Collaboration is King

You have probably head the phrase, “content is king.” Bill Gates shared about this ideas back in 1996. There are plenty of people reading this who were not even BORN in 1996! I may have been in 3rd grade when this blog post was written, but the sentiment is just as true as it was in the 90’s. 

While I don’t disagree at all with the idea that content is king (it certainly is), I think there is another facet of the creative world to consider that might not get as much public recognition. When it comes to actually producing creative work, collaboration is king. 

Solo vs team 

If you want to get something done quickly then doing it by yourself is probably your best bet. The internet is full of people creating solo content, and there are many areas that are served best form the solo-entrepreneur. While there is nothing wrong with putting in the work and shipping a product, there is something special (some would say magical) that happens when people get together and work through and idea. 

I have been part of some incredible creative meetings over the years where we walked in with one idea and walked out with a totally different, but even more amazing, plan of action. Something happened in the meeting when one set of ideas were connected like magnets to another idea to form an even greater idea. Human beings are wired for connection and the creative process is no different. 

I have spent most of the last decade working with teams. When I look back over content that I have personally created, much of it has fallen flat or stalled out. But when I zoom out to look at projects that I have been a part of with different teams, I am instantly reminded of the power of collaboration and the work we can accomplish when we come together to create something truly great. 

I started working at Highlands Fellowship in 2017. I came on board to help develop and grow their Online Campus and expand their digital reach. Over the last few years, I am have been able to connect with multiple teams and work on projects that ranged from website design to launching new churches and everything in-between. Here are a few projects that I was able lead or assist with over the last 4 years. 

Website redesign – hf.church 

My first ADDY award!

The first project I contributed to when I came on staff at Highlands was to help overhaul our website. We had just switched to a new CMS and we were working toward integrating that into our new site. I had not had much experience with building websites or HMTL (other than customizing my MySpace page back in the day…), but I wanted to help this project come to life so I started learning all about HTML, CSS, and bootstrap and started building pages on the website. 

We launched the site a few months after I came on staff and our team actually won an ADDY Design Award for the site. It was a highlight for our Creative and Communication teams and I was so glad I spent some time stepping out of my comfort zone to learn new skills and collaborate on a project. It was a huge win for the church and that site serves thousands of people a year. You can check it out by visiting hf.church

Highlands Is Home – a visual and messaging refresh 

In 2019 we were approaching the 25th anniversary of the church and it was time to consider what the next 25 years might look like. Some of our teams started talking together about the opportunity for a refresh of our designs (logos, fonts, colors, etc) with an emphasis on a clear and direction vision for the future. We paired that branding update with updates to our physical spaces as well as the langue that we used to talk about Highlands. 

We knew that a logo change was not substantial enough to make an impact; we needed to re-craft and consolidate our identity to a simple and approachable vibe that would instantly show who we were and the experience that someone might have at one of our campuses. We landed on the phrase Highlands Is Home and all of our exterior design, digital production, and dialogue began to shift to fit this feeling. It has not been an easy process (and COVID has not helped one bit), but it has been incredible to see these words and ideas taking root all across our campuses. From lobbies to language, Highlands is becoming a home for many in our communities. 

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Highlands is Home vibes

Building new systems and training volunteers 

Ministry work is… hard. It can also be isolating and there is a drift that can happen where you just take care of everything that needs to be done without invite people to join in. Training other people takes time and it can be a much longer process than checking a few check boxes. 

In 2019, one of our campuses transitioned from a satellite campus to a new church. They are still part of our network and we work together with the staff closely, but it was an opportunity to rebrand and relaunch as a new work in that city. They took on a new name, a new design aesthetic, and a new way to manage the worship team and how we create gatherings. I stepped in to help produce some of the elements and run the new software that we were going to use to keep the band together on stage. 

