Daily Concerns

Daily Concerns blog has moved to a new location

csimmons — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 06:08:00 GMT

The blog "Daily Concerns" has moved to a new location. The Experience Fellowship One site will be solely focused on product updates and best practices.

The new location for my personal blog is http://www.DailyConcern.com (no "s" at the end)

God bless,

Curtis S

Seeking Web Application Developer

Administrator — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 05:12:00 GMT

Churches need to reach people. Our software helps. Every day, we are building a better solution. And every day, we are becoming better at building it. Both are our calling and our passion. If that appeals to you, and you have the right skills and drive, you may enjoy being part of our team.

We develop in ASP .NET C# because we like its stability and scalability. But we are implementing and extending new frameworks that make development easier. However, the tools we use do not define us.

What does?

Understanding the web and how to use it. MVC. Elegant solutions to complex problems. Clean, semantic HTML with CSS. Agile methodologies that recognize building software is not like building anything else. REST. Knowing that quality is not something you can assure after development, it's an approach.

The bullets with all the acronyms are below, but the most important thing we need is a sharp, motivated, well-organized person who loves developing for the web as part of a team (and is good at it). You must bring something to the table technically. You are a professional. You seek the elegant solution. You strive for excellence over good enough. You innovate to solve common problems. We are still a small team, so your opinion will matter and you can help shape the direction of the product and the group.

Things we know and tools we use:

HTTP (and its 8 verbs), HTML, CSS, AJAX, XML, JavaScript, Prototype, Scriptaculous
MVC, REST, SQL, LINQ, TDD, OOD
IIS6/7, Visual Studio 2008, ASP.NET, ADO.NET, C#, SQL Server 2005
Agile software development (particularly Scrum)
Web standards and usability

Traits that will make you successful:

An attitude that any problem can be tackled
Self-motivated and accountable for your work
Analytical and good at solving problems on your own
Champion team success over individual accomplishment
Passionate about learning and continuous improvement
Excellent written and verbal communication skills
Desire to work in a positive Christian atmosphere
Degree in computer science or equivalent experience

If you have the skills and traits we're seeking then email your resumé to careers@fellowshiptech.com.

Go “offline” with ROOV

csimmons — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 15:12:00 GMT

Seems like everyone has to be “online” these days through gaming, virtual worlds, messaging, social networking, etc. I’m getting seriously concerned that the more connected we are the more disconnected we become from real, authentic relationships. That’s where ROOV comes in. Another social networking site? Seriously? Yes… but ROOV is different, much different. ROOV is an online community, yet their goal is get people together “offline”.

To quote Micah Davis, one of the ROOV.com founders, “We want to connect like-minded individuals together around their shared experiences and passions within their church and city. A ‘ROOV’ is centered on intentional conversations with the intent of getting people online to get them offline in real life gatherings”.

I love fresh ideas on an old concept! So whether your passion is overseas missions, hiking, basketball, music, or something else entirely, then there’s likely a ROOV being formed now. You can meet new friends with shared interests in your local community (that’s the key, it’s local) and then go offline to experience life together doing what you’re passionate about.

Check out this video to learn more, then visit ROOV.com to get connected now!

ROOV.com Stories from ROOV.com on Vimeo

Accelerate with Passion

Administrator — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 01:41:00 GMT

At our Dynamic Church Conference in May 2008 we were blessed to have Randy Draper, a business leader, lay leader at Fellowship Church, and dynamic speaker, give a keynote speech titled Accelerate with Passion. If you are feeling a bit down, stuck in a rut, frustrated with your current position or responsibilities, or just need a bit of inspiration then I strongly encourage you to take some time to watch Randy's message. I promise that you'll be challenged, inspired, and likely laugh out loud. Feel free to pass it along to others who might benefit from it as well.

I've embedded the video below, you can also access it www.vimeo.com/fellowshiptech (All of our future videos will be hosted at that address)

Enjoy and God bless!

Dynamic Church 08 - Randy Draper - Accelerate with Passion from Fellowship Technologies on Vimeo.

