Save Money on Microsoft Software

There’s a good chance your church is using Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office.  You might also be using some Microsoft server technologies like Exchange or Active Directory.  Make sure you are getting the best pricing through the Open License Charity program (in Canada, visit this site instead).

When you talk to a software reseller, make sure they are giving you the special pricing of charities.

Thanks to Patrick Rogers at Microsoft Canada for getting this info for me.

Be choosy – look for good tech people

Having underqualified people responsible for important church technology issues is a risk. Sometimes people volunteer for more than they should and sometimes church leaders push people into roles for which they lack experience, ability, or interest.

Jim Walton over at Church Tech Matters has a good little article with some comments about getting the right people in the right seats on your church tech bus. One excellent point he makes is that “being a computer guy does not mean expert at everything technical.”

I think some good pointers are:

• Don’t necessarily hand the keys to the first person who volunteers
• Consider a person’s past experience, current situation, and passion
• Build a team – a single point of failure is always a risk in the computer world

I wonder how many church tech people feel like this guy: “there is still the nagging fear the one day I’ll be exposed as the fraud that I am and the whole pack of cards I’ve built will come tumbling down.”.

Church Management Software Matters

This is the obligatory first post at a new blog. My name is Derek. I'm involved in the world of church management software. Although we are starting a new blog over at Church Radius soon, it will be geared toward our product. This blog is a place for me to blog more generally about issues of software and technology for churches including church management, accounting, desktop publishing, and maybe even productivity tools.