Chuck Scoggins | Web + Print + Video Design

Occasionally on Thursdays I give you my thoughts, unfiltered and off the top of my head. Here is what I’m thinking about today…

I’m glad the holidays are over. Don’t get me wrong, I love Christmas and New Years and traveling and family…but I’m ready to get back into the normal routine and the important work God has called us to!

I recently wrote an article for MediaSalt. It’s the 12 Things Communications Directors Want To Tell Their Senior Pastos in 2012. Check it out and let me know your thoughts on it!

Check out these simple graphics I created for Calvary Church’s Need 2 Know videos.

Did you pick up the free resources I’ve been giving away? Jump over here for a 2012 Bulletin template!

I’ve also cranked out a couple of free Photoshop quick-tip tutorials. You can watch them here and here. Stay tuned here for more quick-tips.

I’ve been studying up, trying to become efficient in content marketing. It’s really important in an overall communication strategy. If you’re a communicator, you might want to study up on it. 

I’ve been asked to be the leader of the CFCC Job & Freelance Boards, and the Church Marketing Lab. I blog about them occasionally at ChurchMarketingSucks.com too. If you are a church or church-related non-profit and are looking for some help, the job boards are a great place to find quality folks! If you’re a church communications guru looking for work, check out the boards. (Have any questions about the labs…email me!) If you already work in the church comm world, we’d love to see your work in the Marketing Lab and have your voice there. The collective wisdom of the group is much greater than any individual.

The Path app has gained a lot of popularity recently, but I just can’t seem to get in to it. I like the simplicity and focus of it, but it’s just not gaining traction in my social media flow. Maybe I didn’t give it a good chance…but it’s just not doing anything for me.

I have some cool upcoming opportunities that I hope to be able to tell you about soon. Here are a few teasers:

• Cool partnerships with some web development companies.
• Helping to launch a non-profit called Encouraging Others that helps encourage people to overcome materialism in exchange for giving away wealth (similar to Skip1.org, but with some key differences).
• Working with some really great churches.

I recently started following Gary Vaynerchuk on Twitter. Love his insights and passions. 

Last, but not least, I still have a few sponsorship opportunities available for this blog. If you’re interested, click on the sponsor link at the top of the page and check out the options.

That’s all from me. What’s up in your world.

Most people know that you can create guides in Photoshop to help you with design and layout. Typically guides are created by dragging them out from the ruler or by manually typing in a ruler measurement from the View > New Guide menu. However, they can also be created using percentages. This quick tutorial video shows you how…

God taught me a lot in 2011. So many lessons that I can’t list all of them, but here are the top 11:

11. Almost no decision made out of fear is a good decision.

I’ve seen it far too often. Leaders make radically courageous decisions that allow them to get into positions of influence, then they make decisions out of fear in order to keep from losing their followers. It’s usually those latter decisions meant to minimize danger that cause the most harm.

One of my resolutions in life is to not make any decision out of fear. The circumstances of 2011 have proven this to be a worthy goal. 

10. Be yourself.

Lots of people will try to change us into what they want us to be, but God has uniquely gifted us and given us our personality. He has made us who we are and it’s much better to ‘lean into’ our calling and to leverage it than to try to be something we are not. That’s not to say we shouldn’t try to improve on our weaknesses (see lesson 9) and character flaws; but, we shouldn’t let other people tell us who we should be.

9. It’s better to work on your strengths than your weaknesses.

We all have weaknesses. We all have strengths. As Marcus Buckingham has been saying for a couple of years now, we get a much better return on our efforts and time when we try to minimize our weaknesses and maximize our strengths. 

8. Those you trust will let you down.

I don’t mean to be a downer but it’s true. People are people — and the more we put our trust in flawed people, the higher the likelihood that someone close to us will let us down. I know I’ve let a lot of people down this year; and, I’ve been let down by some people I trust.

On the flip side, I’ve been surprised, overwhelmed, and humbled by how some people have come through in amazing ways. I’ve been blessed with some amazing friends…and I’m so thankful for them.

7. Nobody is truly an expert in social media.

Social media is young. Very young. There are some people out there who know a lot about it. None of us are experts yet.

6. Leaders have a responsibility to those they lead.

I once heard someone say that you can’t expect something from someone who doesn’t have the capacity or ability to give it. If that person is a leader (and aren’t we all), I call B.S. on that. If you are a leader, you have a responsibility to provide for the needs of those you lead. The fact that the needs of your followers are an area of weakness for you is no excuse. Either figure out how to legitimately provide it or get out of the way of someone who can.

5. Building in to others is not overrated.

It has been my privilege to build into the next generation over the past few years. This includes teaching at a (relatively) large university and personally mentoring some people who directly report to me. I believe part of personal growth is finding someone to build in to.

4. Leadership training might be over-rated.

Leaders never stop learning. Over the past 10 years I’ve had the privilege of attending dozens of leadership training sessions. From conferences to workshops, to classes and books, I’m pretty sure I’ve heard every cheesy leadership one-liner out there. I am nowhere near where I would like to be in my personal leadership journey. One thing I’m learning though is that leadership is better caught than taught (see, there is one of those cheesy one-liners). Formal teaching sessions on leadership have their place, for sure. But, if we really want to take our leadership skills to the next level we need to find someone who is already there and walk in their shadow for a while.

