PastorHacks

Tokbox

Sorry for the lag in blogging here. I have a feeling I'll be back in the swing of things come the new year. In the meantime...

Check out TokBox.

Our staff right now consists of two Mac users and one PC user... and no office. We tend to meet in coffee shops for staff meetings, and when we all got snowed in earlier this week, that became a practical impossibility. 

So was connecting via iChat or Skype. 2 way conversations were doable- three way, not so much. Frustrating for this Mac user who believes his beloved Apple can do anything. 

Luckily I have an iPhone and can conference calls so easily. :)

Even luckier, we discovered Tokbox. 3 way video conference in under 30 seconds- seriously. It's that easy. And I'm fairly sure we could have conferenced in a lot of other folks as well. 

And more, there's social networking components, video mail... it's pretty slick and dead simple. 

I can see a lot of uses for this, including over a big campus, or to make people working from multiple sites seem as though they are in the same space (stay on during the workday and just intercom someone, basically), but ideally suited for conferencing in multiple people not in the same physical space. 

Check out TokBox.

Best of 2008: Twitter

True confession time... I use Twitter.

Specifically, I use Twitterific to post tweets to my Twitter account and read others'.

If that makes NO sense at all to you, here's a handy video and a full run down with even more handy links from DJ Chuang

Coffee Shop Conversation

JR Briggs has a good recap of a great conversation in a coffee shop... would that all our interactions about Jesus would go this well! 

"Last Tuesday morning I was waiting to meet someone at a coffee shop in Lansdale when I noticed a guy reading a pamphlet titled "Islam and Christianity." I asked him what he was learning and what his motivations were for reading a pamphlet like that. He explained to me that he believed in Jesus, but wanted to know more of the similarities than the differences between the two religions. He told me that he is believes in Jesus, but isn't a Christian - and doesn't desire to be..." 

Read the rest here

Yammer

Digital Sanctuary posts about a great alternative to Twitter for intra-staff (and secure) communications. 

A desktop, Blackberry and iPhone app make it appealing as well...

Actually, maybe there is a better alternative than Twitter for intra-staff instant communications. Yammer is something to consider if you believe theTechCrunch Top 50 folks know their stuff.  But first a bit of history.

It was somewhere back about 15 years ago that I was on a church staff where the top dozen or so staff members were given cell phones to keep in better touch.  State of the art technology at that time involved walk talkie capabilities.  This feature proved incredibly effective for us since the campus was spread out over quite a few acres.   Furthermore, there were another 15 or 20 additional staff members in the mix so constant communication was necessary to co-ordinate services, events, etc. with up to the minute information.  We didn’t want everyone in on our conversations.  We didn’t want the church listening.  But we did want each of us listening and we wanted instant access to each other.

Fast forward to today.  What’s the most efficient way to accomplish the same thing?  You think I’m gonna say Twitter right?  Actually no, unless everyone locks their profiles and stays off the public timeline.  The newest winner on the “apps to dazzle you” list is Yammer.