Andrew Kramer has done it again and put out on e of the coolest tutorials on the web for After effects. Check it out here at Video Co-Pilot.net
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Tutorial of the week
Andrew Kramer has done it again and put out on e of the coolest tutorials on the web for After effects. Check it out here at Video Co-Pilot.net
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Top 10 Tuesday
Evey Tuesday I list 10 of my favorite things in a category so can get know me a little better and maybe learn something.
Today I think I am going to do my top 10 Places to eat! Yum! Some of these you will have heard of some of these you may not.
1. Sonny's BBQ (Warner Robins GA Only)- I feel like I grew up at this place. I ate there, I severed tables, I managed there. I have a lot of memories in that place. This is the best Sonny's period.
2. Strip (Atlantic Station Atlanta, Ga) Go for the atmosphere, go for the sushi, go for the good times.
3. Waffle House- This is like an American Staple how could I not include it
4. Jim and Nick's BBQ (Conyers, GA) My second Favorite BBQ Joint
5. Papadoux's Seafood (Atlanta Ga)
6. Panda Express (Anywhere)
7. The Treasure Ship (Panama City Florida) My Parents took me here every summer I have a ton of memories of that place
8. Down Town Grill (Macon Ga) This was Sandra and my special occasion place when we lived in central Georgia.
9. Chick-fil-a (anywhere)
10. Rain Forest Cafe (Orlando Fl)
Did I leave off anywhere?
By the way I changed the last top 10 list because I left off one of the greatest bands of all Time The Dave Matthews Band (Duh Stupid)
Today I think I am going to do my top 10 Places to eat! Yum! Some of these you will have heard of some of these you may not.
1. Sonny's BBQ (Warner Robins GA Only)- I feel like I grew up at this place. I ate there, I severed tables, I managed there. I have a lot of memories in that place. This is the best Sonny's period.
2. Strip (Atlantic Station Atlanta, Ga) Go for the atmosphere, go for the sushi, go for the good times.
3. Waffle House- This is like an American Staple how could I not include it
4. Jim and Nick's BBQ (Conyers, GA) My second Favorite BBQ Joint
5. Papadoux's Seafood (Atlanta Ga)
6. Panda Express (Anywhere)
7. The Treasure Ship (Panama City Florida) My Parents took me here every summer I have a ton of memories of that place
8. Down Town Grill (Macon Ga) This was Sandra and my special occasion place when we lived in central Georgia.
9. Chick-fil-a (anywhere)
10. Rain Forest Cafe (Orlando Fl)
Did I leave off anywhere?
By the way I changed the last top 10 list because I left off one of the greatest bands of all Time The Dave Matthews Band (Duh Stupid)
Inspiration of the week
There is a group on Flickr called the Church Marketing Lab. The group was created by Church Marketing Sucks to provide designers a place to show off church related designs. You can find anything from websites to postcards to Sermon Series. Click here to visit the site.
Leaders Produce Leaders
My goal in everything I do is to serve God although I fail quite often. One thing that has been eating at me ever since I started this blog series is what is the ultimate goal of my ministry? Of course I want to see people come to Christ and of Course I want to see people grow in that relationship but what is the most important thing I can do through my ministry to reach and grow as many people as possible. I think the answer is to produce new leaders. Look at sports for example. Organizations are shying away from hiring the big name head coaches and General managers (the smart ones are anyways) they are hiring coaches and GMs from within winning organizations. The successful, intelligent leaders within organizations more than often produce others like them. In turn the leaders that come from me can produce more leaders and so on. If we are constantly producing new leaders in the church those leaders can go to new church plants and reach more people and produce new leaders who can go to other new church plants and so on. I hope that through my struggles learning Leadership I can help some one else learn leadership. I think the true sign of a great leader is how many leaders they have produced. As for me I am fairly certain I have not produced any. How about you?
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
New Photos from the Discover Point Building Project
New Pics from the building Discover Point Building Project at the ParkerRd Blog http://tinyurl.com/9dmwsg or the DP Facebook Page http://tinyurl.com/bwljq5
Top 10 Tuesday ( A day Late)
Evey Tuesday I list 10 of my favorite things in a category so can get know me a little better and maybe learn something.
Today's List is My Top 10 favorite Bands/Musicians all time. I know not everyone will agree with these.
1. Matchbox 20
2. Linkin Park
3. Counting Crows
4. Garth Brooks
5. Sister Hazel
6. Creed
7. Jimmy Buffet
8. 3 Doors Down
9. Pearl Jam
10. Our Lady Peace (Not there new stuff, just the old)
There you have it. Who do you agree or disagree with.
