Archive for January, 2010

Is Apple going to change our lives today?

Posted on 27. Jan, 2010 by .

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Today Apple has a big announcement. It could be the iPhone 4G. Some say it could be iLife10. However, most are anticipating an Apple tablet. Some are calling it the iSlate or just Slate. A 10 inch iPhone like device that uses the iPhone OS. I must say, I’m more than curious on this one. I love the idea of a tablet, but I’m not sure why I need one. At some point I’m sure I’ll have an e-reader like the Kindle, but I haven’t felt compelled to have one like I did with the iPhone.

So, there may not even be a tablet. But if there is, I can’t wait to see the presentation. Other than it being a cool gadget, I really don’t know why I need it and how it’s going to change my life. However, I’m expecting that Apples going to change my mind. They have an uncanny ability to develop a product that you never knew you needed so bad. It’s amazing. I’ll follow-up this post later today with my impressions. Was I disappointed? Did they blow me away? We’ll see.

Regardless, this presentation is worth seeing. If you communicate for a living, you can’t afford to miss an Apple event like this. So many lessons to learn in timing, presentation and style.

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You want it too, don’t you?

Posted on 26. Jan, 2010 by .

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You’re going to start thinking I want to work for eye-fi. I’ve loved my simple card, but this one looks delicious. My birthday is in two weeks in case anyone is in the generous spirit.

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Reasons to attend the Orange Conference

Posted on 26. Jan, 2010 by .

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So last week I got some great information about what’s coming to the Orange conference this year. However, it was the middle of Orange week and there was a lot of Orange noise going on. It was good noise, but I thought that I would wait until this week to unpack some of the new things about Orange this year to help you make up your mind. So, for the next few days, I’ll be posting reasons to attend the Orange Conference in 2010.

I’ll start with one reason here, but let’s not call it reason #1. We’ll call it, “seriously, this is probably on of the best reasons to come.”

If you register for the Orange Conference by February 18th, you’ll save $40. Plus, for each person you register, you’ll get a $50 credit good for ReThink curriculum or Orange Leaders materials. Essentially, they’re giving you $90 to come to the Orange Conference this year. It’s an incredible deal. It’s also an incredible conference. Click on the little button to the right and register today.

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New family registration form: Redux

Posted on 26. Jan, 2010 by .

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Okay, you’re going to start thinking that I like to re-design registration cards for fun. Actually, it is kind of fun. So back in October, we redesigned the registration card we were using. Functionally speaking, it was just about perfect. However, as soon as it was done and after I posted it here, I realized something I was missing. The Children’s Ministry at Gateway has had somewhat of an “old world” feel thing going on. It looks great, but we’re wanting to move the look and feel in a different direction. Something more vibrant, fun and colorful. So I don’t know what I was thinking by redesigning our registration card to look “old world.” So, I sent this back to our graphic artist and she changed the feel. It’s a two sided card (doesn’t cost hardly anything to print on the other side) so we had our logo (the one we’re using now until re totally re-brand) splashed on the back. Let me know what you think.

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BTW, on the last post, someone asked about what we do if a friend brings someone and how we handle that. Next week I’m working on a supplement to handle that as well as keep our records accurate.

To see my beautiful and growing collection of registration cards, click here.

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More resources please

Posted on 26. Jan, 2010 by .

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In case you didn’t know, this website has a section dedicated to resources. Last year I launched it by gathering people’s check-in registration cards. I got close to a dozen and it seems a lot of people found it helpful. I know one children’s pastor (one who’s not fond of puppets) who found it so helpful he redesigned his card based on some of the ideas he saw. One of the reasons I launched the page was becasue I was in the process of coming up with a new design for Gateway. I took inspiration from several of the examples sent in.

Just because there are several up there now doesn’t mean there isn’t room for more. If you’ve got a unique or interesting registration card, send me a copy (kenny@childrensministryonline.com) and I’ll place it on the resource page.

