Podcast Episode 85: Episode 58: Special Edition Emma Alarcon

Description

In this special edition, we'll interview Emma Alarcon and find out the circle of people she seems to know everyone from!

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 special edition Rockcast podcast. Today, we have a very special guest with us. I'm Emily Forman. We have as usual, Jon Edmiston and Erdo, and our special guest, Emma Alakhan. She has joined us in her new role as documentation specialist, which is so exciting, because we have been looking for just the right person for a very long time, we feel very thrilled that Emma has joined us. She's going to be doing really wonderful things in the community, updating and providing documentation on new features and on things that have changed and just keeping everything top notch and and really easy to work with. So we're here today to learn a little bit more about Emma. Welcome, Emma. Yay. Thank you. You probably have one of the hardest jobs because your job is to know everything about Rock, and you're starting at square one. So just know we know that, but we're excited. Yeah. So am I. It's a lot of pressure, but I do really the support of, , getting up to speed first before jumping right in. Yep. Definitely. So Emma, tell us first how long you've been here at Spark. I think it's been a full two weeks so far. So you're almost an expert. Yeah, pretty much. Just give me another day and I'll be right there. One more day, I just need one more day. So we know you were hired to do documentation, but tell us a little bit about your background. My background is primarily in technology. I've been working in video processing for the past four years. In that role, I actually did a lot of other documentation work for them to help with the video processors and how to use it. I also have a background in church production, which kinda goes hand in hand with working with Spark. What's your passion for that? My passion in church production is audio engineering. Mhmm. I've been audio engineering for a good, I wanna say thirteen years now, in the church, and I went to school for it, because I thought that was the right route to go to, but I ended up just sticking with churches, and I love it. Yeah. So a lot of our listeners probably do the same roles that their church is doing. , it might be one piece of their role too. So but I think it's fascinating to know that they've many of our listeners have probably already read some of your documentation, I I would guess, because you work on products that you did work on products that they might use. What which products were those? Right. I came from Christie Digital, and I worked in their video processing. I was the lead QA engineer for the Spider product line. So I worked in the legacy Spider, the x 20, and the x 80. So any other documentation you might see with that product, I did write it. Hopefully, to help you get the processor up and running for your churches. Yeah. And so a lot of churches use that product. So they they might already even have read your documentation. That's right. It's a cool little link, I think. It is. Mhmm. Although, we're not saying direct message Emma with your questions for support of that product. No. That's that's that's all in the past. So if you have any spider questions, the website is what? Spider.com? No. I think it's kristydigital.com. Okay. You got that. Yeah. So Yep. That's good. So, , I thought it was really interesting. The other day we had a meeting with the lead of our AV production team for the conference. And because we're working on that in advance quite a bit. And when he left, you said, oh, hey. Brad was here. I know Brad. It's a really small world here, isn't it? Yes. Definitely. I think when you're in the audio world, you kinda just know everybody even though you don't really ever see them mixing because you're mixing your own gig. But you obviously really do know of each other because band members would be , hey. Do this person? , oh, yeah. I know him. And then you just kinda have that common ground. Well, and even during the interview, I I she's talking and she says something about, , Perry Emmerich. I'm , Perry Emmerich, he's the Mesa Campus Pastor at Central Christian Church, , 50 miles away. Yeah. I had a friend back in my hometown who told me, oh, you're moving to Arizona? I know a pastor at Central Christian Church. I'll connect you with them so you can get in to start mixing for them. And so once I moved to Arizona, I already had a gig lined up. That was pretty cool. Where and where did you move from? I moved from a small town called Canvas, Washington. And that's on the West Side Of Washington State or East Side? It's Southeast. Southeast? Yeah. Really close to Portland, Oregon. Nice. So what's your story of how you came to connect with us and and to be working here now? It's kind of a funny story, actually. I wasn't actively looking for a job. My husband actually was looking for a job, and he's always on Indeed. I'm , what's so great about this Indeed site? And so I one