Accelerating the Dynamic Church : Church Management Systems

Dynamic Church 07 is almost here!

Jeff Hook — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 02:56:00 GMT

Are you a Fellowship One customer, but you ask yourself whether your church is really using the system to its full potential? Have I got a deal for you!

Many of our customers have been asking us to sponsor a users’ and developers’ conference and so this year we are. It is being held May 17-19 in Frisco, Texas (just north of Dallas). We are calling it Dynamic Church 07 and it is really going to be worth your while.

I will be speaking about how information technology plays an important role in the Dynamic Church. This is not fluff. After 3 years of observing how some churches succeed wildly with Fellowship One while others underachieve, I will provide in my keynote what it takes to be one of the former and how to avoid the latter.

I will also address how to increase giving without focusing on giving. The lessons to learn from that alone are worth the price of admission! We are talking a definite Return on Ministry for this conference compared to other conferences in that what you learn here will be implementable at your church using Fellowship One.

But there is more! Education tracks from the professionals at Fellowship Technologies who are in the trenches everyday, as well as customer presentations about how they made it work for them. We will also have “hands-on” training and partner exhibits from some companies that can help take your Fellowship One experience to that next level.

And to top it all off, Tony Morgan – you know him as one of the Simply Strategic guys - is the Saturday morning keynote. Tony recently left Granger Community Church, (a Dynamic Church in Southbend, IN), and is now with Newspring (a Dynamic Church in Anderson, SC) – both Fellowship One customers! I consider Tony one of the rock stars of the industry. If you want to understand how to do church better, he can help you understand what is possible. Come see for yourself.

But you better register now, the early discounts are going away soon. The fee for the conference goes up next week. The cheap hotel rates are only guaranteed until then as well. Don’t miss this opportunity to work face-to-face with your favorite voice on the other end of the Technical Support line, or to ask the developer of Data Exchange how to use our API to its fullest, or to ask Product Management about where the product will end up three years from now (if they won’t tell you, I will). All the right people will be there. Don’t delay, register now! I cannot think of a better way to get free consulting.

I hope to see you there! Believe me, it will be worth it!

Grace to you,

jhook

Solution Selling includes educating the church on Best Practices

Jeff Hook — Thu, 30 Nov 2006 18:43:00 GMT

Last night I received a call from the field from one of our Delivery Managers. For Fellowship Technologies, a Delivery Manager is a consultant who works with a church partner (customer) to assist them with their implementation of Fellowship One. The purpose of the call was that the Delivery Manager wanted me to know that the church partner could not say enough about how much they learned about church management from our sales consultant during the sales cycle.

BTW, we now have 12 different editions, all the same software, but twelve different ways to license Fellowship One because not all churches want to use it the same way – but I will save that post for another day. The point of this post is how much the partner learned during the sales cycle.

To me, this was very rewarding. Why? Because it says that we are being successful when it comes to our mission of not just selling church software but also helping churches understand what good church management is and, in the end, improving churches’ ability to help people! When people talk about the business of the church too often they talk about the “back office” aspects of the church.

However, the real “business” of the church is people; from helping deal with their “heart” conditions to their “life” conditions. Church management software needs to be ministry-focused software, not administrative-focused software. Sometimes we run into a church that has documented all of these features that they want their software to have but these features are all about how to make the software perform better to their “work habits” around reading email, keeping their calendar, or even turning on the HVAC 2 hours before the service time. Now all of these might be well and good, but I truly think they miss the point.

Our sales consultants try to convey the need for the software to focus on the needs of the people attending the church – that is where the real value is. In his book, “How to Increase Giving in Your Church,” George Barna says that people who share an ownership or personal connection to a church tend to give more. In other words, the more connected a person is, spiritually and emotionally, the more generous the giving. The more generous the giving, the more resources the church has for quality services and reaching more people. So if this is true, shouldn’t church management software help track how connected a person is and help then encourage additional connection?

If all church management software is just alike (like some of our competitors want you to think), why aren’t our competitors selling the same way? Instead they sell on “features and functions.” I can say this because I have seen their sales demos. It is not about features and functions; it is about how you use those features and functions. It is about processes and the impact of those processes – both on the church congregation and church staff.

