It’s the broken system.

We see them all the time. The spam email that you didn’t ask for, the sign that leads to a dead end or anything on the FAIL blog.

Seth Godin is a great writer and communicator and I think he hits the nail on the head on a subject that we often see and draw attention to but rarely fix.

I’m a fan of the broken system, it’s actually something we love around the office. The best part is that it’s obvious and can be changed – usually in short order. We’ve joined teams that have been in dismal shape and in as little as 6 weeks seen revenue growth of over 300% over the previous year. Was it a special case? Maybe. Point is, your system is delivering the perfect results for what you’ve crafted so you can probably make it better.

Action Possibilities:

• What small ways could be improved upon to bring more harmony to your team, improve morale, etc?
• How can you bring trust to your team that will stop them from using the passive aggressive “Reply All” button?
• How’s your team performing?
• What policies or procedures do you laugh about but continue to enforce?

Collide Magazine just announced their nominations for best of the web according to their readers and we couldn’t be more pleased. Several of the projects we’ve been involved with this year are up for nominations and we’re thrilled for them.

COLLIDE readers, we need your help! Every year in COLLIDE we ask you to nominate and choose your favorite media, technology, blogs, and podcasts in our Readers Choice Awards. The time to vote has now come! So get cracking, and be sure to tell all your democracy-loving friends, too.

This is the place to cast your votes for your favorite things of 2009! Choose wisely, and only vote once please.

This year’s categories include:

* Favorite Film of 2009
* Favorite Church Media Short Film of 2009
* Favorite Church Media Producer
* Favorite DVD Curriculum
* Favorite Presentation Software
* Favorite Web App of 2009
* Favorite Gadget of 2009
* Favorite Twitter Client
* Favorite Book of 2009
* Favorite Viral Video of 2009
* Favorite Theology/Ministry Blog
* Favorite Faith & Arts Blog
* Favorite Faith & Pop Culture Blog
* Favorite Tech Blog
* Favorite Blogging Platform
* Favorite Sermon Podcast
* Favorite Non-Sermon Podcast

Voting will remain open until Monday, December 14 at 9am CST. Winners will be announced in the January/February 2010 issue of COLLIDE.

It’s great when other artists realize what good art and story telling looks like. It’s especially great when they’re your friends. Dave Mahanes and Brent Gudgel have been really striving all year to tell stories about “How God uses everyday people”
We recommend voting for Deidox in the Favorite Church Media Short Film of 2009 and the Favorite Church Media Producer categories – VOTE HERE

Stories from Skid Row has been a top 20 podcast on iTunes for the past year (non profit, video category) and it’s great to see Union Rescue Mission receive a nomination from the best of the web for 2009. These stories and snapshots show people around the mission putting their lives back together. We recommend voting for Stories from Skid Row in the Favorite Non-Sermon Podcast of 2009 category – VOTE HERE

Other notables – Congrats to:

Phil Cooke
Blaine Hogan
Francis Chan
Josh Blankenship
Anne Jackson
Tony Morgan
Matthew Paul Turner
John Acuff
Church Marketing Sucks
Donald Miller

It’s been a big week for Gregg Helvey and the crew at Kavi. We’ve been fortunate to be involved in shaping the website for Kavi for the last several months. (read the story here) I just got a quick update on what’s happening and thought you’d want to check it out too.

Kavi is on the shortlist for the Oscars!! Having won the Student Academy Award® gold medal, Kavi qualified for Oscar 2010 consideration, and “The 10 List” was announced on Friday. Of the 10 shortlisted films, three to five will be nominated on Feb 2nd for an Oscar in the “Live Action Short” category. Fingers crossed!

Upcoming Screenings for those in the DC Area
December 15, 2009 – 6PM – Screening for the House Committee on Foreign Affairs – 2172 Rayburn House Office Building – Washington DC 20515 (open to the public, please RSVP to anna@kavithemovie.com)

Pick up Kavi for Christmas
The official DVDs are finally here! They’re perfect holiday gifts or stocking stuffers, too! Click HERE to purchase a copy for $10 online.