day, I just typed in, I think writer or writing, and this was the only position that came up within my distance. Oh my goodness. And I was , oh, that's weird. And so I clicked on it, I read the description, and I'm , this isn't a real job. There's no way. , this this fits perfectly with my personality and what I wanna do. And so thinking, oh, I don't I'm not qualified. , I'm they will never actually hire me. So I applied and sure enough, , here I am. But in that process, I had to do a couple videos for, , examples. And the last video Emily asked me for I haven't told you guys this yet. But last last video you asked me for, I was , yeah. Sure. I'll get it to you by Friday. But in my mind, I was , man, I'm way too busy. I'm not gonna be able to get this video done. And I literally was about to call you and say, hey, thank you so much for this opportunity and to get this far. I'm not interested in a new job. But somehow, I think God gave me the time to actually get the video done and send it, and then here I am. Wow. That's a cool story. That is a cool story. Yeah. It definitely I don't I didn't think it was gonna happen, but yeah. It did. Yeah. And and I think Emily alluded to in the beginning, it's it's the truth. We we spent so much time Mhmm. Looking for somebody, and it wasn't just we didn't find anybody. We were going through candidate after candidate after candidate. hundreds of resumes, tens and dozens and dozens of phone screens, and then several people in person. And there are some good people, but it wasn't the right person. Right. And so we really, really waited. But as soon as we had you come in, I mean, that's the first time I met you, but it was , this is the right person. I mean, probably seven or eight months of experience of talking to people that weren't exactly the right fit is what it took to to know that you were the right fit. So we're really excited to have you on the team. Thank you. So am I. That's really encouraging to hear. Because in my mind, I'm , why did they hire me? , this is really hard. Oh, you'll fit along just right. We all feel that Yeah. Nick is so right. Every day I come in, I'm , what am I doing? There's definitely someone that could do this role better than I could. I don't know why I'm sitting at this desk right now. But, , you're saying you're great. You're the perfect person. Yeah. So welcome aboard. Yes. To a lifetime of not, completely understanding what you have to do next, but deciding to learn it and tackle it. Yeah. That's what we're all doing. So you've been here two weeks. Is that long enough to know what your typical day looks yet? I think so. I think typically it involves a lot of reading and trying to come up with the best way to phrase things to say and explain some complicated terms to an average user to be successful with the product. Mhmm. And as we told you in the interview process, that's one of the most crucial roles we have here because it's at that crossroads between product and community that make Rock so unique. And so if that part isn't done well, and with a thought toward how does someone who's sitting inside a church needing to do this ministry component think about that? If it isn't done from that perspective, then it may as well not be done at all. And I really do think, and we don't live by this thinking, but I think it's true that an average product explained and documented with recipes well will outperform for the organization better than the best software with no documentation, no recipes, and good luck. And we wanna have both. We want the best product and the best documentation, but if you don't have good documentation, you might as well just stay at home. Right. If you're a developer. Right. I even tell developers too, you don't get it to documentation, if we don't know to document it, you wasted your time. No one's gonna know to look for it, use it, or even know how to use it. So it's in our best interest to feed Emma Right. Everything that needs to be there. If we forget, it's a it it doesn't cost us necessarily, but it costs our our our individuals using the software. Right. And back in the history of our documentation, I'm not sure if this yet or not, Emma, but John wrote all the documentation to all the features, and then I would edit it and put it into HTML. So that was my exposure to the importance of our documentation and why it's so crucial because I could not coming from a technology background, but being somewhat familiar with Rock, I could read through the features as I'm editing them and seeing the screenshots and I could make sense of it and go, Oh, well, that's not a difficult thing to accomplish. And it would be so easy for someone coming from more of an administrator's role to be intimidated by documentation and not be able to approach their task. But because the way it was all set up was to be this empowering thing, I could catch that vision really easily on that. And now Emma's left with having to rip out a bunch of bad jokes. There's only a few bad jokes. Okay. I ripped out more of them before