Today's List is My Top 10 favorite Bands/Musicians all time. I know not everyone will agree with these.
1. Matchbox 20
2. Linkin Park
3. Counting Crows
4. Garth Brooks
5. Sister Hazel
6. Creed
7. Jimmy Buffet
8. 3 Doors Down
9. Pearl Jam
10. Our Lady Peace (Not there new stuff, just the old)
There you have it. Who do you agree or disagree with.
Monday, March 9, 2009
Learning Leadership Part 3
Okay so I have decided to start some series in this blog.. This series is called learning leadership. I am not a great leader and I am not ashamed to admit it. I am new to being on staff at a church and I am new to the role I play in my church. Most of my life I have been the one to do the work and let others take the credit. I love it that way and I would not have it any other way. I do not like the lime light and I enjoy criticism. I know I am weird. I do however enjoy when my team does a great job and people recognize it. That said being a leader of a team at Discover Point over the past year had taught me a ton lessons. Don't get me wrong I am still learning everyday but I thought I might share what I am learning.
3. Staying Positive goes along way
I was planning on blogging today about how leaders should stay humble but because of circumstances today and over the weekend today's topic made a lot more sense.
I am an I.T guy by trade. Today our main servers mother board went out. We had to send people home because without that server we can't run our plant (which is a problem in and of itself). We do not have a good back up because of money and corporate restrictions. Last I checked on Friday the server was fine and running smoothly so I left for the weekend thinking things were fine. I got call at 6am this morning telling me of the situation. So I got up out of bed and rushed to the plant. I worked all morning to get it back up and finally called our service company to order the parts I needed. Well the parts were no where in Atlanta so we had to order them out of Texas (They will be arriving tomorrow at 9am thank God). I know most of you guys understand business. So you must understand for a plant our size to be shut down for a whole day is a huge deal. Who does everyone blame when stuff like this happens, the IT guy. Is it my fault? Sure in some ways. Other ways not so much. Does it really matter who fault is was? The thing needed to get fixed and some one needed do it and not point fingers. Some one needed to stay positive even though the situation was grime. Was that me? No! I was visible stressed and anxious all day. I don't think I was ever negative but I was for sure not a calming presence. Instead my plant manger and Vice President remained calm and cool handled every problem that came their way, advised me and pushed me through he day and to them I am thankful.
another Example
On Sunday we announced some changes coming to Discover Point. These changes will effect our volunteer structure and will really shake up some things for the better at the church. It will however decrease some of the current volunteers roles. I was not sure how some people were going to take the news. Philip told the whole church during the service and was absolutely brilliant in doing so. He stayed positive and that went a long way towards easing the minds of some of our current volunteers.
Lesson learned stay positive.
3. Staying Positive goes along way
I was planning on blogging today about how leaders should stay humble but because of circumstances today and over the weekend today's topic made a lot more sense.
I am an I.T guy by trade. Today our main servers mother board went out. We had to send people home because without that server we can't run our plant (which is a problem in and of itself). We do not have a good back up because of money and corporate restrictions. Last I checked on Friday the server was fine and running smoothly so I left for the weekend thinking things were fine. I got call at 6am this morning telling me of the situation. So I got up out of bed and rushed to the plant. I worked all morning to get it back up and finally called our service company to order the parts I needed. Well the parts were no where in Atlanta so we had to order them out of Texas (They will be arriving tomorrow at 9am thank God). I know most of you guys understand business. So you must understand for a plant our size to be shut down for a whole day is a huge deal. Who does everyone blame when stuff like this happens, the IT guy. Is it my fault? Sure in some ways. Other ways not so much. Does it really matter who fault is was? The thing needed to get fixed and some one needed do it and not point fingers. Some one needed to stay positive even though the situation was grime. Was that me? No! I was visible stressed and anxious all day. I don't think I was ever negative but I was for sure not a calming presence. Instead my plant manger and Vice President remained calm and cool handled every problem that came their way, advised me and pushed me through he day and to them I am thankful.
another Example
On Sunday we announced some changes coming to Discover Point. These changes will effect our volunteer structure and will really shake up some things for the better at the church. It will however decrease some of the current volunteers roles. I was not sure how some people were going to take the news. Philip told the whole church during the service and was absolutely brilliant in doing so. He stayed positive and that went a long way towards easing the minds of some of our current volunteers.
Lesson learned stay positive.
Friday, March 6, 2009
Re-Think YouTube
This is my series on Social Media and the Church. I am no expert. Truth is there are not many real social networking experts out there. Social Networking is one big social experiment and it changes everyday. I oversee the social networking at Discover Point Church in Conyers Georgia. I love social networking and I love how the power it gives the church to connect to people in new ways. Again I am no expert. Just a guy who loves the Jesus, the web and finding way to connect the two.
