YWAM Information Technology - International Project needing collaboration!!! - Comments

an recent example for linux

neo — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 11:49:58 +0000

To quote the quote and quote myself....

The German government is a prime example of the value of MOSS as they made a decision to go with Linux and open source about 8 years ago. They have been re-thinking this because they have found that in the long run it has cost them more to go with the “free” open source solution than with a proprietary solution.

Says who? Other studies come to the exact opposite conclusion. Do you have an article somewhere that I can read? I'm honestly interested in that.

I didn't look for that on purpose but I came across an article today that talks about how they introduced Linux to the government and some schools in the Philippines. About the cost factor I wanna quote from that article:

"We wanted to use Fedora 5 and it went all the way to office of [the Filipino] President and they kept passing it around saying 'why would they offer something for free, and how would they support and teach it'," Gonzalez said. "The project dragged on for four to five months to a point where Microsoft matched the price by offering Windows XP for $US20 a copy and throwing in Office for $US30, but we still came out cheaper. Microsoft was also providing free training to high school teachers."

After "jumping through all the hoops", including having the Department of Science and Technology evaluate the Linux solution for its usefulness, ASI got the contract and all 10,000 computers were delivered at the end of December, 2007.

"Because we saved so much we gave the government 3000 additional units, so now another 300 schools have Linux networks," Gonzalez said.

However, the Philippines' Linux education story is just beginning and the "reward" for the successful initial deployment was before Gonzalez left for linux.conf.au, the company got the contract to do another 1000 high schools over the next 12 months.

Here is the link to the printer friendly article (easier to read, w/out the text adds):
http://www.computerworld.com.au/index.php/id;1163450117;fp;;fpid;;pf;1
Just for the reference, the actual article:
http://www.computerworld.com.au/index.php/id;1163450117;pp;1

Interesting I think. MS offered XP + Office for 50 bucks US and offered free training. I don't know what the regular price is but I bet it's quite a discount. But at the end for 23000 machines it's still a lot of money. Hardware cost is the same since it's using the same platform. So, at the end of the day I guess they saved a few bucks.

Greetings from the MatriX,
neo

interesting points

neo — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 11:14:51 +0000

Hi Kevin,
you mention some interesting points here. I got 2 comments/question or how ever you wanna call it to that. Well, I admit that I always have a comment about something...

Anyways.
About the MS product cycle, I guess it's more of a question. I'm not familiar with Windows Server. But basically on the desktop if you want to upgrade you need to by new hardware. Unless you you already bought a fairly oversized machine and it's not too long until MS releases the next version of the OS. Just check the hardware requirements for Vista. Which XP machine actually can run Vista.
So, my question here is, besides the product cycle, when a new Server OS comes out is a up-to-date server actually able to run it? The new Server OS has most likely more hardware requirements then the current OS plus, at least I hope so, we will have more people on the planned site then we have at the beginning. Means, the server load will increase. Does that actually mean that new hardware is necessary with every new MS Server OS?
Also depending on how the site will really look like and how it will be used sooner or later it might mean that a second server is needed to handle the load. What would that mean with MS software, does it need a OS license then for every machine? I guess so.
Just a thought that came to my mind when reading your comment.

The second thing, security. I know what you mean, Kevin, but maybe we should also view it from another perspective. If there is a central point that would have security build in, couldn't that be an advantage? You are right that pretty much everything travels in plain text through the www but then on the other side I haven't seen a site that offers SSL connection. SSL can't be *that* bad since we all trust our credit card detail with that when we pay online.
So, if there would be a central site that has SSL plus addresses the issue of security I think it could help.
In addition this site could offer VPN, although that should be optional since I believe that not everyone knows how to set it up or even knows what it is, in the first place. Also, if for some reason you relay on an internet café there is no way to get a VPN. But SSL is always possible.

Greetings from the MatriX,
neo

Are the right principles guiding us?

