Jason Lee

At our recent IT Roundtable, Preventative Maintenance plans came up in our discussion and I mentioned that we had started writing a plan that gives our team some guidelines.  Granted this preventive maintenance plan is in no way a complete or exhaustive guide, we have started getting our plan on paper. 

We use this policy and procedure guide to actually perform the maintenance but also as guide for what we want to see happen.  At the RoundTable I mentioned one of the most helpful reminders for us has been to add the items from this plan to recurring tickets in our helpdesk system.  When a task is due we are sent a reminder and it stays there until we complete the task.

After the RoundTpreventative-maintenance-planable a couple people asked if the P&P document was on my blog… I hadn’t ever thought of posting it until now…. so borrow away.. I hope it gives you a kick start to start writing you plan! preventative-maintenance-plan

I would love feedback via email or comment or if you you would like to share your preventative plans with us email jason[at]jasonmlee[dot]net.

Church IT, ChurchIT RoundTable CITRT, Preventative Maintenance, RoundTable

Our recent trip to MinistryTECH 2009 it has encouraged me to continue building relationships with my local peers in Central Illinois.  We had a great CI-CITRT event almost a year ago, but I have struggled to plan new events.  If you participated in our past event, or are in Church IT in central Illinois what do you thing about a less formal local approach to a local Church IT Roundtable?   You interested in a low key, minimal comment monthly lunch to talk shop, eat lunch together at a local restaurant and get to know one another?

Leave a comment or email me (jason [at] jasonmlee [dot] net) if you are interested.

When:
May 21st
11:30 am – 1:00 pm

Where:
A Local Peoria Restaurant (TBA – somewhere centrally located for everyone attending)

What’s a Roundtable Discussion?

A roundtable is a peer-learning event where the participants are both teachers and learners. A roundtable is small enough to emphasize interactive learning, led by a facilitator and peer, includes participants who have an affinity with each other, and does not include a strong agenda beyond sharing knowledge. The participants set the agenda, and interaction among participants takes precedent over presentation by “experts.” In fact, in one-way or another, most of the roundtable participants are already experts. In this group, we intend to learn from each other about how to better resource, equip, and train ministries in the areas of computer hardware, networking, server support, web services/sites, telecom services, etc. It will be geeky and fun. 

Church IT, ChurchIT RoundTable Central Illinois CITRT; CITRT

Our last full day in Colorado Springs was our day "set” day for sight seeing… even though every day in the Rockies is a day for sight seeing.

We started with a trip to the Air Force Academy, the size of the campus (10K acres) as well as the Chapel were quite amazing.  The Chapel is actually multiple chapels and the Protestant chapel is the largest and first one we visited.

The Buddhist chapel was the smallest but also the newest addition

The Jewish Chapel was in the lower level with an 200 year old original torah hidden before WWI and found and donated to the AFA in 1989.  The paintings on the wall are oil painted over gold leaf and are valued at $1million each.

We had more than a couple awesome views as we took the scenic route to Denver (normal drive time 1.5 hrs, our drive time 5.5 hours)

Crossing the The Continental Divide

view all photos from the trip here

Church IT, ChurchIT RoundTable CITRT, Colorado, MinistryTech

Mike God

CIO Willow Creek Community Church

The wrong information in the wrong hands can hurt people, the right information in the right hands can hurt people.
Information has power, technology is an accelerant to Technology
– If you are going to sin, Technology can help you sin a lot faster

Sociology
Technology was limited to just the select few / Hardware big bulky
Now Technology is available to the masses / Hardware is much smaller / Most are reliant upon technology

• With all the potential that Technology gives us are we ready for the responsibility?
• Are IT Leaders ready to train and embrace what is available to  us to move forward?
• IT Must move beyond platforms and preferences but embrace the solutions to solve the problems.

Information Sociology Model

• Leadership – Purpose                                                                                         -> Movement
• Good Leadership doesn’t have to be from the top down
• Clarity of vision  – Clearly Communicating but also compelling
• Community
• Formation
• Organization – Causes a community to have impact
• Information – Like the three primary colors, Information can be combined
• Corporate – Risk Procedures, boundaries, controls
• Promotional – Align, Promote, Market, Promise to the world
• Community – Social Connection, Interaction
• Technology – Has matured to the point it can support the various ‘colors’ of Information
• Creatively Grow and adapt all while exploring and keeping what needs to be secure

Integrity
– Technology has given the world one language to solve social economic problems
– Technology has “power” but can’t replace or reduce the separation between man and God
– As believers we have to remain constant that God is the problem solver not Technology.
– I Peter 2:9  But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.

– Technology is a Gift that can be used for helping people.

Justice
-  John 14:12 I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.

– How are people suffering suppose to believe in God’s goodness without their experiencing his love thru God’s people?
– Only God has the power to heal the human heart
– People can try to fix the symptoms, but God can heal the problems
– What would the world look like if we were able to equip people to harness the technology around the world?  How could we use technology to help people see the Love of God?

Church IT, ChurchIT RoundTable MinistryTech

Content Filtering
> Remote Content Filtering
   >> Covenant Eyes or XXX Church
> Is Logging for Filtering effective?
> “Use it, just don’t Abuse it” – DeanLisenby

Networking Monitoring
> Cati EZ
> Zenoss
> Orion
> Servers Alive
> OpManager
> OpenMNS
> Hyperic
> Groundworks
> Veem
> VQ Manager
> Spotlight Light on Windows

Church IT, ChurchIT RoundTable MinistryTech

Project Management
PMI.com

> Are the Expectations that IT won’t manage and plan projects?
> How do you plan?