Don’t let the size of the fishbowl stunt your growth

csimmons — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 20:23:00 GMT

I'm frequently engaged in conversations about an individual's career through informal one-on-ones, mentor sessions, semi-annual checkpoints, or interviewing prospective new hires. Frequently one of the following statements are made -- "I feel limited in my current role", "I feel like I've accomplished all that I can in my job", "I need a new challenge", "Will this role allow me to grow?"

Taken by themselves the statements and questions are valid. There are times when someone is ready to be moved to a new role or promoted to new levels of responsibilities. There are legitimate instances where someone worked in a "dead end" job at their previous employer. However, it's been my experience that often the individuals making those statements and asking those questions are placing self-defined limitations on themselves based on the perceived scope and responsibilities of the role they were assigned within an organization. Or put another way, they are letting the size of the fishbowl (role) stunt their growth unnecessarily.

You shouldn't feel limited by your current role or situation. Joseph never let his circumstances or role limit what God had planned for him (Genesis 37 - 50). He didn't complain or "shut down" when things didn't go as planned. Instead, Joseph kept his eyes on the prize, working as for Lord and not men, and through prayer, hard work, dedication, loyalty, and a servant heart he was rewarded with new challenges and new responsibilities.

So I encourage you today to feel empowered in your role and responsibilities, whatever they may be. You can grow and make a positive and lasting impact regardless of your circumstances.

God bless,

Curtis S

DC08 Session and Training Materials are now available

csimmons — Fri, 23 May 2008 19:35:00 GMT

As promised at the DC08 conference, the vast majority of the session materials are now available at http://www.dynamicchurchconference.com/sessions Some are unavailable because they didn't use slides during their session (e.g., Terry Storch) or we don't have access to the files... yet (e.g., PhoneTree). If we receive any of the missing files we'll post them immediately.

The materials from the Hands-on Training labs are available to download from the Education tab on the Experience community site.

Please note that some of the presentation slides will make more sense than others. We coached our staff and external presenters to minimize their dependency on their slides' text and bullets. Instead we wanted them to focus on their presentation skills and content. As a result I think we had some of our best presentations to date. However, as a by-product, the slides often only contain an image or just a few words. Perhaps next year we can video each session but with over 100 sessions and training classes that task is a logistical and financial challenge.

The three keynote videos / materials will be available in a few weeks once we're complete with the video editing (takes time to combine 3 camera angles plus PowerPoint slides and product demos).

God bless,

Curtis S

OK Twitter, You Win

csimmons — Fri, 23 May 2008 16:04:00 GMT

Recently, I blogged that I just didn't "get" Twitter. To me it seemed filled with updates from individuals starring in their own movie "I can't decide between Fruity Pebbles and Cap'n Crunch this morning -- it's going to be a long day". I just didn't need that additional noise in my queue, even from close friends.

Then I attended Terry Storch's session at our DC08 conference. He opened my eyes to the legitimate business uses of Twitter. So who am I to question a Digerati? So despite my initial misgivings a number of the FT Staff are going to dip our toes in the Twit. There are many, but some notables to follow are:

Corporate - ExperienceF1, F1ProductMgmt, and F1Dev
Jeff Hook, CEO - JeffHook
Curtis Simmons, VP Operations - CurtisSimmons
Jeff Pelletier, VP Sales & Marketing - JeffPelletier

Here's a tutorial for the newbies - Twitter in Plain English. Now if Twitter will just stay up.

God bless,

Curtis S

Lovin’ every minute of it

csimmons — Sat, 17 May 2008 06:32:00 GMT

Wow, what an experience the last couple of days! We kicked off our 2nd annual Dynamic Church Conference on Thursday and we’ve had an awesome 48 hours. And there’s still more to experience on Saturday.

I love our company’s unrelenting focus on excellence in everything we do.

I love the 65 committed, talented, caring people that work at Fellowship Tech.

I love the 366 customers and prospects that attended this year’s events.

I love the 18 sponsors / partners we had in our Expo this year.

I love that one customer was so committed to coming to DC08 that when she accidently broke her leg the day before traveling to the conference, that she went to the doctor and STILL made her flight into Dallas!

I love that our customers are so understanding that when the hotel completely messed up the Internet connections on Thursday morning for our Hands-on Training labs but I still had one woman compliment us on how well the room looked!

