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Friday 5 – Leo Wurschmidt


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Today’s Friday 5 is with Leo Wurschmidt.  I’ve gotten to know Leo fairly quickly through video chat and it’s been great.  We’ve even brainstormed some crazy web app ideas within the first few weeks…!

He also rocked the first “true” guest post here at ChurchCrunch… which I was very happy about.

Name?

Leo Wurschmidt

Blog/Website[s]?

http://triunedesigns.com/blog

Time Bandits or Favorite Websites?

Google Reader

Facebook

SitePoint

GoPack.com

Whatcha Working On?

Trying to better assist small business owners, whose computer skills only extend to checking their personal email and using MS Word, improve their web marketing.  There seems to be a sizeable chasm between that subset small business owners and those of us who are technologically entrenched.  I would like to try and close the gap.

How do you see Web Technology impacting The Kingdom?

The Internet is now allowing for an increased ability for Christians to fellowship with one another all across the world.  I can now connect with other Christians anywhere in the world at almost any time.  As a result, I can easily talk with them, support them, and learn from them.

I am also able to keep up with the needs of the poor and the persecuted Church like never before.  For me, the Internet is akin to what the printing press did for Christians.  The printing press created increased access to the Bible allowing more people to read the Scriptures for themselves instead of just being told what they were by the church.

Using current web technology I can now follow what is happening to Christians worldwide without having to solely rely on my home church for news and updates.

That is an amazing aspect of the web that is really impacting the Kingdom.

CreativeMYK – An Artist Network and More


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Matt from Mile2Studios passed me this link that I thought was of value to share with everyone:  CreativeMYK.com

Essentially, it’s a “free” graphic and image repository with some social networking features built in.

Artists and creatives can have their own profile, showcase some of their work, discuss each other’s work, critique, and other such fun.

creativemyk_artists

Here’s a good screeny of one of our ChurchCrunchers Adrian:

adrian_rodriguez_creativemyk

But I wanted to dig a bit further, so I got in contact with some of the founders (5 of them!) and sat down to discuss.  Here’s the interview:

Who’s behind CreativeMYK?

CreativeMYK was founded by several church graphic artists in the Orange County area.

How long has the site been up and what’s the back story to how it all got started?

CreativeMYK is a little over a year old. CreativeMYK originated from several local church designers wanting to meet and share resources, share frustrations, gain ideas, be encouraged, inspired and fellowship.

After several meetings, the idea of expanding the community online came up and CreativeMYK was born. Some of us were a bit nervous to see how well the site would do only because we were never sure how many people would actually take interest in the site.

After just 1 month of CreativeMYK opening online the response was overwhelming with participation, encouraging emails and the suggestions to take the site to the next level.

After just 6 months, we introduced a social networking aspect to the site and gave artists Creative Spaces. A Creative Space allows artists to network with each other, share portfolios, get hired and have conversation through Critique and Discussion. After opening up the social side of our site we had more than 400 Artists, Pastors, Secretaries, Leaders and volunteers signup within the very first month.

How many users do you currently have?

Roughly 1700 Creative Spaces and more than 2000 visitors daily downloading artwork from our free gallery.

How are you guys fostering community. etc?

We encourage our users to utilize our discussion board and critique board to challenge, encourage, create conversation and positive feedback through our forums and Creative Spaces.

What are the future plans of the site?

It’s a secret but we are very excited about a few things planned for release in the coming months.

How do you see the web changing the face of design?

The web has completely changed how we interact with the world and gather information.  The pace of new design fads has catapulted on the web.

It is light years faster to observe design trends, learn new design techniques with online tutorials, file share and social network.  Our goal is to use the web to raise the bar for Christian design by providing a place to share and socialize in our niche community of Christian artists.

Smarter Use of Technology and Advertising Please


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Google has been a blessing from above for the evangelical community and it’s provided many of us (if not all?) great products to use for our lives and ministry work.

But sometimes it backfires.

For example, I saw this great article about how “Teenagers are learning valuable social and technical skills online” and was excited to jump in.

But what I immediately saw after about 5 seconds was this conflicting and contradictory advertisement by a Christian boarding school for troubled teens, and this frustrated me enough to blog about it.

Now I’m all for advertising, but only if it’s leveraged wisely, thoughtfully, and strategically.  And if you’re going to give up control of your advertising with the Google-monster, you’d better be aware of the plentiful shortcomings.

Technology is great, but it’ll smack you in the face if you aren’t careful.  Defending your brand, not the mention the “brand” of the Church is important too.

