The Xpiritmental Blog

Remembering

ANDREW — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 13:58:48 +0000

It being Remembrance Day today, my thoughts go to my Mom.

My Mom grew up in Holland during the war. She was around 6 years old when she was sent away from her family by train all by herself to live with a farming family in the rural north of the country where conditions were safer – away from the bombing and most intense battles of urban areas.

She can remember occupying soldiers raiding the farmhouse she was living in looking for hidden Jews and as a result joining the family she was staying with as they rushed out of the farmhouse and ran through fields of haystacks as bullets flew right past her head.

She can remember becoming so sick and malnourished that she almost died but for the work of brave Red Cross workers.

And so today, as I think about the sacrifice of so many and what it means to me in particular, I think of my Mom. I think of the fact that but for the sacrifice of so many, and by God's good graces, my Mom might not be here today, living in Canada, in freedom...I might not be here today, living in Canada, in freedom.

What an amazing gift...

What an amazing responsibility...

All Things To All People

ANDREW — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 17:46:30 +0000

Seth Godin had a great post last week called "Everyone is clueless". The post was all about how trying to appeal to an audience of "everyone" isn't a useful or even attainable goal.

This truth is applicable in all forms of marketing and communications but the one particular communications medium that came to my mind today was websites and specifically home page.

It's common to see websites with a home page that has so much going on that you can't make out what the site and the company or organization behind it are all about. And for those people that do know what the organization is all about and come to the site with a clear purpose, home pages can be so cluttered that they don't actually serve anyone in getting to the content they want.

So be strategic about your home page. It's a portal...keep it as such. Don't just think about all the messages you want to send to your site's visitors, think about who is visiting and then orient the site and related messaging towards those audiences. Often this is going to require triage on the content of the home page - you'll need to decide what elements most require immediate attention and then focus on those messages.

Being all things to all people just isn't going to work.

The Best Defense Really is a Good Offense

ANDREW — Mon, 9 Nov 2009 16:59:25 +0000

In the context of athletics, everyone has heard the old adage: “the best defense is a good offense”. But there's also truth in this in terms of marketing communications. While there will always be times when a defense needs to be mounted and the brand needs to be protected, if you constantly find yourself in a reactionary situation, you never have the opportunity to set the direction of your brand.

Earlier this year, Domino's Pizza found themselves in a reactionary position when two employees video taped themselves doing some absolutely disgusting things to food that was about to go out on delivery (if you haven't seen the video, you should probably just take my word for it – it's pretty gross). The video got posted to YouTube and from there it soon became national and even international news as the video went viral.

In response, Domino's President, Patrick Doyle recorded and posted this video to YouTube.

What a great example of how to deal with a problem like this. Not only did they do the smart thing by responding on the same medium that the original video appeared, I love the way he ended the script: “...as we work to regain your trust”.

That video, and the final statement in particular, tell me that Domino's is dealing with the situation and moving on to repair and even improve their brand impression.

But the best part of it all is the subtle fact that Domino's was already on YouTube long before this video surfaced. In a proactive move, Domino's created an online account with YouTube and began publishing videos to their YouTube channel back in November of 2007. This is the kind of proactive move that allowed them to respond quickly and effectively to what was undoubtedly a major brand hit for them.

In other words, the proactive and forward-thinking move to create a presence and build relational equity on the web led to a situation where Domino's could leverage that equity to give a positive context to a really negative situation in the same medium that the brand hit came from.

So the question I'd pose to you today is, what will you do when your brand is challenged online or on some other medium? To just sit back and wait until you HAVE TO respond is defensive-mindedness at it's best.

Get on the offensive and invest in the future of your brand. You're defense will thank you for it.

Casual Friday - We Remember

RAY — Fri, 6 Nov 2009 09:40:53 +0000

As we approach November 11, the day that is observed as Veteran’s Day (US) and Remembrance Day (Canada), we wanted to share a couple of desktop wallpapers with you.

The first one entitled “Greater Love” is inspired by John 15:13, “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.” The second one is titled “We Remember”, recalling the sacrifice that was made.

Download the new desktops below or visit the Xpiritmental Archives for more wallpapers.

Xpiritmental No. 56
Greater Love
John 15:13

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Xpiritmental No. 57
We Remember
The Sacrifice Made

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Also, in case you missed the wallpaper we created last year for this occasion, we have provided it below.

Xpiritmental No. 27
Lest We Forget
For those who died for our freedom

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Freedom: A New AdvancedMinistry Template

RAY — Fri, 6 Nov 2009 00:05:03 +0000

We are pleased to announce a new AM 3.0 template called "Freedom" (view preview). As usual, all AM 3.0 templates are fully customizable, but with the addition of this template we also introduce a new feature that enables you to choose between a Simplified version of your home page and an Enchanced version of your home page. Essentially, the Simplified version removes all copy from your home page (as shown below), whereas the Enhanced version turns your copy back on. To toggle between the two modes in your AM 3.0 editor, look under the Layout tab (Home Page View > Show/Hide All Columns).

(To change your template, login to your AdvancedMinistry account and select “Choose My Template”.)

AdvancedMinistry Media Player: Embed Your Videos

RAY — Thu, 5 Nov 2009 23:20:31 +0000

As an extension of our recent AMP (AdvancedMinistry Media Player) announcement from a couple of weeks ago, we are pleased to announce that you can now embed Flash Video and MP3 files directly into your website!

Up to this point, the only way to embed videos within content of your website was to use programs like YouTube or Vimeo. With the new AdvancedMinistry Media Player, you can now do the same thing without many of the limitations of YouTube.

Here are a few key features:

1. You don’t have to upload files twice. Simply upload it once to your media player and embed the file as many times as you like throughout your AdvancedMinistry website.

2. There are no video limitations like YouTube or Vimeo. You are not limited to the length of a video or the file size of a video. File size is completely determined by how much space you have in your Suite. In theory, you could upload a 2GB HD movie. It’s really up to you.

3. You can make the player as small as 100px wide or as large as 1200px wide.

4. You can choose between 4:3 (standard) and 16:9 (widescreen) formats, depending on how you shoot your video.

5. The new player is compatible with all AM 2.0 and 3.0 templates.

For a complete list of instructions on how to embed the player into your AdvancedMinistry website, click here.

To see a demo of the player in action, click here.

What Is Driving You?

BRIAN — Wed, 4 Nov 2009 14:24:50 +0000

It’s been my experience that most organizations don’t consciously consider their brand as a major driver when making decisions in any area of the organization. Some organizations have leaders that encapsulate the brand (are the brand) and therefore naturally lead people down the road of brand-oriented decision making.

But what happens to those organizations that don’t have that type of leadership? What if the founder/strong leader has moved on and left others to figure things out? What then?

Those that are left must first discover for themselves what the brand represents. This is not found in the boardroom, but in the hearts and minds of those who interact with your organization. Once you have uncovered your brand identity, allow it to influence all decisions, not just communication decisions.

During the discovery process you are sure to uncover characteristics which were not on the radar. Understand that this is your brand and if it’s not what you had in mind or don’t want it to be, strong, strategic measures will have to be taken. Make those changes first (change from within) and then communicate second.

A Win For Hyundai

ANDREW — Tue, 3 Nov 2009 11:38:23 +0000

It's more than safe to say that people are leery of the worlds of marketing and advertising.

So for every campaign a company or organization runs, the one thing that has to be considered is that the audience has been trained to rip that pitch to shreds looking for truth and honestly in the advertising. In fact, it's gotten to the point that many audiences so distrust advertising in general, that no ad has a chance with them.

Enter the video above.

While this is a pretty basic foray into brand building in the online world and the video feels a bit contrived/staged, I think this act of generosity on the part of Hyundai still works. I say that because the actual event of the guy getting his car run over was a fairly well publicized event so we know that's true, and it's clear that regardless of the fact that the video feels very contrived and the act of giving the car away itself is set up to be a brand builder, at the end of the day, the guy that had his car run over ends up with a brand new car and that is (as one of my friends would say), pretty fantastic.

Fantastic enough to call this a win for Hyundai.

On a related note, this is a cool example of the kind of thing I was talking about in my post yesterday. The quality of this video isn't great and even the fonts used to outline what happened in the original parking job gone awry are really amateurish. But the quality of what's happening from a customer care perspective outshines all that and makes it, well...something beautiful. Could the video have been a bit more polished and well thought-out? Yes. But too much polish in this instance would have actually damaged the "real world" feel of it.

Something Beautiful

ANDREW — Mon, 2 Nov 2009 15:58:33 +0000

Last night I had the privilege of seeing a NeedToBreathe concert in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Being a tour based on the recent release of their album The Outsiders, this (Christian) rock-style band from South Carolina got on stage in a bar in a University town and sang a number of songs from their new record that contain both the challenges and the hope of the Gospel in them.

Musically speaking, their live performance remained true to their sound as they did an excellent job of maintaining consistency with the recording as all the songs were played as you’d hear them on the disc.

Being a vocalist myself, I was especially impressed with the lead singer’s voice. I had seen some YouTube videos of the bands live performances earlier in the week so I already had a sense of the fact that they could take the music they had recorded and perform it live as it is on the CD without having to rely on tracked vocals.

The most impactful moment of the night was at the very end of the night, after a long set of high quality musicianship with no breaks, the whole band unplugged every instrument, stepped away from the mics, asked the audience to be really quiet and then proceeded to perform a song called “Something Beautiful”, completely acoustic.

So what does this have to do with marketing and communications?

Well, as I sit at my desk this afternoon (admittedly somewhat groggy after a very late night), one of the few things that’s clear in my mind is that I’m struck by the truth that we don’t always have to be “plugged in” to do “Something Beautiful”.

In one of his posts on this blog last week, Brian outlined that quality is one of the four pillars of branding. But let’s be clear about the fact that quality doesn’t always translate directly to bells-and-whistles. Sometimes, the best choice is to strip all the gloss away - to show that the quality you seek to communicate - comes from a base that is in and of itself based on quality…based on something beautiful.

