Hi all,
I have been working on a biometric system for my Youth Track software that will allow kids to scan their thumb/finger to show they are present for the class or it could be used for a check in/out system. I thought of all the different ways that are being used for attendance. Especially the big one, bar-coding. I just thought there has to be an easier way. I actually visited a couple of churches where they used a biometrics lock system to get in and out of the office. A key-less entry system. But not only that, a way to track who entered at what time and who left at what time. I then started thinking about all sorts of applications for a biometric system. I know a lot of churches have a day care. Those who are responsible for picking up their children and their children could be scanned to make sure the child is picked up by the right person and it is all documented. Youth Track could actually print a picture of each child with finger/thumb prints included to aid the Police if something bad were to happen (of course, we all hope nothing like that would ever happen, but we live in dangerous times.
I almost have the biometric attendance feature finished for Youth Track. I just need to change the screen a bit (I didn't like how I first designed it) and now I'm going to have to find a different biometric device because the one I started with does not have a Vista driver at this time and I know that will become an issue later. It works so smoothly. I let my daughter and son-in-law scan their thumb and registered them for a class. Then opened up the auto-attendance and had them scan their thumb and the screen displayed my daughter and my son-in-law and the screen had them select which class if there was more than one they were registered for on that day. They really thought it was so cool!
I have talked to a lot of youth workers and most do not see this type of attendance scanning system as a problem at all. However, some of the more fundamental churches like in our small towns and such, didn't like the idea because of a passage in Revelation. I personally think this passage is being taken out of context in this case. However, you can't have churches start splitting because they don't believe in this system. I'm thinking I may have to have a the biometric system and then some other system in place for those that are very much against it. It could be the current manual attendance system could still be used because I imagine most of these churches would be the smaller churches. Just a hunch.
I'd like to know how you feel about this type of scanning system for Youth Track (and also for our Church Management System software in the future). I am letting all this out at the risk of a competitor beating me to the idea (maybe they already have). But I thought it was very important to ask the Christian community what they thought of this type of system. You'd walk in the door and scan your finger or thumb and that would be it. If a visitor, a very easy way to enter the visitor information could be done with or without the finger/thumb print if they felt uneasy about letting themselves be scanned. :-)
What do you think? I'd really like to hear from as many as possible. Especially, those of you who are currently using Youth Track or have an interest in Youth Track. Would you purchase a system like this if it were available? I'm sure you would have to go before the Elders or the membership to see what everyone thought about it.
If someone does this to find out what their Pastor, Elders and membership thought about using a software product that tracks attendance using a finger/thumb print, I sure would be interested in hearing what they have to say! I am so close to being ready to distribute this only if it doesn't stir up trouble in the church. :-) If I can determine that even 50% would have absolutely no trouble using this type of system, I will release it early next year.
Thanks so much!
James Moore
President
Ministry Tracking Software, Inc.
http://www.youthtrack.com
james@youthtrack.com
512-947-2418
Monday, November 5, 2007
Sunday, November 4, 2007
The History of Youth Track Software and We Need Help!
Hi all,
This is my first blog so I'm not sure what I'm doing but I think I'll just start out by providing a little history of my experience developing software for ministries, specifically, college, youth and children's ministries for churches.
My wife Julie and I were members of a small, but young church in a place called "The Colony", Texas (east of Lewisville, Texas, north of Dallas). There were a lot of kids since this was a very young church that had a lot of young families starting out. As our kids started approaching their teen years, we started getting involved with youth ministry. It was difficult to work 10-12 hour days and then have the middle school over on Tuesday evenings and the High School over on Thursdays evenings. However, just being with the kids gave us a renewed energy.
Our church was so small we couldn't afford to pay a youth minister, but finally, it was put before the church that if we could give and keep the budget at a certain level, we could afford to pay a full-time youth minister. Something we really wanted so bad just because there were so may kids. To have someone full-time to assist with spiritual education, events, etc. would be such a blessing.
Well, it finally happened. His name was Eddie and his wife's name was Susie. They were such a sweet couple and naturally Eddie came to me since Julie and I had been spending so much time with the kids (acting as part-time youth ministers, of sorts). Eddie was very positive about their new role and had been in youth ministry for seven years before coming to us. He mentioned, "Wow, you guys sure have a lot of kids here".
Well, since I was a database software developer at my full-time job, I spent a few evening and put together a database software program for Eddie and let him know I hoped it would help him be able to keep kids from falling through the cracks since there were so many at our church.
