Audra On The City, Day 3: Journals, Promotions, Smitty City

Sojourn Office Manager Audra Todd concludes her basic introduction to features available on The City, our new in-house community.  If you’re a Sojourn member or regularly attend Sojourn Gathered but have not yet created your profile on The City, log in now and you’ll be up and running in no time.  Note that we are only approving registrations for people who actually attend Sojourn Gathered, since we are using The City strictly for in-house communication.

Good morning Sojourn!  I’m pretty excited about (and have been experimenting with) the promotion feature within my groups. You’ve probably noticed various banners showing up on the right side of your page. Administrators of the Sojourn Community Church group can add promotions that link to other websites or just share information. For now we’ve got an image that leads to our new Vision campaign website, for instance.

The wonderful thing about this, and something that sets The City far apart from Facebook, is that you don’t have to see offensive ads, yet you get a simple way to learn about upcoming events etc.

Journals

In no way do we want you to stop using physical journals or journals you have on blogging sites! We do want you to know that if you don’t currently have something functioning as a journal, there’s one available through The City. Under the “Growth” tab just click on “Journal” and click “+Write A New Journal”. It allows you to select whether you want the entry to be public or private. A preview option is available before you post your entry. You can also go back in and edit your entry etc.

Group Leaders

How You Can Use Promotions

If you are the leader or administrator of a community group or other ministry group, you have the ability to promote things to that group via the lower banner to the right of your screen (that likely says “Welcome to The City” on your current page).

Under the “My Groups” tab, select the group you lead/administrate. Click the blue “edit group” button > “promotion management” > click the blue “(new)” link at the top.

The promotions can use a picture that you can link to a website, or you can just use words. To use a picture, you can choose an image from your computer for the banner. It suggests that a width of 198 pixels is best. Something larger can work (and will be automatically scaled down) though it may be slower because the image requires more memory. Something smaller can also work, but will be automatically enlarged, which will diminish the quality. The Bobby Long image (dude w/guitar) I used was a smaller width and that’s why it’s pixelated and less clear.

After selecting the image you want to use, if you plan for it to lead to a website, type in the web address or copy & paste it from the site into the “If using an image promotion, where do you want it to link to?” window. Do not type in the “Body” window if you’re using an image. Finally, designate the expiration date for the promotion. As an example, for the Advent CD (when we were testing The City on a small group of users) I set the expiration date to be “January 1, 2010 12:00AM.”

I figured people would stop buying Christmas music by then and gave a few extra days. The Advent image automatically stopped showing after the date I chose. Also, when you’re typing in the expiration date, it tries to guess what you’re saying. This can be good, but just be careful not to agree to something ending in January of 2009, or it’ll never show! Select the box beside “Active” to get the promotion going. You can have many promotions going at the same time (they’ll rotate when you click to a new page of The City) for your group, and it will ONLY show for your group members. Sometimes “welcome to The City” will still rotate in place of your group promotions.

Final Lap

Addicted to silly pictures yet?

In the workroom I was talking to facility manager/ drummer/ moving target for thrown biscotti extraordinaire, Smitti Smith about the joys of saying (or singing) things like “In the city, for the city, on The City, city city!” To my great surprise, it turns out there is a truck stop right smack dab in the great state of Kentucky called “Smitty City.” It reminded me of Smitty Smith, Facilities Manager of The 930 Art Center.

So folks, if you’re even in Leitchfield, KY needing some fuel, a frappuccino, or a fascinating conversation with a cross-country trucker (not suggested for lone ladies!), check out Smitty City and sing to yourself….

“In the city, for the city, on The City, Smitty City!” .. what a ditty

Haven’t gotten an account on The City yet?  Get one through sojourn.onthecity.org/kiosk.  Be advised that we only accept registrations from Sojourn members and people who attend Sojourn services, since The City is a means of internal communication only.