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Tech Thursday: fave iphone apps, pt. 1

Yes, I’m a geek. Today for tech Thursday, I’ll let you guys in on how I get so much done with/through/on my iphone. There are some nifty productivity apps that I use in my everyday life that make life less complicated and keep my life pretty much 100% paperless.

With these apps, you’re on your way to a more productive life! And IF you don’t have an iphone yet, you’re not a Christian…Just sayin…

REALLY, you don’t know what you’re missing!

 

Carbon fin Outliner

My life is FULL of meetings. Meetings full of agendas. Agendas and communication points that I create. Ever sitting around at work and remember that you need to ask someone something or bring something to someone else’s attention, and you tell yourself: “at the next meeting, I’ve got to remember to bring that up.” If that describes you, this is your app. What’s funny, is that this is not even the intended function of the app, but it’s the way I use it.  I have a Master list of all the major meetings I have weekly or monthky with different aspects of my team, volunteers, etc. As I think about something I want to bring up at the next meeting, I simply add it as a sub-bullet to the next DATED agenda. I almost never prepare for a meeting, because I’m preparing for it all the time! This app has changed the way I do mtgs. FOREVER!

Vlingo

Vlingo is a voice recognition app I’ve seen yet. With vlingo, you just speak something into the microphone, and vlingo does an amazing job doing what you tell it! You can DIAL ANYONE in your contact list simply by saying: “call Tricia Lovejoy on her mobile” and BAM! It nails it almost every time! My favorite function on vlingo is the ability to post what you say directly to your social networking apps like facebook and twitter! Eliminates the need to type what you;re up to all the time! Love it! Just a matter of time until they’ll allow you to TEXT MSG people by voice! Stay posted there.

LET ME KNOW IF YOU DOWNLAOD AND/OR USE THESE APPS BASED ON MY ADVICE AND GIVE ME YOUR FEEDBACK!

Tech Thursday: A Tool for Worship & Creative Arts!

Guest blog by Todd Nichols, Worship & Creative Arts Pastor at MLC

As a Worship & Creative Arts Pastor that wears multiple hats, I’m always looking for ways to minimize the amount of time I spend on administrative tasks!  I’m also looking for the most effective and efficient ways to communicate and get information to our Ministry Team & worship/production team volunteers.

There are a number of web based programs out there to help with the worship planning process, but the one that we’ve found meets our needs most effectively and have been using for the past 18 months is Planning Center Online:

Planning Center Online is really is a one-stop program for putting your worship flows together, having a database for your volunteers, sending email schedule requests to your weekend teams, and posting chord charts and mp3s.  These guys have really put a lot of punch and power into the most basic tasks of worship planning.

There are 4 payment packages to choose from depending on the size of your ministry and the amount of storage space you need for files, but we’ve found that Planning Center Online pays for itself in terms of ease of use and the ability to get information to the right people.  They even have a free version for smaller ministries and promote a common 30 day trial to see if it’s right for you.

I’ve only touched on the very basics. . . they have TONS of additional features that I believe will make your administrative worship planning tasks more enjoyable.

Hope this helps someone out there who’s drowning in the details of worship, creativity, and the administration of it all!

Tech Thursday: Google Calendar Sync…

Some of you are probably familiar with this handy little gadget, too, but it’s so easy and so useful, and most of all, FREE, that I just have to share it with the world. Most people  in corporate world have a Microsoft Exchange server that allows anyone they give access to, to see their calendars. However, the bad news is that our family members, and close friends, etc, usually AREN’T connected to the server and don’t know what we’re doing w/ our lives.  For years, my wife and I struggled communicating our calendars and being on the same page. Not any more.  Google Sync will sync a Google calendar with your Outlook calendar as often as you want it to sync. For many reasons, it’s till better right now for our staff to use Microsoft Exchange Server, but Google Sync allows my wife to be part of the team and view my calendar ON or ALONGSIDE HER google calendar! With Google Sync you can ALSO choose to sync:

• 2 way: Whatever gets added to Google calendar will show up on the next sync on your Outlook Calendar and vice versa.  This is GREAT if my wife even decides to ADD something to MY CALENDAR!
• 1 way: Google Calendar to Microsoft Outlook. Syncs ONLY Google Calendar events added to Outlook.
• 1 way Outlook to Google. This is actually what I use because EVERYTHING in my life is added to my calendar by my assistant, Marie, and ensures nothing gets “double sync’d” (which DOES happen every once in a while for some reason).

