I've just read a request on the ywamconnect.net IT Warriors Plug asking for a PHP/Mysaql Programmer, and that got me thinking. Now that we're gettintg the IT/Web people together, how can we bring our skills together in order to help bases and/or minitries in their specific needs? I know that we have been doing a lot recently, just the criation ywamit.com and ywamconnect.net have been really significant and we need to carry on.
How can we facilitate for others in YWAM to get in touch with us and share their specific needs in the area of IT/Web and technology in general. What I mean by that is, to make it easier for them, to find the specific skills they need like PC Maintenance, web programming, security, server admin., etc. Can we create short term IT teams to help other bases as they need? Can we setup informal "Help Desk" type of services? Please share your thoughts!
Comments
This organisational process could be easier to do.
Alex, good observation. Finding people to meet IT related needs is an organisational process that happens over and over again, impacts our success as a mission, if successful will lead to positive impact on other areas of the mission and involves lots of communication.
Presently each person or project with a need for people figures this one out for themselves. It seems that it would be well worth it to create a service that makes this process easier to do.
Stepping back a bit, we can see that there are two sides to this process. One is the supply side (people with skills, IT teams) and the other the demand side (IT projects). The process is fundamentally a two sided search process. People with skills searching for opportunities to serve, and projects searching for people with skills.
I can imagine an internet hosted service that would help with this need. What are some examples on the web that we could look at? What kind of qualities would this service have?
Question of desire to serve
I don't have extensive experience with YWAM in general, since my wife & I have only been on staff for a year with a year of training before that, making a cumulative total YWAM experience equal 2 years. I've only been to one base where there was an actual established IT department, and perhaps my scope is limited, but it didn't seem to me that those guys were interested in taking on projects outside of their base, since they had more than enough to do. Then again, I never saw evidence that the staff involved in IT at this particular base actually had programming experience. Again, my scope is limited in this experience. So, my question is, how open should we suppose IT folks to be on YWAM bases to actually consider answering these IT project needs from other bases, esp. those in other countries from themselves?
Incidentally, I've been kind of considering helping out that YWAM base with their request, but I've been hesitant to contact them because of not knowing what the real scope of their project to be. I guess I wouldn't know unless I asked! Does anyone know of anyone else who has actually contacted them about their request?
Just some comments.
Chris Bischoff
YWAM Latvia, Communications
www.ywamlatvia.com
www.chrisandlydia.net
Go Manual Revisited
Alex, the organisational process of "finding IT people" is an example of the organisational process that the "Go Manual" was created to serve. I wonder what changes are happening with the "Go Manual" these days? Will the Go Manual evolve into something that could meet the need that you are seeing?
Anybody reading this from the "Go Manual" team?
Also, responding to Chris - the scope of our search is not only limitted to YWAM staff and bases. Sharing these needs is part of our recruiting (long term / short term) IT people as well. We are not limitted to internal resources only.
Aha!
Robert,
See... that's a great point: recruiting folks from outside of YWAM. That's a concept that's new to me because in another ministry that I worked in, outsourcing to or recruiting part-time IT folks was something that would never have flown. Thanks!
Cheers,
Chris Bischoff
YWAM Latvia, Communications
www.ywamlatvia.com
www.chrisandlydia.net
Summer of Service IT?
I had the idea to start an summer of service for IT people. At the moment we don't have an IT staff working at any of the bases in Holland. We used to have one till last month but he explained he kept on extinguishing fires, and was not able to do some big projects. Beside that, wasn't he a programmer or system admin so he also did not have the knowledge.
So i have been thinking to get a bunch of IT people together and go to bases to make some longterm investments. So i needed to first find out what the bases would need, and then bring it acroos.
I don't know if i will continue with this, because i don't want the IT people coming in to pay for their expenses on the base. I think it should be paid from base IT budget. But there is no budget for that! So i'll be thinking about it, but maybe can somebody else (or you Chris) pick this up.
Where to now?
I have been reading the articles recently on this site, and wondering where the leadership has gone? (That is the leadership amongst us.) As part of my work, I do not feel like this is one of the sites I need to read every morning. Considering that I work in YWAM IT and this is the most active site for IT in YWAM, it’s not really scratching an itch for me.
This is not to say that there is no content on the site. There is a lot of material here, and occasionally I see things that help.
What do I mean by leadership, well setting up this site was an act of leadership!
Alex, you have pointed out a need. Robert pointed out that this is a process, and suggests that other ministries could benefit from a “positions vacant†type site. Chris pointed out a possible problem in that we do not have a lot of time between us. Then we touched on some possible solutions. I expanded the list a little below.
