Daily Concerns

Three Definitions of Trust

My blog, Daily Concerns, has moved to a new location, please update your bookmarks and feed readers.

The new location is http://experience.fellowshipone.com/Experience/blogs/dailyconcerns/default.aspx

My latest blog entry, Three Definitions of Trust, is available at the new location. Come check it out!

God bless,

csimmons

Keeping Kids Safe Online: Part 5 (Product Review and Helpful Links)

It’s been a few weeks since my last entry, life and work got in the way.

I was in the middle of a series of blog entries on Keeping Kids Safe Online. We had recently purchased a new computer so I decided it might be time to evaluate a new tool. An online software review had rated WebWatcher over my favorite tool eBlaster so I decided to give it a shot.

I had high hopes as I first visited their website but was dismayed that they did not offer a free trial period. Instead I was forced to pay $97 for a license just so I could evaluate it. They did offer a 5 day evaluation period in which I could request a full refund. As I’m writing this entry I see that they’ve added a new ad on their site stating “Free Test Drive”. Unfortunately, it simply takes you to a 10 page marketing piece without any real screenshots. That’s hardly a “test drive”.

The most significant difference between WebWatcher and eBlaster is how the keystrokes and usage data is recorded and accessed. WebWatcher is installed on the local computer but sends ALL of its captured data to WebWatcher’s servers in real-time. You can then access the data anytime, anywhere with an Internet connection at WebWatcher’s website. In contrast, eBlaster captures the data onto the local PC and can then email you (and others) the information at a frequency of your choosing.

At first it sounds like WebWatcher’s hosted model is superior. I was able to login and read back the keystrokes my child was entering in real-time almost as if it was a teleprompter (although I did have to hit refresh to see the new keystrokes). Regardless, that’s pretty powerful. This would probably be my preferred method except that the WebWatcher site is poorly implemented. As you can see from this screen shot it’s organized into many, many different layers without any view to see the entire keystroke / activity history for the day.

Unless you’ve used a tool like this before then you may not fully grasp why this is so annoying. Think about it like this. You don’t do all your email, then all your IM chat, then visit websites, one after the other in a linear order. Instead you jump all around. Email this. Chat that. And a website or two mixed in. Often you’re typing into multiple applications nearly simultaneously. So if I’m a concerned parent I’m really not interested in clicking through every category and then every individual application my child has accessed before I can see / review their keystrokes. I do not have that kind of time or attention span. Instead I prefer the whole thing dumped into a single long report which I can quickly scan looking for any troubling entries. WebWatcher’s poor implementation led me to request a full refund 3 days later. (Which they honored, no questions asked)

Functionally, the two products are similar in feature function. But I prefer eBlaster’s choice to send one long report to me at schedule of my choosing. I currently have it set to send my wife and me the full report of the previous day’s activities each morning at 4am. So when we wake up we have every bit of keystroke / activity data in a single email which we can quickly scan.

To be fair WebWatcher said their working on a single view report. For now I plan to stick with eBlaster, its simple interface and email features offers all the things we need.

In closing, here are a few links I've found helpful in my research:

• Enough is Enough
• ProtectKids.com
• GetNetWise
• Childnet International
• Kid Smart
• CNET - Keep your kids safe online
• Don't Believe the Hype
• Dateline NBC - Online Safety Kit

God bless,

Curtis S

Keeping Kids Safe Online: Part 4 (Keystroke Logging)

• Prevent access to inappropriate web content yet I didn't want to use an inherently flawed content filter nor attempt to pre-authorize each and every possible site my child might legitimately need to use for school work or for safe and fun entertainment.
• Mentor, and monitor, our children on a safe way to use email, chat, and instant messenging tools as well as profiles on community sites.
• Have a program that didn't require constant upgrades in order to monitor activity with every new instant messenging tool or community site our children might use.
• Allow sufficient freedom that if our child understood the rules of safe Internet usage that they might be able to surf to new sites and interact with their friends online without us physically watching their every move.

After doing some research we settled on eBlaster from SpectorSoft. SpectorSoft offers several different  programs / versions but the premise is the generally the same -- capture the user's activity either by logging every keystroke made by the user or by taking screen captures at regular intervals. We selected eBlaster because:

• We could install it yet it was virtually impossible to detect on the computer or disable.
• It captured each and every keystroke made by the person using the computer. And I mean everything. It doesn't matter what application the person is using it captures everything they type and places it into a very nice log file organized by user, time and the application they were using. So if they typed their username and password into their MySpace account we can see in the log that they typed the MySpace URL first, pressed enter and then typed in their username and password and pressed enter. Every action is captured.
• It captures BOTH sides of the instant messenging chat sessions for Microsoft, Yahoo, AOL, Skype, and many others. We can see in the log the back and forth chatter labeled by their usernames from every individual in the chat session.
• It can be configured to immediately forward any email sent from the PC to us.
• It can be configured to immediately email us if certain keywords (naughty words or personal information) is ever typed.
• It can be configured to email a summary and a detailed log of the previous day's activity to one or more email accounts.