We’re pulling for you Gregg!! Check out the Kavi website

* 1:25 AM henryjz – visual storytelling is just that… storytelling… you don’t say everything in it
* 1:27 AM henryjz – conversation with Brent Gudgel and Dave Mahnes from Chronicle Project and Dan Portnoy
* 1:28 AM henryjz – dynamic sites make a big difference for ppl to come back
* 1:30 AM henryjz – Q: How do you get a story out there in a short amount of time with limiting resources? Is there a framework or structure you can set up without it becoming boring?
* 1:31 AM henryjz – just because you can tell a story doesn’t mean you should tell it all the time so that you have more time to put a quality story out there
* 1:32 AM henryjz – there is a diconnect between the decision makers and the artists many times… best time is to communicate with each other better
* 1:34 AM henryjz – on ministry websites what should you do and not do?
* 1:35 AM henryjz – don’t do black and white pics to add drama… e.g. “homeless people… awwww”
* 1:35 AM henryjz – don’t try to manipulate
* 1:36 AM henryjz – if you have dynamic engines (like Flash) make sure they are dynamic and get updated
* 1:37 AM henryjz – how do you get ppl to stay on your site?
* 1:38 AM henryjz – got to be clean: visual, white space, good fonts, invest in decent CSS, allow easy access to other areas
* 1:38 AM henryjz – make your site easy to update by those who aren’t “computer savvy”
* 1:42 AM henryjz – website needs to reflect your values… put the important thing on the front page and make clicking through a discovery process
* 1:43 AM henryjz – open source is great!
* 1:44 AM henryjz – what is best/cheapest way to get started when you don’t know computer talk
* 1:50 AM henryjz – figure out what you want first
* 1:50 AM henryjz – that’s called development
* 1:50 AM henryjz – then you can pay someone to build it all the way to using free sources to build yourself
* 1:51 AM henryjz – don’t let tech push your message… let your message push the tech
* 1:51 AM henryjz – if you really don’t do computer… use the money to have someone do it when you can
* 2:00 AM henryjz – work from the simple solution first and work up from there
* 2:05 AM henryjz – how do you promote streaming
* 2:06 AM henryjz – do you promote it, even?
* 2:08 AM henryjz – promoting digital media with traditional media
* 2:09 AM henryjz – business cards… pass them out
* 2:10 AM henryjz – where is your audience? what do they want? go where they are?
* 2:11 AM henryjz – what about twitter? what’s that all about?
* 2:11 AM henryjz – it’s social media so it has to be social
* 2:14 AM henryjz – twitter is like a cocktail party
* 2:18 AM henryjz – in going to twitter, what would be your line?
* 2:24 AM henryjz – when putting together a web presence, you need to find out the relaitonships
* 2:28 AM henryjz – Orbiting the Giant Hairball… book on communicating creative process to management
* 2:31 AM henryjz – there also ways to use mobile to interact with your audience… it’s growing
* 2:33 AM henryjz – Mobile Cause is a way to set up faith-based giving via mobile… because mobile service carriers have waived all fees for non-profit giving

If you’ve got questions on anything touched on – leave them in the comments, I’d be happy to elaborate.

About a month ago we made a significant switch on THE DROP website. The adjustment came as a way to incorporate the multitude of ways that users would interact with the website. We had been using a social plug-in and it really started out working amazing. Last month I was introduced to ShareThis and I found that the plug-in was easy to use and that it actually gave the user more options to pass around the info and would be crucial in the interaction of social media to the site. The user would then be able to add or share the posts via their Myspace or Facebook but could also email them to friends if they so chose. A little while back The Drop was featured on the ShareThis site. We got sandwiched between infertility and obscure movies – I don’t think it’s a bad start.

I also had a chance to join their Publishers Group on Facebook. What I loved about this was that I then could put faces with the code writers and other bloggers/new media types who were employing the same pieces and any additional strategy that they may have. ShareThis has just been named one of the Top 20 plugins to have on WordPress and I highly recommend it.