Wards/Stakes/Member CHURCH IT NEEDS!

A question to the forum,

How do we create awareness or let our voices be heard that we NEED development efforts thrown our way?

• We need a blog-like tool with richness
• We need to have a consumption model (RSS feeds or notifications of changes)
• We need REGISTRATION/sign up tools tied to LDS Account to track girls camp/youth conference and other sign-up stuff... make sure we can order shirt sizes, etc...
• We need to have a workflow for wards and stakes to issue and track callings online
• Auxiliary Leaders MUST have access online to reports/info
• Clerks must be able to do more online

There are just off the top of my head, but It appears, having followed development over the last few years that something is always going to come up from a LARGE CHURCH perspective. Gospel Library 3.0 on ipad so the missionaries that are getting ipads have a marketable approach, branding the websites with 'Hasten the Work' - LDS.org improvements are fantastic, and the church is reaching the general membership, but where is the stuff to help us middle managers.

Thousands and Thousands of person hours are spent each week coordinating and trying to track issuing callings to members. Registration and private data are being filled in all over the place... we are creating websites to meet members needs, mostly to the detriment of policies against them, but what can we do?

Is there anything we can do? Can we ask members to pay 11% and fund a special programmer tactical ops team? Can we ask regular people like clerks to serve in advisory positions to teams that 'provide' our services? We need to increase the number of people working on these solutions!

Otherwise Stakes/Wards will continue to look beyond the language forbidding websites and other technology because we just are not meeting the needs of our people?

any takers... what can be done?

The suggestion we've been using is take it up with your stake president to talk to the area authority.

I'd suggest that we learn:

• To distinguish between wants and needs;
• To follow the handbook, including the counsel to simplify.
• To be patient.

But to the extent that there are real needs that are not being met, RussellHltn's suggestion to send the request up the priesthood chain seems wise.

I need to spend more time with my family
I need to protect the privacy of members of our stake, particularly minors

There isn't anything in that list that I would identify as a WANT. These are items that EVERY Stake/Ward/Branch NEED - if we had them we could spend time ministering to people rather than administering overhead.

I'd had my stake president escalate it.... is everyone else content to duplicate ENORMOUS amounts of effort across each and every stake, ward, and branch in the US&Canada?

Here is an example of escalating through a Stake President to an Area Authority.... We have 3 meetinghouses where we share wards with 2 other stakes in the same meetinghouse. We all know the calendar does not do this well at all, and it is even acknowledged in the help files. I wrote up a detailed description which my SP escalated, and to the Church's great credit, someone got back with him, the email trail had been passed from person to person, and the final person got back to him and sent him a link to the help file explaining how this isn't possible with the current calendar. The very link was in the original problem statement. I imagine that is how it will go each and every time we try and escalate things. Here is what the issue is, and the church will explain why it's that way.

What we need is to influence a change, not to reiterate what we already know to be a limitation.

Anyway... it really sortof boggles my mind that people are so willing to spend valuable time in duplicated effort each and every week that could be addressed. This process needs some improvement. What in the world is correlation for, if not to reduce duplication??... we're already pretty clear on the priesthood direction (the main goal of coorelation).

JohnShaw wrote:I need to spend more time with my family

Then spend more time with your family. Your responsibility as a husband and father is more important than anything else.

JohnShaw wrote:What in the world is correlation for, if not to reduce duplication?

Correlation has nothing to do with duplication. Under correlation, we study the same things at the same time so that we will all be on the same page when we have our gospel discussions at home. To remove duplication, we would combine classes and only have one teacher teach everyone. They are not related.

In your original post, you list six items that you feel strongly we need. They are all very valuable tools that may have the potential to assist in the work of ministering to our fellow Saints. If we could not do the work without them, I am certain they would be under development.

But we can do the work without them. And we have been for years.

I am not opposed to technological advances that will further the work. But the greatest online tools in the world will not help someone become a better home or visiting teacher, a better quorum or class instructor, or a better father or mother.

The only way to do that is to know the people to whom we minister, communicate with them on a personal level, and follow the promptings of the Spirit in ministering to them.

I will trade T-shirts for testimonies any day.

Just my personal opinion based on my personal experience over a lot of years.

I don't even know what half the things on your list are. "Blog like tool with richness?" "consumption model?"

Why is it I "must have" or "need" things when I don't even know what they are?

JohnShaw wrote:and the final person got back to him and sent him a link to the help file explaining how this isn't possible with the current calendar.

Ah, the old "good answer to the wrong question". Then what happened? Did the SP explain that this was a feature request?

