Podcast Episode 141: Episode 114: RX2021 Wrap Up

Description

In this episode of Rockcast, Jon, Nick and Emily give an update about the recent release of version 12.5 and a glimpse into the plans for version 13, as well as what's coming up for Mobile. We'll also recap the highlights of RX2021, the importance of ONE Community, discuss strategies for how to make the most out of your content subscription, and review the new Community Points system.

Transcribed Content

This episode of Rockcast is brought to you by Rock partner Triumph Tech, a full service specialist partner. Rock partners provide crucial support for Spark Development Network and important services for the Rock community. Connect with Triumph Tech today at rockrms.com/partners. Welcome back to Rockcast. I'm Emily Forman, and I have Jon Edmiston and Nick Airdo here with me today, and we have lots of exciting things to talk about and catch you up on. We to kick that off with a discussion about what we're developing now and what the latest version update is. Nick, can you tell us about that? I'd love to tell you guys about that. So we did release 12.5 on September 7. We probably could have released it immediately after the the Rock Conference, but because, it was too close to the end of the week, we didn't wanna have anybody press the update button on a Thursday or Friday. So we held off till Monday. And, there are 49 fixes, 23 improvements, and 17 adds. I think we touched on those new features last time. There's some good new features in there though. Yeah, I'm not sure if we talked about all of them, but statement generator got updated, bookmarks, quick returns. I wrote down a handful here. Conditional fields on workflow forms. That's a big one. The step program completion. Oh, was in 12.5. Model, yeah. You can now Oh, wow. Yeah, and the determination. Woah, I thought that was supposed be 13. Awesome. Whoops. No. That's great. And if it's already, get it No. It was supposed to be in 12/05, but we can't it's hard to keep track of all the Right. The things. And, well, are just a few. There's a CSS inlining option. I know it's in the release notes, but what that means is on the email medium, you can go enable that so that all CSS can get inlined for your communications. Lots of really great things in there. And so what does that mean that we're doing now? We are working on the next major release of Rock. Mhmm. So that would be v 13, but don't have a date quite yet. Sure. The team's making really good progress. And we mentioned at the conference, most of those features are done. We're just in that last polish and a couple little minor features that need to be put in, but we had, I mean, it's the bulk of it is done. Definitely. Yes. So that's amazing. The team has been hard at work on that for a while. And that's why it's hard to keep track of what's in what version that we release because we're working on so many things close together or, , as soon as it passes into public view, we kind of forget where it landed. And then our our now our mindset changes so that, okay, now we're gonna start working on v 14. Right. And then v 13 will be patches. Yeah, mean, we're already having a lot of the thoughts and a little bit of the work on 14. So that's the hard thing about these features is sometimes people ask, what version did that come out in? It's , I am the worst person to ask because we were literally working on it a year ago. So it seems to me it was forever ago, but it might have only come out, , two months ago. We have to reference the release notes too. Yeah. Always. I'm I'm literally the worst at that. So that is our update. That's exciting. So what kind of things are we working on right now, John? Well, this week has been crazy. I'm trying to go from being overwhelmed to being caught up and calling it just whelmed. Just whelmed. Yeah. I saw that in the thing. , you can be underwhelmed. You can be overwhelmed. I'm just whelmed. So working on some requirements for version three of Rock Mobile, some of the new features there. I'm trying to get the ability to do a group finder, a really cool one. So that's that's something that we're looking at. Also, additional prayer features in Rock Mobile, which, again, we've been putting so much time and effort in putting more features into prayer into Rock Mobile, that's awesome. I love the fact that people are asking for a lot of new innovation in that space. And then just a ton of other features that are still on the drawing board. That's what we're working on now that I don't sure we're ready to put out there because once you put it out, you're kind of committed to it and these are still kind of influx. Some of them are we're seeking funding on targeted funding on, and and I'm not sure if those are gonna get approved or not, but some real exciting stuff. And, , this week, we've been working on a lot of, , client work, and it's just amazing just to see the the innovation that's going on amongst the churches. Some of the projects that even were talked about at the conference, Scott Ballard's digital ministry stuff that's rolling out this week. It's just really inspiring to see the ideas and the concepts that they're working on And then be able to get to play a small piece of that, through Rock is is really, , encouraging. It's exciting and rewarding. And I think you take a look at some of the things as they're launched and you're , oh, that looks amazing. And I totally understand it. It must be simple to do. And there's sometimes it's not a realization of all the many directions something has to go