2010/06/25/triage/#comments Fri, 25 Jun 2010 19:15:28 +0000 admin http://insidenorthpoint.org/it/?p=552 We are now live on our new Arena Church Management System!

As we prepared for our rollout, we knew we needed to find a way to make certain that the ministry teams at all our campuses had the support they needed to hit the ground running on our new system. Yes, we did spend time training and preparing, but the real test is when the system is live and you have to get your job done because Sunday is coming!

We ended up setting up “Triage Rooms” at each campus for our first two weeks of production on Arena. Yes, we realize that for many of you this brings to mind images of M*A*S*H and a bloody operating room, but we called them that anyway! MASHWe found a central location that was convenient for the teams at that campus, stocked those rooms with candy and snacks, and manned each one with members of our team so that we could provide face-to-face support. We do have some unique challenges because of the size of our staff and the fact that we are separated geographically, so being onsite allowed us to provide a personal touch, which went a long way to providing a comfort level to our ministries. We didn’t know how effective this would be, but it ended up being a huge success!

A lot of work certainly went into getting us to this point, and we look at this as just the beginning. Now that we’ve built the foundation (yes, we still have a few “punch list” items to take care of), we are excited about adding on to that foundation to provide new tools, sites, and systems to the ministries at our campuses. This is one of the (if not the) biggest technology projects we’ve ever undertaken, and using these triage rooms helped us provide the support and customer service our ministry partners needed to be able to confidently do their jobs using the new system.

How do you support your church when you make a big change?

]]> We are now live on our new Arena Church Management System!

As we prepared for our rollout, we knew we needed to find a way to make certain that the ministry teams at all our campuses had the support they needed to hit the ground running on our new system. Yes, we did spend time training and preparing, but the real test is when the system is live and you have to get your job done because Sunday is coming!

We ended up setting up “Triage Rooms” at each campus for our first two weeks of production on Arena. Yes, we realize that for many of you this brings to mind images of M*A*S*H and a bloody operating room, but we called them that anyway! MASHWe found a central location that was convenient for the teams at that campus, stocked those rooms with candy and snacks, and manned each one with members of our team so that we could provide face-to-face support. We do have some unique challenges because of the size of our staff and the fact that we are separated geographically, so being onsite allowed us to provide a personal touch, which went a long way to providing a comfort level to our ministries. We didn’t know how effective this would be, but it ended up being a huge success!

A lot of work certainly went into getting us to this point, and we look at this as just the beginning. Now that we’ve built the foundation (yes, we still have a few “punch list” items to take care of), we are excited about adding on to that foundation to provide new tools, sites, and systems to the ministries at our campuses. This is one of the (if not the) biggest technology projects we’ve ever undertaken, and using these triage rooms helped us provide the support and customer service our ministry partners needed to be able to confidently do their jobs using the new system.

How do you support your church when you make a big change?

]]> http://insidenorthpoint.org/it/2010/06/25/triage/feed/ What Motivates You and Your Team? http://insidenorthpoint.org/it/2010/06/10/what-motivates-you-and-your-team/ http://insidenorthpoint.org/it/2010/06/10/what-motivates-you-and-your-team/#comments Thu, 10 Jun 2010 16:35:25 +0000 John http://insidenorthpoint.org/it/?p=544 driveOne of the books that’s moving around our offices here at North Point is the new book Drive by Daniel Pink.

It’s challenging a lot of our staff and management to really ask the tough questions about how to best motivate employees and team members.

Here’s a video that explains some of the book, etc.

What is motivating your ministry and tech team?

Is it food? Is it money? Is it something else?

How would you be better suited to motivate?

Answering these questions can seriously change your work environment, for the better! And, I’d like to think that we’ve got a great work environment to begin with!

]]> driveOne of the books that’s moving around our offices here at North Point is the new book Drive by Daniel Pink.

It’s challenging a lot of our staff and management to really ask the tough questions about how to best motivate employees and team members.

Here’s a video that explains some of the book, etc.

What is motivating your ministry and tech team?

Is it food? Is it money? Is it something else?

How would you be better suited to motivate?

Answering these questions can seriously change your work environment, for the better! And, I’d like to think that we’ve got a great work environment to begin with!

]]> http://insidenorthpoint.org/it/2010/06/10/what-motivates-you-and-your-team/feed/ Training http://insidenorthpoint.org/it/2010/05/14/training/ http://insidenorthpoint.org/it/2010/05/14/training/#comments Fri, 14 May 2010 19:52:29 +0000 admin http://insidenorthpoint.org/it/?p=530 We recently finished a series of training days for our staff where we did preliminary training on our new Arena Church Management System. Everything we do seems to bring its own set of lessons to learn from, and this was no different. Here are some things that we discovered (or re-discovered) about training:

  • As much as we technologists might like playing around with computer systems, and as excited as we might be about launching something new, not everyone feels that way. It’s important to keep in mind that we very likely might be in the minority when it comes to this, so we should remember that in our delivery, planning, etc., and not assume that others are as geeky as we are.
  • It’s important to try to be as specific as you can, with realistic examples and exercises. It’s hard enough to remember your training once you start using a new system or application in earnest, but if the exercises were more theoretical than practical it will be even harder.
  • As much as we’d like to think we can train everyone so that they can hit the ground running once a new system is implemented, that’s just not reality. Our own experience supports this fact. There’s always a ramp-up time of regular usage before someone is truly comfortable using something new. This certainly doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t train people; rather that we should realize that formal training is just one piece of the puzzle. We are planning some follow-up targeted training, video screencasts, and other ideas to provide ongoing training for our staff.
  • Make it fun. We’re firm believers in the Fun Theory around here, and while we might think a full day of computer training is fun, not everyone does. So come up with something that can make training fun - we played trivia games after each break (What does the word Arena mean in Latin, and why?) and incorporated some small prizes.
  • Have good snacks! We had soft pretzels, ice cream, and other goodies for our afternoon breaks, plus an assortment of candy, gum, fruit, etc., for the entire day. Everyone enjoyed getting to eat some candy they hadn’t had since they were kids (chewy sweet tarts, anyone?)

