Today is the final day to take the State of the Church Online | Member Community and Social Networks survey. We’ve had a tremendous response to the survey with a definite surge of respondents taking it over the last week. Currently we’re hovering just under 300 respondents and I personally hope to we break 300 before the day is over.

With this milestone we’ll move into the next stage of this research where we’ll be reaching out to church leaders to conduct interviews. We hope through the interviews to better understand how these types of solutions have created an impact in churches and communities of all shapes and sizes. If you are a church leader who’s community has been significantly impacted by your member community or social network and you would like to share your experiences to help others who are considering investing in a tool, please contact us at research@unconventionalmethod.com.

Over the coming weeks we will be analyzing the data from the survey and beginning to produce the multiple deliverables for this project. So be sure the check back in soon for an update and information about how you can access the findings from this research.

It’s true. I don’t think most companies would confess something like that. And somewhere back in B-school I’m sure they taught us to avoid admitting such things. Oh well.

Fortunately the times we mess up are usually the result of the chaos and challenges of running a small business. And they aren’t catastrophic or indicative of any major flaws. I’m talking about things like letting an email go unanswered or neglecting to add a project partner to a web page. Thus far these situations have been remedied rather easily.

During the remedy phase of a recent error (a neglected email), I realized that it is quite natural to want to include some form of an excuse when seeking forgiveness for our mistake. Simple things like, “Hey, sorry I didn’t get back to you, I’ve been in crisis mode for two weeks.” Or, “Sorry it’s taken me this long to respond, I was trapped under something heavy.” We do it as a way of providing contextual information that somehow enlightens the other person as to why the error occurred. More after the jump…

We here at Unconventional Method believe that this simple act of excusing our errors does more damage to our relationship with our clients than the healing achieved through the apology. Here’s why: our error cost our client something – time, convenience, reputation, etc. In addition, it diminishes our client’s trust in us. Since we exist to add value to our clients, not to subtract it, it is our obligation to not only make up the cost but to try and regain the trust that has been lost.

When we excuse our behavior (even innocently) we do two things:

1. We effectively say to our client, “Here’s why our behavior is justified and you should bear the costs.” diminishing the hurt we might have caused.
2. We attempt to make the case for our forgiveness by shifting the blame for our mistake. There is nothing wrong with seeking forgiveness, but we believe that actions speak louder than words and as a company that values integrity we would rather not try and cover our mistakes. Instead we want to focus on not making them in the first place and on making sure we don’t make them again.

So our commitment for when we make a mistake (and we will make mistakes) is to:

• address it as soon as we realize the mistake has occurred;
• communicate immediately and directly with the parties impacted by our error;
  • in person is best;
  • phone is second best;
  • email doesn’t quite cut it;
• acknowledge the mistake;
• take responsibility our actions;
• apologize;
• explore the impact our actions have created (both tangible and intangible);
• offer to make it right;
• make it right and move on.

That’s it.

Yes we will provide information and details about the circumstances of the situation but only if it is part of our effort to make it right. You have a right to know why whatever occurred occurred. And we will be honest and transparent with you in those situations. But we will never offer up those details unprompted because of our commitment to making no excuses.

Image source: http://mnr.onthescene.com/Gatorade/images_G/No-Excuses-Berry-32oz-web.jpg

I started the survey on “The State of the Church” and got about halfway through.  I got interrupted and had to leave it.  When I tried to resume, I got an error message telling me that the session timed out.

Is there any way that I can resume it, or do I have to start over?

Users taking the State of the Church Online | Member Community and Social Networks survey have noted that if they get distracted from taking the survey, their session times out and they can not resume where they left off. That’s no good! Wnat to read what we did about it? More after the jump…The challenge with LimeSurvey is the way the system operates requires users to have a survey token in order to automatically save their answers. For open registration in LimeSurvey new users are first presented with a screen asking them to input their name and email address and (if enabled) to answer a CAPTCHA security question.

We decided that in order encourage participation of the survey, we would not require people to register. We believe that it is important respect respondents’ time and both limit the number of pages/clicks they must navigate through and not present them with superfluous steps/check points.

