Leave It Behind > Brian Bailey

Two things on Alito

President Bush nominated Judge Samuel Alito for the Supreme Court today. I thought Harriet Miers was a poor choice and was glad that she withdrew her name from consideration. My initial impression is that Bush has selected a great candidate based on his background and judicial philosophy, but it's too early to say much more than that.

The criticism of Alito as too conservative strikes me as odd. First, Bush's 2000 and 2004 campaigns were remarkably consistent on this - he said over and over that he would appoint conservative judges in the mold of Thomas and Scalia. Second, I find it hard to believe that Alito is any more conservative than Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who was approved 96-3, is liberal. Elections matter.

Those weren't my two things, though. I noticed two strange items over the past month that I haven't read much about. First, we shouldn't have been surprised by the Miers choice - Bush has a habit of selecting the person he chose to head-up the selection process. If you recall, that's precisely how Dick Cheney became the Vice-Presidential nominee. If I was a potential presidential candidate hoping for his endorsement in 2008, I'd sign-up for the job of vetting Bush's potential successor right now!

Second, when the complaints about Miers began pouring in, there were a number of unnamed White House officials who let it be known that many of the candidates conservatives wanted had declined to be considered. In other words, the best options simply weren't options.

Based on this weekend's list of finalists and the ultimate choice, that appears to have been absolutely false.

Fruits, flakes and nuts

I love going to a church that cares so much about health and nutritution that we have vegan-friendly snacks for our volunteers! I had my first taste last week and now I'm addicted (yes, I really was volunteering). If you haven't tried any of the healthy snacks from Mrs. May's Naturals, head out to your nearest Target, Sam's Club, or health food store and give them a try. They are not only fantastic, but about as pure and healthy as you can find on a grocery store shelf.

Mrs. May's offers a long list of seed and nut based options, including Black Sesame, Pumpkin, and Sunflower. Here's what the site has to say: All Mrs. May's products are vegan, non-GMO, cholesterol  free, dairy free, wheat free, gluten free, and contain no artificial colors or flavors. And our ingredients lists are short and sweet!

Now I have to find someplace that sells them in bulk or start volunteering a lot more!

And since a lot of people read this site and have absolutely no interest in my snack recommendations, Mrs. May's also has a website worth looking at - I especially like their product pages.

Sorry, Comcast, the Cluetrain has left the station.

Here's something funny. My Comcast cable bill has one large block called For Your Information where they can communicate to their customers. What's in it this month?

WARNING Theft of Cable TV is a state offense. Please call 1-888-824-8041 to report cable theft or email Dallas_Security@cable.comcast.com.

Wow! My cable bill wants to make sure I know that it's illegal to steal cable. The company has one opportunity to communicate with me, their customer, and the best they can come up with is a suspicion-filled threat.

No friendly verbiage about how much they appreciate me as a customer. No talk about recent improvements or coming features. And absolutely no reward for ongoing loyalty. The only way I'm reminded that another year has passed is when my bill goes up. Try to imagine this...

We've noticed that this month marks your 3rd year as a Comcast customer. Please accept this $10 credit as our way of saying thanks! And as a loyal customer, we want to hear how we can improve your Comcast experience. Visit our online forum where you can discuss your ideas and concerns with other customers and the Comcast leadership team.

The worst thing any organization (from companies to churches to political parties) can do is take its customers or members for granted.

I honestly have never seen a company more clueless about customer respect and retention. Verizon is flooding this area with their new FIOS fiber-based internet and phone service. They are offering a substantially better and faster connection for less than Comcast, in addition to a much-improved customer experience. I switched without hesitating, as have most of the people in my neighborhood, and yet Comcast has not made any effort to keep us. Even when I called to cancel, there wasn't a single attempt to convince me to stay.

And they must know what's coming. Verizon recently received a license to offer cable television over FIOS in Texas. Within six months, I expect we'll be a Comcast-free home.

Unplug

It's Friday, so why not spend a few minutes making the world a better place? Today's project is church website graphics.

Church websites are all about getting people involved with and connected to the local church. You'll find these two phrases on many church websites: Connect and Plug In. So far, so good.

Webmasters, designers, and web teams across the country are tasked with the best way to visually represent these concepts. And since most of us are technical people at heart, what do we come up with?

Cords and plugs.

Yes, if many of us were honest, we would admit that we like to represent the heart and passion of the local church with stuff you can buy at Fry's.

