Is Social Media part of Stake Technology?

[russellhltn]

(1) Rights are not properly designed / granted: Calendar items can only be added / updated / removed by a few men who are hard to reach, have no personal investment in the calendar item, and whom people don't want to "bother" with updates. (IMO, the "centralized control" approach to rights is very "last century"

The calendar system is set up by the bishopric, but from the results of the "wizard", it is designed to be very non-centralized with each quorum and auxiliary having their own calendar and leaders having rights to them. If the RS president has no "personal investments" in the RS activities, you've got bigger problems.

I suspect the biggest issue is that the bishopric has no idea how the system works or what their responsibility is. It was simply "dropped" on lds.org with little training or assigning of responsibilities. If they do not carry out their role in configuring the system, then you get the results you describe.

[drepouille]

(3) Room Reservation vs. Announcements: The calendar serves both functions. Room reservation demands that calendar items be created as early as possible in order to ensure the room is reserved.

The HPGL in my ward announced a ward progressive dinner to the ward council. The bishopric asked if he had added it to the calendar. He responded that it wasn't needed because the dinner was not being held in the meetinghouse. He thought the only purpose of the calendar was to reserve the meetinghouse. He didn't understand that the calendar can also be used to send notifications to the members of the ward. He also did not understand that the calendar is an essential and required part of the annual ward history.

But details of an activity aren't known until much later, after the calendar is forgotten, so details are never added / updated. Room reservation may require more strict rights, or at least priorities (with notifications when someone's reservation is denied / revoked / trumped by a higher power). Calendar announcement changes don't need such strict rights, nor prioritization or "trump" handling / notification.

This is the biggest problem I saw with holding an annual calendaring meeting. The ward/stake council creates place-holder events, but never fills in the details. Even worse, since the last person to update an event becomes the owner of the event, everyone asks that person for the details of the event during the week prior to the date of the event. I can't tell you how many times I had to shrug my shoulders and tell people I know nothing about the event despite the fact that my name appeared as the owner of the event.

I think the STS should do everything in their power to ensure church tech tools are known and people with rights (or data) are well trained (unless that's not actually one of their official responsibilities - I actually have no clue what these folks are supposed to do and have never knowingly seen one)...

Well, I tried, but not many people were interested in being trained. Oh well.

[jonesrk]

(1) Rights are not properly designed / granted: Calendar items can only be added / updated / removed by a few men who are hard to reach, have no personal investment in the calendar item, and whom people don't want to "bother" with updates. (IMO, the "centralized control" approach to rights is very "last century" - where the person who has the right to do it doesn't know what needs to be done; and the person who knows what needs to be done doesn't have the right to do it.) (If rights are indeed restricted this way as it appears in my area, #3 may well be the cause.)

Those rights are really for creating calendars. Once a calendar is created the rights are based on calling (or individual). For example, The relief society president can create a calendar that the pres, 1st counselor, 2nd counselor, secretary have edit rights to. For that calendar to be live one of the few calendar admins in the ward must approve it. Once approved all items on that calendar are managed by the RS presidency.

[lmcguire]

Thanks, everyone, for clarifying how the rights work.

Well, I tried, but not many people were interested in being trained. Oh well.

I fear we're fated to be the geeks ahead of the curve, wishing people were willing to take advantage of the tools available to them. All we can do in the meantime is remind them when they ask for such a tool, or try to use something else...

Liz

[drepouille]

I fear we're fated to be the geeks ahead of the curve, wishing people were willing to take advantage of the tools available to them. All we can do in the meantime is remind them when they ask for such a tool, or try to use something else...

The same thing applies to FHC directors, staff, and consultants. They know the tools, and are waiting for the members to ask for their help.

[sbradshaw]

It's not only a matter of making sure the LDS.org Calendar and other tools are updated, but also a matter of encouraging members to go there to see what's happening or to get details about an event. If one doesn't happen, the other doesn't, either.

[russellhltn]

It's not only a matter of making sure the LDS.org Calendar and other tools are updated, but also a matter of encouraging members to go there to see what's happening or to get details about an event. If one doesn't happen, the other doesn't, either.

Chicken and egg. To some extent the stake can force this by demanding that building reservations be done though the calendar.

As far as getting the members to use it, I think the sync and LDS Tools goes a long way.