Image from Tom Andrews [Flickr]

And this isn’t just about the readers, either.  It’s about the organization!  That website was on the top Digg-list for a while, meaning that it received more hits that day than probably the life of the entire website.

That means, among a number of other things, that valuable advertising dollars were wasted because they weren’t reaching the intended target audience.

Especially in this economy, you can definitely afford to do a little more thinking about it… because wallets are tight everywhere.

So do it for yourself.  Let’s all be a little more careful when we seek to use technology for our ministries and organizations.  Make sure you know what you’re getting into.

It’ll save you time, money, resources, heartache, and potential embarassment.

Cheers.

Need Design? Three Services for Ministries on a Tight Budget


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So, let’s say you’re starting a new ministry, organization, or need a quick logo or graphical design.  Your budget is shot because of overfeeding the high schoolers on the last trip to Six Flags (but it was so worth it) but you’re stuck.

What to do?

Perhaps you should try 99Designs, Crowdspring, or Incspring, three design services that can get you a logo, design, or even creative web site quickly and cheaply.

It’s fairly straightforward and simple to begin.  Take a look at some of the examples and then give it a go if it suits your fancy.

Please know that you “get what you pay for”.

I say this to kindly remind you that you are not guaranteed in any way, shape, or form a “world class” design by a fortune 50 firm.  These are independent designers, and you’ll get submissions that pretty much span the talent cloud from very good to the “is this a joke” submission.

I know, I’ve tried.

But the results were satisfying for my budgetary needs.

Side note for those that strongly dislike “spec” design (speculative design).

I know the issues and the arguments.  I agree with both worlds.  You have to submit, though, that these three can provide valuable resources to startup ministries, organizations, or those who need some quick design on the cheap and who understand that they are “getting what they pay for”.

The End.

Know It When You See It


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I can remember when I was younger that I’d spend a lot of my time climbing things (I also spent a lot of time destroying things…).  There was always another tree to climb, or wall, or something to scale.

I can remember countless times the loving words of my parents running through my head as I ran up those trees: “Be careful or you’ll poke your eye out.”

And I can remember thinking “Yeah, whatever…!”

It was up until the point where my Heavenly Father decided that my eyes weren’t as good as I thought them to be and I needed glasses.  My eye sight was indeed a precious gift (and of course at the time I thought this looked extremely nerdy… but now I’ve found it makes you a “cool” guy).

There’s something special about how the mind works with our eyesight, how there’s, for a lack of better terms, visual memory that we employ almost every day.  How many times have you thought

“Well, I can’t remember what I was looking for or what I needed, but I’ll know it when I see it.”

This effect hasn’t been well developed nor thought out for the online space… but we’re getting there.  And it’s things like Ryan Sit’s PicClick and FavThumbs that are kindly and gently reminding us that we should definitely be spending a little more time with how we develop graphically.

You see, besides the “coolness” factor of PicClick or FavThumbs is a foundational design element that is based on need.  It’s this marriage, between visual styling and consumer-felt need that is the most crucial, especially in today’s online digital extravaganza.  You can be “wow’d” almost anywhere, but are those things that go pop satisfying a need or a sensation?

That’s where it’s most crucial for us, the Church, in the online space and I struggle with this every single day.  As one who is leading the “creative” for potential high-volume, high trafficked websites, my job is to make sure that functional and pragmatic elements of the site are married with a visual appeal that matters.

I don’t take this lightly, and neither should you.  In a digital world where few sites are truly “sticky” we’ve got to provide something that doesn’t offend the audience’s most basic sensibilities but shows them something truly worth investigating further.

Make it so when the come, they say “Ah, now that was what I was looking for…”

I Saw the Future of Internet Campus Video Experience


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I saw the future of internet campus (iCampus) video experience the other day and it wasn’t (not a surprise here) from a church, ministry, or evangelical-oriented business.

It was from Revision3, powered by BitGravity’s new Multiview technology.

One look and I prayed that some church or ministry would rock this.

But, I will be honest… when I showed it to my wife she wasn’t very impressed.  She made a good point though: “It’s like bringing the production studio ‘view’ out to the audience.”  I thought that was a neat way to look at it.

Technology-wise, the thing is stunning, and the seamless transitions between vantages is amazing.  I am literally salivating to know the engineering and tech behind the scenes.  To also find out on the same day that BitGravity reps Vimeo HD in their portfolio made me lose my lunch too.  Insanity!

Even in the Revision3 example they’ve got a Meebo Chat room enabled.  Video + Chat = iCampus, right?  Throw in some notes and relevant content and kapow! you’ve got a sweet looking experience.

Screenshots for posterity… you have to experience the real thing though.