Podcast Episode 107: Episode 79: End of The Year Rock Updates

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As the year comes to an end, Jon and Emily look back over 2019 and share some great Rock updates.

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 another edition of Rockcast, the podcast where we take you behind the scenes with Spark Development Network and take a look at what's going on with Rock as a product and a community. We are excited to talk to you today. This is going to be the last podcast of 2019. Man, where'd the year go? I don't know. I'm Emily Forman. Have Jon Edmiston here, and we have had a pretty incredible year. So it's definitely one to celebrate with a lot of growth. And if you, I guess, of the year updates of things we've been working on. Yeah. So I'll take one of the first ones is the release update. So this week we have released 10 dot one. So that is now in the early access release stage. So definitely be looking at that, be playing with it, hopefully, testing it on your test systems. And, when you guys feel it's a good time for you to update to it, , go for it. It's got some great new features in there that I think is gonna make a huge, difference from a ministry perspective. All of our major releases have great features, but this one really has some great ministry ones with with steps, being one of the highlights. But there's there's so many others in there. So super excited about that. And, even since the conference, we've added new features to 10 that really weren't in 10. And there's a lot of foundational work in this 10 dot one that's gonna allow us to put even more features in the 10 dot two three four five. So one interesting thing that I don't know if if everybody realizes that we can only make changes to the database structure on major releases. So that can be a little constraining on, , adding things in the dot releases, which, , we we technically the dot releases to be more patches and bug fixes. But because of the pace and the trajectory of the community, it's it's often the case that we have to put in new features because we're trying to meet the needs of of these fast moving communities. So but but we are hamstrung a bit that we can't put database changes into these dot releases. But we've seeded a lot of database changes in ten one with the builds that will allow us to build out some of these new features in ten, two, three, four, five. So pretty interesting lots of of stuff in there. So kinda leave it at that maybe, but cool stuff. And we're already hard at work on 11, so we've been working on getting trying to figure out what the dashboards should look . That's been really challenging. Think as a feature set, it's easy to think, oh, yeah, dashboards, we all want that. But then when you sit down with a white sheet of paper and you're , how should this work? Because we know that the community has so many different ways of the wanting to see that. Now we have to put the the caveat that we're not trying to put Power BI out of business. , these dashboarding tools Power BI or those are whole suite of them that people might want. They're very robust. They're very I mean, they have dev teams in the thousands who are working on them. We're not putting them out of business. We're just trying to put very sim they allow you to put very simple dashboards using metrics and lava and such into Rock. So more of, , our own native tool set that lets you do some really simple, easily configurable type of dashboards. Exactly. And the and the hard part is to do that in a performant way. Oh, yes. Lot of things that you guys wanna do is is just not performant at scale with huge amounts of data. So we're trying to figure out ways that we can make that really fast and be able to store the aggregate of the data within the dashboard so that it is fast. That seems to be a topic that we've visited and revisited a lot this year is how to make things perform at at scale. And I feel our team's done a lot of learning on that regard, but we've also started pushing some of that information out educationally into the community as well. Hey, think about performance before you go do just whatever can be done, because you may run into to constraints that you didn't think about ahead of time. Yeah. And I our intent and and I wanna make it a personal intent too is I I really want in 2020, I really wanna help educate on that, , our learnings. , what have we learned in that area? Because I think there's a lot of misunderstandings about how computers work and especially around how much what what are the what's the capacity of any given server and what's what's the fast way of doing something, and what's the slow way of doing something. And there's some really interesting analogies that I think we can bring out, and then we just really need to train on that. Because I think there's two reasons why two things we need to improve on to keep the scalability going is is one is it's it's your it's your fault as a configurator because of way you configured it, but it's also our fault a bit too that we haven't had done more education and training on on on that. You can't just do whatever you want and make it fast. You can do whatever you want and maybe it works, , you can make it work, but doesn't mean it's it it can scale with load, under