Faith and Web

Friends,

I’m just back from my faith’s annual assembly.  It’s been a heady few days — and to my complete surprise my batteries for working on Faith and Web seem to have been recharged.  Of course, I’ll need to see if this stands the acid tests of time and competing priorities, but there are many, many things I am itching to talk about.

Here’s a sampling.

• Email newsletters vs. email marketing.
• How to harness the power of blogs for your church.
• What’s in analytics aside from a sea of numbers?
• What about this new kid on the block, Squarespace?
• And most of all, faith and the groundswell (a.k.a. the social web or Web 2.0).

So buckle your seatbelts, and send me suggestions.  I’m all ears.

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Writing this blog changed me. It turned out that even though my main goal wasn’t blogging itself, nonetheless I loved it.

The thing was, I didn’t have enough time. Various life forces converged. In particular, my job kicked into high gear. But there was a part of me that pined away, wanting to blog.

Then came the Christmas holidays. Every year this is a time I reflect and try to come up with a goal for the new year — a goal that’s both challenging and realistic about my limitations. This holiday the thing that kept popping into my mind was blogging. Left brain: “You don’t have time.” Right brain: “Pout. But I want to.” Left brain: “That’s not good enough.” And so on.

Finally the big day came and I couldn’t come up with anything else that did it for me. Worse, I’m perceived as a blogger in the worlds I circulate in. People are even asking my advice about who should blog and how.

So, I took the leap, with one sensible caveat to myself. This new blog would not be about substantial posts. I gave myself permission to dash stuff off, make more typos, not dot every i, etc., etc. For subject matter, well…. In many ways it’s still the same as this blog, but it’s not particularly church-focused. Sometimes I blog about church and web. Sometimes I blog about work and web. And sometimes, gasp, I just blog about fun stuff like Mr. Web Diva climbing trees.

So here it is…. Enjoy…. The Happy Web Diva.

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As some of you have noticed, I haven’t updated Faith and Web in several weeks. What’s worse, I’ve barely kept up with other blogs. Worst of all, I haven’t even been to church. Put simply, there hasn’t been time. This morning, however, I was back in our gorgeous sanctuary. It’s a new day.

And what a service to return to…. The Wicked and the Good, featured the Rev. Gail Seavey, Marguerite Mills (Director of Religious Education), Jason Shelton (Director of Music), the children’s choir, the adult choir and many good-humored others, singing songs from the musical “Wicked” and parsing how we can tell who is doing good and who isn’t. “A hint: you can’t always tell by looking.” It was one of those services I’ll remember the rest of my life.

Now, a few hours later, I’m mostly recovered and delighted to also have time to blog. I’ll do the obvious, and reflect about my gap in posts as well as what it means for the future. One aside: at church I was comforted to learn that lately many of us have been busy in a way we aren’t used to. It’s good to know I’m not alone.

Speaking for me, most of the changes are evanescent. For example, we’re remodeling our home office. This has long been a dream of mine – to give the room that houses our computers more light, plus a view of our backyard. However, with the construction my beloved old eMac went offline.

A few of the changes, though, are large and of lasting consequence. In particular, my job responsibilities have expanded. I’ve been named a leader of the organization I work for. As you might imagine, I feel deeply honored and absolutely thrilled (even a little stunned). But more importantly, this signifies a shift in understanding of the Web – both what it is and what it means to my organization.

It’s not just a shift in understanding for the executives. It’s also a shift for me. I believe that this blog is part of it. Blogging has helped me look at my work in some new ways. It’s one thing to talk about and build Web 2.0. It’s a whole other thing to actually live it.

Today, as I catch my breath, I’m looking at my priorities. I realize they’ve changed. The priorities I understand look something like this:

1. Love my family and dearest friends. In the end they are what matters most.

2. Do the best job at work I possibly can. I must live up to the trust in web leadership that has been invested in me.

3. Love my church. Unlike many people, I am blessed to be a part of an amazingly vibrant, yet truthful, congregation. Over and over, it helps me discover a better self. As they sang this morning:

“We are led to those who help us most to grow
If we let them and we help them in return.
Well, I don’t know if I believe that’s true
But I know I’m who I am today
Because I knew you:
I have been changed for good.”

Looking at this list, I’m also aware that there are some missing priorities. In particular, I don’t know where blogging fits. Is it priority number four? Or is it woven into two and three? I suspect the latter, but have a confession to make.

When I began this blog, my real goal was to consider writing a book about building excellent church websites. Specifically I planned to blog until the New Year and then regroup. If still interested, I was going to spend my down time during the last week of the year exploring publishers. That decision is now made — at least for the foreseeable future.

However, it turns out I love blogging in and of itself. So I wonder if there is a way I can write meaningful but short and occasional blog entries? Many of the blogs I read do this very well. While that’s not been my style, perhaps I can figure out a way to do this? Or perhaps I will have more days like today where time unexpectedly opens up and I can again write something more substantial.

I don’t know what my blogging tempo will be in days to come, but I do know that it’s a wonderful adventure, that I have much to say, and that church websites are well worth loving too.

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I’d been intending to post this past week, but between a couple of major projects, illness in my family, and the heat, haven’t had the time. Now I have another big project, so it will be two to three weeks before I have a chance to blog again.