It started as an opportunity to use some of my skills from previous jobs and hobbies (music production, tech, etc) but it quickly grew from a behind-the-scenes scenario to something that needed much more attention and training. Teaching musicians a new way to play together is no easy task; it took hours of practice with plenty of trial and error scenarios to hit a stride. Then came the work of creating a process for these worship gatherings to happen each week (Sunday just keeps coming). It was a combination of messaging, creative elements, series ideas, song planning, all coming together to create a unified gathering from start to finish. 

It took months of creating workflows and prototyping a system that could handle all the audio needs for live music and spontaneous elements. It also had to work consistently and needed to be easy enough for someone to run in a live environment. I spent hours (and hours) working with Ableton Live effectivity creating a working and stable template from scratch. 

Fast forward to today. There are people at that campus running all that content without me. With time, training, plenty of screen recordings, and documentation there is now a system that several people can now use to do a process that I created from scratch. It is so rewarding to see something that started as an experiment solidified as an opportunity for service for other people. Was it worth all the time? You better believe it! 

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Work together. Create great content. Repeat.

Summer with Craft – my YouTube series

I recently started putting videos out on YouTube again.

I am working through how I use Craft to get work done. Craft is a great note-taking app and I am committed to using it for the next year (what can I say… I tend to jump around with apps).

I have a few episodes on my YouTube channel currently and I have several more in production right now. If you want to revamp your note system this year, I think these videos are a great jumping off point. You can subscribe to my YouTube channel by clicking this link.

Craft 101 – Just start typing!

One of my favorite things about Craft is how easy it is to just start taking notes. I tend to take somewhat of stream-of-conscious notes in meetings and I love how I can just type my thoughts and then sort, add lists, and develop blocks after the meeting is over. To put it simply: Craft does not get in my way when I want to capture text.

Craft also make meeting follow-up easier than ever. After I finish a meeting with a group of people, I like to create a quick write-up about the meeting with key information and next steps for anyone involved. Before Craft, this usually involved creating another note in my system or  just opening an email and typing that information right into my Mail app. While there is nothing wrong with typing an email, I did create a fork in my system. I would have the full notes for the meeting in one place and then other information that I shared with team members in a different place. If I wanted to confirm something or find what I previously said, it now requires two separate searches. Craft made this process incredibly simple with the ability to turn any block into a new page or card.

I was in a meeting today where I needed to summarize what we talked about with some clear next step actions for team members who were not on the call. I had a section at the bottom already set up for follow-up so I turned that block into a card. I opened a new window in Craft so I could see my full note on one page and the card in the other window. I ran through my meeting notes and made a follow-up communication without having to make another note. I have the flexibility to add this to another note with linking (I just start typing the “@“ and then I can find that card), and I can just see what I have communicated with others about the meeting. If I want the whole set of meetings notes, it’s just as easy to find that as well.

When I finished the writeup after the meeting, I used Craft’s extensive export options to send the note as an email. I did not have to get bogged down in email or switch modes; everything just worked inside of Craft. I love finding new ways to use technology to actually get meaningful work accomplished so I can spend my time producing what actually matter vs switch back and forth between apps.

If you want a tool that will allow you to quickly enter text, come back around and format your thoughts, and then easily create follow-up content inside the same note then I would encourage you to give Craft a try. It’s free to use up to a certain amount of blocks and by the time you reach that limit, you will know if Craft is right for you.

I started working on some Craft videos on YouTube. I am walking through how I use Craft and how to make the most of your note-taking system. You can find my YouTube channel here!

Processing a week of work with Craft

This is part of an on-going set of writing about my use of Craft (a note-taking app). You can visit https://www.craft.do to learn all about Craft.

I am really started to get into the flow of Craft! Though, I should mention upfront, there is not one correct way to use Craft. It’s an incredibly flexible platform that allow for flexible note-taking and idea creation. After a few work weeks using Craft for all my notes, reading, meetings, etc I feel like I am starting to see some trends and workflows emerging when it comes to how I am using Craft to get work done. Because the ultimate goal is for the tools we use is that they would move to the background and the actual work would emerge. So, with all that said, let’s look at a few ways that Craft is helping me keep my content connected during the week.