Grace to you,

Jhook

Good Software Stewardship?

Jeff Hook — Tue, 28 Nov 2006 21:20:00 GMT

Sometimes we come across a church that puts a halt to a software selection process because they come to the realization that they may not need a new church management software solution. Why? Because they find out that they are underutilizing what they currently have. Of course, many times they are encouraged to not look for another solution by their current vendor who claims the system they have can do exactly what Fellowship One does, they are just not using those features. It is rarely the case that this is actually true. But the church must go through the process of looking at what their current vendor has before buying off on another purchase. Case in point: why buy new if you are not using what you currently have? Maybe you do not need a new system to get the benefits you are hoping to get with a new system if your current software has the capabilities; you are just not using them!

Now my contention is that there is perhaps a reason why a church is not using its current system to the max that still requires a change – maybe the system does not do what you need it to do to support your ministry; or perhaps it is not user-friendly; or costs too much to maintain or breaks when you do try to maintain or upgrade it; or performs so poorly it is practically unusable! If any of these are the case then shopping for a new solution is warranted. However, many times a system is not used to its full extent because the staff does not have the discipline to change or learn something new or even, heaven forbids, the staff has become lazy or complacent.

If this is the case, changing systems will not provide the benefits desired no matter what solution is in place; the staff is not willing to do what is required to get the desired results. It is like the athlete who wants to win the Olympics but is not willing to do the amount of training required to really compete. Becoming a “world class church” is similar to becoming a “world class athlete,” it does not happen without doing the right things, doing the right things right and then doing the right things better. Continually!

As an example, I will use a tale of two churches who are both current customers of ours. This is an actual case study of true circumstances, but I will spare the names to protect the innocent. However, there probably more than one church of each type within our customer base. Do not be offended if you think I am using your church as an example; if it is your actual church, I did get permission.

Both churches held a “Fall Festival” as an outreach event into the community and to show a less “gruesome” way to celebrate Halloween. Both churches subscribe to a Fellowship One edition that allows for “check-in” of any and all activities. However, only one of these churches chose to “check-in” their Fall Festival. That church checked in nearly 2,000 attendees to their event; more than what they serve during their typical weekend services. The other church chose not to conduct “check-in” at the event even though their license agreement encourages them to do so – it does not cost anymore!

The church that chose to conduct “check-in” put their best foot forward because they showed their community that it was technologically savvy and showed that safety of their kids was job #1; but more importantly, even before the event was over, because of real-time attendance tracking, they knew that 92% of those in attendance were 1^st time visitors to their church. 92% - I would say that was a successful outreach event! The church that did not conduct check-in can only guess at how many attendees were first-time visitors and can only surmise as to whether its event was successful at bringing in new faces.

The real key to growth and determining success of the Fall Festival for the first church mentioned will be to track how many of those people actually make it to church within the next month and then how many are still there in six months. From that, the church can determine its ROM (Return on Ministry) for that event for that year which will help determine if that event was a good use of funds and whether none, less or more money should be budgeted for the next year. The second church mentioned cannot do any of that analysis because it did not capture who attended in the first place. There are perhaps other ways to capture the information (roll cards, etc.) but none more accurate and efficient than at the POS (Point of Service).

Everyone can make better decisions when they have more and better information. I encourage you to take the guess work out of the decision-making process at your church by capturing, tracking, and analyzing as much information as you can. Capturing the data does not need to be laborious. A check-in station can be used as a POS device for more than just “children’s check-in.” By checking in all of your church’s activities, you build a foundation of data that can help capture how successful an event is and how “plugged-in” people are – now that’s measuring assimilation! Using all the capabilities of your church management system will help you truly know whether it is the right one for your church or not. It also allows you to get the most "value" out of your solution. It is just good software stewardship!

Grace to you,

Jhook

What does your church management system have to do with your brand?