  >> Basecamp
  >> WhiteBoard
  >> MS Project
  >> Active Colab
  >> PMBOK

> How often is enough to “meet” with your staff
>> Weekly, Bi-weekly
>> Involve the whole team and one on ones

> Helpdesk software – Do you track ticket times what do you do with that data
>> Justify job
>> Give clarity those high maintenance users

>>myhours.com

> How do you fund IT Staff Training
>> Outside Grants – IWT (Incumbant Worker Training)
>> Operation Budget Funding

Church IT, ChurchIT RoundTable MinistryTech

Cool Tools

BombBomb.com “affordable” but cool

RoyalTS – Remote Desktop Console Tool FREE
> http://www.code4ward.net/main/RoyalTS/Overview.aspx

RDTabs FREE

MRemote FREE

LovelyCharts.com “affordable paid account”
>http://www.lovelycharts.com

SpiceWorks – Scans Macs, PCs, Servers give alerts on changes updates, problems.
>http://www.spiceworks.com

Kiwi Solarwinds toolset

>http://www.darylhunter.me/churchit/2009/03/solarwinds-engineers-toolset-v10-part-3-workspace-studio-examples.html

Likewise

>Likewise.com

Mobiscope Desktop

 Volunteers in IT

> How to recruit Volunteers:

– Volunteer Fair
– Make the needs Known and make the descriptions detailed and clear
– Define the scope for the volunteers

– Let your volunteers see the blinkly lights on a tour

Backups and Offsite Backups

- Backups are for the weak in faith –Bryson

- What is Offsite?  Off campus, other building, other property owner

- Who is the stake holders in the backup decision

- Leadership team has to make a choice what the order for coming back online is.

– Have leadership commit to the decisions of how you come back online after a disaster

– Disaster doesn’t just mean data issues..  power, data, hv/ac

Storage

Not all storage is created equal…

> Media Production have tiers of storage – Online, Near Online, Not Really Online (wait time)

Church IT, ChurchIT RoundTable MinistryTech

David Drinnon

Pastor of Technology and Websites – Second Baptist Church

Relevance – positioning all things in a way that our message is readily received by our audience.
As technologists we are the stake holders of the technology that enters our Ministries.

How do we make the message of the Gospel Relevant?
- Is relevancy the right question to ask?
> Does the message of the Gospel become watered down when we attempt to make it relevant?
> Does the message of the Gospel need us to “make” it relevant?

“Just believe is like saying Drink the Punch, Take the Pill” – David Drinnon

Commitment to Relevancy and not the Gospel can lead to dangerous place.

Are you so involved in the pursuit of the medium you loose the message?

> Don’t put the medium before the message

Ephesians 2:1
You were dead to your transgressions and sins.
> What is it to be dead?  The dead don’t bear any fruit, No Value, Morally bankrupt before God.
> The trust of the dead is miss-placed.
> The Dead have no sorrow for sin, Worldly sorry brings Death.
> Death is the absence of everything.

God isn’t giving us a resuscitation, he is giving us a RESURECTION… he is brining us back to Life not just riving us.

There are a ton to technologies but they have no meaning unless you have THE message.

Matt. 28:18-20 Everyone is called to ministry… Don’t get suck behind the gear find out what are the needs of people beyond the technology.

It doesn’t matter the amount of gear, the amount of knowledge, the size of your church…. God has called you to a mission of ministry.

“In matters of style swim with the current, in matters of principle stand like a rock”

The Gospel itself alone is RELEVANT, it alone changes lives.  Our Relevance isn’t in the medium but in the MESSAGE.

Church IT, ChurchIT RoundTable MinistryTech

Geeky but grounded?
Plugged-in but cash-strapped?
Interested but otherwise occupied?

If you can’t physically make it to MinistryTech for some end-of-the-world reason, you can still take in part of the excitement virtually. We’ll be streaming selected workshops and all keynote sessions during the conference, FREE!

So fire up your smartphone, laptop, or other cool gadget and keep it with you at all times. Nothing is more important than MinistryTech’09. Here are some things to think about:

• Wife having a baby? No problem, use headphones. Imagine what an awesome thing it will be for you to be able to say that your newborn’s first geek experience was at age 0.1!
• Don’t have enough money to travel? This is free. Mooch some wireless at Panera.
• Actually have a job you can’t get away from? This will help you enjoy that more.
• Don’t like Colorado? Whatever.
• Afraid someone will ask what you’re doing? Don’t worry. They know you’re a geek. Tell them you’re logged on with hundreds of other “smart people” discussing the next generation of Church Integration Networking Social Internet Directory Management Infrastructure Ministry — you know, the ChINSIDIMS — 2.0.
• Get lots of [throw in some acronyms here]!
• It’s better than trying to follow someone else’s blog that is actually a digest of their tweets which just goes to prove their not really paying attention anyway. 

So how do you partake in this virtual goodness? 

Register Here so we can make plans to reserve your virtual seat (the soft comfy recliners will go first, oh wait, you choose your own seat..)

ChurchIT RoundTable CITRT, MinistryTech

We are working thru our travel plans for the 2009 Spring Church IT RoundTable/Ministry Tech event…. and that leaves me wondering would you ride the train? 

 We are thinking about taking Amtrak from Chicago to Colorado.  It is a scheduled 15 hour trip over night (yes i know train travel isn’t always on time but nor is air travel).  The cost per person is roughly $190 per person.  It could be a great time for CITRT community before and after the event…

Would you be interested in a train trip with others next spring?

ChurchIT RoundTable