It's really been the best solution we've found so far. The first thing we did was to tell our son that we installed the software and how it worked. We never hid the fact that we were capturing everything he did on the PC. We have always been completely open and honest about it. We then explained our expectations and outlined our Internet safety rules. We left the PC in his bedroom and began to read the logs on a daily basis.

What have we learned so far? Well despite the fact that he knew we were able to read in the log his activity from the previous day he still struggled to stay out of trouble.

SoapBox == ON I don't care how much you love your child, how much you trust them, or how perfect you think they are, or how honest you feel they are… I'll let you in on a little secret -- we're all born sinners, no one teaches your child to lie about who ate the last cookie, no one teaches your child to fib about brushing their teeth. It's their native sin nature. And although some may have come to know the Lord personally that doesn't mean they will stop sinning. So do yourself and your child a favor and be involved in their life. It doesn't mean watching them 24x7 or monitoring they're every move. That's impossible, impractical, and doesn't build a confident child. We certainly don't read the log on a daily basis (it's very boring, 99% of the conversations between "tweens" is about NOTHING). But it maintains a level of accountability, transparency, and safety while they're under our roof. Even more importantly is to talk to them and pray with them regularly so that they feel comfortable coming to you when they run into trouble or face a difficult situation. Simply monitoring them with software is not parenting. SoapBox == OFF

Back to what we learned reviewing the logs. (Note that it didn't take long for him to become comfortable with the logging and "forget" it was there.) We discovered that our darling and near perfect child (or so we thought) was interfacing with strangers from 10 different U.S. states and Great Britain, he was getting back up in the middle of the night to use the PC and was then too sleepy at school, he had made friends with people that frequently used foul language, and most disturbingly he was portraying himself to be someone he was not -- someone older, more mature, or overly confident. Behind the façade of the PC he was simply not himself, he had created a new 'online' persona.

We're pleased to report that while there have been difficult moments, times when we had to show him the log and discuss some troubling items we found there, overall it's been a true blessing and my son might even agree. We did eventually have to move the PC out of his room and into the kitchen.  But now, after 3 - 4 years of use, the logging has become routine and we rarely, if ever, review it. He's developed very safe habits for using the web effectively and he even mentors his friends on Internet safety. We realize that he'll leave for college in a couple of years and he'll likely experiment with the darker side of the Internet. But hopefully with the firm foundation we've set he will not stray far from it.

Final note: I came across this site, Monitoring Software Reviews, and it rated WebWatcher as slightly superior to eBlaster. I plan to download a trial version soon to see if I like it better.

I'll wrap this topic up with 2 more blog entries. One will summarize a few tips and lists some helpful websites for more information. The other will contain a few of my favorite real-life stories (some funny, some serious) that we've experienced with our children's Internet usage.

 
Curtis S

Keeping Kids Safe Online: Part 3 (Content Filters)

As I previously mentioned, I initially tried to allow my son some freedom by having an Internet connected PC in his room. I thought I could properly monitor and control his access using some of the popular Internet child safety tools that are readily available and heavily marketed.

I tried Net Nanny, CYBSERSitter, and finally settled on Norton Family Edition. Yet as you'll see none of them worked completely.  (Now granted I haven't done a new evaluation in the past couple of years as to the improvements made to these products but my search in prior years was pretty exhaustive.)

Website Blocking / Content Filtering

The first thing you're trying to prevent is having your child inadvertently or on purpose visit websites they shouldn't (adult oriented sites, blood and gore, etc.) These programs attempt to solve the problem a few different ways.

Rating Systems like ICRA are one attempt by the industry to control adult content. Web site authors must include special tags/keywords on their website. The safety programs then block access to any site with these tags. This places the burden on the web site author and inherently doesn’t work as it assumes porn companies are honorable and will always "tag" their content as adult.

A more promising method is Content Filtering whereby the safety programs attempt to block access to sites based on the site's content. This is accomplished a few different ways:

• URL filtering is where a particular URL or domain name is identified and/or categorized as an objectionable site.
• Keyword filtering is where certain words and phrases are used to trigger the blocking of web sites.  Such words might include "sex", "XXX", "porn", "gambling", etc.