It eventually made it back to me as a 'final answer' and the stake president had put enough effort into it at that point, he felt pushing back would not buy us anything.... which, again, is only further evidence of why that model will just not work, if the desire is to have input from those using the solution.

TinMan wrote:I don't even know what half the things on your list are. "Blog like tool with richness?" "consumption model?"

Why is it I "must have" or "need" things when I don't even know what they are?

The newsletter / lesson planner are the biggest pieces of that issue, As a member I have no idea when something is added, and I have to check every time, if there were a way to deliver that to individuals, through SMS/Email/RSS feeds, creating subscriptions, as a member, I can keep informed about stuff going on... that is what I meant by a consumption model.

Blog-like tool that people will use rather than the Newsletter....

lajackson wrote:

JohnShaw wrote:What in the world is correlation for, if not to reduce duplication?

Correlation has nothing to do with duplication. Under correlation, we study the same things at the same time so that we will all be on the same page when we have our gospel discussions at home. To remove duplication, we would combine classes and only have one teacher teach everyone. They are not related.

Well, since you delighted in taking me to task about what correlation is, and in your vast experience referenced, I take issue that you don't really understand what correlation was and is historically. It doesn't seem to me that you've studied the history of correlation that started under President Heber J. Grant with then superintendent of sunday schools David O. McKay being on the original task-force. The list of recommendations from that committee were largely based on an underlying the principle (from President Grant) to eliminate DUPLICATION (because it eliminated COST). For Instance, magazines were being produced by RS, YMYWMIA, Primary, Priesthood, etc.... all having editorial boards, editors, producers, etc... We were running church schools competing with government run schools, etc.. Church buildings used to be constructed at the whim of people, now they are cookie cutter stamped plans... create once, build a ton.... saving duplicate effort/money on building design. Create a curriculum at a 7th grade level to reduce the effort it takes to translate to the worlds languages. Saving COST in hiring more advanced speakers of each of those languages, and eliminating the Duplication of or the most efficient use of the 3-hour block teaching the gospel (eliminating duplication of some gospel principle lessons and eliminate the exclusion of some gospel principle lessons - providing a balance of lessons that otherwise might not be there when thinking about multiple departments doing their own thing. Just to name a few of correlation's focus.

The history of coorelation is much more complex than what you've stated here, but it is always true that a duplication of effort under girded MOST of what correlation started as and why it is the way it is. In our example today, the COST is just a bit different.

lajackson wrote:In your original post, you list six items that you feel strongly we need. They are all very valuable tools that may have the potential to assist in the work of ministering to our fellow Saints. If we could not do the work without them, I am certain they would be under development.

But we can do the work without them. And we have been for years.

I can't think of a single tool that already exists online that we can't do without according to the statements you've made here. I totally don't get why asking for improvements and new functionality and trying to find a way to move these items forward is mutually exclusive to ministering the gospel.

lajackson wrote:I am not opposed to technological advances that will further the work. But the greatest online tools in the world will not help someone become a better home or visiting teacher, a better quorum or class instructor, or a better father or mother.

Again, not sure where this line of reasoning comes from... asking for and insisting on better tools to MANAGE and RUN the operations and administrative aspects of the church are not mutually exclusive to ministering as you seem to make them here. And in fact, only serves to eliminate much of the chaos, and time involved, which can drive the spirit away and takes time away from all those wonderful items you mentioned.

I realize that many people don't do well thinking in a grand scale. When I think about the amount of time it takes to call a new EQ president, and then look at that for every stake in the western hemisphere, I have to wonder just how much effort is wasted in that space. When one chooses to myopically look at 'my own world/work, or experience' then I can see why 'dealing with it' doesn't seem to be a big deal. It is difficult for a human who thinks nothing of the few hours it might take to help arrange things like calling a EQ President in their own stake, and thinks of that as a 'part of doing business' - it takes vision to think about that at a macros level rather than a micro level.

I've been either an ExecSec or a Ward-level, Stake level clerk now for nearly 20 years, and I have LARGE Enterprise IT expertise in a Software Services and Infrastructure Services company - these things are near and dear to my heart. I'm not saying that I Need to spend more time with my family, what I'm saying is that Each and Every Clerk, ExecSec, Secretary, Auxiliary President putting in time and effort every week Needs to spend more time with their family. I can manage myself just fine, and while I appreciate the advice, I'm not in this for ME, or My stake. I'm in this for the Church as a whole.