KevinColyer — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 08:32:59 +0000

Thanks Jeff for your comments. I wholly share in Neo's response above. I want to outline a couple of particularly important points.

Of course we are speculating about a lot as there are so few concrete details here. Client licences are one very important issue. As are licences for MS Office and Windows that might need to be purchased. Plus solutions like this have a tendency towards vendor lock in where the cost of migrating to another solution is prohibitively expensive and/or also impossible to export important data to other systems. What might we do in 20 or 30 years if all our data is stuck in an MS product that is obsolete (there is a 3-5 year product cycle with many MS product and nothing after 10 years - Bye, Bye Windows 98)

However my main point is this: over the past few months I have been discovering that there are some important IT/communications principles floating around in YWAM that I think might be the beginnings of common values. Perhaps even this is God speaking to us? I have had to work a bit to find them, so I hope he speaks up a bit! But as the IT world is changing so quickly we need some value guidelines to keep us correctly-orientated.

1. Avoid proprietary solutions. The Genesis guys have long been on to something when they say that we should use systems that rely on open published standards. The GENESIS stuff is all based on open and ratified Teleconferencing standards - nothing more mystical than that. Those standards give huge flexibility. Some standards that really work: SMTP, HTTP etc. When it comes to any published standards Sharepoint is hugely proprietary. Same could be said for MS Exchange solutions.

As an aside, there is only one Office file format that is an ISO standard and it is not made by Microsoft! They wont even support it. The French government, Dutch government and more are mandating its use. It's the ODF format and native file format of Openoffice and an increasing number of other office suites.

2. "Mind the Gap". When I read the CRIT reports this really jumped out at me. If we consider ourselves a body in YWAM we need to watch for the cultural global differences and inequalities when seeking solutions. Can African and Asian YWAMers afford client licences? What about Right-to-Left language support? What about YWAMers using Windows 98 computers being able to use this system connecting over dial-up? Or Mac OS users? Or Linux users? (Some of us may have ethical reasons for not using MS software). Also most of us do not wish to spend all their time maintaining Windows solutuons.

3. Bottlenecks. This came to light in a Eurocom meeting recently but it is something we have all felt. We need to avoid solutions based on one or two people who, may not be always around, may become too busy or whom we can never recruit replacements for. Systems based on a specialists knowledge that we all come to depend on fall apart with the removal of the specialist. This means that perhaps we have to de-centralise systems rather than centralise.

4. Security. More and more we need to think through the security implications of what we are doing. So much information travels as plain text through the internet. Most of not all is filtered by Governments security agencies and perhaps other bodies. It is clear most YWAMers don't take any precautions with the data they hold that belongs to YWAM. Data that could be sensitive. One great danger in YWAM with a centralised system is that the centre is going to be pretty much unaware of the sensitivity that the grass roots require.

Due to the sketchiness of the proposed solution above it is really hard to comprehend anything and it clearly is causing some of us concern.

Cheers,

Kevin

questions....

neo — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 18:02:29 +0000

Hi Jeff,
thanks for your update. But please allow me to ask some question.

YWAM is a fantastically dynamic organization which has seen phenomenal growth over the past two decades.

What growth are you referring to? I was at the conferences in Thailand last year and it sounded different, at least in terms of staff numbers. The word was that we hadn't seen growth for the last 10 years or so but that we have now crossed the "Jordan" after getting some things right with God. Now we are at a place of circumcision but we can expect growth soon.
So, what growth are you referring to? Because these statements don't fit together if it's about the same topic. But at least for me staff numbers was my first thought when reading your comment.

We know that building a technical solution will not resolve these issues, as YWAMers themselves have to choose to be interdependent (walking in humility, willingness to communicate etc...), but we can provide an environment which encourages this interdependence. This is where IT people can play an important role in YWAM and do our part in seeing the “healing of the nervous system” be integrated into our everyday life.
We have included this IT development as part of the prayer initiative because we believe fresh unity and interdependence is part of what the Lord is going to do through these prayer days. We could not split these into two different projects but there may be more than one phase of implementation.