before it actually lands on on what goes into production. And I'm sure Scott would back us up on the same thing. I know he's gone through a lot of iterations of what he wanted over time on his, work for the summit, and and that's just what happens on any feature, whether it's something for core or whether it's something that we partner with the church on. Yeah. It's tough technology that you have to iterate on, but it's also tough processes that have to be considered and iterated in. I think we even mentioned it in a video we did not that long ago about all this is gonna look easy when you see it, but we're creating something that doesn't exist. So it's very tough. I think the pioneers deserve a lot of credit for that because it is difficult to figure this out. It's also interesting that within one week here, I've had lots of meetings with lots of different churches. And it's interesting to see the commonality. It's almost ironic how commonality is coming up. Projects and these concepts come out in two different spaces at the same time. And you kinda hear that in history. , , we always think about Ford, , inventing the car, but there's actually and the invention actually happened to the exact same time in different parts of the world at that same point. So convention, if you go back and look at it in history, often it's the same people doing the same thing in different places not knowing that someone else is doing it. But I certainly saw that this week. Just being in those meetings, it's been interesting to say, oh, wow. We were actually just talking about that literally yesterday with a different church and and just the cross pollination that can come from that because each of them is coming at it from a different angle has been really kind of a fun thing to see this week. And for us to be helpfully in the middle of that cross pollination, it can come from all sides and that's really exciting. It's kind of how innovation comes to light. Yeah. But I mean, the big piece of this last two weeks has just been getting all the things that have been put off because of the conference, getting caught trying to get caught back up on that. To the justwhelmed level. To the justwhelmed. Although I've not been justwhelmed in a while, but Looking forward to it. Yeah. Well, so let's talk about the the conference. We mentioned it here in passing. What are some things that we have heard? I know there were a lot of things that I really enjoyed about the conference this year, and it was different than we might've imagined. Mhmm. It was also the first one we've done at a hotel instead of a church. And did great reviews. It got great reviews. We didn't have as much time to plan this year as we have in previous years. Mhmm. So it was in the overwhelming category of things that we needed to push out and some things that we had to say, well, we'll do that next year. Really cool idea, but we just don't have the implementation time for it. But all those things considered, I thought it was a a very successful event. And I seeing everyone again in person, , it was just great. And even those who joined virtually this year, the experience was a little different than last year's. It we heard great reviews from virtual and on-site attendees. Yeah. I think definitely the location got the most discussion It did. How great it was. And literally 01:00 in the morning, there's still a lot of people down in the lobby area, all just talking. I mean, just the level of engagement. Would in a discussion, but sometimes I just kinda look around and go, wow, this is amazing. Everybody's just talking and smiling and laughing until 1AM in the morning. And that's kind of the vision we always wanted and to see it fulfilled was pretty cool. It certainly was. And , the content, we had more content at this conference than we've ever had in the past, and it was so good. And we heard from some people that haven't spoken before, and there's always a little of that at a conference. And you're , where did they come from? That was amazing. Yeah. And then to see the depth of some of the content that's come along. Right? So the Rock community is growing in experience and age. We've more churches have been around longer because Rock's been around longer. And so the the depth of some of that content was really intriguing this year as well. Yeah. Some really great content that everybody should go out and engage with through the content I would say get that and watch it, and then and then don't stop there. Implement it. Get a plan for implementation, but also encourage. , go back to the person who did that presentation, email them, hit them on on Rocket Chat, and just thank them because it took a lot of effort to put it together and then deliver it. I was also also thinking during the conference, there's a lot of of people not sleeping tonight because they're thinking about tomorrow. I know, I mean, I I experienced that too. Think that's just a part of our community. We're not this is not the professional speaking club of America that's coming together. These are , hey, we're technologists. We we care passionate about that, but we also are passionate enough to get out of our comfort zone to go do this. This kind of made me smile too to think that, hey, there's lot people not sleeping tonight, but they're gonna do a great job and they have a great message to share and they're gonna grow through this process we all do. And that speaking is accessible to someone who isn't a speaker Yep. Typically, because they know they're not in some kind of nobody's there to