This Week – a weekly note

Each week I start a new note called “This week – (date)” and start a brain dump, usually on Sunday evening or early Monday morning. I get all the thoughts out of my head and just dump things on page as the come. Craft makes adding text so fast and fluid that I actually enjoy the process of adding text, to-do items, and bulleted lists. After I add my thoughts, I begin to organize them and make sense of my thoughts around what needs to happen.

One great feature of Craft is the ability to link notes to other notes using the “@“ symbol. You can quickly link to an existing note, or create a note if what you type does not match a note or a section of an existing note. I will create those pages for meeting notes inside of my “This Week” note and begin to start linking things together. This is the real power of Craft! You can start to see relationships come together as you thoughts get linked together. It’s a new way to think about notes because I used to combine different meetings or ideas into a note together, but now I am not worried about having too many notes or things becoming overwhelming because there are systems in place to keep content in the right place.

When something new comes up in a meeting, I perform the same process again by either linking existing notes or adding new notes. If someone mentions a new project or a new message series, that will become a new note. I will then use a new tab to open that note and write down anything that might be helpful in the new note for future use. If I find myself in another meeting where that project or series comes up, I don’t have to start from scratch or make a note to remember to find a note, I just use the “@“ symbol and add that existing note to my current note. Even as my notes grow over time, I am always linking back to the right sources martial to keep my writing and thoughts consistent. If someone asked me where we were with a specific idea it would take a quick search for that topic or idea and I would find a note with the most current information.

I had someone miss a meeting earlier in the week and needed to connect with them about some of the things we talked about. I did not have to rifle through various notes or try to remember what was said because I had a detailed note from that meeting on my phone. We sat down and I basically ran through the meeting notes with him, found some follow-up questions at the bottom of the note, and I was able to get this person all the info they needed in a few minutes. I added that content to the note and updated everyone on the team with some next steps; it was fast and there was virtually no friction.

Clean up

When a new week begins, I simply create another note titled, ”This week – (date)” and then I open a new instance of Craft on my iPad. You can use Command + Shift + N to open a new note in split view automatically (a very nice feature that every app should have!). I open the note from last week on the left and the new one on the right and do a quick clean up and bring over any blocks that need to be done this week. I used to use the Bullet Journal method (analog note taking) and one of the best ideas from doing a Bullet Journal was the monthly review. You would bring tasks and items to a new month that did not get completed and spent a little time reviewing what happened last month while planning for what was coming up.

Each week is a tiny chance to start fresh and pick up any low-hanging fruit that I can act on. If something did not get finished, there is a good chance that it has become more of a project than a task and I will add it to a new note and create space for that content to be created. I am always reviewing what is happening, what I accomplished, and where I need to go and all of that can be done inside a few notes.

This is one example of how Craft is helping me get work done with a simple framework. I love Craft because the app did not make me do this, it just didn’t stop me from doing it. There are so many tools and blocks to build with (the pieces of content are literally called blocks), and I am finding new ways to build those blocks to something that works for my system. If you don’t do some kind of weekly review, I would encourage you to give it a try. This could work in any note-taking app, so don’t feel like you have to use Craft. This idea could work in Google Docs, Apple Notes, or anything in-between.

In my next post, I am going to be sharing how I handle web clips, book notes, and notes from articles that I read online. Thanks for joining me on this year-long Craft journey. I am taking this one step at a time and grafting new ideas into Craft as I go! If you have an idea for how I could do something in Craft, let me know.

March Blogging Challenge – Day 8 – Hide

Here a free tech tip for you: Hide your social media apps that you don’t want to see!