I can fully support that statement. Plus I would like to add a online solution what so ever is probably the fastest way to get information out to as many YWAMers as possible, specially if that solution includes email and RSS rather than "only" having the information on a web page.

Now for more details about the budget. I know that when many YWAMers see a budget for US$50,000 or more, many respond with “why so much?” The first thing we need to recognize is that we are not looking at a simple web site that will serve a small part of YWAM but we are looking at a corporate/enterprise solution. We have done quite a bit of research on different approaches to a solution like this it doesn’t matter whether you use open source, Microsoft, Apple or any other proprietary solutions, it costs money to implement.

To say it up front. The problem is not the amount of money but what it's needed for. I have no problem to trust for $2mil for this project with you. But even if you would have asked for "only" 500 bucks I still don't know what it's needed for.
So, you are talking about not a simple web site but an enterprise solution. What exactly means "enterprise" for you here? You and I might know and understand that we are not talking about a simple web site. But does a non-techie know or understand? Do most YWAmers even know what is out there? Do I know or is it just a part I have heard of so far??
We already have a lot going on. E.g this site here or the communication site (Blogs), the Knowledge Base (Wiki), YWAMconnect (Social Network + many more options), YWAMpodcast, YWAMplanet, etc. I guess that if we would be able to connect them better that much of what you are looking for is already right before our eyes.
Since in the initial post you talk about linking to existing sites I assume that you don't want to re-invent the wheel and make a second YWAMIT, etc. I mean, most of what is listed in the initial post is already there.

Might be I haven't yet fully understood (in full depth!!) what the site is needed for. But I see a lot already existing.

I know that what ever you want to do, it does cost money. Money is not the issue. The issue is how the money is used, this is the point that I don't understand. I know very well that a server costs money and if you go for MS that it cost more. At least if you rent a server or web space it always costs more than with Linux.
Having said that I must add that there are still no details about the budget. All I know so far is that you want to use MS software and that this projects cost $75k plus what is already provided by the GLT, according to the Prayer Day email.

Important elements for implementing an enterprise-wide solution like this are security, redundancy, storage and connectivity. All of these bring an element of cost into the equation no matter what you use to implement the system on.

I'm not quite sure what to say about that. For sure MS puts a great effort into connectivity of their software. Even to the point that they are in trouble with the law. E.g. see the investigations about the monopoly miss-use law suit in Europe because of the extremely deep integration of IE into the OS. Everything from MS is very good connected, no doubt. However, mostly they exclude non MS software from full access. One way or another.
But security, redundancy and storage is not necessarily something that MS is good at. From my point of view at least. As you recommended I was looking around a bit for MOSS 2007. It requires 3GB HD space (I assume that doesn't include the needed OS? How much does MS server OS need??), recommended 2GB RAM and recommended 3GHz dual processor. WOW.... I'm impressed.... (Sorry, but I can't hold a little *grin* here) If that is storage and resource efficient then I'm doing something wrong. I know, I like to stir trouble, but honestly, 3GB? Including the OS, Web server, Database, a CMS including Forum, Blog, Wiki, etc. I don't come anywhere near 1GB.
Besides the fact that, according to the MS web site, you only get full functionality with Win2000 or newer and IE6 or newer. So, all Mac and Linux users plus those who rely on older Windows versions for what ever reason are locked out from full capability.
This is something I personally can not cheer at. Not because I use Linux, I have a XP with IE7. That would not be the issue. But MS repeatedly didn't follow standards but try to push their own ones and by that lock out 3rd-parties at least to some degree. This is a very exclusive in my eyes.

The German government is a prime example of the value of MOSS as they made a decision to go with Linux and open source about 8 years ago. They have been re-thinking this because they have found that in the long run it has cost them more to go with the “free” open source solution than with a proprietary solution.