So what do you do to train your users?

]]> We recently finished a series of training days for our staff where we did preliminary training on our new Arena Church Management System. Everything we do seems to bring its own set of lessons to learn from, and this was no different. Here are some things that we discovered (or re-discovered) about training:

  • As much as we technologists might like playing around with computer systems, and as excited as we might be about launching something new, not everyone feels that way. It’s important to keep in mind that we very likely might be in the minority when it comes to this, so we should remember that in our delivery, planning, etc., and not assume that others are as geeky as we are.
  • It’s important to try to be as specific as you can, with realistic examples and exercises. It’s hard enough to remember your training once you start using a new system or application in earnest, but if the exercises were more theoretical than practical it will be even harder.
  • As much as we’d like to think we can train everyone so that they can hit the ground running once a new system is implemented, that’s just not reality. Our own experience supports this fact. There’s always a ramp-up time of regular usage before someone is truly comfortable using something new. This certainly doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t train people; rather that we should realize that formal training is just one piece of the puzzle. We are planning some follow-up targeted training, video screencasts, and other ideas to provide ongoing training for our staff.
  • Make it fun. We’re firm believers in the Fun Theory around here, and while we might think a full day of computer training is fun, not everyone does. So come up with something that can make training fun - we played trivia games after each break (What does the word Arena mean in Latin, and why?) and incorporated some small prizes.
  • Have good snacks! We had soft pretzels, ice cream, and other goodies for our afternoon breaks, plus an assortment of candy, gum, fruit, etc., for the entire day. Everyone enjoyed getting to eat some candy they hadn’t had since they were kids (chewy sweet tarts, anyone?)

So what do you do to train your users?

]]> http://insidenorthpoint.org/it/2010/05/14/training/feed/ Scenes From the NorthPointOnline.tv 2.0 Launch http://insidenorthpoint.org/it/2010/05/10/scenes-from-the-northpointonlinetv-20-launch/ http://insidenorthpoint.org/it/2010/05/10/scenes-from-the-northpointonlinetv-20-launch/#comments Mon, 10 May 2010 17:41:34 +0000 admin http://insidenorthpoint.org/it/?p=521 In April we launched the new (2nd) version of http://northpointonline.tv during the 11am service. I’ll leave the tech talk for those closer to the code than I am and instead, I’ll share some pictures from behind the scenes.

201003-np-online-20-launch-5201003-np-online-20-launch-8201003-np-online-20-launch-10201003-np-online-20-launch-2201003-np-online-20-launch-4201003-np-online-20-launch-3201003-np-online-20-launch-12201003-np-online-20-launch201003-np-online-20-launch-7201003-np-online-20-launch-11

]]> In April we launched the new (2nd) version of http://northpointonline.tv during the 11am service. I’ll leave the tech talk for those closer to the code than I am and instead, I’ll share some pictures from behind the scenes.

201003-np-online-20-launch-5201003-np-online-20-launch-8201003-np-online-20-launch-10201003-np-online-20-launch-2201003-np-online-20-launch-4201003-np-online-20-launch-3201003-np-online-20-launch-12201003-np-online-20-launch201003-np-online-20-launch-7201003-np-online-20-launch-11

]]> http://insidenorthpoint.org/it/2010/05/10/scenes-from-the-northpointonlinetv-20-launch/feed/ Scheduling Blog Posts http://insidenorthpoint.org/it/2010/04/20/scheduling-blog-posts/ http://insidenorthpoint.org/it/2010/04/20/scheduling-blog-posts/#comments Tue, 20 Apr 2010 18:01:14 +0000 John http://insidenorthpoint.org/it/?p=519 It’s a tough world we live in, isn’t it?

Add trying to coordinate a few crazy-busy people to drop blog posts can drive people over the edge…! So how can it be done? What’s our strategy?

Very simple: Create a Master Schedule, assign dates, and then commit.

It’s that simple really! What we’ve done is assign our team specific friday’s to blog and then we trust that person to write. It’s not too complicated and it really can work.

We also help each other out when we’re struggling to come up with topics (because not all of us are born-bloggers). We’re a team, remember?

Have you got a strategy for posting blog posts on your church’s properties? How’s that working out for you?

]]> It’s a tough world we live in, isn’t it?

Add trying to coordinate a few crazy-busy people to drop blog posts can drive people over the edge…! So how can it be done? What’s our strategy?

Very simple: Create a Master Schedule, assign dates, and then commit.

It’s that simple really! What we’ve done is assign our team specific friday’s to blog and then we trust that person to write. It’s not too complicated and it really can work.

We also help each other out when we’re struggling to come up with topics (because not all of us are born-bloggers). We’re a team, remember?

Have you got a strategy for posting blog posts on your church’s properties? How’s that working out for you?

]]> http://insidenorthpoint.org/it/2010/04/20/scheduling-blog-posts/feed/