A few months ago, I put the Facebook app into the App Library and took it away from any Siri suggestions. If I want to get on Facebook, I have to search for it or find it in the App Library. That little bit of friction means that I don’t check it nearly as much. I did the same thing for several other apps as well and my life has been better for it.
Part of my goals for 2021 is all about creating positive routines, but I also realize that I need to get away from negative routines as well. It is the removal of bad and the addition of good. if you are trying to change your behavior or make new patterns, try hiding things that you don’t want to see.

I know how strong (or… weak) my will is when it comes to wanting those dopamine hits, so adding that friction and time has really taken that desire away. If I can’t get the quick hit, I don’t want it. Hide the app, solve the problem.

There is your free tech advice for the day. If you feel stuck in an app, program, or something in your life , try removing it from sight and add some friction to finding it. You will be shocked at how fast those desires fade away when you change your routine.

March Blogging Challenge – 5 – Experience

Photo by Skylar Kang on Pexels.com

I remember being a college student with all the ideas in the world. I was learning so much about media, technology, and theology and I was pretty confident in my abilities. I am not faulting my younger self for what I did not know; I was doing the best I could with what I had. I was in school learning about different subjects and really learning how to learn. Those are important skills.

But information and experience are not the same thing. Experience is a great teacher that allows us to really grow and change (if we let it). The truth is that some things just take time to learn. I feel like my mid-twenties to early thirties have been all about experience and the opportunity to learn. I say opportunity because it takes works to actually learn from experience. It takes some internal fortitude and drive to take those experiences and use them to learn and grow. If I am being honest, there are experiences that I have had over the last decade that I am still not facing or making different choices; I’m running the same play thinking it will offer a different outcome.

Learning from Experience

Other areas are less scary though and I can see how far I have come. One of those areas that has really come about recently is music and playing guitar. I mentioned in a previous post that I was playing music in a local band and that we are in the studio working on our first album. It feels like something for me that has been in the making for so much longer than I have actually been playing with the band (We are called Rare Fiction BTW, new album out later this year).

I have been playing with Rare Fiction for about 6 months, but I as I write guitar parts I am pulling in things I have learned about playing electric guitar for years. I remember spending hours in college playing guitar and working on different parts and learning different technique. Those memories came flooding back the other night at practice when I played a part and I could feel it in my hands. It was like riding a bike or finding a lost pair of shoes. It just felt right. It was the perfect combination of information (I learned something about guitar) and experience (I had been practicing that technique for a decade). The combination of experience over time resulted in something magical on the recording that felt like it was “in the moment” but it was really a culmination of work and time and repetition.

Don’t discount the process

Experience is not something that is always up-and-to-the-right. It’s ups and downs. It’s learning, failing, mourning, siting, deciding, and then getting back up again. You and I have the chance to let experience shape or break us every day. We are creating a soundtrack to our lives that either says, “I am capable of learning and growing” or “this is me, and there will never be any more than this.” I am trying to make the soundtrack of my life one that is capable of growth and movement. This is not always a success (there are some areas where I am pretty stubborn), but I am taking the wins as they come and celebrating experience and growth when they come.

Don’t discount your experiences. Even negative or painful experiences can still help shape you into the person you want to become. I am grateful for something like playing guitar because I can see that trajectory over time. I have been playing guitar for almost 20 years at this point, so I can look back and see the growth and the ups and downs as I have grown as a musician and a person. I am grateful for that process (which has included injury and pain) because it has all helped shape me into the person I am today.

March Blogging Challenge – Day 4 – Watch

Photo by Rene Asmussen on Pexels.com

Confession. I really enjoy watching TV shows and movies. It is something that I find myself reaching for when I want to be entertained, engaged, or inspired. It’s something that my wife and I do together with some shows and then separately as well (we have different tastes with regards to some genres). One of our favorite things to do as a couple is sit down and watch an episode or movie after the kids go to bed.