Loads of bands that hit the top 10 these days couldn’t afford to unplug like NeedToBreathe can…our experience tells us that on a similar level, lots of ministry and non-profit organizations can’t afford to “unplug” either.
So the question for you today is: When all the polish and glitz is removed, does your brand come through as something beautiful or does it reflect an organization that has tried to gloss over all its imperfections? If the latter is the case, you start to get into issues with one of the other pillars of branding…honesty.

Let’s all aim to create organizations that are at heart something beautiful and then strategically communicate them in ways that do that beauty justice.

Two New AdvancedMinistry Templates

ANDREW — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 15:16:12 +0000

We are pleased to announce two new AM 3.0 templates entitled "We Believe" (view preview) and "Color and Shape" (view preview). As usual, all AM 3.0 templates are fully customizable.

(To change your template, login to your AdvancedMinistry account and select “Choose My Template”.)

Casual Friday - The Harvest Has Come

RAY — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 13:54:58 +0000

We are pleased to announce Xpiritmental wallpaper #55 entitled, The Harvest Has Come, inspired by Mark 4:29.

Download the new wallpaper below or visit the Xpiritmental Archives for more wallpapers.

Xpiritmental No. 55
The Harvest Has Come
Mark 4:29

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Four Pillars of Branding - Part 5 (Wrap-Up)

ANDREW — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 13:33:27 +0000

One of our in-house brand-gurus, Brian Klassen, shares his experience in branding and applies it to ministries via a 5-part series called: The Four Pillars of Branding.

So, the four pillars of effective brand development are Honesty, Quality, Consistency and Frequency. If you leave one of these out of the mix, you run the risk of being ineffective as a communicator.

Christ was a great example of each one of these characteristics. He knew what He was sent to do and never pretended to be anything else. His whole life reflected quality (never sinning, created the best wine, total healing of the sick, communicating to people where they were at, …) Because He knew what He needed to accomplish, He was disciplined and focused on putting all His energy towards accomplishing that task. Last but not least, He repeated his message over and over again for maximum effect.

As ministries, entrusted with the message of eternal life, we need to make every effort to be effective communicators. I believe that when we do that, God is more than willing to come along side and bless it.

Four Pillars of Branding - Part 4 (Frequency)

ANDREW — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 13:28:00 +0000

One of our in-house brand-gurus, Brian Klassen, shares his experience in branding and applies it to ministries via a 5-part series called: The Four Pillars of Branding.

Have you ever heard the saying, “My father used to tell me ……”? Do you ever wonder, "why do I remember that so clearly?" Well, I would venture to guess that frequency played a role in it.

In the business of communications, frequency (how often you tell someone the same/similar message) is an often overlooked component. I have also heard all the reasons and excuses for not executing on this idea, but at the end of the day, if you are not repeating your message/story, you are not being as effective as you could be.

Here are just a couple reasons.

We just don’t have the budget.
It’s such good creative that we only have to show people once.
We don’t want to bore our audience with the same thing over and over again.

Proper planning should allow for frequency. If it means cutting in another area so you can build frequency – do it. No matter how good your execution is, one time is usually not enough because we are being inundated with thousands of messages every day. And last but not least, you will become bored of it much faster than your audience. Fight what we call boardroom boredom and tell the message over and over again.

Your brand will love you for it.

Four Pillars of Branding - Part 3 (Consistency)

BRIAN — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 18:45:01 +0000

One of our in-house brand-gurus, Brian Klassen, shares his experience in branding and applies it to ministries via a 5-part series called: The Four Pillars of Branding.

As a ministry brand management company (sorry about the “B” word), you would expect us to say something profound and deep about how churches and ministries need to step it up in this area. Well, I’ll save that for another time (that is - the deep and profound part).

Consistency is one of the four pillars of a strong brand/image. This is not rocket science, yet so many creative providers and ministry directors want to create something “different” just for the sake of being different yet, there is so much room for creativity within the parameters of who you are.

Dig deep into the richness of your character and communicate that through creative consistency. It may be colours, it may be the tone of your words, it may be timing, it may be the medium you use, it may be a certain style of visual or it may be via a specific type face.

Don’t confuse those who want to listen to you. Don’t cloud the gates of credibility. Allow your audience to totally understand who you are through creative consistency.

Your brand will thank you.

Four Pillars of Branding - Part 2 (Quality)

BRIAN — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 15:25:03 +0000

One of our in-house brand-gurus, Brian Klassen, shares his experience in branding and applies it to ministries via a 5-part series called: The Four Pillars of Branding.

I love our clients. That may sound crazy...but I do. I think a big reason for this is their passion for quality.

Many years ago when Electricurrent was started, we realized the incredible lack of quality communications amongst churches and other ministries. Now, before you start writing in and telling me about the great things you are doing, I do realize that there are those doing some really great stuff as well. I’m just talking about the majority.

I realize that one’s definition of quality may also differ, but that’s no excuse for producing second-rate materials. A general rule of thumb is, those who are the judge of what is good and bad should have good taste and understanding, not an impressive name on the door.

So what am I really getting at here? Well, Electricurrent is not the only place you can go for quality communications and strategic advice. And while we would love to explore working with anyone reading this blog, at the end of the day, there are so many great groups out there including some individuals who are in your church or organization.

The bigger truth is that we want to see you all striving for a greater level of quality and realizing His blessings on your ministry. Not only will you realize the blessings, the people you engage to help you generate those quality communications will be blessed as they are using the gifts God has given them.

Four Pillars of Branding - Part 1 (Honesty)

BRIAN — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 17:55:57 +0000

One of our in-house brand-gurus, Brian Klassen, shares his experience in branding and applies it to ministries via a 5-part series called: The Four Pillars of Branding.

It’s been said that the new currency today in communications is honesty...I say it should have been this all along within the ministry sector.

Now, I’m not talking about out-and-out lying. I’m talking about being true to your brand/who you are. Electricurrent’s belief is that God made each ministry unique and special. He created your church or ministry to accomplish a certain task(s) in order to more effectively reach those who need Him.

The problem is that many of the churches and ministries out there don’t have a clear understanding of their calling and therefore, the representation of that calling via communications is all over the board (a reflection of their understanding).

Your brand/who you are should drive all such efforts. My advice would be to find someone within your ministry who has a good grasp on your brand and its direction (and understands what your audiences think of you), make that person the brand champion and give them the power to make decisions in regards to communicating the brand.

It just makes sense.

Casual Friday - Product Passion

ANDREW — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 10:58:45 +0000

"Pushing" the Gospel

ANDREW — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 17:18:12 +0000

I just read an excellent article by a gentleman who has been in the marketing world for 20 years now. The article was a list of 10 things he wishes he knew before he started in marketing. Following is a quote from that article:

"Push" marketing is broken, because the customer is in control. Thanks to the Internet and Google, with just a few clicks, the customer can find hundreds of choices. And with social media sites to engage them, consumers have broken away from the old media that once held them captive. Anything you do to get their attention must add value in terms of what matters to them. Which usually means their jobs or personal needs, and not directly your products. Prospects will consider you less intrusive when you show them how to solve their problems. Even before the Internet, push marketing was dying, but Internet search engines have shoved it into the grave.

For those of you that aren't familiar with it, Wikipedia offers a couple of definitions for Push Marketing:

A push strategy in marketing is used when there has been a development or improvement on a new product which is unknown to the consumer. As there is no consumer demand in the product launch, the product and the information are "pushed" to the consumer by distribution and promotion. An example of this is a perfume product. Women do not request to smell a fragrance they never smelled before; it is simply "pushed" to them, through the advertisement. Due to the information asymmetry the producer tries by signaling to reduce the information gap between the consumer and the product. This is reached by promotion or other services like personal dialog.

Another meaning of the push strategy in marketing can be found in the communication between seller and buyer. In dependence of the used medium, the communication can be either interactive or non-interactive. For example, if the seller makes his promotion by television or radio, it's not possible for the buyer to interact with. On the other hand, if the communication is made by phone or internet, the buyer has possibilities to interact with the seller. In the first case information is just "pushed" toward the buyer, while in the second case it is possible for the buyer to demand the needed information according to his requirements.

...camp out there and make sure you understand those definitions and maybe even go back and re-read the first quote before you carry on reading...

What I love about the author's point in the section I copied above, is that he really captures the concept of the shift in thinking that the new marketing requires and I'm pretty convinced that at base, the truths about communication that he raises with a business context in mind, also apply to ministries – especially in the area of evangelism.

Perhaps instead of us “pushing” the message of Jesus Christ to the world, we should be doing some more listening and thinking about what other perspectives are out there. Starting from that vantage point, we would have a much better chance of communicating clearly. Of course, at the end of the day, everyone's needs are the same and the Gospel message doesn't change. But if we don't understand how others are thinking, then we won't have a hope in communicating with them on a level that makes sense.

I'm reminded of one of my favorite songs called Belief by John Mayer. The lyrics go like this:

Is there anyone who ever remembers
changing their mind from the paint on a sign?,
Is there anyone who really recalls
ever breaking rank at all
for something someone yelled real loud one time?
Oh, everyone believes
in how they think it oughta be
Oh, everyone believes
and they're not going easily

Belief is a beautiful armor
but makes for the heaviest sword
like punching underwater
you never can hit who you're trying for
Some lead the exhibition
and some have to know they tried
it's the chemical weapon
for the war that's raging on inside
Oh, everyone believes
from emptiness to everything
Oh, everyone believes
and no one's going quietly

We're never gonna win the world
We're never gonna stop the war
We're never gonna beat this
If belief is what we're fighting for

What puts a hundred thousand children in the sand?
Belief can, belief can
What puts a folded flag inside his mother's hand?
Belief can, belief can

Are we thinking about how to engage people that are in this mindset? Are we ready to stop “pushing” the gospel and start learning about the people we're reaching out to? It's the first step to communicating clearly and getting over the barriers that exist with the brand of “The Church” today.

Welcome: Promise Keepers Canada

CRAIG — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 16:20:14 +0000

We're pleased to announce our partnership with Promise Keepers Canada in which we'll be working together towards the design and development of their new website!

Promise Keepers Canada's mission is to: "ignite and equip men to become fully devoted followers of Jesus Christ - resulting in familes, churches, workplaces, communities and nations impacted by the grace of God through the lives of men."