Says who? Other studies come to the exact opposite conclusion. Do you have an article somewhere that I can read? I'm honestly interested in that.
However, I want to say that a government or any other for-profit is hard to compare with a situation that we have within YWAM. While for-profits have cost for personnel we can not simply calculate that in the same way. Besides the fact that a good MS certified SysAdmin would probably have an annual salary that eats up all the money we are talking about. So, that can't really be part of the calculation, anyways.

While browsing around the MOSS pages another question came to my mind. I always read something about client licenses. So, do I understand that right that there is a license per client/user needed to access MOSS? If so, who would pay for that? Or is there something I'm miss-interpreting? I mean, I don't really know what a license costs but say we expect all 18k YWAMers to hop on board. The budget needed according to the email is $75k (I dunno how the $50k+ in the comment above came up all of a sudden) that would be ~$4.17/license. I can hardly believe that a MS license is that cheap. Besides that no Hardware cost or OS/MOSS would be included in that calculation.
No matter how I look at it I fail to see how the $75k are calculated. Please get me right. I'm not here to bash everyone and everything. But I want to understand what you are doing and so far I simply don't understand. Also, let me say that I guess you need to provide some in depth information when you try to get help from some folks who mostly vote for a FOSS solution. I believe that you did research and all, but so far I just can't see why MS is the best option. Specially when I see that it seems OK that some people are locked out from full functionality.

Greetings from the MatriX,
neo

Another Response

cforbes — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 22:58:26 +0000

Hi Neo?

The 2007 YWAM International Survey had a note from Lynn on behalf of the Team3 and the GLT kindly requesting locations to provide staff name and email address in regard to a upcoming global monthly prayer project. Your email address was provided on the survey form by your base and that is how your name was added to this list. ywamlist.org is YWAM's new list server - we are in the process of moving several of our lists like ywam-base-announce over to this new server. Part of the reason for this is we have better control over the system, security etc. As well as we won't have to put up with googlegroup ads at the bottom of our list emails. The list server will also sync with our data base information such as base, UofN, and staff lists.

I belive Jeff has already addressed some of your other concerns.

I'm personally very sorry if adding your email to this list has case you some frustration - I'll be happy to remove it if you let me know what it is or you are welcome to unsubscribe - also note if you haven't actually used the signup form then you will be automatically dropped from this list shortly as we have promised to do for anyone who didn't signup for the prayer day emails. If you base provided your email address with out your permission then that is something you will need to take up with them.

This is the first project of it's kind that I know of where we have attempted to communicate directly with each ywamer across the globe. I personally believe it is a big step forward in the area of communication.

Continuing to follow up...

jneely — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 08:48:56 +0000

Dear IT Friends,

Broad Vision (Healing the Nervous System and Collaboration)

First I would like to restate our challenge, which we have phrased in the visionary term, “Healing the Nervous System”. YWAM is a fantastically dynamic organization which has seen phenomenal growth over the past two decades. Much of that dynamism has come from our decentralized structure and the encouragement to pioneer. However, with this growth has come some breakdowns in our communications, collaboration and interdependence within our YWAM family; especially as we are spread so completely across the globe.

As we walk into the next expected growth spurt we need to see correction in the areas where we are weak. The problems which we need to address include: communications between leaders, staff, bases and teams; a means for collaboration across the globe in a virtual environment; and creating a place where interdependence will lead to greater fruit for the Kingdom.

We know that building a technical solution will not resolve these issues, as YWAMers themselves have to choose to be interdependent (walking in humility, willingness to communicate etc...), but we can provide an environment which encourages this interdependence. This is where IT people can play an important role in YWAM and do our part in seeing the “healing of the nervous system” be integrated into our everyday life.
We have included this IT development as part of the prayer initiative because we believe fresh unity and interdependence is part of what the Lord is going to do through these prayer days. We could not split these into two different projects but there may be more than one phase of implementation.