I left it on his desk with a note when I finished one evening with instructions. Later on that night he called me and was totally blown away. He had no idea what I was developing for him, but thought it was "over the top". Actually, to me I didn't think it was that big of a deal since I did this type of thing for a living. He asked me "Have you ever thought about marketing something like this?" He said, "I've been in youth ministry for seven years and there is nothing like this out there and it would help so many youth ministers." I was startled and at the same time a bit flattered that I told him I would think about the possibility of going into business if he would be my business partner.
The next day, we talked and prayed about it some more and with his knowledge of youth ministry and my knowledge of software development (and kids since Julie and I were very involved with the youth at the church and in the community and we had our own children) we decided to move forward.
Well, we were the first youth ministry software product out there for about two years (and it was a DOS software program starting out). Then the first competitor came along. They mirrored us for a while and then they took off and left us in the dust because we both had full-time jobs and they had a team of developers that worked full-time. We didn't have those resources, but we kept pushing along. I remember going to the Youth Specialties conferences a few times and I'd sneak over to look at their both. A gigantic booth with all sorts of neat graphics and tables for users to sit and watch software demonstrations. I'd go back to our little tiny booth with a vinyl banner that said Youth Track and a TV that had a Power-point slide presentation running. We had a couple of computers to show people our software. I remember at times feeling so humiliated, but we kept on going.
To shorten an already long story, Eddie moved to a new ministry in Kerrville, Texas which was at the bottom of Texas where Dallas was at the top of Texas. He was thrilled with his new Education ministry. His new ministry took up so much of his time. Plus his own children were getting older and placed even greater demands on his time that in mid-2003, he and his wife Susie decided to let Julie and I take over the Youth Track business.
Now, over four years later, we've had our ups and downs. I still work a full-time job as a SQL Server developer and software developer and try to keep Youth Track going as much as I can. It's become more and more difficult. There is a lot more competition now and they have moved on to the new technologies. I would love to have attendance scanning, web interface, PDA and Palm interfaces, etc. It is just so time consuming, I can barely keep up with Youth Track as it is. I completely rewrote Youth Track in 2003 since the 1993 database was an old DOS database and was still based on the same structure that just started out as a favor for my youth minister friend. Youth Track needed a serious overhaul. I spent most of 2003 doing that and the past few years pushing updates out to keep improving on the interface and pushing out important customer suggestions. Ideas come from my customers, I just do the development. :-)
Currently, I'm in the middle of ripping out the Visual FoxPro database engine and replacing with a new, SQL Server 2005 back-end. The current application uses an n-tier design to where the presentation layer talks to the business layer and the business layer talks to the data later, etc. It is a quality OOP application because the framework forced it that way and that was what I wanted. It has worked out wonderfully. Because of this application structure, switching to SQL Server will be be pretty easy except for some specific code that will need to be changed with SQL Pass Through queries and commands.
Anyway, this will begin a new phase of Youth Track development because customers will now be able to host their database on our server for a monthly or quarterly fee or for larger churches with an IT department, help assist them with the setup of the Youth Track SQL Server database on their internal server. We have a lot of customers excited about this concept.
This is currently considered Phase 1 since the desktop version of Youth Track will still be used to hit the SQL Sever back-end. Phase 2 will be to start putting together a web interface for the same SQL Server back-end. I plan on doing this in .NET using a cool framework called StrataFrame. I've decided on this framework because it will help me get to where I need to get much faster than developing it all from scratch. A good framework can save you tons of time and it can also teach you "Best Practices" since the code is included. I'm looking forward to taking Youth Track to this new level. All of the other technologies mentioned should just fall into place between Phase 1 and Phase 2 (or shortly thereafter).
However, because I work a full-time job, this continues to be a very slow process and I know there are companies that have already beat me to this dream that I've had before they were even companies. I've had this dream for so long but the time constraint has been my curse. It is like seeing all the things I've wanted to accomplish through a glass that you just can't get to.
I've even thought of selling Youth Track to another company that could serve my customers better. But then I found out what they really wanted to do with Youth Track and it would not have been good for my customers. I've been truly blessed to been able to get to know so many youth workers and staff and we have such a great relationship since Youth Track started. Some customers have been with us for years and years. We have sold over 4,000 copies of the Youth Track software since 1993. I believe the number still using Youth Track is just under half of that amount. It surprises me at times to have customers contact me still using a version from the late 90's that want to upgrade. Freaks me out! :-)
I've had so much encouragement from my customers, they are the best. I just couldn't sell Youth Track to this company. I had to find a way to keep things going. So, here I am again, still working a full-time job and trying to get the changes done to Youth Track for our customers.
