Jason Powell - Church IT and Other Musings

Registration Open for 2012 National Church IT Roundtable!

It's finally time to open registration for the 2012 National Church IT Roundtable April 18-20 in Dallas, TX! w00t w00t and a yeeeehawwww (Texas style)!

I'm soooooo pumped about this event … I can hardly stand it! This year we've added an optional 3rd day of training opportunities and other activities that we feel most won't want to miss. AND … get this, the 3rd day is no extra charge! All 3 days for only $75…thanks to our awesome sponsors/partners!

How about some tasty VMware and Network infrastructure design and best practices? Or Exchange2010 setup/migration/tuning? Or VoIP and Unified Communications? That's just a tease of what we're working on :-)

ALSO new this year, we're making a focused effort to involve Church Web/ChMS developers! In the past our events have focused more on the Network Admin/Help Desk side of IT … now we want our web/dev peeps to benefit from an event like this as much as we do. They'll have their own breakout sessions to geek out about code, APIs, ChMS integrations, tools and best practices as it pertains to their job roles. These breakouts will be lead by web/dev heads David Drinnon (Second Baptist Houston) and Chris Kehayias (Calvary Chapel Melbourne). So go now and invite your web/dev peeps on staff (assuming that's not your role too) to join you this spring.

SERIOUSLY - this is THE MUST ATTEND EVENT of 2012 for all church IT staff and volunteers! If you can only afford one event this year - this is THE ONE! I've been to every National CITRT event since 2006, helps that I started the 1st one heehee, and each year I continue to be amazed at how God uses this event to bring church IT folks together to sharpen one another and push the Kingdom forward. I guarantee if you come your brain will be filled to max capacity, you'll be throughly encouraged, and your spirit will be lifted towards almighty God. Tell me what other IT conference does all that! They don't :-)

Last year we had over 180 in attendance, this year we expect to surpass that easily! Training slots on Wednesday will be limited so register early! AND don't forget to spread the word. Reach out to churches near you and invite them too … oh, and don't forget your web/dev peeps as well!

Get details and register at http://churchITnetwork.com/spring2012/

Dell Technology Symposium for Non-Profits in partnership with Joyce Meyer Ministries and the Church IT Roundtable

If you're not signed up for the CITRT enewsletter you missed seeing the below info ... and shame on you for not being signed up already!  Since this Dell deal is short notice I'm posting the enewsletter here for your viewing pleasure :)

UPDATE 7/7/11 ... if you filled out the survey you should have gotten this email from Dell..
As we draw closer to the Tech Summit, the excitement within Dell is growing!  We are making final preparation for your arrival and have a great agenda we will be finalizing this morning.  I wanted to take this opportunity to send out Dell’s preferred hotels.  We have negotiated rates for our colleagues and guests so please take advantage.  If you have any questions, please let me know.
 
Dell will be providing transportation so for logistical purposes, we recommend the following hotels (Price sheet below):

Candlewood Suites Austin-Round Rock
Springhill Suites Austin-Round Rock
Homewood Suites Austin-Round Rock
Marriott Austin North
 
Note: You will be receiving a formal invite in the next couple of days for this event.  This will be critical to fill out and return as it will capture your flight and hotel information so that we can provide transportation.

FWIW - I know a number of CITRT peeps, including myself, are going to be staying at Springhill Suites.

=======================

Hurry!  Limited time/space left for Dell's Free Technology Symposium for Christian Non-profits July 20-21!
This is a fun long story, but here's the short version - CITRT leadership recently learned of an upcoming meeting at Dell's HQ to foster peer learning among Christian non-proft orgs being spearheaded by Andrea Turek, Executive Director of IT at Joyce Meyer Ministries.  Since this sounded very similiar to CITRT, we reached out to see if collaborating might make sense.  Andrea hadn't heard of CITRT, but was very open to talk with us.  Several emails and conf calls later, we're excited to annouce our partnership with Andrea and Dell and to invite CITRT folks to Dell's campus for this free 2 day event.  Dell will be bringing in their engineering staff to talk with us about various topics many of us are wrestling with.  So while this is sorta last minute, it's an incredible opportunity to network with IT peers and learn about technology solutions to further ministry.  The event is free!  You just need to get yourself to Round Rock and find a hotel :-)

Here's the official invite from Dell:
You are invited to attend an exciting 2 day FREE event July 20-21 at the Dell Round Rock Executive Briefing Center focused on Christian non-profit organizations.  This event will provide content and best practices around the following topics:
Security – How to “plan” and create the best security roadmap solution
Storage -  Object Based Storage
Virtual Desktop Infrastructure – Save your budget by deploying VDI
Systems Management/Automation via KACE
Mobile Management-Apple, Android, Windows
DR and Backup – We all want it, very few have it
Digital Asset Management – Create, deploy reuse
Database /Application Integration- flow data back without hardcoding with Boomi
We hope you will be able join your peers for some exciting learning and fun.  If you would like to participate, please add your information the survey below so that we may send you a formal invite.  We currently have 17 registrations and will only have room for 30 total.  Registration closes July 11th.
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/R8XHGF9 - to begin registration process (note: survey was created before we talked to Andrea & Dell so don't fret that there's no mention of CITRT)

OTHER NEWS...