The downside of this strategy is that we can’t automatically save survey progress for individuals. Our workaround:

First, extend survey session timeout limit.

1. Access the config-defaults.php and config.php files from your Limesurvey main folder;
2. BE SURE TO BACK UP A COPIES OF THE FILES BEFORE MAKING CHANGES;
3. Open config-defaults.php with an editor and search for $sessionlifetime;
4. Copy entire line and paste into new line in config.php
5. Change $sessionlifetime value to 7200; (This is the number of seconds a survey session will remain active. We changed it to 2 hours.)
6. Save file and upload it into main server.

Second, preload user’s previous responses when launching a new survey session.

LimeSurvey allows you to preload responses into a survey sessions by embedding codes into the survey URL. This is done using the SGQL Identifier and the desired answer and entering them in this format &sidXgidXqid=ans (where sid=survey ID, gid= group ID, and qid= question ID for the specific questions and ans= the desired answer in the correct format).

What we did was:

1. Go into the survey results and identify the user’s first survey responses by using his IP address.
2. Identified which was the last question answered.
3. We then exported his responses in .CSV (comma seperated value) format selecting the “Question Codes” and “Answer Codes” option.
   1. We had to split his reponses into two files because MS Excel limits spreadsheets to 255 columns and LimeSurvey exports one question option per column (i.e. a Yes/Uncertain/No question would take up three columns – one for each answer).
   2. Selecting “Answer Codes” returns the answer values in the correct format for inserting into the URL. Do not select “Convert ‘Y’ to ‘1′”.
4. We then exported the survey structure so that we would have a table reference for matching questions to the appropriate SID, GID, and QID.
5. We copied the answers into a new file along, transposing the answers so that the reponses were now spread across rows.
6. Using formulas in Excel, we cross-referenced the question codes and fill in columns for SID, QID, GID (from the survey structure export), entries for the Answer Options on Multiple Choice questions, and the desired answer (from the response export).
7. Using the Concatenate function, we combined the cells to the correct format for plugging in the URL (e.g. =(concatenate(”&”,”SID”,”X”,”GID”,”X”,”QID”,”=”,”ans”) – or, for multiple choice questions – =(concatenate(”&”,”SID”,”X”,”GID”,”X”,”QID”,”Opt#”,”=”,”ans”) where Opt# is the ID of each answer.
   1. Note, for multiple choice there are no characters between the QID and the Opt#;
   2. The correct answer format for Numeric Entry questions is =”#”, where # is the number they entered (e.g. “6″);
   3. The correct answer format for List questions is =”Y” for the question/option they selected;
   4. The correct answer format for Array questions is =”lab_set-code”, where “lab_set-code” is the corresponding code for the appropriate option within the label set for the question. (i.e. If the array question uses label set 26 and the options for label set 26 are given codes “opt1″, “opt2″, “opt3″, the code for selection opt3 is &sidXgidXqid=”opt3″.)
8. We then combined all of these strings into one large string, skipping questions and options that the user had left blank (i.e. hadn’t selected or hadn’t been presented due to survey logic). The result was a chain of 150+ answer strings (e.g. &sid1Xgid1Xqid1=ans1&sid2Xgid2Xqid2=ans2…&sid.nXgid.nXqid.n=ans.n)
9. We then appended this string to the end of our survey URL (e.g. http://www.unconventionalmethod.com/tools/survey/index.php?sid=93799&newtest=Y&lang=en &sidXgidXqid=ans…)
10. We then pluged the new (very very long URL) into our favorite URL shortening service and sent the new link to the user. Unfortunately, the user will have to click through all the previous questions to get to where they left off but at least their answers are preserved.

Tedious? Yes. Worth the effort? Yes. We would hate to for that user not to complete the survey because they had to start over. So for the sake of getting their full feedback it was worth it.