You know, if I could find one more person like me that has a full-time software development job but has a passion for ministry software (I would eventually like to create a full church management software product someday) and would be willing to wait until the product starts to bring money in before getting paid (I don't get paid a dime. Uncle Sam takes a lot of the money and the rest of it goes right back into the business keeping the hardware and development software upgraded to the latest and greatest). That takes a lot of money. I can't even advertise anymore like I used to in youth ministry magazines because the ads are just too expensive. I pretty much rely on word of mouth and Internet searches. When business picks up again, I plan on starting a new advertising campaign and going to the conferences again. Julie has been doing a great job as the "office manager" and taking care of the accounting side of things.
Is there anyone out there that would like to help me that fits the mold I've described? I am a very honest and trustworthy person and once funds started coming into the company to where we could pay ourselves, I would agree to a 50/50 split with what is left over. Yes, even though everything is all setup and all you'd have to do is help me with the software development, it would be a 50/50 split once money started coming in again. I know renewed success is just around the corner with the plans for database hosting, web interface, mobile development, and attendance scanning just for starters. There would be no buy in for you. Just a commitment, passion, work ethic and required skill set to see it through.
I will not kid you, it takes a lot of work and commitment to work on Youth Track after you've already worked a 10-12 hour day and then having to make sacrifices on evenings and weekends. I'm not saying I do this every evening and every weekend, but at a time like this where I am trying to get a new version of Youth Track released that will revolutionize the Youth Track software, I sacrifice quite a bit of time.
I see it as writing a book to where you spend a lot of time writing each chapter and then when finished, you get to sell your book and finally take a break from all the work hours spent. I notice how many times authors at the beginning of their book thank their family for "not having him around for a while and for their patience." Now that I'm an "empty nester", I seem to have more time in the evenings and weekends these days. If you have kids, I would not recommend you even attempt this venture. Your kids need your time and this would take too much time away from them.
Anyway, I just need help in a big way! Don't get me wrong (especially if any of my Youth Track customers are reading this blog), I'm not going to give up. I just know we would get there so much faster with help from someone cut out of the same cloth as I am. I know money would start coming in once we started the SQL Server hosting business and start getting a web UI on Youth Track.
Hey, if you are out there, let me know! It could be the start of a wonderful adventure. Just read all of the testimonies on the Youth Track web site. These come from customers who just sent me an e-mail message out of the blue and I asked for permission to post on our testimonials page. None of this has ever been solicited. This is the big reward! Knowing you are helping youth ministries. I know software cannot take the place of face-to-face time with the kids, but it can sure help you remember and not let one precious soul slip through the cracks. This is the driving force. If it were about money, I guarantee I would have given up on this years ago. At the same time, I realize you have to make money to be able to work the business full time for you and other developers. In order to grow, you need to have capital and you need to expand. Since I don't have the kind of capital up front to pay us right away, I need a developer who can help me out that has a full-time job that can wait for the fruits of our labor.
Let me know if you are interested! I could sure use your help. I figure if there is one like me there has to be at least one more out there like me. I can see it happening (on the other side of the glass), but together, we could break that glass down and it could become a reality. Developing ministry software full-time. Using our God-given gift to aid the Kingdom. What do you think, you Christian database and software developers out there? Guys or Gals!!
Look forward to hearing from you!
James Moore
President
Ministry Tracking Software, Inc.
http://www.youthtrack.com/
james@youthtrack.com
512-947-2418
This is my first blog so I'm not sure what I'm doing but I think I'll just start out by providing a little history of my experience developing software for ministries, specifically, college, youth and children's ministries for churches.
My wife Julie and I were members of a small, but young church in a place called "The Colony", Texas (east of Lewisville, Texas, north of Dallas). There were a lot of kids since this was a very young church that had a lot of young families starting out. As our kids started approaching their teen years, we started getting involved with youth ministry. It was difficult to work 10-12 hour days and then have the middle school over on Tuesday evenings and the High School over on Thursdays evenings. However, just being with the kids gave us a renewed energy.