In addition to registration cards, I’d like to expand my resource page. Actually, there are quite a few resource sub pages I have in mind. So I’m launching an additional resource page today dedicated to policy manuals and volunteer handbooks. Click here to check it out. Right now it only has mine. It took me a year to revise our handbook (it still has a few additions/modifications to go). I revised our handbook based on our old one, one that I used in the past and several other sources that I got from friends. However, I’d love to see what you’re using and post it on this page.

Submissions: Feel free to submit your whole manual or just specific pages. I’ll arrange them on this site in a way that’s helpful and organized. For instance, I’d love to specifically see emergency policies and procedures (that’s on thing I’m reworking right now on ours). If you just want to just send your section on policies and procedures, you can. Perhaps you have policies just for childcare workers or your Parent’s Day Out program. Send them to me and I’ll put them up. If you’ve got them all in one file, just send me that and I’ll post it too. If you can save your book to a PDF, that would be easiest. However, send me what you’ve got, I can probably convert it.

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All cards are not created equal

Posted on 25. Jan, 2010 by .

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EMSD8GO2I haven’t had a good juicy nerd/tech post in quite a while, so I figured I was due.

So a few weeks ago I needed to buy a SD card for a video camera and I wasn’t sure what to get. I asked around and not a lot of people seemed to know what I was talking about, so I did a little research and I thought I’d share it with you, just in case you ever find yourself in the same position as me.

Need a SD card for your camera? You’ve probably bought one of these before. I’ve probably bought a dozen or so. I’ve got a few for my camera (although I use my eye-fi card exclusively now), one for my Wii and others float around for various uses.

So what do you look at when determining with card to buy?

  • Price? You should. They vary quiet a bit. I like to shop around and you’ll almost always get a better deal online than in the store.
  • Size? Of course. Why settle for 4GB when you can get 8GB? Right?
  • Speed? Come again? What do you mean with speed?

A little known fact about these SD cards is that they have read and write speeds and this does matter at times. This was the question that I was asking that no one knew the answer for. I just bought a HD video camera that records directly to a SD card. I wanted to know if it mattered what speed the card was. Most people I asked didn’t know about speed. So here’s what you need to know.

SD cards divide their card’s speeds by “classes.” A class 2 card writes data at a rate of 2MB per second. A class 4 card writes data to the card at 4MB per second. You ever wish you could hit the shutter button and take pictures in quick succession? Well, you’re camera may not be designed to do that, but depending on your card, it might be impossible. If you’ve got a Class 4 card with a 6 Mega Pixel camera, it’s going to take a second or two to write the data to your card every time you take a picture. Make sense?

What about a video camera? Well, if you’re recording in HD, you have to figure out how many MB per second your camera writes HD video to the card and make sure you get a card that can handle that speed. If you’re card can’t handle the speed, then it either won’t work or your camera will record the video at a lower quality.

So, when buying an SD card, know what you’re getting. For your digital camera, you really don’t need a Class 4, 6 or 8 card. Save your money. However, when it comes to HD video, you need to plan for a Class 6 or Class 8 card to get the best performance. Check the documentation that came with your equipment as well just to make sure.

Read up for yourself here.

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Dallas Orange Tour

Posted on 25. Jan, 2010 by .

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Orange Tour: Dallas from Andrew Winchell on Vimeo.

Don’t know if you heard, but I attended the Orange Tour event in Dallas last Thursday. :)

It was incredible. Supposedly there were over 700 attendees. Seriously, would you expect any less of Texas. I’m just wondering when ReThink will come to their senses and just go ahead and do the Orange Conference out here. How’s that for a suggestion? :)

I’m not going to post a lot of my notes or anything. However, here is how I’ll describe the Orange Tour. It’s focused! It’s something that you can bring your entire team (and more) to that gets straight at the heart of the matter. The Orange Conference is incredible due to the variety of sources of information and the creativity and breath of knowledge, it’s a no-miss event. However, the Orange Tour focuses on the strategy specifically. Not sure you can get your pastor or some key leaders to the Orange Conference, then go to the Orange Conference with your team and take this key leader or your pastor to an Orange Tour event. You’ll get more mileage that way. However, the Orange Tour isn’t a substitute for the conference. It’s like comparing apples to oranges… or maybe smaller oranges with bigger oranges.

