Research on Moodle Alternatives

Here is a April 2009 article on alternatives to Moodle...

http://barrysampson.com/2009/04/open-source-lms-10-alternatives-to-moodle/
http://docs.moodle.org/en/Using_Moodle_book

ChipIn

http://www.chipin.com/

Simple form to allow tracking of donations for a set time against a goal.

Similar type function should be done by whatever provider we have.

Fan Box - Facebook Developer Wiki

Want to see what/how a Facebook FanBox would look/work on the new St. A's site.

Having some troubles -- looks like server side code + some scripting inserted right after the "body" tag are needed.

Fan Box - Facebook Developer Wiki

http://www.facebook.com/facebook-widgets/fanbox.php

Church Software, Web Based | Church Community Builder, CCB

Church Software, Web Based | Church Community Builder, CCB

Another option for a web based community with ChMS like functions. They are trying to be more friendly/open to Twitter, etc. Some of the twitter post out functionality could be made by using the "email to post" option direct w/twitter but also with other providers that repost to multiple sources simultaneously and they too accept items via "email to post" then syndicate across multiple sites.

Once again, Church Community Builder has gone and created new, innovative technology tools that integrate their web-based church management software with the ever-changing outside world of communications technology.

Today, I helped them announce a new feature that combines text messaging with Twitter. Who would have thought? This is a great idea -I’m not sure that anyone else out there is doing this. Here are the basics:

CCB Twext™ Offers the Following Benefits:

Group Texting: In addition to email and mail merge, every Group Leader has the option to communicate with their Group participants via Text Messaging.

Twitter™ Integration: If a group within the church has its own Twitter account, the Group Leader can add that account to their CCB Group. When utilized, a Text Message sent to the group will also immediately post as a Tweet on the group Twitter™ feed. This further extends the reach of the Text Message to those who may not receive text messages but are a member of the Twitter group.

Member Controlled: Group members have full control over their ability to receive text messages. They must proactively edit their CCB profile before receiving them. This ensures people don’t end up paying for text messages they do not wish to receive.

Plug-in-o-rama

List of the potential WP related plug-ins to possibly install.

WordPress MU <- should we do this version vs. standard?  If we ever want to have separate ministry or member blogs?
http://mu.wordpress.org/


PLUG-INs
========

Breadcrumbs
http://mtekk.weblogs.us/code/breadcrumb-navxt/

Facebook Connect
http://stepstogrowth.blogspot.com/2010/02/facebook-connect-wordpress-plugin.html

Sociable (Social Sharing of blog/pages icons)
http://stepstogrowth.blogspot.com/2010/02/sociable-plug-in-adds-graphic-links-to.html

Branded Link shortener plug-in to work with Sociable plug-in & WP permalink
http://stepstogrowth.blogspot.com/2010/02/wp-sociable-branded-link-shortener.html

Flutter (CMS plug-in to add new content types)
http://stepstogrowth.blogspot.com/2010/02/flutter-wordpress-cms-plugin-adds-new.html

Google Site Map for Searching
http://stepstogrowth.blogspot.com/2010/02/wp-plug-ing-google-site-map-maker.html

Google/Search Engine SEO plug-in for WP
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/all-in-one-seo-pack/

Google Calendar / ICS compatible Plug-in Importer
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wordpress-ics-importer/

Alternative Calendar/Event System used in LivingOS themes:
http://livingos.com/wp/rs-event-plugin/
( Commentary on why he likes RS Events:
http://livingos.com/2008/05/19/blogging-your-church-with-wordpress-2-calendars-and-events-plugins/  )

Google Analytics Plugin
Wordpress.com stats plug-in (if needed - different enough from standard install) to catch stuff Google does not.

Plogger Press (or another Web Gallery for images solution)
Embed Galleries and have rotating/random images in sidebar widgets/site.
http://livingos.com/wp/plogger-press/

Embed WP functions into a non-WP page so that they can stay inside the template/theme.
http://wpengineer.com/embed-wordpress-functions-outside-wordpress/

Link redirection to migrate old page names/search results to the new names/locations.
http://go2.wordpress.com/?id=725X1342&site=webministrythoughts.wordpress.com&url=http%3A%2F%2Furbangiraffe.com%2Fplugins%2Fredirection%2F

We might want some plug-ins that help with navigation / sidebar / widgets.
http://lesterchan.net/portfolio/programming/php/


Audio/Video & Sermon Podcasts
=========================

I needs some advice/insight into which solution if any we need for embedding multimedia easily in pages and news items/blog posts.  Separately or inclusive for how we are handling Sermons and having a Podcast RSS feed.  There seem to be a lot of options - but its tough to sort through vs. know what comes included by default now with a 2.x install.