While at this time I can't link to anything specific, there is a stated intent by the Church teams developing these tools, to make improvements for the sake of time and effort. If the stated intention is to save time, but then only deliver part of the solution/system, asking for it to be finished to complete the intent doesn't seem out on a limb to me.

I tried to state in my original post, that there will always be something that draws more attention. Is there something that can be done to provide the completion of the promised results? Maybe the MoreGoodFoundation could be used

JohnShaw wrote:which, again, is only further evidence of why that model will just not work,

I'm sure from "managements" point of view, there's a significant distinction between a few loud voices and the desire from the membership. I'm sure there's is no shortage of members who proclaim that "they" have the vision and the leaders need to listen to them.

While you feel the effort was a failure, I'm sure it made an impression on those who handled it. If thy get the same thing from other stake presidents who deal with shared facilities, they'll conclude there is a problem.

As such, I think your effort to find a new pathway to the decision makers is not likely to get you what you want. What's needed is for each of the stakes who are having problems to run the situation up the chain of command.

The key is the number of voices.

JohnShaw wrote:I take issue that you don't really understand what correlation was and is historically. It doesn't seem to me that you've studied the history of correlation . . .

You are right. There was some duplication. I used too much hyperbole, and a different definition of duplication. Sorry about that.

https://rsc.byu.edu/archived/firm-found ... arly-years

I could write the follow on article. I have lived most of it.

JohnShaw wrote:I totally don't get why asking for improvements and new functionality and trying to find a way to move these items forward is mutually exclusive to ministering the gospel.

I did not say it was. It is how we use them that matters.

JohnShaw wrote:I realize that many people don't do well thinking in a grand scale.

I guess I am a small thinker, then, a one on one type of person.

JohnShaw wrote:I've been either an ExecSec or a Ward-level, Stake level clerk now for nearly 20 years, and I have LARGE Enterprise IT expertise in a Software Services and Infrastructure Services company - these things are near and dear to my heart.

That is evident. And I totally love it when an organization, large of small, is able to accomplish the task at hand.

JohnShaw wrote:I tried to state in my original post, that there will always be something that draws more attention. Is there something that can be done to provide the completion of the promised results? Maybe the MoreGoodFoundation could be used

Change "promised" to "desired" (by me included), and I am totally with you. Unfortunately, at my level I only have two options, bug reports and feature requests. I will confess that my reports and requests do carry some weight. But not enough to satisfy even me.

I love technology, and I use it when it works. But I don't let it slow me down. I just go out and make the calls and let the elders quorum presidencies and other folks get to work. Then we can commiserate together about the technology while we are traveling between visits.

The vast majority of changes in the last 40 years are wants not needs. We were managing the church on paper so there was no "need" to go to computers. It simply made things more efficient. So I don't think that definition applies. A better way to look at it might be how many man hours would it save if implemented? Or how many dollars would it save if implemented?

For example our stake used to yearly publish a little membership directory of phone numbers and emails for the stake. I think the last cost of that little book to publish was $2500 printing cost for the stake and the labor to put it together was significant so those man hours are saved. Now instead we can use the online directory which stays closer up to date and is readily available. So now say 20 man hours(guess) a year and $2500 a year can be spent on other things. Across all the stakes church wide that adds up to a really significant savings.

Right now the biggest time waster I see in the ward is the ward bulletin, meeting agendas, meeting guides and the time it takes to put that information on each of them when the information is the same. Lets take our current flow. The music director chooses the music. She has a little spread sheet that automatically enters the song name from the song number saving her a few seconds. It also creates stats on how often a song was used in the last year to help her in choosing the music. She then phones the information to the lady who does the ward bulletin. It is then typed in again with both time wasted and chance for mistake. Then during the bishopric meeting the person conducting then copies it yet again to the sacrament meeting agenda. What if that information once entered by the music director could automatically appear on the bulletin and on the sacrament meeting agenda. Same thing with speakers. Once they are entered once they would automatically appear on both the meeting agenda and the bulletin. If they could be spell checked against the ward list so much the better. Then for bishopric use they are also entered into a database so the bishopric knows who has spoken in the last year so there is another entry that would be nice if it was automatic. In just those you could probably save at least 10 or 15 man minutes a week. Not much you say. Well remember this happens weekly so in a ward over a year you could save 6 to 10 man hours a year. And actually it is more than that because while the information is written on the sacrament meeting agenda the whole bishopric may be sitting waiting for a bit so that is time lost x5 or x6. If this helped even 1/3 of all wards world wide it could amount to a leadership time savings in the 100,000 man hour range each year.