I love YouTube and the freedom it gives you to load your content to the web. what I hate is that other people have that same freedom. Don't get me wrong I am all for people being creative and posting videos. Heck I even get that people are going to post semi-pornographic material or material that is just gross on YouTube and believe it or not I am okay with that because we are trying to reach that culture and unless their hearts are changed they are going to post that stuff. What kills me is that after YOUR video plays you have to play Russian Roulette and take the chance that the video previews that follow are not Semi-Pornographic. YouTube is a great place to show off your church to people who are going to look at YouTube anyways. I market our YouTube site, I promote it as much as I can to people who are not regulars at the church or as a place for regulars to send their friends. The group I am forgetting are the regulars. These are people who may not want to go to YouTube because they may have a had a porn addiction in the past and want to stay away from temptation. I have been thinking hard about how to restructure how I do our church video lately. I have actually quit posting videos on YouTube for the past month so I can plan my strategy and re introduce it to my church. There are a lot of things to think about. Here are a few.
1. If I use other sites what sites should I use?
Church Media Design just did an episode on 3rd Party Video sites and Embedded Flash Players (Great episode go watch it). The long and short of it was like I just said 3rd Party sites are great but you have little control over what plays after your video. Embed flash players let you control what shows after your videos but you host everything locally and you have to deal with bandwidth issues.
By the way here is a list of third Party Video Sites you might want to Check out
Blip.TV
Dailymotion.com
smugmug.com
Viddyou.com
Vimeo.com
Vimeo is the largest of these and I personally use them to host my After Effects Projects. The do a great job and don't have much questionable content on their site.
I really don't want to post the videos to just our website because it is harder to find than the third party sites and I want to share with everyone. I also think embedding content into blogs such as this one is easier to do with third party sites. It is also a lot harder to do quick capture videos (if you just want to do a quick announcement to everyone on video) with embedded flash players.
So here is the plan. I came up with to re work our Video.
1. Leave YouTube up and continue to send people there who are not regulars at the church. Because Everyone know about YouTube well more than any of the others.
2. Post all videos to Vimeo and use Vimeo to embed videos into blogs and other web pages.
3. Will use Vimeo for quick capture announcements.
4. Will make our motion graphic work available for everyone to download (work in progress) You can see it now on Vimeo and YouTube.
So what do you all think is this a better idea than just posting everything on YouTube? What Are your thoughts?
I love YouTube and the freedom it gives you to load your content to the web. what I hate is that other people have that same freedom. Don't get me wrong I am all for people being creative and posting videos. Heck I even get that people are going to post semi-pornographic material or material that is just gross on YouTube and believe it or not I am okay with that because we are trying to reach that culture and unless their hearts are changed they are going to post that stuff. What kills me is that after YOUR video plays you have to play Russian Roulette and take the chance that the video previews that follow are not Semi-Pornographic. YouTube is a great place to show off your church to people who are going to look at YouTube anyways. I market our YouTube site, I promote it as much as I can to people who are not regulars at the church or as a place for regulars to send their friends. The group I am forgetting are the regulars. These are people who may not want to go to YouTube because they may have a had a porn addiction in the past and want to stay away from temptation. I have been thinking hard about how to restructure how I do our church video lately. I have actually quit posting videos on YouTube for the past month so I can plan my strategy and re introduce it to my church. There are a lot of things to think about. Here are a few.
1. If I use other sites what sites should I use?
Church Media Design just did an episode on 3rd Party Video sites and Embedded Flash Players (Great episode go watch it). The long and short of it was like I just said 3rd Party sites are great but you have little control over what plays after your video. Embed flash players let you control what shows after your videos but you host everything locally and you have to deal with bandwidth issues.
By the way here is a list of third Party Video Sites you might want to Check out
Blip.TV
Dailymotion.com
smugmug.com
Viddyou.com
Vimeo.com
Vimeo is the largest of these and I personally use them to host my After Effects Projects. The do a great job and don't have much questionable content on their site.
I really don't want to post the videos to just our website because it is harder to find than the third party sites and I want to share with everyone. I also think embedding content into blogs such as this one is easier to do with third party sites. It is also a lot harder to do quick capture videos (if you just want to do a quick announcement to everyone on video) with embedded flash players.
So here is the plan. I came up with to re work our Video.
1. Leave YouTube up and continue to send people there who are not regulars at the church. Because Everyone know about YouTube well more than any of the others.