I hope this helps state the vision and the problem we are attempting to respond to without writing a book. If you would like to dialogue on this further, I would suggest that we schedule a Skype call or Genesis link in the next couple of weeks and I would be glad to facilitate this further.

Budget Questions

Before I answer your questions about the budget which was sent out in November, let me apologise for the way it all came out. In that first letter we sent out about the monthly prayer day initiative we really wanted the focus to be on preparing YWAMers for the prayer initiative. We put the budget in the initial letter to give YWAMers an opportunity to help fund to the infrastructure that will support the healing of the nervous system. Unfortunately the way we wrote the letter seems to have emphasised the financial need over the need for YWAMers to sign up and receive the monthly prayer focus updates.

We did send the letter out again not recognizing how the financial need overshadowed our desire to get YWAMers to sign up. We are learning, so please forgive us as we learn these lessons along with you. This challenge is added to as we are attempting to do everything in 6 languages and therefore translation is needed each time we do a different communication.

Now for more details about the budget. I know that when many YWAMers see a budget for US$50,000 or more, many respond with “why so much?” The first thing we need to recognize is that we are not looking at a simple web site that will serve a small part of YWAM but we are looking at a corporate/enterprise solution. We have done quite a bit of research on different approaches to a solution like this it doesn’t matter whether you use open source, Microsoft, Apple or any other proprietary solutions, it costs money to implement.

Important elements for implementing an enterprise-wide solution like this are security, redundancy, storage and connectivity. All of these bring an element of cost into the equation no matter what you use to implement the system on.

Why SharePoint (MOSS)

In our YWAM IT community there is very strong bias towards open source solutions (one that I share with you). We have looked at a number of potential solutions in both the open source community and the proprietary sector. Here I want to attempt to explain why we strongly believe MS SharePoint (MOSS 2007) is the best solution for YWAM at an enterprise level right now. (I also want to encourage you to take a look at MOSS 2007 if you have not already.)

There is no solution that will meet the needs of any enterprise straight out of the box; however MOSS 2007 does a pretty good job of covering many basics. At the core of what we would like to see developed as an intranet that will provide an environment for enterprise search, collaboration (blogging, wiki, team workspaces etc...), central repository for documents and teaching, security (user authentication, user groups, ssl etc...) and good user environment. MS has also done a lot to improve the .net programming environment and its security.

Another one of the problems that we experience in YWAM is the vast amount of information we have coming at us and finding a way to manage the information that is most critical to the ministries we are involved with. Currently we have the situation where each of us can easily have a dozen web sites we are trying to maintain, along with all the email and email forum mail we get. MOSS 2007 makes it possible to setup a “My Space” so that a user only has one page to go to and find any updates or make changes on relevant information to them.

(an aside : The German government is a prime example of the value of MOSS as they made a decision to go with Linux and open source about 8 years ago. They have been re-thinking this because they have found that in the long run it has cost them more to go with the “free” open source solution than with a proprietary solution.)

In Conclusion:

YWAM has a truly unique communications challenge. No system will perfectly address our needs. However, taking the long view, our projected growth and the complicity of our mission, we are convinced that MOSS 2007 is the most effective option we can choose.

Agreed!

Donovan — Sat, 22 Dec 2007 12:22:37 +0000

Mike wrote:

Jeff, David, Donovan... can you enlighten us please on what tools are being used for these events?
And as an old banker - I would like to have an accountability report (for transparency/integrity) before releasing our ministry funds into the project. I have many requests and demands from my limited funds and need to honour our donors too!

Hi Mike, I'm not involved with this project, so I'll have to defer to David or Jeff! Mercy Christmas and Happy new year everyone! - Donovan

mike, you are right

neo — Sat, 22 Dec 2007 05:21:15 +0000

You are right with the dates, it was the 29th Nov and 20th Dec, of course. I wrote I got it on the 7th each both months. Well, that happens when I try to do 5 things at once and that too late at night when I'm sleepy.

