Archive for November, 2009

What would you say?

Posted on30. Nov, 2009 by Kenny.

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Screen shot 2009-11-30 at 2.14.19 AMHere’s the scenario.

You have one hour. For that hour, the entire church staff will be gathered to listen and process what you have to say. One hour of uninterrupted communication. You have a soapbox and an audience.

What would you say?

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Twitter Weekly Updates for 2009-11-29

Posted on29. Nov, 2009 by Kenny.

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  • CMO: #kidmin Twitter Weekly Updates for 2009-11-22 http://bit.ly/7wf2Sp #
  • @ajelwind Sara and i love Torchy's. The queso is amazing! in reply to ajelwind #
  • CMO: #kidmin Camp Save-The-Date Postcard: Final Product http://bit.ly/5X5SzG #
  • Good morning monday! #
  • CMO: #kidmin Calendar planning http://bit.ly/6mnKQg #
  • http://twitpic.com/qngq2 enjoying a few hours of solitude before a day full of meeting. I love it! #
  • @ajelwind would that make us "best @#!? church in Austin?" ha, how's that for a sign? #
  • Just ordered 7000 postcards. w00t! #
  • I think I want a tape player for Christmas. I've got a bunch of old tapes that I need to convert to MP3 but I have no method to play them. #
  • Conley Update Blog: Happy Thanksgiving http://bit.ly/5E1tbu #
  • Eye-Fi'd 8 photos to Flickr. http://is.gd/53zKE #
  • Eye-Fi'd 3 photos to Flickr. http://is.gd/53zZG #
  • @PhilHarris Well, i want a tape player for techie reasons… I need to convert old tapes. Tapes I said… not 8 track Grandpa! :) in reply to PhilHarris #
  • Thanksgiving tomorrow? Really? Dang, I'm going to have to reschedule that staff meeting now! #
  • Going home. Still have a little work to do, but I can do it from the comfort of my couch. #
  • @locustfist I'm embarrassed for you in reply to locustfist #
  • @mattmckee So are you doing any black friday shopping up in New York? #
  • @SpencerClick what's your google wave address? There are some really good conversations going on right now I can invite you to. in reply to SpencerClick #
  • Deliciously free food from Whataburger! Everything from shakes to fries to the Whataburger itself! http://budurl.com/12DaysofWB #
  • @jessica_mckee do we really need seatbelts on airplanes? I say… let 'em go. in reply to jessica_mckee #
  • Did anyone else catch this? @mattmckee has been moonlighting as a weatherman. http://twitpic.com/qvvwi #kidmin #
  • Watching the Thanksgiving Day Parade. Looking forward to a very relaxing Thanksgiving. We're going out to eat today! Woo! #
  • My wife is finally on twitter! Follow her at @saradconley #
  • At the park with @saradconley and the munchkin! Beautiful day. #
  • RT @mattmckee: RT @samluce: @mattmckee @kennyconley @gina_mcclain @jonathancliff its a Happy Thanksgiving love fest! ThAnkful for you all! #
  • http://twitpic.com/r22ht static happens! #
  • @cathyharwick mmmmmmm! Got any cool whip and ice cream to with that? #
  • At bucca di beppo for thanksgiving dinner. Delish! #
  • The only problem with a late Thanksgiving dinner is that the post dinner snacks just turn into early bedtimes. #
  • @mattmckee What kind of deals did you get? #
  • Big parenting moment tonight. Got rid of the crib. Titus is on his crib matress on the floor. Currently taking bets. Will t-man get up? #
  • Eye-Fi'd 7 photos to Flickr. http://is.gd/551gC #
  • Believe it or not, I think that Titus is down for the count… he never came out of his room. Could be that he's destroyed the room though. #
  • Eye-Fi'd 1 photos to Flickr. http://is.gd/55TJL #
  • Just ate one of the most delicious brunches I've ever eaten at Perla's seafood and oyster bat on south congress. Amazing! #
  • @karinpwilliams Titus did great. We had no mysterious visits in the night. #
  • Eye-Fi'd 9 photos to Flickr. http://is.gd/56gNu #
  • Thanks @jonros and Julee for the bed. We've got one happy boy. Proud of his big boy bed. http://twitpic.com/re6rs #
  • http://twitpic.com/rj4wb these are the socks I wore all day today. #
  • http://twitpic.com/rj4wb these are the socks I wore all day today. #kidmin #
  • http://twitpic.com/rj5r6 look! Titus matches my socks. Someone coordinated us today! #
  • @mattmckee Something about wearing your old socks makes me feel really uncomfortable. :) Better than underwear though. :) ) in reply to mattmckee #
  • RT @saradconley: I like to say the word "digitized". I don't like to say the word "rural". What words do you like/dislike? // I like Salsa! #
  • RT @saradconley: I lk 2 say the wrd "digitized". I dont lk 2 say the wrd "rural". wht words do U lk/dislike? // Dislike: colloquialism #