Anyone out there with LimeSurvey experience have a better way to save survey sessions that have expired?

http://www.unconventionalmethod.com/project-pages/state-of-the-church-online/

Project Overview

In the last few years a number of new private church community networks have been introduced into the market in addition to the development of numerous social networking sites. In January 2009, Unconventional Method partnered with Drew Goodmanson of Monk Development to design research to explore what churches are doing effectively online in this area and help shape the understanding of how churches can use the internet to gather, disciple and build community. From January 27 through February 21, over 500 people participated in an exploratory survey examining what churches are doing with social and community networks.

In Phase II of the project, we will be expanding on many of the issues raised in our initial research. Through a more in‐depth survey and targeted phone interviews, we hope to develop a better understand how pervasive the use of these web applications is and how churches are approaching community and social networks.

We will gather data on usage, experiences, satisfaction, behavior, preferences, perceptions, and demographics. We will go beyond traditional metrics in order determine how these tools promote activities that are central to being Christian and being the church. Our aim is to both help bring clarity and guidance for churches to pursue excellence online while providing market intelligence that will help the developers of these applications improve their sales and products.

Client: Foreign Missions Organization*
Revenues: >$5M
Field Staff: >300
Primary Activities: church planting; community development; medical work; missions; support services; teaching;

Overview: In 2008, the client engaged Unconventional Method to provide analysis and recommendations on how to develop a Business as Mission strategy and support business efforts around the world. The client was considering funding a Business as Mission enterprise in Asia and sought to identify its funding options given its strategic and regulatory environment. Given the client’s limited experience with Business as Mission, it also sought to develop a better understanding of the concept in order to explore how it might fit with the overall strategy and operations of the organization.

Project objectives:

1. Establish a foundation for the client to integrate business into its global strategy.
2. Explore options for the client to support a business start-up in Laos.
3. Develop business opportunity screening criteria and process.

Project Deliverables:

• Recommended Funding Approach – highlighting a recommended approach for achieving funding objectives and documenting key considerations and other findings.
• BAM Opportunity Evaluation tool.
• Findings Report – discussing recommendations and potential next steps.

*Client’s identity has been concealed for the security of field personnel.

We develop specialized solutions for our clients leveraging creative thinking, market-insight, business theory, and a unique perspective to help them achieve excellence by:

• Identifying and tapping into individual and organizational strengths, talents, and passions to stimulate and achieve excellence
• Mastering the ability to listen to, learn from, anticipate, and influence the external environment
• Scanning markets for creative ideas and untapped potential to develop new directions for companies
• Designing systems for making strategic decisions, identifying alternatives and obstacles, and determining the best route
• Leveraging the power of individuals, markets, technology, and culture to create and sustain social change

Client: Foreign Missions Organization*
Revenues: >$10M
Field Staff: >500
Primary Activities: church growth; discipleship; evangelism; leadership training; missions; support services

Overview: In 2007, the organization’s leadership became interested in the concept of Business as Mission. Early stage efforts were focused on raising awareness and laying the foundation for a more vigorous, formatted approach to BAM within the organization. In early 2008, Unconventional Method was engaged to lay the foundation for the organization to develop a Business as Mission strategy.

From April to July 2008, Unconventional Method performed a series of qualitative interviews of the leadership team and members of the board of directors to gain a better understanding of the state of the organization and the potential fit of Business as Mission. The objective of the engagement was to analyze the organizational and cultural considerations that will have the greatest influence on the development of a Business as Mission strategy within the organization. The findings addressed four (4) areas that Unconventional Method believes are the most relevant for evaluating Business as Mission:

• Foundation of understanding of key principles and issues
• Motivation for pursuing
• Suitability of a strategy
• Constraints on the design of a strategy

*Client’s identity has been concealed for the security of field personnel.

When BAM practitioners began integrating a traditional business worldview with a traditional mission worldview many years ago, they were faced with a number of fundamental issues and challenges. The current study shows how the BAM movement has addressed challenges and identifies new areas that merit further research. Sponsored by EC Group International, created by Unconventional Method, and based on responses from nearly 500 practitioners, educators, and supporters of Business as Mission, the study addresses the following key issues:

Who makes up the Business as Mission community?

