Christian Ross

Intern

I have an intern. She started today. She doesn’t really have a set schedule, she doesn’t get paid and she’s only around for a couple of weeks but I now have an intern.

It was a little weird sitting down with her today to converse about what she currently knows, what she wants to learn and what she wants to do post-baccalaureate. She will graduate from a major university in 3 year’s time with a 4.0 GPA. She really doesn’t know much about my industry but I hope to at least get her a glimpse over the next couple of weeks. We’ll see.

Since I don’t regularly drink coffee that option is off the table for things to provide her to do. Other than that I’m not really sure.

After explaining to me that she’d like to explore the creative end of what I do I sent her out with a mission. Armed with my camera her goal is to take pictures. I don’t care what she takes pictures of – rocks, people, rain or cars – it doesn’t matter to me. All that matters to me is that she takes pictures. Lots of them. In the hundreds. I am hoping this will help us both to see where her creativity lies. I want to see what she sees when she looks at something.
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I Am Second

It’s exciting to me to see church media and their creators starting to get it. For far too long, the materials presented to the public were sub-par.

I Am Second, gets it.

A ministry that concerns itself with both substance and style. One of the best presentations in any field I have seen in a long while.

If you’ve got some time, I’d recommend watching a story or two. Wonderfully crafted, beautiful messages.

Brevity is not an excuse for poor spelling.

First off, I am attached to the electronic communication medium more than I probably would like to admit. I am one of those that carries a multi-use phone or PDA. Although I rarely use the calendaring functionality of it, I am shackled by the phone, text, and email capability of the device. I send plenty of emails from it and every email I receive from five of my all-too-many email accounts hit my phone daily.

While sending an email from a portable device is not terribly hard, it doesn’t compare to the speed of all ten of my fingers on a full keyboard. Most emails I send from my phone are limited in my response or question. ‘KIS’ principle.

I even have a post scriptum tag line in my accounts on my phone to let people know that it is from my phone and most likely will be brief. Something along the lines of ‘This email was sent from my Palm OS mobile device.’

I feel it is courteous to the recipient to let them know this information and it helps to inform clients that I may not be at my desk at the time but I have received their request/comment and will react to it as quickly as possible.

Now, why we’re here. Using my handheld in no way allows me to be unprofessional. Growing up in a printing family has forever saddled me with a few things that I will never be able to shake. A big one is my disdain for typos. Can’t stand them. I hate when I see them and even more I hate when I create one. Now I understand that mistakes happen, fat fingers on small buttons make for a greater possibility, but I attempt to scan each one a time or two before sending.

Saying all of this, I was taken aback today when I received an email from a client confirming an appointment for a conference call this week. Enough so that not only did I do a double-take on it, I also took a screen shot, edited it down to remove the contact information, and spent 15 minutes typing about it.

Typos

Seriously? Is that professional? Is this the message you are saying to your clients?

“Don’t get mad, I am sending an email from my mobile device and it’ll probably have typos.”

I don’t get it. Again, mistakes happen. But asking for forgiveness for the sin before committing it isn’t really going to get the job done.

/exiting soap box