• Dynamic content filtering is where each website's content is evaluated immediately before it is displayed.  Dynamic content filtering can use a myriad of ways to evaluate content; object analysis, keyword analysis, source of objects, link analysis, and image recognition. This is relatively new and unproven technology.

Truly a combination of all three is necessary but will never be completely accurate nor sufficient.

I think the following graphic tells the whole story. It's a review of the top selling Content Filters, if you look closely you'll notice something very interesting. Look at the last row, Filtering Effectiveness, note that NONE of them got a perfect 5 out of 5. So your child may still be exposed to undesirable content. The tools are basically admitting that their inherently flawed.

Email / Chat / Instant Messaging

As the statistics showed email is "old school" to most kids. Instead they rely heavily on Instant Messaging tools like Microsoft IM, AIM, Trillian, and the one my kid uses the most, Xfire. And they post messages back and forth on community sites like Facebook, MySpace, Xanga, LiveJournal, etc.

So how do you combat illicit behavior from this messaging tools and online communities? Well some of the filtering tools then and now support time limits on Internet usage, application blocking, etc. However, I found it to be a never ending battle. At the time Norton had controls for instant messenging programs from AOL, Microsoft and Yahoo. But it wasn't long till my kid switched to XFire and then Norton couldn't handle it. And I'm sure that as soon as they did then a new tool would be out and my kid would switch to it.

So I went back to the drawing board in search of simpler yet more comprehensive solution. Tomorrow I'll explain what I do now to control / monitor my children's Internet usage.

Curtis S 

Keeping Kids Safe Online: Part 2 (Statistics)

• 93% of all Americans between 12 and 17 years old use the Internet
• While adults still view e-mail as the must-have, "killer application" online, teens report that they view e-mail as something to use to talk to "old people”; Instead, teens prefer instant messaging — 75% of online teens — or about two-thirds of all teens — say they use IMs, compared to only 42% of online adults

• 50% of high school students "talk" in chat rooms or use instant messaging (IM) with Internet strangers
• 69% of teens regularly receive personal messages online from people they don't know and most of them don't tell a trusted adult about it
• One in five children who use computer chatrooms has been approached over the Internet by pedophiles
• 30% of teenage girls polled by the Girl Scout Research Institute said they had been sexually harassed in a chatroom. Only 7%, however, told their mothers or fathers about the harassment because they were worried that their parents would ban them from going online"

• 31% of 7th- to 12th-graders pretended to be older to get onto a website
• Only 25% of 7th- to 12th-graders with a computer at home say it has a filter or parental controls on it
• Nine out of 10 children aged between eight and 16 have viewed pornography on the Internet. In most cases, the sex sites were accessed unintentionally when a child, often in the process of doing homework, used a seemingly innocent sounding word to search for information or pictures

• 75% of girls say their parents have set up rules about online use, but most say parental involvement is limited to prohibitions such as "don't talk to strangers," and "don't give out personal information." (Though 57% say they follow parents' rules, 43% admit they don't.)
• Most girls say they can get around parents' rules; 86% say they can secretly chat, 57% can read parents' e-mail, and 54% can carry on a cyber love affair. Nearly half say they're able to set up an in-person meeting with an online friend (46%) and get into a porn site (42%)
• 38% of high school students sometimes hide their online activities from their parents
• 71% percent of teens have established online profiles (including those on social networking sites such as MySpace, Friendster and Xanga)
• Teens readily post personal info online. 64 percent post photos or videos of themselves, while more than half (58 percent) post info about where they live.
• Children aged seven to 17 who surf the net, 29% percent would freely give out their home address and 14% would freely give out their e-mail address if asked
• 20% of students in middle school as well as high school admit that they have met face-to-face with someone they first met on the Internet

Keeping Kids Safe Online: Part 1

Over the next few blog entries I'm going to depart from discussing leadership and technology discussions as it relates to business and instead focus on how they relate at home.    

News magazine shows like 60 Minutes, PrimeTime, and Dateline have been popular for many, many years. Sometimes they expose corruption in large companies or government and sometimes some helpful consumer hints from John Stossel. I stopped watching them when the murder mysteries and celebrity interviews dominated their line-up. They had this powerful medium and audience yet focused on gossip.

That's why I was so pleased to see the show "To Catch a Predator", they were finally doing something worthwhile with their airtime. "To Catch a Predator" is a disgusting display of humanity's worst in sin behavior yet it is one of the most important shows you'll ever watch.