I love that our technology operations team is filled with talented technologists – they went to Best Buy in a heartbeat, purchased miscellaneous hardware, then acted like MacGyver and fixed the Internet connection, bypassing the hotel’s inability to resolve it. It salvaged the hands-on labs the rest of the day.

I love that the sessions on our new RESTful API and Fellowship One Analytics were packed and got rave reviews. I believe that’s confirmation that we’re heading down the right path.

I love that I got to meet Cynthia Ware and Joe Suh in person. I also had the privilege of hearing them speak during each of their sessions. (I also love that Cynthia Ware is an OU grad – Boomer Sooner!)

I love that I got applause during my keynote - I love it even more that the applause had nothing whatsoever to do with me! They were praising the fine work of our development team – I was simply blessed to be the messenger.

I love that I got sit in Terry Storch’s session. He challenged us all to our core with some serious “What if” questions.

I love that our company had Lincoln Brewster play a concert for our staff and attendees at Celebration Covenant Church. The church leadership, staff, and volunteers at Celebration are amazing servant leaders! We are very grateful to the church for hosting the concert.

I love that I got to spend over an hour with Lincoln Brewster at dinner Friday evening, learning more about him and his family. What an awesome guy – so talented and so “others” focused.

I love that our staff came up with fresh ideas at the conference like Power Start, an FT Store for shirts and other goodies, new ways to honor our sponsors, etc. And that most of the ideas were a tremendous success!

I love the energy and vibe of our conference. It’s an honor to participate in such an exciting and uplifting event.

I love that I get the privilege of working at Fellowship Tech. It’s awesome!

God bless,

Curtis S

A Kiosk that keeps on Giving

csimmons — Mon, 12 May 2008 16:30:00 GMT

About 2 years ago a new idea and company was born. Marty Baker, the Senior Pastor of Stevens Creek Community Church in Augusta, GA, had the idea for a new way to donate money to the church. A way to reach out to his congregation in the way that they lived day to day. He realized that fewer and fewer individuals carried checkbooks or even cash. So "dropping their donation into the offering plate" was not something that many of the younger members could relate to. So Marty began to observe what people carried and used in their daily lives, at the grocery store, getting fast food, at the mall, etc. The answer was Debit Cards. Debit Cards look like, smell like, and feel like Credit Cards but the money is withdrawn directly from your bank account.

So Marty experimented with building what looks a little like Check-in Kiosks that accept Debit Cards, with an attached pin-pad device. A member or visitor to the church can walk up to the kiosk, select the Fund to which they want to donate, enter an amount, swipe their Debit Card, enter their 4 digit pin code, and get a tax deductible receipt. It's a little like a reverse ATM in your church. J A big benefit of using a pin debit is that that it only costs pennies per transaction.

Marty took the idea to market and launched a for-profit company under the name Secure Give about 18 - 24 months ago. As of May 2008, Secure Give has about 60 churches as clients, including organizations like the Pearl Harbor Memorial in Hawaii.

New Partnership

We became aware of Secure Give shortly after the company launched but we were admittedly skeptical about its acceptance in the church. In recent months we've seen a real increase in interest from our client base concerning Giving Kiosks so we're excited to announce our new partnership with Secure Give.

The integration is pretty straightforward. Secure Give is programming against our Data Exchange API to extract / synchronize the list of Individuals the church has stored within Fellowship One. The church member walks up to the kiosk and is prompted to enter their 10 digit telephone number. If their member record is found, then the member proceeds and donates money to one or more funds.

On a periodic basis (nightly / weekly) Secure Give will pass the contribution records back to Fellowship One. We will then programmatically import that data into Fellowship One, matching it against the appropriate member record. If a transaction being imported does not match a member record within Fellowship One (the member is new) then that giving record will be posted to the Fellowship One unmatched queue. The church will then manually match the record to an existing member or create a new household just as they would for any unmatched contribution.

Competitive Landscape

New competitors are cropping up in the giving kiosk area. One of particular interest is Secure Pointe. The idea and user interface is similar but their pricing and delivery model is significantly different than Secure Give. We have provided Secure Pointe all of the same information we gave Secure Give and expect their integration to be complete soon as well.