judge speaking abilities. Nobody's there to compete with you on any level. Everyone's just there to share content and practices and information that they're passionate about for helping ministries. And there was a lot of here's how this helps our ministries this year. Here are stories. Here are things that we're doing to tie our mission and our tools together. And and that's really exciting to be a part of too. Yeah. I was surprised to see it all come together. At the same time, it was a little hard though because I know looking around, we knew what we wanted to do that we weren't able to do. So sometimes at those moments, you'd see something that we were gonna go do over there and you knew you couldn't do it because it wasn't the right year. And I also worry a little bit too that, , will we outgrow that space? I know it sounds crazy, , but it it's not. , if we were only half strength this year Right. And there really wasn't a lot of extra space. There was some, but there really wasn't a lot of extra space. So definitely those tables are going away next year. , unfortunately I know that we had good reviews on that as well, but there isn't gonna be another way to set that up. Yeah. And it won't be too many years where we simply just won't fit in that space. And we'll find a space. , that I think we know is the magic. A hotel space right connected to a conference space. And we also learned that we pretty much filled up the hotel rooms this year at half strength. Woah. So next year, if you're somebody listening to this podcast, just have the heads up that don't book your rooms at the last minute if you wanna stay in the exact same hotel that the event is. Yeah. There are other hotels that are closed, but it's not gonna be the same. when you can just stay in the air conditioning, just be right in that space and then hit the elevators, go up to your room, that was really nice. It was very nice. So So we kind of rolled out this concept of one community this year. And and it's been something that's always been true, but it's really nice to to take some words and use them to focus what we're doing so we can all have that in line and in insight. And just identifying what are the things that really make this community unique. What is it that makes this stand out as being different from some other club you're a part of, a group you're a part of, or affinity program? And and it is definitely unique. Anyone who's a part of it would say that, but defining why it's unique really helps add clarity to the things that build the body of the Rock community versus things that might endanger it over time. And endanger sounds a really kind of harsh word, but if you don't consider that as we grow, because we're so diverse, it would be very easy to have splinter groups kind of happen or things that over time, which means you have to be really intentional. So danger is really just the lack of intention. Well, it's fighting against entropy. , entropy is just a natural state of systems. And without energy putting into the system, it'll naturally decay into entropy. Definitely. And I just felt a science teacher. Sorry. You sounded a science teacher. You could consider that as another role sometime if you run out of things to do building Rock. I don't know. I don't know if I have the patience for that. It's okay. I think our project lineup is too long. Yeah. So but back to your, know, putting energy into that system is important. It is. So we'll continue to talk about that in a lot of different mediums, but I think it's important that we we mention it, that we give life to the vocabulary and the words surrounding that. We understand what sets us apart, humility, unity, generosity, empathy. They are unique characteristics of our community, but if we aren't intentional about them, they might cease to be what makes us unique. We might not have a corner on those, and then it would feel a different place. And that happens gradually over time. That entropy you're talking about Mhmm. It isn't know, it's the frog in the boiling water. It doesn't go zero to 60. You would see it. Those things just kinda creep. Yeah. And I think that concept of the one community really was, , connected with with the community at RX. I heard a lot of good feedback about that. And it was kind of even endearing to hear a story about that, that there was it just came out yesterday in Rocket Chat. Sina from Christ Fellowship shared a story where their rental car broke down trying to get back to the airport super early in the morning. And another person in the community came along and they helped by letting them share their Uber to the airport. And she referenced , hey, this one community was huge. And she went through how example was, , humble and generous. And and it was just cool to see it's connecting and and and I think that just shows the spirit of the community. It's there. We just need to keep pouring into it and watering that. And really defining something and having a shared vocabulary about it is is one of the most important things that you can do because it means that we're all we know how to talk about this thing that we have that's unique that sets it apart. Yeah. So you mentioned the content subscription. It is live. The content is all out. So if you have purchased that already, make sure you're watching the content. Yes. I talked to a church this week and they had it was really interesting. I was asking them, oh, do you have kind of plans to watch things? How are you choosing what you'd to watch first? And and he held up a couple pages, of