Recently, we have had a number of requests from clients looking for a simple way to get their podcasts and videos posted online. As we shared a few months back, E-zekiel.tv’s streaming service is great for churches, but we have really come to appreciate the ease of use and simplicity of the new Flip Video camera. The camera is a simple point and shoot and allows you to easily upload your video to your computer or your video streaming site of choice. It’s affordable (under $200), and offers better than average image quality. Learn more from this Computerworld Video review.

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Big Heart Design is pleased to announce our recent partnereship with TechShop, a ministry of United Methodist Communications, and the Arkansas Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church to offer Web services. The staff at Big Heart recognizes that the needs of  churches are very different than that of secular organizations. We understand that churches have the desire to create relevant websites and online applications, but are limited by tight budgets and overworked staff. TechShop and the Arkansas Annual Conference have partnered with us to offer an extensive menu of offerings at reduced prices to churches and members of these organizations. Learn more about this partnership.

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At Big Heart we’re constantly IMing (instant message) friends and colleagues. So when we saw Microsoft’s latest update to Windows Live Messenger, it seemed like an easy way to make a difference without much effort. For those of you who are intrigued by UX design, this new initiative is a great example of social action design. Check it out. It’s easy to set up and makes a difference. Here’s more:

The i’m™ Initiative from Microsoft™ makes helping social causes easy. Every time you use Windows Live™ Messenger or Windows Live Hotmail®, our free webmail service, we’ll share a portion of our advertising revenue with some of the world’s most effective social cause organizations. Exactly how much will we share with our partner causes? Well, that’s up to you and the growing masses of registered i’m Initiative users. The more messages you send, the more we give.

Now the small things you do every day, like e-mailing and IMing, can make a big difference. Learn more

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I recently heard about GracePoint Church in Wichita, Kansas and their unique launch to their building campaign. While other churches take the traditional approach of constant requests and phone calls, GracePoint Church decided to have their members give away the churches money to those in need. Bryson Butts, GracePoint’s pastor shared the campaign concept on his blog.

I am so proud of GracePoint Church. It is such a privilege and honor to pastor this church. We kicked off a revolution Sunday with the UNLEASH campaign and gave away $10,000 as everyone in attendance received an envelope with cash in it. If you missed last week, all I can say is it sucks to be you.

Our instructions were very simple. There were no strings attached to this money, we just asked everyone to perform a random act of kindness by giving this money to someone and then telling us what you did with  it at unleashwichita.com. I have been reading the stories EVERY DAY this week and they are absolutely amazing. I am completely blown away. If you have not yet gone and written your story, PLEASE DO SO!!!

Not only do we appreciate their fresh approach to fundraising, but providing members the ability to share their stories of giving back through their website is a really novel one. We encourage you to  read GracePoint’s stories and seek opportunities to make the world a better place through service.

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[MakeUseofIt.com] Yet another cool meeting scheduler that requires almost no effort. Meet-O-Matic lets you easily plan and coordinate the ideal  meeting time with as many people as you want. All you need to do is to type-in a meeeting name and select a number of possible dates. Following this, Meet-O-Matic will give you two  links, one needs to be forwarded to meeting attendees and the other, to be used to follow-up on progress.

You will be able to monitor responses as they arrive on a custom monitoring page with a table (see below).

Once everyone has replied, Meet-O-Matic will lookup the best dates and list them, from best to worst.

Additional Features

• Plan and  schedule as many meetings as you want.
• No restrictions on the number of attendees.
• Custom page to  monitor responses as they happen.
• VIP person : When selected Meet-O-Matic makes sure that meeting takes place on one of the dates selected by a VIP user.
• Attendees are able to come back and edit their choices later.
• Receive email when every one is finished
• No registration required.

Check out Meet-O-Matic

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I recently attended the IA Summit in Miami and encountered Crowdvine for the first time. I was blown away at its simplicity. I really love simple applications that have robust tool sets. And did I say it was free tol use! Crowdvine started out with their social networking application, and most recently launched Crowdvine for conferences; thus allowing people attending a conference to collaborate online.

[TechCrunch.com] Crowdvine is a hosted free white label social network application created by Tony Stubblebine.

