Podcast Episode 98: Episode 71: Cicero Does It In Spades

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In this episode of Rockcast, we'll discuss v9 developments, our upcoming Rock Experience Conference and the benefits of attending a Rock Master Class. We'll also pick Jon's brain about books he's reading and hear some electrifying analogies.

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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 to the Rockcast podcast where we talk to you a little bit about what's going on with Spark Development Network, what we're doing in Rock with the community and the product, and we have a lot of fun. I'm Emily Forman. We have Jon Edmiston and Nick Airdo. And this podcast is going to be published just before Rx twenty nineteen. So we are all extra excited around here, cause there are big things happening, and we absolutely cannot wait for that annual get together with the community. Yeah. That said, I wish it was a few more days out. Always want a few more days in the preparations. There would never be enough days. Sometimes you just gotta go. It's parenting. You're never ready for it. That's true. Just happens. Yep. Or when you have a new 16 year old driver and they never really know, is it time to turn left now in the oncoming traffic? Yeah. And I have I have some tips for turning right on a on a stoplight. Been teaching my two boys. So yeah. Well, enlighten us. Okay. So this I shouldn't give away all my secrets, but my son comes up to this to the to the red light. He he wants he knows he needs to turn right. He's , well, do I have to stop, dad? I'm , well, of course. Yeah. It's red. You have to stop. So we go a few miles down the road, and he's about to do it again. And so I thought, well, this will be fun. I said, okay. Now this time, you don't you don't need to stop. I was just trying to check to see if he learned what he was supposed to learn, and he didn't learn it. So and I now for I had been looking around with everything was clear. Nothing was gonna happen. But then when we get up real close, I go, you have to stop, , really loud. Freaked him out. And the whole rest of the of the of the the drive, he's , I can't believe you did that to me. I can't I'm , will you ever forget that you have to stop when you at a red light when you wanna turn right? He's , I will never forget that. And I'm , lesson learned. Wow. Yeah. And that that was about a year ago, and he still I still bring it up. He's , I know. I know. Stress induced learning. I feel there are a couple of peripheral lessons. One, I think I'm glad I'm not your kid. Well, I'm a master at driving and teaching to drive. Oh, well. Oh, yes. And two, don't trust John. But that lesson is cemented into his head. I think you're right. Wow. That's that's harsh. Is it? I've just I probably saved his life three times. We just don't even know. Wow. So a little tidbit for you all about John and his driving instructing. Do you have a website up? Can anyone send their students your way? I feel this is an extended ad. I mean, I do have a whole , I put them through the paces. I'm on my second one now, so it's I'm really getting good at it. And they're both still alive? They are. That's a testimony right there. Right. Right. Yeah. Wow. Good drivers. Okay. So let us know when you get that website up or the book out or the Yeah. I'm old school. I don't believe in this new technology thing. Gosh. Cut. Cut. Oh, wow. Hey, Nick. Let's talk about Rock. Absolutely. Can I? I'm gonna be Please. I'm gonna be some other church management systems that don't run their event registration on their own product, and I'll have to put this website up on, , WordPress or something. Oh, no. Well, if you had Rock, you could and you were part of the early access program. Cool. You could now get version nine dot two. Tell us more about that. Well, version nine dot two is a is a simple patch, really. It was just a handful of fixes that were needed to really get Rock nine pretty stable. I I there really aren't many other things out there. So, again, we're hoping there's not gonna be a nine three, and so we're full steam ahead on the future of Rock. Yeah. And I think in the nine series, it's gone very, very smoothly. Usually, we're getting nine ones, and twos, and threes, and fours before we actually get even to the final release. So nine's been super smooth, and I think a good testament to our alpha testing and beta testing team on that. Yeah. And, , we put them through the ringer because we did this pretty quickly. Went from 91 90 to 91, 9 2. So you guys out there should have a little bit of a break because at least we won't be releasing nine anything during the conference. During conference. Yeah. Great. Yeah. we'll be busy. There will be a couple other things going on. Hey. That's a good segue. Let's talk about our conference. I'm so excited about it. So at the time of this posting, we'll be, I guess, next business day, we'll we'll see you at the conference. And there is so much going on. So, , we spend a year in between every conference, and I think we actually had thirteen months since the last one this time around. And we spend so much time working on the strategy and the the storyline of the conference and all the small details. I mean, just this week, some of the details that we've been going over regarding table sizes and locations and food lines and, , just all the the very small details. You have to know that we we care a lot about those details, and we are so excited about this experience. Yeah. I mean, you said, we literally start planning the day after the the conference. And in in this case, we've been planning 2020 for actually a few months, four or five months. We have. And so we have some special announcements that we'll be giving out at the conference. We do. So you'll want to be tuned for that. And there's a lot of announcements at the conference. I think this conference has the most announcements jam packed than any other conference we've ever had, and so that's exciting and a lot of