The Show's Premise

NBC teams up with local law enforcement and a non-profit group called Perverted Justice. They setup in a home in a neighborhood that probably looks very much like the one you live in. One of them poses as a decoy in an Internet chat room, normally acting as a 13 year old male or female. It doesn't take long for an adult, anywhere from 25 to 75 years old, to contact the decoy attempting to strike up a chat conversation. In just a few minutes the adult predator turns the conversation to sex and lewd acts. I won't go into it details but there are things discussed that only the devil himself could imagine.

In order to help with prosecution the decoy asks the predator to bring specific items over to the house such as a cherry limeade or a particular flavor of ice cream. When the predator arrives at the home they always bring the specific items. The items, along with the log of the chat discussion, makes it easy for the police to show their intent to solicit sex from a minor. Once the predator is in the door then Chris Hansen and the cameras come out to confront the pervert. Amazingly very few run or hide their face. They admit their wrong and make up endless excuses or wild promises that this is their first time to do this.

The predators range from 25 to 75 years old, always men (regardless of whether the decoy was male or female). They are blue collar, white collar, single, married, repairmen, programmers (one from Nickelodeon!) and even pastors and rabbis! Ugh. Even more amazing is that many are familiar with the show or were even caught before on prior episodes, yet the lure of their deviant behavior overrides common sense.

Why is this show important?

Well apart from the obvious (they are catching and prosecuting bad guys) it is educating the public (you) as to the very real danger that exists on the Internet. If you have a child (typically between 8 - 16 years old) with unmonitored access to the Internet then you might as well be driving them up and down the red light district with a "For Sale" sign on them. Children do not need to look for trouble on the Internet, the predators are looking for them.  

If you haven't watched "To Catch a Predator" then you need to watch at least one episode. It will scare you into action at home to put controls on your child's Internet usage. Fortunately there are ways to keep your kids safe online while allowing them a few freedoms as well. Over the next few blog entries I'll explain my personal experience and learnings as a father of two children (11 and 15) fighting the battle of the Internet in our home.

Curtis S

Facing a Mid-Life (Technology) Crisis

For the first 10yrs of my career I was a programmer and an application architect working with a wide array of technologies like C++, Java, Unix, Windows, Oracle, SQL Server, WebSphere, WebLogic, IIS, etc., etc. I had a voracious appetite for technology. However, over time, I moved into broader leadership roles and before I knew it my technology life was passing before my eyes. Here at Fellowship Technologies I have a wide range of teams that report to me, from Data Center Operations to Customer Services to Professional Services and Product Development. Time and other factors preclude me from exercising my tech skills as heavily as I did in the past. When I recently celebrated my 3rd anniversary at Fellowship Tech I realized that I may have indeed become... dare I say it?... a "Generalist".

I believe I'm still an effective leader. My background in SaaS technologies and architectures allows me to challenge the team's ideas and help to ensure we've arrived at the best possible solutions. Solutions that serve our current customers well and scales effectively and efficiently in the future. But thankfully both for my team, and for our customers, I am no longer making the daily, low level, technology decisions, I leave those to our experts.

Here are a few of the warning signs of a Mid-Life Technology Crisis (perhaps you to are exhibiting a few of these):

10. You find yourself writing down terms and acronyms used by the team during a meeting and then secretly Googling them later to figure out what they mean

9. You use a formerly relevant TLA (Three Letter Acronym) such as "DTD" and your team begins to refer to you as "Grandpa"

8. You have to get assistance to setup a blog reader because it now suddenly seems as difficult as it is for your Dad to set the time on a VCR

7. Your iPod is filled with PodCasts of the McLaughlin Group and episodes of The Office

6. You get a new laptop and after your install Microsoft Office you realize that you really don't need to install anything else to do your job effectively

5. You begin to lower your screen resolution rather than raise it so you can read the text without squinting

4. When the team was speaking about Scrum and Agile you pipe in with a comment about Rugby

3. You prefer to be in bed eating a toaster pizza watching The Colbert Report rather than staying up till 2am watching Microsoft's Channel 9 vlogs

2. You have to get your teen age son to help "fix" your computer

1. Pulling an "all-nighter" now means you didn't have to get up out of bed to go to the bathroom

I'm clearly exhibiting all 10 of these behaviors so I'm now focusing on other skills like leadership, team building, vision casting, metrics, best practices, etc. I will miss being in the thick of technology things but I'm finding that these new areas are just as challenging and fun.

Curtis S

Top 10 (+1) Email Etiquette Pet Peeves

1) Email signatures that do not include a contact phone number.
What if I want to reply to your email with a quick phone call from my office or better yet from my cell phone? If you fail to include your number I have to close the email, switch over to my contacts, search for your name, oops, realize you're not in my contacts, search for your web address or use desktop search to find your number.  Arrggghh!!! You get the picture.

