Project Report

If you haven’t been following the progress of my project so far, here is a quick summary about how it’s going.

Concept & Background

I work for a Church in Austinmer (Austi Church) as a student minister. Part of my responsibilities over the past year and a half have been to facilitate the upgrade of our audio and visual tech.

In this project, I am looking forward to the ‘Future of Austi‘, specifically the next 5 years; planning, building systems, and researching solutions to predicted problems. I’m building a digital repository of these things for the use of Austi Church over the coming years.

I chose this as my project because it is a practical and relevant application of the skills I am developing at Uni in a field that I am passionate about and active in.

Subject Inspiration

My studies have inspired my project through topics that delve into what ‘futurists‘ are, and the necessary actions for imagining and planning the future.

Course work this semester has included watching a film and discussing the portrayal of how societies view the future. We’ve done this in light of our lecture content around a large variety of ‘future‘ topics; from cyborgs & cyberspace to Research & planning.

In particular, I’ve taken inspiration to plan both actions and systems for my project. This subject has also challenged me to look at the technological possibilities and impossibilities that could be accessible in the next 5 years. My favourite quote coming from Charles Kettering:

“Our imagination is the only limit to what we can hope to have in the future.”

Charles Kettering

Engagement

Engagement for this project has been mostly ‘offline’. This has included discussing plans, strategies, systems, SWOT analysis’s, and more, with people in church. Their input has particularly helped me tailor the systems to Austi Church and its members. Input from in-person conversations have also contributed to the creation of some aspects, such as roles and responsibilities. 

You can also see some of the ‘key moments’ in testing and researching this project on its main page.

Research & Planning

Research for this project has included the observation of other church’s solutions to similar problems, along with research into the future of AV over the next 5 years.

I’ve really enjoyed chatting with tech teams from other churches, being part of global tech social media groups, and scouting at conferences & events. Hearing the experience of others has helped me construct and tailor the systems you see today to Austi Church.

One of my peers gave feedback on my pitch to this project 8 weeks ago. They suggested to create a clear ‘change management plan‘ and to be careful to ‘use common language‘. I appreciated this and have strived to watch my language through this project. When I was beginning this project, what I had in mind was similar to a ‘change management plan‘ without calling it one. I’ve since worked to incorporate that into my project in the training I run with our Tech Team. 

The Future

This project is not complete. I expect I won’t be able to complete it until the end of the year. There is so much to plan and document, so many things to organise, and systems to set up. I continue to plan, iterate, research, and develop my work at Austi Church and this online repository. I expect it may evolve into more blueprint styled blogs over the next coming weeks as I meet with consultants and experts in various tech fields.

If you’ve like to continue following this project, please do! I’ll see you online.

---