The first round of tech talks will focus on:
Communications (Satellite, IP telephony, wireless and building connectivity)
Software development at the Church
Infrastructure and data center issues
Interaction Design
This will be an inside look at how we build, design and implement the Church's technology solutions. No need to RSVP. Feel free to invite your interested friends and colleagues. NOTE: This will NOT be a discussion of MLS features. Most ward clerks will not be interested in these discussions.
I wish we could travel to meet and network with all of you fascinating people, but the logistics make it impossible. We're beginining with two locations and hopefully, with success, we'll make this a tradition and eventually visit more of you across the country. We will be posting excerpts from the evening so those who can't be there in person can follow with the discussion.
I look forward to meeting those of you who can make it!
Salt Lake City
January 18th, 6:30pm
Joseph Smith Memorial Building, 10th Floor
Note: Please park at the ZCMI center
Provo
January 23rd, 6:30pm
BYU 8th Stake Center (1021 South 500 West)
Future locations (probably Seattle and Bay Area) and dates to be announced.
This is a proven approach to true interactive design and should generate solution methods that have the potential to scale to the level the church needs to solve todays and tomorrows information handling challenges. The ideas and concepts with the most induring value will stand up to tought sessions such as these and go forward to the next level of scaleability and proof of concept testing. This is good design practice.
ReplyDeleteI applaud the iniative. Will there be a moderator or agenda for the sessions ?
Anyway to get a recording of these after they happen; kind of a podcast sort of thing?
ReplyDeleteAre there any plans to do this outside the US some time?
ReplyDeleteNOTE: This will NOT be a discussion of MLS features.
ReplyDeleteIs there a discussion of MLS features ?
I hope that you will also address customer response. I have reported problems with ebooks offered on the main site twice - I understand that they can't respond to every report, but after more than 6 months the same problem is still there (the link to the plucker file for New Testament Students points to the Old Testament file, I just reported it again yesterday).
ReplyDeleteAlso, for some 'out here' the PAF 5 refuses to export, making it hard to take files to the FHC to run through Temple Ready.
How about some kind of 2-way video/audio feed for those of us in the mission field? :D
ReplyDeleteI am an I.T. professional and am very interested in this discussion, however I live far away from the Wasatch Front. Would you please consider placing these discussions online in the form of a "webinar" so that everyone with interest and Internet access could participate?
ReplyDeleteI suggest having this a live, streaming discussion with a phone or fax number to submit questions that can be answered in a live Q&A session at the end of the program.
At a minimum, please tape this event and place it online as a streaming archive.
Thanks!
Looking forward to those possible "Bay Area" dates!
ReplyDeleteRon. These are not feature discussions at all. This is just a technology peak into how we do development. This will not be a forum for discussing potential features for solutions.
ReplyDeleteChris/Louise/Don. These will not be completely recorded, but we will post excerpts on the web post-session.
Richard. It depends on the interest level.
Scott R. We're looking for ways to better get input on MLS. Will keep you posted.
Scott M. This will not be a discussion of features or bugs. The people at this session will not be the right people to do anything meaningful about the feedback.
WOW! I think it is fabulous that you are having tech talks and will post excerpts so we can learn more about the technologies used to support the Church. As a new convert, one thing that added to my testimony, was the awesome use of technology to bring the inspired programs to the world. I especially like that we can view conference worldwide in so many languages, all at the same time, live as it is happening. And then anytime of the day I can search on any topic and learn and grow as well as prepare for teaching and sharing with others. I will enjoy learning more about the technologies that help make it all possible.
ReplyDeleteI'll be there! This sounds great, I'd love to get a sneak peek into the Church's development practices.
ReplyDeleteLooking forward to the possible Seattle event!
ReplyDeleteHave you considered doing a session in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina? (Raleigh/Durham area). As home to IBM's Software Group (and one of IBM's largest sites), Lenovo, SAS, Cisco, and other tech companies, I think there would be a great deal of interest.
ReplyDeleteI'd just like to second the idea of recording the entire event if possible and posting as a podcast or mp3. I understand there may be some concern over recorded content being more "set in stone" or being later taken out of context. But, for those of us in locations you're not likely to visit (although Winter Quarters is nice this time of year ;-) ), the recording would be quite welcome. I assure you we're as interested in the content as those who can attend in person. Thanks for the consideration and great idea with the tech talks.
ReplyDelete[...] ldscio.org View blog reactions Categories: Mormon, The Church, Technology, Posted at 12:20pm [...]
ReplyDeleteA webcast, net meeting or just a one way video stream for those of us in the mission field would be great
ReplyDeleteWe could even use Windows Media Player from Microsoft
A wonderful idea! Thanks for the info!
