Yules said...

Loving your blog!

I hear you’re completely a java shop. Could you talk more about why you made that decision and how it works for you?

Cheers!

December 8, 2006 12:06 am #

Aaron said...

Hey Joel! I was introduced to your website by your brother John and I’m glad he did. I’m in IT, specifically networking and if I had the opportunity to go I would be interested in knowing more about the networking technologies and equipment that the Church uses.

December 8, 2006 7:55 am #

John said...

I’d be interested to hear how you guys deal with the amount of languages you do.

I also wonder how you keep temple records straight. The namespace for the population of the planet is some serious stuff. Keeping duplicates out and just giving a record a unique ID seems like a task in and of itself.

Also, what’s the Church’s position on open source? Are you contributing to any projects or using any OS software? What’s your experiences there?

December 8, 2006 9:15 am #

Naiah Earhart said...

I’d be curious about what you’re doing ‘beyond the web,’ like what kinds of technologies are being used for internal app’s, tools, etc. My husband is a dev at MS, and I’m just a web-publisher (read:blogs), but we’ll be there for the Seattle presentation! (So glad you guys are including one up here! Thank-you!!!)

December 8, 2006 9:24 am #

Lincoln Cannon said...

Hi Joel.

I am interested in learning about what you are planning, if anything, to automate information processes at ward and stake levels, where there is a great deal of inefficiency in areas such as move-ins and move-outs, visiting and home teaching statistics, schedule coordination, and general communication.

. . . placing the tedious burdens on our technology, so that we may all focus more on what matters more.

December 8, 2006 10:50 am #

ldsWebguy » Church CIO Begins Blog said...

[…] He invites comments on topics you would be interested in. […]

December 8, 2006 10:53 am #

Joseph Scott said...

I attended something similar (late summer 2005?) in Pleasanton, CA, which I really enjoyed. The challenges facing the family history folks with getting the microfiche data online with fast access was a fun. Probably because I really like hearing about challenges that involve the terms petabytes and databases

They also mentioned the move to everything Java, which I was a bit disappointed in. I understand that it came from, at least in part, getting burned by TCL. Having open, standard, documented ways of exchanging data can be more powerful that just limiting yourself to one tool. The wide spread use of web based APIs (REST, SOAP, XML-RPC, XML, JSON, etc) seems to confirm this approach.

At any rate, I’m happy to hear that other technologies are being considered. I wise VMS sysadmin once told me, use the right tool for the job.

December 8, 2006 10:54 am #

Joey said...

I’d love to learn about the LDS Church Music page you guys have up at lds.org/music. I’ve been thinking of setting up a similar website for Evangelical Christian hymns. Is that system developed in house or is it a software package you guys bought from someone? If it was developed in house, any plans to roll it out for others to use? Thanks.

December 8, 2006 2:01 pm #

Connor said...

Ah! Glad to see the comments working - I tried a couple days ago and it wasn’t working. I’m excited to see another person at the Church exposing to the outside world what all you guys (err.. brothers.. and sisters..) are doing.

I second John’s comment about learning how you handle multiple languages in your system. I’d also be curious what type of CMS solutions you use, what you like/dislike about them, etc.

December 8, 2006 4:06 pm #

Jon Marsh said...

Having worked for 11 months as a Workstation Replacement Intern and also participated with you in a feedback session last year, let me first say thanks for the great leadership you’ve been providing since the day you arrived.

Since I left Church employment last November, I’ve gained more expose to Citrix and the thin-client model and noted that while working there, the Church was moving away from this paradigm. Any chance of going back to something like this for family history missionaries or other situations that tend to not need anything other than a simple database or internet connection?

December 8, 2006 5:38 pm #

Christopher said...

I would be interested in-
-how the church is using/contributing to open source projects
-accessibility, for users with disabilities as well as portable devices and

December 8, 2006 9:14 pm #

Michael H. Cox said...

I’d be interested in the future of the Stake & Ward Websites.

One big recommendation that I’d have is for the Admin to be able to see the last login for each registered user. Also, a way to see how many people are looking at each page (ie stats or hit counter or something)

December 10, 2006 1:32 am #

Steve Cottrell said...

I’d be interested in knowing what the Church is planning to do to support stake and ward web sites in areas outside of North America.

December 10, 2006 8:10 am #

Ethan said...

Not sure if you are checking this anymore and I am far from a software engineer, but I am really interested in hearing about the new PAF that I hear is being developed. I have heard it will be Open Source and cross-platform. Can you confirm/deny? Any idea of a release date?

December 11, 2006 9:34 pm #

ldsWebguy » Open Source Ldsoss.org said...