Side note – Do you want to upgrade your watching experience at home? Go to Amazon and grab a popcorn popper for your microwave. You can buy popcorn kernels for super cheap and make incredible popcorn at home! It adds a little bit of extra fun to movies at home (which is pretty much all movies right now thanks to Covid). I get excited just thinking about putting my kids down to bed and getting the popcorn ready for a movie night.

In the world of online streaming there is no shortage of options for shows or movies to watch. We are bombarded by streaming platform and new shows and movies show up on a weekly basis. It can be overwhelming to find something to watch, and by the time you scroll through some new options of shows you have never heard of you just end up back at The Office for the 10th time (no shame, we have all been there). A few weeks ago I set out to make that problem go away by creating a database in Notion to manage the movies that I wanted to watch.

Notion is a note-taking app that uses databases (and other pages) to manage your information. It’s an incredibly powerful app that I use to keep track of almost everything in my life; you could say that it’s my second brain. I don’t have time to dive into all the ways I use Notion, but I do want to highlight now I am using it to keep track of movies. The database I created is basically a glorified spreadsheet where I can add different properties. To keep track of movies I added cells for the title, a checkbox of whether I have watched it (it will sort by the checkbox), where I can watch the movie, how interested I am in watching that film (low, medium, medium-plus, high), and then a place to add tags.

Now I can instantly sort and see movies that I want to watch on Netflix with my wife just by sorting that database. It takes something that seems impossible (finding something to watch with my wife) to something enjoyable. Then we get to sit down and actually watch a movie together! I am terrible at picking a movie in the moment (I’m terrible at picking anything under pressure), so this little tracker helps me make a good choice when I have some time to watch a movie. I have other databases for other areas of my life and they all function in the same way. I can find books, notes, home information, recipes, and data that I may need by quickly sorting tags or statuses in databases. It’s one way that I make technology work for me.

If you don’t want to use something like Notion to track movies, you could just create a note in Apple Notes with movies or TV shows you want to watch. I would highly recommend capturing those ideas when they come to you and then sorting those entries when you have free time. I hope this sparks an idea of how you can enjoy something (that is supposed to be enjoyable) with a little bit of planning and processing on the front end.

March Blogging Challenge – Day 3 – Inform

Photo by Gabby K on Pexels.com

I spend time on a regular basis helping people (and organizations) craft stories and develop meaningful content. As I have worked with these different teams and groups over the years I have developed a few mantras around communication and how we tell stories that can make an impact.

One of those is specially around information. Information is useful, for sure, but it’s rarely enough on its own to make and impact. We want to inform and inspire. Information gives direction and inspiration can bring some emotion or desire toward making a choice. When you can combine helpful or meaningful information with inspiration magical things can happen.

So, how do we break through the noise? How to do we bring information that creates a desire for people to change (or learn, grow, expand their ideas)? I think the answers is to pair information with story. Think about a great TED talk that you heard, or a memorable TikTok video. No matte the length or topic, there is probably a great story behind the statistic or piece of information.

This is not a long post. The concept is simple, but the implementation is not as easy it may seem. Pairing information and inspiration can take time, practice, and revision. But if you work in any field where you need to get information to someone, you should spend some time thinking about the story you are telling and how that information fits into a bigger picture.

March Blogging Challenge – 2 – Chance

Chance: An opportunity or a favorable time

Opportunities meet us at different times in our lives. If you look back in time, it’s easier to see those opportunities. Steve Jobs building the first Macintosh computer with Woz in a garage feels like the perfect storm of opportunity and chance. But I sometimes wonder what it felt like for them in that moment. Did if feel like lightening a bottle, or did it just feel like taking action on an idea?

I think we leave too many opportunities on the table when we should just take the chance and try them to see what happens. I recently went into the studio with a band a started playing with around 6 months ago to record an album. They already had a collection of songs and I was able to jump in and add guitar parts to the songs. After a few months of practice and working on our set list, we started talking about the possibility of recording a few songs.