Thousands have been touched through Promise Keepers resources, seminars and special conferences. The goal of the new website is to help Promise Keepers reach even more men across the nation.

Blog Action Day - Follow-Up

ANDREW — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 17:31:29 +0000

Last week Thursday we participated in Blog Action Day - a day where bloggers across the world set down their day-to-day topics and focused in on the issue of Climate Change.

In contributing to this event, we joined with bloggers from 155 countries across six continents in reaching an estimated audience of 17.9 million people.

In the words of Robin Beck, Lead Organizer of Blog Action Day:

[We] change[d] the conversation and showed the power of the web to connect people across the world who despite their varied backgrounds have one shared desire: to make a difference. According to blogpulse, we increased the number of posts about climate change on a given day by 500%, and CNN wrote a great article covering the excitement and diversity of today's event across the web and around the world.

Blog Action Day is a wonderful example of the power of social media and a great way to get involved in issues we all grapple with in today's world. If you weren't involved this year, think about joining in on Oct 15, 2010 and be a part of this web-wide and world-wide voice!

AdvancedMinistry Media Player (AMP) Brings Podcasting

RAY — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 13:19:27 +0000

We are pleased to announce the official launch of AMP, AdvancedMinistry’s new media player!

AMP presents your users with an intuitive visual interface and provides a central resource for all of your media files.

Additionally, with the launch of AMP, we have opened up Podcasting to all Orange, Red, Blue and Purple Suite users. Using AMP, you can take any one of your media categories and make it “Podcast-enabled”. So in theory, you could have a separate Podcast for every ministry in your church!

For complete instructions on how to use AMP in relation to your media files, click here. At this point, the visual player is only available to users using AM 3.0 templates, however, the new Podcasting features are accessible on all templates.

AdvancedMinistry Cuts Price of Purple Suite by 33%

RAY — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 13:15:28 +0000

As time marches on, we are always looking for ways to assist our customers in any way possible. Today we’re pleased to announce some assistance in the form of cost-savings.

For those of you who use our Purple Suite (the highest package we offer), we are pleased to announce that we have dropped the monthly price from $149.50 to $99.50! We’re able to do this because we recently renegotiated our hosting agreement, meaning that we’re not getting charged as much for bandwidth.

So instead of putting the money in our wallets, we’d rather see you benefit from it. The new price will take effect on your next billing renewal. Enjoy!

Casual Friday - Feel Good Story

ANDREW — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 09:54:31 +0000

Blog Action Day - Climate Change

CRAIG — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 10:37:14 +0000

This year’s Blog Action Day is dedicated to the topic of climate change. This topic has generated numerous debates, and also some conflicts, even among Christians. Scientists on one side say one thing, while scientists on the other side dispute in return.

So since we’re not scientists, which side do we choose? Let’s look at one variable alone: Trees.

What we can agree on is that trees provide oxygen through the process of photosynthesis.

The middle section of this link (scroll down on the page - you can ignore the rest of it if you want) outlines the rate of which we both lose and replant our forests. A positive difference represents an increase in CO2 absorption. A negative difference represents desertification (aka: Garden of Eden’s climate vs. present day Iraq).

Part of my motivation in looking at trees/forests alone is in the knowledge that the church which I attend is not judicious in its recycling and actually contributes to deforestation by wasting paper on bulletin inserts. Or to put it differently, how it could save the beauty of what we’ve been given. I wonder the impression that leaves with a non-believer.

What does your church or ministry do in the efforts of being stewards of creation?
Would a believer showing care for the environment impact a non-believer?
Could the principles in the stewardship of our finances carry over into our respect of what God has given us through our natural surroundings?

For additional information, you can check out NASA’s site on climate change.

-----------------

Blog Action Day is an annual event held every October 15 that unites the world’s bloggers in posting about the same issue on the same day with the aim of sparking discussion around an issue of global importance. Blog Action Day 2009 will be one of the largest-ever social change events on the web. As of the time that this post was submitted, there were 8,849 blogs publishing content on the subject of climate change to an audience of over twelve-and-a-half million readers. There is still time for you to sign up and take part in Blog Action Day - go to www.blogactionday.com to sign up and then write a post on this year's topic of Climate Change.

Is the Medium the Message?

ANDREW — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 20:53:24 +0000

This video has me thinking about something that I've already been doing some thinking about in the past. People quote the famous line of Marshall McLuhan, "the medium is the message", with ease these days. But is McLuhan correct? If not, then I have to think that the conclusions that Shane Hipps arrives at aren't accurate.

There are bigger truths at play here as well, but I'd love to hear what any of you think.

Announcements!

ANDREW — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 15:06:21 +0000

As I sit here about to write a post that highlights the achievement of our in-house long-distance runner, I also realized that I have dropped the ball big time in not mentioning another big announcement that happened to one of our team members a few months back. So, today is a day of announcements.

First off, to get us all caught up, back on Aug 2 at around 1 PM, Derek Gyssels and his wife Steph were blessed to bring a 5-pound, 11-ounce healthy baby boy into the world. They named him Lawson. Mother and son did just fine and they have both been at home, not getting much sleep for a number of weeks now :) Congratulations Derek & Steph!

Secondly, congratulations to our Creative Director, Hugh Pindur, who once again tackled the Chicago Marathon as he did last year. However, this year, he did so in a significantly more rapid pace with a time of 3 hours, 19 minutes and 34 seconds. Congrats Hugh on the great run!

Happy Thanksgiving! Canadian Style

ANDREW — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 14:38:48 +0000

It's Thanksgiving weekend here in Canada so just a heads up that we're not going to be in the office today. To all of our Canadian friends, we hope you have a really excellent weekend and find many things to be thankful for!

Casual Friday - Favorite Bible Verse

ANDREW — Fri, 9 Oct 2009 10:33:03 +0000

New Spam Policy Implemented

RAY — Thu, 8 Oct 2009 16:41:22 +0000

One of the things that we’ve been hearing a lot from our users lately is, “Is there a way that I can limit the amount of spam that I get to my inbox?” The answer is of course, yes, however today we have implemented a new policy that should make the lives of our users a lot easier.

First, let me quickly review the old model: When a spam message is received, its Subject Line is prefixed with “[SPAM]”. If you wanted to filter out your spam, you would do one of two things:

Create a rule in your webmail that takes any messages with “[SPAM]” in the prefix and deletes them, or
Create a rule in your mail client (i.e. Outlook) that takes any items with “[SPAM]” in the prefix and moves them into your Trash Can.

The advantage of this model is that you can filter through your Trash Can in the case that you feel you missed a message because of a false-positive spam catch (which is about 0.01% of the time). The obvious disadvantages to this model are:

Unless you choose to delete your spam at the server level, there is the possibility of a) having to download a ridiculous amount of messages, and b) viruses hitting your computer because spam is not “totally blocked”.
In the case that you haven’t setup any rules on the server or in your mail client, you have to filter through all of your spam mail, just to find your regular email.
If you forward mail to another account (i.e. gmail.com, bell.ca, hotmail.com, etc.), the spam gets forwarded as well, which frankly ticks them off (the ISP that you’re forwarding it to).

Recently, because of this practice we were blacklisted from a few servers and are now left trying to convince them that we are not a spam house! :)

So let me introduce you to the new model: From now on when we receive a message with an extremely high probability of spam, we will delete it. It will never make it to your inbox! Any mail that our system classifies as Bulk Mail will be prefixed with “[BULK]” and relayed to you. Additionally, any mail that “could” be spam (but probably isn’t) will still be forwarded to you as usual.

Here are the protocols we are using:

We employ CommTouch and iPSwitch for our Premium Spam filter.
We verify mail against two blacklists: SpamHaus and SpamCop

If all of our protocols approve the message, we let the mail through.

In the case that you do not receive an email from a person that you were expecting it from, here are the steps to take:

Have them contact the company (ISP) that they send email through to verify that they are not on any blacklists, particularly SpamCop and SpamHaus. If you’re not convinced, you can check out their SMTP server for yourself at the SpamCop/SpamHaus websites.
As a last resort, submit a ticket to our Support Desk and we will check our network logs to find out where/why the message was blocked.

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us. We believe that this is the right solution going forward and is in the best interest of all our users.

God bless!

New Women's Ministry and Youth Templates

RAY — Thu, 8 Oct 2009 13:03:54 +0000

We are pleased to announce two new AdvancedMinistry 3.0 web templates. The first one entitled, “All Things New” (view preview) has been designed with women’s ministry in mind. The second template entitled "Youth Movement" (view preview) is pretty self-explanatory. :)

As usual, all AdvancedMinistry 3.0 templates are built so that you can easily customize your colors, layout, fonts, etc. to suit your ministry.

Enjoy!

Communicating Powerfully

ANDREW — Wed, 7 Oct 2009 12:15:01 +0000

It's one thing to communicate something powerful, but it's another altogether to communicate it powerfully.

I love this video because it's such an excellent example of what good communications look like. They don't have to be flashy...they can just be a guy, standing in a room.

And to be honest, I don't really agree with all elements of the poem, but that actually makes this an even better example of quality communications. The manner in which he communicates the message is so powerful that even though I don't agree with some of the message, I am riveted throughout and left thinking about it after.

That is successful communication.

You ministries and non-profits already have a powerful message. So do it justice and go communicate it powerfully!

Measuring Social Media

ANDREW — Tue, 6 Oct 2009 17:25:50 +0000

This is an awesome article about measuring the value of your social media endeavors.

If you don't know her and don't really understand the value of social media, K.D. Paine is a great person to follow on her blog. She provides amazing insights into the measurement of social media campaigns.

Great Quotes - Volume 5

ANDREW — Mon, 5 Oct 2009 17:21:18 +0000

"Much more important than working hard is knowing how to find the right thing to work on. Paying attention to what is going on in the world. Seeing patterns. Seeing things as they are rather than how you want them to be."

- Caterina Fake

Check out the full blog post here.

Casual Friday - Join the rEVOLution

ANDREW — Fri, 2 Oct 2009 13:34:54 +0000

New AM 3.0 Site Templates Arrive!

