Double check before you hit enter

February 14, 2011 in Uncategorized with 0 Comments

I love my Mom. I love that she’s trying to figure out Facebook. I love that she’s incredibly genuine and thoughtful.

The other day I posted a picture on Facebook about Portland State University having it’s own beer….or so I’ve heard from one of my coworkers. Anyway, the following morning I posted about getting a good eight hours of sleep the night before for the first time in a while.

Then my sweet, kind, loving mother decided to comment about our blessed night sleep…only she commented on the beer picture. Hilarity ensued. See for yourself.

May there be many more coming my way!!!! HAHAHA!

I love you Mom.

My favorite iPhone app’s

February 13, 2011 in Technology with 4 Comments

This is for all you Verizon customers who finally got the iPhone last week. I hope your patience is paying off. Here’s a sampling of the 86 applications I have on my phone. Have fun searching the app store!

Productivity:

  • Evernote – Synch’s with my computer. I use this as a catch all inbox. It can handle text rich stuff, plus pictures of things I want to remember.
  • Simplenote – Auto synch between phone and computer. No more stickies on my computer.
  • Things – This is the task manager app that I use. It’s the most expensive app that I’ve bought at $10, but it’s legit. It synch’s with my computer over a wireless network (cloud synching is coming).
  • Mint – I’m slowly getting this dialed in for our personal budget. My wife has an iPhone too, so she can pull up the grocery budget easily.
  • Dropbox – Access all my  files.
  • Google – access all my Google doc’s

Social Media:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Hootsuite – I use this when I want to post something to both Facebook and Twitter at the same time.
  • Reeder – It took me a while to come around to paying for this, but now I love this blog reader.
  • Foursquare – Not everybody likes location based social networks, but it’s been fun watching all the CCC staff members checking all over the city.

City Living:

  • PDXBus – Up to the minute arrival and route info on the public transportation in Portland.
  • Groupon – Cheap deals, plus no need to print off your coupon…just take the iPhone with you.
  • Fandango – Info on movie in your area.
  • Redbox – Rent a movie from your phone at your local red box…no need to stand in the rain.
  • Realtor.com – Find out what that house your driving by is selling for.
  • Amazon.com – When you’re out shopping scan a barcode to see what the price is on Amazon.

Spiritual Life:

  • ESV Bible – I take this to church with me.
  • Bible (YouVersion) – I’m using this to read through the Bible in a year.
  • Knowing God – An evangelistic tool that’s nice to have on hand.
  • God Tools – Great CCC resources (including Soularium).

Other:

  • TripIt – Track all your travel information in one place.
  • Craigsphone – Simple version of Craiglist.
  • WebMD – Figure out what ails you.
  • Southwest – Find cheap flights.
  • Netflix – We use this all the time! All the Veggietales you can handle streaming through your phone.
  • Pulse – A customizable news source with a cool interface.
  • Kindle – Read e-books on your phone.
  • Wikipedia – Helps me when I want to look smart.
  • Pandora – All the music you can handle.
  • Keynote Remote – Control your Keynote presentation with your phone and amaze your coworkers
  • Angry Birds – The addictive game for wasting time.

Did I miss anything important out there!

Superbowl + Ad’s = #Brandbowl

February 7, 2011 in Innovation, Uncategorized with 0 Comments

An added element superbowl entertainment for me was following the twitter hashtag #brandbowl and reading vast sweeping judgements of commercials and brands.

Biggest losers on twitter…Groupon and Godaddy

Biggest winner…Chrysler

I liked this commercial.


Great story, great thematic elements that draws you in and almost make you believe that Big Car business in back on track. It assumed the audience had intelligence. It helps that the ad agency that produced it is the phenomenal Weiden-Kennedy from here in Portland. I have two problems with this commercial…

  1. It’s a Chrysler. It’s a car that still does not have a great reputation. Advertising can only do so much. Maybe this speaks to how hard it is to change your brand if you’ve fallen off the deep end in the past.
  2. It’s Marshall Mathers. An although I think the dude is tremendously talented, he also wrote about putting his girlfriend in the trunk of a car. It kind of works having him represent Detroit…all city hardened and stuff, but ultimately it’s character that counts.

Take it or leave it…this coming from a guy who thought the Doritos commercials were funny too.

