conference of grand masters tech talk 2013
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North American Conference of Grand Masters 2013 - Kansas City, MO
Technology in Freemasonry
Conference of Grand Masters 2013
Mark Menard
President, Enable Labs
1Tuesday, February 19, 13
North American Conference of Grand Masters 2013 - Kansas City, MO
Who is Mark Menard?
Past Master of VanRensselaer Lodge #87, East Greenbush, NY
Past Secretary of VanRensselaer Lodge #87, East Greenbush, NY
Member Grand Lodge of New York Technology Committee 2002 to present
Creator of MORI the Masonic Online Registry System in 2004
Engaged with Grand Lodges for 9 years on IT issues
Responsible for the management of over 300,000 active Masonic member records as President of Enable Labs the providers of MORI
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North American Conference of Grand Masters 2013 - Kansas City, MO
Themes
Communication
Coordination
Data Management
Data Preservation
Social Engagement
Mobile
E-Commerce
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North American Conference of Grand Masters 2013 - Kansas City, MO
Lodge Issues
Improve Communication
Increase and Simplify Coordination
Preserve Lodge Records
Manage Membership Data
Socially Engage the Membership
Collect Dues Quicker and Easier
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North American Conference of Grand Masters 2013 - Kansas City, MO
What are lodges using?
Communication and Coordination
Websites
Blogs
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North American Conference of Grand Masters 2013 - Kansas City, MO
What are lodges using?
Data Preservation
Nothing at worse, generally ad-hoc, the very few are using offsite such as Carbonite
Data Management
Home grown member management systems (Paper, Excel and Access)
Third party stand-alone member management systems
Grand Lodge provided online web-based member management systems
Document Preservation
Ad-hoc document storage (some of it not so good)
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North American Conference of Grand Masters 2013 - Kansas City, MO
What are lodges using?
Social Engagement
Private Forums on Websites
Collecting Dues
PayPal
Other third party payment processors
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North American Conference of Grand Masters 2013 - Kansas City, MO
The Generational Change
New members coming into Freemasonry are conversant with:
Web Applications
Smartphones
The average age of secretaries in the jurisdictions that use MORI has been dropping steadily since the introduction of the system.
Younger secretaries are tech savvy.
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North American Conference of Grand Masters 2013 - Kansas City, MO
Future Lodge Technologies
Improve communication and social engagement by adding new avenues:
Managed email such as Constant Contact or Contactology
SMS text messaging
Private online communities
Move beyond email for coordination
Basecamp - Online project management
Eventbrite - Online event management
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North American Conference of Grand Masters 2013 - Kansas City, MO
Future Lodge Technologies
Preserve documents by scanning them.
SnapScan - Cheap and Easy
Improve dues collection by using online options such as:
PayPal
Square
MORI (4th Quarter 2013)
... and other payment processors
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North American Conference of Grand Masters 2013 - Kansas City, MO
Grand Lodge Communications
Blind CC emails aren’t sufficient anymore.
A printed magazine doesn’t work like it used to.
How do we improve?
Managed email listsFind out bounce ratesUse professional templatesEasy and regular communication
Electronic MagazineWe can’t abandon our older members, but we can repurpose.
California Mason available for iPhone, iPad, Android and Kindle Fire
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North American Conference of Grand Masters 2013 - Kansas City, MO
Grand Lodge Coordination
The Challenge
Your team is all over your state. Some of those states are BIG.
You as a Grand Line Officer have to keep tabs on a LOT of stuff.
Some Ideas:
BasecampSupport To Do Lists, Discussions, Document Storage and more Used by the Ritual Renaissance Committee in NY very
successfully.
Pivotal TrackerGood for projects that are highly task oriented.
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North American Conference of Grand Masters 2013 - Kansas City, MO
Coordinating Member Management
How old is your member management system?
Is it web-based?
Are you running your own server?
Can lodge secretaries and officers; and Grand Lodge staff see the same data?
Does it integrate with the US Postal Service?
Do you still require the submission of forms by either postal or email?
Do you accept submissions from lodges in any form that then need to be processed in some way?
Options: MORI and Bell Systems
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North American Conference of Grand Masters 2013 - Kansas City, MO
Grand Lodge Data Preservation
Do you have a formal backup process?
If you have an older membership management system can you even open the files in a more modern program?
Do you have some form of off-site backup?
File formats are not forever?
Word and Excel are not archival formats.
Does your staff have a file saving convention?
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North American Conference of Grand Masters 2013 - Kansas City, MO
Grand Lodge Document Preservation
Paper doesn’t last forever.
Everything decays over time, not just physically but organizationally.
It gets harder to find documents over time.
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North American Conference of Grand Masters 2013 - Kansas City, MO
Grand Lodge Social Engagement
Can you be found on Facebook?
Do you have a formal team managing your Grand Lodge page on Facebook?
If you don’t create the page someone will!
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North American Conference of Grand Masters 2013 - Kansas City, MO
Grand Lodge E-Commerce
Are you extending credit to lodges for goods? Why?
There are simple online solutions you can use to sell goods.
Shopify
If you have MORI you can sell online securely using our built in store.
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North American Conference of Grand Masters 2013 - Kansas City, MO
Mobile
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http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/online_mobile/survey-new-u-s-smartphone-growth-by-age-and-income/
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North American Conference of Grand Masters 2013 - Kansas City, MO
Mobile
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http://www.wirefresh.com/making-calls-is-one-of-the-last-things-we-use-smartphones-for-study/
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North American Conference of Grand Masters 2013 - Kansas City, MO
Mobile and Freemasonry
The majority of our members under 55 have a smartphone.
The vast majority of our members under 64 are getting a smartphone when they get a new phone.
We need to engage our members on their mobile devices.
Find a Lodge Based on Location
Find Meetings Based on Location
View Lodge, District and Regional Calendars
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North American Conference of Grand Masters 2013 - Kansas City, MO
Shameless Self Promotion
Over 340,000 active member records under management.
Cloud based
All you need is a web browser
Complete Grand Lodge, Lodge, and Fundraising Support
On and Off Site Backup
Full service phone support for Lodge secretaries, Grand Lodge, Grand Line, Everyone
Complete turn key solution
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518-272-4455
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