This morning I saw Rick Warren, pastor of Saddleback Church, talking about “networking the church”. What he said hit home with what we’re doing here at ACS Technologies. For the past 30 years, we have been building a technology platform that allows the church to connect at a local level and also connect with the Church at a regional, national and world level.

The ACS platform supports networking at the local church by allowing home groups, committees, choirs, Sunday school classes or any other group in the local church to operate outside the walls of the church office. Now groups can communicate with each other using the internet but still stay connected to the church database. Working at the local church and the congregation is where any effort to network the Church world-wide must begin. The next step is to provide a common platform for all churches so the kind of networking Rick is talking about is possible.

That’s our vision here at ACS Technologies. With 22,000 churches ministering to more than 70 million people already using ACS Technologies products, the platform is being built. With continued future growth and acquisitions these numbers can double in the next 12 months and the platform will get even stronger.

Networking 1 billions church members is a task that will require coordination on a mammoth scale. A common technology platform for the church can help make this effort a reality. The results will be monumental and change our world.

The 20th anniversary ACS National Convention is just a few weeks away. More than 830 individuals have registered to attend this year's convention in Chattanooga, TN. We have a number of new classes this year so it should be a great time.

• 120 sessions available in 14 time slots
  
• 14 suggested tracks
  
• 24 vendor and ACS booths in Exhibit Area

Pre-Convention and early registration begins Tuesday May 15th and the Convention begin the 16th. Take a look at the agenda for more details.

There's still time to register and attend. I look forward to seeing you there.

My quest to effectively use my iMac in my Windows world continues. The experience with Parallels was good and it works just fine. However, it takes a lot of resources and I wasn't using the Mac OS so I started using a product that allows me to run Windows applications in the Mac OS. The name of the product is "Cross Over"

It seems to work pretty good but I haven't used many Windows applications on it yet. If you have any experience with Cross Over let me hear from you. You can see a demo at You Tube.

If this actually works and you can run Windows applications in the Mac OS it could mean more trouble for Bill.

We had our company meeting recently to get everyone in the company up-to-date on how 2006 turned out and what our priorities are for 2007. We have these group meeting twice a year when we close the company for a few hours and meet as an entire team. It's the only time I get to see everyone in the Florence offices at one time. It always a great time to get 250+ of your team members together in one place and talk about the company. I meet with everyone who works in our Phoenix office or other places around the country over the internet.

2006 was a great year for ACS Technologies. We continue to grow in all areas of the company while not losing our focus on the important things. Like taking care of our employees. We have always worked hard to make ACS Technologies a family friendly place to work. While we don't get it right all the time it's our intention to make coming to work at ACS Technologies a good thing.

That's not to say there's not stressful times and an abundance of work facing all of us every day. But if you enjoy what you're doing and get to work with great people, it makes going to work much more fun. Add to that the great clients we serve and it makes going to work a pleasure.

Thanks to everyone in our company that have worked so hard and dedicated themselves to making ACS Technolgies not only a great company but also a great place to spend a large part of your life. I appreciate all that you do for each other, our clients and ACS Technologies.

On a trip to Atlanta several weeks ago I realized I forgot my charging cord for my Treo 650. After living without my Treo for a day I decided I would purchase yet another car charger. I pulled into the Cingular parking lot thinking I would be just a few minutes. How long could it take to pick up a car charger?

Well, they were fresh out of car chargers for the Treo but they did have this new PDA called a Black Jack! Wow! This new PDA was everything I wanted. It was small, light weight and seemed to have all the bells and whistles. So, instead of a $20 charger I ended up with a new PDA The Black Jack runs Windows Mobile so I would have to learn the new operating system.

The first thing I realized was how much I used the touch screen on my Treo. The Black Jack does not have a touch screen so all navigation was accomplished with buttons and the wheel on the right side. It seemed that everything I wanted to do took several steps to accomplish. And I couldn't use the touch screen. This wasn't going to work.

After about a week, I realized the Black Jack was a very nice phone but not robust enough for what I wanted, so I switched to the new Cingular 8525. This phone is much larger than the Black Jack but it does have a touch screen and a slide out keyboard that fits my big hands much better.

So now I have a PDA that does everything I want running Windows Mobile. I miss using the Palm operating system but my IT guys tell me that Windows Mobile is the future so I'll keep working with the 8525. I'll let you know what I think in a few weeks.

