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Ever Get Locked In A Closet?
By Nick B. Nicholaou
With a little advance planning, technology and workspace needs can be planned with growth in mind—and without breaking the budget.
As ministries grow, they often need to move staff into workspaces that were designed for other uses. Classrooms, storerooms, and closets can be transformed into offices, but they are rarely ideal. Technology is often the same way. But with a little advance planning, technology and workspace needs can be planned with growth in mind—and without breaking the budget.
God willing, your team will continue to grow. Most of the time this growth will take your team beyond what was anticipated, stretching your new building beyond its original plans. As your team and needs grow, technology will need to keep pace. Because we have served churches and ministries around the country, many ask us to review their blueprints as they prepare to build. Following are some of the things we often recommend.
Infrastructure
Two things are usually true:
We recommend laying conduit to locations beyond the obvious. Every building should be connected with conduit. It’s also wise to lay conduit between the worship center platform and the sound booth, and to various locations in the seating area. And whatever amount of conduit seems reasonable, double it. This will allow everyone on site to share data and computer resources through centralized, managed Internet access. It will also allow computers to be used on the platform when desired and will allow setting up congregational microphones for events such as business meetings.
When connecting buildings, we recommend using fiber-optic cable whenever possible. In addition to facilitating the fastest possible transfer of data, fiber-optic cable lessens the chance of damage to your system by lightning strikes.
Tim Whittaker, Community Church of Joy’s Director of Information Systems (www.joyonline.org), suggests pulling data, telephone, and security cable at the same time. "Conduit space is often wasted because cable pulls were done separately, and pulling more through a conduit could damage what is already there."
When pulling data cable throughout your office area, pull a minimum of two drops to every office. Locating them on different walls allows for different office configurations. Consider pulling extra cable during the construction phase, even if it will be left coiled up in ceilings. Tim adds, "It costs three to four times as much per run to have cable installed after the fact, another reason to pull more than you think you will need. I always go with the ’double’ rule. If you think an office will need two runs, pull four."
All cable drops, whether pulled by your team or by a vendor, should be tested and certified with a PentaScanner¬Æ or similar device. More than just checking for tone (which indicates there aren’t any breaks in the cable), these devices check a number of specifications to determine whether the cable can reliably carry data at fast speeds. This test can go a long way in eliminating technical support issues, a blessing far outweighing its minimal cost.
It is also advisable to have all cables terminate to a patch panel. It should be located in a room that has clean electrical lines for your data switches, out of the flow of traffic, and away from anything that generates radio or electromagnetic interference.
Servers
Location, location, location. Servers should also be out of the flow of traffic and preferably behind a locked door, but conveniently accessible for the daily changing of backup tapes. Inconvenient server locations often result in failed backup strategies that go unnoticed until needed.
The electrical lines for the server room should be dedicated and grounded. Room temperature should be controlled by a separate thermostat to keep the range between 60 and 85 degrees. This will extend the reliable life of your servers.
One other very important item is whether your server room has fire sprinklers in it. Consider what could happen when smoke from a coffee burner sets off the sprinkler system in a different part of the building, but that sprinkler system runs through the server room. Wet data is often not usable and can truly wreck your team’s day. Minimally, the server room should be on a separate system with an approved fire retardant that will not damage your servers.
Conference Room
Consider adding power and data ports in the center of your conference table to accommodate portable computers. These can make your conference room a safer meeting place. Adding video ports that connect to a projector and/or smart board can make your conference room much more effective too.
How About That Café?
Many churches are adding cafés for their members, for their team, and as an outreach. A big trend in the café niche is wireless Internet connectivity. Starbucks uses T-Mobile as their wireless vendor (www.t-mobile.com), but there are others on the market as well. Consider contacting one of these vendors or even adding the wireless connectivity yourself. With a good router, enabled security, and content filtering, you can allow those enjoying a cup of java to safely browse the Internet, extending the café’s usability.
These recommendations can add long-term value to your building project. They can extend your team’s ability to share data, databases, e-mail, the Internet, and more. Although they add a little cost to the project, their value is far greater. Rather than getting locked in a closet, they can open a closet to the world.
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Nick B. Nicholaou, Huntington, California, is president of Ministry Business Services, Inc., a team of management consultants specializing in ministry administration. You can reach Nick via E-mail: nick@mbsinc.com. |
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