[…] They have a Wiki and a Mailing List.I would encourage the members of ldsoss to participate in the upcoming tech talks with the Chief Information Officer of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. […]

December 12, 2006 10:57 am #

Aaron said...

I’d like to know more about the Church’s enterprise architecture and strategy, and what kind of capabilities IT is providing to both the spiritual and temporal missions of the Church. You mentioned on a previous post the complex and diverse body of applications you oversee. I’m interested in how they all fit together into an overarching strategy of vision for using and managing IT in the Church.

December 12, 2006 2:12 pm #

Jesse Stay said...

Hey Joel! Thought I’d chime in here as well. It’s Jesse from LDSOSS.org. Some things I would love to hear presentations on:

-How the Church is currently utilizing Open Source Software in its current environment, and how (and if) the Church is planning to use Open Source methodologies and techniques to further build the Kingdom. Perhaps a discussion or a few notes (if the Church feels that way) on how Open Source can relate to the Law of Consecration (I would be happy to help out with that if you want).
-Where the Church is planning to move with the Ward and Stake websites, and the technology you plan to use to do so
-How the Church intends to use technology to spread the Gospel/do missionary work
-Ways we as average members/non-employees of the Church can contribute to Software Development projects and donate our time and talents to the “Building of the Kingdom”
-Agile Development and the Church - I am aware a few of your developers are currently integrating Agile techniques within the Church
-Advantages/Disadvantages of using AJAX vs. Flex/Flash vs. Java applets (this would be a good moderated discussion - if this is not something that can be discussed in these Tech Talks, the mailing list on ldsoss.org is an excellent place for discussions such as this)

I hope that gives some good ideas…

December 12, 2006 8:29 pm #

David Wiley said...

I’ll be interested to speak with you about OSS licensing of information (given that you’re the C-I-O). Specifically, something like Creative Commons licenses or the GFDL for some things like Gospel Art Kit pictures and curriculum like the upcoming Spencer W. Kimball text. Licensing these more openly would allow for all kinds of useful things to happen; explicitly permitting derivative works will allow volunteers to create audio version of the Pres. Kimball text.

December 13, 2006 7:59 am #

James W. Anderson said...

I know some will be interested in what the Church website teams are doing about search engine optimization so that the search engines will index and put out more properly the content on Church public-facing websites and that material on sites that are not entirely public-facing but with a good amount of material will be found more readily by member and nonmember alike.

Conversely, SEO when poorly done can actually hurt a site. And with the unwritten, yet apparent mandate that the Church sites help the world find out about what the Prophets and apostles have spoken, good SEO will almost certainly be a must in making the words of the Prophets more accessible and easy to find, by both member and nonmember alike. Even if the person searching does not know beforehand what the Church is or what it believes in and teaches.

December 13, 2006 6:19 pm #

Doug Kennard said...

When and where will the dates / times / places of the tech talks be announced?

December 15, 2006 1:51 pm #

Brian Miller said...

I would be interested in the types and sizes of databases the church uses. Do you do data mining? Are you using AI or Rules based technologies? I am close to SLC and would love to be involved.

December 20, 2006 4:58 pm #

Alan Jones said...

Since there are as many if not more members in California as there are in Utah, could we have one of these in California? Preferable southern California?

I appreciate the greater openness and access and willingness to share what is going on. Many parts of the church have been viewed as black holes in the past since no light (information) ever shined out from them.

I am a senior software engineer and business systems analyst. I would attend.

December 20, 2006 4:59 pm #

Leon Stucki said...

Joel,

I have a small software company in the Seattle area which has developed some truly unique and user friendly software that has many potential uses in the church. I would like to hear about your Seattle meetings and try to participate in them.

December 20, 2006 4:59 pm #

Justin Masters said...

I attended the Pleasanton Family History developer event, and was fascinated at the size, scope and progress made on making accessible the contents of microfilm records and utilizing many new types of search requests for family history.

I hope you can make a Northern California event as well. But perhaps this might be the beginning of occasional satellite broadcasts to cover a single presentation… (time zone issues notwithstanding).

It strikes me odd that we don’t really have a good way to share experiences, tools, techniques, ideas, inspirations and revelations from the field that can be utilized more fully elsewhere, but it could get out of hand as well.

But we have many people out there who have spent time praying, developing, searching, etc. for technical answers to furthering the mission of the church…

Speaking of which - there is a desperate need for really good (and consistent) software that is easy to use and would be used for mission homes to help avoid losing prospects through the cracks. Despite our best attempts, it seems that an undisciplined, yet enthusiastic, computer savvy programmer on his mission is asked to help develop a tool, only to have support and use of the program fall by the wayside when they go back home. (I’m speaking from a year ago, there may be software available now. I don’t know).