With Google Sync, ANYONE ANYWHERE can join the team and KNOW what’s going on in your life moment by moment and even schedule appointments for you! Love it!  That’s Tech Thursday for today!

Tech Thursday: Jott

I know many of you have at least HEARD of Jott. It’s been out for several years now.  It just impacts my life so much on a daily basis, I could not HELP but talk about it!

The original Jott app, (now called Jott Assistant) is basically a task list on steroids.  Jott’s real breakthrough is a voice to text  service that will turn your voice notes into text and send them anywhere you want:  Outlook: Tasks or Calendar, Google Calendar, and MANY OTHER apps! You choose where they send your transcriptions and how! 

Here’s how it works: Once you’ve set up the service, you simply add the phone number they give you to your favorite calls list or speed dial. When you dial in, a voice immediately comes on the line and says: “Who do you want to Jott?” At this point, you can Jott a note to yourself, by saying “me” or you can Jott ANYONE you add as a a contact in the service! Then the voice simply says: “Record your note.” you record the note and stop talking.  This means I NEVER have to type or write  to add something to my task list! I can can add dozen items to my to-do list while driving down the road!

 

What I’ve never liked about most task programs is that  most of them won’t REMIND you to perform the  task! But with Jott, after you transcribe your note in Jott, the voice then says: “Want a reminder?” and if you say “Yes” it asks: “What day?” Then “What time?” and BAM! You can get an email message or even a TEXT at the assigned time! How cool is that?!

The iphone also has a JOTT app that is REALLY cool and now even includes a text entry feature and set reminder feature that I use all the time, too! I’ve heard that Jott for Blackberry lets you respond to emails with your voice! Needless to say, it’s a gadget well worth the $40 a year I paid for the service, because I never forget ANYTHING that I Jott down!  You can’t beat that!

Let me know if you use Jott currently, or if you give it a try because of this post!

Tech Thursday: facebook and twitter will both change or die…

  Prediction: Facebook will change or die, and twitter will become ad-supported and take over the world, OR someone will beat twitter to the ad-supported punch and take over the world instead. Let me unpack this.  

I have about 900 followers right now on twitter and over 1000 on facebook. However, I plan on watching that change. Frankly, I spend 10 times less time on facebook than I used to, because I got TIRED of all of the cause requests, bday requests, fake Starbucks, and flair. I really got on facebook just to know what’s going on in people’s lives and let them knowing in VERY SIMPLE ways, what’s going on in mine.  Therefore, for about six months, I’ve had a twitter account that POSTS RIGHT THROUGH to facebook. Did you know it would do that?  I NEVER post anything directly to facebook anymore. My confession as of today is this: I don’t even visit my face book page more than once a day any more. It makes me tired!

So here’s my prediction: Facebook will either simplify or die. Period. It’s too busy now. Out of control. Too many apps. People will get tired of all the flair like I have. Tweeting is the future. Simple. Clean. To the point. Designed for busy people who want to stay in touch. However, twitter can not sustain itself, unless it becomes ad-supported. Get ready.  The proprietors are too smart to start trying to charge for the service. It would KILL  them. We WILL see ads and we won’t complain because that keeps it FREE! If twitter does NOT figure out a sustainable financial model quickly, someone will come on the scene and put both facebook and twitter out of business.  Remember, you heard it here.

So for now, my tip is this. If you haven’t already done so, get on twitter. Usernames are going  by the minute. Then post  on twitter  to facebook.  Here’s a great article on 5 ways to do just that.  THEN follow me! 

If you’re on twitter, get ready for ads  and banners or watch for the next social media mogul to emerge and ACT FAST.