RAY — Fri, 2 Oct 2009 12:26:26 +0000

We are pleased to announce that AM 3.0 templates are finally here! Now, on top of creating and customizing your own AM template, you can now choose one of our predesigned AM 3.0 templates and tailor it to suit your needs.

Two new templates were launched today – Our Great God (which integrates a number of Xpiritmental backgrounds through Flash) (view preview) and Jesus is the Reason (view preview). Stay tuned for more template options, which will be plentiful in the coming days, weeks and months!

(To change your template, login to your AdvancedMinistry account and select “Choose My Template”.)

The Latest AdvancedMinistry 3.0 Updates

RAY — Thu, 1 Oct 2009 15:40:27 +0000

I wanted to take the opportunity to announce a few AdvancedMinistry updates that took place this week, particularly to the AM 3.0 Custom Template Manager:

You can now specify a different height for secondary page banners.
You can now choose a different background image for secondary pages.
The ability to preview ANY one of your beta templates (not just your active one) has now been added.
When saving options in the 3.0 Custom Template Manager, the page no longer needs to reload. All data is seamlessly stored to the server in about 1/10 of the time that it used to take.

Enjoy!

Xpiritmental #54: Sin That So Easily Entangles

RAY — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 16:46:29 +0000

We are pleased to announce Xpiritmental wallpaper #54 entitled, Sin That So Easily Entangles, inspired by Hebrews 12:1 and 1 Timothy 6:11. If you look carefully, the web is actually made up of sins. 1 Timothy 6:11 instructs us, "But as for you, O man of God, flee these things. Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness."

Download the new wallpaper below or visit the Xpiritmental Archives for more wallpapers.

Xpiritmental No. 54
Sin That So Easily Entangles
Hebrews 12:1 / 1 Timothy 6:11

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Win-Win-Win-Win

ANDREW — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 17:31:01 +0000

I love the magazine Fast Company so you might see me reference it from time-to-time – today being one of those times.

Jim Sinegal, the CEO of Costco was interviewed in a past issue and some of the comments he made really caught my attention.

“Wall Street grumbles that Costco cares more about its customers and employees that its shareholders; it pays an average of $17 an hour and covers 90% of heath-insurance costs for both full-timers and part-timers.”

I love that quote because it speaks of a corporate culture that “gets it”. If you treat your employees well, they will serve you well and they will serve your customers well which, after all, is the goal isn't it? But I think we lose site of this in ministry and non-profit contexts sometimes. Sadly, there are organizational cultures out there where the attitude is that since they are doing such noble work, it's ok to over-work and under-appreciate the employees.

The far-reaching implications of this kind of culture for a ministry or non-profit is that donations dry up, volunteers are no where to be found, people get burned-out and the very needs your organization exists to address don't get met.

And at the end of the day, it becomes an issue of bad branding and that can be incredibly difficult to repair.

Oh, and I should probably mention that despite being so focused on employee and customer care, Costco's revenues grew in the past five years by 70% and its stock doubled.

Costco might be a for-profit entity, but the principle applies regardless. Do your employees, the people you serve, your brand and your bottom line a favor – it's a win-win-win-win.

Creative Solutions

ANDREW — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 18:22:08 +0000

A number of weeks ago, our design team came up with a few creative desktops for the Xpiritmental community. One of those desktops was an absolutely amazing image called “Thy Kingdom Come”. You can view it here.

As soon as that desktop was posted, I set it as my background and as I was doing so, I remember thinking to myself, those guys are really going to have to come up with something amazing to knock this off my desktop over the next few months. A few weeks later, to my surprise, it happened that a new desktop really caught my imagination and impressed me enough to switch over to it.

The desktop I'm referring to is called “rooted and built up” (seen above) and it's based on the verse, Colossians 2:7.

What I like about this image is that it's a different and creative approach to the design problem. As evidenced by the work you can see on Xpiritmental, our design team has a firm grasp on the art of creating an environment and visually communicating a concept through things like stock photography. But what you might not appreciate about the “rooted and built up” desktop is that it was developed entirely out of paper textures.

From an artistic perspective, this concept works to communicate being rooted and built up by using a tree and earth image. But the creativity in it extends not only to the visual communication, it went even further to the medium that was used to generate the image – paper.

Think about that for a second...and if you do, it might just strike you as it does me, how perfect a paper texture is to further augment this image. The image concept seeks to communicate a number of elements of nature, things that are tangible and real. In particular, it communicates the idea of being rooted and built up via a tree. What medium is better to communicate that concept than something as tangible and real as a paper texture? Not to mention the obvious fact that paper is a product of trees...

I love this kind of creativity and I hope that it inspires all of you as you think about how your ministry communicates itself through it's imagery. Being too literal with your messaging can often hurt your brand more than it helps. So strive to find those levels of creativity that will lend depth and breadth to the messaging.

Casual Friday - The Anti-Depression Video

ANDREW — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 15:32:35 +0000

By posting this, I'm not indicating that anyone around here is having a down day. What I am thinking though, is that everyone can use a good smile/laugh and I'm pretty sure this will do it for you. Enjoy! And Happy Casual Friday!

AdvancedMinistry Template Manager Simplified

RAY — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 23:28:29 +0000

Over the last week or so, we’ve been working on making the functionality on the “Choose My Template” page of AdvancedMinistry a little easier. We are pleased to announce that those changes are now complete and we think you will be pleasantly surprised.

For those of you that are familiar with AM 3.0 templates and/or the beta feature of AdvancedMinistry, you will notice that you no longer have to go to a separate page to manage your custom sites. (Note: For those of you who are unfamiliar with the term “beta site”, we are simply referring to a testing environment where you can work on a new website design/layout in the background, without affecting your live website.)

Everything can be managed in one easy control panel. Additionally, you can now use a 3.0 template as your live website, and have another 3.0 site as your beta website. To see the new changes, login to your account and select “Choose My Template”. A screenshot is listed below:

New Downloads: Xpiritmental 52 & 53

RAY — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 16:43:06 +0000

We are pleased to announce two new Xpiritmental desktop wallpapers entitled, Red As Crimson and Rooted & Built Up, inspired by Isaiah 1:18 and Colossians 2:7. Download the new desktops below or visit the Xpiritmental Archives for more wallpapers.

Xpiritmental No. 52
Red As Crimson
Isaiah 1:18

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Xpiritmental No. 53
Rooted & Built Up
Colossians 2:7

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Getting Practical: Using Facebook - Part 2

ANDREW — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 12:03:42 +0000

Yesterday, I tackled the first part of my response to the question: what is the value of creating a Facebook page for your organization given that you’ve already got a working, freshly updated website?

The second thing I wanted to say about this is that Facebook is by nature a relational platform – it’s all about connecting and relating with other people in a way that your website doesn’t. Obviously, your organizational website facilitates a relationship between you, the organization, and your audience(s). If you’ve got a more advanced site, there might even be some elements of interaction between the people that make up your audience, but in general, it’s a one-to-many relationship – Facebook takes it a step further.

Facebook profiles for individuals are by nature a mash of connections that people have with others they know. But more importantly, those networks are already established and flourishing. As such, it’s already set up to be a perfect vehicle for word-of-mouth which everyone knows is the best form of advertising because it’s real and it’s trusted.

If you can get one person to sign up as a fan or a member of your organization on Facebook, their friends will then see that reference as an endorsement of the quality of your organization. To put it in different terms, what this means is that every person that becomes a fan of your organization, by virtue of that small step to identify themselves as approving what it is that you do, is becoming an advocate on your behalf.

That is an endorsement that you can’t buy or convince people into – they genuinely have to like you and care about your organization which only lends credibility to your affiliation with them.

Powerful stuff.

Getting Practical: Using Facebook - Part 1

ANDREW — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 17:44:11 +0000

I imagine that there must be at least a few of out there that wonder about the value of creating a Facebook page for your organization given that you’ve already got a working, freshly updated website…and that’s a fair question. I’ve got two thoughts on the issue; one of which I’ll outline today and the other will come tomorrow.

First off, as a general rule of thumb, once you’ve identified your audience and the message you want to (or need to) communicate to them, it’s really important to consider where you’re going to connect with them best.

I just recently read of a specialty bakery in Toronto called Eini & Co. which focuses on cupcakes. Their media plan included putting advertisements in local newspapers as a broad-based method of getting their message out. But then they also included specialized strategies in their plan such as direct mailers to luxury hotels, posters near wedding and event venues and wedding boutiques and online ads at wedding websites. The result was that traffic to the company site increased 73% and sales were up 32% on the year.

Your ministry or non-profit website is in some ways like the newspaper advertisement in the above case study. It’s a no-brainer as part of your strategy simply because it is such a foundational element of the integrated marketing plan. But just because you’ve built your website, doesn’t mean they will come. That’s why it’s important to have an off-site strategy to reach out to those people who are more likely to get exposed to your brand and messaging in other places.

So for properties like Facebook, the question has to be asked, is my audience hanging out in this location and if they are, then you need to seriously consider being there as well so you give yourself a chance to be found. From there, you have a choice to engage them right then and there or you can drive them back to your website proper in order to continue the interactions there.

In tomorrow’s post, I’ll deal with the other thought I’ve got on this topic.

Everything Old is New Again

ANDREW — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 17:45:30 +0000

Last week I was re-reading the April 2009 issue of Fast Company in which there was a feature called “10 Ways to Jump-Start the Auto Business”. Each of the 10 ideas came from a different person with a unique perspective on the auto industry. The most intriguing submission to my mind was that of Mike Rowe, star and Executive Producer of the television show Dirty Jobs with Mike Rowe. Here's a snippet from the thoughts that Mike submitted:

I believe the majority of people in this country are deeply disconnected from the Americans who still make our stuff. Forty years ago, it was easy to buy American. Not just because our stuff was better than theirs. We bought American goods because we actually knew the people who were making them. It was a powerful and personal connection that tied us to the products we bought.

The seismic shift from manufacturing to services has not only changed the composition of our gross domestic product, but also changed our national mind-set toward work. We no longer celebrate the way things get made, we are more interested in the way things get bought. In this global economy, we focus only on the finished product, which makes the Americans who still make them largely invisible.

I love these comments because I think Mike is right on...5 years ago.