Anyways, you should not say sorry for saying "mail-bombed". I still hope it was sent accidentally or at least not thought through before sending. Somehow I can hardly believe that this would be on purpose without the slightest glimpse of an update. Plus the one that should come in mid next week is announced and therefore expected. So, after all, "Spam" would be the wrong term.

Greetings from the MatriX,
neo

re: email address

neo — Sat, 22 Dec 2007 05:02:25 +0000

Hi Kevin,
so that would mean that the bases got contacted and they gave out the information? If so, I can't recall to ever have signed something (either Base or Ministry) that would allow them to share my contact details. It's an email address that besides family and friends almost no one knows of and the the base here has the policy to not give out details without explicit permission. The only other place I ever used this email address was on ywamconnect.net.
So, there are really only very view possibilities where this email address could come from. Who ever gave out this details, may the fear of the Lord come over this person. I'm almost 100% sure that this was without my permission. Makes me a bit sad. :(

Greetings from the MatriX,
neo

Agreed!

Mike — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 19:13:12 +0000

Thanks Neo and Kevin for your wonderful additions.
At the risk of stirring a hornets nest I would like to see some details as well.

The email from Lynn, and also sent by Jeff N to the YWAM announce and MMLeaders mail lists on 20 Dec was indeed an exact copy of the mail sent on 29 November. I want to get and hear of these initiatives but do not want to be spammed either. Perhaps there was a mistake on the second round of mailings as one would expect an update or even progress report on the fundraising. That would encourage us and stir us in our giving.

Anyway - we are promised another mail with the specific points for Jan 3rd next week
We should all be mail-bombed (sorry for the use of the term!) one week in advance of the prayer day.

I look forward to this monthly initiative and how we can use and learn to collaborate with whatever tools are offered. We have 70+ locations with potential access to GENESIS videoconference so some bases communities can be praying together internationally at low cost over IP.

Jeff, David, Donovan... can you enlighten us please on what tools are being used for these events?
And as an old banker - I would like to have an accountability report (for transparency/integrity) before releasing our ministry funds into the project. I have many requests and demands from my limited funds and need to honour our donors too!

Blessings and have a merry CHRISTmas!
Mike

email address

KevinColyer — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 12:53:23 +0000

Hi Neo,

I think the email from ywam.org comes from information taken during the Go Manual survey (I think others can confirm this). All staff members emails are requested for each location. That may pose problems for some staff (I think there is an opt out clause). I guess it might depend on who entered your survey info.

Cheers,

Kevin

what i think

neo — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 08:40:02 +0000

Hi @ all.
Just to make that clear up front. This is not meant as accusation about anything, since it's so easy to point fingers and it's hardly written about the good things. These are just some questions that I had when I was reading through the email. I believe there is a good explanation for all the questions / concerns.

1.
I was wondering how I got on that email list in the first place. It comes from the domain ywamlist.org. I never visited that site or do remember that I signed up for receiving a newsletter like this. Maybe there is something that I do not actively remember but I just do not know how and why and when that would have happened.
It's not that I would not want to receive this email I just don't remember how I should have gotten on that list.

2.
So far I received 2 emails, on the 7th of both Nov and Dec. The subject and the content is exactly the same. Why is that, was that an accident or "just" a reminder that this project needs financial support. Don't get me wrong but friends who get my personal monthly newsletter are saying about much more careful communication about finances that it sounds like a begging letter.

3.
About the money it says in the email that $75k (I assume US$, is that correct? Usually I calculate in AU$ !!) is needed on top of "what the GLT has already given towards this infrastructure". How much is that (overall cost for the project) and what is "this infrastructure"?
My supporters (and by considering giving towards this project I'm in the same position as my supporters have towards me) request an high level of integrity / transparency regarding the finances. However, all I can see in this email is that "someone" wants $75k for a website. It's from YWAM and since no one gets paid in YWAM this must be money for hosting the website, at least from what I can get out of the newsletter.

