Today at lunch, Doug reminded me that I have yet to blog. So here I am with my tidbit for today:
Getty is currently holding a really fun contest (it involves inkblots and you’re own visual skills). I think it’s a cool, interactive way that they are creating buzz for one of their photo collections & it’s pretty fun to play. As an added bonus, there are some very nice prizes you’re entered to win. enjoy!
The National Novel Writing Month (affectionately NaNoWriMo) is more like an online community (dating back to 1999!) than a month of recognition. Participants each agree to author an original novel no less than 50,000 words all during the 30 days of November. The experience includes “real-life” local meetups, coaching tips and advice in a forums section, and an interactive tool allowing you to track your word count progress and share it with friends.
As web technologies have advanced, so has NaNoWriMo’s experience, rising from 21 participants its first year to over 59,000 just a year ago. The founders have also expanded their original scope, as the website is the primary vehicle driving efforts including fundraising, founding libraries overseas, and starting a young writer’s program.
Just saw a post over at Non-Profit Tech Blog about Blackbaud offering an Open API. What is an API you ask, and why should I care?
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Read an interesting article today from the gentlemen at 37 Signals about designing web applications using a process involving “patterns“.
Designing with patterns bascially involves defining bits of information that need to be included in your layout, grouping those bits into chunks, prioritizing those chunks, and then making them look good. It also involves breaking old habits. This puts it very simply. I recommend you read the article to be truely enlightened.
One of my good friends - John Falke (who we call “Flash”) - is holding at Photoshop for Ministry half-day seminar on Thursday, November 9. John is the Graphics and Communications Director at Fairfax Community Church. The cost is $29, which seems pretty reasonable based on what is being offered.
Besides giving John a pointer, I’m wondering how churches and ministries view this event. Does it look worthwhile to you? Is it in your budget? Would you be willing to travel for such an event?
We are always seeking better ways to serve the Christian community. We previously held two free blogging teleseminars and are constantly thinking of new ways to equip, educate, and empower our partners.
Go check out Photoshop for Ministry. Let us know what you think and tell us how Silas Partners can provide you with new educational and training opportunities.
Monday morning devotionals have been a tradition at Silas Partners since before we were even Silas Partners. It started back in the day when we were LifeAudio, and Duncan and Sebastian started their week with an hour devoted to the Lord. Through the years there have been several phases, ranging from general prayer meetings, to reading Christian living books, to giving testimonies. Nowadays we have a Devotional Committee, and our Monday Morning Devotionals are in the form of Bible study, specifically the Lumko Study method. Read more >>
We get a fair amount of mass and junk type mail in the office, but every once in a while I’m surprised by something really good mixed in, like the prize in a box of cereal. On Monday we got the Vision Forum Family Catalogue. I had never heard of them before, but it looked intriguing, so I leafed through it to see if it might be of interest to anyone else in the office. As I looked through the catalogue, I was actually incredibly encouraged to see the good works Vision Forum is doing, particularly on strengthening the family. Read more >>
Recently, Apple sponsored a study that found large computer monitors (particularly the 30-inch Apple Cinema Display) increased user productivity by 50%-60%. In response to the press that this study is getting, Jakob Nielsen criticizes the study’s methodology and findings saying that “it didn’t test realistic tasks, and it didn’t test realistic use.”
The take away for me from reading this article is not whether I should get a bigger monitor, but just the thought that productivity is a key aspect in evaluating usability. Specifically, productivity should be a theme that penetrates usability tests not just for the workplace, but also for websites or any piece of web communication.
In the article, Nielsen argues that productivity should be evaluated by looking at “operations� (“Was the user able to compute his taxes?�) rather than “tasks� (“Did he enter the information in less time?) which is supposedly what the Apple researchers did.
So in application, I think the ideal that everything is “one click away� is challenged at this point. If everything is a click away, that’s almost like receiving the phone book in a scroll rather than in regular binding. Thinking that we can be more productive on a website by shaving off the number of steps to an action is an incomplete strategy. The strategy needs to be balanced by the creation of simple paths to the action that allows the users to accomplish their goal, whether takes them 20 seconds or one minute.
So how have I kept my Inbox empty for three years? I’ve cheated. Outlook has a feature that allows you to create rules to run on messages as they arrive.
I have about fifty (and no I’m not exaggerating for effect) rules that move messages when they arrive, that means they don’t even hit the inbox. But besides being able to tout a clean inbox it allows me to group messages with no effort.
I have a mailbox for each person at Silas Partners and one for each Partner I email with regularly. I use that in conjunction with a buried option in Outlook to create a conversations inside of folders. That option is under Tools > Options, then the Preferences Tab > Email Options > Advanced Email Options > In Folders, other than the Inbox, save replies with original message. So when I get an email from Jenn Fraher here at Silas the message is moved to her folder so my reply is put into that folder.
No more sorting through Sent Mail by date and Inbox by sender, I just click on a folder.
So there are my three ways of keeping myself sane while using Outlook. No one has chimed in with comments, and I know we all have our own little Outlook tricks - come on people share!
So yesterday we looked at how to make “read” actually mean “read” in Outlook. By doing this we are adding back in a layer of meaning to email. Something marked “read” means I have looked at it, understood it and decided on next actions.
If that next action isn’t get up and talk to the person or reply or anything immediate I use Outlook’s built in flag system.
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Silas Partners exists to help Christian ministries fulfill their missions. Our specialty lies in helping ministries use the Internet effectively, in a way that supports their overall goals and strategic priorities. Read more >