CTR: JotForm

Back in the day, when I was doing freelance web development stuff, many people wanted me for one specific reason. Take their online form data and put it into a database so they could actually use it. Also, the form had to be created and that was no easy task getting things to line up and actually making sure an email address was in the email address field (validation). Fast forward a few years, yeah maybe more than a few, and now we have great services that make all of this so easy. I am talking about JotForm.

JotForm makes everything easy, you simply go to their website, create a form using their drag and drop form builder. Then share the form with your friends in many different formats. You can even link the forms in your DropBox account and add image uploads.

Do you organize events? I use JotForm for soccer tournament registrations as well as registration for ministry events. After someone fills out the form, it will send me an email, them a confirmation, and place the data in a spreadsheet that I can export as a XLS or CSV file.

Do you give online tests? I have used JotForm to give assessment tests for the courses I taught. JotForm made tallying scores easy as well as keeping track of when the form was submitted so no late projects slip in.

Sell stuff online? You could use JotForm to create an order form for your product. With multiple custom form features and calculations. It would be a breeze, seem like a lot of work. Don't worry, there are tons of templates you can choose from to get you started and themes to keep your forms looking good.

Create surveys for you or your organization? A great way to find out what the consensus is withing any group or organization is to do a survey. I use JotForm to create an evaluation for our small groups at church. Small group members can fill it out with no identifying information allowing the church leadership to evaluate how each group is doing on a regular basis.

Give JotForm a try and you will be super impressed. From the moment you go to their site you will find out that doing forms right is what they are about and best of all, your not going to believe this, you can use all these tools, with no ads on your forms, for free!

You are welcome.

CTR: Wipee List

I know I started using the "CTR" for church technology review, but this one is honestly for anyone. If you keep a to-do list or want to start and have a reason to be online most of the time, you need to try Wipee List.. This app is totally free and requires no users manual so check it out! You can even share and un-share your list with friends, co-workers, and family. Are they asking you what you want for Xmas? Tell them to check your Wipee List. You will be glad you did. You can use it to manage team projects and I am sure there are many other uses that even I can't think of right now. Happy Do-ing.

Check out my list.

CTR: Google Apps

Those who know me well can ascertain very quickly that I am a major Google fanboy. Yeah, guilty as charged, if Google builds it I will use it. This all started somewhere around the time I got my first Gmail invite and I have not turned back since. Yeah, I have several email addresses but you can rest assured they all end up in my Gmail inbox. So what is this Google Apps I am writing of? Basically it can be used for free up to 50 accounts and provide you email, calendar, chat, contacts, and individual wikis and sites using point and click (WYSIWYG) technology, all on your domain! If you think livn4him2day3456@yahoo.com (all apologies if this is an actual address) sounds better than bob@bestchurch.org; I am sorry for you, mostly because you are paying for a domain so why not use it for FREE.

Further Google Apps help you in the areas of cost, control, and reliability. Google's web-based messaging and collaboration apps require no hardware or software and need minimal administration, creating tremendous time and cost savings. Administrators can deeply customize Google Apps to meet their technical, branding and other requirements. While there is no guarantee for the free account to be available 99.9% of the time, I have not had a single occasion when it wasn't.

I wish I could say it was entirely simple to set up but it would help to have your web guy change your DNS info on your domain for you. Don't know what DNS info is, that is why you should heve them do it. But the rest is super easy and that change only takes about 5 minutes. Heck for $5 I would set it up for you and donate the earnings to my favorite charity. Here are what some others are saying about Google Apps.

Takami
Restaurant and food services
Hospitality, North America
"Google Apps lets us centralize and consolidate information, simplifying our company's internal communication process and giving us better control over our business."
Alejandra Cifuentes – IT Manager

Skinnycorp.com
Online community, parent company of Threadless Technology, North America
"We are able to give our IT challenges to Google, who handles the hard stuff, while we handle our business. Just do it."
Harper Reed – CTO

I hope this was helpful and look forward to sharing my Calendar with you.

CTR: Website

Needless to say, having a web site to both promote and inform your church or ideas is imperative. Nearly all households have access to the Internet, sometimes even on more than one computer. The great thing about the Internet is that it can reach the whole world, and not just your neighborhood. Thus, if you have anything to say (ie. a Gospel message), everyone can get to know about it.