Background: The Business as Mission movement is entering a growth stage that is marked by increased awareness and the emergence of new participants. What is the profile of the current BAM leaders?

The evidence: The movement is being lead by businessmen and women between the ages of 30 and 59 years old who believe God has called them to Business as Mission. This group is well educated and comfortable with integrating ministry and missions into their businesses.

• A majority (69 percent) believes they are called to Business as Mission and BAM is believed to be as beneficial to the kingdom as traditional missions.
• Nearly all (96 percent) people associated with the Business as Mission movement have a college degree or greater.
• The 45 to 59 year old age group makes up the largest percentage (45 percent) of the Business as Mission movement.

How does Business as Mission create kingdom impact?

Background: Business as Mission is one of many strategies in existence that mixes business activities with evangelism and ministry efforts. What is distinctive about BAM’s objectives and what has proven effective in achieving those goals?

The evidence: The Business as Mission movement does not have a systematic approach for driving kingdom impact. However, it is beginning to identify key objectives, methodologies, metrics, and processes that have proven to be effective.

• The most agreed upon objective of BAM is to build the local economy and bless the nation. The second most agreed upon objective is providing access to many locations.
• Corporate structure, management oversight, and sustainability are key considerations for achieving BAM objectives. A majority believes start-up organizations are better able to achieve BAM objectives.
• Within BAM companies, social programs are aimed at creating direct benefit for internal stakeholders. The BAM movement strives to be good stewards of environmental resources but does put extra effort toward environmental initiatives. Spiritual activities are subject to questions of appropriateness and whether or not a company should take on some responsibilities of the church.

How have BAM practitioners integrated their business and spiritual backgrounds?

Background: It is difficult to evaluate BAM efforts and impact across the traditional business and missions/church value systems. How is this influencing the Business as Mission community?

The evidence: The majority of the movement has rejected the sacred/secular divide. They are now working to identify misconceptions from each worldview and integrate best practices from each. Influences of both perspectives are evident in how money is viewed by the BAM community. BAM practitioners are unsure about how spiritual activities should be incorporated into BAM companies.

• Profit is accepted as good and the majority of respondents favor using it for further investment in kingdom companies. One out of five respondents do not agree that return on investments is important.
• Respondents generally expect 30 percent of funding for Business as Mission companies to come from donations. Nearly one half of respondents do not include debt or church donations as part of the “ideal” funding for a BAM company.
• Many respondents (36 percent) are uncertain about verbal evangelism in the BAM context. Most respondents support spiritual activities for managers but question the appropriateness of efforts aimed at employees.

How can the church support the Business as Mission movement?

Background: A lot of the progress of the Business as Mission movement has been fueled by businesspeople rejecting the limitations placed on them by the Christian community. To what extent has this influenced BAM leaders?

The evidence: One quarter of BAM leaders do not get support from their church or social community. Certain church characteristics increase the likelihood of that church giving support.

• The pastor plays an integral role in controlling the amount of commitment a particular church gives to Business as Mission. Having a pastor that is aware of BAM increases the likelihood that the church will pray for BAM 15 times.
• Churches that pray for businesspeople are 5 times more likely to pray specifically for BAM.

Methodology

The 2007 Business as Mission study was designed by Kevin Ring of Unconventional Method with Sara Maher and Katherine Ring of EC Group International and created using online survey software by WorldAPP. The survey was funded entirely by EC Group International.

Survey collection period

August 3 to August 31, 2007

Sample size

497 respondents in 38 countries, age 18 and older.

• 282 self-identified as Business (57 percent)
• 113 self-identified as Non-Profit (23 percent)
• 68 self-identified as Education (17 percent).

Margin of error

At the 95% confidence level:

• Total sample is +/- 4.3%
• Business respondents is +/-5.8%
• Non-Profit respondents is +/-9.2%
• Education respondents is +/- 11.9%

Example question

Please indicate what you believe as the ideal make-up of funds for supporting a Business as Missions organization. (Allocated percentages must total 100%)
Funding Source:

1. Individual donors
2. Personal savings
3. Investors
4. Borrowed – loans
5. Church/missions organizations