Jeff Hook — Thu, 29 Jun 2006 16:49:00 GMT

When a church considers its brand, does it ever think about its church management system? Often, when a church thinks of its brand, it thinks about its outreach message—meaning the logo, web site, and marketing, but rarely does it consider its church management system. Quite often, the church management system is just referred to as “the database.” However, included in the brand is the entire “customer experience,” or in this case, “congregant experience.”

So if that’s the case, included in the brand is the style of music, the style of message-delivery, such as Bible-based preaching, story-telling illustrative, or Bible teaching, and, believe it or not, the execution of the church processes, whether it be detailed, casual, non-existent, or something else entirely.

In the commercial world, the personality of the company can be characterized by competitive criteria like customer intimacy, operational excellence, and price. Churches are characterized by these same terms—and, on occasion, by less flattering ones.
When it comes to your church management system, does it add to the brand? If the church is family focused, do you have a check-in system that helps secure the children from being picked up by an estranged dad involved in a custody battle with his wife? This adds security consciousness to the brand.

Is attendance automatically posted so that Monday morning the youth pastor can follow-up with the kids that normally attend but have now missed 3 services in a row? This adds customer, or, for our purposes, congregant intimacy to the brand.

Does your system provide self-service capabilities that allow a person to register for an event online at the church website instead of wait in yet another line in the lobby after service? Can a person give online at the church website or do they have to continue to carry their checkbook to service? These add convenience to the brand.

These “congregation experiences,” as well as many others, define the church’s brand, something the church can’t decide. The church members influence and encourage certain aspects, but the community around the church actually brands it. It doesn’t have to be valid or accurate. The congregants define their “target brand” and reinforce behaviors necessary to meet that target.

But how each individual experiences the church contributes to the overall brand because they tell someone their opinions about the church. If John Smith tells his friend Frank about the church he visited last Sunday, he may well influence Frank’s attitude when he visits that church. Word-of-mouth becomes essential because people come with a certain set of expectations.

What you think of American Airlines or Coca-Cola, for example, is primarily based on experience or reputation, even before you use a product.

So many things affect what people think when it comes to brand. I think the brand of the Mavericks is affected by what people think of Mark Cuban, the owner. Similarly, a church’s brand is affected by what people think and feel about the senior pastor.

So answer the question: how does your church management system contribute positively to your brand?

Grace to you,

jhook

Is your church management system optional? (Part 2)

Jeff Hook — Wed, 26 Apr 2006 16:43:00 GMT

A fundamental building block that will allow a church to better care for its people is better quality information. However, if the church’s ministries are allowed to NOT use the church management system and its underlying database of people, they will end up keeping valuable information somewhere else. That central database is then a subset of the information about the congregation. If a pastor cannot look at a family’s or individual’s records to see what their current indicative information is, how involved they are, what small groups they are in, who their kids are, etc., etc. – then they have an incomplete picture of who they are attempting to help. That kind of data problem becomes a “congregation service” problem similar to a “customer service” problem that any organization that deals with the public might have when the information they have is incomplete.

True, I was simply pointing out the problem, but churches cannot fix problems they are unaware of or do not have an appreciation for. Too often churches “play” at church instead of “work” at church. When people “play” they are doing something for recreation, for enjoyment and leisure purposes. When people work, there is a sense of accountability, people measure performance and work towards improving the metrics. Now I am not saying that ALL churches are like that, but too many are. If churches refuse to measure themselves and their performance, they will not know whether or not they are improving.

To answer your last question, culture change is a tricky situation because I am unaware of the dynamics of your current culture. I cannot help you get somewhere if I do not know where you are coming from. Also, frankly, some cultures are worth the effort to change and some may not be. In general, cultural change requires leadership. Some churches may not be able to institute this kind of change without a “burning platform” crisis.

The Harvard Management Communication Letter says if you don't have a burning platform to push people away from the past then you need a compelling vision of the "The Promised Land" that is strong enough to draw people to it. In identifying the burning platform, do not overstate the extent of the crisis, it warns, or you will destroy credibility. And involve everyone in the solution or they will go in all directions.

On a tactical level, begin a project to identify all of the current data sources in place that the ministries rely on – every database, spreadsheet, 3x5 cards, etc. By documenting these, a church can have an appreciation for the inconsistencies of the data – how out of date some is, how many duplicates there are, and a better picture of the total number of ‘silo’ data stores.