From what I can see the main thing will be to send out newsletters in different languages. More features on the website will come in future. It's not clear what this "features" will be or what it means from a technical perspective.
Assuming "it" is something rather intense from a technical point of view and it needs a fairly powerful server to host the site you can rent a root server for 79€/month. But that one will be a serious machine (AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000+, Dual Core, 6GB RAM, ~1500GB HD). If you need that for just 1 website, what sort of site will that be?
Anyway, assuming that is really the case the $75K will pay for that server for more than 50 years (assuming it's in US$). A Domain costs about 12€/year. Year, not month!

That money must be needed for more than the infrastructure. But unfortunately this is all I can get out of the newsletter that I got.

4.
Regardless of point 3 I personally would be interested of a breakdown of the costs for different reasons. One, I guess, more unusual reason would be to learn from others how to budget a project that size. Although the size of the project is a bit unclear so far. Anyway, besides the transparency all that can happen is that I personally can learn through it.

Also, I, and probably others as well, would be interested in the technical side of it. Again it's something I can learn from but also if we know more in detail chances are that we can give advise or help better than by having a vague email. The above comments have some stuff but as I understood it's more of a wish list nothing that is already decided. Decisions should have been made by now? Or at least more should have been talked through by the core developer team. It would be nice to hear what's going on. Specially since here was asked for advice and an overwhelmingly lot responses voted for FOSS.
And FOSS is more than able to handle all the YWAMers. I know of a online forum which is totally based on FOSS with more than 150,000 user and more than 1Mio posts. Say, how many full time staff has YWAM ;) ? And how many would sign up on a website like this and contribute on a regular basis??

5.
To have a global monthly day of prayer is something really great. Not because we then make sure that everyone is praying at least once a month ;) but it gives us as YWAM a deeper sense of family. I hope we have intercession times on every base, yet we are not necessarily connected in prayer as a global mission. Maybe it's just me but I feel that WE have intercession on OUR base and in MY ministry. I don't really feel to pray with my YWAM family world wide.
A website with potential room for comments, testimonies, praise reports, etc would be a great thing to connect globally.

A long time ago God stirred the idea in me to pray (world wide on a monthly basis) for those "who are in high positions" in regards to IT. Based on the scripture in 1.Timothy 2:1-4. IT and Internet is such an important part of this world with many people and companies who hold a lot of power in that area.
Instead of me reinventing the wheel could this be a partner project / addition to this prayer project? Something like every 2nd Thursday of a month?? Any ideas???

OK, that's me, who's next? ;)

Greetings from the MatriX,
neo

Lynn mentions money...

KevinColyer — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 19:53:17 +0000

Hi Mike,

Are you referring to the latest letter from Lynn regarding the prayer days next year? I will assume you are and continue. In his letter he mentioned $75,000 as a figure for what was needed for the prayer project. Yet I am wondering if he is referring to Jeff's post here. I have written to Lynn asking a breakdown of the budget as it "hits so hard" as you said. He passed on the request I think but I am still waiting an answer.

I think we can all think of lots of essential uses for this amount of money. To throw it at collaborative prayer doesn't rate highly for me. After all KK used to be able to do it with "Prayer and Faxing", couldn't we do it with "Prayer and Blogging?"

I pointed out to Lynn that the YWAMKB site has cost a total of 16 Euro in its life... (Same for Planet YWAM). I am sure I could host a Wordpress blog for another 16 Euro (which YWAM Brussels would donate of course!) that we could use for a prayer news and responses. We could give out a few guest authorships and comment approval's rights. (16 Euro is the charge for domain registration).

I am mostly concerned about the integrity around finances here than about technical merit. Jeff says it is for a project in two parts or two projects. If Lynn is asking for two projects he should, for integrity's sake, split his appeal in two parts or supply some form of breakdown. I think many people will do a double take when asking for this much money and will understandably request some justification for this amount. As I am already doing.

And until I get my response from Lynn, I can't ask my team to consider giving. If I am not convinced by the response, I may ask my team to give to a more vital cause.