Meanwhile, I’ll be thinking of you, gathering stories, and praying for rain in this part of the world.

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I’m starting to learn there are blog-charged days – days where even if you’re not blogging, the ripple effect of your words is quite clear. Today was one of those.

First off, I heard from Vincent Flanders of Web Pages That Suck. He’d noticed my mention of him. Holy Toledo! In my web diva universe, he’s a super-star. He literally wrote the book on dreadful web design, and I’ve been reading his stuff for years.

If you haven’t visited his site, be sure to check it out. Chances are it will cure what ails you. It’s bound to make you feel better about whatever website (church or otherwise) you are coping with at the moment. And, if you’re like me, you’ll end up howling with laughter.

Then my most recent post (Firing a Client) elicited a couple of surprising results. I worried one of the people I’m currently working with. She was concerned I might mean her. I hadn’t realized she was reading my blog. Wow. Not only was it not about her, she’s the kind of client that makes me want to do more of this work. Witness her taking the time to read what I write.

In addition, Lizard Eater had an excellent comment about the same post. She suggested writing a contract, and she clearly delineated the particular perils of being a web volunteer, such as, “people assume that since they surf the internet, designing web pages can’t be that hard.” Amen to that. She’s so burned, though, I wonder if she’ll ever do this kind of work again.

I know she’s far from alone. Putting these two responses together, I realize that a page geared to clients with easy tips on how to work well with us webbies would be helpful. So I’ll pull one together in the next few days. If you have any suggestions for the list, just drop me a line or make a comment below.

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I am delighted to introduce Dean Goddette, who will be guest posting on Faith and Web. Dean is webmaster at Chalice Unitarian Universalist Congregation in Escondido, California.

We’ve never met, but he came to my attention first blogging about technology and churches at Share the knowledge.

Then when I saw what he’d done with the members-only section of his church’s site, my jaw dropped. And I begged him to write more. He said yes, and you will soon see a post by him on this very topic. Pay close attention. He knows his stuff.

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The menu on the right of this blog was driving me nuts. I like a menu that screams menu – not a vague, dreamy-looking list. So I took the time to clean it up and do a bit of other blog housekeeping.

Here’s what else is new and different:

• A Best Posts page – arranging the more substantial entries into large groups.
• A Welcome page for newcomers to the site.
• A Contact page. I was tired when I added it last night and briefly had it as a post. Apologies if some of your news readers picked it up.
• A subscribe by email feature.
• Google Analytics is now embedded in the footer of most pages. Soon I should be able to answer Philocrites’ query.
• The Flash header has been replaced by a .gif file. (I was starting to tire of the butterfly.)
• And speaking of the .gif, a good friend and extraordinary graphic artist recently did a cartoon of me, which is now in the header graphic. Many thanks to her for her generosity with her talent.

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For a while I’ve been toying with the idea of using the del.icio.us experimental blog posting feature, and yesterday I did the deed. So a little after midnight, when I was fast asleep, the bookmarks I’d made yesterday were posted on this blog.

In theory, from henceforth this should happen every day when I link in del.icio.us. For what it’s worth, I don’t link that often, being a moderately picky bookmarker. Typically sites I choose are utilitarian and related to constructing websites.

Del.icio.us 101

I expect most of you already know about del.icio.us, but in case you don’t, it’s a “social bookmarking website” – meaning that registered users get to share their lists of web favorites. It’s a great example of the extreme potential of databases. Take some simple information from many sources, get a critical mass of it, develop a few tools for it, and you can serve it up in an amazing variety of ways.

If there really is a Web 2.0 (something I question, given all the hype about it), then del.icio.us is my favorite example.

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I happened upon a few great plug-ins, thanks to Daily Blog Tips, and just couldn’t resist the temptation. The two that have me the most excited are:

1. runPHP
   Oh, the power. What a girl can do when she can shimmy a little PHP into her code, including….
2. SRG Clean Archives
   Note my new Archives page. How I love a tidy list that generates itself. Not only that, it strikes me as easier to scan and thus more user-friendly than your average WordPress archive page.

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In the past, I’ve used my blog as playground – a carefree zone where I could experiment with code. If the servers were slow (which they have been at points), no problem. If I didn’t write anything, that was okay too. A steady stream of words from me was not the point.

But that just changed. I have a new focus, and in honor of the occasion have developed my own WordPress theme. I’ve gone out on the edge and have even used a bit of Flash, though hopefully it’s not too Flashy for you, gentle reader. Of course, I love dinking with code, and this is a great excuse.

Excellent Websites for Churches and Faith Organizations

The new focus is on building excellent websites for churches and other faith-based organizations. I learned that web work could be a calling in church one day a few years ago, and have been helping with that very same church’s website for almost 12 years now. In web years, I guess that makes me an octogenarian. Certainly I’ve been doing this work with several of my best buddies since around the dawn of web time. For the most part I love it. And people seem to like the site, which actually surprises me, because I’m so aware of how much better it could be.

I am inspired to go in this direction by the unlikely combination of two blogs: the wonderfully named Church Marketing Sucks and the ever thought-provoking Yet Another Unitarian Universalist. Don’t ask me how this works. All I can tell you is it’s the chemistry of having done this for so long and how these amazing bloggers speak to me.

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