www.creativemyk.com
CreativeMYK is a number of things, but it is very useful t0 the Church design staff.
“Gallery – A place for anyone looking for free, quality Christian graphics and photos shared by Christian artists around the world.
Steve Jobs presenting
When Steve Jobs takes the stage for a keynote presentaiton you can expect a highly polished and engaging experience. But what is it that makes it so?
Long time readers may remember that this topic has been on my mind since one of the earliest posts here on Digital Church. So it will come as no surprise that I am excited about the release ofa new book which may be of great assistance to church tech teams as well as pastors and speakers.
Carmine Gallo is a communications skills coach and has written a new book “The presentation secrets of Steve Jobs: How to be insanely great in front of any audience“.
This stuff is important for Pastors and tech team as we ‘compete’ with the modern day culture. In not many environments are people expected to sit and be focussed through a 30+ minute monologue and absorb it all. Perhaps there are some lessons here? You can let us know in the comments!
You can read a summary of the book on Business week.
But here are the main points:
Here’s a video of the author speakling about this new book:
via Business Week
VidBlaster is a relatively new product from Mike Versteeg, well known for his work on CastBlaster, a podcast production tool.
I tiraled the product with a simple 2 camera set-up using ambient light. Have a look and see for yourself!
Leave a comment about how you think you could use this product?
BTW, if you are using Firefox (as I would recommend!) you may need this plugin which allows you to run windows media inside of firefox.
http://port25.technet.com/pages/windows-media-player-firefox-plugin-download.aspx
I was recently sent a pre-release copy of “The Wired Church 2.0″ to review. The author is Len Wilson who has written it with the assistance of Jason Moore and will be published by Abingdon Press on 1 August 2008.
Len Wilson has an impressive heritage in church media and now co-owns Midnight Oil productions who regularly produce class leading media resources for churches.
Chapter One – Understanding Digital Media
The authors have done a fine job in this chapter of introducing the background and concept of digital media (and in fact new media).
As a professioanl educator I can see interesting links to Howard Gardner’s theory of Multiple Intelligences coming through quite strongly. It also gives a biblical background to why we use different media to communcate.
Of significant interest is the rise of participatory media and the effects as well as opportunities for the church as it promotes community and collaboration.
Quotable quotes (or what I underlined, highlighted or just liked!)
“We tend to overestimate the effect of technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run.” Roy Amara pg 1“…but as a ministry that uses video, audio, graphics, text, the internet, and other emerging technlogy applications to communicate the gospel. The more digital, narrative, participatory, and immersive, the better.” pg 7
“Ideas drive technology, not the other way around” pg 8
“Seemingly every ministry in the church will want to utilise them for it’s own needs” pg 8
My thought?
Initially I thought, why produce a book about this stuff when we are all online and can communicate this way, but (of course) this book is not necessarily focussed at me and my team, it is perhpas more focussed at the traditional media person, who will read a book but never the link that you send them (you know who you are!) Whilst future chapters are very relevant to me, chapter one will engage pastors and others who are more comfortable with print media and need to be hand held down a path, but it is when you have an expert publication that they will accept the change 
Coming soon: Chapter 2
Mark Edwards put me onto Muddy River Media today. They are a Church media content house, where it is all FREE, those are sweet words at the end of the financial year when the budget is blown and you still need to put up good media each week.
I encourage you to check them out and if you use to donate and help keep this unique and valuable service alive.
Came across this site today…what a great asset to the non-drawer like me. It takes your humble jpeg photo or graphic and after making a few adjustments it vectorises it! I pumped a logo through it which ahd originally been done as a water colour and scanned as a jpeg and it came out really quite good. You can download the results in .svg, .eps and .png! give it a go and be surprised!!!
I cannot remember who’s feed I saw this on, but opened it in a new tab and it sat there for quite a while before I opened it up. Creativemyk.com is a photo gallery site for Christian artists willing to share their work, a quick look around and there is some excellent stuff there. well worth a look!
There are 2 conferences happening in the next couple of days and weeks which I wish I could attend, but unfortunately they are both in the US, and that is just too far away!
Virtual Worlds Conference 2007
Virtual Worlds Conference 2007 is the leading event for Fortune 500 businesses seeking to understand and maximize marketing and business strategies within virtual worlds. VW07 gives you an inside look at the Virtual Worlds activities of MTV, Disney, AOL, Pontiac, Nickelodeon, Leo Burnett, Sundance Channel, GSD&M, IBM and other major brands. In addition you’ll gain exclusive insight into a variety of Virtual Worlds platforms including Second Life, There.com, Multiverse, Forterra Systems, Whyville, ProtonMedia, Entropia Universe, Habbo, Areae and more. Virtual Worlds 2007 shows you how to succeed as a marketer in this rapidly growing segment of marketing, media, entertainment and commerce. Separate buzz from success; hear from companies who’ve made the journey and learn from their experiments and activities; learn more about this technology trend and the consumers who inhabit virtual worlds.
I would like to go on 2 levels.
Firstly as a professional educator, we are moving more and more into on-line environments to assist learners, especially those in remote areas. Virtual worlds allow a greater level of interaction and engagement that the traditional correspondence, distance learning or flexible learning pedagogies (oops…bit too much eduspeak) basically it may well be reflective of the way we are working in coming years.
Secondly, the local church is about building community in Christ. Here are large communities that need the influence of Christ in their lives. The ultimate goal would be to bring those people out of the virtual worlds in which they exist and into a real relationship with physical people from their local church, however you could be witnessing to someone literally on the other side of the world from your desk! These technologies are no longer emerging and I believe need committed, strong Christians to take the message to these new untouched mission fields.
Attracting digital creatives as well as visionary technology entrepreneurs, the SXSW Interactive Festival enables you to connect, discover and inspire your link to the cutting edge.
Lots of people I read are going including the Scobleizer and the Swerve boys, so I will read their posts with interest.
Why would I like to go? it just seems to be bringing together a heap of people who I would like to talk to, listen to and develop ideas with. Pretty simple really!
If you are lucky enough to be going, drop us a line or comment here at Digital Church on how either of these went!
From my experience it is often the tech guys (& girls) who get asked about logo’s and such. But if you’re like me, you can drive a computer but can’t draw to save your self! My advice, always pay a graphic designer!
Today Cory over at Church Communications Pro linked to this article on 11 trends that will define logo design in 2007 from Logoorange.com.
Here are there 11 Trends:
Most church logo’s I know of wouldn’t fit with many of these trends, so perhaps during 2007 we can influence people to look at design trends when developing logos for the church or ministries.
Google Page Creator is a free online tool that makes it easy for anyone to create and publish useful, attractive web pages in just minutes.
Need to create a web page for an event but don’t have server space etc. This may be the answer. I havn’t been able to get an account yet, but I would be interested to hear from anybody who has.
Check it out and let us know.
Recent Comments