Thing is, the times they are a-changin' folks and as they do, they are starting to come full circle back to a model where the relationship between the buyer and the seller is as important as the quality of the product or service they offer.

Social Media is an example of this truth. What we're seeing on the Internet is a huge push by many organizations to begin to build person-to-person relationships with their customers. More and more, we no longer interact with faceless companies who patent every idea and bunker themselves in so as to be impenetrable to the very people who pay their bills. Rather, CEO's, Project Managers and even front-line employees are creating Twitter and Facebook accounts and beginning to represent their companies online.

And whereas this brings with it elements of great risk, as tends to be the case with risk, it also comes hand-in-hand with such amazing potential. And when I think in terms of a non-profit or faith-based organization...well, your relationship with your audience(s) is what you live by and for, is it not?

All of this leaves me very excited about the future of marketing and communications for ministries and non-profits. We love to advise our clients to be real with your customers and this new/old wave of relational marketing forces us all to be real, transparent, considerate and responsible – all the kinds of things that faith-based and non-profit organizations need to be in order to succeed in their work.

So an old idea is becoming new again and there is great potential here on the cusp of this new cycle - a perfect time to get involved.

Casual Friday - Turn the Other Cheek

ANDREW — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 15:13:45 +0000

Happy First Birthday!

ANDREW — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 15:21:03 +0000

Today marks the first birthday of the Xpiritmental blog!

It's hard to believe that a year of blogging has already gone by and all things considered, it's been a really successful year for the blog. Readership has increased and we've been able to have a number of really great conversations with the community of people that keep up with us. The need to moderate comments that didn't serve the conversations well were minimal and conversely, the feedback we've been able to generate, especially on posts that pertain to AdvancedMinistry, have been incredibly useful.

So Happy Birthday Xpiritmental community. We're looking forward to grow and improve alongside you all in the years to come!

Introducing Four New AdvancedMinistry Features

RAY — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 13:56:22 +0000

We are pleased to announce four new updates to AdvancedMinistry users that are using AM 3.0 templates! They include the ability to:

1. Add transparency to your columns. For example, if you had a blue column and wanted the background behind it to show through, you could set the Opacity of all components to 50%. (This feature is compatible with most newer browsers, i.e. Firefox 3+, IE8, Safari 3+, etc.)

2. Change the number of primary items that appear in your menu. Before, you were limited to 8 total menu items. You now have control of how many items you want to be displayed. (Be careful not to increase it by too much or your navigation may overlap. It’s in your control.)

3. Position the Home button wherever you want it. Yes, this has been a long-awaited feature! No longer does the Home button need to be the last item in your navigation. You can now make it the first item or remove it all together – it’s up to you.

4. Remove the text links (footer) at the bottom of the page. This is handy for people that don’t want their menu repeated. The AdvancedMinistry logo will still appear at the bottom of your site. Note: If you are an organization that really doesn’t want the AM logo on your site, you can now pay a $10 per month service fee to have it disabled. The reason for this fee is because we rely on this logo/link to promote AdvancedMinistry to other churches and ministries; it’s our way of minimizing fees (to you, the user). That said, if you really don’t want it, this option allows you to have it removed.

Enjoy the new features! If you’re not using an AM 3.0 template yet, click here for more info.

Xpiritmental #51: A Strong Tower

RAY — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 16:35:28 +0000

We are pleased to announce Xpiritmental wallpaper #51 entitled, A Strong Tower, inspired by Proverbs 18:10. Download the new wallpaper below or visit the Xpiritmental Archives for more wallpapers.

Xpiritmental No. 51
A Strong Tower
Proverbs 18:10

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Social Media a Fad? Perhaps Not.

ANDREW — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 16:44:37 +0000

The Potential For Your Church Website

ANDREW — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 14:37:03 +0000

This morning, we received a trouble ticket from one of our AdvancedMinistry clients indicating that the system was telling him that he had 5,000 MB instead of the 500 MB he originally signed up to receive. This was of course no mistake at all as it was due to the big upgrade that we did to the system last week which gave all our AdvancedMinistry clients a big boost in the file space available to them.

After responding to this customers concern and letting him know the good news, he responded with the following comments:

“No way! I was just thinking about how we really needed a lot more space and just don't have the money for it right now. Thanks a lot guys. You have all really been helpful as we've planted this church. We started in February with 6 people and now have around 180 people each Sunday. We have not passed out a single flier, just let people know about the website. This easy to navigate and update back-end has made it possible for me - the only paid staff and church planter - to keep our people and those interested in us up to date and informed. Anyway, just wanted to say thanks again.”

The reason I share this with you all today is to key in on the amazing fact that this person started in February with 6 people attending his church and in 7 months, with no advertising to speak of other than the site itself, the church has grown to 180 people. That is an awesome story and one which reinforces for us the power of the web as a tool in a church's communications arsenal.

Casual Friday - Great Quotes Volume 4

ANDREW — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 10:25:05 +0000

It being a Friday, this great quote just seems fitting:

"Carpe per diem - seize the check "

- Robin Williams

Super Size My File Space

RAY — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 10:15:57 +0000

We are pleased to announce a substantial increase in file space for our AdvancedMinistry customers using the Orange, Red, Blue and Purple Suites. How “substantial” you ask? Anywhere from 250 - 2,000%!

The additional cost to each user: $0.

Here is the breakdown:

Orange Suite users go from 200MB to 500MB
Red Suite users go from 500MB to 5,000MB (5GB)
Blue Suite users go from 1,000MB to 10,000MB (10GB)
Purple Suite users go from 2,500MB to 50,000MB (50GB)

Our goal is to continually serve our AdvancedMinistry customers with the best products and services in the industry. Increasing file space is one of the many ways that we are growing with our ministries.

God bless!

You Are the Brand

ANDREW — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 16:49:13 +0000

I don't know if you've ever heard of Chad Javon Johnson, but I'm guessing some of you will be familiar with the name "Ochocinco". For those of you who don't already know, they are one and the same person.

Chad Johnson is a wide receiver in the NFL. His number is 85 - and although "Ochocinco" isn't technically 100% accurate as the Spanish spelling of 85, as of Aug 29, 2008, it is in fact what he has changed his last name to and what he'll be sporting on the back of his jersey this coming season.

I love this story for a lot of reasons - not least of which is that Chad is a great example of a guy who gets branding. Chad is an excellent wide receiver, which is key to note because a guy that changed his name to a Spanish version of his jersey number and couldn't play the game, would undoubtedly look pretty ignorant to his team and fans alike. But this guy can catch a ball and he knows that he's marketable - for that reason, the name change not only works, it's a brilliant strategy to increase his brand.

But this post isn't just about Ochocinco, it's about the fact that many people, when they hear the word branding, seem to immediately think in terms of the external things that organizations/companies do for their public image. And although the external stuff is an important part of how you communicate who you are, your logo, your annual report and the ads you run in different mediums are only a reflection of what the brand represents...you!

You are the person/people behind the brand of your organization. You don't just wear the team jersey...you are the team.

Once you understand that truth, it will fundamentally change how you approach all of your branding - change it for the better that is!

A Fundamental Shift

ANDREW — Wed, 9 Sep 2009 15:53:40 +0000

I often hear people say stuff like “I don’t get Twitter” or “I don’t understand how Facebook could help my organization”.

And in all honestly, I can understand that sentiment because a fundamental shift in how you think about communications is required in order for a person to appreciate the opportunities that properties like this offer.

The most powerful thing that you can have in your communications arsenal these days is the realization that your marketing and advertising efforts are not simply tantamount to you shouting out to the world through a bullhorn. It’s far more strategic than that.

It’s about listening and learning about what’s going on “out there” in the world and coming to an understanding of where your advocates are. By that I mean that each organization needs to find the group of individuals that are already primed to be massive advocates of what it is that you’re doing and then resource and facilitate those people as brand advocates. This is word-of-mouth 101 and goes back to the very beginnings of marketing and advertising.

The difference today though, is that if you’re willing to put in the leg-work, the web, and in particular properties like Twitter, give you the ability to find those advocates and create a mutually beneficial relationship with them.

What's In A Name

ANDREW — Tue, 8 Sep 2009 23:28:47 +0000

Over the past number of weeks, I’ve been working with a good friend of mine as he bounces ideas for his new church name around. It’s been a really interesting conversation and I’m excited at the direction it’s headed – as I am to see the fruits of the work he and his wife are being called to.

Then today, I read this article over at Church Marketing Sucks - a really interesting approach to naming a church.

Obviously I have my own thoughts and ideas based on my experience in working with churches on their brand of names that will and won’t work. But that’s not to say that just because I do this for a living, that my thoughts and ideas are definitive.

So, I’d like to ask you, the readers of this blog, your ideas on what makes a good church name and how did you arrive at yours? Or better yet, give me examples of how your church name is working for your church brand and its growth in your community.

I’m intrigued to hear your responses!

Home Page Banner Rotator Integrated into AM 3.0

RAY — Mon, 7 Sep 2009 20:20:33 +0000

We are pleased to announce a new feature that enables AdvancedMinistry users to create their own rotating Flash feature banners. Provided that you are using an AM 3.0 template, you can automatically scroll through five different image/Flash banners and accompanying text! To use the new feature, login to your admin, select “Choose My Template”, edit your AM 3.0 template and click on the Banner tab.

You can view a sample of how the Banner Rotator works by clicking here. A screen shot of the admin can be found below:

Casual Friday - You Can Bet Your Life On It

ANDREW — Fri, 4 Sep 2009 10:13:32 +0000

Xpiritmental #50: Walk By The Spirit

RAY — Thu, 3 Sep 2009 14:21:06 +0000

We are pleased to announce Xpiritmental wallpaper #50 entitled, Walk By The Spirit, inspired by Galatians 5:16. Download the new wallpaper below or visit the Xpiritmental Archives for more wallpapers.

Xpiritmental No. 50
Walk By The Spirit
Galatians 5:16

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Public Relations Tip - HARO

ANDREW — Wed, 2 Sep 2009 12:25:03 +0000

So here’s a really practical tip for you to help with your Public Relations efforts:

Its one thing to fire out press releases for all of the stuff you’ve been busy with and since it’s such a basic thing, it’s probably a good idea to do it – we still do.