Sermon / audio Plugin Multiple Options
http://stepstogrowth.blogspot.com/2010/02/more-potential-audiomp3sermon-wp.html

Another set of links on Audio/Plug-in /Sermon Plug-in
http://stepstogrowth.blogspot.com/2010/02/sermon-podcast-related-services-tools.html

Even more links that cover Audio/Sermon as well as suggested Church related Plug-ins for WP
http://stepstogrowth.blogspot.com/2010/02/more-resource-links-on-churches.html

Another Alternative:
http://www.ministrypool.com/resources/sermons/diy-podcasting-on-wordpress.html

Podpress:
http://www.mightyseek.com/podpress

Sermon Browser:
http://www.4-14.org.uk/wordpress-plugins/sermon-browser




Themes:
http://webdevshare.wordpress.com/2009/06/21/elegant-themes-collections/
http://themes.livingos.com/

Photography needed

One of the areas that modern CMS's tend to have added is upload/linking a face to a name.  Some people including me have a really hard time remembering peoples names and faces.  We need to go about starting to photograph members faces (head & shoulders) and/or having members send in their pictures to the office via email.

Sociable Plug-in Adds Graphic Links to share

"The Sociable Plugin is something we at BlogPlay.com offer to bloggers. With this easy-to-install plugin, your readers will be able to share your posts with the rest of the world.

Whether they are on Facebook, Twitter, Digg, Delicious, BlinkList, or any other social network/sharing site, the Sociable Plugin will allow your blog to be connected to the social media stream, making your content known to the world.

Don´t take our word for it, over 500,000 downloads show that bloggers around the world trust this plugin."

http://blogplay.com/plugin/

WP & Sociable - Branded Link shortener

This is a hack that lets us use our own shortened links as well as keep the longer Search Engine friendly links (makes the search engine think you've got 2x the pages - which helps with results).

Doing a custom short link helps prevent confusion when getting an email that says http://bit.ly/A5Fsfz8 vs. http://www.staugepiscopal.org/news/our-news-item-name-is-super-long-this-morning-and-it-cant-wrap-well-which-means -for-text-email-readers-it-would-break. Users might think it is spam or a virus site or something else if they don't see the familiar URL.

This plugin would allow us to use http://staugepiscopal.org/AS5fg01 in content that the social module spits out to places like facebook and twitter.

http://xioup.com/blog/356/make-sociable-plugin-use-your-url-shortener/

Good site that has Church/WP ideas/info including cheap themes

http://livingos.com/wp/

http://themes.livingos.com/

Top 10 WP Church themes - http://livingos.com/2008/04/29/10-best-church-wordpress-themes/

Facebook Developers | Facebook Connect

Facebook Developers | Facebook Connect: "F"

Good data points on response rates for Facebook Apps/External site integration i.e.

Engagement

Social Comments

Add social comments to every piece of content.

1-2 hours

+15-20% comments +15-20% registered users

Facebook Connect Wordpress Plugin Configuration | Sociable! - The Social Media Blog

Facebook Connect Wordpress Plugin Configuration | Sociable! - The Social Media Blog

Video showing the install / setup for integrating a WordPress site into FB via their apps process.

I need to research the functionalities it exposes or requires -> primarily want info to flow out of WordPress to a FB group or Fan Page instantly when published to hook in users and reduce double entry.

Other possible positive use would be to handle user login integration for commentors on the St. A's site.

Concern is will too much FB branding be forced on the site?

Bringing Sermons Podcast (audio only) back soon

Sermons were top ranked in satisfaction in a recent survey -- so developing a workable process to try and get them back to the web with minimal user/volunteer involvement is a top priority.  Since they are a strength then we need to find ways to include and emphasize it when marketing St. A's.

Unfortunately video taping and editing video is time intensive and requires equipment, the files, software, high speed internet to upload.  So it is not one of the things you can easily hand off from one person to another.  So just looking to restart the audio podcast for the time being and consider video for more static areas of the website.

A member has donated a Sony digital recorder and I have it to test/play with but need the software (PC Only) apparently to get the file off and trim.  I can definitely commit to doing this but it is possible there would be a lag between service and posting.