Having a web site is not just a commodity for churches, but a must. The web site needs to be your profile and what's good about it is that there is limitless information you can put on it. Another good thing is that static content on your site can be changed very easily. Even better, you can opt to go for a dynamic site which will automatically change your content based on changes to your services, like times, events, ministries, staff information and more. Your web site is your identity, make sure you have one!

Perhaps it seems like a daunting task but there are easy and some free options available. I imagine the only thing stopping you is the resources to maintain it, the fear of new technology, or the cost associated.

First, Don't Be Afraid! Things are not set in stone. Second, this is also an opportunity for a lay leader/deacon or anyone really to get involved with your church. Put them in charge of it and see how much it increases their willingness to get behind your vision.  So I have taken care of the fear and resource issues, all you have left is the technology. Let me make that easy for you as well. I have searched the web over, And thought I found true love. You met another and Phht! you were gone. Sorry, my brain took a tangent but I have searched the web over and I have identified three resources I can get behind and support.

AdvancedMinistry - AdvancedMinistry has all of the features you need to build and manage a website. lt uses simple, familiar web-based tools and no programming or HTML is needed. You can easily create pages using text, images, links, and even video*.  Easily add features like Blogs*, calendars, file downloads*, and interactive photo galleries*. There are many more features available and the pricing is competitive. They are among the few to offer a FREE plan which provides a great quick start to your online presence. Very easily managed content by anyone without all the confusion of content management systems (CMS) like Joomla or its offshoots. It doesn't hurt to try it out for free! Find out more on their website.  If you are not doing a church site, they offer a business edition as well. I have not used it yet but I am planning on at least trying it out. Here are my musings with AM.

• Quick Mockup Site
  (14-Day Free Trial, Created in about 15 minutes; expires on July 4th).
• South Ridge Fairmont

Clover Sites - If that is not easy enough for you, you can also try this site. They allow you to try everything before you buy. The setup cost is higher but you really cannot get a more interactive CMS for your church and these sites look super professional. They offer completely visual editing and allow you to make all the changes you want, then publish them to your Live site later.  Each site comes with several different layouts that you can use for any page. There are many other features offered and you can get a complete feature list from their site. The only downside to this is all sites are completely designed in Flash. Thus, If Safari is your main browser, you may not want to go this route.

Choolu! - This one is a new kid on the block but it has all the right stuff features and functions as church management software as well. It is rumored to be offered for FREE to anyone who signs up for testing and possibly to everyone! I look forward to the beta release by the end of the summer and I really feel this will be a happy medium between the two systems above. I will personally keep tabs on this one and let everyone know when it is ready. If you are not in a hurry, I would sign up for this offer. It could possibly be the best option available.

I really hope these posts are a help to you and encourage you to look back through the technology posts if you have missed them to see what other resources are available. July 9th: Google Apps!

CTR: Evernote

Today I am going to tell you about another tool that can increase your productivity and save you some time. Hopefully you have taken advantage of Dropbox from my last post. I really can't say enough how that tool has made things easier. Now let me tell you about a tool called Evernote. The goal of Evernote is to help you remember, organize, and find things when you need them. What things you may ask, pretty much anything you want to remember for later. Keep notes from your meetings all in one place. You can create to-do lists, jot down random thoughts, or leave voice memos. Search for notes by keywords, titles, and tags. Evernote also makes printed and handwritten text inside your images searchable. Everything you "capture" is automatically made searchable. You can add tags or organize notes into different notebooks. Sounds great right!

Let me tell you how I use it and for a real life example. If you didn't know it, I lead a small group of youth for my church. Part of what I do is develop curriculum or a message to give each week. If you are like me, ideas don't necessarily come when you sit down to prepare the message. I often am in the middle of something else or listening to a sermon or other podcast when I get the idea. I pull out my iPod, open up the Evernote app and write it down (no Internet needed).  Another way ideas come to me is through the reading of the Bible (actually this is the most common way). I am such a geek I read my Bible on my iPod as well, so I come across a verse or passage and I add a note right in my BibleReader app (still no Internet needed). Now, when I get home, or am in the presence of any other hot spot I commonly use, my iPod picks up that Internet signal and syncs my notes from both apps to my Evernote account. Now, when I go to prepare, I open up my Evernote account on-line or the desktop app they provide and my ideas are all there. I pick one and add more content to it.. occasionally clipping an image or something else right into the note and BAM! Mission completion.