Before you think I'm talking about other churches, check out this page. We didn't even find a good Powerbook image.

And it doesn't take long to find other examples.

Tracy Barnes, one of our great pastors here at FC, was the first to open my eyes to this. He thought that electronic equipment might not be the best way to represent relationships and life change. I, on the other hand, thought it looked cool. I know better now. What do these graphics say to a single mother or someone looking to be part of a community?

Web teams have to resist the temptation to design sites and graphics that appeal primarily to people like us.

So, by the end of Monday, I promise to replace our technology equipment action shots with something a bit more warm and inviting. Anyone else want to help make the web a better place? Post your comments and any links you have to other examples.

TypePad Update

Quick follow-up on my post on TypePad performance problems. First, a TypePad employee was kind enough to comment on the post, asking for patience and apologizing for the problems. Much appreciated!

Second, Mena Trott posted a response from Ben on her blog. Ben walks us through the problems and how they have developed over the past month. It's a familiar technology tale - a datacenter move accompanied by new hardware to keep up with fast-paced growth. Unexpected problems arise that suddenly snowball in completely non-sensical ways. You know you're in the middle of one of these trials when you start using phrases like, "We've never had a problem with that server" or "Why would that fail now?"

Ben admits they should have been more public about the problems and provided details and updates sooner. Technology people are so passionate about solving problems, and so optimistic about a solution being within reach, that it's very hard to stop to communicate during what seems like a never-ending emergency. Having been in similar situations (not in scale, of course), they have my sympathy.

I hope they continue to make progress and start providing ongoing updates and behind-the-scenes details. The more information you provide, the more your customers feel like it's a shared struggle, offering assistance and cheering your victories. It's a lesson even a company built on blogs has to learn.

Double, Double TypePad Trouble

I have used TypePad for nearly two years and have loved its power and ease of use. In fact, all of the personal and professional blogs I am involved with are TypePad sites. When people ask me to recommend a blogging tool, my first answer is always TypePad, unless they just want to experiment for free. I love Six Apart and have been consistently amazed by their customer service.

The last two months, however, have severely tested this loyalty. The service has grown increasingly slow, sometimes to the point of being unusable. I have had situations where I had to spend over five minutes just to publish one post. Using any of the administrative tools (includes stats) involves numerous delays. This slow down has been accompanied by actual downtime where the service and our sites are completely unavailable.

No one expects perfection, but TypePad is presented as a premium blog service and charges more than most competitors. With the problems being widespread, and apparently including data loss, I would expect an upfront attempt to address this, including what the problem is, what's being done to fix it, when will it be solved, and an apology for the problems. Extending current subscriptions or offering a credit would also be a positive step.

Obviously, rapid growth and great success often lead to growing pains, but that doesn't change the fact that I'm paying for a service that's not reliable. For the first time, I'm investigating alternatives. Hopefully, we'll see some improvements soon.

Gifts for Kids

Since Ben's birthday is in September, we get to sample some potential Christmas gifts early. This year, we have been truly amazed by three presents. If you face the challenge of pleasing a 7-12 year old this winter, these may help.

Lego Star Wars [view]

This computer game (Mac, PC, console) is unbelievably fun to play. If you know anyone with even a small love for Legos and Star Wars, they will not be able to resist this. The game has a great sense of humor, a very unique look, and is simple and intuitive. It's also a blast to play - listening to Ben and his friends laughing is so much fun.

Ben dedicated a month of his life to it and loved every minute of it. A second person can join the game at any time, so Ben and I have saved the Republic many times together.

Crazy Machines [view]

This thinking game just came out (Mac, PC). It's like your own physics lab full of over 100 puzzles to solve. You can also create your own puzzles and make them as crazy as you like. Everything is built with real objects, like basketballs, buckets, dominoes, light bulbs, and wood stumps. The graphics are outstanding and everything behaves very realistically. We've only done the first five puzzles, but they've really made us think, while still being very fun.

Making Time for God [view]

Lori and I spent a long time looking for a family devotional, but never got excited by the usual suspects. We wanted something we could read after dinner that we would all enjoy. We were looking for a well-written book that would inspire questions and conversations. We couldn't be happier with this book.

Each day has a verse, a couple of excellent paragraphs that expound on it and apply it to our daily lives, and a simple, beautiful prayer. The book doesn't talk down to kids and is a pleasure to read for all of us. We usually have each person read one of the three sections (yet another reason why three really is the magic number!). We've had some very interesting conversations and all of us learn something each time.