The video versions worked well for getting them out on Facebook (they don't host audio clips) though their 20 minute limit tended to cause me hassle to take all of Ed's work and trim start/stop or cut a sermon into 2 pieces to get it under the limit.  Unfortunately, either FB or I then left weird artifacting when I tried to recompress.

So unless I do an iMovie and create some standard animation/slideshow to go with the audio FB is out for a while longer as well.  I'm hoping I can come up with something that could stand in and allow me to get them up on FB.

Host a mixer...

One good source of People to introduce St. A's to would be to hold a mixer to new residents of Oakland i.e. focus marketing and outreach to downtown and condos.  Would not be a religious service but more a chance to get people together and do it in the Church Hall to get them familiar with St. A's.  We could then market our selves to them one-on-one.  Find  a Friend ala speed-dating?  Jerusha might have good ideas.

Starting a Facebook group and getting some newspaper coverage would be required to be successful.  Could then be repeated Quarterly.

Options for Internet inside St. A's Church itself

We could potential setup a "repeater" of the office DSL into the church -- but this would require building to building wiring or worse a less than optimal wifi link to bridge and then repeat.  Higher "gain" antennas have not really worked for me in the past to solve this unless you buy very high end equipment on both sides.

Cellphone based solution where a mini-router can be setup that has a 3G / 4G connection.  This could be taken on/off site, turned on/off, secured, etc.

DSL could be added to the phone line in the sacristy.

Other Wireless Internet options that are more "fixed" i.e. non-moveable but higher speed -- would need to place an antenna on the outside of a church building.

Pros:

Access to members attending meetings

Allow for training and doing "business" tasks onsite before/after the service

Allow for "broadcast" of services specifically weddings, funerals, etc.

Potential attendance tracking solutions to post directly to the web

"Picture Facebook" help those in ministry have a quick directory of people / pictures / contact info

Cons:

Cost vs. Benefit / Return on the Investment

How important is this need vs. any others?

Weekly Tech Time & "Tech Club"

Definitely need to think about ways to assist/facilitate members specific actions that involve tech i.e. they say they want to have announcements posted to the site go to their inbox -or join Facebook - then show them how after the service.

Separately do we need some type of Tech Club that can the "Nerd Herd" and help those folks that need it.

Good article on "Mapping" Mega-trends of Facebook Users

The 7 Somewhat United States of Facebook

Importance of Facebook, Twitter, Texting, Email and Online Calendaring

Besides voice calls and bulletins -- what are the ways people are communicating and the church needs to move towards communicating in:

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Texting
• Email
• Online Calendar Updates

Both the church site and the ChMS/CRM tool need to be moving to be more inclusive of the above methods of communication and preferences for certain users / use cases.  

At a minimum new content added to web site auto posted/syndicated to Facebook and Twitter.  Email groups and email campaign management are all key.

Should churches be advertising in or around Farmville?

I've been thinking about what personality types might be the first "easy" target for Churches to reach out to and where can you find them in a way it is easy to track effectiveness.

Factoids that made me think:

• Zynga users in Farmville sent over 500 MILLION valentines in 48 hours
• Over $1.5 Million raised in Zynga games for Haiti relief in 5 days
• Stats at the Casual Games Association site

My personal experience in the Video Game Industry leads me to think Farmville and other Social Networking game applications that are very "gender balanced."  Many of the games are played through portals which have relevant demographic data of the user which makes it easier to target within the target.  Then specifically targeting games that have a caring nature i.e. taking care of a pet, person, animal at first.  The "revenue" of these sites is buying virtual cash/credit as well as special placement advertising and/or special one-time items or virtual cash that "power users" in the game would want.  Since the person is on the web playing the game very easy to get them over to a site inside the social network and "Join" or "Become a Fan" so to group and help you target communication further or take them out of the social site and drop them into a marketing landing page/campaign site to lead capture and give a custom message.  Both of those options should be tested and tracked online response into social network buckets & off-system deeper messaging.

For teen and twenety-something men they may or may not be tending their sheep but rather playing Madden or blowing stuff up -- not really sure in-game advertising would only raise awareness at best vs. total waste.  More traditional web advertising and a specific web campaign to reach them on sites they read would likely be more effective to get them to a lead capture situation.

There may be a lot of "addiction" to social media like Facebook and specifically to the games.  Those people are trying to reach out and feel connected but are stuck in a virtual outlet vs. real world.  I'm not slamming games when I say addiction -- most people in the US are addicted to TV and other Media or some other less-personally social outlet.  We are no longer a nation of joiners its the Bowling Alone problem - more people are bowling just not in leagues or groups.

