thirtyonethree

I recently read an article on UIE’s website that has got me dreaming and thinking. Here is an excerpt:

Inukshuk is “the name of stone figures created by Inuit hunters as guide markers. The hunters arranged the piles of stones in the likeness of human beings, signifying to other hunters that someone already has passed through and experienced their same journey. An inukshuk provided reassurance and empathy to others and alleviated an Inuit’s fear that they were off the track.”

“In our research [UIE Engineering], we’ve seen that, just like the Inuit hunters, users on the web want reassurance that others have shared their experiences. Many times, users are contemplating important decisions. To understand if they are making the right decision, they often want to go beyond facts. They want to know if it “feels” right.” Read full article

They used the examples of The University of Northern Iowa putting “profiles” of students on their site. You can read what it is like to be a student at this school. This “reassures” people visiting the site and helps them to connect with the experience. I think that it would be huge for us (Campus Crusade Internet Ministry) to create this “inukshuk” content for students considering summer projects, students participating in Student2Student, and potential student leaders to launch new campus ministries through GodSquad.com.

I recently got an email from a former Campus Crusade for Christ staff member who is now working with Prison Fellowship. He wanted to get some tips based on my work with GodSquad.com. Here is my response:

To be honest, I am having some trouble in determining what to tell you. I feel like the part of GodSquad that helps new students to consider starting a ministry on their campus is the weakest part of the site. I have redone it several times and I am still not that happy with it. It does communicate our vision and how they can be a part of it. I think it is more of a God thing then what we are doing with the site. I think the rest of the site and the valuable resources are probably a selling point.

I have been considering looking at sites like Weight Watchers and others to see what kind of “preview” they give to those considering “joining”. I would love to have some video at some point showing students who have started a ministry. Another idea I have to start is just have some testimonials with pictures and text so that new people could identify with. Here is a recent article that got me thinking more about it.

I wish I could be of more help. To be honest, I am amazed that I get as many contacts through the site as I do because I think it could be a whole lot better. Maybe the fact that we do a fairly good job of laying out the process that reassures them. Again, I think it is mostly a God thing.

I may be short changing myself. I have put thought into how to cast vision for new students and volunteers to start ministries. But I have never been very happy with the solutions I have come up with. I would much rather have images and video that can help create a more emotional connection which is what you want to do in vision casting. I had started learning Flash a couple of years ago for that very reason. I would like to get some video of a successful launch so that potential leaders could “see it” in action.

Here are some articles that I read recently.

• Prioritizing Design Time: A Long Tail Approach - this article by Joshua Porter got me thinking about the importance of designing secondary pages. It also prompted me to consider how important a homepage really is. With Web 2.0, more visitors will probably enter sites bypassing the homepage so it decreases its importance even more.
• The 5 Second Test - This comes from UIE and Christine Perfetti.
• Joshua Porter has put together an introduction to Web 2.0. He includes links to articles that he terms “foundational writings.” In case you missed it, I did a posting summarizing a presentation Joshua gave at UI 10 Conference in October.
• Dan Saffer of Adaptive Path talks about the types of experiences we might see in the future with Web 2.0. I found it interesting and will probably go back and reread it later.

Today, I was able to add another trick to my web toolbelt. For several months, I have been wanting to do Flash video differently. I wanted to have a static image in the Flash movie that a person would have to “click” in order to see the movie. But I would have to learn Flash or find someone who could teach me enough to pull off what I wanted.

Several weeks ago, I saw a site that did what I wanted to do except they did it with a static image and scripting that would replace the image with a Flash object. The site was Campus Crusade’s site in Canada. I wrote to someone there and finally today, I got hold of the php coding they used to pull it off. I applied it to a video I did for Katrina Relief on the US Campus Ministry website. I always enjoy learning new things to improve the experience of a site.

It looks like I will be going back to Hungary in March. I have been praying about an opportunity since I was there over the summer. I had expected to go on a “vision” trip that I had done six years ago. But God has something else in mind. An opportunity has come forward to help lead a team of high schoolers over for a week. Several of the students that are considering going were on the project this summer. That has been a draw to me.

We will be working with the ministry there going into the high schools and talking about American culture, our lives and our faith. It will culminate with an outreach on Friday. Tentatively, we would leave on a Saturday, arrive in Hungary on Sunday and then leave the following Monday.