load or or be performant. So those are the things that we we really need to I feel we needed to spend some time on, and I think we have the the learning and some new tools. There were some really new cool new tools, and some of them are just getting documented right now. Some of the stuff that we did at the conference even to keep the app performing well, which I didn't hear one complaint about performance. But I guarantee you, if we had done it the original way that it it we were going to, which was a very common way, it wouldn't have performed past, , the first minute. It was very fast until I ran a quick load tool against it, and it quickly showed it couldn't scale. And so we wanna teach that. I think one of the key words I just heard you say was learning and about how our team's continuing to learn. And I I would just wanna debunk any thoughts out there that our team has some, we're we're tapped into some, , huge database of knowing all things. No. And just reinforce the fact that you said we're learning things, and we constantly do that because I think that's just a real key that we try and promote in our community too. , everyone's learning. You should be learning. There are very few people who stay stagnant that you see very much in the community. People are on an upward trajectory, and so are we. And our goal isn't to, , hide that knowledge or keep it to ourselves. It's really to disperse it so that everyone wins. Yeah. And I wanna be honest too, but we, , we need to be humble about that. , when you're walking across the parking lot, everybody trips. Right. , we trip all the time too. I think what the key was, , I did that load test Yes. That was key. A couple months ahead of time in the privacy of my own home office. And so when I trip, there is no one to see it. Right? So sometimes when you trip across the parking lot, what's our first reaction? , I didn't really see that, ? But you can also do that at home when there's no one to see it. And, but then our our duty is to say, hey. There there's a cord there. Don't don't trip on that. , when you trip on something, it's it's a good service to say, hey. There's a cord there. Don't trip on that. And I think that's the next step for us is is to share some of the ways that we've tripped and just to help others not trip. But I love that point that you just brought up is we were we're learning this stuff too. We're falling flat on our faces on some stuff, and and we just wanna educate so that people have to repeat the process. It makes me think about, the early explorers, maybe Lewis and Clark expedition or something. They've got blank paper, no idea where they're going, and they're creating a map as they go. Mhmm. Oh, don't go that way. We had to backtrack. There was a real problem over there, or you can't get across that huge gorge. And and then we have built upon that, and we have these really fully fleshed out maps because somebody went out there when it was a wilderness and and learned about it and documented it for the people coming after. And that's a great analogy, we and we kinda use that analogy when we're looking at some of these new technologies. So we're trying to figure out, , the road map of where Rock goes in the next five, ten years. And with the state of technology, you just don't know what these changes and what these technologies are. So what we do is we say, hey. You take that one, go go look over the next hill. , what's over there? We don't know. , so go spend eight hours, go research this little topic, peek over the next hill. We do that on three or four paths, knowing that we can only take one, but you can't commit to it Lewis and Clark. I mean Right. They had to go, hey, you go look over that hill and see if that's a good way. Go over and look in that hill and then come back, report back, let's just see which way we're going. But to us now, two hundred years later, we just assume that they just rode the canoe straight there. Right? But Of course, they avoided the quicksand. Wouldn't everyone? Well, they didn't know it was there. Yeah. And it's not that that's not the stuff you report back in your little journal, Right. Wasted three days going the wrong direction. , that probably doesn't make it into the official trip journal, but Definitely not into the history books you read in third grade now. Right. Yeah. That somebody did it. And we're kind of pioneering some new things. So it's I I see a lot of similarity in that. Yeah. I do think we we got it's a a python eating a a rabbit, , it has to travel through the snake. And I feel some of that learning is has traveled through. And in the beginning, we didn't even wanna talk about it because we're , well, we're not even sure how it's gonna work. So why would we why do we say go that way when we're not sure? But now some of those have gotten all the way through, and and actually, they're they're coming out as documentation in the next, , couple days, weeks, and and some of it's already out, but we just haven't highlighted it yet. I'm having a hard time with the analogy of the rabbit and the snake. Well, know, you eat the rabbit, and then the the rabbit slowly works its way through the snake. Yeah. And it gets smaller as it goes. Yes. Oh, so it wasn't that you didn't understand it. No. You didn't really it. Yes. Yeah. Well, I've