2. Post all videos to Vimeo and use Vimeo to embed videos into blogs and other web pages.
3. Will use Vimeo for quick capture announcements.
4. Will make our motion graphic work available for everyone to download (work in progress) You can see it now on Vimeo and YouTube.
So what do you all think is this a better idea than just posting everything on YouTube? What Are your thoughts?
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Tutorial of the Week
Again another web site/ Podcast Church Media Design. This guy is knowledgeable and he covers a wide range of topics. I have been watching since about week 4 and he has taught me a ton. If you are interested in any area of Church media design check this Brad Zimmerman and the Church Media Design Podcast out.
Inspiration of the Week
This weeks inspiration is a website full of awesome videos. Shilo.tv is a web slap slap full of off the chain videos that they created. Take the time to look through the videos. If you are not inspired you need to check your pulse.
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Top 10 Tuesday
Evey Tuesday I list 10 of my favorite things in a category so can get know me a little better and maybe learn something.
Today's list is my top ten favorite online services. These are services that are provided online and for the most part are free.
1. Google Reader- All of your feeds one place. The best feed reader out there if you ask me which nobody did.
2. Evernote- There Slogan is remember everything and they really do help you remember stuff
3. Remember the Milk- Speaking of Remembering. This task list will email and text you as many reminders as you like. Great Iphone app too
4. Gmail- Now we have come to the Google portion of this list. Gmail is my mail service and I would not have it any other way.
5. Google Docs- Microsoft Office Online wherever you are! Kind of.
6. GCal- My online Calendar and Planner
7. Ebay- Sell your stuff and get cash. Now if they could just lower those fees.
8. Paypal- More than just Ebay payments trust me.
9. Blogger- I know there are other blogging sites this is just my favorite.
10. You send it- Large Email attachments? You send it will send them all.
Today's list is my top ten favorite online services. These are services that are provided online and for the most part are free.
1. Google Reader- All of your feeds one place. The best feed reader out there if you ask me which nobody did.
2. Evernote- There Slogan is remember everything and they really do help you remember stuff
3. Remember the Milk- Speaking of Remembering. This task list will email and text you as many reminders as you like. Great Iphone app too
4. Gmail- Now we have come to the Google portion of this list. Gmail is my mail service and I would not have it any other way.
5. Google Docs- Microsoft Office Online wherever you are! Kind of.
6. GCal- My online Calendar and Planner
7. Ebay- Sell your stuff and get cash. Now if they could just lower those fees.
8. Paypal- More than just Ebay payments trust me.
9. Blogger- I know there are other blogging sites this is just my favorite.
10. You send it- Large Email attachments? You send it will send them all.
Monday, March 2, 2009
Learning Leadership Part 2
Okay so I have decided to start some series in this blog starting with today's blog. This series is called learning leadership. I am not a great leader and I am not ashamed to admit it. I am new to being on staff at a church and I am new to the role I play in my church. Most of my life I have been the one to do the work and let others take the credit. I love it that way and I would not have it any other way. I do not like the lime light and I enjoy criticism. I know I am weird. I do however enjoy when my team does a great job and people recognize it. That said being a leader of a team at Discover Point over the past year had taught me a ton lessons. Don't get me wrong I am still learning everyday but I thought I might share what I am learning.
2. Can't dodge tough choices
You can't, there is no getting around it. The second you dodge a tough choice everyone knows it and you lose credibility as a leader. On top of that the longer you let what ever it is go on the worse it gets and the harder it gets to change things. Everyone that you are leading gets frustrated when they see what is going on and it makes it tougher to lead them. The is probably one of the hardest life lessons I am having to learn is that leaders even if they are not in charge cannot dodge the hard decisions. I am not saying you should not pray about them or think long and hard before making them. Consult with people you trust but in the end you must make the choice and go with it. Some times that may mean hurting someones feelings, it may mean you have to do more work but in the end what is best for the mission is the choice you have to make. This is by far the hardest thing I am learning but the tough choices are not easy. So are you a leader or just another person in charge?
2. Can't dodge tough choices
You can't, there is no getting around it. The second you dodge a tough choice everyone knows it and you lose credibility as a leader. On top of that the longer you let what ever it is go on the worse it gets and the harder it gets to change things. Everyone that you are leading gets frustrated when they see what is going on and it makes it tougher to lead them. The is probably one of the hardest life lessons I am having to learn is that leaders even if they are not in charge cannot dodge the hard decisions. I am not saying you should not pray about them or think long and hard before making them. Consult with people you trust but in the end you must make the choice and go with it. Some times that may mean hurting someones feelings, it may mean you have to do more work but in the end what is best for the mission is the choice you have to make. This is by far the hardest thing I am learning but the tough choices are not easy. So are you a leader or just another person in charge?
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