But the problem with press releases is that everyone knows that it’s simply a document that organizations write about themselves in the third-person in order to grow their brand, which can make it seem disingenuous.

What’s more real and impactful is to be the kind of organization that others, like reporters, go to when they have questions about the sector that you are in. The challenge here is how to become that kind of organization. Enter HARO – or, as it’s known in full, Help A Reporter Out.

HARO is a simple service that allows you to sign up as an organization that is willing to help a reporter with a story. On the other side, reporters sign up and submit short descriptions of the story they are working on and the kind of experts they need to interview to garner research and quotes for their article, story or book.

It’s a free service that sends an email to your inbox three times every work day for you to scan through for any pieces that you are qualified to speak to and that by contributing, helps your brand.

Check it out. Like I said, it’s free!

The Joys of a New Operating System

RAY — Tue, 1 Sep 2009 22:06:55 +0000

I just wanted to take the time to follow up regarding my post last week in regard to the official release of Snow Leopard – the new OS for Apple. Any time you upgrade to a new OS, it’s important to review the software incompatibilities before you endanger your mission-critical applications. It doesn’t matter if you’re on Windows or Apple; it’s always good to know what you’re getting into before you dive in.

Long story short, my copy of Snow Leopard arrived on Friday and as per my last post, I was ready to jump two feet in. But then I started reading… and reading… and reading…. It turns out that there are a number of developers that got caught off guard by the early release of Snow Leopard meaning that there are a number of incompatibilities that frankly, I need. Therefore, my copy will stay shrink-wrapped for a little while longer until some of these items get worked out.

Here is a great article on ZDnet entitled “Regretful upgrade: Snow Leopard incompatibilities”. If you’re an Apple user, I would encourage you to read it before you install Snow Leopard – just to be safe!

When Microsoft releases Windows 7 on October 22, Windows users will be in the same boat; there will be incompatibilities and it will take time to fix them.

If you’re a user that’s already installed Snow Leopard, I’d appreciate your feedback as to your experience so far. Similarly, if you’re running a beta copy of Windows 7, I’d love to hear from you too. If there are some headaches that you think you can save readers of this blog, share away!

Blogging for SEO

ANDREW — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 00:05:29 +0000

SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, should be one of the primary things you consider as you develop a new website. But it’s also something that requires ongoing management because your content actually makes a difference in how your site ranks.

Keep in mind that search engines like Google place a high value on seeing that your site has fresh content updated to it frequently. They also want to see that people are linking to your site from theirs because, by nature, that indicates that you must have some valuable content there that people care about.

Of course, you can’t control how people respond to the content on your site, but you can do your best to make it as compelling as possible so as to give yourself the best shot at getting a buzz around your site.

Closely tied to that is the strategy of having a blog on your site. Showing Google and other search engines that you have an active RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feed for a blog or podcast on your home page, tells them that you are trying your best to keep fresh content on the site and that helps you to score better in their rankings.

So blogging is not just about having something to say. It’s a really practical way to help your site get found and ranked higher by search engines.

AM 3.0 Keeps on Rolling

RAY — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 16:28:29 +0000

For the second straight week, we are pleased to announce more features and improvements to AdvancedMinistry 3.0 templates. Some of the new items include:

Round edges of your menu
Position your menu above or below the banner
Create a title header above, below or in your banner
Better control of padding/spacing between the banner and menu systems
Create bottom borders on all of your module headings
Create separators between your menu items (and change the color)
Change the border color and size around your thumbnail images

We have created a quick sample site to show you a few of these features; you can check it out here.

To view the new changes, login to your admin, select “Choose My Template” and edit your AM 3.0 template.

Enjoy!

Casual Friday - Ultimate Water Slide

ANDREW — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 11:06:07 +0000

Honestly, I don't even care if that's made up or not...it's still plain awesome.

Snow Leopard Prepares to Run

RAY — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 23:44:21 +0000

As the clock turns towards midnight, Apple users from around the world get ready for the official release of Snow Leopard, Apple’s latest operating system release. The new OS provides 64-bit functionality, which in layman’s terms means more speed and is set to offer support for Microsoft Exchange users. [Click here for the full review from CNet]

As a user that has gone back and forth between Windows and Apple, I always find it exciting (and scary) when major companies launch new releases of operating systems. It’s exciting because it provides something new, something fresh. It’s scary because although it’s been tested by thousands of users, it has greater potential to have flaws and security holes. At the end of the day though, most people are willing to enter the unknown and take their chances. The thrill of something new drowns out risks involved.

I think that principle is generally true of our culture. We are always ready to move on to the next big thing, even if what we are currently using is working just fine. Some call it advancement while others would call it stupidity. Whatever you want to call it, the fact of the matter is – it is happening. For Apple users, that next phase begins tomorrow.

My copy is in the mail.

Repetition

ANDREW — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 16:59:58 +0000

Ever heard someone say something that you’ve heard dozens of times before but they say it in such a way, or perhaps at a specific moment in your life, that causes the concept to resonate with you like it never has before?

That’s the power of repetition.

And there’s a few ways to do it. You can take a simple message and just repeat it over and over to the point it becomes ingrained in your audiences mind. Another way to do it is to repeat a concept but say it differently – this is really powerful if the concept is a bit more complex.

In any case, presuming that everyone understands you after saying something just one time is a dangerous approach to communicating as it puts the onus on the listener. While communications definitely involve both communicator and audience, all you can control as an organization trying to get a message out, is what you communicate, so think about repeating your important messages.

New Xpiritmental Downloads

RAY — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 16:47:28 +0000

We are pleased to announce two new Xpiritmental desktop wallpapers entitled, Faith and A New Song, inspired by Matthew 17:20 and Revelation 5:9-14. Download the new desktops below or visit the Xpiritmental Archives for more wallpapers.

Xpiritmental No. 48
Faith
Matthew 17:20

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Xpiritmental No. 49
A New Song
Revelation 5:9-14

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The Communication Mullet

ANDREW — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 17:28:39 +0000

Remember Andre Agassi’s hair from the 90’s? If I recall correctly, he was quite the looker to the ladies back in the day. But I can tell you this, if he was to sport that style today…well…not so much.

I mention this because, well, for one, I love the opportunity to post a picture of a mullet on this blog, but more importantly, it illustrates a point that I want to make today.

Interests, fads and culture change over time – this is a truism that I’m sure we can all agree on. But even though it’s something that we can all agree on, ministry communications don’t always seem to be put through the filter that that truism presents.

One of the reasons this doesn’t happen is because it is typical human behavior to be so involved with your work for such a long time that you forget what that work looks like from the outside. As a result, we neglect to act on the fact that we have a tendency to forget what our work looks like to our audience, and we fall out of touch with them.

How we avoid this is by regularly reviewing where our communications are at with our audience(s). Staying in touch with them will help us to stay sharp in communicating to them in ways that will impact them instead of producing communications that should have both feet firmly planted in the early 90’s.

More AM 3.0 Improvements

RAY — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 15:07:11 +0000

We are pleased to announce further additions and improvements to AdvancedMinistry 3.0 templates! Some of the new features include:

Add rounded corners to your columns (instead of square edges)
Join all of the modules in a column into one fluid column
Make the bottoms of all of your columns line up with each other
Customize the color of each column
Control the padding between your text and the edge of the page/column
Finally, we extended language support in headers to include Latin characters like ãäåæçêëìíîïðñ÷øùúûüýþÿAaA, etc. (for all fonts that support extended Latin characters)

Enjoy!

Casual Friday - Melt Their Faces Off

ANDREW — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 13:41:32 +0000

Xpiritmental Wallpaper: Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep

RAY — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 16:46:12 +0000

For the second time this week, we are pleased to announce a new Xpiritmental desktop wallpaper entitled, Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep, inspired by the popular children's prayer. Download the new wallpaper below or visit the Xpiritmental Archives for more wallpapers.

Xpiritmental No. 47
Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep
Children's Prayer

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Champion Challenger

ANDREW — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 16:23:59 +0000

Champion Challenger is a process that we sometimes use with our custom clients to determine how to improve a given page or action item on a website.

The basic idea is to setup two versions of a page, or change the users experience in some way, and then divert portions of your web traffic to one or the other while measuring your rate of return on both pages. The champion is the existing page that has proven itself previously and the challenger is a new page that contains some sort of difference from the champion. If the challenger succeeds, then it becomes the new champion and the process is repeated.

For instance, recently, we began an ad campaign for one of our clients on a popular website. When the ad first went up, we directed people from the ad to our client’s home page. At that point, the average daily sign-ups resulting from that ad were around 20. Last night, we changed that process and made the ad link to a different page on the website which resulted in 8 signups within the first 45 minutes. Now, this isn’t a complete process yet, but the early signs are pretty clear that the challenger is significantly more effective in translating people from simply a web visitor into a sign-up.

It all comes down to removing the barriers for people. The presumption is that if they clicked on the ad, they actually wanted to engage our offering and so that being the case, it was incumbent upon us to ensure that they could get to that engagement as quickly and easily as possible so as to ensure a positive experience on our site.

Champion Challenger is a great tool in the arsenal of anyone who is trying to determine how to improve a measurable goal on a website or even in print or with processes within your office.

Xpiritmental Wallpaper: Thy Kingdom Come

RAY — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 16:46:37 +0000

We are pleased to announce a new Xpiritmental desktop wallpaper entitled, Thy Kingdom Come, inspired by Revelation 21:1. Download the new wallpaper below or visit the Xpiritmental Archives for more wallpapers.

Xpiritmental No. 46
Thy Kingdom Come
Revelation 21:1

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Know When To Hold 'Em

ANDREW — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 17:26:46 +0000

I wonder at times about the fact that our culture is producing more and more people who are Starters and not Finishers. You know what I mean – those people that have great ideas and can kick them off the ground but 1-2 years in, they feel they’ve taken the organization as far as they can and move on.

The question that runs through my mind is how many of them actually are just Starters or have they just confused being a Starter with having a short attention span?

The same thing happens in communications. You can see it happen all the time where a company launches a new campaign, runs it for a while but then gets bored of it and wants to change direction. Meanwhile, at the same time that the people in the organization were getting tired of the ad or campaign, the audience they were trying to reach was just starting to really engage the campaign. By shutting it down early, they devalue all the hard work that went into the campaign.