Some possible solutions (and I know there is more):
- Ywam.org provides this to a limited extent, but for sure a targeted site would be great. (This is the same as the “go manualâ€)
- Each base/ministry still needs a jobs vacant list on their own site to help give context to their needs.
- Some needs, such as IT might require a targeted marketing campaign and hence need specific tools for this. This could be as diverse as articles and advertising in Christian media to canvassing local churches to hiring consultants straight from the yellow pages.
- Summer of Service in IT and IT schools with outreaches.
- The good old herald call to the troops to gather around a project.
There was a lot left unresolved, like our DTS is very exclusive. This IT industry is not just for the youth who are happy to be part of a summer of service - we also need people with experience who haven't done a DTS.
But now the discussion died - just as it was getting interesting. So I guess my question now is Alex, what are you going to do now you have some more info?
This would be a reason for me to follow this site … to see what actually can be done amongst us.
Some more thoughts
I had a great experience helping setup the IT/ GENESIS for the Viva Conference in Brazil, working with the guys from Kona and from different bases around Brazil, and during the conference having Donovan who gave me some very useful advice on a number of things. That got me thinking about this issue and was reinforced by a post on ywamconnect.net IT warriors plug.
Yes I have been brain storming about the responses and am very glad this issue got people's attention. I know there are some people dreaming about an IT training school which is great and also the idea of having a mobile team of IT people that can fisically go to a location and help them out is a great one too.
Maybe a starting point would be to have a YWAM IT Help service on the web. I have no idea yet how that would look like, but beyond being able to interact with all of you here I would like to use the skills we have to bless other bases.
I think this is apart from recruiting or contracting people, which also needs to be done. What I'm trying to focus on is: How can we full-timers make our skills available for all in YWAM and in the process create the challenging environment that will attract other IT + Missions lovers? After the environment is set, recruiting will be easier as the bases will be able to actually give specific roles to IT people.
Sorry, maybe more questions than answers, these comments might not "show the way" (as mentioned to me before), but hope we can take this discussion further and some ideas will then start to get form.
A missing piece
Kent, you are seeing a missing piece in the ywamit.com dialog. if I have got your meaning, you are looking for decision making and issue closure rather than just issue raising and commentary. Is that what you are missing?
yes..a missing piece
Connection & Service
First of all, I want to comment once again that I am so excited of the existence of this website where YWAMers in the field of IT can come together & discuss. That's the 1st step to understanding obstacles & discovering creative solutions to better communication, which, let's face it, is the bottom line of IT. After all, if we don't have quality communication among those that are supposed to be offering communication solutions, then it seems pointless to try to "do" communications projects.
Secondly, I want to address Kent's question of where is the leadership? I, personally, cannot lead when I have no idea who it is I should be leading or what those people would want. I mean, some of us have had personal interaction with each other, but, for instance, I have never met any of you. Consequently, save for this website & a couple of personal emails from some of you, I feel very disconnected & have no idea how to proceed with much of anything, except for my own local projects. I'm wondering if there isn't some way all of us who are actively participating in this blog site could get together over GENESIS or perhaps even over just a Skype conference call to maybe pray together & get to know each other a little better. But then again, maybe all of you have already met each other, & I'm just the odd man out.
I would feel that if there were some kind of more personal interaction with each other, we could maybe get a better understanding of what each of our strengths & weaknesses are, pray together & perhaps see if God would unite us in some way through a given vision from Him.
Just for the record, I think the idea of a Summer of Service IT outreach is a fantastic idea because one thing that is ingrained in IT people is pride, which I believe something like an SSIT (as it were) could help change. If IT people are going to go to bases & help in projects, they must do it in the humblest of ways submitting to base leadership & allow that leadership to use their skills rather than push their own agendas as IT people. Really it's no different than a DTS outreach, but I think the pride issue is so much more evident in IT folks (just take a look at the t-shirts over at www.thinkgeek.com). But I digress... the overall point, though, is I believe there are those guys (or gals) whom I know are believers & highly skilled IT personnel who would be very eager to come & make a difference in the Kingdom with their abilities. The reality of making something like this happen, though, is dependent on a) very much prayer & b) those full-time YWAM folks who have a clue of how to prepare something like this, so that those IT folks can be best utilized. I think something like this, as with most successful IT projects, will only be achieved through group communication.
OK, sorry for the length. Thanks for reading.
Chris Bischoff
YWAM Latvia, Communications
www.ywamlatvia.com
www.chrisandlydia.net