Once there is an appreciation of the level of the problem, look at the congregation service issues that arise from the disparate databases. Ask yourself how much “customer service” can improve if all ministries are singing from the same hymnal; I mean working off the same information. If everyone is responsible for the quality of the data, although it creates work, the data quality will improve. Caring about people is also caring about the information that is a reflection of those people. Hope this helps!

Grace to you,

Is your church management system optional?

Jeff Hook — Sun, 23 Apr 2006 16:42:00 GMT

I have been working with churches and their church management systems for nearly three years and one of the things that I find interesting is the fact that for some churches the ministries use of the central database is optional! The reasons vary from: the system does not do what we need it to do; it is too hard to use; there is not enough process discipline by the staff to use the same system.

Many churches we come across only have one or two people focused on the central database with the folks out in the ministries vying for themselves to collect and maintain the information. The responsibility for the quality of the data then resides with just a handful of people. However, the ministers and volunteers who actually work with the congregation are relegated to keeping their contact information in their personal files, Excel or perhaps a departmental solution like a Filemaker Pro database. Wherever the information is kept, rarely is it reconciled back to the main membership database. Does anyone else see a problem with this picture?

So the real question to ask, “Is your database an optional data source, an available data source or THE data source for your church?” If it is not the latter and you are not performing a synchronization of the databases, then whether you know it or not, you have a data problem. Data problems will manifest itself as a failed ministry and that, at the end of the day, isn’t that we are all accountable for?

Grace to you,

jhook

Is this your church without Fellowship One? Want to know what it can be?

Jeff Hook — Wed, 05 Apr 2006 16:40:00 GMT

This is a great story by someone who evidently goes to a church without Fellowship One. It is a story about The Church with the T-Rex in its lobby. Would someone attending your church have a similar experience?

Many times we are so familiar with our church and the experience that we have in it that we do not take into account the experience of others who may be trying to navigate our facilities and processes (or lack there of!) for the first time. I am reading First Impressions: Creating Wow Experiences in Your Church by one of our Granger brethren, Mark L. Waltz. It is a very good read for those who want some insight into how Granger does what they do so well. The one thing about a first impression, you never get another chance to make it!

Also check out CloseTheBackDoor.com and mouse over some of the people’s heads in the picture. Are they any different than the Holy Mama in the T-Rex story? Have you taken a fresh look at what people are experiencing at your church? Are you following up on their requests? How long does it take to check in their children? Are the facilities clean? Is it convenient to sign-up for an activity or do I have to send an e-mail to someone and wait for them to respond? Or worse, do I have to hang out in the lobby and wait in line to register for said activity? Is there the energy of inspired (in Spirit!) volunteers who are showing them where things are located? Or is it sort of drab, uninspiring, lacking energy? The God I worship is anything but drab and uninspiring!

Grace to you as you go out to find that T-Rex for your lobby,

Jhook

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Modifying Packaged Software – Danger, Will Robinson, Danger!

Jeff Hook — Thu, 30 Mar 2006 16:38:00 GMT

In my last blog, I commented about the difficulty of a church writing its own software. In my humble opinion, an even worst business practice than a church writing its own software is modifying a software package that was designed to support another industry or feature set. This is just a bad idea, period. I remember trying to do that as a consultant with a major management consulting firm in the 1990’s. In the end, we were wasting the clients’ money. By the time we were ready to deploy, the vendor was out with a set of modifications that was needed to fix major issues with their code or the upgrade was required in order to be eligible for support.

So what are the real problems with this approach?

1) If you are building upon an already mature product, how long will it be before the vendor is required to upgrade the technology platform in order to support its core business? One of the truisms about technology is that it is constantly changing. Whether you believe that to be a problem or an opportunity, either way, it is a fact. Are you prepared to keep changing (time, dollars and fortitude) as the vendor changes the underlying plumbing? If the vendor chooses not to improve the technology, than you have limited the life of your investment from the outset.

