I can’t believe that it’s that time of year again, but registration officially opens today for the National Church IT RoundTable (CITRT) April 18-20, 2012

The National CITRT  is one of those events that I plan to make every year… Thankfully 3.0’s release date is early March so I won’t feel TOOO guilty leaving my wife at home with a newborn and a 3^1/2 yr old.

The Church IT Round table gatherings are a great time to reconnect with old friends, meet some great new friends and learn from some of the great minds in Church IT.  I am already making my list of things I plan to learn while in Dallas.

Make plans now to join us at Watermark Church in Dallas.  This is going to be a can’t miss event!

JUST $75 includes most meals and the event registration for the 2 days (and optional training day).

This year we are adding a optional Pre-Event Training day that will include workshops on:
- Exchange
- VOIP
- VMWare & Networking
- and more

Also NEW this year, we’re making a focused effort to involve Church Web/ChMS developers and integrators, this is an important group of peers to our community, so this year we are building a track for web/dev.  We want our web/dev peers to benefit from an event like we have had over the past 6 years. The web/dev track will have breakout sessions to geek out about code, APIs, ChMS integrations, tools and best practices. 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 peers on staff to join you this spring.

If you only go to one training/convention/workshop this year, CITRT2012 is the can’t miss event.. CITRT2012 will make you a better IT Pro, help you build relationships with others doing the same projects you are working on, and improve the ministry you support!

Check out the event info here: http://www.churchitnetwork.com/spring2012/

If you are a vendor with focus on serving the Church market and would like to partner with CITRT to help with this even or have space at the vendor expo check out the “Become A Partner” tab: http://www.churchitnetwork.com/spring2012/

The Spring 2010 Church IT RoundTable is just a few weeks away in Sunny Florida!   If you haven’t registered go on over to www.citrt.org.  This event will be our best yet!  Where else will you find a event for under $100 that Includes tours of Northland Church in Orlando and an “Up Close and Personal” Tour of the Kennedy Space Center.. and that’s just the pre-event agenda! (Both tours are included in the event registration.)

One of the great aspects of the CITRT National events is meeting up with IT Peers you already know and meeting new peers too!  Where else can you meet up with Church IT professionals who do what you do at ministries all over the country, all with the same goals to learn from others experiences or to share things learned over the last year. 

If the peer learning wasn’t enough, there are some great event sponsors participating and are ready to give you the necessary help or information to roll out those big projects for the coming year.  We will be again having the Vendor Bazaar were CITRT partners can share, demo, explain etc the technology and tools they sell.

Maybe there is already one of those “would it be possible…” projects on your list and you don’t know how to get the solutions.. I am sure someone at the RoundTable will have an answer or know someone who does.

If you are joining us at the RoundTable but you haven’t invited a colleague from your town to join you what are you waiting for, make the call and allow someone new to experience CITRT this spring!

See you in Florida!

The Spring 2010 Church IT RoundTable is just a month away.  If you haven’t registered go on over to www.citrt.org and claim your seat, QUICKLY!

One of the great aspects of the CITRT National events is to learn about great products and services that you might need to implement or use in the coming year.  We will be again having the Vendor Bazaar were CITRT partners can share, demo, explain etc the technology and tools they sell. 

Every time I attend a National RoundTable I end up learning a ton about a specific tech or product and then get home just in time to hear a staff members say,  “Would it be possible to… “

Maybe there is already one of those “would it be possible…” projects on your list and you don’t know of a vendor with the solution, shoot an email to info@citrt.org with your need and we’ll see if we can find a vendor to meet with you face to face at the Roundtable.

Maybe you know of a vendor that others should meet and learn what they have to offer, if you have a vendor in mind contact them and encourage them to check out the CITRT Spring RoundTable Sponsors Page or email info@citrt.org for more information.

One of those can’t miss opportunities for Church IT people is about to take place just a few weeks away.  The Church IT Roundtable’s National Spring event will be hosted at Saddleback Church (Lake Forest, CA) March 11-12.

If you have attended a CITRT event in the past, you know what I am talking about.  If you haven’t attended I am serious when I say its a highlight of my year.  Every time I go to a CITRT event I learn tons about Church Information Technology, I meet awesome peers and I have a great time.  If you are in Church IT (staff, volunteer, vendor) you can’t afford not to attend this event. 

If you haven’t already, make plans to head to Southern California March 11-12.  For all the details check out www.citrt.org

• What are you buying when you buy a SIP Trunk
  • Voice dial tone over the data connection rather than a PRI

• Bandwidth.com
• Many are seeing cost savings in the $1k’s
• Make sure your PS/ALI (911) is compatible
• Do you need to keep copper for Fire, Elevator, etc…
  • In some areas this can be done wireless

• What about Hosted PBX
  • Bandwith.com can be trusted for this.
  • Response point is second possible solution

Gapps or Exchange or hosted exchange

• Hosted exchange –
  • http://www.sherweb.com/hosted-exchange

Approachability – Friendly IT

• Users have to be able to approach IT
• How do you help your users ask questions when they should be asking question?
  • Use a Ticketing System they can ask for things they might not think to ask when chatting in conversation.
    • Zen Desk

• Ask for meeting times be proactive don’t wait
• Set appropriate expectations for the users when you will be able to respond.