Eventually we all realized that we had enough material for a whole album. So, we decided to take a chance and take our songs to the studio. We have spent several (looooong) days in a local studio that’s actually kind of famous recording our songs. We are finished with all the main instruments and have the lead vocals tracked as well. We will see how things are turning out in the next few weeks and will then get the tracks mastered and released online (cue freak-out feelings).

Will we make any money from this album? Will we get any exposure or pick up any shows? No idea! But, for me that does not really matter. All that matters is that we took a chance to put music out the world and I can’t wait to see what happens. I know that if we never release an album, nothing will happen. Taking a chance seems worth it because the alternative is a guarantee failure. I don’t want to live in the wold of “what if’s” and shrugged shoulders.

If the album fails, I can always say that I have an album on Spotify / Apple Music / Amazon / etc. If someone enjoys our music, that would be awesome. I will share links once we are ready to start releasing music. We will probably release a single or two leading up to the album drop to give people a chance to find our page and pre-save the release. I’m putting myself out there and taking a risk.

By mid-2021 I will have published a book on Amazon and released an album. Regardless of how well those things perform, you can’t take that experience away from me. I took a chance, learned so much about myself, and grew as a person. That’s a win in my book.

March Blogging Challenge: Day 1- Routine

I recently celebrated my 32nd birthday. It did not feel anywhere as monumental as 30, but there are a few things that I have noticed that have caused me to consider some changes in how I approach my life.

One of the biggest things I am working on this year is building solid routines. Creating and keeping routines is my goal for the year. When I think about challenging goals that I want to accomplish in this next year (or prepare for in the future), I am finding that it all comes back to routines.

In the book Atomic Habits by James Clear talks about how the habits we create for ourselves will end up actually creating the future that we want to have. When you can stack habits, you can use those habits-turned-routines to make new habits.

For me, routines are all about awareness. There are so many things that are vying for my time. From social media, social obligation (although that has been less during Covid…), family, work, etc there are always forces that are asking for my time and attention. When I don’t have a good plan, I know that I am just going to slip back into checking twitter, watching YouTube, or listening to podcasts. While those things are not bad, and even offer some amount of creative growth potential, they are usually a distraction when it comes to getting real work done and accomplishing those tasks that are actually important.

How does this actually play out in my schedule? Great question! I would be happy to share some of my experience with creating routines this year.

The biggest routine that I have build is keeping a daily journal where I spend time writing something every day. I have not set any kind of time limit or word count because I am working on building the routine of opening Notion (the app where I keep all my journal entries) and adding to my journal. I have a template made so the only barrier is literally clicking one button to start a new journal entry. It’s a place where I can share my feelings, write something down (like this blog post), work through an idea, or just talk about what is happening in the world at that time. I will add a photo if something interesting or memorable happened, and then go on with my day.

The routine of writing something in my journal is more about the routine of doing it than what I write. Sometimes the scariest thing I can face is a blank page when I know that I need to do some writing or brainstorm for content creation. Having the routine of writing in my journal give me a placer to put my “bad writing” so I can go ahead and get those practice strokes out the way. It’s a warm-up for my brain and my hands and it gets me in a creative mood. On days where I miss writing in my journal, I can feel it and I will go back and add something at the end of the day.

Now that I have done this for a few months I can look back and see all that has happened and remember some of those moments. It’s a source of encouragement and positive vibes that comes in handing some days. Now that I am feeling confident in that routine, I am using that motivation to build routines in new areas are food and hydration. Apparently, I need to drink more than coffee and Coke Zero all day…

If you are killing yourself trying to accomplish a crazy goal without any foundation for that goal, I would encourage you to consider creating routines instead of goals. I used the to flip the script from “I want to write X words per week” to “I want to become a person who writes every day.” When I started with the routine, the outcome just happened. If you sit around and wait for inspiration to start, you are going to get stuck pretty quickly. But if you can develop that routine, it will become second-nature and you will find the results will appear from sitting down and just doing the work.