2) If you are building upon an immature product set, it is like building on quicksand. The underlying structure is going to be changing all the time, causing an emotional pain that borders on insanity. The feeling of redoing the same changes over and over will drive your team crazy or fuel the business of an outside organization for as long as your pocketbook can sustain it.

The only viable way to modify vendor software is to really not modify it at all. Instead, design and code to the vendor’s API (Application Programming Interface) which is designed specifically for extending its application. Even when the underlying architecture then changes, should the vendor decide that such a change is necessary, the modifications to the API can be backward compatible based on a version control method that should be part of the vendor’s API framework.

Fellowship One offers Data Exchange, an XML API that allows our customers to integrate and extend the Fellowship One application.

Grace to you,

jhook

Writing Your Own Church Management Software – Is it really a good idea?

Jeff Hook — Wed, 22 Mar 2006 16:25:00 GMT

I am always skeptical of a church that even contemplates writing its own Church Management System (ChMS). In fact, even before I was involved with the spin out of what was known as Switch at the time from Fellowship Church, I questioned the church’s efforts of writing its own software. It is a complex and expensive endeavor. Put simply: writing software is not a core competency of any church.

Sometimes a church believes it needs to write its own software so that it can get exactly what it wants and needs. This has been tried in the corporate world for quite a long time, with very limited success, even by the very large companies that have a lot more financial resources than a church - thus the success of the SAPs and Oracles of the world. Unfortunately, what a church needs or wants will most certainly change before the software is designed completely, let alone programmed and tested. Even still, once the church feels all the work is complete the application will need to be supported, fixing bugs, process improvements, etc. To minimize the time lag of these changes, the proper way to design applications is to build it to be flexible, configurable, almost pliable, so that as the needs or strategies of the church change, the system can be easily tweaked to allow the software to conform to theses changes.

However, a church does not have the time, money or inclination to contemplate what changes will be needed in the future, let alone the time and money to test out all the various behaviors of a system based on the potential application variations. One of our challenges was that very thing – how do we support church processes that were not contemplated or needed by Fellowship Church. Other churches should not be required to “do church” the same way as the original architects of Fellowship One had designed it. The result has been a significant rewrite of certain areas of the application so that a church can “do church” the way they want or need to. Today, Fellowship One is being used by hundreds of different churches of every shape, size, and denomination.

Grace to you,

jhook

New Functionality... Reports 2.0

Jeff Hook — Tue, 28 Feb 2006 17:22:00 GMT

Fellowship Technologies recently released our new reporting functionality we call Reports 2.0. Reports 2.0 is our foundational work that will help move Fellowship One reporting to a whole new level. This new release really leverages the power of AJAX so that the screens do not refresh when reporting parameters are changed or selected. The parameters are also defaulted to the most likely or most frequently used parameters. This will make running reports much, much easier for the typical user.

(Another powerful advantage to the "hosted", Software as a Service (SaaS) model over traditional "client-installed" solutions is that we released these new features to ALL of our customers with no action required on their part. No additional fees to upgrade. Nothing to install or download or convert. They simply went to bed one evening and they woke up the next day, logged into Fellowship One, and there were the new features accompanied by detailed help files, tutorials, and free training webinars.)

Reports 2.1 should be available towards the end of March and will offer the ability to save your reporting parameters under “My Reports” so that all of your common reports can be run without entering re-entering parameter values. Reports 2.1 will also offer other ease of use features but I won’t go into those just yet; I do not want to ruin the surprise of some great new features. Later this year we will be offering several other reporting tools and enhancements that will make the Fellowship One experience even better and more robust – features that no other vendor currently has on the market.

Grace to you,

jhook

A Whole New Way . . . Software as a Service (SaaS)

Jeff Hook — Mon, 27 Feb 2006 17:19:00 GMT

It appears that the vision and reality of SaaS (Software as a Service) has attracted the largest independent software vendor (ISV), SAP. SAP is a large enterprise application software company out of Germany that created a big craze in the 1990s and obtained a good majority of commercial America to consolidate its data needs under a single umbrella called ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning). Evidently, after seeing Salesforce and others begin to erode its mindshare, if not market share, in the small to medium-sized market, the company decided to release its own customer relationship management offering over the web.