I hope these spark some fun ideas for your shopping season!

Weekend Reading

Time Magazine > How Apple Does It

On employees as evangelists: "It’s almost eerie: Apple employees all like one another, and they have a strong sense that they are the chosen of the earth, and they’re not going to be a jerk about it, but all others who dwell on this mortal coil are missing out by not working here."

On Jobs: "Jobs has a great native sense of design and a knack for hiring geniuses, but above all, what he has is a willingness to be a pain in the neck about what matters most to him."

On being obsessive: "One reason Apple makes its own hardware and software is that when Jobs goes to the trouble of creating a piece of software, he doesn’t want it running on hardware built by a bunch of dudes he doesn’t know and can’t fire."

Rolling Stone > Bono: The Interview Excerpt (and Podcast)

On coming of age: "I was praying to a God I didn't know was listening."

On church communities turning inward: "But it got a little too intense, as it always does; it became a bit of a holy huddle. If you were going to study the teaching, it demanded a rejection of the world. Even then we understood that you can't escape the world, wherever you go."

Ob belief: "If I could put it simply, I would say that I believe there's a force of love and logic in the world, a force of love and logic behind the universe. And I believe in the poetic genius of a creator who would choose to express such unfathomable power as a child born in "straw poverty"; i.e., the story of Christ makes sense to me. As an artist, I see the poetry of it. It's so brilliant. That this scale of creation, and the unfathomable universe, should describe itself in such vulnerability, as a child. That is mind-blowing to me."

On scripture: "I don't read it as a historical book. I don't read it as, "Well, that's good advice." I let it speak to me in other ways. They call it the rhema. It's a hard word to translate from Greek, but it sort of means it changes in the moment you're in. It seems to do that for me."

Employee or Evangelist?

In my posts about our two open web positions at Fellowship, I have failed to emphasize that membership is part of the deal. Most of the time we will only interview people who are already members, but occasionally we will consider people who feel called to the church as well as the position. Obviously, this whole discussion assumes the person has a true heart for Christ and reaching the lost.

This has provoked some interesting comments from people who think that it is strange to expect someone to leave their church for a job. You'll find my answers in the thread, but the general idea is that this is a ministry, not a job. You need to be truly connected to the life-change that is happening all around you. You need to see the connection between the weekend and what we do everyday.

Could a staff member be effective and not be part of FC? Of course. Could they be as effective as someone with similar skills who is part of the day-to-day life of the church? Absolutely not.

Though this presents serious challenges during the hiring process, life is too short and this work too demanding to not pursue people who are as passionate about FC as they are about what they do.

So, here's the question. Many of you work at other churches, both large and small. Is Fellowship unique in this? Does your church hire people who are not members and are not interested in becoming members? I know that some churches have one standard for people in front-line ministry and another for support staff who work behind-the-scenes (of course, I have a biased view - I think of web work as a creative, artistic endeavor, not support). I'd love to hear what you do and what you've learned from your experiences.

But this question does not just involve the church world. If Scoble wasn't passionate about Microsoft and it's products, if he in fact preferred Apple hardware and software, could he still do his job? Maybe. Would he be even half as good at what he does? No way. [Quick side note: I would love to have his title - Technical Evangelist. Perfect!]

I imagine that corporate cultures vary quite a bit in this. Apple strikes me as someplace where the majority of its employees think of it as a mission more than a job. And I think this is reflected in what they produce.

Do GM employees drive Hondas? Do Coke employees prefer Pepsi? Do Fidelity employees use E*Trade when they go home? Obviously many do. And, of course, the best people, like Scoble, love to learn from competitors and give them full credit for their successes. We're not looking for people who ignore the rest of the world, and we constantly learn from other churches (and sometimes companies as well).

But I think every organization wants people who see themselves as evangelists, not employees.

Web 2.0 and Church 2.0

We're looking for two talented, driven, and visionary people to add to our small web team. Are you someone who is passionate about web design, code, and the local church? We have two positions available - designer and developer.

What does Web 2.0 look like in the local church? What does the next-generation church look like online? Let's find out!

Do you love PHP, CSS, Linux and simple, friendly websites that make you smile? Join us! Your first job will be to help build a brand-new FellowshipChurch.com. We're still looking for volunteers and contractors as well, so even if you aren't available for full-time employment, we still want you to be part of the fun ahead.

Read all about the opportunities here.