2) REPLY TO email signatures that do not include a contact phone number.
Same reasons as #1.

3) Sending a task oriented email primarily to one person but including others in the TO line rather than the CC line.
When you send a task oriented email to multiple people then you have essential assigned each of them a task to do. (e.g., "Where is the document reflecting our new pricing plan?") So when there are multiple Type A personalities in the TO line then often times they will each reply to the email.  So little time in the day, why waste it like this? Send your emails to one person and CC the others when an FYI is needed.

4) Replying to an email with multiple people on the TO line but NOT selecting REPLY ALL.
If pet peeve #3 occurs and you have the answer then REPLY ALL so that others also do not spend time replying as well. For an exception to rule see pet peeve #5.

5) If the email is addressed to a group like "_EVERONE" then never, ever, hit REPLY ALL.
No explanation is needed, this one's obvious. Special note: If some yahoo does REPLY ALL to the group address then please, please do not REPLY ALL again correcting them! I've seen this happen 100 times in a large company. Insanity.

6) Using Outlook's Stationary or any sort of background image on your emails.
Again, no explanation needed.  This is so 80s.

7) Forgetting to send the attachment but then sending a new email with the just the attachment instead of replying to your original email.
If you send a new email with the missing attachment (and no other text) then I have to keep 2 emails so I know what is required of me to do with the attachment. We all forget to send attachments from time to time, just reply to the original email with the missing attachment and a curt "Sorry", we'll know what to do from there.

8) Sending an attachment over 2MB.
No I'm not on dial-up but we all have corporate accounts with size limits on mail files. So all you've accomplished is cause the rest of my emails to bounce until I clean out this big one.

9) Replying to an email with the nothing but the words "Thanks" or "OK".
This is equally annoying in Instant Messenger. I think I'm done with the conversation and "beep" a new email or IM msg comes across blinking "thanks". It's just one more interruption. I know you're a nice person, I trust that you're thankful, let's leave it at that.

10) CC-ing a peer or superior on an already existing email chain.
There aren't too many legitimate reasons to do this other than to raise awareness to an issue and perhaps intimidate the other party. Try to work out your difference between yourselves first.

11) BONUS item. TYPING YOUR EMAILS IN ALL CAPS.
In case you haven't used email since 1975 then I'll let you in on a little secret, typing in ALL CAPS means that you're SHOUTING!

These are just a few of the top ones that sprung to mind. Do you agree with the list? Are there other common ones that annoy you?

Curtis S

No means ‘No’ when referring to Tomatoes

Yesterday I pulled into a fast-food joint for a burger (yes, I know those things will kill you). While my stomach was empty I was full of optimism as I carefully placed my order through the faceless drive-in. "A number one with cheese, no tomato, and a Dr. Pepper". The person repeated the order back to me "A number one with cheese, no tomato, and a Dr. Pepper". I naively thought to myself "They're going to get my order correct!" I pulled forward, paid for my order, and they handed me the sack with the receipt attached. I rarely ever check the receipt but I did this time and wasn't disappointed. The order clearly stated "minus Tomato".

I was brimming with pleasure and satisfaction as I reached in to get my burger. What's that? It feels too big, too heavy. Oh no, not again... Yep, you guessed it. I lifted the bun to find three large slices of a tomato sunk deeply into the cheese and soaked into the bun. My spirits fell, I was dejected, wronged once again. What started with such hope and promise ended just like every other trip I've made through a drive-thru. I like tomatoes as much as George Dubya likes broccoli. 

Why do we even bother customizing our order at a drive thru? Why are these businesses and employees so indifferent? Is it a lack of training? A lack of knowledge or tools? Or a lack of motivation and emotional connectedness to their work?

Do you feel under qualified for your work? I do. Could you use more training? I could. Do you believe that more money for the proper tools, software and personnel is needed? I do. However, if you think about it, we'll always feel that way regardless of what opportunities or resources are at our disposal.

What we need most of all is to remember who we work for. Regardless of whether you flip burgers, gather trash, write software, lead people, teach children, or preach the word - we all should work as if we're working for the Lord not for men. God expects our best, our very best. I believe it's a good thing and a God thing to sweat the small details. Seek out excellence not just enough to get by.

This is one of the reasons I love working for Fellowship Tech. Sure there are times we must compromise, make concessions, or we fall short of our goals or others' expectations. However, our standards remain high. We have 100s of areas in which we are seeking to improve but I can assure you that our staff is committed to excellence, committed to a Colossians 3:23 attitude.