Now the only question is whether they can pull off having their customers switch over to their own web offering rather than take the opportunity to shop the other vendors at the same time. That is always a risk when the market begins to change! Many times customer behavior is not anticipated by the incumbent vendor.

I contend that just because a company can produce software for sale does not mean it can keep servers and infrastructure up and running to suit the client requirements. By the same token, although Salesforce.com has successfully blazed the trail in the SaaS world, that does not give it credibility if it chose to come out with a client-server architecture solution. Supporting a different type of solution is a different ball game than what a company and its culture is built to do effectively and efficiently.

If asked by its vendor to consider a new platform offering, a truly wise customer will evaluate its other options before jumping into the new offering of their incumbent vendor. Before automatically jumping into the new solution, ask yourself the following questions:

Is the new solution stable? Is it designed to be used as you want to use it?
If the offering is built on a different technology than the vendor’s “bread and butter” technology? Is the vendor proficient in the technology or just trying it out?
If the new technology does not catch on in the marketplace, will it become orphaned? And perhaps sold, or worse even, mothballed!
Is the new technology fundamentally different or the same in feature / function? If it is the same, should you really switch? If it is different, is it a complete replacement solution or complementary or just a bolt on?
If switching requires a significant amount of change, why not look at other options to see if they match up better to what your organization is trying to accomplish?

I am frequently asked to sell Fellowship One as a site-license and let the customer operate the software on its own servers. Operating a web-based transaction system is more than most churches can take on. And more often than not, those churches that have the fortitude to take on such an endeavor are not fully aware of all the costs to do it right. The infrastructure required to secure the network and the talent and expertise required to keep it up and running is expensive. Even for our largest customers, the Fellowship One monthly fee is a fraction of what it would cost a church to operate it themselves.

Grace to you,

jhook

A Whole New Way . . . Don’t Automate, Obliterate

Jeff Hook — Sun, 12 Feb 2006 17:18:00 GMT

In the early 1990’s, Dr. Michael Hammer touched off an entire wave of reengineering work with his July 1990 Harvard Business Review article titled: Reengineering Work: Don’t Automate, Obliterate. There were many, many consulting practices in the private and public sectors built on the concepts Dr. Hammer wrote about. However, as I get further and further into the church market, I am beginning to think that the reengineering wave that hit the commercial industry passed over the churches.

Too often, as we learn more about a church during a systems implementation and we ask why a church staff person does a particular process, the response is, “because we have always done it that way.” Or, when we ask why a church wants to create a new process, the logic is simply, “that’s the way I think it should be done” without looking at the implications to the congregation or volunteer that may be affected most. Hammer’s contention is that we should eliminate unnecessary processes or steps if what they accomplish is redundant, burdensome or immaterial.

I believe that a common example is (I am stepping out on a limb here not to offend, but to prompt discussion) when a children’s pastor believes an automated check-out process is required for the Children’s service on Sunday. I always like to ask, “Do you ever have children left over after the service?” And “If you do, will ‘automated check out’ eliminate those children left behind?” ;-) Or “Is it important to know exactly when a child checked out?” And if so, “What will be done with that information?” Other questions might be, “Do the parents think it is essential to have ‘the system’ check out the kids?” or "Is the time stamp valuable?”.

What must be taken into account is the time (inconvenience to parents – stewardship of time) and equipment (costs - stewardship of money) required to efficiently and effectively provide an automated ‘check-out’ process for children. For a church with multiple services, is the equipment for check-in and check-out the same? Are the parents checking in for the next service colliding with the parents checking out from the previous service because they are trying to use the same kiosks? Are we contributing to the chaos of the situation? For what purpose?

Checking out children for a “play school”, where the billing of time is important, is a must. Checking out volunteers so that the actual time contributed as service can also be helpful, if that is reported and is part of the “thank you” for tracking volunteers. So do not mistake my comments to think that all automated check out is unnecessary. Sometimes, it can be useful, but each situation must be examined for its own merit.

The overall point is to examine your processes. Take a whole new look at the “whys” and “hows” something is done and try to eliminate all that is unnecessary. What is left should definitely be automated, but first ask what value the deliverable really provides.