preparation to get all of those lined up and get everything ready. But it's it's definitely gonna be a great event, and it's the highlight of the community. And I can't wait. I mean, I'm looking at some of the tracks of the best practices tracks. I'm really psyched. I I know I can't be in all of them. That's that content subscription. I'm gonna be watching all that, but there's some so many great presentations that are coming through. We have access to look at those beforehand because we to publish them right after the conference. So, I mean, there's some good stuff in there. Oh, there's incredible stuff. And I've seen a little bit of activity in the chat channels from people who are saying, I don't know what to pick. I'm looking at this particular time slot, and I don't know what I wanna go to. And we feel exactly the same way. Right. So from the the core team perspective, I mean, most of us are there with some jobs to do and some things to get done, but we look at all the tracks lined up at the same time too and think, oh, god. I I don't know which one I would go to if I could. Yeah. And that's the reason to bring lots of people from your team. Exactly. So by this time that you've gotten this podcast, hopefully, you've gotten some messaging from us with some of the prep stuff. , you wanna get your takeaway system kinda configured. We have some announcements even before that. We we will have an app for you to help with your conference experience so that you can kinda pick your tracks and pick the sessions that you wanna go to. So that's something we've wanted to do for quite a a long time is to give you something mobile that you can use that for so that you should have a link to that. All kinds of great stuff at this conference, and already looking forward to 2020, though. I mean, it's we're gonna raise the bar on 2019 again in 2020, and so we're really excited by that. Yes. And let me pre promote our survey that we'll do at the end of this conference just as always. The things that we're putting into play this year are driven entirely by that survey and by the experience we all had on-site last year at Southeast during Rx twenty eighteen. And Rx twenty twenty, we've made a lot of headway on, but there is still room for a lot of really cool new things to do. So we will be reading those surveys that come in and I promise you we will give attention to every survey that's filled out. So go into it looking and thinking with a critical eye toward how could this be improved because that's the way that we approach this event and we will be taking each response and giving it a measured, weighted consideration about how that could be combined with everything else that we're doing to make a great event a year from now. So we're looking forward to seeing you there. If you can't join us this year, we will definitely miss you. Stay tuned to all of our communication channels, because that's the way that you'll be able to keep up with the announcements that are coming out and do look for the ability to subscribe to our content. As always, we intend to do that and and hope that that works out. And you just won't want to miss that. We also are looking at the next series of events and training programs for the community, and we'll be publishing a list of upcoming master classes soon. So that should be something to look for. If you've been already, and I know a lot of our audience probably has, don't forget that the new people who come on your staff, or maybe the ministry admins in another area of your organization could benefit from having some really tight training from the people that build and use Rock on a daily basis, and this could be a huge benefit to your whole organization. So do check that schedule out, share it with the people that you connect with in the community who might be new, and share it on your team as well. We talk about all tides rising together, and the masterclass is one of those things that's really doing a great job moving that up through the community. Yeah. Definitely, it's a great opportunity to get your skills sharpened. It really is. And it's interesting when people come in, they say a lot of times, oh, I'm so nervous. I know I don't know very much. And by the end of it, a lot of times people say, well, knew a little more than I thought I did. But now I've been able to expand my skill set in other areas too, which we think is pretty great. And we're big fans about talking about what is your skill set? What does your growth path look ? And it's very individualized. And for some people, masterclass is the next right step. Yep. And as we look at tool sets, we talk about it internally here too. And John, you'd come up with some really interesting analogies about understanding what your best experience and skill sets are, but also what other ones are available out there and how technology plays in with that. Yeah. So as we use Rock and as we help others use Rock, we see , we get to see a lot of of interesting things and have experiences that are a little bit maybe wider than maybe within one organization. And think one of the important things is when you have a toolset is you you have to understand where your boundaries lie with your skillset and your toolset. And what you wanna do is you wanna be a little bit careful about the areas on the fringe. So for example, if you're an electrician, that you have a certain toolset, and if you start to do plumbing with that toolset, you might have limited success. You might be electrocuted. Right. Or maybe the other person, which I'm not sure which would be worse. But anyway, so if you're really good with workflows, , maybe in a in a war analogy, you might be a rifleman, and and that's great. You need that. That is a very powerful toolset. But you also need to know, , when is it time to call in the artillery, , the big guns? And so taking and and spouting on that analogy, so the rifleman does have something called a mortar. It's a little portable, little teeny cannon that they they can fire short distances, and that's good. That