>>  I scanned this from my notebook at work:

in honor of the March Indy Music Month here at Conversant, I thought I'd share a blog that I dig. I ran across these guys on Vimeo interviewing some of my favorite artists as of late...

Check em' out: hardtofindafriend.blogspot.com. Also, if you don't subscribe to emusic, you really should.

Love,

Jim

Doesn't mean you should.

I get the privilege of leading worship my church every other weekend. I've developed a bit of a pet-peeve after leading worship bands over the last bunch of years. I hate, hate, hate it when musicians are decent at one instrument that they play regularly (let's say an electric bass), then get some guts and play another form of the instrument (upright acoustic bass with a bow) on stage during a worship service. Normally what happens is a bit of a train wreck on stage... But hey, at least they look cool.

Unfortunately, I think this saying is beginning to apply more and more in the web world. It seems that with new capabilities and fads being created daily, there has become a rush and expectancy for websites to adapt to each new creation.

I know we're supposed to be talking about web stuff...

I was realizing this week after watching the Grammy's that I've been totally bored with music this year... If you work in front of your computer all day (especially those who work on creative stuff), you've realized there is really nothing new out there. Obviously you can trust Thom Yorke for genius, but with the exception of In Rainbows most new music this last year just seemed sterile.

Thanks to emusic, I was introduced Bon Iver early last year. In the midst of a world of hyper-consumption, there was something that I completely resonated with in his music. The short version of his story was that he basically went away to Northern Wisconsin in his father's cabin in the woods after a break-up with his band, girlfriend, and fighting a sickness. He spent his whole time chopping wood, and recording music on old, analogue recording equipment. 

Some might think the two crafts have very little in common... But I will be the first to disagree. After co-creating Clover as well as having the privilege of attending Cornerstone Church in Simi Valley with Francis Chan as the teaching pastor, I have realized the common DNA that makes great websites and great preaching. Drum roll please...

Caring about your audience.

I know, I know... You've heard it before. Maybe in seminary or from a mentor. The crazy thing is that, for as easy of a concept as this is, very few people actually do it. This is why sometimes in services you find yourself disconnecting with the pastor and thinking about what's for lunch or who's playing the football game at 1PM.

You'll see the same disconnect when browsing websites poorly created. So often in the web world we have programmers or designers who fancy a certain design style or web language, that when creating a site for a certain audience, have failed to ask the question "What is the best way to communicate to my audience?".

I have been reminded of the discipline of designing and programming for your audience for the past 6 years or so since attending Cornerstone Church and sitting under Francis' teaching. Each week Francis conveys the Word of God clearly, concisely, and in the language of the people. He jokes that he's the Dr. Suess of preachers. Maybe it's time there were less PhD's in pulpits and more Dr. Suess'.

I propose the same for website design. It's time that websites are created for people, not programmers. This begins with asking the question, "How do I communicate best to my audience?" Unfortunately, in both preaching and design, our own tastes and bents have a nasty habit of popping up and distracting us from our ultimate goal of communication. But know that when all is said and done, even if nothing is said beautifully, it is still nothing. So keep it simple, and remember your people.

After checking into our hotel in Nashville for the NYWC (National Youth Workers Convention where we were exhibitors for our product "Clover"), I hopped in the elevator to cruise up to my room. The elevator hit floor #2, and as the doors opened I was engulfed in a sea of youth pastors. Apparently they were heading from floor 2 to floor 4 (which I thought was rather odd), and my floor was 5… Which gave me about 9 seconds to have a meaningful conversation with them.

One of the youth guys asked me if I was there for the YS conference… I told him I was, and that I was one of the exhibitors down in the exhibit hall. He asked who I was with, and I (proudly) mentioned Clover.

His next comment is what got to me a little bit. He asked, “What are you guys giving away?”

One of the more consistent issues I've seen in the Christian web design world (and artistic world in general) has been the "standards" we tend to use for what is good. In the Christian world, we tend to compare our art and creativity with other Christians who are doing the same thing. Unfortunately, a lot of times it's like playing sports at a small school. You know, those schools where you can be a half-way athletic person and play varsity football, basketball, tennis, lacrosse, golf, be chess team captain, voted prom king, student body president, and even most likely to succeed. I propose it's time we begin looking a little further outside our creative comfort zone. Here's a great place to start... As a church or para-church, the easiest (and maybe most obvious) place to look when searching for design ideas is at other church or ministry websites. This is why websites such as www.churchbeauty.com are so popular to churches. Instead of perusing sites like this (which are still good sites that fulfill a big need for churches), check out sites like www.strangefruits.nl. Anyone can tell the difference in design abilities between these two sites:

Hey everyone.

We thought it would be great to start this blog out with some proper introductions. We wanted to let you know who actually makes up the voice of "The Regime".

We started The Regime (our custom design company - www.theregime.com) two years ago with clients made up of some big-name bands, some resaurants, a handful of tech clients, and some ministries. It was a good time, and in May we launched a second company called "Clover". Clover provides beautiful websites for ministries at a super inexpensive rate, as well as a custom CMS (content management system for the non-techies) that we wrote from scratch so that a 65-year-old church admin can create and update the website. You can check it all out (and even demo it) at www.cloversites.com.