On the other hand, I think focusing on “the best end-user experience” is also just the nice, less offensive, more Christian way of saying “it’s all about me!” There’s a reason the biggest user experience company, Apple, does what they do (including naming their products )…it’s actually just marketing 101…the three things that grab our attention best: sex, food, me. It’s not that end-user experience doesn’t have it’s place, I would just argue that it’s not what your whole IT strategy should revolve around.

Peace. Thanks for the good discussion.

Kevin
http://opensourcechurch.com

good thoughts here. the point was not to support an individualistic tendency toward our americanism but rather provide the best end-user experience with their machines.

good thoughts though. seriously.

The good news for you is that open source is much more pervasive as a development model so finding a mature project with good documentation and support is getting much easier. Keep a look out and you might be surprised at what you find. As for one that uses ASP.Net, the chances are much less likely mainly because ASP is a Micro$oft technology which isn’t necessarily the most cooperative company for open source projects to say the least. If you’re serious about considering open source as an alternative, it’s good to support companies that also support open source software in their culture like Google and Sun (now Oracle).

Also, sometimes the cost of changing is worth it even if it’s more expensive and it makes you’re life (and theirs) harder. If you’re interested in more reasons aside from cost to move to open source software, check out my blog. In a post hopefully in the not-too-distance future, I’ll be covering why feature set and cost shouldn’t be the only things you consider to answer your comment more directly.

peace,

Kevin
http://opensourcechurch.com

I’m all for troubleshooting on my own, but sometimes you need to get something done and don’t have the time to try and figure it out. Another example would be that we choose to run Microsoft Exchange instead of Google Apps. The main reason there is that, you can’t really troubleshoot Google Apps. If something goes wrong or isn’t working correctly, we’re left to Google’s mercy.

I’m a little mixed on the whole MS Office vs. Open Office idea too. I understand the “desires” to go to Open Office because it cuts costs, but I deal with pretty computer illiterate people on my staff team. Sometimes the cost of changing something isn’t worth the money we’d save.

Next, to help the heterogeneous environments that you mention being able to create in #1 and #2, using web applications like you mention in #3 or cloud solutions like you mention in #5 is pretty much mandatory in a lot of ways. While cooperation and cross platform solutions are getting better (especially in the open source world), there’s no easier way to allow for cross platform integration than using a web application.

Lastly, I wanted to push back a little on #1, especially this quote:

Give them a budget and let them spend it on their own hardware, providing guidance, coaching, and a bit of wisdom perhaps?

While this is a great perspective from a secular and individualistic (might I say “American”) sense, I’m not sure it’s inherently the best way. As Christians, we are made to be in community and to lift up others needs higher than our own. So while we have the freedom to do as you mention, we also have the responsibility to think of others (and their budgets ) as well. So maybe as a church or organization we should agree to give a little if a homogeneous environment is better for the organization as a whole. Of course, while we’re thinking of others maybe we should broaden our scope further and include other churches as well (that maybe don’t have a media department, but a willing youth worker). Why stop there? We can also think of even others as well…

This is one of the main reasons I support open source software. It’s not just because it’s free and has great features. It’s that by using it I become part of the community that will continue to make it better for everyone, not just me. Wouldn’t it be cool if our churches and non-profits started taking that seriously and didn’t spend their budgets on software (even though they had the freedom to) so those budgets could be used elsewhere in other ministry? Then the open source projects they invested in could also be used by other churches and organizations as well. That decision might make their specific job harder for their specific team, at least initially. But are we always thinking about ourselves, our teams, our projects and our own church? Or do we continue to push our focus outward into the local and global community that Christ has called us to reach into? I think as Christians in our society we are good at pushing our focus outward in vague, abstract ways but maybe not so good at doing it in concrete, specific terms like how we spend our budgets. It’s very possible that using (and therefore investing in) an open source video editor that other churches could use as well (and make room in the budget for other ministry opportunities) could possibly have more kingdom impact than the video you produce with that software for your specific audience!?

I know that might seem like too radical of a statement but since we’re talking about radical ideas I figured this was the forum. As far as I can tell Jesus was a pretty radical person (and didn’t necessarily do things the most efficient way…come to think of it, he didn’t seem to have much of a budget most of the time either). And since we are supposed to be Christ-like, maybe our lives should be that radical too? Just some food for thought.

Kevin
http://opensourcechurch.com