New Facebook Groups

February 2, 2011 in Innovation, Technology with 0 Comments

Have you checked out the functionality of the recently revamped Facebook Groups? I’ve started using them with various groups of people and so far…me likey. My highlights:

  • Quickly email everyone in the group.
  • Create documents and allow the group to edit the document
  • Group chat with all or part of the group
  • No more confusing email conversations between 5 people.

Here are the best examples of how I’ve seen Groups be helpful so far…

  • Creating instant community and information transfer at a Washington State University – Vancouver a commuter school that we’re launching a ministry on. Incredibly helpful!
  • A place for our staff team to connect about random things, post funny pictures and for the mom’s to weigh in on any thoughts they might have. A work in progress.
  • The Lake Tahoe Summer project directors have been using a group to capture random thoughts, develop conference call agenda’s, and tackle a few less important items that don’t need to take up our conference call times. Super helpful tool for us so far.

The goal is to make technology work for you right? Are these new group a helpful tool? How could you use them?

Is an extra monitor worth it?

January 31, 2011 in Technology with 0 Comments

I added a second monitor about 2 months ago and so far it’s been the best addition to my home office space in a long time. My calendar and productivity software of choice (Things) can always be right in front of me, which leads to a greater focus on the task(s) at hand.

Please ignore the pile of mail in front of the monitor. David Allen would not be proud of my inbox.

Reeder for Mac – My new favorite blog reader

January 30, 2011 in Technology with 4 Comments

Reeder for Mac is my favorite new RSS feed manager. It synch’s with Google reader, it’s beautiful and it’s free! I use it constantly. I highly recommend it to stay up on your blog feed’s.

What do you use to stay up to date on blogs?

When are your staff meetings?

January 28, 2011 in Leadership with 0 Comments

We continue to evaluate our staff meetings, this includes content, frequency and time of day. I’ve asked all over the nation what various staff teams are doing in their context. What I’ve found is that no two staff teams schedules are alike, but here are the principles that team leaders are trying take into account as they shape a weekly staff meeting schedule.

  • Staff development
  • Size of team – Chicago has hub teams that operate independently…talk about complex.
  • Prayer
  • Spiritual development
  • Staff business (urgent items)
  • Staff team strategic planning
  • Staff team ministry philosophy

Here’s where we’ve landed in Portland. Monday morning’s we meet at 9-11 for prayer and any pressing business items, then from 11-12 discuss some staff development.

Friday we meet from 9-12 for celebration, business, strategery and ministry philosophizing (yes that’s a word). At noon we eat lunch with all of our regional office and after that we all have plenty of lose ends to tie up before the weekend.

What about your team? What are your guiding principles for establishing a weekly schedule?

Why I invest in college students?

January 26, 2011 in Innovation, Uncategorized with 0 Comments

They are the future leaders of the world. They are the influencers. The potential for kingdom impact is off the charts!

Plus they know how to have a good time.

Thanks to Justin Wise of BeDeviant.com for the video!

Follower count…tooting my own horn?

January 25, 2011 in Technology with 0 Comments

I upgraded to the most recent version of The Standard Theme (which I love and provide an affiliate service for) a few days ago and the brilliant dudes at 8bit added a “follower count widget”.

I’m not sure how I feel about it.

Do I put it there and say, “look I’ve got a few followers, maybe I’m worth subscribing to?” Or does it make me look a little bit too into my statistics? Humility matters in blogging right? What do you think?


But then again I don’t have 18,000 followers like John Saddington at Tentblogger does. He helped write the Standard Theme, so he probably knows what he’s doing. :)

Raving fan and honest critic

January 24, 2011 in Leadership with 2 Comments

We’re working on building this culture amongst our staff team in the context of tactics and direction. Sometime we’re more intentional than others, but this is what we want our team members to be…

A raving fan publicly – You are the biggest fan of our teams decisions, direction and tactics once you leave our staff meetings. Especially with the people you’re influencing and involving in those tactics.

An honest critic privately – You bring your best thoughts to the table as we evaluate and discuss the effectiveness of our tactics and direction. I want brutally helpful honesty, not vindictiveness..honesty. The barrier to this happening on your team is trust.

Any suggestions on how to foster these realities on your staff team?

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