I wish you the best on this effort! There are a lot of smart people out there! Makes sense to harness their efforts to further the work along!

December 20, 2006 6:04 pm #

Jim said...

As much as I would love to attend the tech talks, visiting SLC or anywhere in the US is outside of my budget. It would be wonderful if you could make transcripts, or podcasts, or broadcasts (like General Conference etc.) available for those of us who are interested but can’t get there.

December 20, 2006 6:21 pm #

Kenneth Crowther said...

I’m in Virginia, but would be interesting in viewing or listening to tech talks if they can be broadcast through byutv.org or posted somewhere as audio.

I have a deep interest in how the church is using geographic information systems (GIS). Many enterprises are increasingly benefiting from identifying, creating, and utilizing proper tools to manage geographic operations.

A Church example: I recently visited with my father who has been prayfully studying how to optimally redraw stake and ward lines in a very dynamic area. (A difficult challenge, I’ve learned.) He had attempted to geocode an address file into Microsoft Streets and Trips (msS&T). The simple mapping of addresses was a very effective tool as he studied the distribution of active, less-active, and priesthood members. However, msS&T is not a full GIS, and there are so many features that were unavailable to analyze the impacts of geography on the spatial distributions of membership (to build intuition about the problem, not to replace prayer). Moreover, much of the church’s operation is geographic in nature (helping mission president properly allocate missionaries, helping elders quorums access total expected travel times for hometeaching assignments, locating building/ward based on location, etc.), not to mention the benefits that could result in family history from good geographic support.

ESRI (www.esri.com) certainly has the edge on GIS software, but there are many many off-the-shelf choices, in addition to opensource (see opensourcegis.org). I would be interested in the the Church’s vision for geographic tools, if they use any, or if they have simply created gis-like functionality into applications on an as-needed basis.

December 20, 2006 7:47 pm #

irv yokoyama said...

Your blog has been a very interesting and informative read. I was wondering about technologies, like VOIP, broadband (DSL, WiMax, etc.). It would seem to have the potential to save the Church quite a bit of money in the US given the amount of phone lines going to each building. Not sure if that is under your scope or a facilities issue. The increasing use of technologies in facilities has caused a blurring of some of these traditionally separated areas.

December 20, 2006 8:34 pm #

Kenneth said...

I would be interested in the following:

1) Future plans for expanding RSS (ideal for even PDF magazines, include link for latest pdf edition of each one in one rss) and also make downloadable versions of broadcasted media (rather than streaming) available so we can view it offline.

2) The future of Stake & Ward Websites and when this will be made available to the rest of the world.

3) Is the local unit software is under redevelopment?

4) Will there also be a broadcast, podcast or write-up of the tech talks?

December 21, 2006 2:39 am #

Patrick Faulk said...

I am heavily involved with IT Service Management best practices, and would be interested in learning whether ICS has found value in adopting any particular process framework for managing IT services (such as ITIL, MOF, etc.). I believe ICS was utilizing the Microsoft Solutions Framework (MSF) some years ago…

December 21, 2006 5:08 pm #

jrj said...

Let us know if/when you offer similar session in the SF Bay Area. I know there are many who would contribute their experience.

December 21, 2006 7:01 pm #

Justin Masters said...

I’m excited to read the recent directions on FHC management and also amazed to see the extent of the move ahead on MLS machines (formatting, repartitioning, imaging, tools, security, landesk, etc) as seen on the fhctech list. I’ve been a FHC tech support and ward, then stake clerk as well. (One way to get out of such a calling is to have the stake split. )

As for VOIP, unless there’s significant efforts towards making the connections secure, I’d stay FAR, FAR away from it. There are too many tools out there now to sniff/intercept such transmissions. Unless you don’t care about what’s said on the channel.

I’m really looking forward to the day when Temple Ready is not solely on the FHC machines, but maybe that’s something that can be managed via the local ward computers hooked up to high speed DSL.

And whatever happened to the effort to combine ward records with pedigree charts to encourage family history work? (I saw one of those printouts when I was shlepping around the COB many years ago visiting my mother-in-law in the membership records dept. I was excited about the prospect of such records! But it seems to have drifted quietly away. Perhaps it’s a bigger elephant to eat than expected in combining ward membership records to IGI records. But I can’t think of a better way than to get started with having members make the connection themselves by linking directly to IGI records. It sure beats trying to do it on your own as church programmers and then trying to undo the “best estimates” of automated matches, or risk offending someone. Maybe a mini-extension from MLS export a member’s records to a file, have them log in via familysearch as a member, and start making the connections that way (or using PAF Insight’s features integrated into a new PAF program to assist in that effort).