Setting your own network is dead simple. You just need to pick a name, pick some profile questions, and then send out invites with a personalized message. You network is hosted at name.crowdvine.com Profiles consist of a photo, location, personal link, description, blog posts, and the questions the creator of the network chooses. Members can also incorporate RSS feeds from another blog, photo stream, or social bookmarking site. See the IA Summit social network for an example.

The networks are either open to everyone, open but moderated, or private to the creator’s friends. The design of the site is customizable by main colors and adding code to the header.

Social interaction is basic right now. Members can invite friends, make friends, message each other, and comment on each others pages.

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As many of our readers are aware, the Big Heart Design consultants participate and lead a number of Web workshops throughout the year. Big Heart Design would like to welcome Jorge Obando to our family of training consultants.

Jorge Obando is currently the senior principal business analyst at Boehringer Ingelheim. In this position he serves as the liaison between the Communications and Public Relations Department and the Internet Technology Department. He comes from NBC-Universal, where he worked on the information architecture, design and implementation of the nbc.com and nbcsports.com social networks.

Jorge worked with The United Methodist Church’s General Board of Global Ministries managing its technology department for seven years. As well, he worked with The United Nations in Latin America and Europe as Sr. Communications and Technology Advisor. Jorge holds a Master’s Degree in Corporate Communications from the College of New Rochelle and a Bachelor’s Degree in Mass Communications and Journalism from St. John Fisher College.

Be it your staff or membership, Big Heart Design will work with your organization to create a custom training experience that will inform and energize participants. Many groups that we have worked with in the past have seen Web training events as opportunities to raise funds for future Web development projects. 

Meet the Big Heart Design training consultants

Find out how we can create a custom training experience for you and your organization

See our schedule of upcoming training events

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The General Commission on Archives and History is a global agency of The United Methodist Church. The purpose of the General Commission on Archives and History is to promote and care for the historical interest of The United Methodist Church. They maintain an archives and library in which historical records and materials relating to The United Methodist Church are preserved and are made available for public and scholarly use. Big Heart Design wants to congratulate the staff on their recent website launch!

In 2007, Matt Carlisle, founder of Big Heart Design, coached the staff of the General Commission on Archives and History through an extensive research and discovery project. The goal was to learn the Web-based needs of constituents to dramatically increase the user-experience of GCAH.org. Based on the research that the General Commission on Archives and History conducted, Matt Carlisle developed the information architecture of pages and produced the necessary documentation for design.

Visit the newly redesigned GCAH.org now.

Read Big Heart Design’s case study on the redesign of GCAH.org.

Learn more about Big Heart Design’s user-driven research methodology.

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I stumbled upon a really helpful tool a few weeks back, the SEO analyzer for Web design. It was designed by Sitening, a Nashville-based open source application development company. The SEO analyzer is a great “free” tool, it allows you to assess how well your website is optimized for search engines. Simply enter in a URL and SEO analyzer produces a detailed Web design report on areas that need optimization. This is a must-have if you are about to launch a new website or want to improve your search engine rankings. Analyze your website now.

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The General Board of Higher Education and Ministry has a new face in cyberspace – a redesigned Web site that presents news, resources, publications, and other information in a more colorful, visual format, and with improved navigation and search tools.

“Our new ‘face’ is part of the churchwide, grassroots effort to literally make use of the connection by linking United Methodist Church sites and providing a seamless, cohesive experience for seekers,” said the Rev. Jerome King Del Pino, general secretary of the Board.

The General Board of Higher Education and Ministry came to Big Heart Design with an existing design system and a wealth of user research. We were hired to project manage the build of GBHEM.org, the official website of the agency. It was also our responsibility to create a highly sophisticated user-experience document that outlined all front and back-end interactions. The beautiful design system that the Board of Higher Education & Ministry developed required the extensive creation of page comps that mapped across the site.

The General Board of Higher Education and Ministry is a global agency of The United Methodist Church. The General Board of Higher Education and Ministry leads and serves The United Methodist Church in the recruitment, preparation, nurture, education, and support of Christian leaders – lay and clergy – for the work of making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.

Congratulations to the staff at the General Borad of Higher Education and Ministry. It has been a pleasure working with you.

Visit the newly redesigned GBHEM.org

Read our GBHEM.org case study

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