Metrics

• Tracking ticketing time
• How much does a new staff member cost?
• Do leadership make Technology a priority?

What happens when they have admin rights and things go bad

• SysInternals Process Explorer
  • http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/default.aspx
  • http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896653.aspx

• If you allow Admin access you "Must" have standardization and images of each "flavor" of workstation.
• What do users "need"?
• Does Software and Hardware get purchased Centrally?
• Some applications get un happy when they don’t have local permissions
  • SteelSonic.com
  • Encryped Run As ($6.00 per license) http://www.wingnutsoftware.com/

Spyware Removal

• Malwarebites.org

Application Deployment/Virtualization

• CloneZilla
• Ghost
• Fodproject.com
• Casper Suite – jamfsoftware.com
• Mac OSX Imaging
• PrinterShare.com
• Vmware VDI
• Ardence by Dell
  • http://www.dell.com/content/topics/global.aspx/solutions/en/thinpc?c=us&l=en&cs=555

Passwords

• Ewallet
• SecretServer – Multi User
• How Frequently do the passwords change

What is the burden on IT of the "pitfalls" of Social Media

• Leadership has to decided assisted with by the direction of IT what the orgization’s going to "Use" social media for… then IT has to come along side with the vision/mission
• We have to digest social media for our leadership so they "get it"
• Find an advocate for IT on staff… find someone who can digest Technology on your behalf.

Computer Emergency Response Team Cert – http://www.cert.org/

StorageCraft – http://www.storagecraft.com/

IM

• Allow/Block?
• Content Filtering -
• Open DNS
• Dan’s Guardian
• Sonicwall Content Filtering
• Untangle
• IPCop
• Estro

PC and Mac Solutions for Mac remote clients

• Not Blocking IM – But Archiving it?

Why do IM?

• Step between email and a phone call
• Reduce Email Ping Pong

Why Not do IM

• File Transfer conduit

Colaboration Tools

• Live Mesh
• Groove
• Adobe Connect
• Skype
• FreeConfrencecall.com
• Callaflower.com
• Mobile Content Filtering
• Convenient Eyes – Accountability Software

Spam

• Postini – $1500 min
• Resellers are a little more $$ but they provide support direct from Google doesn’t
• Barracuda
• Sonicwall
• ExchangeDefender

Inbound and Outbound filtering

• Catching outbound emails containing credit card information

Data (PCI) Compliance – how are you managing data on laptops etc.

• Policy /Guidelines
• Enabling TPM
• Cornel Spider – Searches computer for security numbers http://www2.cit.cornell.edu/security/tools/
• If its important enough to keep from people seeing it… its important enough to have backed up centrally
• Make the Network Work and make the network Secure… those two are mutually Exclusive… there has to be balance.

Admin or not to Admin (locally)

• Why Local Admin – Super rapid growth couldn’t support locked down machines

The conversation was great and I even got to shamelessly plug CITRT.org for those who haven’t’ heard of it… thanks Dean.

The afternoon consisted of the Checkpoint 201-Launching Checkpoint Successfully in your Church pre-convention workshop… This was a great group and we had a lot of fun sharing our experience and hearing how others are planning to launch Checkpoint for their ministries. 

As I noted in the workshop we are more than happy to share anything we have learned or produced during our Checkpoint launch that you might be able to use for your ministry.  Most of today’s content is now listed below but we’ll continue to add and update items as time goes on (Download Content Updated June 9th to include additional content).

If you have questions about launching Checkpoint or would like to share your story with us we would love to hear from you.

• Workshop Power Point (PDF)
• Registration form (PDF)
• Program Insert (PDF)
• Website FAQs (Web)
• Training Documents (PDF) (DOCX)
• Self Service Kiosk Instruction Pannel (PDF) (JPG)
• Self Service Kiosk Instruction Pannel – Draft 1 (PDF)
• Self Service Kiosk Signage (PDF)

Sonicwall provided lunch in one of suites above the track near the start/finish line.  There was an awesome spread of food and great conversation.

After lunch we headed to the Garages and Pit Road during the Firestone Indy Lights Qualifying.  We had a great time checking out the cars of the Indy Cup drivers as well as the Indy Lights.

Here are some photos from the afternoon… go here for all the photos.

We Had Dinner with David, Tom Templin, and Mark Moreno

After Dinner we had a VERY LATE night tour of Lakeview Christian Center with David. We started the tour at around 11:30 PM, but David gave an awesome tour, and we didn’t even stand in once place for more than 5 minutes!

Here are a few Shots from our Tour.
 
 
 
 

For more photos of our Tour of Lakeview Check out the Sonicwall Road Show Set here.