I've written before about using technology and that making decisions based on how cool the technology is is not the best use of resources. We should focus on what the technology does for us. What problem is it solving or what need is it meeting. Well, I saw an extreme example of this last week at our ACS Technologies company picnic. Take a look at this picture and see if you know what I'm talking about.



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We're replacing all of our monitors with flat screens so we have an abundance of the older 17 inch monitors. We donate these old ones to local non-profit organizations around town but had a few waiting for their new home. I've heard of old computer equipment being good for boat anchors but never tent anchors. It was a very windy day and these old monitors did a great job of keeping our Karoke Tent in place. They're back inside now waiting for their new owner.

• I’ve been following conversations at http://groups.google.com/group/ChMS and several individual blogs discussing ChMS (Church Management Software) and the issues in selecting a solution for their church. It reminded me of similar decisions we had to make 6 years ago when we were searching for a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) product to manage our client information and our sales operation. It was a big decision and the product selected had to work for the long-term.
  
  After many months of research, attending conferences, visiting users and talking to a lot of sales people, we ended up going with SalesLogix. The price of the software and implementation was over $400,000. We have since spent the past 4-5 years customizing the product for our support and sales areas. We have over 300 users on Sales/SupportLogix product and see no end to the customizations we need to make on the product. We had to pay another integrator to integrate with MAS 500 this year when we changed our accounting even though the same company, Sage Software, owns both SalesLogix and MAS 500. None of these vendors really understood the software business so we had to educate them along the way. It was by no means a perfect fit but we felt it was the best available.
  
  As we were going through the process there were several things that were very important in our decision in addition to the features and functions. I knew the features and functions would change with time and continue to improve if we selected the right partner.
  
  I believe these considerations are just as important as churches make this important decision about who they choose as a technology partner for the future. Here are the items I would suggest for any church considering a new direction for their Church Management Software solution.
  
  Dedication to the ChMS Market
  
  Select a company that is dedicated to the ChMS market. Churches have unique needs that other software companies may not understand. You shouldn’t have to spend your time as we did educating your vendor about the market. Churches are fortunate that they have choices. Many organizations don’t have vendors who have developed solutions around their specific needs.
  
  Total Solution
  
  Which vendor has the most complete solution? Not only the specific features of the individual products but do they even offer a solution or do you have to deal with another vendor. No one vendor will have absolutely everything a church would ever want but who is doing the best job of providing a total solution across the functions I listed below.
  
  
• Membership Management – Interfaces for staff and congregation
  
• Contact Management
  
• Contribution/Donor Management
  
• On-Line Donations
  
• Attendance Tracking
  
• Volunteer Ministry Management
  
• CASS Certification
  
• Event Registration
  
• Email Communication/Marketing
  
• Check In security System
  
• Group/Small Group management including website management for each group
  
• Accounting – GL,PR,AP,PO,AR,FAetc
  
• Employee benefits management
  
• Event/Facilities management
  
• School k-12 management – Includes Teachers Gradebook
  
• Student Billing
  
• Web Store/eCommerce
  
• Website Management – Integrated with the membership information, groups, staff, Enterprise solution.
  
• Private communities with websites
  
• Email hosting
  
• Help Desk
  
  Ideally, all of these would be available to the end user anytime, anywhere, from one vendor and fully integrated.
  
  I’m sure I may have left out something. The point here is that a total solution includes many different products that all work together. Finding a vendor that can provide the total solution or who is moving in that direction should be an important factor in your long-term partnership selection.
  
  Stability of the Company
  
  There are several of ChMS vendors to choose from. Which ones are stable? Choose a vendor that you don’t have to worry about their future. Does the company have the financial strength to take their product to the next new technology when it comes along? Is the company a start-up or does it have a track record of success? Companies come and go so you want to make sure you’re partnering with a company that will be around 5-10 years from now.
  
  Customer Satisfaction
  
  For sure make sure they have some. How happy are they and for how long? This seems obvious but I can’t leave it out. Nothing predicts your experience with a vendor like their current customers. The satisfaction level may change as a company grows so make sure they have the infrastructure and financial strength to make the transition.
  
  On-site Visit
  
  This is a critical decision for your church and if possible you should schedule a visit to the vendors offices to see the organization at work. Meet with the team and get them to show you where the company is heading. Many times there is much more going on than you can see in a demo or a website. Get them to show you not just what’s available now but what is being developed and what is the vision for the organization, products and services.
  