ReplyDeleteI think one of the most beneficial aspects to the prior tech talk I attended in the bay area had to do with a description of the problem - in this case, how to handle the HUGE volume of data associated with the digitizing and data mapping/association building of the data on the microfilms in the church's vaults.
ReplyDeleteToo often we think "too small" with the problems faced before us in our callings. Or we "jump to solution space" in our efforts to solve the problem.
But it would be WONDERFUL to have a presentation of such challenges, and then have people break out into different groups/interests to later discuss (over time) how to tackle such problems.
You get many more eyes looking at the problem. You leverage the experience and expertise of so many more people out there to maximize your gains and minimize the pitfalls. Sometimes it stimulates conversation in other professional areas that ends up producing an answer to the problem, but from a non-LDS source (inspiration comes from many areas).
It takes some special project management skills as well as good communications channels, but I truly believe there are many, MANY saints out there who feel like they could contribute their time, technical talents and everything that the Lord has blessed them with in building up the kingdom. There just aren't that many opportunities at the "leaf nodes" of the church, especially when you don't live in the Wasatch front.
I'm willing to bet that what could come of this is similar to the vision I had read about many years ago (I can't remember the name) from a leader in Idaho who saw people from many places working together on issues to build the kingdom.
They simply need to be shown a "big picture" or "pie in the sky" goals, and turn them loose to seek inspiration as they mull over the problem.
So how does one go about making requests - even offering to be the guinea pig for trial systems? Far from the Wasatch Front my chance for attending these types of meetings is { }.... with whom can we communicate?
ReplyDeleteI live in NY. mp3's would be helpful. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteWow. I'll put the Provo one on my calendar and hope for a good discussion. Love the blog and love the open approach to finding best practices and best technologies.
ReplyDeleteI have long thought that a forum of this type would be appropriate for the tech community in the Church. I appreciate your willingness to step out by sharing and moderating such.
ReplyDeleteI'll plan on coming down (from Boise) to the session in SLC. Thanks in advance for sponsoring it.
========
My comment for your consideration --
Is there a potential for a Church-wide collaborative effort in your development efforts? To clarify: the development world is familiar with and embraces the success of OpenSource projects. There are large and widely accepted tools for remote management, Q/A, etc. to harness the power of collaborative work.
The model is not without precedence in the Church. Look at the way extraction and genealogy work is being done today. In some ways, it's a distributed, albeit low-tech, version of open-source-like contributions of various languages, cultures, information collection, etc. I believe there could be found a large set of gifted programmers, developers, even testers who have spare bandwidth to dedicate to IT and other key Church projects. I know that I personally would love to be able to use some of the talents developed over decades towards furthering the Kingdom. Talents that really can't be tapped in a typical Stake/Ward calling structure. Talents that co-exist with faithful, dedicated saints all over the world.
While it would take some management infrastructure and oversight, my contention here for your brief consideration is that there really could be a huge benefit and net gain from voluntarily contributed, but remote, efforts.
I'd like to see the tech talks or important excerpts from them in mp3 format so I can download them and listen on the bus to Salt Lake, during breaks on other projects I'm doing, etc. There are times when video is not practical to watch, so doing both an mp3 and video format version after these are over will help both preferences.
ReplyDeleteI think you'll find that there will be things said in both meetings that are different from each other and may need to be included in the mp3 and, if taped for video, the video version, after both of these tech talks are held. Just like takes done on a movie set, you never get the same thing quite exactly twice in a given meeting either.
And if the 'webinar' idea goes on in the future, making an mp3 and if practical a video available afterward might be great as well. .
Obviously separate from the tech talks, I would love to work on/in focus groups for things like lds.org and its pages and departments, the MLS software, and the other things that are the end result of all this that will be widely used by the members and leaders. That's another day, but wanted to register my interest in participating in those.
I'll most likely see you in Provo.
Do you have any plans to discuss what types of metrics the church collects on its sites, how it uses the metrics to make the web sites better and what programs it uses to analyze the data? I do web metrics for a living so I would love to see how the church uses data to improve the user experience on its web sites.
ReplyDeleteHi,
ReplyDeleteVery cool blog... My stepmother led me on to it just before Christmas. Needless to say I've thoroughly enjoyed your thoughts and the comments of others. And whether or not the Church supports it I'm glad to see that there is a senior tech voice out there somehow connected to the Kingdom. ;)
I too would be very interested in listening/reading/viewing any notes you might have available from these techtalks. I have such a passion for Technology and love to hear how other companies/organizations are solving their own IT related issues.
Please let me know if you're ever in the Edmonton, Alberta, Canada area. I'd love to attend! In the meantime any notes/slides/mp3 you might have is appreciated.
Kind Regards.
Personally, I'm not so much into sw development but I think I could get you a chapel full of people who would be interested in learning about the church's general approach to IT and its role in the mission of the church. Would be a great idea for a fireside type of thing next time you're in Europe.