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Calendar planning

Posted on23. Nov, 2009 by Kenny.

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I did something I’ve never done before a few weeks ago. On of our Early Childhood leaders has a beautiful lake house on Lake Travis and offered to share it with my team, so I took my Kids Quest team away overnight to plan out 2010. It was fantastic!

In the past I’ve always done most of the calendar planing on my own. I usually did this on my own because I was either the only one on staff, it was easier that way or because I was a control freak. I must say it was quite fun to do this as a team. Not only did we need to just get dates on the calendar, but we had to develop some strategy around some new initiatives that were calendar driven.

We started a little later than expected (around 11:00 AM) and work non-stop until about 6:30 PM. We ran out for a few hours for dinner and got back to work around 9:00 PM and worked until 11:30 or so. It was a great outing and we got the entire year planned out. We’re meeting together again in a few weeks to set promotion, communication and design deadlines for all the events we’ve planned. I’ve learned that you can have a calendar planned out years in advance, but if you’re not careful, an event or class will sneak up on you before you’ve done any promotions.

So here’s how we executed our retreat:

Calendars

I found this great website that will create blank calendars for you. I created 18 months of calendars. Everyone on my team got a set and I sent the calendar to a good friend to print them out on his wide-format printer. I was a little over-zealous in the size and ended up with over 50 linear feet of calendar. Check out the pictures of my HUGE calendar.

photo(11)photo(13)

Process

We started with the easy stuff. We posted all our birthdays. Why not. Then came the non-negotiables. Holidays like Easter, Christmas, 4th of July and all the other holidays that would affect programs or events. We also found out when all the Texas home games were (and big away games) and put them on the calendar. We sent emails to find out when baptisms would happen so we could plan out baptism classes and such. Once all of this was on the calendar, it provided a pretty nice framework for everything else. We scheduled dedication classes, baptism classes, volunteer orientations, volunteer trainings, volunteer events, summer camp, lock-ins, tentative pool parties and everything else we could think of. We spent quite a bit of time juggling these as we wanted to create a rhythm that didn’t wear us out but still made sense to paretns and volunteers. Once we could see how everything was shaping up, we scheduled our staff retreats. We planned them a few months before big events that would require a little extra planning. Most importantly, we planned the calendar retreat where we would plan out 2011.

Recording

While planning all of this out, several on the team were plugging everything into a google calendar. Public and shared outlook/exchange calendar have been a sore spot for me and my team at Gateway and since a handful of us have started relying on Google applications, it made the most sense for us to record this on a google calendar that we all shared. Next month we’ll create a new calendar for marketing. It will be a separate calendar so we can just view events/programs without getting distracted with all the marketing stuff; however, we can easily overlay both calendars and get a good look at the whole picture.

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Camp Save-The-Date Postcard: Final Product

Posted on23. Nov, 2009 by Kenny.

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Last week I posted my Summer Camp “save-the-date postcard for peer review. I got some incredible feedback. Thanks to everyone who wrote suggestions on the blog, my facebook and through DM on twitter. This community is amazing. I took every suggestion very serious and revised the card based on several of them. Here’s the final product.

KidsCamp_Postcard_Front

.KidsCamp_Postcard_Back2

You may notice that I didn’t change the front of the card at all. Some suggested me making “kids quest” bigger. Actually I really wrestled with this; however, I realized that the point of the card is to draw parents to the fact that it’s time to register for camp. If they only see one thing on the card, I want it to be summer camp! So, I left it as it was.