paper. And he said, we have someone on our team that's really passionate about getting the right content to the right people. And she scanned all the content, listened to a lot of it herself already or pieces of it, and made lists for all the other people in our Rock team about the things that they need to quickly go watch first. So he said, this is how we know where we're getting started. And I thought, that's a fantastic idea. Yeah. Amazing. Right? So everyone was kind of tackling something different at that point too. So then if they had something to share out of it, they could go to their colleagues and say, hey, you should check this out. But they're covering the content faster and broader that way. And that literally applies to every single church. That rule or that concept could be applied everywhere. It could. Every church has that same issue. somebody needs to hear a particular piece of content. And if you are at the event, , so that's a great action item. That's right. And sometimes it doesn't make sense at your organization to send a certain person in a certain role to the conference, but there might be a session or two that could be really critical for their growth or for their ministry or for their understanding of the toolset. And so if you're able to share that content with them and say, hey, I attended this conference. I think this is gonna be incredible. That subscription's available for your whole organization. So it's a great way to expand that knowledge and information and a little bit of the community with it. And what I've done in that situation is I've also said, Hey, if you have questions, I might be able to connect you with that presenter from that church. So I've connected our admins to other admins at other churches through Rx. That's very cool and a great idea. Everyone's open to connection in the Rock community, and that's another thing that's very unique and and fascinating. And I think one of the reasons that it's able to grow, individuals are growing in the community and the community is growing in size because of that openness to connection. Yeah. I think it goes back to those. We all have good intent to watch that content, but it's it's about scheduling it. I mean, I would I'm always going back to make it happen. So book it on your calendar right now. , I'm not sure where you're listening to this, but whatever you your next time you can get in front of your calendar, which we'll have a phone, but if you're driving, don't do it right when you're driving. Book that time because I know I have a lot of intent to go watch a lot of that, but I have to go schedule it. Yeah. I'm a little overwhelmed this week, but this weekend, I wanna start watching that content because I at the conference, I prioritized for me trying to just be available at every moment. And so I can can watch the content when I get back. So but now I need to go fulfill that mission. Right. And I find myself looking at my calendar, , a Monday or at the end of the day, Friday for what's coming up and saying, oh gosh, it's very full. I'm very busy this week. But if I would just push that calendar view ahead a week, I can see some pockets of time that will otherwise be occupied by something else. But if you push that priority up to scheduling it a little further out, I think it'll be a little easier. Because I don't think busy ever goes away. No. And there is a I've read about this, a psychology of saying, well, in two weeks, I'll be less busy. And it's not true. in two weeks, you'll just you don't see it as busy, in two weeks, you will be just as busy as you are. It's our visibility into the future probably. Yeah. I would just plan some time, whether it's on your personal time calendar or your work calendar or maybe a little bit of both. We that content is a gold mine. , it's the easiest fruit right there. Someone's already preprocessed and digested it, and you can learn right from it. Right. And Nick said, if you have any questions, the speakers are all in the community, so somebody will be there to answer them. And what a great way to learn. What a great way to really leverage what someone else has done. And I think you say a lot, John, that we stand on the shoulders of giants, and that's true at every part and level of our community. And I love that it's the kind of place where people come in and they feel , oh, and I'm sure I'm really qualified to give advice on anything. And what they really mean is I'm not sure I'm qualified to give advice on everything if you break it down, and none of us are. But all of us are qualified to give advice on a little something. We had a new to Rock track at the conference and some people who had literally just launched on Rock. Do what kind of advice they have? Here are some pointers about good ways to plan and some things that we ran into. And so everybody has great advice. Mhmm. And just knowing that you could share what you have and someone else will share with you. And and we leverage that for exponential change and opportunity. Yep. So registration is open for next year's conference. It's at early bird pricing. I don't have in front of me right now when that expires, but I would say if you are interested in coming back next year, and that's all of us, make sure you get your ticket purchase soon for best prices. The dates are locked in, and it's a little bit later. It's in mid September next year. So take a look at that. Get it on your calendar. Get your ticket. Room reservations are not open yet. The hotel will give us a link for those in October. And trust me, we'll