  
  We’ve been satisfied with the decision we made on our CRM partner. While there are times when we get frustrated and wished it would do things different we don’t talk about replacing it with something else. SalesLogix is still in business and continues to improve.

I learned a new word recently. Mashup The Google Personalized Home page is an example of a Mashup. Google has given us a place where we can get all of our content on the Google search page by using Google Gadgets. What a great idea. Everytime I go to Google I'll also have information that's important to me. Things like the weather in Florence SC and Florence Italy, where my daughter is studying this semester. A list of blogs I'm tracking. The latest news stories. There are hundreds of gadgets available from Google and third parties providers. As I was working on my Google page a few weeks ago it occurred to me that our clients needed this capability too. How could we incorporate this into our product Extend Platform?

After imagining how much work it would be for our programmers, it then occurred to me that we don't need to duplicate what Google has done. All we need to do is allow ACS data and information to be available to be added to a Google Personalized Home page. Then we could deliver content to places on the web where people will more likely be rather than expect them to go to the churches website everyday and login to check for assignments, connections or calendar information.

I met with the programmers and they started working on the project. Last week they released the first ACS Google Gadget that connects a members Google Personalized Home page to ACS and deliveres information to them through their Google page. Now I can monitor my small group connections and my outreach connections from my Google page. You can check out the details at the ACS Development blog. BTW, because I'm such an enthusiastic supporter of gadgets and widgets, the development staff refers to them as Halets. I don't think that name will stick.

We will also soon release an ACS Widget that will deliver the same information to your dektop. Similiar to how Outlook let's you know you have new email, the new ACS Widget will let you know when you have a new or outstanding assignment or connection from your church.

These are the first of a series of small bite sized delivery methods to get content to where your members and staff spend their time. Integrating what they do as a part of their life outside the church and making it easier than ever to stay connected to their church. Keep checking in for the next exciting release of ACS Gadgets and Widgets.

What is content? Content is mostly thought of as information on websites. It's a written article, a video clip, audio clip or an image. This can be static information or it can reside in a database and delivered dynamically.

What about data from a database other than the one connected to the website, such as a list of individuals who sing in the choir, real time financial information from an accounting system, Attendance statistics, the people I need to followup with that visited the church, etc. This information should be available to the people who need to see it but not anyone else and it should be available through a website.

When a member visits the church's website, their experience and what they see should be unique to them. My daughters are 16 and 20 years old. One is in high school and the other is a junior in college. I'm a married 52 year old father of two daughters. When I go to the church website I would like to see information that's relevant to me as a parent.

I've been in a small group for 10 years. For the first 5 years I was the leader of the group. A small group should have a website as part of the church website that the group controls. The church staff can maintain oversight if they like but the content is our responsibility. And it's only available to members of our small group. When I add someone else to the group, then they also have access to the website. The same would be true for my sunday school class, any committees I serve on or any other group I belong to in the church.

Content is information. It doesn't matter if it the Pastor's latest sermon, members of a committee, pictures of kids, audio clips, financial data from the General Ledger, last weeks attendance or any other information that's important to the church. Content should be available to display on the website and it should be relevant to who I am.

Much of this functionality is available today in the ACS Technologies products. We'll continue adding to our product and everything I described will be available in the near future. Let me know what you think.

Which is better. I guess you can get all kinds of opinions about that. Well, when Apple announced that the new Macs would use the Intel chip I knew it was time for me to finally get a Mac.

When ACS was just getting started, we bought an Apple computer. I remember all we ever got it to do was show us some of the neat graphics. It was a green screen but the graphics of a horse running on the screen was amazing in the early 80's. We took it back and got our money back.

While I was in Chicago attending the NACBA this summer I visited the Apple Store and purchased my first Apple computer. I'm writing this blog on a MacBook Pro. There's no doubt that the Mac is a well designed computer. I like everything about it. Especially the magnetic power cord.

I've also installed Parallels and installed Windows XP and ACS for Windows. Everything works great. Now I can have both technologies in one product. That's really the best of both worlds. I don't have to pick one or the other but I can switch back and forth based on my needs.

It just occurred to me that it's the same with software. Web based vs Desktop based vs whatever else will come our way. Which is best? It depends on what you're doing. You need options. Apple switched their technology to Intel but still delivered a terrific solution. It wasn't about the chip, it was about what Apple did with the chip.

Again, it's not about the technology.