Grace to you as you obliterate,

jhook

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Milestone . . . 300 Churches and counting!

Jeff Hook — Sat, 11 Feb 2006 17:17:00 GMT

We celebrated our 2nd birthday at the Creative Church Conference on and shortly thereafter signed our 300th church as a Fellowship One partner. January was a good month with the signing of a couple of large mega-churches (churches with over 6,000 in TWA) as well as a host of smaller churches looking for an Internet-based church management solution that they can grow with.

This week, we participated in a conference at The Springs in Ocala, Florida, specifically for plant churches. Fellowship One is ideal for a plant church. No servers to buy, no software to install, just point your browser and go! Then as you grow, we will be there along with you offering the same software the big guys use.

I want to thank fellow blogger, Matt Payne, and his comments about how he believes Fellowship One is a “must have” for fledging churches. Thanks, Matt.

Grace to you,

jhook

A Whole New Way . . . Improving Data Quality through Added Accessibility

Jeff Hook — Thu, 02 Feb 2006 17:16:00 GMT

I have said it before, check out how many staff members in your church are really using your church management system. The more people who use it, the more up-to-date and relevant the information is and will be. I am amazed at the lack of ownership of the data that some churches have concerning the information in their church management system. If the data is inaccurate, the information that comes out cannot be trusted and the reports become suspect.

The following is a very typical case study that we see repeats itself quite often. During the sales process, a prospect will be adamant about the high number of staff members who use their current church management system, usually one of the market leaders that is of the traditional client-server nature. However, during the discovery phase of the implementation process it becomes apparent that although nearly all of the staff have log-ins, most of them actually do not use the centralized system. Instead, other small databases or spreadsheets are created and are used to manage vital church information. The problem is that these ancillary systems contain the most relevant and current information about the congregants and is not shared by the entire staff.

Now I believe that the systems themselves are rarely to blame. Many times it is the lack of processes or the lack of discipline around the processes that are. However, if the entire church staff depends on the central database and not their spreadsheets for the information they need then the added ownership will rally everyone around improving the data quality. This is why easy access from anywhere and everywhere is so important -- in other words, a whole new way of seeing information!

Grace to you,

jhook

A whole new way...

Jeff Hook — Thu, 26 Jan 2006 17:14:00 GMT

Even though we participate in more and more conferences every year, because of our heritage, C3 (Fellowship Church’s Creative Church Conference) is a big deal for Fellowship Technologies. We celebrate our founding, we get to see old friends and customers who make the trip from out-of-town and we get to meet new ministers and prospects who have never heard of Fellowship One.

Every year around this time we also choose to launch something new that is significant for our customers. Last year, among the features we launched were a couple of cool features that really helped the user experience: active person (also known as sticky person) and mobile Internet access (using an Internet-enabled cell phone or PDA to access basic congregation information using a smaller format and footprint). This year we are demonstrating a new reporting framework that is being deployed to some beta customers over the next few weeks that we call Reports 2.0. This new framework is not only Ajax-enabled and searchable, but also provides a flexible architecture for us to build upon to enhance the total reporting experience of our customers.

We are also launching a new marketing message to help prospects and customers understand the differences between Fellowship One and the other options out there. A dynamic software company should always be refining its messaging to help the customers better understand the differences between the tough choices they may need to make. Too often though, when a solution provider happens upon a message that resonates with the market, the competitors will think “why didn’t we think of that” and begin to emulate that messaging to try to confuse the customers or to play a “we can do that too, but for less” strategy.

In reality, solutions cannot be compared apples-to-apples, especially if the architectures are different or the business models are not comparable. I like to remind my salespeople of the old adage within the software industry, “any software company can easily change its messaging and sound like they are the same, but it is much tougher to change the code.” Get to know Fellowship Technologies, take a look at how we approach a partnership with our customers, look at how Fellowship One enables ministries, and then determine if we offer a new way of seeing, thinking and being? Check out the new message at www.fellowshiptech.com or come by our booth at C3! See you there!

Grace to you,

jhook