The thing I loved the most about the Orange Tour was how candid Reggie and Sue were. There were several point while listening to both of them that you could see their passion and heart bleeding for the cause of reaching families. Simply powerful, so motivating and encouraging. They’re not pushing a product (well, the do have a product, but that’s not what this was about). They were igniting a movement toward a new way of thinking.

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The enemy of family time

Posted on 25. Jan, 2010 by .

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A volunteer who attended the Orange tour with me in Dallas last week sent me a link about a recent Kaiser Family Foundation study here. You can read/download the reports and studies here.

The study covers media usage among 8-14 year old children in the United States. We know that our teens and pre-teens are media hungry, but this study reveals all the details. Here are some of the findings.

  • Teens are spending on average, 7.5 hours consuming media through a variety of devices (phones, iPods, computers, TV’s, etc.) daily.
  • Due to multitasking (ie. listening to music while playing video games), teenagers are packing in more than 11 hours of media consumption into 7.5 hours.
  • 47% of the heaviest users who consume 16 hours of media a day are making c’s or less (go figure)
  • These heavy users are also the ones complaining of being bored, don’t get along with their parents or are generally unhappy.
  • These numbers also don’t include the 2 hours daily these teens spend texting and talking on their phones.

Here’s one of the most interesting findings:

The study found that young people used less media in homes with rules like no television during meals or in the bedroom, or with limits on media time.

One of the researchers noted, “I don’t think parents should feel totally disempowered,” she said. “They can still make rules, and it still makes a difference.”

This is the 3rd study on this topic since 2004 and the trend is that teenagers are consuming more media as the availability of devices becomes easier. Visit the study to get more details and distribute to parents.

So, as we attempt to reactivate the family, we must equip parents with the tools to do so. TV, video games and other media outlets aren’t bad, but they are in direct competition with family time. Families can set time limits and it won’t “ruin” anything.

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Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-01-24

Posted on 24. Jan, 2010 by .

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Powered by Twitter Tools

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Orange Week Concluded

Posted on 24. Jan, 2010 by .

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Wow! What started with just an idea for personal thoughts and reflections about a strategy and an upcoming conference experience became a mini-movement in the kidmin blogosphere and twitterverse. Most importantly I’d like to thank my inner circle of blogging friends, Matt, Sam, Gina and Jonathan (especially grateful to spend two days with Jonathan this week). You guys have been such an inspiration to me these past two years and have become dear friends. As I’ve explored the exciting ideas of Orange, you’ve all been very refreshing sources of information and ideas… I love wresting big thoughts with you.

Also, a big thank you to newer blogging friends who jumped in to help and contribute substantially. Dan Scott, I look forward to knowing you better, you’ve certainly got a lot of respect from me. Anthony Prince, I look forward to getting to hanging with you again this year at Orange and getting to know you more. JC, are you coming to Orange this year? I like to hang out with you more too. Regardless, I’m probably changing my twitter and facebook profile pic to that fat baby pic… I loved it that much. Kendra, I’ve enjoyed our conversations and finally meeting you last week. You’re insights to this Orange process have been wonderful. Nick Blevins, I had no idea who you were until this week. So glad you jumped in, both to hear your ideas and to begin following your blog.

Huge props to my friends at ReThink. You all are amazing. Betsy for taking my idea and putting a little gasoline behind it (ie… all the free stuff to give away). Kevin Benson for taking 20 minutes or so and talking at the Orange tour about this blogging and twitter medium. Thanks to Reggie, Sue and others at ReThink for your passion and message!

Last of all, thanks to everyone who visited the blogs (this one and everyone elses) this week. Seriously, you lit this one up this week. There was so much “noise” in the social media space about Orange Week there is no doubt that it got some attention and others are beginning to explore this ministry strategy.

Although Orange Week is over, it’s not the last you’ll read about Orange on this blog. However, you probably won’t see 25 posts dedicated only to Orange anytime soon, except in late April for Orange 2010. Hopefully I’ll see you all there! If you’re not registered yet, what are you waiting for, clikc the badge on the right.

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