Our church was so small we couldn't afford to pay a youth minister, but finally, it was put before the church that if we could give and keep the budget at a certain level, we could afford to pay a full-time youth minister. Something we really wanted so bad just because there were so may kids. To have someone full-time to assist with spiritual education, events, etc. would be such a blessing.
Well, it finally happened. His name was Eddie and his wife's name was Susie. They were such a sweet couple and naturally Eddie came to me since Julie and I had been spending so much time with the kids (acting as part-time youth ministers, of sorts). Eddie was very positive about their new role and had been in youth ministry for seven years before coming to us. He mentioned, "Wow, you guys sure have a lot of kids here".
Well, since I was a database software developer at my full-time job, I spent a few evening and put together a database software program for Eddie and let him know I hoped it would help him be able to keep kids from falling through the cracks since there were so many at our church.
I left it on his desk with a note when I finished one evening with instructions. Later on that night he called me and was totally blown away. He had no idea what I was developing for him, but thought it was "over the top". Actually, to me I didn't think it was that big of a deal since I did this type of thing for a living. He asked me "Have you ever thought about marketing something like this?" He said, "I've been in youth ministry for seven years and there is nothing like this out there and it would help so many youth ministers." I was startled and at the same time a bit flattered that I told him I would think about the possibility of going into business if he would be my business partner.
The next day, we talked and prayed about it some more and with his knowledge of youth ministry and my knowledge of software development (and kids since Julie and I were very involved with the youth at the church and in the community and we had our own children) we decided to move forward.
Well, we were the first youth ministry software product out there for about two years (and it was a DOS software program starting out). Then the first competitor came along. They mirrored us for a while and then they took off and left us in the dust because we both had full-time jobs and they had a team of developers that worked full-time. We didn't have those resources, but we kept pushing along. I remember going to the Youth Specialties conferences a few times and I'd sneak over to look at their both. A gigantic booth with all sorts of neat graphics and tables for users to sit and watch software demonstrations. I'd go back to our little tiny booth with a vinyl banner that said Youth Track and a TV that had a Power-point slide presentation running. We had a couple of computers to show people our software. I remember at times feeling so humiliated, but we kept on going.
To shorten an already long story, Eddie moved to a new ministry in Kerrville, Texas which was at the bottom of Texas where Dallas was at the top of Texas. He was thrilled with his new Education ministry. His new ministry took up so much of his time. Plus his own children were getting older and placed even greater demands on his time that in mid-2003, he and his wife Susie decided to let Julie and I take over the Youth Track business.
Now, over four years later, we've had our ups and downs. I still work a full-time job as a SQL Server developer and software developer and try to keep Youth Track going as much as I can. It's become more and more difficult. There is a lot more competition now and they have moved on to the new technologies. I would love to have attendance scanning, web interface, PDA and Palm interfaces, etc. It is just so time consuming, I can barely keep up with Youth Track as it is. I completely rewrote Youth Track in 2003 since the 1993 database was an old DOS database and was still based on the same structure that just started out as a favor for my youth minister friend. Youth Track needed a serious overhaul. I spent most of 2003 doing that and the past few years pushing updates out to keep improving on the interface and pushing out important customer suggestions. Ideas come from my customers, I just do the development. :-)
Currently, I'm in the middle of ripping out the Visual FoxPro database engine and replacing with a new, SQL Server 2005 back-end. The current application uses an n-tier design to where the presentation layer talks to the business layer and the business layer talks to the data later, etc. It is a quality OOP application because the framework forced it that way and that was what I wanted. It has worked out wonderfully. Because of this application structure, switching to SQL Server will be be pretty easy except for some specific code that will need to be changed with SQL Pass Through queries and commands.
Anyway, this will begin a new phase of Youth Track development because customers will now be able to host their database on our server for a monthly or quarterly fee or for larger churches with an IT department, help assist them with the setup of the Youth Track SQL Server database on their internal server. We have a lot of customers excited about this concept.
This is currently considered Phase 1 since the desktop version of Youth Track will still be used to hit the SQL Sever back-end. Phase 2 will be to start putting together a web interface for the same SQL Server back-end. I plan on doing this in .NET using a cool framework called StrataFrame. I've decided on this framework because it will help me get to where I need to get much faster than developing it all from scratch. A good framework can save you tons of time and it can also teach you "Best Practices" since the code is included. I'm looking forward to taking Youth Track to this new level. All of the other technologies mentioned should just fall into place between Phase 1 and Phase 2 (or shortly thereafter).
