Things are rolling

Last Friday the install of the new Internet Connection went in.  Friday afternoon and again on Saturday installed and cabled (temporarily cabled) up the new VOIP phone system and to move the router out of Fr. Williams room to put it near the copier.

Friday night and Saturday day I spent organizing and converting us over to hosted Exchange that came with the service and getting the details to Fr. Williams on configuring his iPhone and webmail.

Sunday tested out uStream on the network from Trinity including both broadcast and broadcast/record.
Yesterday I got the order in for the new phone system and configuration is scheduled for Wed @ 10AM + Got new dedicated server to run WordPress Mu selected and Alchemy has just completed the setup of the server.  I also sent all the information across to a potential graphic designer to get the Easter Campaign going as well as broader discussion on St. A's for work at a later date.  Also had further discussions with Fellowship One -- it would seem to be the best vendor for our needs for now to replace ACS need to walk Fr. Williams through what that means.

Today looking into Moodle and LMS again.  Wordpress and Fellowship One work.  Follow up with Graphic Designer and Sign/Banner issues.  Look at vendor for broadcast VM.

Tomorrow. Setting up the phone system and starting the number porting process with AT&T.

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

Email This Page/Event/Post/Sermon/Blog Entry Feature

Really want to empower web site readers to be able to easily share items on the church web site.  Sociable plug-in may do this -- but want to make sure it is clear to every visitor and attached to all types of content types whenerever possible.  So "Email This"/"Share" page (or event or news item or sermon or blog post, etc.) that triggers a normal users email mailto: function or possibly records the entry into a trackable database.

SkyCMS (Church Templates & Hosting)

http://www.discoversky.com/

From what I can glean from their site -- looks like it could be a white label install of WrodPress Mu with a bunch of plug-ins & templates that churches would want.  If not functionality looks close to that....

They are possibly based on "LightCMS" - http://www.speaklight.com/

Social Media Day

So I've been setting up new unique social media log-ins for St. Augustine's today under the email socialmedia@staugepiscopal.org.

Facebook Account
Facebook Fan Page
Twitter Account
Fickr.com Account
Ping.FM Account

Need to figure out best way to do RSS or Blog Update to post out to multiple simultaneous with links back the main St. Aug Site vs. staying on specific social media site.

Will take some experimentation.

Peter

Update all of your social networks at once

Ping.fm / Update all of your social networks at once!

Free too!

Expensive tool need to look at further

http://www.unifyer.com/church/default.asp

Some churches are using this to unify communications.  Not sure on the exact functionality and what if any other tools out there may already exist or might be built-into an online crm or ChMS system.  If it is just a one-way tool to post to social network sites -- there are free ones of those.

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/

Church Cloud & Other Online Church Directories

http://www.churchcloud.com/
MyChurch.com

Need to do more research on these and submit St. A's to as many as possible if not listed.

More resources for Church Marketing

Three more sites to check out on Church Marketing

• ChurchCrunch.com
• ChurchMarketingSucks.com
• AnthonyCoppedge.com 

Join the Choir Sunday - Lift Every Voice & Sing

Concept that you can show up at 9:15, get on the robes and go through some practice time with the choir/music director. When service is over get your picture taken in the robes and let people share that with friends & family. We'd give tools to people i.e. email w/graphic to share that they could send to friends and family to invite them that sunday.

We could video or audio record the singing and post online so people could share that with friends.

We could do a gospel lunch/brunch if the response was good after the first time.

Would need to pick hymns/gospel songs that are widely known and in a normal key. Might encourage a few attendees to join the choir.

Simple printed Events Calendar

St. Augustine's Episcopal Church, Oakland - Services & Events

To develop a simple and update-able rolling monthly calendar on a one sheet that is in a calendar format shows upcoming events. 8.5x11 or legal size. Printed on colored paper. Info taken from the updated web site calendar.

Ideally it would include a contact me form on the back for visitors or ministry/prayer + room for mailer/mailing.

Easy enough for the office to drop in the mail at least once a month to all members.

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/

WordPress › Twitter Tools � WordPress Plugins

WordPress › Twitter Tools � WordPress Plugins

Again the goal of the functionality here is minimal -- auto feed out new news content to twitter when WP St. A's site has a new item and start a #hash tag so others can follow/comment separately on twitter.

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?

C3HWiki - ChurchManagementSystem

C3HWiki - ChurchManagementSystem

Another good site reviewing/commenting on ChMS and other technology issues for churches. In this case it is primarily Unitarian Church IT related discussion of the tech they use/recommend.

Google Apps for Non-Profits is and that link is in there as well.

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.