"But Josh, I don't prepare messages every week." I encourage you to check all the other apps and services that work with Evernote. For instance, all those file folders you have in your basement filled with old school notes and other stuff you don't look at but insist you need. Would you really know where to find what you wanted even if you did want to refer to it again? Services like OfficeDrop and Shoeboxed make it easy to mail this stuff off and have it scanned and appear in your Evernote account. Guess what, it is searchable as well. Remember that term paper you wrote in college, I don't either, but if you have it scanned and placed in your Evernote account, when you search your stuff it may just pop up again.

Did I mention how such a service could be useful for your church or organization and that you can get a basic Evernote account for FREE! That is a hard price to beat. You have nothing to lose and a lot of organization and time to gain. By the way, this blog post was originally an idea placed in my Evernote account.

CTR: Dropbox

If your like me, and you may not be. You spend a lot of time on a computer doing a wide array of different things. You may spend a lot of time emailing things to yourself so you have it on the other computer you are going to be using later or perhaps you have something at work you want to take home with you so you pull out the thumb drive and forget it on your way to your house. You can either go back or just forget working on that one from home. Either way, I have found the need to have access to certain files on my iPod/iPhone, Home Computer, Home Laptop, Work Laptop.. etc.. and spend too much time zipping them, fiddling with thumb drives, and emailing files back and forth to myself. I know it is quit possible that the only email you get that is of remote importance comes from yourself but I have a solution to all of these problems and the good news is.. it is FREE, unless you have a lot of stuff.

Dropbox allows you to sync your files online and across your computers automatically. Sharing files is simple and can be done with only a few clicks. Dropbox backs up your files online without you having to think about it. A copy of your files are stored on Dropbox's secure servers. This lets you access them from any computer or mobile device. The free Dropbox application for iPhone, iPad, and Android lets you access your Dropbox on the go, view files from within the application, download files for offline viewing, share links to files in your Dropbox, export your files to other applications, sync downloaded files so they're up-to-date. This video helps to understand it all better.

You can get started today by signing up for your free account by clicking on this link: Dropbox

CTR: Metrics

A metric is a measure for quantitatively assessing the degree to which an organization possesses a given attribute. As much as it pains church plants and even established churches,  sometimes the numbers are important! It is not a contest as to how many members or attenders you have but at some point you may have to make decisions based on exactly that. It is not a bad thing to know how many people are attending a small group or Sunday school class and what percentage that is from your entire congregation. To make an informed decision is a great thing and to do so with the knowledge of how much money is coming in and going out and where it is all going can only add to the value. All of these things are measurements or metrics that are needed in your church for procurement (buying or getting stuff) and strategic planning (making wise decisions for the future).  

Now that we have the what and why out of the way, we can focus on the how. Chances are you probably already track these things and if you are an established church, you already have a system. The accountant keeps some of the information and the administrative assistant keeps the rest and you pull it together in its raw form before each board meeting so you can show everybody why you can't or can do what is being proposed. I am guessing at least the first part is true, you see most churches and church board members or trustees rarely look at both pieces of this information before making most of their decisions. The big reason for this is they don't know what one has to do with the other or if they do, because it is in different locations, it is hard to pull together an accurate picture at any specific point in time. Honestly, raw digits are nice but a picture tells the whole story. The good news here is there is a product out there that happens to be FREE that can help.

Thanks to LifeChurch.tv you can track and get a snapshot of all of these things at any time from anywhere (including your board meetings). You can find this tool at churchmetrics.com take full advantage of all it has to offer. It has support for multiple users and multiple people, has built in reports that can be exported in Excel if you need the raw data. Best of all it offers a dashboard and charts so you can watch your growth or decline and make better decisions at any time. I am very impressed and the free price tag makes this the easiest decision of all. Go to http://www.churchmetrics.com/features to review all it has to offer.

Church Technology Review (CTR): Introduction

I just thought I would give readers a break from my normal posting materials and each Friday address some questions I am often asked as a fellow user of technology and well, one of the resident geeks at my church (we are lucky to have many). I recognize not all my readers are interested in these posts but I promise to keep them few and far between. If you are a new reader and geek at your church and this is the reason you have found your way here, you can leave me additional questions any time and I will attempt to work them in. If your reading this and your church does not have a resident geek, I am not available but I do hope these posts help.