17 May 2008

Day two had the bulk of the content and day three was the wrap up final session. Here are some specifics:

Opening Session (Curtis Simmons): Curtis did a great job walking us through both newly released functionality and what is right around the corner. It was good to hear about the architecture restructure that will allow for increased access to data through the coming API and CMS features. Ftech is wanting to be 'all things technical' for churches and yes, that includes managing and hosting their websites. With CMS a church will be able to develop templates and pull content right out of FellowshipOne and present it on the page. We're definitely heading in the right direction.

F1 Roadmap (Curtis Harris): Much of the same stuff presented in the opening session just with more detail and timelines.

LifeChurch.tv - Here, Now and the Future (Terry Storch): I love sitting in on session with this guy. Terry's heart beats for 'kingdom technology' and he shared a few of the projects currently underway at LifeChurch.tv. Internet Campus, OnePrayer and SecondLife are three of the biggies. Looking forward to hearing more from the LifeChurch.tv Team when the OnePrayer series hits.

CMS in FellowshipOne (Tim Hardy): Tim was great at walking us through the future CMS feature in F1. He not only described the idea and the way it would work, but also demonstrated by walking us through the process of editing pages and navigation. Sounds interesting for smaller churches. We currently use a CMS designed for us from the ground up. However, I look forward to the possibility of pulling in content with the RESTful API and presenting it on our pages. All sorts of applications come to mind...

Customizing Weblink with CSS (Tara Coulson): Simple and to the point, so why haven't I got in there and messed with it? It's called laziness. I just need to put it on the list and make it happen. FellowshipOne still uses an archaic css stylesheet to style their popup windows. So it will take a little work to find the right selectors, make the changes and then make sure that it hasn't completely destroyed the look of another popup using the same selector. Shouldn't be too bad though.

Evenings Activities (Friday): P.F. Chang's and a quick stop at IKEA.

Closing Address on Saturday (Randy Draper): Excellent choice. Randy has heart, humor and passion for church work. He encouraged us to NOT be the negative, angry tech person sitting behind the scenes. But to find the passion we need to laugh, love people, serve and find purpose in everything we do. Sobering and encouraging.

Saturday's Activities: Spend the next couple days with my beautiful wife (who decided to come on the trip with me). No solid plans, but I'm sure we'll find something to do in the big State of Texas.