As Kenny Rogers likes to sing: “You got to know when to hold ‘em” and “know when to fold ‘em”.

Casual Friday - The Great Office War

ANDREW — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 12:03:08 +0000

Interruptions

ANDREW — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 16:39:18 +0000

Was sent this photo today as found in a story on the Telegraph (UK) website about a couple who set up their camera to take a picture of themselves visiting Banff National Park, Canada. Apparently, this squirrel wanted in the shot and the camera obliged by auto-focusing on him.

After a good laugh, what crossed my mind was how this squirrel is such a great example of what a lot of church and ministry communications are like – interruptions. And even though interruptions can be useful, they are never neutral in their impact – they either work, or they fail. Because any brand impression that leaves no impression doesn’t help your brand, it only helps to communicate that your organization is yet another church or ministry in the plethora of churches and ministries out there. It doesn’t distinguish you, it lumps you in with everyone else.

Unless of course, you can find a way to be like this squirrel and interrupt in a way that leaves a lasting impression.

Seth Godin - Who Spreads Your Word?

ANDREW — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 16:57:40 +0000

Great blog post by Seth Godin yesterday on Who Spreads Your Word. Once again, when you can't say it any better...

When the Dust Settles

ANDREW — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 16:47:04 +0000

Today we live and operate in a world that is being transformed by technology. Opportunities to easily communicate with those of like interests and concerns have never been more prominent and powerful...and yet, this new world of technology is only another step in the staircase - a new means to a familiar end.

As a result, I say get excited about what's out there: jump on the social media bandwagon; get your site a content management solution; and freshen up those print ads you've got, but when the next step comes and the dust settles on our current paradigm, you'll be left with the same old problem of needing to have a compelling story to tell. So just how compelling is your story...? Does what you do really change anything...?

If it does, then do that story justice and tell it as best you can - that is timeless. And that skill and passion for the story you are a part of will still be there when the dust settles.

AdvancedMinistry Video Testimonial Project

RAY — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 14:51:49 +0000

If you feel that AdvancedMinistry has played a vital part in your organization, we invite you to share it through our Video Testimonial Project.

Using your webcam, video camera, or any other video recording device, submit a video, not more than 3 minutes long, highlighting your overall experience as an AdvancedMinistry customer.

We have been blessed to serve thousands of ministries worldwide and we look forward to hearing what you have to say!

For full details of the project and to submit videos, click here.

Casual Friday - Classic Prank

ANDREW — Fri, 7 Aug 2009 13:43:16 +0000

Twitter Not So Much For Teens

ANDREW — Thu, 6 Aug 2009 16:19:23 +0000

I’ve been noticing something anecdotally lately that’s had me thinking. I keep getting the impression that young people just aren’t that into Twitter. Of course, there’s no doubt that they are all over Facebook (more than 50% of Facebook users are under 24), but Twitter just doesn’t seem to be a real draw for them. Then today I read that the sub-24 demographic only accounts for 16% of Twitter users.

I suppose that the reasons for this are many and varied. I also think that it’s very likely that Twitter will start to grow in this key demographic as compelling content is generated on that medium for young people. But as things stand now, teens and young adults just aren’t camping out on that property.

So what does this mean for churches and ministries? I think it means that we can’t presume that just because Twitter is the “newest, big Internet thing”, that young people are all over it. We have to be wise with where and how we try to connect with people, because let’s face it, creating any relationship is a time-consuming task and the demands on our time are already excessive.

So, while I acknowledge that stats don’t tell every story and therefore I'm sure there will be exceptions, at this point in time, dropping into Twitter with the expectation that you can connect with your youth group or youth from the community might be analogous to trying to reach that same group at a Gaither gathering – ain’t gonna happen.

As such, your time might be better spent creating and spending time each day on Facebook.

Resolution Revelation

DEREK — Wed, 5 Aug 2009 13:52:23 +0000

I am nearing a decade into my career as a professional designer. In this time I have dealt with many questions from clients on an array of issues. Today I want to address the two things that I have explained time and time again. The first being what is dpi and resolution? The second is what is the difference between bitmap art and vector art? I believe for many of you this will be a revelation and greatly increase your understanding of design in the print and web world.

First I need to establish some definitions:

DPI – dots per inch: a measure of resolution used for printed text or images, the more dots per inch, the higher the resolution.

Resolution - the degree of sharpness of a computer-generated image as measured by the number of dots per linear inch in a hard-copy printout or the number of pixels across and down on a display screen.

Bitmap – A set of bits that represents a graphic image, with each bit or group of bits corresponding to a pixel in the image.

Pixel - the smallest element of an image that can be individually processed in a video display system.

Vector – a quantity possessing both magnitude and direction, represented by an arrow the direction of which indicates the direction of the quantity and the length of which is proportional to the magnitude. (to simplify, this essentially means lines have length and direction)

So now that we have all the pieces of the puzzle on the table, allow me to put it all together for you. When it comes to print, DPI is king. If any work is going to be printed, 300 dpi is the standard. You can print something at less than 300 dpi but it can become noticeable at anything below 200 dpi. In the web world, everything gets produced at 72 dpi. The reason for this is file size. A 300 dpi file is much larger than a 72 dpi file and therefore would greatly inflate the size of web pages and the time it would take to load them. Also, screens are designed to only display 72 dpi which would make it much more inefficient to make web graphics any larger.

Moving down the above list we arrive at the terms bitmap and pixel. These two words directly tie into resolution and dpi. A bitmap image is made up of pixels. If you have ever been in Adobe Photoshop and zoomed into an image as far as you can, you have seen pixels. All the pixels in an image collectively make up an image or bitmap - the higher the resolution, the more pixels that are in the bitmap, which makes a higher quality image.

Lastly, what is a vector-based graphic? A vector graphic does what a bitmap graphic cannot. Vector graphics can scale infinitely without losing any sharpness or quality. How can this be? It is not made from pixels, it is made from lines and points that enclose an area and can have colors, outlines or some other effect added to it. It is essentially a graphic made entirely out of math, therefore making it scalable. So why can’t a bitmap be scaled up? Basically you’re asking the computer to make up information that doesn’t exist in the image and the computer has a hard time deciding which pixels should be added to the image to complete it. Imagine you have an image of a tree. The computer only know there are pixels there, it doesn’t know the pixels form a bitmap that looks like a tree.

So to conclude all this information tells you why you can’t take your logo off of your website and expect it to be used on a billboard or why your banner image on your website can’t be used on a brochure. So in the future if you work with us and we ask you for a .psd, .jpg or .tif we are asking for a bitmap image. If we ask you for an .ai or .eps we are asking for a vector image. Now go out into your church or ministry with your new found knowledge and make graphic disciples of your staff and co-workers. Please post a comment if you have any further questions. I would be happy to answer them.

Welcome: International Justice Mission

ANDREW — Tue, 4 Aug 2009 11:39:18 +0000

I am so pleased to announce on behalf of the team here at Electricurrent that we are welcoming International Justice Mission Canada (IJM Canada) to our client list.

For those of you that aren’t familiar with their work, IJM Canada is a human rights agency that rescues victims of violence, sexual exploitation, slavery, and oppression.

So while they are quite literally busy with the work of saving the lives of people across the world who live in those conditions, we are going to be busy helping them build a new web presence that will help to communicate their message more clearly here in Canada and to generate the kind of response that they need, and this issue demands, both from those of us who follow Jesus Christ as well as other men and women of goodwill.

Deepest thanks to IJM Canada for this opportunity – we are so thankful to be involved in your critically important work!

Casual Friday - Wedding Entrance

ANDREW — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 13:57:47 +0000

This came across our computer screens late last week and chances are that with over 13 million views (1.5 million of those coming within 24 hours), there's a good chance that many of you have seen this video. But in case you haven't, and even if you have, we thought we'd post it for your enjoyment!

Happy Casual Friday - and so you know, we're closed on Monday for the Canadian Civic holiday.

Drag and Drop Home Page

RAY — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 15:30:38 +0000

AdvancedMinistry users can now organize their home page using simple drag-and-drop technology. To begin, login to your account and navigate past the introduction screen. Then click on “Manage My Home Page Features”.

(Technical Note for those people that were having problems repositioning homepage elements along with navigational elements: No longer are your home page features tied to the same ordering system as your navigational items; they are now completely separate!)

Also, for those users that were waiting for IE8 compatibility updates on the Narrow Road template, that is now complete. All of our templates are now IE8 compatible.

Enjoy!

Browser Wars

RAY — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 13:10:25 +0000

One of the common questions that we hear from ministries when creating a website is, “What browsers should we develop for”? It seems like a new browser / browser version is being released every week, creating nightmares for developers looking to bring some consistency to their programming world.

According to w3schools (a very reputable site), Internet Explorer dominated the landscape until 2005 when Firefox started making a splash. The following chart shows the history of the last six and a half years:

As an end-user it’s great to see all of the options that are now available to us, but as a company creating websites, it definitely makes things difficult. For example, the difference between Internet Explorer version 6 and version 8 are literally night and day. However, as of last month, 15% of users use IE6, 19% of users like IE7, and 7% of users have made the switch to IE8. Which begs the question, “At what point do you stop supporting older browsers like IE6?” Furthermore, how do you predict what browser versions are going to be compatible with your site in the future? When IE8 came out, it was incompatible with over 2,400 major sites (including CNN, Facebook and YouTube). So how do you predict this stuff?

The simple answer is – you don’t. You just go with the times and are literally at the mercy of these companies that are developing browsers and technologies at an unheard-of rate. The best thing you can do is stay up-to-date with the current web standards and hope for the best. When the next version of a browser comes out, test out your site, determine the incompatibilities (if any), and set a roadmap to make the necessary upgrades.

At Electricurrent and AdvancedMinistry, we make a point to watch out for the latest updates and inform our customers accordingly. To help you in the process of determining which browsers you should support, let us share with you our list to help you get started.