that. I let a few through. It may not survive the second culling. She'll she'll insert good jokes. We still gonna keep them fun. Oh, yeah. Right. For sure. Need to de data humorify it. Yeah. And and references to old If he says that in the documentation, rip it. Gosh. It's so hard. Okay. So one thing you should know in the community is if you are reading through the documentation and something seems incorrect or out of date or needs a little tweak or is something you don't really understand, and you make a comment with a little comment tool right there on the side of the documentation, that will go to Emma. So you might be interacting with Emma in that capacity. I don't know if that's been routed to Emma yet. It is. It has. Great. Yes. So you could talk to Emma today. I actually have already talked to somebody. Have you? Yes. Yesterday. It was great. Because I also come from a support background, and I feed off of that. I love helping people and knowing that it's directly impacting someone. And and I mean, it's just just the way you even say that, you you get our community. You're , we're a community, we're trying to help people. , some people would say, well, I'm I'm here for the documentation. , just read it. Yeah. I think there's some acronyms that would say what we wouldn't want it to say, but Yes. Thank you for being here, because I might be , didn't you read that? If it came to me, so it's better that it comes to you. it's probably true. I don't think so. Okay. I might think that. I don't know. I'm letting all my bad secrets out today. Alright. Let's change topics. Emma, tell us about your family. I am happily married for about two and a half years, and I have an eight month old daughter who is such a joy. She is so much fun and just, I don't know, loves everything. She's adorable. You brought her into the office your first week here, and that was so fun to see her. She's so cute. Yeah. She's, I don't know. She loves to eat and sleep. That's about it. She's still not crawling or rolling over, which fine. But yeah, she's just , oh, yeah. I'll just eat all day if you let me. No. So I don't know. She's just such a joy. I love taking her out to stores and restaurants and I don't know. She was very bright and engaging when she was Yes, yeah, I mean just bright eyed and Yeah, very observant. She'll sit there and stare for hours. So how long before you take her and show her how to run the mixing at one of your weekend gigs? I think I'm gonna wait until she's at least two and a half. Oh, that's probably good. Yeah. That way all her motor skills are definitely under control. Does Fisher Price make a mixing DJ set? They do. No way. They do. I got one for my nephew about six years ago, and I thought it was the coolest gift. Nice. Yep. Some headphones and. I'm technically not a DJ, but people get it confused all the time. Oh, okay. Sorry. That's funny. I always wanted to be a DJ. You gotta make this sound. The sound of silence as she's moving the the knobs up and down or the the levers. See, I told you I'm faking. You gotta take this job Well, I don't know what those are. Switches. Faders. Faders. See? Potentiometers. Alright. Oh boy. Woah. Oh my goodness. Pots we call them. That's another term. Pot. Oh. It's a safe term. Potentiometer pot. Really? I come from an electronics background. So Okay. Okay. Well, we're sitting in Sun City, Arizona with dispensaries around the corner, so I think we need to ask questions. That's true. Arizona's first drive thru dispensary just around the corner. Nick, you derailed us. Thanks, Nick. Back to Emma. Back to Emma. Emma, do you have any other hobbies? What else do you to do in your free time? I used to be really into mountain biking and hiking. Really? Mhmm. I was into mountain biking for a long time too. Really? Yes. I had no idea. Well, this is a good state to do it if you have time. Yes. Although mountain biking with a baby is maybe a little more complicated. A little too dangerous. We did just get a little baby trailer that you hook onto a bike. Oh, cute. I don't think it's suitable for the trails that we ride, but I don't know. Could be fun on the downhill. Does she have a helmet? Yes. Excellent. If you need more than that, , cold airbags this Yeah. So we go on the sidewalk and stuff with her, but yeah, that's what we to do. I to be outside as much as possible. Because staring at screens is what I primarily do. So if I can get away from that, it's super nice and refreshing. Good idea. All right, well thanks for sharing with us today. I hope the community has a chance to connect with you and say hi. Send Emma a little Rock chat and say hello when you get a chance, and we thank you for joining us today. Today's show was produced by Emily Forman. Nick was our recording engineer who turned the dials and pushed the buttons. Jim Michael handled all the audio post production mixing. There are amazing show notes, which you can find at rockrms.com/connect, were transcribed and written up by Michael Garrison. 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.