December 21, 2006 9:32 pm #

Nada Broderick said...

I love this blog. THANK YOU to everybody who makes the church computer and web site work. You have blessed my life in soooooo many ways over the years!!

Currently I serve as the VT coordinator in our ward. In an attempt to enter visiting teaching contacts for our ward, it quickly became clear that much contact information is inaccurate… Visiting teachers were feeling guilty for not
visiting sisters who actually had moved but not notified anybody in any ward. The visiting teachers just knew that they could never seem to find the sister home. So I began working on reducing the guilt and anxiety of the visiting teachers by searching for these sisters and if I could not find them, recognizing that we cannot find them at this time- by moving them to a “search and pray for them” visiting teaching route and bringing up their names to the RS Pres who takes them to ward council. Then if no one in the ward can find them, we send them back to Salt Lake hoping that they will contact the church and have records requested. I also discovered that people move around alot within the ward. So, I’m trying to keep an accurate account of contact information for sisters who are still actually in the ward. In addition to contact information, there are people who need to be or to not be visiting teachers or who need to be or not be visited by a particular sister. As the RS Pres and I discuss these sisters, I need to quickly make changes and communicate these changes in VT routes to visiting teachers. The project snowballs into a huge record keeping feat. I live 40 minutes round trip from the church. I need to go to the church computer once a week to maintain the visiting teaching records for the women in the ward and to communicate with the clerk regarding new contact information. Sunday morning is prime time on the church computer which is located in the clerks office right next door to the bishop’s office (who may be doing confidential interviews). After church the computer is reserved for processing tithing. So this means that I make a second trip to the church computer each week (52 trips a year). Is there any way you could offer a way for visiting teaching coordinators to log on to MLS from home (passworded of course). It would save me time and gasoline. Also, it would save me lots of time in not having to recreate databases at home just so that I can be up to date in my communications with the RS Pres and the visiting teachers who depend on my information to fulfill their obligations to the Lord to nurture each sister.

How do people who live yet farther away from the church keep up with this task… I assume that although we do our best, we just can’t be as accurate as we would like at this time due to distance constraints.

Although I have offered a view of my own current church assignment, I am aware of many other sisters and brethren who maintain and work off of home-based databases for similar reasons. We are all recreating data that could be so readily accessable. Not to mention that because of this phenomenon, MLS data is not being maintained at the local level as well as it could/should be.

I’m hoping to log on to MLS from home.

December 28, 2006 6:54 am #

Bob Walker said...

I am a web page maintainer for the New Zealand missions on Mission.net. This domain has been in existence for almost 11 years now. I would love to see a merger of this and church records in some fashion. Maybe starting as simple as a link the member can click on that will take them to the PURL for their mission web site, or to something more extensive like a wholesale assimilation of the mission.net concept into the church units system. Existing mission webmasters could be given access and could develop personalization within the framework of church guidelines in a manner similar to what is done for units.

In a related matter, currently Deseret Book is providing the bandwidth for the mission.net server, but that relationship may be ending any day now due to a change in IT policy at DB. Is the church in any position to offer a colocation for this service in your DMZ even if there is no direct connection between the servers?

January 2, 2007 12:59 pm #

Lane Gittins said...

Joel,
We would love to see one of your tech talks up here in Ogden. I am even willing to arrange a good sized host location. Let me know if you would be interested. I am sure that we could get a good crowd up north.

January 2, 2007 2:52 pm #

Gregg Pugmire said...

I would love to understand more about the Church’s data center. How you deal with all the data, what are the strategies to make sure that the data is not lost? Are you taking advantage of the new CAS (content addressable storage) technologies for data protection that are being developed mainly for the financial compliance market? How much data does the church have under management and how fast is this growing?

January 3, 2007 7:48 am #

Alan Larsen said...

So much of what a bishop is responsible for is event-driven process management (youth birthdays, moves, illness, etc.) that could be automated through software integrated with the MLS system. Such systems would produce great fruits — better administration and, most importantly, better ministering to those behind the events.

I’d love to hear what you’re doing in this area. Our ward has invested some time and effort in developing our own systems based on data imported from MLS…

January 7, 2007 8:06 am #

Athena Blakely said...

The east is here. How about a Tech Talk in Raleigh-Durham or Charlotte NC

January 9, 2007 6:57 pm #