What do others think?

Kevin

Update? - International Project needing collaboration!!!

Mike — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 14:21:03 +0000

*bump*

I was wondering what you guys decided to build your infrastructure with?

Lynn mentions a high $ cost (more than my small Base's annual budget!) and I was wondering if this was hardware/software/snailmail or what hits so hard?

Blessings
Mike

International Project needing collaboration!!!

jneely — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 01:39:22 +0100

Hi fellow YWAM IT servants,

Earlier I posted a note that we would be posting some specs for a project that would like some input on. Well here it is... but we want more than just your input. We are looking for help in implementation as well. This is a project to serve our whole mission and we believe will serve to improve our interconnectivity across the globe.

To start with, this can be dealt with as two separate projects or as one project in two parts. One of the major themes for Lynn Green as the international Chairman is to improve our interconnectivity and communications. This is through the illustration of the nervous system and the need for communication to go both to and from the extremities. This project is focusing on providing some of the tools to improve these communication links through a YWAM global intranet.

Along these same lines, the GLT is calling all of YWAM to a monthly day of prayer that will helps us realign with what God is doing in us (YWAM) and the nations He has called us to. For this prayer project we are already developing part of the infrastructure of communicating with email, but we also believe a web presence is part of the strategy God wants to use. For this part of the project we want to create a means for sharing what God is speaking to us across the globe.

Below I am spelling out the specs we are looking at (you are welcome to add ideas to these as well) in 2 parts. Our current thinking is that MS SharePoint is how we would prefer to implement this web presence but we are very open to other recommendations. A few key things we are looking for are: ease of implementation (out of the box???),multi-lingual, available developers, and modularization.

Specs for Prayer Initiative website:

Blogging for registered users (along with the ability to easily moderate blogs)

Resource page (creative ideas for praying, YWAM teaching on intercession etc...)

Podcasting resources

Monthly prayer focus and archives

We are looking at the possibility of creating an Intranet for the whole of YWAM. In essence this will be a portal to find the resources that we as YWAM have and use. The idea of this site is not to centrally control the information but to have a way to centrally access it.

We have our basic specs and we have had ideas of how to build it – but we realize that there is strength in numbers, so below I have listed our ideas and requirements and if you think you know how this could be constructed in terms of platforms then please get in touch. YWAM Intranet.

Requirements

Enterprise Search - The site has to have a facility to index all other YWAM websites so that they are easily searchable.

Link to current resources - The site needs to have the ability to link to current resources (documents, websites etc…) such as ywamkb.net, ywamit.com and any other site that has teaching or any resources online. It only needs to link and maybe have an introduction, because the idea of this is not to centralize content to but to make it easily accessible from this site.

Social Networking – Link to current social networking groups in YWAM – such as YWAMConnect.net / facebook groups and myspace.

User Management – Although a lot of the site will be open for anyone to view – there may come a time that we want to offer some closed areas, so we need to be able to manage our user base at some point.

RSS – The site will do what YWAMPlanet does in terms of pulling in content from all the YWAM sites will RSS so that the news that YWAM is producing can be easily viewed. Also the site must be capable of outputting RSS

Staff directory – The site must e capable of holding an opt in YWAM staff directory

Leadership communication – The site must have an area where leadership can post news and appeals and generally connect with the mission.

Multilingual Support - The website must have the ability to be displayed in multiple languages.

MSSQL – The website has to be able to link with MSSQL

Collaboration – The website has to have the ability for teams to collaborate on documents and projects.

YWAM Information Technology - International Project needing collaboration!!! - Comments

an recent example for linux

interesting points

Are the right principles guiding us?

more question arise....

questions....

Another Response

Continuing to follow up...

Agreed!

mike, you are right

re: email address

Agreed!

email address

what i think

Lynn mentions money...

Update? - International Project needing collaboration!!!

International Project needing collaboration!!!

Requirements