make sure you hear about it. So we'll let when that opens up. Additionally, I need to mention the master class we have coming up. We've had a lot of master class interest this year. And if you came to the conference and you haven't been to master class or if you attended virtually, or if you're getting a content subscription and kind of realizing my skill sets here, I've got a little gap in some things I wanna be able to do, that master class can help make that up for you. So make sure you register for that, while we have spaces available. Yes, is space constrained. Yes, it is. Another thing that's coming out, another feature that we wanna talk about, we talked about a little bit of Rx is our new community point system. Yes. So that's got some really great feedback on that, positive feedback that people felt that, , there are more now more ways to be recognized for the for the effort that they put in to help growing the Rock community. So you can go onto the community site under get involved. There's a whole bunch of information about, , all the different things you can do. We're gonna add one more though. So one of the things that is the fuel to the community is stories. Mhmm. And so just hearing the stories about how Rock has impacted a ministry and people is something that really is the gasoline for the engine. And so we wanna collect that. So we're gonna be putting up and we'll be putting out communications on this. But a way that you can submit your stories to us similar to how you do, , if you've done a a Rock call with another church to help them get connected to Rock, , you can tell us about that, which is helpful. This will be another way. And so these stories, it may not be that Rock is the only actor in that play. It's it's probably just one actor. But where whenever a Rock feature or something in Rock has spawned a ministry connection or something that's touched to life, we'd to know about that. We'd to know about it so that we can fill our fuel tanks, but we also want to help fill the fuel tanks of others. And I know when we've done that in the past, we've had stories where literally every time we tell a story, tears are flowing in people's eyes. It doesn't always have to be that impactful, right? But we want to be able to share lots of more stories with the community and with our core team. So we'll be putting that out there. There'll be points awarded for that just to kind of help reward that which helps others. So look forward for that in the next couple, probably a week. That's exciting. Those stories of life change make a big impact on everyone, and they are they can it takes intentionality to pull them out and share them. And if you feel in your Rock team, you're one layer removed from those stories sometimes and you have to pull them out of your ministry teams, we're another layer removed beyond that and the community even further. So, I think this is a great way to incentivize the effort required to go get those and make sure they're shareable because the life change is literally why we're doing this. Yeah. And I would suggest don't wait for those stories to come to you. Go to them. , walk into your groups Mhmm. , pastor's office or area and just say, hey, tell me a story about how Rocks helped your ministry. And don't do it to put it into our community and get the points. You need those stories. Yeah. That that's the fuel for you to keep connected to the ministry because over time I I'm not sure where your tank is right now, but over time, your tank will get empty. And you need to remind yourself constantly, be filling up your tank and remind yourself why you did it. I know when I worked at CCV, sometimes I'd recommend to a new hire. They'd be all, , bright eyed and, , ready to tear into ministry. And I would recommend that they go home and write a letter of why they accepted this job and why they're excited for this job. Because there's gonna be a day that you're gonna need to read that letter to remind yourself, did I do this? Because there's always gonna be a frustration or a dip in a project or a dip in a relationship that's gonna cause you to think, , why? I can just go back to secular world or I can maybe have an opportunity over there or money over there. So, , you need to you need to keep that as a reminder. Definitely. That's a great point. But don't forget then to put it in to our Yes. Collection tool. We because you're now you're magnifying the capacity of that fuel. Right? You you you might have filled your tank, but this isn't just gasoline that you could can only goes into one tank. This gasoline can be multiplied. So Exactly. I know the stories that we have told from, , NewSpring and Life Church and a few others have really filled, , hundreds of people's, tanks. Definitely. Great. Well, thank you so much for joining us for another edition of Rockcast. We love the community. We love that we just had the opportunity to reconnect at RX and are already looking to next year being able to do it again. Do a church that loves the idea of using Rock but hasn't taken that leap yet? With managed hosting, churches of any size can get access to Rock's amazing technology, hassle free. With just one click, Rock's managed hosting removes the roadblocks that might stop a church from switching to Rock by making the process simple. Churches get the ease of a SaaS church management system without losing any of Rock's powerful features. Are you ready to take the next step or share with another local church? Visit rockrms.com/hosting today. Until next time, we will see you then.