Fall 2011 Regional Church IT RoundTables last week of October: 
The last week of October is our timeslot for all the regional sites to host their events with the exact day of the week up to the host site.  We have 2 sites confirmed but need many many more.  If you're interested in learning about becoming a regional site this fall check out this FAQ http://citrt.pbworks.com/w/page/7717466/hosting-a-regional-event-FAQ
You can also view the list of last year's host sites here http://citrt.pbworks.com/w/page/34816125/Past-CITRT-Events
If you're interested in being a host site this fall please send an email to info@citrt.org .. thanks!
Cost is $35 and once we firm up all the sites we'll send out registration info.

Spring 2012 National Church IT RoundTable:
It NOT too early to start planning for next spring's event!  Based on the attendance this past spring, we anticipate 200 IT peeps will be converging on Dallas next spring :-)
Put this on your calendar NOW and get it in your budget ASAP! 
Spring 2012 National Church IT RoundTable
April 18-20
$75 includes lunch/dinner both days
Watermark Community Church
Dallas, TX

As always, we welcome any suggestions/input you have on making CITRT better. What's working? What's not? How do we grow it? This is YOUR community.

Thanks,
CITRT Leadership Team
Geeks for Jesus!

REMINDER: LIVE Interactive Church IT Podcast each month!

Being engaged on twitter so much I forget about my blog as a vehicle for sharing info ... note to self to do a better job with that :-)

Anyways, just a reminder to make sure you're scheduling time to join the LIVE Church IT Podcast each month!  So go now, open your calendar, and schedule in the 1st Friday of each month at 11am Eastern to join the phone conference bridge and chatroom.  Info on how to connect is on CITRT.org or quick link is http://citrt.pbworks.com/w/page/34565071/Podcast-Episodes

This Friday one topic of discussion is Google's recent stance on no longer allowing Churches access to the free EDU version of Google Apps. Other topics TBA and of course we'll have some open Q&A time so bring you questions/topics you'd like to discuss.

 

IT-focused missions projects for IT people?

While there’s great value in mission projects that build homes and such, many IT folks would rather use their IT skills in the mission field. For a few years, several of us in the Church IT Roundtable community have discussed how cool it would be to have IT-focused missions projects for IT people. Well, my buddy Clif Guy is turning this into a reality.

Next Friday (April 29th) I’ll be joining Clif and 2 other IT peers to head to Petit Goave, Haiti for 10 days to continue an IT project Clif’s been working on over there for the past year.

The Methodist Church of Haiti (Église Méthodiste d'Haïti or EMH) has a number of facilities in the town of Petit Goave (“petty gwahve”) within 1.5 miles of each other that include a church, school, offices, a medical clinic, a guest house, residences, conference facilities, etc.  Our project is to light up 5 buildings with Wi-Fi via building-to-building wireless Ethernet bridges (Ubiquity Nanostation Loco M900 and Ubiquity AirRouter) and connecting the network to two Internet circuits with failover capability.  One of these buildings is a school where we are also installing a computer lab as part of another IT project.  Here's a Google Earth view of the target buildings with red lines indicating building to building links to be established.

We're also hoping to have installed and working 2 new sattelite ISP links as the local ISP is very unreliable and has massive packet loss. On his third trip to Haiti in March, Clif took a small IT team to start this wifi project and got perhaps 25-30% done.  After our upcoming trip, He expects one more trip will be required in late July to complete this particular project.  When finished, more IT teams will be needed in the coming years to assist the EMH with IT needs in the disaster area and throughout Haiti.  Clif is also in the process of procuring grants to fund these future projects.

Why am I going?

1-    Clif sweet talked me into going. He has a very sultry seductive voice! ;-)’
2-    Gain in the field 1^st hand knowledge and experience setting up reliable building to building wLAN connectivity in about the worst possible conditions for success. Power issues, ISP issues, satellite issues, environmental issues, lack of IT equipment local (you can’t just run to Best Buy and purchase something you need), etc.
3-    Recon to see if this IT-focused missions work is something we could piggy back/reproduce for Granger’s mission efforts in India and elsewhere.