So next time leave off the tomato, go the extra mile, strive for excellence.

God bless,

Curtis S
 

Dynamic Church 07 - Some well deserved appreciation!

Our first annual Dynamic Church conference was last Thursday through Saturday.  We had an awesome time getting to meet and to serve over 330 of our clients and prospects. We were very blessed to have individuals from as far away as Alaska, New York, Florida, Hawaii, and the United Kingdom come visit our conference. We learned a great deal about what worked and more importantly what didn't work. We look forward to receiving feedback from all who attended so that next year is bigger and better.

A well deserved "Thank You" is due to the many, many people who helped make our inaugural event a success.

• Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, who through him all things are possible
• Special thanks to our conference committee Rick Chatham, Tammy Polk, Tara Coulson, Carol Dacy, and Ricardo Murillo; Their tireless dedication to details and perfection made this event possible
• The entire Fellowship Technologies staff for their participation in everything from set-up, tear-down, training classes, session presenters, facilitators, etc. and most of all making our attendees feel welcomed and loved
  
• The professional staff and excellent facilities provided by the Embassy Suites Hotel and Conference center
• The very professional work of Alford Media Services for the lighting, sound, and staging for the keynotes and breakout sessions
• The wonderful praise and worship music of Eric Orson and Jessica Morton, accompanied by members of the Fellowship Church praise band and our very own Daniel Reznicek on keyboard
• For Fellowship Church and Prestonwood Baptist Church for hosting tours of their awesome facilities
• Shepherd Boy Creative for the graphic design work used in all of the conference materials, website, and t-shirts
• Tony Morgan for delivering an awesome keynote on the Top 10 Stupid Technology Mistakes that Churches Make
  
• For each of our external session presenters: Terry Storch, Andrea Leslie, David Morrison, Joy Floyd, Tony Knight, Ryan Farmer, Eric Jaffe, Steve Durie, Susan Griffiths, Julanne Johnson, J.Mac Brown, Ron Robison, and Bob VanDerPloeg
• For our platinum sponsors identiMetrics, LifeTouch, and PhoneTree
• And our many other sponsors SecureSearch, Partners in Church Consulting, The Church Law Group, SunPro Kiosks, POS Computer Corp, Cornerstone Cabinetry and GateKeepers

We are already making plans for Dynamic Church 08. We look forward to seeing you there!

Just say ‘No’ to the ‘Yes-man’

I wanted to follow-up an earlier blog by reminding everyone not to surround themselves with "Yes-men" (or women). You need individuals within your core leadership team that will challenge your ideas. Not to the point of being disruptive or insubordinate, but in way that forces you to think through a variety of scenarios and possible outcomes as a result of your decision. You still won't make the right decision every time, but you're far more likely to have positive results if you seek out the honest advice/counsel of others.    

If everyone around you always agrees with every decision you make then that's a huge problem. Tough decisions often result in change and change is tough. If you run your organization like a dictator and surround yourselves with "bobble-heads", always nodding in agreement then, you're likely headed towards a major fall.

Sometimes when trying to make a point in a blog you struggle to find the perfect illustration. Well yesterday this story hit the news wires and I couldn't have said it better myself.

The headline says it all "Teachers stage fake gun attack on kids".

My first thought was how could a group of qualified 6^th grade teachers decide this was a good idea?  The keyword being "group". I do not know the teachers involved but I would think it's safe to assume that this is a clear case of "Yes-man" or "GroupThink" in which a strong leader devises a plan and everyone around that person simply nods their head in Orwellian obedience

Do yourself a favor and surround yourself with other strong leaders, if only to save yourself, and your organization, from a big mistake.

Curtis S


 

Top 10 Reasons to attend Dynamic Chuch 07

Here are the top 10 reason to join us at our first annual Dynamic Church User and Developer Conference that will be held May 17 – 19th, 2007.

1. Meet the entire Fellowship Technologies staff; Interact with the awesome people we have on staff behind the scenes in our Data Center, Development, Support, Reporting, and other departments
2. Interact with staff from some of the fastest growing and most dynamic churches in the country such as Mariners Church, Prestonwood, Southeast Christian, Newspring, Grange Community, New Birth MBC, and many, many more!
3. Attend one of 18 of our most requested training classes available in an instructor led, hands-on environment
4. Yours truly, Curtis Simmons, will speak about Fellowship Technologies product announcements and roadmap
5. Select from 6 targeted tracks covering 46 different sessions where dynamic speakers from Fellowship Technologies, partner churches, and industry experts will share their stories, thoughts and best practices
6. Meet and learn about other churches in your geographic region and how to form a Regional User Group
7. Special keynote from Tony Morgan of Newspring Church; Tony will challenge us to consider the foundations for innovation in the local church
8. Attend one of 12 unconference sessions where you get the pick the topic
9. Jeff Hook, CEO and President of Fellowship Technologies, will address some of the challenges faced by Dynamic Churches today
10. Learn how to MAXIMIZE the full potential of Fellowship One at your church!
    
