News and Ideas from Welcoming Websites

Working at Unitarian Universalist Association

Shelby — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 13:08:01 -0400

I am pleased to announce that in June, I accepted a permanent position at the Unitarian Universalist Association with nearly-full-time hours. My position is public witness specialist and I help publicize the public witness initiatives of the UUA and member congregations. During the spring I had been working at the UUA on a part-time basis; I decided to step up my commitment because this is a wonderful opportunity to raise the public profile of Unitarian Universalism and share the good news about our congregations. The desire to help share our faith led me to co-found Welcoming Websites with Shai, and that desire that will continue to fuel my work at the UUA, as well as our work here at Welcoming Websites.

The decision carries for me a little sadness that I will be spending less time each week at Welcoming Websites. However, Shai will continue to be fully available to new and ongoing UU clients, and we will continue to offer the same level of web development services. Welcoming Websites has had several accomplishments that we are proud of this spring, including the launch of the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee website, the redesign of Rev. Rosemary Bray McNatt's blogs, and a good start to the redevelopment of the Prairie Star District's Stonetree Congregational Resources Project website.

For those of you who know me also through the UUA, or through Looking for Faith, you may notice that I am wearing many hats. (Sorry to use such a cliche, but there's just no other phrase for it!) We want to be very clear that Welcoming Websites continues to be an independent business; we are not sponsored, endorsed, or otherwise supported by the Unitarian Universalist Association.

If you have any questions about how Welcoming Websites operates, or suggestions for how we can better serve congregations and religious nonprofits, please don't hesitate to contact us.

Welcoming Websites launches new UUSC site

Shai — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 17:00:00 -0400

As the 2008 Unitarian Universalist General Assembly begins, Welcoming Websites is proud to announce the launch of the new website for the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee. The new website reorganizes UUSC's content around four high-level navigation menus, and allows visitors to learn a great deal about UUSC's four focus areas, its membership engagement activities, and its wide range of human rights advocacy resources. The launch of the new website coincides with the launch of UUSC's e-Community, an online community which facilitates email newsletter signups, online donations, and e-activism.

Welcoming Websites took an active role in planning and implementing the new UUSC website. The project began with a brief strategy phase, which focused the site's goals and core audiences. An initial version of the site was implemented using Drupal 5.x, combining a variety of standard modules including CCK, Views, and eCommerce. A look-and-feel incorporating the new UUSC logo was drafted by JM Design, and converted into a Drupal theme with close cooperation between JM Design and Welcoming Websites. Welcoming Websites devised a number of custom modules and theme modifications to complete the project.

A great deal of the content on UUSC's website is related to major initiatives or membership engagement activities. This content is organized into a small number of "minisites". Each minisite corresponds to a single UUSC focus area, campaign, or membership engagement activity. Minisites conform to a standard structure, allowing visitors to navigate through the site easily, knowing that they can expect a consistent experience from one page to the next. At the same time, administrators have the freedom to tweak and refine this structure, to emphasize information that is specific to a small number of initiatives.

The use of Drupal for the UUSC's website significantly reduces the overhead involved in managing content, which facilitating unique functionality and content organization, through minisites and other core Drupal functionality. Welcoming Websites is excited to support the important human rights advocacy work carried on by UUSC and its members through the creation of a solid platform for online communications.

Welcoming Websites working with Stonetree Congregational Resources

Shelby — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 17:09:38 -0400

Welcoming Websites is pleased to be working with the Stonetree Congregational Resources project. The Stonetree website, supported by the Prairie Star District of the Unitarian Universalist Association, connects Unitarian Universalist congregations with people who can serve as resources on the arts, ceremonies, social action, and other areas related to congregational life. Welcoming Websites is assisting the Prairie Star District in using Drupal to make the Stonetree Congregational Resources website more scalable, and accessible to a larger audience.

New Designs For Rev. Rosemary Bray McNatt's Blogs

Shelby — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 20:48:51 -0400

Welcoming Websites has been working with Rev. Rosemary Bray McNatt to develop a more unified look among her two established blogs (RevRose.com and TrusteeTalk.net) and her new blog (NoHomeTraining.org).

As part of this process, we migrated Trustee Talk into Wordpress and installed Wordpress for No Home Training. (Rev Rose was already in Wordpress). With all three blogs then using Wordpress, we produced three different variations of the Hemingway Wordpress theme and installed one on each of McNatt's blogs. The structural similarity between all three variations of Hemingway creates continuity between the three blog, while the unique color schemes allow each blog to have its own personality.

