Design Internship

a Monday in July of 2010 No Comments

This spring our graphic designer went on maternity leave, her absence represented a huge hole in our church staff – a hole I was responsible for filling. I decided to run an internship; I contacted a friend and graphic design professor at a local college and she spread the word. I wasn’t sure how many would turn out, so I took everyone who expressed interest – I thought maybe three or four – by the time the program launched we had seven interns.

The internship required 12 hours a week; 4 hours at the church, 4 hours off-campus during our business hours so I could contact them, and 4 hours whenever was handy for them. Two interns didn’t have laptops, so we arranged to only meet for launches and revisions.

I needed to assuage some concerns from our staff, so before launching I sat down with our ministry leaders to explain how everything would work: what our hopes were, what we’d need from them, what things would change, and how the process would work.

Here are the key points I hit during our conversation:

  • This is an expansion of the communication and design ministry
  • There will be experimentation, trial, and error
  • This will require more planning to connect and longer turn-around
  • Please be gracious during this process; talk with me if there is a problem
  • Internship for credit allows demands personal investment and feedback
  • These are ministry projects, not school projects
  • Projects will be initiated by an in-person meeting with the intern
  • There will be a board posted on the wall with all projects and statuses
  • We will connect you with project designer as much as possible
  • Bottom line: We will continue to deliver quality design in a timely manner

I’m happy with how everything went, but there were a couple changes I’ll make next time.

Native Files
I’ve had to contact a couple of the interns for small change requests or different formats of the designs. They’ve been happy to help, but it would have been much easier if we had the native files.

Program Feedback
Unfortunately I made the ask for feedback as a friend and as a favor; I wish I had made it a requirement for signing off on grades. I received only one person’s feedback.

On-Site Time
My biggest regret had to do with the interns without laptops. Even though graphic designers can do work from anywhere, there was a difference in our ability to support each other with no on-site time. This will be a requirement in the future.

Spiritual Growth
I set up the program more out of necessity than through intentional planning. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to incorporate spiritual growth. Seems basic for a church.

It was a crazy ten weeks. I had at least one intern in my cube 20 hours every week, and another 10 spent facilitating. It was fun and exciting, but by the end I was ready to be done.

I’m curious how others have run design internships; what went well, what failed? How did you incorporate spiritual growth?

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Ubiquitous Technology

a Friday in January of 2010 No Comments

Several days ago, Kevin Finn over at Church Marketing Sucks published an article encouraging churches to begin posting their sermon audio online; there were some great points brought up as well as resources provided to help pastors take this important step. Today, Harvard Business Review posted an article discussing whether technology’s ubiquity renders it “meaningless for competitive advantage.” In the end, it suggests that companies which ignore technologies as gimmicky or too-good-to-be-true ultimately fare worse than those who adopt and utilize them well. (I cobbled together an excerpt/summary at the end of this post for reference, though the whole article can be found here).

In the business world, the “competitive advantage” is over another company; in the church world our competition is (or ought to be) quite different. We’re trying to relate The Big Story to our neighborhoods, cities, and world with an obviously more important goal. In light of Mr. Finn’s article suggesting the adaptation of online audio, what other technologies are available to the church that are perhaps presumed to be widely adopted; which ones have we embraced, and which ones have we bypassed?

Some that Life Center has embraced:

  • Website CMS (Content Management System) – in my opinion, a church is a content machine, and a CMS makes it easy to add that content.
  • Professional Design Software – Adobe’s Suite is the most prevalent, but there are others and they’re capable of so much more than standard software.
  • Professional Printing – This is the same as design software – your regular in-office stuff just isn’t capable of the same quality. Besides that, you can find printing services for comparatively the same price (or even less) than what your copier can do.

Some that Life Center is considering:

  • Video broadcasting of services
  • Social Media

Summary of the Harvard Business Review article:

An economist is strolling down the street with a companion when they come upon a $100 bill lying on the ground. As the companion reaches down to pick it up, the economist says ‘Don’t bother — if it were a real $100 bill, someone would have already picked it up.

Some people believe that competitively valuable IT is also like the $100 bill. Technology is cheap enough for most companies to afford, essentially rendering it meaningless for competitive advantage.

Multiple researchers, are observing an increased spread in some aspects of corporate performance. I’m starting to think that we’re living in an “age of dispersion” — a time of growing divergence between companies’ capabilities in things that matter to workers, executives, and shareholders. If the trend exists, and it appears it does, it’s difficult to square with the idea that innovations are being so quickly and broadly copied that they’re meaningless for competitive advantage. It seems instead that even beneficial innovations are not being quickly, widely, and perfectly copied, and that the resulting variation in practices leads to wide variations in performance.

It seems, in other words, that there are lots of $100 bills lying around these days. Some companies are able to see them for what they are — valuable — and pick them up, while others ignore them the way the economist does, as fake or impossible.

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Less Building, More Face

a Wednesday in November of 2009 No Comments

Joshua Cody over at Church Marketing Sucks took a poll about churches and social media; results showed 20% find it successful, 42% find it a wash, 14% find it a flop, and 25% just haven’t found it.  Of those who hadn’t found it at all, Joshua asked:

Are you folks simply not willing to try? Is it not where you want to spend your time? Do you believe computers are possessed?