that's that's a great tool for them to have. But if they were to keep using that mortar all the time, it might something might need to click off in their head, , what? It might be better if if I call in the artillery, because I'm at the fringe of my toolset. Now does that mean that the artilleryman is more important than the rifleman? No. I mean, if you only had artillerymen, you would easily lose your war. Mean, everybody just run and and attack the artillery, and then those guys would be gone. And if you're an artilleryman, so maybe in this case, the artilleryman is maybe a a c sharp developer. If you're an artilleryman and that's all and you start and you don't know workflows and you just start writing code that a workflow could do, I mean, that that is really dumb. , again, you're on the fringe of your toolset. And so they shouldn't be down in the trenches shooting because that's not their skillset. But is the rifleman more important than the artilleryman? No. You you need to have a balance. And I think the key is knowing when are you on the fringe of your toolset. For an example, in my mind, every time I have to use a SQL command inside of a workflow, I might have to do that. I'm not saying don't do that, but I know I'm on the fringe of my toolset, and if I have to keep doing that, it really speaks to needing a new workflow action. So there's a couple things you could do. You you may not be a C developer, but what you need to do is turn that in as an idea. , hey, we really need a new action that does this. Or it might be the time that you might want to call in the artillery. You might want to, , find a partner or find someone else in the community who has C knowledge to help you with that. I think the worst thing you could do is just keep trucking and and do unholy things with, , some of these fringe tool sets. And the SQL one is just an example. , a lot of the other tool sets have these fringe areas where it's just not gonna perform well. It's it's breakable. It's it's gonna break on updates, and it's just not it's not using the tool for what it was designed for. And so I just encourage people to understand your tool set, know when you're on the fringe, and don't be afraid to call, , cross discipline type resources in. In the long run, you're gonna be a lot happier. Well, I know our team is strengthened by having a variety of skill sets. As long as everyone's under the same leadership and the same vision and working together, it's much better to have a diverse set of skills working on any given project if it's a large and complex one. Right. And I think the tendency is that we grade these tool sets and we grade these experiences, and we say that this tool set knowing this is harder or better than knowing that, and that's not the case. Again, the artillerymen would just be wiped out in five minutes if we didn't have riflemen. And they're all needed. They're all of equal value. That's interesting because that kind of, to me, ties back to the considerations of a growth mindset too. So if you have a particular toolset and you have a fixed mindset about it, you might be internally having some conversations with yourself that say, oh, I can only do this and kind of downplaying what how to do, and I'll never get to that, which one is probably not true. You're putting false limits on yourself. And two, it's, you said, grading which skill sets may or may not be a better grade, which really, whatever we're familiar with seems easier to us, right, than what someone else does. And you hear that all the time that I can't be a c sharp person. Right. It's , no. No. No. You anybody could do that. Now, you may not be called to do that. You may not have the desire to do that, and that's perfectly fine. I mean, that's not the pinnacle. That's just a thing. But don't don't say you can't. That's not true. Right. And we're not saying that you should all run out and become C devoting. No. Not not at all. I mean, just don't put that on a pedestal. Right. But don't talk yourself out that you couldn't put yourself on that pedestal if that's what you wanted to do. And also, don't feel threatened. If it's time to call in a C sharp developer and you're not one, don't feel threatened by that action or by that skill set on your team. , just realize what a great, what a well rounded, what a highly strong team that develops. And that's the benefit of this Rock community. So many skill sets, so many perspectives and experiences, and really working together is the thing that makes it the best. So don't feel threatened by working with someone or feeling you need to work with someone that has a different skill set than you do. Realize that's the experience of the body of Christ, and that's pretty cool. Yeah. Mean, the analogy is right there in the Bible. Yeah. So I really liked that whole analogy that you've been working on about tool sets and skill sets and maybe comparing that to positions in the army. Right. John, you've been reading some good books lately. I yeah. I to read. Yes. I've been reading different things lately. Usually, I only read business books, leadership books, nonfiction books. But for some reason oh, I I know it was started. It was vacation. I wanted to read some books about the history of the places that we were going. So I picked up it's historical fiction, but it's very it's trying to be as accurate as possible. It's about the life and times of of Cicero, and it's a three book series. So it was I've I just finished the third book, and it was very fascinating and and very inspiring too, I think. Because Cicero started as he he didn't have the nobility background, the the ancestry that he would need to do a lot of things, but he didn't let that stop him. He's also known as, , the greatest orator to ever have lived, but he had a stutter, especially early on in life, and he had to overcome that through, , practice and through training with with some of the world's best orders at the time, but he had to work through that. And then he built himself up and and got into Rome. He got on to