Contact Information

For more information please contact either of the two companies listed below. They will also be at our Dynamic Church Conference in May.

==================================

Secure Give
www.securegive.com
706-228-3210
info (at) securegive.com

==================================

Secure Pointe
www.securepointe.com
Don Brock, dbrock (at) securepointe.com
Office: 336.993.4111 x. 305

==================================

Remote Deposit Capture is coming to Fellowship One

csimmons — Sun, 11 May 2008 15:14:00 GMT

We’re pleased to announce our newest business partner, Profit Stars, a subsidiary of Jack Henry and Associates. Profit Stars will be providing a batch scanning and remote deposit capture solution for churches using Fellowship One.

Current Process

Many of our clients, especially larger ones, get hundreds and sometimes thousands of checks, into their offering plate each week. Before they can drive those checks to the bank for deposit they must first scan them into Fellowship One. As the checks are scanned into Fellowship One the data entry person enters the amount and visually verifies that the auto-matching process using the MICR code is correct. They also verify the activity, fund, pledge drive, etc.

Today, we only capture and store the front-side image of the check. A bit of trivia -- we have now captured and stored over 19 million check images! After scanning into Fellowship One is complete, they must then drive the checks to the bank for deposit. The church then waits for the checks to clear before they get access to those monies. Roughly 60 – 80% of the checks clear the next day, but checks drawn from smaller, more remote, banks may take several more days to clear. The diagram below illustrates the two step process of 1) Scanning into Fellowship One and 2) Driving the checks to the bank for deposit.

Our Interim Solution

After a long evaluation period we have chosen to partner with Profit Stars. With Profit Stars a church can use a batch scanner which can scan 30 – 100 checks every minute or so. The process is similar to the current one but with some big advantages. They open up Profit Stars, create a new batch, enter the total number of checks and total amount of money in that batch. They press go and the batch scanner quickly scans each check into the system. The church then presses save and moves onto the next batch.

But wait, didn’t I skip a step? What about entering the amounts, balancing the batch, etc.? The beauty is you don’t have to! Profit Stars leverages Courtesy Amount (CAR) and Legal Amount (LAR) Recognition technology to automatically read the written amounts on the checks. And for those it cannot read successfully they have a team of people on the back-end that will manually correct and balance the batch for the church. Next they convert those checks into either ACH transactions or Check 21 files for clearing. If all of the batches are scanned prior to about 6:00pm CT then Profit Stars will then make a deposit into the church’s bank the following morning for 100% of the total deposit -- even if all of the checks have not yet cleared (for qualifying churches).

Will you still need to scan the checks into Fellowship One? The software integration is still in progress. So if a church wanted to use Profit Stars now then they would have to scan the checks twice – once into Profit Stars and once into Fellowship One. Why start there? Well many churches are being pushed to use this technology by their local bank. So if the church is intent on using a Remote Deposit Capture solution, why not use Profit Stars instead? This will place you into a great position when integration is completed.

There are many churches that really want the security, convenience, and 100% next-day funds availability offered in this solution. They can complete the scanning into Profit Stars in just an hour or two and then can take as much time as they want to scan them into Fellowship One (since the deposit is already on its way electronically). The diagram below illustrates the three step process of 1) Scanning into Profit Stars, 2) Profit Stars deposits the monies into the church’s bank, and 3) Scanning into Fellowship One.

Final Solution

The integration into Fellowship One will be completed in an upcoming quarter. In this solution, a church that is using Remote Deposit Capture would only scan their checks once. The diagram below illustrates the four step process of 1) The church would scan into Profit Stars, 2) Profit Stars deposits the monies into the church’s bank, 3) Profit Stars will pass back to Fellowship One a file containing all of the check images, account/routing numbers, and amount, 4) We would then import the images and data into an interface similar to Fellowship One Contributions where the church could visually verify the activity, fund, pledge drive, and Household/Individual.

Who does a church contact for more information?