Trustee Talk

Rev Rose

No Home Training

Universalist Unitarian Church of Riverside launches new site

Shai — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 14:26:03 -0500

Welcoming Websites today announces the launch of the new site for the Universalist Unitarian Church of Riverside. The new site will help UUCR reach out to prospective visitors, provide its members with important information, and gather feedback from website visitors. UUCR's new site includes a Sermon Archive, Minister's Blog, and a variety of other useful features.

This site was built in Drupal 5, using the Beale Street theme from RoopleTheme. We also included important site maintenance features, like the TinyMCE rich text editor and an automated Backup-and-Restore feature to help UUCR protect itself against potential data loss.

We're very excited about the launch of this site, as we believe it will help UUCR extend its ministry to new visitors and build community within its membership.

Unitarian Universalist Ministers Association launches new site

Shai — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 20:38:14 -0500

Today Welcoming Websites launched the new site for the Unitarian Universalist Ministers Association. Launched in coordination with the UUMA's drive to register members for its annual Ministry Days, the new site will help UUMA members share information and connect with one another. It will also help members and staff achieve many common tasks, like archiving and retrieving documents, more efficiently and quickly.

The site was built using Drupal 5, and it brings together a number of Drupal's most powerful features. These features include user management, group subscriptions, content types and dynamic views, and ad hoc form design. The Drupal architecture will serve UUMA well for many years to come, as it will allow the organization to continually enhance and upgrade its site as new extensions and upgrades are added to Drupal.

We are proud to serve this vital Unitarian Universalist organization, and we look forward to supporting the UUMA's crucial mission in the future.

Welcoming Websites Begins Development Work for the Universalist Unitarian Church of Riverside

Shelby — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 16:56:44 -0500

We are pleased to be starting work with a new client, the UU Church of Riverside.

The Universalist Unitarian Church of Riverside (UUCR), in California, is transitioning to a site based on the Drupal content management system. Their new site will feature a fresh design and increased functionality, including a sermon audio archive, surveys for website visitors, and a minister's blog. With the support of the congregation's website task force, lay leaders and church administrators will be trained to add content to the website on Drupal's user-friendly interface. Welcoming Websites is enthusiastic about enhancing UUCR's online presence through increased functionality and usability.

Ok, I Signed Up for StumbleUpon, Now What?

Shelby — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 09:33:05 -0500

Cross-posted from a series at my personal blog, Looking for Faith. Although this series is addressed specifically to Unitarian Universalists, the advice is relevant to a wider spectrum of religious groups using StumbleUpon to promote their websites.

Since the last post encouraging UU's to sign-up for StumbleUpon, a number of Unitarian Universalist bloggers have been in touch to say they are Stumblers. Yay! The list of UU Stumblers includes ChaliceChick, Elizabeth, John Pageless, Ms. Kitty, Ms. Theologian, Suzanne Reed, and me.

Ms. Kitty asked in a recent comment for advice on next steps, so let's discuss how to increase traffic to worthwhile Unitarian Universalist sites using StumbleUpon:

Step 1: Start Stumbling...

Give a thumbs up to what you believe are the best Unitarian Universalist webpages, so that other Stumblers will give them a look. My experience is that it's fine to Stumble posts on your own site -- and it will increase traffic -- so long as you Stumble a variety of other sites as well. The more sites you stumble and tag, the more people will notice your StumbleUpon list, and hopefully visit the sites you've recommended.

Step 2: Choose Topics and Write Tags

After clicking the thumbs up button, choose a topic from the drop-down menu to apply to each site (such as "religion") and add tags such as "uu" and "unitarian-universalism."

Ms. Theologian has pointed out in the comments that the panel in which to assign tags does not always appear after you click the "I like it" button. This usually happens when you are on a site someone else has already tagged. In this case, click on the button in the toolbar that looks like a thought-bubble, and then scroll down to where it says "You rated..." and click "Edit Tags or Review." I have no idea why the site is designed this way, but there you go!

I also like to add tags that relate to the specific content of the post. If the page is about being a Unitarian Universalist parent, I'd add the words "parenting," and "children." That way, the post may attract the attention of Stumblers interested in parenting posts, in addition to those looking for specifically religious content.

Step 3: Make Friends

Having friends and "fans" on StumbleUpon is another way to increase the number of people who notice your StumbleUpon recommendations. After clicking the "Browse People" button on the righthand sidebar of your StumbleUpon homepage, you can search for Stumblers by location, shared interest, or other factors. When you're on the StumbleUpon page of a user and thinking "you know, I really like what they are Stumbling," then you can click the "Add her/him as a friend" button.