Cool eh? There are over 600 people that are in some way directly connected to our Church IT Roundtable community. Imagine what could be accomplished if small teams took on various IT projects across the globe to further God’s Kingdom!! 

Interested in being part of a future IT Project?  Next trip to Haiti is tentatively planned for July 22-31 and no you don’t have to be affiliated with the United Methodist Church. Leave a comment below or email Clif for more info.

Haiti tidbits I didn’t realize: Port Au Prince, Haiti is only a 2hr flight from Miami, FL. Haiti stays on Eastern Standard Time year ‘round just like Indiana used to :)

I’m very curious (and I know Clif is too) to hear your thoughts pro/con about these IT-Focused mission projects. Why would or wouldn’t you want to join a future IT project?  Are there other IT-focused mission opportunities that you know of?

** Also, wanna help support my upcoming trip?  I'm trying to raise another $500 by next Thursday. Just 50 peeps at $10 would do it so any support would be appreciated. Hit this paypal link. [$345 raised as of 4/24 6pm EDT]

 

2011 National Spring Church IT Roundtable Feb 24-25 - Near Orlando, FL - Be there!

If you haven't already seen the news on the CITRT twitter or facebook page >>> 

Spring 2011 National Church IT Roundtable - w00t! Spread the news! We're Florida bound for spring 2011!

Dates: Feb 24-25, 2011. There will also be pre and post event activities...most notably Wednesday. Calvary Chapel Melbourne is also not far from the Kennedy Space Center so add that to your possible extra things to do before/after the roundtable. More details and registration to follow shortly.  Huge thanks to Chris Kehayias for being our site host.  
Location: Calvary Chapel Melbourne 

Calvary Chapel of Melbourne
2955 Minton Road
West Melbourne, Florida 32904

Follow announcements at http://twitter.com/citrt and http://facebook.com/citrt

Our roundtables are for staff, volunteers and vendors who support the Church in the area of Information Technology without discrimination to the maturity of the technology they use or the size of the congregation they support.  Often we find ourselves with the skills and aptitudes to be successful but lacking in a critical piece of knowledge that may be found in a colleague within the Church IT community.  This is certainly true for those who are part-time staff or volunteers working in church IT.  We need information.  We need inspiration.  Above all, we need a community of like-minded peers.

I strongly encourage anyone and everyone involved in Church IT to make this a priority in 2011.  I've been to every roundtable since 2006 and I've found them to be absolutely invaluable.

Hope to see many of you in Florida this Feb!!

Recommended Church IT Vendor/Partner List Ideas?

There are more and more churches looking for reputable IT service and product vendors that are ministry focused or at least very friendly towards churches/ministries.  There are also great ministry focused vendors looking to provide a great service/solution to churches/ministries at a great price.  The challenge is how to get the 2 sides together for a win-win?

I know from my own experience that I give a LOT of weight to vendors/products that I know other Church IT peers are using successfully.  Case in point: we’re looking very closely at Ruckus Wireless from Mirazon because of strong recommendations from Daryl Hunter.  I’m not alone, when I asked other’s in the CITRT IRC channel they all had a similar reply:

“I would be more likely to investigate those products and vendors ... especially if i hadn't heard of them or thought of them” – ccnash-scott

So … what’s the best way to create a list of Church/Ministry friendly IT partners/vendors … how/who would submit the vendor/partner … how could others then comment pro/con on their experience with said vendor/partner … maybe give it a star rating? … maybe something similar to Amazon and eBay comments/ratings?  How and how much do you moderate?  Allow anonymous feedback?  etc etc etc!

Does something like this already exist we might want to leverage?  May we can somehow create something inside our upcoming CITRT getshadetree release?  Someone in IRC mentioned this Wordpress plugin http://www.wpreviewsite.com/ Certainly looks interesting.

Already got some good feedback/ideas from a few IRC peeps like “allow anyone to submit a vendor/solution to the list, but require 2 or 3 people to vote “yes” before it gets approved”

Now it’s your turn.  What would be helpful to you from an IT role or vendor role?  Dream big and let’s see what we end up with :-)

Video of Rick Warren Addressing the Church IT Roundtable Crowd

If you missed the recent Church IT Roundtable at Saddleback Church … well, you missed an AMAZING event! 

Just one part of what made it so incredible was having Rick Warren sit down (mostly unannounced) and spend 1.5hrs speaking to us, doing Q&A, and taking pictures if people wanted (and of course most everyone did!).

Rick’s talk was awesome…so much so that we’ve gotten TONS of people requesting copies of the live video we were streaming.  And thankfully the captured stream audio/video turned out great!  So hit the image above to hear Rick’s heart for the church and technology. 

