JohnCStark’s posterous

This week John signed up for a MySpace account. Quite a few million people have got a spot of MySpace, so John thought he'd join the crowd. He already has a few friends and wouldn't mind finding a few more.

Check his page out at  myspace.com/johncstark 

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I've been in Orlando Florida this week at a conference. I've been attending about six, hour and a half, classes each day. I'm learning a lot, but I'm getting really tired! [so why in the world am I up so late writing in this blog?!!] ACS is the software my church uses to manage information about our congregation and bookkeeping stuff. They also have other products I've been learning about this week that might be a benefit for us to start using in the future. The system has a lot of different modules and features to help churches manage information. The biggest challange most users of the software face is integrating the whole system as a church. While in town, I've had dinner with Derrick a couple times. He has been living in Florida now for 5 years after moving from Des Moines. It has been great having the chance to hang out with him. [He's also saved me a bunch of money by picking me up from the airport and driving me around town.] Oh yea, I forgot. I stayed my first two nights in Orlando at the Disney Dolphin Resort. Dolphin was entirely booked for my last night in Orlando so right now I'm at another Disney resort (Port Orleans Riverside). Yeah, I took the boat ride to downtown Disney today/yesterday. It was busy. I'm not much into buying stuff but if you are... downtown Disney is the place for you to visit with a huge pocket of money. I saw Mickey Mouse on Tuesday morning at the Dolphin resort. I was sitting at my table in the convention room and Mickey walked by and patted me on the shoulders. He wasn't very talkative, but I know he was very glad to meet me. :) I didn't have a camera with me so I don't have any photos to remember the occasion. Well, I've got a class to attend in about 5 hours so I better go. I got a long day ahead of me. Hopefully, I don't miss my flight back to Des Moines tonight and get back safely. It would be terrible to be stuck in Florida for another day or two.

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Well, I heard on the news last week that quite a few million people have a place on MySpace.com. I'm adding myself to that number. I'm not exactly sure how active I'll be on MySpace. It will greatly depend on how many of my friends will use the site. (And how many of my friends will accept my friend requests

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Doug Applebee, an old friend of mine, pointed me toward Joomla the other night as a possible content management system to look at for work. Well, I decided to give it a try at home. To my complete and utter amazement I was able to download and install Joomla without any problems. Ive been searching for a template to use. For now Im just looking for freebee options; however, if I end up sticking with Joomla for a while I might look into customizing something. In addition to loading Joomla, Ive installed the wordpress blog compentent. Im still pretty new to the blog thing so it will take some time for me to get used to how things work. There are several blogs Ive come across in the last few months Id like to link to. I'm not exactly sure what the ultimate purpose of our family website will be. The biggest reason we obtained the domain was for getting a static email address. We can switch internet providers and still keep the same email address. In addition, Im also able to create unique email addresses for a lot of the business we deal with at home. (Companies beware, I know whose giving my email address away.) Another reason for working on a personal website is to learn. Ive done a lot of work over the years learning how to work with video, print, and visual graphics; however, working with the web is still new to me. Designing for the web is a little more difficult for me to get my thoughts around. There is a learning curve involved and Im working my up the mountain. I dont think Ill ever have an interest in mastering the underlaying programming behind the creation of webpages; however, I do want to learn enough to understand the broad ideas of how things work.

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Tonight our F.E.D. Group, a small group of First Federated Church, celebrated the friendship and love we have for Scott and Jane Larsen. Scott is now the director of Twin Lakes Christian Center. The entire family will move to Twin Lakes in the near future. We will miss them. Our camp themed get together included snacks, music, and elements typically found in a camp environment. Many thanks to the Sheltons who hosted our get together.

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Today I participated in an all-day staff retreat to go over the upcoming ministry calendar and the next budget for 2006/2007. It was a long day. How well it was spent will be determined by the outcomes of our planning. Throughout the day the most significant moments for me were those in which the dialogue moved beyond the details of event planning to those unlying priniciples which guide our decisions. Ive increasingly found myself dissatisified with anything not done with intention. If you are going to do something, then really do it. If you dont have the capacity to do something with significance, then focus your efforts on those things which you can. As the media director at my church, Im continually presented with information in which to communicate to the masses. It is amazing how much of my communication theory background and formal education keeps coming back to my awareness. The entire communication process from them sender to the reciever is truly an amazing thing. Today, the act of communication has only been complicated in the last decade by the increasing number of channels in which one can use to communicate a message. Several months ago I gave the staff a quick and broad picture of the various channels of communication available to transmit a message to others. Youve got print, video, television, email, websites, flyers, posters, billboards, direct-mail, press releases, t-shirts, buttons, pens, etc., (add others that come to your mind), and the king of them all word of mouth. Im not sure Ive ever seen any organization able to afford to transmit a message through every possible channel. Would it even be possible? In a non-profit organization I believe our best and most effective channel of communication is through the network of individuals which makes up our organization. The challange is to get that network of people to communicate the message you want transmitted to those who need to hear. One strategy Ive encourage the staff to use is to intentionally communicate one message, through multiple channels, in a short duration of time. If we can communicate a message 3-5 different ways on a Sunday morning, then I believe that message will have a greater chance of successful transmission. Relying on only one avenue of communication is always a recipe for disappointment. I do have all sort of ideas related to this issue, but I think those can be left for another day. Ive done quite a bit of thinking today already.

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Just loaded by first piece of blog software onto my website last night. So far things seem to be working. The last several months Ive been thinking about how to add information to our website to keep our friends and family in the loop. Weve got two young boys who are growing like crazy. I think it would be neat to share some of that. I did a little searching for WordPress plugins last night. Being able to easily add photos to my blog would be pretty neat. I may experiment with adding gallary to my website but the blog may be easier for me to implement at first. I probably should start thinking about what catagories to use in my blog. There will be stuff from home to talk about, probably work related items, and I might even venture into a little politics. Im sortta a talk radio junkie. I dont listen to it at work, but whenever Im in the car that is typically what Im listening to. For several years I used to journal quite a bit so my blog may end up being my place to keep all my thoughts together in one place. I may have to censor some of the ideas between the ears, but Im fairly honest. I dont keep that many secrets nor do I try to keep a tight lid on whats going on in my heart. My wife would probably like me to verbalize it a bit more. But that is for another day. Im pretty new to this blog thing. So if you have any comments or suggestions Im wide open. It might be nice to know someone out there is checking in on me from time to time. For a while I am sure blog of mine will be my little corner in the world few if any will know about.

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