Mike Gold

Late last year, some colleagues and I flew down to the Dominican Republic. We had the privileged of working along side some world class technologists from the D.R. installing a computer lab in the Dominican town of Consuelo. We have had the privileged of participating in many other computer labs in the past. However, this one was different. Instead of installing 20-30 individual computers, we specified desktop virtualization technology from http://www.Ncomputing.com.

A good friend of mine, who happens to be a MAC guru, recommended that, like any other major O.S. upgrade, we hold off upgrading to Snow Leopard until we can see how it will impact our environment. This is especially true in our music, audio and video editing departments where we have a whole bunch of third party hardware supporting our various content creation and editing work-flows.

I just showed the consumption part of this video to my kids. I like the creative way Anne Leonard communicates the materials economy. It really wouldn’t hurt any of us to expand our field of view beyond what we take through the checkout aisle at the store and what we drag to the curb. As Anne states it, “People created this process and we can change it.”

I was excited to try out a relatively new technology at the Summit this year called Xstream, produced by Kulabyte, http://www.kulabyte.com. I must say I was very impressed. But I am getting ahead of myself here. Check out the following video which documents the tools, tech and methods we used to broadcast video over the internet at the Leadership Summit sponsored by the Willow Creek Association.

I was just thinking back to Hurricane Katrina. I remember the amazing people I met. Their stories still inspiring me today. I wanted to just post something to honor their stories as they endured the destruction wrought by this terrible storm that took place in late August, 2005. Below are posts I made to my Journal at the time during a relief effort I participated in with Willow Creek Community Church, South Barrington, IL and Hartland Church in Rockford, IL… It is not that I wish for people to relive this horror. I just don’t want to forget the people…I don’t remember them as victims…but as people determined to thrive again…

A good friend of mine at Willow worked on this video shoot recently. I was very bummed that I was out that day, It would have been very cool to be at Motorola to ask some firsthand questions about Google Apps. Alright…Here’s the deal. I actually think Google’s Cloud Computing approach to messaging and collaboration is a very good idea. I have been following the progress of Google Apps for years. I even have my own account and domain on the platform… Why do I have such a hard time trusting them? Still, I am finding it hard not to consider this platform as an alternative to Exchange. Motorola is expecting to save a considerable amount of money moving to this platform. Check out the video my friend worked on…I would love to hear others thoughts on this.

Alright so I’m a little slow…

Over the past several years I have used a few different blogging platforms. I am not a huge blogger. However, when I do get thoughts or ideas, and I want to write them down, I do like to have something that is flexible. A platform that allows me to be creative. After using Blogger and even Microsoft, I became a Typepad user for a number of years. Typepad was very easy to set up and it allowed me to easily add videos and images. My first exposure to WordPress was not very positive. It was not very flexible and it was cumbersome to add images.

I continue to be so convicted by a Bible passage that I memorized so many years ago…Galatians 5:22: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control.” It is a good verse, a key verse to my faith. A few years ago I did a personal study of this passage. What does it really mean to bear the fruit of the spirit; to truly live a life yielded to the Spirit of the Most High God.

I just wanted to take a few moments to thank those who sat in on my breakout session at this years International Shelby Conference 2009. As promised I am posting notes and from my session here.

Download information sociology model slides with transcript

Download Audio

For some time now I have had a growing passion for Digital Asset Management…or DAM for short. Now before I continue on with this post, I feel the need to promise you that I will spare you any junior high level jokes about the D.A.M. acronym like DAM systems are coming to the church…or…I finally get to say DAM in church and feel good about it. During the start of our DAM project at Willow I have said them and heard them all.