Rick even tweeted about our CITRT event :-)
@RickWarren: We hosted 2 day #citrt nat'l roundtable for U.S. IT/Tech Pastors. Brilliant men & women! I love these guys! Pr.27:23

Pic of my wife and I hangin’ with Rick.

Did you know Rick’s a HUGE hot sauce fan? I did, so during the Q&A I asked him what his favorite was :-) ... I then followed up by asking how he kept/keeps his marriage strong.  He took several minutes to answer and did it in 3 parts: Divert Daily, Withdraw Weekly, Abandon Annually...I think many of us geeks really needed to hear that.  I sure did!

We also got to experience what a funny guy Rick is … he’s hilarious!! 
Thanks Rick for taking the time out of your busy schedule to pour into 80+ Church IT leaders.  You marked us all in a very positive way.  Geeks for Jesus!!!

50 Days Until the Spring National Church IT Roundtable March 11-12!

That’s right! Only 50 days until Church/Ministry IT staff and volunteers from across the country will descend upon Saddleback Church in warm sunny Lake Forest California to partake in 2 days of invaluable peer learning, networking and inspiration March 11-12.

If you can only attend one IT conf this year, this is the one I recommend without hesitation! Regardless of your church/org size, I guarantee you’ll leave with new knowledge, new friendships and loads of inspiration.  I’ve been to every National Church IT Roundtable since 2006 and I leave each one totally amazed at what I’ve gained.  Not to mention the incredible friendships I’ve built over the past few years are invaluable on both a person and professional level.  So in other words – make every effort possible to get to this event.  If you need me to write a note to your boss to help your plight let me know ;-)

We’re still firming up final costs, but it will be under $100…and that will include lunch and snacks both days…and if we get enough sponsors hopefully even dinner both nights.  Registration is open and cost is only $75 for both days including meals!

Sponsors?  Yes, we’re asking vendors to help offset the costs.  Please encourage your favorite vendors to contribute.  Even a small amount will be helpful.  See the sponsor page for more info.

Spouses?  Yes, a number of us have been informed by our spouses that they TOO will be coming to California :-)  Spouses are encouraged to join us during the evening gathering times.  Perhaps during the day they can form their own IT spouse support group and hang out together at the beach ;-)

Final details are still being nailed down, but here’s the schedule gist …
March 10 – optional pre-event informal gathering in the evening (possible dinner)
March 11 – Day 1 - 9am until late … Saddleback “behind the scenes” tour in late afternoon, group dinner, then a special worship service
March 12 – Day 2 – 9am until 5pm … then optional dinner for those flying out Sat/Sun

More details can be found at http://citrt.org … hope to see you there!  Questions? Leave a comment or email info@citrt.org

For the latest up to the minute Church IT Roundtable news follow CITRT on twitter and/or facebook

Less than 30 days 'til Fall 09 Regional CITRT events!

That's right ... less than 30 days until most of the fall 09 host sites hold their Church IT Roundtable events! I've got my team signed up ... how about you???

Fall 09 National Church IT Roundtable - This year instead of one location where everyone will meet we're going to have multiple locations across the country. Follow announcements at http://twitter.com/citrt and http://facebook.com/citrt

VIEW SITE LOCATIONS IN GOOGLE MAPS

- Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, KS on 10/27  info/register
- McLean Bible Church in Vienna, VA on 10/26 info/register
- North Point Community Church in Atlanta on 10/27 info/register
- Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, CA on 10/27 info/register
- Second Baptist Church in Houston, TX on 11/2 info/register
- The Chapel in Grayslake, IL (Chicago) on 10/27 info/register
- Woodland Baptist Church in Bradenton, FL on 10/27, info/register

AND don't forget ...

Spring 2010 National Church IT Roundtable - at Saddleback Church late Feb / Early March 2010.  Budget NOW to make it to this "must attend" kickin' 2 day event!

as always CITRT.org is the one stop shop for all 'official' info

Fall Church IT Roundtable Locations and Info

http://citrt.org site has just been updated with the 7 confirmed locations for this fall's Church IT Roundtable.  If you haven't already heard, this fall instead of 1 location we're having many locations across the country.  Why? To save people travel $$ and hopefully build stronger regional groups in the process.  It's going to be awesome!

3 locations are still pending, but these are the confirmed sites (and dates if known).

Church of the Resurrection in Leewood, KS

McLean Bible Church in Vienna, VA

North Point Community Church in Atlanta on 10/27

Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, CA

Second Baptist Church in Houston, TX on 11/2

Sojourn Community Church in Louisville, KY on 10/29

Woodland Baptist Church in Bradenton, FL on 10/27

To keep up to date with the latest Church IT Roundtable info check twitter.com/citrt or facebook.com/citrt

I'm excited to see what God does this fall with so many sites engaged ... more info coming ... Geeks for Jesus! :-)