ReplyDeleteBTW, noticed you use MS Project - enterprise version or stand alone?
I am in the same boat as Don Martindale, and others I presume. I am approx. 10 hours away and would love to be involved, however, will not be able to physically attend. Have you considered having this or other discussions in a Webinar style meeting?
ReplyDeleteThis might be a silly question, but I notice the event in Provo is at a chapel. What kind of dress is expected?
ReplyDeleteI don't plan to come in jeans or cut-offs, but I typically reserve my shirt and tie for Sundays.
On such short notice, I couldn't possibly make the Utah dates.
ReplyDeleteAny consideration for coming East with the information/presentation?
Looking forward to what ever additional information you maybe posting.
Great idea. It's tempting to arrange trips out to SL just for a seminar like this. I second Chad Petty's idea for a it talk in Raleigh, but since I know that is probably not going to happen (after all, you aren't here to give us talks), please post as much info as possible for us living far away (which seems like a majority of users on here).
ReplyDeleteLove the blog. Thanks for the updates! I also love the idea of a community of church members contributing in any way we could to an any projects you are working on. I certainly have some time and a few technical skills. Anything for building up the kingdom of God! :-)
I don't know if this is the right place to speak up and I am unable to attend, but have a suggestion:
ReplyDeleteI often cut and paste verses of scripture from lds.org and send the verses to friends who I feel will benefit from the words.
It takes me a while to strip out the cross reference links. Along with:
PRINT LISTEN
can another option be included to “Remove Cross Reference” or can the little cross reference letters when “Print” is selected be removed?.
Dear Joel,
ReplyDeleteI was one of the first beta testers for Family Search Indexing after years of receiving CDs of images from the Church, and what I found was the lack of communication capability back to the appropriate people in Salt Lake was the major problem that the development department had. I am so glad to see that you're using the technology of blogging to get feedback directly to you.
May I suggest you set more of these blogs for the appropriate departments, and or people, so they can get direct feedback from Stake Directors and other interested people.
Please remember that we are all going to have to return and report some day, so I see this as very important that you create an easy two way communication method for the appropriate departments, so that we can all magnify our callings.
I look forward to seeing the excerpts of the two programs and be ABLE TO GIVE FEEDBACK to the appropriate people/departments.
I have design improvement suggestions for Family Search Indexing that I would really, like to get to the right person.
Thanks again for the starting of using a blog. . .
Thank you so very much for this initiative.
ReplyDeleteI come from and engineering background and have been in SW/database development accros numerous platforms for over 15 years. I trust that these sessions may highlight the need to "assimilate" the many "islands of information" held in many departments of the church (Membership, CES etc). As an "end-user" of this information I find that the slogan "one church" does not seem to ring true at times.
Personally, I am not concerned where you are having these sessions only that you are, in fact, having them.
Good luck
A good number of Brazilian church members are IT professionals. I believe that the response is no, but you have interest in make one Tech Talk here in Brazil? São Paulo Caxingui Meetinghouse (near the Temple) is one good place.
ReplyDeleteOK... Its a hard possibility, I know...! But we can dreaming too, hehehehe :)
I am extremely interested in knowing if the Church has a standard for telecommunications infrastructure. I have been designing copper and fiber infrastructure (pathways and spaces) for many years. I worked for a company in Seattle a few years ago that did the copper and fiber pathway design for the Conference Center (I did most of the design) and look forward to the discussion on wireless and building connectivity as well as infrastructure and data center issues.
ReplyDeleteWe will not be recording these. We will however be posting some of the nuggets from the sessions. I wish we could come everywhere, but it's not practical.
ReplyDeleteChad - we've had several suggestions to come there. We'll look at it.
Lynn - yes, we're looking at opportunities to do that.
Richard - We have some people who use Project. Standalone. Don't remember mentioning that anywhere, though.
Gary - Dress as you will. No specfic dress code. It will be in the gym.
Mark - I've passed your feedback on.
As an I.T. professional and Priesthood leader I'm very interested in participating in these tech talks. I hope you can use some type of webinar in the future. American Samoa is a long way away from Church Headquarters.
ReplyDeleteI think you should also consider The Great State of Texas (Dallas/Austin/Houston). There's a huge IT community here.
ReplyDeleteGreat site. Just subscribed?
ReplyDelete* Tech talks webnar/podcast/skype callins?
* "Open source" church software -- so non Utah residents can help.... I'm not moving back to Utah anytime soon, but I'd like to help if possible...
* Suggestions to "fix" ward web sites... features get sent where? My request die at the Stake level. (Non techy Stake Admin?)
* More? Probably....