The back of the card saw two more revisions. People suggested fixing the slanted red text. Several emphasized that I needed to explain where camp was. A few others suggested that I detail how much money parents would save by registering now. In my first revision, I put it all on the card. It didn’t look all that great. It was crowded. Information overload. The card is a teaser, not a brochure. They can get all the information that they need at the website. This card just piques their interest, drawing them in and making them want more. I feel very happy with how this turned out.

So, thanks everyone for your help. I’ll order this card this afternoon, so if you see a glaring typo before 5:00 PM CST… LET ME KNOW! :)

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Twitter Weekly Updates for 2009-11-22

Posted on22. Nov, 2009 by Kenny.

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A big day for www.childrensministryonline.com

Posted on21. Nov, 2009 by Kenny.

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To say I’m an optimist is an understatement. I look for the positive in everything. Today something happened to this site that put a big grin on my face, something that most probably wouldn’t pay any attention to. What is it? What happened?

Screen shot 2009-11-19 at 4.22.47 PM

I got my first piece of spam in Arabic! It didn’t take long to begin getting Russian spam, but this is a first for Arabic spam. Does this mean www.childrensministryonline.com is really making it in the world? What’s next? Cantonese spam? I can’t wait!

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Camp Save-The-Date Postcard

Posted on20. Nov, 2009 by Kenny.

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Hey, can anyone give me some quick feedback? On November 27th, Black Friday, we’re launching summer camp registration with a great pre-registration discount. We’re running the special until the end of the year and we have this postcard that we’re using to advertise the early bird price and have parents save the date. I’m placing the print order on Monday, so if you have any suggestions on the design, please let me know ASAP!

KidsCamp_Postcard_Front

KidsCamp_Postcard

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Seth Godin is totally into crazy sock day

Posted on20. Nov, 2009 by Kenny.

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I shared the other day that we’re doing Crazy Sock Day for the next five weeks at Kids Quest. It’s a fun way to add a little fun as well as bring awareness around helping families in need. Then Cathy Harwick, my Elementary Director sent me this video. Apparently Seth Godin is really into crazy socks as well. He even has a system of degrees of craziness.

He talks about his socks, right away, but the whole video is great. Any opportunity to listen to Godin is time well spent.

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Chrome OS News

Posted on19. Nov, 2009 by Kenny.

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Google is stirring things up with their new operating system. It isn’t likely that Google is going to take down Microsoft or Apple. This operating system isn’t a replacement… more of a supplement. It’s the perfect OS for those secondary netbook computers that are so perfect for travel and surfing the web. However, Google’s introduction of Chrome OS will most certainly affect Microsoft and Apple. They’ll respond with additional innovation of their systems. The result, we the consumers have more options and a better experience. Great job Google!

Don’t know what Chrome is? If you’re on a Windows machine, click here to download it. You’ll really be amazed at how fast it is. Really, it’s super fast. Got a Mac? Chrome isn’t on OS X yet. However, you can download a developers build here. It doesn’t work perfectly, but it’s pretty close.

Here’s a great article about the new Google OS, what it’s going to look like and when you can get it.

Last of all, here’s a great video that does a really great job of explaining why Chrome OS is being developed and why it’s going to be awesome. It really does change the way we use computers to a degree.

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Risky Business

Posted on19. Nov, 2009 by Kenny.

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riskYesterday I read an interesting article (mini article actually) about taking risks. This spoke to my soul. Several months as I was preparing to hike Pike’s Peak, I wrote about this to some degree. I’ve had a lot of successes in my past and it’s so incredibly easy to operate out of what I know what works. There’s nothing wrong with this, but is it really good enough. Seth Godin recently said “boring products produce boring profits and make a boring impact.” I wouldn’t go to the degree of saying anything we’re doing at Gateway is boring, but I’m not sure we’re taking any risks. I’m not.

The idea behind this article is that only 1/3 of the population venture into what is called the “Golden Third.” This is where risks are taken, but also where results are bigger and greater satisfaction is achieved. I’m not going t get all biblical on this subject and make the Bible say something that it doesn’t. However, when I read the stories of men and women in the Bible, I see men and women who took significant risks and BIG things happened.

Does this resonate with you? I’m mulling over this thought right now. We’ll soon be setting our goals for 2010 and I want to make some room for some big risks. What do you think?

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