I can’t seem to find the article, but I was just reading the other day about organizations failing in social media because they’re being used as Michael Buckingham (also of Church Marketing Sucks) suggested yesterday, delivery methods rather than connection points. An organization can’t be social. They can’t go to coffee or a movie.  They can’t help if you need a ride or a meal.  They don’t know what you do on the weekends or what TV shows you like.  People want to connect with other people.  Using social media as an organization’s loudspeaker misses the mark.
It seems to me the biggest potential for an organization to utilize social media is by association and as a middle ground.  Who else can I find in the Church X network?  They go there too?  Cool, I’d like to follow them.  Then, encourage its staff, the people that run the organization, to use it in meaningful, purposeful ways, and provide the time to do so.  You’re enabling your “social” employees, whatever department they’re in, and you become less building, more face.

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Church Size

a Wednesday in November of 2009 No Comments

In an interview with Jack Welch, former CEO of GE, Bill Taylor, of Practically Radical, asked him, “Are we moving to a world where small is not just beautiful, but powerful?” Bill recorded this response:

Executives should want their companies to get bigger, he said. For one thing, it’s evidence that you’re winning in the marketplace. For another, it gives you the opportunity to bring in more people, which gives you access to more talent, which allows you to tap into more ideas, which you can then spread more widely — and start winning all over again.

churchIf you read the article, I think you’ll find Mr. Taylor’s thought process isn’t far from the thoughts of many small-church Christians; size is less of an advantage and more of a curse.  Christians (and not pre-Christians) seem relatively likely to applaud the small church for the “community” feel or otherwise suggest the size of the church is indicative of the amount of care a person will receive.  They think church should remain small.  The sad part is that many do.

No matter the attendance, every church should want to get bigger, it’s evidence that you’re winning people to Christ.  To not be a seeker-friendly church is entirely contrary to Christ’s direction to go and make disciples.

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Visitor Pack

a Friday in October of 2009 3 Comments

Our first attempt at a visitor pack was a couple years ago – it was supposed to roll out with a New Connections ministry that was going to walk new visitors through the pack while they ate fresh cookies from some sort of fancy cookie maker.  By the time the ministry rolled out, the pack was woefully out of date; there had been changes in leadership, changes in meeting times and locations, changes in the structure of our building.  Those were the highlights of the failure – the low-lights included inconsistency and typos.

We recently undertook a reprinting, something I was not particularly excited about.  I wish I could tell you how long it took to assemble, but I can’t even remember when our connections pastor made the request.  In any case, it’s finally finished!  I’m really proud of the whole piece and feel like it offers a lot to guests and members both.  Here are some things we did which really improved the longevity of the piece:

Visitor CoverThere are no

  • room numbers
  • meeting times
  • pastor references
  • group names
  • specifics that could change in a year’s time

But it is full of

  • core values
  • ministry goals
  • ministry elements
  • general contact info
  • foundational beliefs

While we were creating it, we nearly slipped into making a comprehensive pack – one that included every minutia.  Thankfully we remembered our audience – visitors.  The pack wasn’t designed as “Life Center 101″ but as an introductory brochure.  The pack launches in two days, Sunday, November 1 along with our second New Connections meeting.  All that’s left is for people to find the typos!

What has your church put together for new visitors?

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Volunteer Design

a Thursday in October of 2009 No Comments

I love being able to work with volunteers.  You get people passionate about your cause, and in some cases offering their unique gifting to it.  However, sometimes people mix up their hobbies, things they enjoy, with their gifts, things they’re good at.  See American Idol auditions as evidence.  While Simon can (and does) call people on their confusion, I’ll never be quite as blunt.  Having encountered this situation several times, I decided I’d rather place some guidelines on the front end than be faced with devaluing a volunteer’s hard work.  Here is what we ask our sub-ministries whenever they consider using a volunteer designer:

  1. Please talk to us first, and then connect us with your volunteer
  2. We’d like to see at least a year’s training or experience with Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, or InDesign (The Suite)
  3. Volunteers will need to have their own access to these programs
  4. A final draft needs to be submitted to us prior to sending the project to print

Sadly, it’s cut down on volunteer involvement (in the graphics arena), but it’s also cut down on hurt feelings.

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Every Friday

a Tuesday in October of 2009 No Comments

stackomailI’m not exactly an organized person, but clutter does (eventually) interfere with my concentration and focus.  Even though it’s not exactly in my face, a full inbox still translates to clutter in my workspace.  The reams of paper and cartridges of ink I could’ve wasted printing out all of my emails was embarrassing.  At least until today.

Tim Sanders, author and speaker, recently tweeted a link to his new email etiquette training website.  While poking around, I found this quote:

A leader at a very large software company … told me that every Friday by end of day, he addresses every email in his inbox before the end of the day. So going into the weekend, he has zero email in his Inbox. He as no folders, does not keep his sent mail and if there is something that he can’t get to, he simply adds it as a meeting item on his work calendar and makes time to address the particular email.  Something he needs to research or simply does not have the time to address at that time.

I wish I had counted how many emails lingered in my inbox, but I can tell you this: right now, I’m down to 22.  I don’t know if I’ll be able to clear out these 22 (the only ones that actually need some sort of follow up) by this Friday, but zero is what I’ll be shooting for from now on – every Friday.

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