And, please, please, please — I beg of you: If you are in a position of power (as opposed to authority) and don’t have your junk worked out, please don’t require those who serve under you to go to leadership workshops. Provide them opportunities to grow. But don’t require that which you aren’t prepared to do yourself.

3. What we do is important.

Those of us in the communications/media/content/marketing/branding/messaging industry have a very, very important role in today’s society. Don’t let the nay-sayers tell you otherwise. The stakes are too high. One of the most important things I’ve learned this year is that God has called me to do this thing that I do and I’m going to do my best to live up to that calling.

2. Communication with those you love is of the upmost importance.

It is ironic that as I look back over my biggest failures over the past year, the ones that horrify me the most are where I didn’t do a good job communicating with the ones I love. I could’ve told my kids (or, even better, demonstrated to my kids) that I love them more. I could’ve been more patient and could’ve had more empathy. I could’ve shared my big goals and dreams with my amazing wife. As a communications guy, I certainly need to learn to communicate better!

1. God is incredibly faithful. 

There have been many times of uncertainty in the past months. Without hesitation, I can say that my faith has been stretched and God has proven faithful time and time again. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, I’d love to dialog with you about my faith journey these past months and explore how God could come through for you as well.

What about you? What are your lessons from 2011? I’d love to hear from you…

Happy New Year!

Occasionally on Friday, I give away a free resource to help make the life of church communications folks better.

This week’s resource is a service bulletin/handout template to get you started in 2012.

In the download is an InDesign file, a template in MS Word, and the raw graphics for you to choose from.

Let me know if you use it (not because you have to…just because I’d be interested in knowing if this type of thing is useful to provide in the future). If you need it customized in any way, let me know and we’ll see what we can work out.

Enjoy

Nearly every intern, student, or even seasoned photoshopper I’ve given this tip to finds it useful, so I thought I’d share it here. Let me know if you find it useful as well. If enough people have an interest, I’ll post these quick tips regularly.

What you do is incredibly important (otherwise God wouldn’t have you doing it).

The impact you can make is enormous.

The number of people you can reach is vast.

The stories you can re-write are waiting.

Opportunity exists today like it never has before. Please don’t waste it with a vision that is too small. Dream big! Be remarkable. Go somewhere amazing and take us with you.

[Disagree? Prove me wrong!]

I recently read an article on Copyblogger titled, There Is No ROI in Social Media. It gave me some amazing insights and new things to think about. I definitely recommend that you go check it out.

Here are a few of my favorite quotes and take-aways:

• “Social media marketing is never going to produce an ROI. No marketing will.”
• “Marketing activity is not an investment. Marketing is an expense, and goes on the Profit & Loss statement.” It’s just like email in that it’s something that is vital to the function of business, but it how do you measure the gain achieved from it? You can’t. “The real measurement of marketing is comparing the net income (revenue minus expenses) by the total revenue generated — in other words, your Profit Margin.”
• Forget ROI and focus on profits (by leveraging social media to reduce expenses and increase revenue).
• Marketing is not some kind of frosting you put on top of the business. It is the business.

It’s Christmas time and all of us are busy with all of our Christmas projects (shopping, decorating, cooking, etc.). So, to save you some time, I thought I’d give away a free resource: a Christmas-themed service bulletin design.

In the download is an InDesign file, a template in MS Word, and the raw graphics for you to choose from.

Let me know if you use it (not because you have to…just because I’d be interested in knowing if this type of thing is useful to provide in the future). If you need it customized in any way, let me know and we’ll see what we can work out.

Merry Christmas!

This might be the most important concept I’ve run across in my career (pardon the drama, but it really has shaped nearly every aspect of my work in the communications and design field):

“People choose not on the basis of what’s most important, but on what’s easiest to evaluate.”
-Barry Schwartz, The Paradox of Choice

To put it another way, (beyond the first few options) the more options available to an individual, the harder it becomes to make a selection and the less satisfaction there is in making the decision. After a certain point, the easiest and most likely decision is to make no decision at all.

I highly recommend you pick up a copy of the book.
Here is also a good article on the topic.

“Dad, what do you do to make money?” asked my 8 year old son on the way home from a quick run to the grocery store last night.

“Well buddy,” I said, “I teach some classes, and I help churches, and I make videos, and I make websites.”

“You make websites?!?”

“Yes. I make websites.”

“Can you make me a website? Can you put my picture on it? Can we put some games on it? Do I get a password?”

So, last night, I took two hours – two precious work hours – and designed a website. It cost me about $250 in lost time and $10 for a domain name. But the cost of not doing it was too high. This was one of those pivotal moments where I could see in his eye the question, “Does my dad love me enough to do this for me?”

Will he use it? I don’t know. Will this launch him into a love of blogging and web design? Probably not.

So why did I bother? As my wife pointed out, in 10 years Trip will likely not remember that I designed him a custom WordPress blog. She’s right: he probably will never know how much time I put in to setting it up.

So why bother?

I like how Carlos Whittaker put it here and here.

So build!