What is interesting is there is a TON of good research out there Casual Games / Social Games as they are the current "hot" marketing tool -- which should help inform any efforts.

Using technology to enable communication and deeper relationships

I guess you could call this the case for modern customer service but I call it the 20th century.  There is an awful lot you can do as a church to meet each others needs in a one-on-one way but it takes those "pesky" welcoming, caring and knowledgeable people to do so.  Unfortunately those welcoming people tend to usually be at least as busy as we are and things can fall through the cracks.

So that is where technology should meet process and limit the loss of information, enable communication and strengthen relationships in the process.  Contact management with sales lead processing, pipelining and forecasting is a pretty well practiced science in a lot of big businesses.  There are a number of good tools out there some that reside on one PC, a local network of computers or served on the internet.  Some are web enabled letting anyone with the proper security credentials log-in while others require specialized software to access.  Some automate multi-step processes while others simply are task lists.  Some embrace the move to mobile access to data while some can't even synch with a PDA, let alone a cell phone. A lot of the software is frozen code that is seldom patched while some can be customized and updated in seconds.

From Salesforce.com to SAP to Act to Outlook -- there are a number of options for contact management and sales management.  Then there are "vertical" applications for solving business needs for specific industries or solving business problems for certain roles.  There are a very large and diverse set of software some commercial and a few open source that serve as Church Management Systems (ChMS).   The quality and feature set is diverse as is the market they are targeting from small to giga-churches.

Many of the solutions are modular but the needs we are considering most now are in Contact Management, Data Management and Business Automation.  Donation management is a nice feature as it can help track the involvement on that level and show warning signs.  Group, Volunteer and Event management are in the next tier for us with Facilities Management an Check-In/Out being last.  Separately some providers have Content Management Systems (CMS) to help delegate and manage portions or all of a churches web site.  Some light CMS can be done in blog software or third-party apps.  The positive of integration is one user name/password/permission set.  Another feature in some software is the addition of online communities - some are a inelegant mix of freeware and others have a minimal feature set.  For online communication and marketing it may be best to look for a CMS that supports automatically posting information out / syndicating to Facebook and Twitter vs. expecting that a ChMS will move to solve that problem over time.

So what are the things I think an ideal modern church needs:
0) Web based interface to allow remote access
1) Mobile access via iPhone / Droid or at least Synch of significant chunks of contact data
2) Capture and track attendees (visitors, attendees and members) including sourcing & scraping from emails
3) Contact information and preferences for everyone in the system
4) Self service so that members can log-in and update personal information
5) Ability to track and document all communication with an individual and household
6) Ability to have private fields or notes whose access is limited
7) Ability to have custom forms with custom fields and reporting on those to track unique data
8) Ability to mail merge both emails and letters & post cards saving and sharing templates
9) Ability to send email campaigns and track receipt, open and response
10) Inclusion of an RSVP/Reg button as well as Send to a Friend capture contact in campaign email
11) Texting gateway to send texts directly or through 3rd party provider
12) Integration with Voice mail gateway to send out pre-recorded blasts to specified groups, sub groups
13) Integration with Google Voice to take in transcribed voice mails and post to user records based on phone numbers
14) Integration with Chat server to allow based on rules access to chat online with a member/person.
15) Automated workflows to help pipeline people into and through the church
16) Email and/or additional outgoing notification to users on the work/follow ups in their pipeline - "tickler"
17) Integrated min-survey to send out automatically or as a link in email templates
18) Ability to reassign tasks in the pipeline manually but ideally automatically based on rules
19) Ability to control user security to who has access to what information on a granular/functional level
20) Significant security and at least 99.9% scheduled uptime and limit of scheduled downtime to 10 hours/year.
21) Integration with Google Maps to easily plot and see locations, nearby members, get directions.
22) Search engine friendly URLs
23-1billion) Reporting and analytics - flexible, responsive near real time, key metrics reporting of the data --- plus analytics for web traffic if they have a built-in CMS.

For ChMS:
I am actively researching Fellowship One, Connect.Power, Ascribe and possibly Kingdom Tools.

For CMS:
I've also been talking with Ed the web master on the CMS choices -- WordPress, Perch and Unify are all on the table.  There are a very large number of options -- one consideration is the time and cost to develop a template.  I'm biased toward WordPress as it has syndication tools/plug-ins to post content out to Facebook and Twitter automatically.  Ideally the CMS would allow for multiple CSS stylizations so a site could be more mobile phone friendly but remain semi-dynamic.