been watching this veterinary show. I know. You've been sharing a lot I've sharing all types of things. I thought I was watching it this morning as I ate breakfast. Oh, is that a breakfast eating activity? Most people in my family say no, but I I guess I never even thought about it. But anyways, it's on Disney plus. If you have Disney plus, doctor Pole. Quick little plug there. I have I don't even have pets. Also be looking for the rabbit to come out the other end. Yeah. I don't even have pets, but if you need, assistance with any of your pets, let me know. I'm happy to help. I'll take that into consideration. Mhmm. From cows to dogs, iguanas, I've seen it all. Wow. Two seasons worth at least. Okay. So, anyway, I think we're done with the animal analogy. Few more more features. Back to features. So we talk about the road map, but and people get interested in our road map, and they wanna know know more about road map. But I think the misconception is they think that the roadmap is a static thing that we, again, know. Oh. And a static thing and the roadmap is not static. It's very dynamic. It changes weekly, daily, sometimes. And two new things, two new features that we're working on that I think might be of interest. One is a camp tool, but it's not really specifically thinking camp. It's really taking the the placement feature of event registration and throwing it up on massive doses of steroids. So it'll look a lot almost volunteer scheduling meets the placement tool. Drag drop. It's just it's got some really cool things to help you do from a camp perspective, placements in the buses, cabins, activities. But in you can use it in a lot of other things other than camp too. So that's coming. I think it's gonna be exciting. And then we're also working with LCBC on a project to help them enter adult attendance. So we have a rapid entry block, but this is gonna put some steroids on that too. But it won't all it won't be specifically just for adult attendance. You can also do, , connection cards. If you're entering connection cards from your weekend, you could quickly easily launch workflows based on that. And I think what's really cool is that they need it specifically for their adult attendance, but they're they come to us and they say, hey. This is this is our need. We we have to meet these needs. But if you see something else here that we could add to that would make it more community wise, we really wanna invest in that too. And I love that about this community. That's what makes this so special. There's no , you can't go to Salesforce and have one of their customers say that, That's true. Darn it. If we could pay a little bit more to make our competitors a little bit stronger, let's do it. ? No one says that. But there's so many churches in the community, and the LCBC is a good example of a of a church that has that heart and says, hey. If if you're in there and you can make a few tweaks and make it more powerful for others, please do. And I the things that you were just mentioning that we do internally. So we had a request come in for camp tools that seemed to be one that was needed by several different churches. But we take it and think, does it have to only work for camps? How can we structure this in a way that it can be used for other things? Then you have to kind of blow your mind and think what else could that be? How big do you go? What direction do you go? So there's a lot of time and space and consideration given to that to make everything so much more extensible. Yeah. And and you say that's that's a great point because I almost wanted to have a whole podcast topic on how to not be tricked by your ministry leaders because they come to you with a future request. And we have a whole thought process on how we do this here, but you can get tempted and and you can get hypnotized by exactly what they're telling you, and you can provide them exactly what they told you, but that's not really what they want. And so there's this whole, , interviewing technique that we use to make sure that we get what they want and we understand what they want without getting hypnotized so that we can still think with an open mind that says, okay, but what you really want is this. Right? And then we should do a whole podcast on that. We should. That's a great idea. We have internal manuals we build up with our own best practices and things to for internal training, and that's one of the topics we cover and we use if anyone's familiar with that old old Jungle Book cartoon, we use a picture of the snake. What's his name? Is it Ka, I think? And his eyes are those big circles. He's hypnotizing the boy and there's this screenshot of that that just looks the hypnotizing eyes and the face. And that's kind of how we refer to it. It's not that they're intending to hypnotize anyone at There's no intent there. But it is , think I'm telling you and you just jump into this framework of thought before you approach it with a more scientific approach of let's figure out what this all is in full. And it's that's kind of one of the things we talk about a lot here. Yeah. In fact, on these two projects, I actually found myself almost got I almost got hypnotized by a few feature requests. I'm , oh, oh, wait. So I was doing exactly as written. I'm , wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. That's not really what they want. If we just did a slight tweak, it would actually do this, this, and this. And I was , oh my gosh. I I almost got hypnotized. And what you return back, they're always , no. That's even better. That's exactly what I wanted. But there's a whole, , technique to that. Right. Reading people's minds without taking their words at face value. Yeah. And some and some patterns you just have to, , go through. If you go through them, you can dodge the snake eyes, which scarred me as a child by the way, that movie. That movie did? Yeah. I can't remember the name of the snake, but I know that snake because I had many nightmares about that snake. Yeah. Think it's Kaa. Yeah. I don't know. It's been a while. I'm gonna have to watch that this weekend now. Yeah. I don't think I want to. That's okay. You watch your veterinary show. Right. So those are two new features I just wanted to throw out there. And I said, some of the plumbing has already been added to to tend to receive some of those changes. And it takes a lot of planning to pre think. I know we can't deliver this fast enough to get it into the first major version release, but if we're going to get it in before we get to the next major release, what are we gonna have to put in place to make that happen? That's a huge amount of planning. Yeah. It's kinda almost you're sending two things on different trajectories and they have to land on top of each other. It's if you're gonna shove a cart down a rail and then throw a football into it down that thing. It's two different trajectories, but they have to land perfectly. And if they and if you're missing one piece, it's already too late. It's in concrete. So you gotta wait for the next major release to fix it. So, yeah, it's never a dumb moment on that. No, definitely not. And one of the other things that we've been looking at and spending a lot of time in is the consideration of GDPR and what the European approach to data privacy is going to look . We know some churches have a few have a European campus. We also can see kind of writing on the wall that that's probably going to move across the pond this way at some point in the future. What does that mean? What does that look ? So we've put quite a bit of time into research and trying to understand from a product perspective, from a process perspective, what the implications are of GDPR. Yeah. It's been an interesting process. It's not been an easy one either. Invested quite a bit of time as a team, on that. So I think what we kind of came up with, and it's kind of the interim, , process of where we are, but all the research kinda shows that this has got major effects on churches. Mhmm. And Laura on our team, she did a lot of great research, talked to a lot of lawyers and different services that help you with through this. But I think our conclusion is that if we added those features today to to Rock, then no American church would actually voluntarily want to enable them. It basically is handcuffing your ministry in a lot of severe ways. So people have a right to expunge your data. That's not a big deal. We could do that. And I don't think that would hurt anybody. People have a right to download their data. And I'll take again, that's not a big deal. But the big one is and there's more. But the the next big one is, you can't show people personal identification personal identifying information unless they've signed and agreed to a clear privacy policy. So imagine going into Rock tomorrow and only seeing first names. Right. Because last names are part of what they consider personally identifying information and email addresses. And and pictures. And so imagine typing t deck to search for Ted Decker and seeing Ted, Ted, Ted, Ted, Ted, Ted, and and you can't see the last name, you can't see anything else. And imagine going to a group list, a group member list, and and only seeing the first names. Now for the the leader, that might kinda work because they probably okay. Well, I only have one Alice, and I know exactly who that is. But until they check that box, you can't see that. And the transition period would be very, difficult. And I I think you you said, it's gonna happen. We we need to plan for that. We need to be driving and steering the car towards that. But to do it today, , and I'll take any any senior pastor's really gonna sign up and say, yeah, I'll I'll do that. ? When I have to, I'll maybe I'll do it, but Or any data integrity volunteer team? Can you imagine deduping in that scenario? Is it Ted or Ted? Yeah. No. No. You can't see the picture. You can't see that. And you can't reverse it. Good luck. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You can't that's a good point. Now I think we're gonna look back in ten years and and and really all the data systems that we have today, we're gonna think, wow. That was Wild West. I can't believe we would let people do that with our data. , we we feel as a church, we own that data. We bought the system. , we we donate to Rock, and it's on our server, and they gave it to us. , why can't we do whatever we want with the data? That's gonna be a total mind shift in the future where it's gonna be no, it's not your data. That person has given us permission to, temporarily access and see certain parts of it. Mhmm. But they can also take it away quick quickly. Right. And and part of this is that they can give you allowance to use certain data for a certain purpose. Mhmm. So if you don't have a data policy that really outlines what purpose you're using their data for, you're not in compliance. And if you don't get it right the first time and they sign it and they agree to it and you have to and you wanna augment it, it's it's you gotta go back through it again. Right. So I think setting up that data policy is gonna be very important. And then there's whole bunch of regulations that we haven't even talked about. We've been talking about features, but there's a bunch of regulations that are a little cumbersome, but , nothing that, , it's no worse than PCI compliance, but still not fun. Right. And then you have to take into consideration things how does HR treat the recruiting process and the candidates and how are your physical premises secured? I mean, there's just a whole lot of stuff to consider in there. And a lot of this is, , they have standards. It's these standards that you have to meet and they might be a little bit loose yet. So they'll be refined and defined through the court system. The legislation has put the loose boundaries in place, but the court system's probably going to play that out over time. Yeah. So it's still a bit loose. And so it sounds it's there's some similar proposals being draft drafted in the in the federal level, but you already see some states jumping the gun a bit. And honestly, think that's the worst thing that could happen is that 50 different options. But From someone who's looked into sales tax all over the country in different areas, I confirm we should not have a different policy for every state on this. Yeah. Because that's a state, local, county Yeah. Municipality, even borough. I mean, that's just crazy. Let's all get on board together here, people. Yeah. Yeah. I'm all for a weak federal government, but at certain point, there is a benefit too. So, yeah. So we did a lot of learning on that. And we're I think the next step for us is to really start pushing some of those features into Rock that to self expunge your data and to self download your data to be able to accept a cookie policy built into the core. I mean, you can do that today, obviously, but to build it into the core and have that drive and set the right values in certain places and maybe a tool to help you build a privacy policy that's dynamic and helpful, a template, . Mhmm. I think those are the things that we would put onto the roadmap in in preparation for what might come in the next two to three years. But if if there's if that's a hotter topic for you, , reach out. We can Mhmm. Maybe more inform you more about what we learned. But Right. At this point, I I don't think any executive pastor, senior pastor is gonna say, yeah, let's do that. I think we've also learned that probably none of the systems out there are it doesn't look providing a GDPR compliance package that you could use. You can go to get individually certified through a company that provides that certification, and they will likely come on-site and do a whole bunch of audits and things. But it doesn't look there are any software packages that if you use them, will extend an umbrella of GDPR compliance that will cover your whole organization. Right. That's that's yeah. You're exactly right. It seems it appears that there's one who's who says a lot of stuff about GDPR, but they're really talking about their own internal organization being being GDPR, not necessarily the product. And the product doesn't have necessarily the features that I that we just described. What they what we what appears it it is is , hey, well, they don't if they haven't signed this, don't put it into the system. Right. Which is that's one way of doing it. That is. But a powerful church management system or relationship management system, if it's powerful and if it's if it's modern, the person is actually the person putting their their their their data into the system. It's not someone data entering it, , driving from the website or from massive amounts of different ways, texting in. You don't we often don't have control at those points. , we want people to self enter their data into database, because that's self-service. That's what people expect. So the tools have to be built to get that privacy. Right. So pretty interesting topic. Yeah. I mean, to think of a text to workflow that creates a new person, that happens in many, many churches. , there needs to be a reply back that says, hey. Welcome. , if we don't appear to know , have your information on record, could you please sign this privacy policy, as a next step? And until they do that, then they have to be, somewhat private in the system until that happens. Some ways, it's fascinating. Some ways, I I I don't this because I feel it's gonna hamper us, but I feel in the future, we're gonna look back and go, , of course, we should have done it that way. But interesting. Mhmm. Definitely. Well, we're looking ahead to 2020 and thinking about some really incredible things. Our first master class of the year is really going to come up quickly. It's at the February. We've heard a lot of interest from a lot of different churches. Think quite a few put on