be a senator, but he had to, , jump over a lot of hurdles to get to that level. And just how he addressed some of the biggest challenges in history are just amazing. The one thing I learned too, and I kind of always thought this way, but he did it in spades, is that when presented between a problem between A and B, which way should we go, he never took A and B. He always came up with C, D, E, F, G, and I think we put these artificial boundaries that, okay, well, here's the problem, it's A or B, and it's , why would we do that? There's so many, there's an infinite number of ways that we could address this, and he was very, very clever at, when presented with A and B, he never went with A and B, And he wasn't a perfect person, but he lived in very trying times. This was the time when Julius Caesar was kinda coming about and very, very difficult things to navigate politically. Also, being the greatest orator, you'd think, , well, top of his game, he pretty much literally threw up in a bucket before every speech because he was so nervous. Wow. And of course, most people didn't know that. They just they saw him as the greatest ever. And so I think for those of you maybe coming up presenting in the next few days at at a at a RX, it's natural to be nervous. But it's what you do with that afterwards, I think, that that matters. And and maybe I take some comfort in knowing that the greatest orator in the world, even late in his career, was throwing up in a bucket. I mean, I'm not throwing up in a bucket. I'm not gonna say running onto that stage, but at least I'm not throwing up in a bucket, so there's that. But it's just remarkable. It's reading the life and times of of someone that, and and, man, just the things that they had to deal with back then that, , we're we're so lucky not to have to worry about. It's pretty crazy. I can definitely relate to the nerves before getting on stage. I don't think I've ever thrown up in a bucket. So you're you're already two steps ahead of Cicero. That's great. Who was the best? Who was the best? Well, I'm not two steps ahead of him there, but I'm glad to know that that is a universal human experience of nerves before you step on stage. Yeah. So it was very interesting. I I read a couple of the books on that Roman time frame. Was just so fascinating. The the man, how political it was. I mean, we think we have bad politics now. Holy cow. At least they weren't knifing each other, , constantly. Literally. Yeah. Mean, it's kinda crazy. And what who's your friend today is, , your mortal enemy, , in within six months over nothing? Just middle school. Yeah. It is a lot middle school, isn't it? I think so. Some place I've never wanted to go back. Well, that's really interesting. Thanks for sharing that. Have you found that the more you've learned in that topic, the more you're interested in in knowing more? , how does that Yeah. I mean, definitely, that's an interesting time frame. So I am I'm actually reading now a complete history book of the of the history of Rome. And I think what's interesting though is, , you never know quite know, , what is really true and what is, , kind of not in the same either made up at the time or made up now. There's so many different opinions on things that happened back then that it's I wonder sometimes in general, these scientists or these anthropologists, but all scientists in general, I feel scientists are sometimes the biggest fiction creators ever. And that because they can't agree, they're just completely locked into their opinions with no facts. Yeah. And you're kinda , okay. Well, guess that's what it takes to get published. Right? Just stick to the facts. So it'd be much better if everyone just stuck to the facts. Right. The hard part is if you're dealing with history, it's sometimes hard to know what the facts really were. Yeah. A lot of inference. Right. Yeah. I read a whole book by the same author on which base it was about Pompeii. That's why I started reading it. But it really was a book about the aqueduct system that they made and how amazing it was and such an feat of engineering and so precise in the grades that it had to go down across hundreds or even thousands of miles. It had to go into a certain grade too much, and the water went too fast, too slow, and it kinda got stuck, And that the precision that they had was just amazing. At the same time, their number system was Roman numerals. I tried doing math with Roman numerals. Right. That's the thing I still don't get. , how did they do that? But I don't know. I guess that was not a foreign language to them. Right. I think it's easy to look backwards and think, oh, how primitive people were, but no. They were, in many ways, smarter than we are. And dealing with the same kind of social constraints and issues, it seems . Different setting, but people are people. Right? Right. It's kind of interesting. Well, a lot of people, entrepreneurs, recommend a certain set of books, and the one that it's very consistent with them is Marcus Aurelius' Meditations. So I'm , okay. Well, if everybody's recommending, I gotta read it. So I started reading it. If someone had ripped the cover off, I would swear that that book was written, , last week. It is so timely. And then even when it comes to he talks about technology and our, , over usage of technology, our over reliance on technology, and I'm going this literally and he had some moral thoughts and some spiritual thoughts, and I'm , this guy has to be a Christian. He has to be a Christian. I mean, he was an emperor a little bit further on, so he had the opportunity to be, but turns out he actually wasn't. He was very against Christianity. But the book is just amazing. So if you if you're looking for a good book, it is a simple read. It's not, , complex. So I'm not one for, , really hard to read things. Well, there's our book review for you. Yeah. A few. Thanks for tuning in again for another podcast. We are so looking forward to seeing you in a very short time frame. 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.