    
11. And don't forget the unique things that define Texas... Big Tex, Big Cars, BBQ, and Shopping!
    

Early bird pricing for the conference and the hotel ends April 16th so make plans now to attend this exciting event. Registration details, full conference schedule, and hotel information are available at http://www.FellowshipTech.com/Conference/

At your service... 3 years and counting!

It is an exciting time to work in the church software business and I can think of no greater place to work than here at Fellowship Technologies (FT). The leading-edge technologies, the daily challenges, our partner churches whom we willfully serve, the lives impacted positively by our efforts, and most of all the awesome collective of 50+ individuals (friends, partners, brothers-in-Christ) that collectively form FT. Each person is unique; they each came from different places with different backgrounds and different experiences. Yet, God led each of them here to utilize their God-given talents for His purpose to serve the local church.

We are grateful for His many blessing these past three years and none more so than the relationships we've formed along the way. I want to take a moment to recognize some of the individuals who recently celebrated their 3^rd anniversary with FT.

Jeff Hook, CEO and President
Anniversary date: Jan 1, 2004 (Actually many months prior to launch)
Jeff's leadership and vision for FT has led us to the heights of where we are today. We are thankful that Jeff was obedient to God's calling for his life in 2003... to form Fellowship Technologies.

Rick Chatham, Founder / Director of Strategic Initiatives
Anniversary date: Jan 1, 2004 (Actually several years prior to launch)
Thankfully Rick felt led to resign from his corporate job and join the staff of Fellowship Church in 2001 to embark on an ambitious development project along with Terry Storch called "Switch". Without Rick's initial leap of faith the company may never have been born. Rick now leads a number of strategic projects for FT such as Data Warehouse reporting and the Dynamic Church User and Developer Conference.

Curtis Harris, Director of Product Management
Anniversary date: Jan 1, 2004 (Actually many months prior to launch)
Curtis joined the staff of Fellowship Church to redesign and launch their new website leading some to call Fellowship Church the "dot-com" church. Curtis eventually lent his skills to the "Switch" team (the original name of Fellowship One) and joined their efforts full-time. Curtis now leads the Fellowship One product strategy and design.

Daniel Reznicek, Senior Network Engineer
Anniversary date: Jan 1, 2004 (Actually many months prior to launch)
Daniel is one of the smartest people I've ever worked with. It was through his herculean efforts and considerable skill that we moved into our current data center, ThePlanet.com, in early 2004. Daniel continues to play a significant role in the daily management and monitoring of our production and development infrastructure.

Tara Coulson, Education Services
Anniversary date: Jan 19, 2004 (A few days prior to launch)
Tara joined the company just a few days prior to the company's launch to author the product help files and associated documentation. Tara developed 90% or more of the product documentation that exists today. She also assists in the development of release notes, product demos, training videos, online training classes, on-site training and consulting, and assisted with our website and many of our marketing materials. We are thankful for her incredible talents and commitment to FT. Also, Tara and her husband were recently blessed by a new addition to their family; they formally adopted a baby girl aptly named "Grace" on March 14th. Congratulations Tara! 

Nick Floyd, Product Development
Anniversary date: Feb 2, 2004
Nick is as talented of a developer as you'll ever find and an emerging leader within FT. You would be hard pressed to find someone more passionate than Nick about the Lord, his family, and his work. Nick is the embodiment of Colossians 3:23, he is a daily inspiration to us all.

Lance Dacy, Manager, Support and Reporting Services
Anniversary date: Feb 9, 2004
Lance joined FT as a report developer and has never looked back. He has served FT in just about as many different roles as Tara. Lance's servant leadership is his greatest strength and asset. Lance currently leads our Support Central and Report Central departments.

Matt McMaster, Delivery Services
Anniversary date: Mar 16, 2004
Matt is what some might consider the ideal new hire, he initially joined FT without even taking a salary! Thankfully for him we soon began to pay his salary and he's been a blessing to us and our partner churches ever since. Matt is a training video waiting to happen. If something odd or unusual ever happens while on the road serving a church then it has happened to Matt. He not only makes us laugh but he has made us and our partner churches more successful.