However, because I work a full-time job, this continues to be a very slow process and I know there are companies that have already beat me to this dream that I've had before they were even companies. I've had this dream for so long but the time constraint has been my curse. It is like seeing all the things I've wanted to accomplish through a glass that you just can't get to.
I've even thought of selling Youth Track to another company that could serve my customers better. But then I found out what they really wanted to do with Youth Track and it would not have been good for my customers. I've been truly blessed to been able to get to know so many youth workers and staff and we have such a great relationship since Youth Track started. Some customers have been with us for years and years. We have sold over 4,000 copies of the Youth Track software since 1993. I believe the number still using Youth Track is just under half of that amount. It surprises me at times to have customers contact me still using a version from the late 90's that want to upgrade. Freaks me out! :-)
I've had so much encouragement from my customers, they are the best. I just couldn't sell Youth Track to this company. I had to find a way to keep things going. So, here I am again, still working a full-time job and trying to get the changes done to Youth Track for our customers.
You know, if I could find one more person like me that has a full-time software development job but has a passion for ministry software (I would eventually like to create a full church management software product someday) and would be willing to wait until the product starts to bring money in before getting paid (I don't get paid a dime. Uncle Sam takes a lot of the money and the rest of it goes right back into the business keeping the hardware and development software upgraded to the latest and greatest). That takes a lot of money. I can't even advertise anymore like I used to in youth ministry magazines because the ads are just too expensive. I pretty much rely on word of mouth and Internet searches. When business picks up again, I plan on starting a new advertising campaign and going to the conferences again. Julie has been doing a great job as the "office manager" and taking care of the accounting side of things.
Is there anyone out there that would like to help me that fits the mold I've described? I am a very honest and trustworthy person and once funds started coming into the company to where we could pay ourselves, I would agree to a 50/50 split with what is left over. Yes, even though everything is all setup and all you'd have to do is help me with the software development, it would be a 50/50 split once money started coming in again. I know renewed success is just around the corner with the plans for database hosting, web interface, mobile development, and attendance scanning just for starters. There would be no buy in for you. Just a commitment, passion, work ethic and required skill set to see it through.
I will not kid you, it takes a lot of work and commitment to work on Youth Track after you've already worked a 10-12 hour day and then having to make sacrifices on evenings and weekends. I'm not saying I do this every evening and every weekend, but at a time like this where I am trying to get a new version of Youth Track released that will revolutionize the Youth Track software, I sacrifice quite a bit of time.
I see it as writing a book to where you spend a lot of time writing each chapter and then when finished, you get to sell your book and finally take a break from all the work hours spent. I notice how many times authors at the beginning of their book thank their family for "not having him around for a while and for their patience." Now that I'm an "empty nester", I seem to have more time in the evenings and weekends these days. If you have kids, I would not recommend you even attempt this venture. Your kids need your time and this would take too much time away from them.
Anyway, I just need help in a big way! Don't get me wrong (especially if any of my Youth Track customers are reading this blog), I'm not going to give up. I just know we would get there so much faster with help from someone cut out of the same cloth as I am. I know money would start coming in once we started the SQL Server hosting business and start getting a web UI on Youth Track.
Hey, if you are out there, let me know! It could be the start of a wonderful adventure. Just read all of the testimonies on the Youth Track web site. These come from customers who just sent me an e-mail message out of the blue and I asked for permission to post on our testimonials page. None of this has ever been solicited. This is the big reward! Knowing you are helping youth ministries. I know software cannot take the place of face-to-face time with the kids, but it can sure help you remember and not let one precious soul slip through the cracks. This is the driving force. If it were about money, I guarantee I would have given up on this years ago. At the same time, I realize you have to make money to be able to work the business full time for you and other developers. In order to grow, you need to have capital and you need to expand. Since I don't have the kind of capital up front to pay us right away, I need a developer who can help me out that has a full-time job that can wait for the fruits of our labor.
Let me know if you are interested! I could sure use your help. I figure if there is one like me there has to be at least one more out there like me. I can see it happening (on the other side of the glass), but together, we could break that glass down and it could become a reality. Developing ministry software full-time. Using our God-given gift to aid the Kingdom. What do you think, you Christian database and software developers out there? Guys or Gals!!
Look forward to hearing from you!
James Moore
President
Ministry Tracking Software, Inc.
http://www.youthtrack.com/
james@youthtrack.com
512-947-2418
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