For questions or more information, please email us at remotedeposit (at) fellowshiptech.com

FT-Shirts are here!

csimmons — Fri, 02 May 2008 00:57:00 GMT

For those attending our Dynamic Church Conference (DC08) we will be providing a number of goodies. One of the freebies will be the official DC08 t-shirt. In addition, we’ll be offering some other fun “FT-Shirts” for sale during the conference. Our staff was given the opportunity today to pick out one of the shirts to keep. They’ll be wearing them on the 2nd day of the conference. We hope you enjoy them as much as we are! (Click on the images to zoom in) Special thanks to Shepherd Boy Creative who designed the shirts.

Official Conference T-Shirt (Free to all registered attendees)
Front	Back

FT-Shirts for sale at the conference

Just Don't Do It

csimmons — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 02:18:00 GMT

The toughest decision I make each day is deciding what NOT to do. Every day that I come to the office, I find that there is more to do than can ever be accomplished. I inevitably have to close up my laptop in the evening with some tasks undone and incomplete. I do my best to prioritize the important over the urgent and can generally stay afloat. I've studied the likes of Stephen Covey, David Allen, and others - they all have their merits.

Ultimately, you must come up with a system that works for YOU, which may be a combination of many different tips and tools. I've tried everything from Franklin Planners to One Note. Currently, I use a combination of Outlook categories/flags and old-school note cards. That works for me, it may not work for you.

But I came across a new truth recently. Well it's likely an old truth that's new to me. I'd been focusing all my energy on the prioritization of my daily tasks and project milestones. I was managing them reasonably well. However, I never felt like I was making forward progress. I was living out the definition of insanity "Doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results".

I sensed we were running in place and yet our organization was growing at a record clip. So in reality we were not running in place, we were falling behind. So I began to ask myself, and others, a series of questions. I'll provide an example around "Process X"

What is the business purpose for Process X?
Why do we do Process X this way? Take the answer to this question and ask "why" at least 4 more times based on those answers.
Have you considered alternative methods to do Process X?
How would you change Process X if resources (time and money) were unlimited?
How would you change Process X if no additional resources were available?

And lastly...

What would happen if you stopped doing Process X?

There's normally a valid reason why Process X is done and an even better reason why it's done a particular way. However, it's possible that the original business reason for Process X is no longer valid. Or there may be simpler, more efficient, method to do the same thing.

Sometimes we live with broken and/or redundant processes for so long we assume we still need them. They're sort of like our security blanket. We must take time regularly to re-examine our processes, even the successful ones, to evaluate their efficiency and most importantly to validate their need.

One example from the past year at Fellowship Technologies was time reporting. All of our people are salaried employees. We had everyone enter their time worked each week into a web-based Time & Expense tool called Quick Arrow. We began doing it because we wanted to track Paid Time Off (PTO). We did this for almost 3 full years. As we grew the data entry and approval process became more and more tedious and time consuming.

Eventually someone spoke up and asked the six questions outlined above. We realized we could accomplish the same goal (record PTO) without entering everyone's time worked. So we made a decision to NOT track the time for every employee. We trusted them to do what's right. Now all we ask them to record is their PTO if they took any that week. (We also still require our delivery managers / consultants to enter their project-related time so we can measure our efficiency.) But the vast majority of our staff are not required to enter their time at all. This freed up our employees and our administrative staff to focus on the business rather than busy-work. We might still be doing it "the way we always had" if someone had not asked "What if we stopped recording our time?"

I noticed Jason Powell doing something similar when he asked the question "What if we turned off their office computers each night?" It's a question not everyone would think to ask. And I see Fellowship Church doing this as they annually re-evaluate the results of, and the need for, every ministry and event. There are no sacred cows (ministries / events) at Fellowship Church.

So take some time this week, and on a regular basis, to consider the alternatives to the "way things have always been done". Perhaps you'll adopt the phrase "Just don't do it!"

God bless,

Curtis S

It's not too late to register for DC08

csimmons — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 20:18:00 GMT

Haven't signed up for our Dynamic Church Conference yet? Perhaps you've been undecided about attending or simply procrastinated and are afraid it's now too late? Don't worry! Simply call us at 469-442-0100 and ask for someone you know at Fellowship Tech. They have the information you need to get $50 off per registration. Don't wait, contact us today! We look forward to seeing you there!