Chad Meyer, Product Development
Anniversary date: April 7, 2004
Chad quietly comes to work each day and lends his considerable programming talents to our product. However, we all know Chad is not always so quiet, he is an awesome musician (plays lead guitar in a local band), he is an avid online gamer, and he beats us all at foosball any time he wants. An awesome attribute of Chad is his humbleness, I honestly do not believe he realizes how talented he truly is.

Fellowship Technologies now relies upon many, many others in addition to these nine individuals but without the faith, vision, and services of this initial group none of this would have been possible.

Curtis S

Kissing butt or managing up?

Companies have become accustomed to using some rather unfortunate words when describing accountability relationships. They use terms like:

• Subordinate :: Superior
• Worker :: Boss
• Underling :: Supervisor
• Minion :: Chief (hopefully not many use this combination)

Given that terms like these are used to describe accountability within organizations it is no surprise that our culture has devised a number of crude and derogatory terms when describing unhealthy accountability relationships. I'm sure you know the common ones like "yes man", "butt kisser", and the old classic... "brown noser". Despite the crude implications of these terms I believe they're an apt description when the relationship is based purely upon works and shallow praise rather than mutual trust and respect.

If you do not trust, respect, or even like the person to whom you are accountable (e.g., Boss, Superior, Supervisor) yet you purposely spend time with them to garner their praise then I must assume that this is an unpleasant adventure. It's probably distasteful and in a word... stinks.  (Hence, then term "brown noser")

However, it doesn't have to be this way. An often overlooked but very important aspect of employment is effectively "managing up". (Link 1, Link 2, Link 3) "Managing up" means that you establish an ongoing, healthy and productive line of communication with whom you are accountable that yields the best results for you and your "boss". The working environment and relationship is as much YOUR responsibility as it is for your "boss".

It is YOUR responsibility to ‘manage' the person to whom you're accountable by explaining the following things to them:

• Your career goals, aspirations, and expectations
• Your strengths AND your weaknesses
• How you best receive constructive criticism
• How to express praise and affirmation to you
  (similar to the love languages in a marriage relationship)
• The type of work environment in which you are the most effective
  (interactive or private, quiet or boisterous, slow-paced or rapid change, etc.)
• The tools and information you believe you need to be the most effective and efficient
• Proactively sharing roadblocks, frustrations, and disappointments
  (Far too often you may be feel frustrated yet your "boss" literally has no idea; The people you report to may be many things but they are NEVER mind-readers; It is far more likely they want to work with you to resolve the issues if they only knew the level and source of your frustrations)

One final thought, when expressing these things be articulate and specific. Simply stating that you're unhappy is not enough information to enact the change you're expecting.

Curtis S

Don’t commoditize what God made unique

Commonly leaders refer to (and treat) individuals within organizations as "resources" as if they're a commodity like grain or corn. You'll hear management refer to their people as their "most valuable resource". They establish Human "Resource" departments. They also refer to them as a "work"-force or "labor"-force. 

Is it any wonder then that the individuals in these organizations begin to feel de-humanized and commoditized?

Don't commoditize what God made unique. As a leader you must establish personal relationships with each of the individuals within your direct circle of influence. Each person that works for you or with you is a unique creation of God. Each one has different interests, feelings, likes and dislikes. Each one prefers adoration and affirmation in a distinctive manner. Some like hand-written notes, others like verbal words of encouragement. Each one receives and responds to constructive criticism and correction in a different way.

One of the best things our new HR Director (yes, through tradition we still use the term ‘Human Resources') introduced into our culture at Fellowship Tech was an individual survey that captured information about each person's favorite colors, foods, music, etc. It asked them for their preferred method of receiving feedback and affirmation. She distributed the completed surveys to each of the team leads for those under their span of care.

Without this information I would never have know that someone from my team loved U2 or another liked Cherry Garcia ice cream. Many preferred verbal public affirmation for a job well done over a financial gift. I've found the information to be invaluable. It allows me to provide feedback to my individual team members in a way that matches their uniqueness.

Of course, a survey can not replace or supplant "quality" time spent with each individual. Sitting down over coffee or lunch to patiently listen to their frustrations and their successes is a must. If they stop by your office unexpectedly, it's best that you turn towards them and look them directly in their eyes while they speak rather than allowing your eyes and attention to dart back-n-forth between your computer monitor, blackberry, or your watch.

These things may seem self evident but too often our actions betray our intent. You may have intended to listen patiently but your body language indicated differently. I know I've been guilty of this far too many times to count.

So take to the time to get to know the people on your team. Each one is a unique child of God and needs to be treated as such.