their budget priority this year to get that Rock training and definitely the beginning of the year is a good time to kick that off. We've been hearing from churches too that have had maybe one or two people come through that they want to deepen their Rock capabilities on staff. So they plan to send additional people this year. I will say we've heard that those spots are going to probably fill up fairly last minute fairly quickly. So I would jump on that now if I were you, we just seem to have heard a lot more interest in this particular class than maybe we hear on our others sometimes, they tend to fill up too. So I would jump on that one. Yeah. And it's just interesting to see the change over the four days of when someone comes and when they leave, they just have so much more confidence and knowledge. And the confidence is really surprising to a lot of them. Mhmm. I think that they come out and say, oh, , there were a lot of things that I already knew when I came in, and that made me feel so much more able to learn the new content that came my way because I felt , oh, I did I learned that little piece already. I know I can do this. So that's been very interesting to hear. Yeah. If you come to that class and you put a moderate amount of effort into it, you come out with so much Mhmm. More knowledge. Even people who thought that they knew Rock really well, they feel more confident in what they knew because , knew that. And then they always come back with a go on, and I learned so many things. And and there's something about being in that class too that people are asking questions that you maybe never would have thought of, or they have a ministry, rest a concept at their church that you don't have, but by hearing about it, you're you're learning to think, in that extensible Rock way. Right. And they're making these long term relationships with people that they meet up during the class and spend all this time with, and that's their first go to. Hey, do you remember that thing we talked about? Yeah. It's been really cool to see that happen too. It's funny because I hear that a lot when people say, oh, yeah. We we were in master class together back in it's Graduating alums. Yeah. It's almost they're , oh, we went to high school together. Yeah. Slightly smaller class sizes, I guess. Right. Right. Although we did put what did we say 114 people through masterclass last year. Yeah. It's pretty good. Pretty legit. It is. We also have our conference coming up. And not only that, but today, I know this is kind of earmarking a date for what we're doing and when, but I don't know when you're listening to it. But today as we record this, we're getting ready to go visit the conference site, take another little tour, start getting the exact rooms planned for exact sessions and some fun things that. We are moving forward faster on this conference than we have on any other one because we know it's going to be bigger and there will be some changes this year that are a little bit different from previous times and so we're making a good progress at a very early rate. And you should too, because our early bird ticket price is evaporated as of January 1. So if you want to get your conference tickets on early bird pricing, get that in before the end of the year. January 1, the price goes up to regular ticket prices. Yeah. And get it on the 2019 budget too. Absolutely. I start off 2020 with I know. Less money. Whatever you have sitting there on the end of your budget, consider things get your tickets in place for the conference, your masterclass, of course, and then think about the Rock shop. What are some of those plugins that you need that you haven't been able to get? This could be a really key time to just get those purchases made. And then you can dive into how to do them after the Christmas Rush. Yeah. After the Christmas rush is over. Yeah. And while booking while while getting your your registration for Rx, make sure you book the room. Great point. You gotta get in that hotel. The the experiences is gonna be so much better if you're staying in the hotel than if you're out and and the rooms will fill. Right. We're looking at the number of rooms available and the number of people that typically come to our conference, and we're confident that they are going to not have enough space for all of us to stay there. So you don't want to be that person who didn't quite get your room reservation in on time. Yeah. Their experience is gonna be totally different. It will be. Yeah. Well, I guess this is our wrap up for the year. It's been a pretty incredible 2019. We've seen a lot of growth. We had an opportunity to walk through that with our staff this week and a staff meeting and it's just pretty incredible to see the ways, I guess not only that numbers have grown, but really that people have grown. And I think we've seen that across the community. We've seen more people growing more in a new and different ways. That's kind of what this is all about. So we're really looking forward to seeing what 2020 has in store for us because 2019 has been a pretty incredible year. It has been. Well, a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all of you. And we will be back with our podcast in 2020. Thanks for tuning in. 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.