archdiocese

Catholic Tech Talk, a Catholic tech/web discussion website, recently posted what they believe to be the five best Catholic Diocesan websites, and I'm happy to report that our very own Archdiocese of St. Louis was ranked #2!

Other dioceses to make the list:

1. Archdiocese of Boston
2. Archdiocese of St. Louis
3. Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis
4. Diocese of Trenton
5. Diocese of Scranton

I am, and will always be, honored to have had the opportunity to work with the Archdiocese of St. Louis for a few years, and that website was pretty much the lion's share of my work with them. Through my many posts sharing information about how I built the site on Open Source Catholic and elsewhere, I hope other dioceses can take some of the ideas from archstl.org and expand on them, making even better websites in its wake!

The founder of Catholic Tech Talk, Craig Berry, interviewed me a week or so ago for the CTT podcast (CTT Podcast 004 - Interview with Jeff Geerling)—I talked with him about my work in the Archdiocese, Archdiocesan web development in general, and my new role at flockNote. Suffice it to say, I'm not finished trying to help the Church leap forward in its online communications effort!

Since the announcements seem to be making the rounds today, I figured it would be a good time to post this little bit of news to my blog: I'm leaving my position in the Archdiocese of St. Louis to pursue another opportunity!

Starting May 2, I'll be working with a great new team of Catholics for flockNote, a service/website for Catholic parishes and organizations to help register individuals and send them, well, "Notes!"

I've been working for the Archdiocese of St. Louis for almost three years, first in the Catholic Youth Apostolate, and for the last year as the Director of Web Development, and it's been a wonderful experience. I'd like to sincerely thank everyone in the Curia of the Archdiocese of St. Louis for some great professional development, wonderful memories, and for being in a very wonderful and Catholic workplace (we had Mass in the building almost every day that I was working there!).

During my time with the Archdiocese, I was privileged to help with the following:

• Rebuilding archstl.org, stlouisreview.com, stlyouth.org, reapteam.org, cycstl.net, and many more websites.
• The announcement and installation of a new Archbishop and a new Bishop.
• The elevation of an Archbishop Emeritus to a Cardinal (hello to Archbishop Burke!).
• Catholic STL - a free app for Catholics in the Archdiocese of St. Louis.
• Two Catholic New Media Celebrations (San Antonio and Boston).

It has been an amazing and life-changing experience working for the Archdiocese... and in my personal life I also went through some huge changes: dating, engagement and marriage, building a cool Catholic news App, starting up LOLSaints.com, collaborating with hundreds of other Catholic developers on Open Source Catholic, and doing other amazing things.

And now, I'm going to be working as the Chief Technology Officer for flockNote. flockNote is a service that is (mainly) for Catholic parishes to help them 'connect with their flock.'

In the past 10 years, the trend for many software solutions and services has been a move 'to the cloud.' The same trend is beginning to appear in Church communications, and flockNote will be at the leading edge of communications tools built for parishes (and other Catholic organizations).

flockNote promises to make communication simple and effective. I'll be involved in some really awesome projects right out of the gate—and I'll be heavily involved in Drupal hacking for the first couple months, at least!

I'm happy to announce that my first iPhone App—Catholic STL—has been accepted by Apple for the iTunes App Store, and is available for free starting today!

The Archdiocese of St. Louis also announced the App this morning, and has a 'mobile app' section on the website with screenshots, an introductory video, and more information about the App. The App is free, so what are you waiting for? If you live in St. Louis, or are visiting, go ahead and download it now.

The App basically lets users find parishes and sacrament times/parish information in the first section, read news in the second section, and read and post prayer requests on the Archdiocesan website in the third section.

I've also published some information about the App's development on the Archdiocesan Development website, and will likely be posting more news on the development front at some point in the next month or two. (I'm thinking about open sourcing the code we used for the Archdiocesan App, so other dioceses/Archdioceses could, at least, get some ideas for their own apps).

What do you think? Post questions or feature requests here or on the Development website, and be sure to rate the App on the App Store after you've downloaded and used it!

The Archdiocese of St. Louis is celebrating the feast of its patron saint today, St. Louis IX. Saint Louis was a very generous man, always giving to the poor, helping charitable organizations and religious orders, and generally being the kind of king who tries to please God rather than man.

You can read more about the feast of St. Louis IX (and about the man himself) on the Archdiocese of St. Louis' website.

[UPDATE: Post on the Archdiocesan website about the new Office of Web Development.]

At a meeting with the Archdiocesan Curia yesterday, Archbishop Carlson thanked everyone for their service in the Archdiocese, and he also talked about some changes that will be put in place in the next few months to help the Curia better serve Archdiocesan parishes and organizations.

One of these changes, which was not mentioned too strongly, but I think is very important, is the creation of the Office of Web Development.

Since joining the Archdiocese of St. Louis as a web developer, I have seen the main website, archstl.org, receive almost twice as much daily traffic, and have been privileged to launch the redesigned stlyouth.org, catholicscoutingstl.org, cycstl.net, stlouisreview.com, and many other subsidiary websites. I have also had the great privilege of working with some great communications professionals, and an excellent editorial staff at the St. Louis Review—both experiences which help ground some of my enthusiasm for an 'out with the old, in with the new' attitude in reality!

I will become the director of this new Office in the Archdiocese, and I hope to begin the process of educating parishes and other Catholic organizations on the importance of online communications and the use of new media for their operations.

I have recently begun working in earnest on building out www.archstldev.com as a useful tool by which the Office of Web Development can communicate the goings-on of the Archdiocesan Office of Web Development in a very open way. This is also an opportunity to highlight some best practices for other large organizations' development.

Developing 'in the open' allows one to accept with humility the stupidity of some of his solutions, but also allows for fellow developers (and users alike) to give input that can help advance a person's web development project to another level. (This is also why I started and try to maintain Open Source Catholic as much as I am able).

Please pray for me as I work to help the Archdiocese in this new role!

The Archdiocese of Saint Louis today upgraded its entire website to a new design and a new platform, allowing offices and agencies to more quickly and more easily communicate with the faithful in the Archdiocese (and around the world!).

I've been working on this project (with a lot of help from Palantir, a web development company in Chicago) and some local developers for the past year, and I am pleased with the result (I hope you are, too!). I've written up more information about the technical aspects of the site on Open Source Catholic (read more about the Archdiocese of Saint Louis' Upgraded Website), and I will continue writing some posts about specific details on the Open Source Catholic website.

Some of the highlights of the redesign:

• The new Archdiocesan-wide Calendar of Events
• The revamped Prayer Request system
• The accessible and standards-compliant design (tested in all major browsers)
• A new Parish, School, and Organization directory.
• Every organization now has a more unified interface, and the adminstrative backend is greatly improved

Go ahead and visit the upgraded website: Archdiocese of Saint Louis