Oh that is soo fun!! I wish I could attend, or contribute in some way. I work as a Quality Assurance Analyst for my company 2000 miles or so away from Salt Lake City. I would love to help in any way I could.
ReplyDeleteAnyways... You mentioned you will not be recording it? Could you reconsider?
Amen to the Houston/Dallas/Austin option for a tech talk. There are many of us IT folks out here. I would love to participate in a "tech talk" with the technology leaders of the church.
ReplyDeleteWhere will the tech talk "nuggets" be posted? I'm in California, unfortunately I can't attend. :(
ReplyDelete[...] We’ve finalized the tech talk agenda and are pretty excited about it. [...]
ReplyDeleteGreat blog. Looking forward to a Seattle Tech Talk.
ReplyDeleteIt looks great, but unfortunately for us in Central America is just good news, we will
ReplyDeleteenjoy everything that you can post to get to know what you do, I'm interested about
open source, I only work with Microsoft, Oracle and DB2 and don't know much about that, Thanks for let us know
Will this focus on church related software? For example Family History Software? If so, will this be focused towards the user level, or for those of us supporting it?
ReplyDelete[Joel: Hello Gordon. Neither. It will be focused on how we build the software.]
[...] The Church’s CIO is going to be giving his first Tech Talk this Thurdsday at the Joseph Smith Memorial Building in SLC. [...]
ReplyDelete[...] I attended the Salt Lake edition of Church’s Tech Talks last night. It was well attended, with the keynote pretty much filling up the chapel on the mezzanine level of Joseph Smith Memorial Building, so I would guess there were about 200 people there. It was an older crowd than I was expecting. I had no idea that there were so many geriatric nerds. Note that there will be a similar gathering in Provo on the 23rd. Follow the link for details. I was going to do a full write up but my brother has beat me to it on his blog. So go visit his site now and then come back. Since we attended the same sessions it would be redundant for me to do the full write up, but I’ll add some comments on things that I found interesting. [...]
ReplyDeleteFor Joel:
ReplyDeleteThanks for your outreach. It's greatly appreciated by those of us who are watching and appreciating the way the Church has been exploiting technology.
For Scott Mattes:
Regarding your problem getting PAF to export for TempleReady, I haven't heard of that problem and I communicate extensively with PAF users world-wide. I'd love to help you with your problem. You can contact me via my website. Note that a new process to replace TempleReady is already being rolled out and is implemented in some temple districts.
[...] Last night I had the awesome privilege of attending the Provo LDS Tech Talk spearheaded by the Church’s CIO. It was a great opportunity to rub shoulders w/ some of the Church’s designers and developers. Among others, I was able to meet Joel Dehlin, Tadd Giles, Gilbert Lee, Jason Lynes, Randy Hall, and Aaron Barker. [...]
ReplyDeleteJoel,
ReplyDeleteI'm also sure that we could get a good crowd together here in the Phoenix area for a round of tech talks. My company is a large IT consumer and we have a lot of experience working in a mixed .Net framework/Java environment. I personally would love to see how another big organization handles content delivery.
I think it would be great if the Tech page could be added to the Links on this blog. :)
ReplyDelete[Joel: Will do. Thanks!]
Although I did not attend the TechTalks, I have been anxiously awaiting them so that I may participate in the discussions. As a future instructional designer, interaction design interests me, especially as it relates to the Church's youth and young adults on the web. Thank you for the chance to see where the Church is going with technology.
ReplyDeleteTo the out of area bloggers, we're all techies here! We know how to participate vicariously in these TechTalks without feeling bad about their physical locale, right?!
Mark Bell wrote, regarding the online scriptures,
ReplyDelete"Can the little cross reference letters when 'Print' is selected be removed?"
Yes, just check "Hide footnote indicators" at the top of the Print screen.
Kathryn
Hi Joel - I am involved with the New Mexico Chapter of the BYU Management Society. I was wondering if you would be interested in coming and doing one of your tech talks to our group! We would love to have you. Please contact me if you would like to do so.
ReplyDeleteThanks very much
Doug
Interesting comments.. :D
ReplyDeleteNice site you have!
ReplyDeleteLavoro eccellente! ..ringraziamenti per le informazioni..realmente lo apprezzo: D
ReplyDelete[Joel: You're welcome!]
I need to find free software to manage our ward library. Are there any such programmers in the Chruch that can provide a basic inventory tracking program? Many times our people ask for library material and we are not sure if we have it or where to look for it. I have tried the OpenOffice Base but it is a bit awckward to sure and does not sort the way Excell does. Surely as much as the Church uses technology there are a few programmers willing to develop a simple library inventory and search program.
ReplyDelete[...] are also holding a free Tech Talk in Provo on Tuesday January 23rd for system engineers, software developers and testers, interaction [...]
ReplyDelete