Standard browsers that we WILL currently test on:

Firefox 3.x for Windows
Firefox 3.x for Apple
Firefox 4.x for Windows (Beta)
Firefox 4.x for Apple (Beta)
Microsoft IE 7.x for Windows
Microsoft IE 8.x for Windows
Google Chrome 1.x for Windows (auto-updates, not forced)
Safari 3.x for Apple
Safari 3.x for Windows (above 3.2)
Safari 4.x for Apple (Beta)
Safari 4.x for Windows (Beta)

Legacy browsers / other browsers that we CAN test on (if the client requires it):

Firefox 2.x for Windows
Firefox 2.x for Apple
Microsoft IE 6.x for Windows
Opera (any version for any platform)
Google Chrome 2.x for Windows (auto-updates, not forced) – Note: Chrome is a WebKit browser just like Safari. As such, if it works in Safari, most everything should work in Chrome also.
Safari 2.x for Apple (this version was only for Apple)
Mobile Devices (Blackberry and iPhone only)

Browsers that we WILL NOT support:

Microsoft IE (any version) for Apple
Microsoft IE 2.x, 3.x, 4.x, 5.x for any OS
Netscape (any version for any OS)

That should give you enough to get started when developing a “browser testing plan” for your ministry. But remember, this list will probably need to change by the time you’re done reading this blog, because at the end of the day, companies never stop developing new technology (nor should they). The browser wars have only begun.

Oh look, Firefox just announced plans for it’s next version: Read Article

Have fun!

The Buzz

ANDREW — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 16:37:20 +0000

Today I'm offering a general tip that might help a lot of people.

If you own a cell phone or smart phone that runs on the GSM network, you will undoubtedly have experienced what I like to refer to as "THE BUZZ". It is an absolutely maddening buzz that the phone generates in speakers when it is transmitting data near them. The problem is quite easily fixed on computer speakers and such by simply clamping what's called a snap choke core on the wire leading to your speaker. But in the case of your car, applying such a device to the speaker wires isn't feasible.

Enter this suggestion that I found today on the web (we don't normally like to link off to other sites for our videos because we can't control what's around the video or introduces it, this is too good not to risk - so please bear with us - if there is an intro and you don't want to see it, there is a skip link at the bottom of the video):

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/1132063/stop_that_buzzing_from_speakers_because_of_your_cell_phone/

Two New Xpiritmental Desktops

RAY — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 13:40:31 +0000

We are pleased to announce two new Xpiritmental desktop wallpapers entitled, Where 2 or 3 Are Gathered and The Veil, inspired by Matthew 18:20 and Mark 15:38. Download the new desktops below or visit the Xpiritmental Archives for more wallpapers.

Xpiritmental No. 45
Where 2 or 3 Are Gathered
Matthew 18:20

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Xpiritmental No. 44
Torn Veil
Mark 15:38

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Events Made Easy

RAY — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 17:33:07 +0000

AdvancedMinistry is pleased to announce the addition of two new features to the event management system.

The first feature has been on the “to-do” list for quite some time now – you can now add recurring events to your website. For example, if you ran a youth program every Tuesday, no longer do you have to enter in an event for every single week. Just add it once and choose the option to make it recurring “weekly” – it’s that easy!

The second feature is one you may have already noticed. You now have the ability to toggle between a calendar and event text listings on your homepage. To modify these options (including calendar colors), visit this help desk article. In some of our templates we have automatically set the calendar to show on your homepage, but you can easily turn it off if you don’t want it.

More features will continue to be added in the coming weeks. Stay tuned!

Casual Friday - Information Overload Syndrome

CRAIG — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 10:36:22 +0000

Xpiritmental Wallpaper: The Architect

RAY — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 10:25:20 +0000

We are pleased to announce a new Xpiritmental desktop wallpaper entitled, The Architect, inspired by Genesis 1:1. Download the new wallpaper below or visit the Xpiritmental Archives for more wallpapers.

Xpiritmental No. 43
The Architect
Genesis 1:1

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How People Are Sharing Information

ANDREW — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 14:07:11 +0000

Thinking about using Facebook or Twitter for your ministry? Here's a really interesting read that Craig sent to me this morning about how people are sharing information these days.

Have a Good Story...Tell It Well

ANDREW — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 15:42:54 +0000

I read in a marketing magazine yesterday that in 1965, you could reach 80% of adults with three showings of a TV commercial.

Numbers like that don’t really exist anymore because audience’s attentions are split between print, hundreds of television channels, wireless devices and home computers.

The net result of that distraction is that any company or organization that’s trying to get their message out there better have a compelling product, service or story that draws people in. Without a good story, you’ll be lost in the din of voices out there.

But it can’t just be a good story either…it has to be a good story that’s also very well told. Are you telling your story in a compelling way? If so, we'd love to hear about it.

AdvancedMinistry Facelift

ANDREW — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 14:58:27 +0000

Today, we’re very pleased to formally announce the brand new AdvancedMinistry website which launched on Saturday night.

The goal for this site is to clearly communicate what AdvancedMinistry is to someone who is looking at it for the first time. To achieve that goal, we worked hard to simplify the content of the home page so that a lot of useful content could be easily accessed without having a page that is busy and pulls your eye all over the place. We’ve given great prominence to the primary messaging via the home page banner which speaks about how established AdvancedMinistry is and some highlighted features.

A big thanks to all our customers past and current! We look forward to continuing to grow the platform and to serve you as you fulfill God’s calling in your ministry.

Casual Friday - My Heart Burns

RAY — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 14:04:25 +0000

Check out our third installment of Xpiritmental backgrounds this week entitled, My Heart Burns, inspired by Jeremiah 20:9. Download the new wallpaper below or visit the Xpiritmental Archives for more wallpapers.

Xpiritmental No. 42
My Heart Burns
Jeremiah 20:9

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Before You Get Started...

ANDREW — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 14:09:57 +0000

If you as a ministry or non-profit are thinking about starting a blog or a Twitter account, the very first thing you need to ask yourself is: Why? What is your hope in starting to use social media? If you’re doing it simply because the big Churches, ministries and non-profits are doing it and guys like me are telling you that you should – then don’t.

I say this because if you don’t truly understand the power of social media and don’t value it yourself, you’ll never commit to it and the worst thing that you could do is to start a blog and then abandon it. I saw an example of that today. A Church had a blog on their site which has one post - from months ago.

They don’t get it - and as a result, they would have been better off sticking to what they are passionate about. That doesn’t change the fact that they should get it – in 2009, they should. But if you, like many other churches out there know that you don’t get it and won’t commit to it – then walk away…or better yet, learn enough to understand the power of these new tools and get passionate about it. Then you’ll not only be starting for the right reasons, you’ll be committed because of them too.

Consistently Remarkable

ANDREW — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 17:27:12 +0000

A couple weeks ago I ran into someone I hadn’t talked to very much in quite a number of years. As he and I were chatting I found out that he’s started a local interior design firm with an environmentally-conscious bent – the firm is called Redesign. During that conversation he handed me his business card which, when I first saw it seemed like a good-old, regular business card. But as I took hold of it I realized that it actually folded out into a cube, was made of recycled paper and had design on both the inside and the outside of the cube.

A week-and-a-half later, that card is still standing on my desk. Why? Well, for starters, the card can actually stand… :) In all seriousness though, the reason this card is still on my desk is because it's consistent with their brand and truly remarkable.

It’s a very well designed print piece and it’s different than all other business cards I’ve ever received. I’m also impressed that the quality of the design of their business card matches the images of the work I see on their website. Finally, knowing that they are an environmentally-conscious company, I love to see that their cards are made of 100% recycled material.

So the question that I’m left asking myself and now you all is: what are we doing to be consistently remarkable – both individually and organizationally?

For those readers of this blog who are Christians or belong to Christian-based non-profits, we believe that we have the most consistent and remarkable story in the world. Do our communications reflect that consistency and remark-ability?

Who are you again?

ANDREW — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 15:52:54 +0000

About a year or two ago there was a pretty funny commercial on television that had a local backyard Barbeque going on. The catch was that there was this guy wandering around and inserting himself awkwardly into games and conversations at the party that no one knew. Everybody was asking each other if they knew him – no one did.

I write this post today with a certain amount of disappointment as I couldn’t find the video outlined above (I think it might have been a Johnsonville Brats commercial). Nevertheless, I hope that the overview I gave above sets enough of a groundwork for my point and if any of you readers out there know what video I’m talking about and can find it, then let me know and I’ll update this post.

Anyways, the point in bringing that video up is to give a picture of what it’s like when someone joins an online community like Twitter, a blog or a message board and immediately begins touting their organization, product or service.

Imagine yourself sitting in your backyard on a sunny Saturday afternoon and noting that your neighbor is holding a backyard BBQ with all their friends. So you, being the strong advocate of your ministry or non-profit, walk over, stand in the middle of the group and shout out the URL to your website. Ridiculous, right?

And yet, this seems to be a tendency that so many people gravitate towards online. They have their organizations mission at the top of their mind and they jump into these communities without having any relationship whatsoever with them. This doesn’t work in real social contexts like a backyard BBQ and it won’t work online.

So what I’m saying is, don’t get into social media and online communities looking for a quick fix – create a relationship first, contribute value to the group and then, when the time is right, introduce your organization. It takes time and it takes effort but all relationships do.

The difference is that at the end of the day, you won’t just have an audience; you’ll have a group of friends and advocates – a much more powerful entity.

Xpiritmental Wallpaper: A Slain Heart

RAY — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 15:35:09 +0000

Well, it's not often that we get to post two Xpiritmental wallpapers in one day, but today we get the pleasure of doing so! Check out our latest Xpiritmental desktop wallpaper entitled, A Slain Heart, inspired by Job 13:15. Download the new wallpaper below or visit the Xpiritmental Archives for more wallpapers.

Xpiritmental No. 41
A Slain Heart
Job 13:15

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Xpiritmental Wallpaper: Caught Up Together

RAY — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 09:42:56 +0000

Electricurrent is pleased to announce a new Xpiritmental desktop wallpaper entitled, Caught Up Together, inspired by 1 Thessalonians 4:17. Download the new wallpaper below or visit the Xpiritmental Archives for more wallpapers.

Xpiritmental No. 40
Caught Up Together
1 Thessalonians 4:17

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