I attended a Business Development Conference Tuesday that was primarily focused on people who want to start their own business. The negative side of me wants to say that I didn't hear anything that I hadn't heard before. Well, like the story of the professional athlete who goes to a trainer, he rarely hears of some new technique, he gets to review what he should already know. That's exactly what this conference did, and it was just what I needed. The first presentation was titled "Starting Your Own Business" and it was presented by John Hilliard of the Lexington KY ... [Link]

I am hesitant to share what I’m about to share with you. And it’s for purely selfish reasons. I fear that the more people are aware of this, the fewer deals there will be available for me. Perhaps I’m overestimating my influence; and for once I hope I am. But it’s in the spirit of cooperation that I’m letting you in on one of my favorite budget-stretching secrets–the Apple Refub store. Head on over to Apple.com/store and scroll all the way down and take a peak at the left sidebar. Near the bottom, in small type is a link to ... [Link]

Is your team an AND team or an OR team? An AND team does everything. An OR team makes those tough decisions about what to do. Here are some examples: Example #1: Does your team: record weekly services AND produce the media AND sell the media? Example #2: Does your team: oversee building repair AND building security AND building cleaning? Sometimes we let ourselves get so wrapped up in everything that needs to be done that we forget to ask the AND/OR question. Instead, there may be another option: keep what you do today and let another team take on ... [Link]

We've had a family website since the late 1990s, but it hadn't been updated in sometime and was built on very dated technology. Today I re-published the site and think I like it! It still has some polishing to do (like the picture files are a bit too large), but it's up! Let me know what you think!Click here: Nicholaou.com _uacct = "UA-1242767-4"; urchinTracker(); [Link]

I’ve long been a dreamer. I personally believe that any one of us can have multiple dreams and not have these conflict. For example this blog is an out-living of a dream to help my Church get where it could be with technology. On the vision page that dream is detailed in much greater detail – feel free to read and challenge me on it. I also have dreams for my professional live, for my family, for me as an individual. Dreaming is a healthy and Biblical experience and helps us to solve problems; heal our bodies; deal with emotions ... [Link]

I’ve long been a dreamer. I personally believe that any one of us can have multiple dreams and not have these conflict. For example this blog is an out-living of a dream to help my Church get where it could be with technology. On the vision page that dream is detailed in much greater detail – feel free to read and challenge me on it. I also have dreams for my professional live, for my family, for me as an individual. Dreaming is a healthy and Biblical experience and helps us to solve problems; heal our bodies; deal with emotions ... [Link]

This weekend marks the first weekend of church worship services that will be live-streamed onto iPhones. Assuming all 5 services would be live-streamed, services at New Hope Christian Fellowship will be live-streaming on Saturday 7/4 at 5 & 7pm and... [Link]

In January I wrote about how social media marketing works best when you have both the correct marketing mindset and the right online tools to accomplish the strategy. With all of this in mind, watch the video below. It wasn’t intended to be a parable about social media in business, but I think it works really well. The new tools and technology are red. The new marketing mindset is blue. Change is purple. Ironically, this is a great endorsement for Seth Godin’s book Purple Cow. Blip from Sean Mullen on Vimeo. [Link]

Does your vision and purpose seem “middle of the road”, or does it take you to the far edges? Taking your vision and purpose to the edges means finding the extremes of things you want your church to be. Church Marketing Sucks had a great post a few weeks ago about finding your edge: You can’t be the urban church and the rural church. You can’t be the men-friendly church and the women-friendly church. You can’t be the advocate and the antagonist. You can’t be the funny preacher and the serious preacher. You can’t be the one-site church and the ... [Link]

Today marks my soft re-entry back to blogging. While I’ve missed writing these last two weeks, my head has been pretty full of weighty stuff as my family and I wrestle with the future. Things are going well and we have some excellent options to consider, and we’re anxiously awaiting God’s clear direction. Thanks to all who have prayed and offered encouragement to us–it means a lot. With that out of the way… These tips were written by one of our veteran ProPresenter operators, and I thought they would be helpful to pass along. • Have one hand on the ... [Link]

Way too much fun as we joyously anticipate Gurus & much more… show notes soon to come! [Link]

As tech questions are submitted, we'll feature them here on Tech Tuesdays at the Digital @ Leadership Network blog. This question is about mapping apps on the web: "Does anyone know of a wiki or other website that explains how... [Link]

At the beginning of this year, with some encouragement from a friend, Mike Silliman, I made an ambitious goal for myself - to read through the Bible in a year. Beyond the notion that it was something I ‘should’ do, I was inspired to do it because I wanted to go on a bit of a spiritual journey. I wanted to go somewhere spiritually I had never gone before and I knew that to get there I’d have to do something I’ve never done and that it woudn’t necessarily come easy. However, I also new I needed strategic approach to ... [Link]

I was recently asked what churches should do about Twitter and Facebook. In fact, there are a lot of bloggers that have different opinions on this as well, many of them with some great ideas. Here is my suggestion: Clarify your vision and purpose. Then figure out how Twitter, Facebook, and other technologies can help push you forward. Too many people spend too much time trying to do too much with technology. Don’t get me wrong - I love technology (most of the time). I make my living from it. But we can often forget that technology without purpose is ... [Link]

Sitting here on my desk is the new July-August issue of Rev! Magazine with the feature article I wrote on Hope Bible Church in Washington, D.C. Hope has been able to leverage their use of technology to connect with members in fresh ways. Although the article isn’t available online, I’ve scanned it in here for [...] [Link]

Social media conversations are no different from going to a party in real life. In the same way that you look for good conversations at a party, people seek the same thing online. In the same way you avoid people who dominate the conversation at the party, the same thing happens online. In the same way you remember the meaningful encounters at the party, the same thing happens online. In the same way you stop paying attention to the people who only talk about themselves at the party, the same thing happens online. If you have ever been to a ... [Link]

Details, details, details. Every day is filled with the details we need to make things happen. When was the last time you stopped and did some big picture thinking? Big picture thinking requires getting away from the details. Big picture thinking moves you from the immediate to the future. Big picture thinking provides the fire you need to get through the day-to-day work. If you haven’t spent some time doing some big picture thinking recently, maybe it is time to start. Take a few hours and move your mind from the day-to-day and into what will be. You may be ... [Link]

Now that I've had a few days of using CLEAR in a mobile environment, I've learned something that's a bit too simple: Performance is based almost entirely on signal strength. When I have all bars green ("Perfect Signal"), I consistently get 9.5-10 MBit downloads. When signal strength drops down to just 2 or 3 bars (of 10), then speed also drops down to 2-3 MBit. The good news: most of the places I frequent have something very close to that "Perfect" signal. And, of course, even a 2-3 MBit data rate is not bad when sitting in a coffee shop. ... [Link]

I've had a few too many "nobody will believe" this type of experiences of late. Right now I can't think of a single one of them, but somehow I'm reminded of an old story. Way back in my early days, I worked for a radio station, and occasionally produced/directed for Ludlow Porch. I don't have any idea why I remember this particular story, and I probably don't even remember it correctly, but I've always loved the punch line. The story goes something like this. There was this singer (probably a country singer) who was known by his friends to be ... [Link]

While we were attending the Design 4 Drupal Boston Drupalcamp we had a chance to sit down with Nathan Smith the creator of the 960 grid system and a developer for Fellowship Tech the company behind the popular church management system Fellowship One. In the interview Nathan talks about grids, learning drupal, and some of the new developer stuff going on with Fellowship One and their new REST API. [Link]