Outside tools:
1) Email Campaign Management: If we can't find all the email campaign functionality we may have to look at outside options to supplement.  We'd possibly needs a gateway to get the mailing list out and hopefully a gateway to get the results pulled back in.  There are a number of major, minor and open source options here. (Constant Contact, etc.)
2) Survey system: Preferably integrated to ask mini-surveys and give opportunities for more feedback points. Results could then be quantified and individual responses if it was not anonymous could be attached to the user record as a note.  Outside survey software may still be preferable for advanced features. (Survey Monkey, etc)
3) Incoming Voice Mail Transcription and call routing: Using Google Voice and linked email account to suck data into the system and route to a user record and into workflow.
4) Outgoing Voice Mail Forwarding: Record automated messages with a key response from live user to connect to church/volunteer.  "Offline" version of an email campaign/blast.  Notation of being on list sent out to be batch recorded to user record. (OneCallNow, Phonevite, etc.)
5) Website Based Chat: Option on the web site to have a user launch a chat and be connected to a member/office for more information/follow-up.  Standard scripts/replies available for response as well as user can customize.  Transcripts can be attached to user account in CMS. (ZopIM, etc.)
6) Information scraping tools: Contact Capture or LinkedIn that scans the emails and addresses in your account and automatically batch adds them to the system.  (Broadlook Technologies - Contact Capture, Eclipse, etc)

Importance of Personae and Use Cases / Scenarios

In developing better "customer service" or sales -- personae are integral to understanding who you are serving, what capabilities or limitations they may have, what they might want and level of personal interaction they want vs. should receive.  After you've got these you can then use them as a guide to help setup a system that brings them into the "funnel" and can follow up effectively and report back.

Personae like:

Joan is a 40-year old divorced single mother of 2 teenagers.  She has a cell phone, email and home PC on broadband.  She considers herself computer literate but shuns social networking sites.  She prefers email over phone calls because of her busy schedule.  She needs to schedule things well in advance as she is regularly cabbie for the kids.

Ted is a 24-year old single straight guy who is very tech savvy and is a web developer by day.  He has an iPhone, Broadband, etc.  He is a member of Facebook but doesn't care for blogs.  Best way to reach him is to text (or FB) as he never listens to voice mails and he gets too many emails.  He has a lot of free time on weekends just broke up with a long term girl friend.  He takes public transit or rides his bike if weather is good.

Rick is a 14-year old but does not have home access to a computer.  He has a basic cell phone which has unlimited texting and minutes.  He plays computer games and listens to his iPod.  He text messages a lot but does not get very many calls -- he doesn't even know is Voicemail password.  He never gets his messages on the home phone.  He has a lot of free time but no transportation.  

Georgia is a 60 year old who has a dated home computer and a dial-up connection to the internet - she logs on every 3-5 days.  She has a cell phone but with very limited minuted and only uses it for emergency.  She has a home phone which she prefers to use and is often busy and an old answering machine.  She still works part time and volunteers with several groups.  She spends a good portion of her personal time gardening outside or taking care of the grandkids at her daughters home.  She drives independently but limits travel to 10-20 mile trips.

Arthur is a 80 year old widower with no computer or internet connection.  He has no cell phone.  He has a home phone but rarely uses it.  He reads the paper, watches TV for news and gets his mail.  His only socializing is at Church and the Senior Center.  He no longer drives.

Alice is 32 year old married mother to be.  She has a laptop and a WiFi connection she shares with the neighbors.  She works full time and in front of a computer all day.  She has a cell phone with a web browser and she texts her friends more than she talks to them. She uses Facebook infrequently mainly to connect with old friends or to share photos. She has no land line at home.  She shares a car with her husband but he does not attend church.

Luke and Laura are a married couple that live together.  They have a home PC, Laptop and wireless internet connected to broadband.  Both travel for work regularly leaving their schedules and time together limited.  Both have cell phones but Luke is not supposed to use his for anything other than work and family emergencies.  Luke's phone is a Blackberry and he can read both work and personal emails.  Laura has a standard phone and only knows how to make calls and take photos that only ever stay on the phone.  They have a home phone with voice mail but only Laura seems to check it.  Both have their own transportation and drive separately often to the same place as they then have other errands to complete.  Laura keeps the family schedule in her head but is often disappointed at changes/disruptions due to Luke's work.

Use Case / Scenarios might be:

Want to get married in the church

Need help getting groceries

Recently diagnosed with cancer

Moved to the area

Death of someone close

Interested in an upcoming event