The terminology around "friends" and "fans" on StumbleUpon is needlessly murky. To clarify: if you click the "Add her/him as a friend button," you become a "fan" of that person. If they reciprocate, they you are "mutual friends." If someone adds you as a friend, and you don't reciprocate, then they are a "fan" of you.

Step 4: Ask to be Stumbled

If you have a Unitarian Universalist website, whether it's your blog, your congregation's website, or another UU-relevant site, it's ok to write a quick blurb encouraging your readers who use social media to promote it.

UU blogger Julian helpfully recommends pasting some code at the end of posts that includes the buttons for StumbleUpon and other social media. There are also Wordpress plugins that encourage readers to promote your posts on social media. I've hesitated to use one on Looking for Faith out of concern that the buttons will confuse readers unfamiliar with social media, but perhaps this is Luddite of me.

Any other steps that should be added to the list? Please let me know in the comments. Thanks and happy Stumbling!

To see earlier posts in this series, visit Four Reasons for Unitarian Universalists to Use Social Media and More StumbleUpon for Unitarian Universalists.

Four Reasons for Unitarian Universalists to Use Social Media

Shelby — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 14:36:28 -0500

This is cross-posted from my personal blog, Looking for Faith. Although it is geared toward Unitarian Universalist readers, the four reasons sited are relevant to the promotion of websites from other faith traditions as well...

John at the Pageless Book is writing a series on the use of social media to promote Unitarian Universalism, and has asked other Unitarian Universalist bloggers to join in this worthy effort.

Here are four reasons for Unitarian Universalists to use social media (such as StumbleUpon, Digg, and Technorati)...

#1. Social media is an effective way to increase traffic to Unitarian Universalist websites. Share our message!

It's as simple clicking a button, writing a few words about the site you're recommending, and adding some category tags.

Then, when other users browse such categories as "religion" or "spirituality," they'll find the posts you recommended, pointing them to Unitarian Universalist websites!

#2. Small amount of time --> Big outcome.

I use StumbleUpon, and other than the few minutes to download the StumbleUpon toolbar, it's taken almost no time to use, and given a nice boost to my blog readership (and hopefully to the other UU blogs that I've Stumbled).

#3. A few dedicated users can make a difference.

I've been surprised at the disproportionate impact that a few users can have when tagging content in a relatively small category, like "Unitarian Universalism." Of course, this can be used for not-so-good ends, which is another reason it's important for those of us who promote and celebrate Unitarian Universalism to actively participate in social media.

#4. Helps keep track of the articles and blog posts you want to remember.

This is an added benefit that has less to do with promoting Unitarian Universalism, and more to do with promoting personal sanity. I am so relieved that I do not have to remember the identifying information for every interesting blog post I come across. That's what I use StumbleUpon for. And for UU bloggers, it's an added bonus, since you can use it to mark content that you want to mention in a later post.

Connecting with Readers of Your Ministry Blog

Shelby — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 13:41:54 -0500

Many bloggers focus on the numbers when evaluating the impact of their blog, in particular the numbers of visitors and subscribers. However, smart ministry bloggers know that the quality of their relationships with readers is just as important. If you are blogging to share your faith with others or bring them into your congregation, focus on depth as well as breadth in your interactions with readers.

Skellie at ProBlogger recently posted on "How to Transform Readers into Raving Fans." ProBlogger is aimed at a wide range of professional bloggers, hence the "raving fans" metaphor that doesn't quite fit the minister-reader relationship. But title aside, Skellie offers insights that are quite relevant to blogging in a ministry context.

Skellie observes that the principles of relating to people in-person also apply to relating to people through blogging. He writes:

We can spend a lot of time with someone but feel very little
closeness to them if they make us feel a bit stupid, or boring, or as
if our views aren’t important. On the other hand, we can feel quite
close to someone very quickly if they give us their undivided
attention, entertain us and seem to enjoy what we have to say.

Another key in building relationships of any kind is sharing our
experiences and personality: probably because both these things are
completely unique to us.

Readers have positive feelings towards you as a blogger if you are present in your writing, and take the time to respond to reader concerns. And as Skellie notes, these positive feelings make readers more likely to "treat with you with respect," "speak highly of you to others," and "trust your recommendations." If you are blogging in a ministry context, cultivating such relationships with readers is essential.

Another key point about connecting with readers is that it can help you to grow in your spiritual journey and professional capacities. On a practical level, listening to readers allows you to better understand their spiritual needs. In addition, readers too have valuable spiritual insights to share that can inspire other readers, and you!