Need some reasons to convince your pastor you should attend? Click here to review 10 great reasons.

To Those Who Stole Their Stuff

csimmons — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 23:26:00 GMT

In early March a trailer containing 75% of Kinetic Church's equipment was stolen. They realize that they'll never recover what was lost but simply want to meet with those that robbed them of almost everything they had.

Click here to watch their video addressed "To Those Who Stole Our Stuff"

Visit their website to donate to Kinetic Church's Trailer Recovery Fund.

Curtis S

What happened to “Be still and know that I am God”?

csimmons — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 03:11:00 GMT

This will likely be viewed as the rant of a person that is not willing to acknowledge that he can see the crest of the “hill” and is looking middle-age squarely in the eye. Regardless, I feel compelled to comment on the noise that surrounds us and how it would easily consume us if we didn’t make a conscious effort to manage it.

We’re all familiar with the myriad communication methods we now have – Mobile phone, Email, Chat, Instant Messaging, Text Messaging, Blogging, MySpace, and Facebook. Amazingly, someone didn’t think that was enough so a couple of years ago they developed Twitter. Personally, I’ve used them all… all except for Twitter. That’s one I just don’t get. God bless you if you leverage that tool. But honestly, I don’t care if you just took out the trash or gave the cat a bath. I know, I’m sure there are more valuable uses but for me it’s all too much.

I wish I could say that I came to this realization first in my own life, but that wasn’t the case. It came to me while observing my 16 yr old son’s school study habits. For him we held out longer than most, he was 13 before he could use instant messaging, 15 before he had a MySpace account and cell phone, and 16 before he had text messaging. And as you might have predicted, we gave in far sooner with our next child, she has all four and she’s only 12!

All I can say is thank God for unlimited text messaging plans. When they got their accounts the flood gates opened. During the first month my son sent over 1,000 messages! I can’t recall the last time I saw him talk on the phone.

What does this have to do with study habits and God? Well he was struggling this year with some Advanced Placement courses. I patiently explained that the formula for success in school is as simple as:

(Study Habits + Time) * Course Work = Good Grades

As in most any formula there are some constants and some variables. The constant in this instance is the Course Work. I seriously doubt that his teacher will change or the assignments will change. What he can change are the first two variables, Study Habits and Time. As I observed what he called “studying”, he was constantly distracted by instant messages on his computer and text messages on his phone. It seemed so obvious to me what the problem was. As I was explaining this to him (impatiently this time) it occurred to me that I was looking into a mirror reflection of my own life.

Over the last several years I’ve sent an average of 170 emails per week. I receive many more multiples of that into my inbox. That’s just my Fellowship Tech account. Add to that my personal Gmail account. Then tack on my Google reader, my voicemails, and this blog. Now overlay that with my prayer life, family time and time spent making business critical decisions. My formula was also broken, just like my son’s.

I don’t believe these new communication tools are “of the devil” but Satan can use these things, just like the Easter Bunny and Santa Clause, to distract us from true meaning, from God’s purpose for our lives, keeping us from reaching our full potential.

So the reminder to myself and to you is to “keep first things first”. Take time daily in God’s Word and most importantly take some quiet time to meditate on his Word and simply “be still and know that he is God”. Do this consistently and I know your decision making and effectiveness will improve dramatically.

If you’ve struggled to find time away from the noise and found an effective way to manage it and place “first things first”, please share the secrets of your success with others by posting a comment.

God bless,

Curtis S

Daily Concerns

Daily Concerns blog has moved to a new location

Seeking Web Application Developer

Go “offline” with ROOV

Accelerate with Passion

Don’t let the size of the fishbowl stunt your growth

DC08 Session and Training Materials are now available

OK Twitter, You Win

Lovin’ every minute of it

A Kiosk that keeps on Giving

New Partnership

Competitive Landscape

Contact Information

Remote Deposit Capture is coming to Fellowship One

Current Process

Our Interim Solution

Final Solution

FT-Shirts are here!

Official Conference T-Shirt (Free to all registered attendees)

FT-Shirts for sale at the conference

Just Don't Do It

It's not too late to register for DC08

To Those Who Stole Their Stuff

What happened to “Be still and know that I am God”?