So, at a company lunch today, Lance announced to the rest of the company what I’ve been up to and what I’m going to be working on. Now that it’s been made public, with the cat out of the bag so to speak, I can talk about it on the blog.

I am going to be involved in researching and pursuing new business opportunities for WorkFlow, especially centered around two passions of mine: ministry technology and A/V.

First, I want to investigate ways to bring technology expertise to ministry efforts. There are a multitude of churches and ministry organizations out there that have the desire to utilize technology to further their mission work, but don’t have the vast sums of money or internal expertise to do so. I’m not talking about the Fellowship’s, Willow Creek’s, Saddleback’s, and Prestonwood’s out there. There are thousands of smaller churches and organizations that need consulting help from an organization that understands what they need and aren’t out there just to sell them some product.

In addition, there are many ministry organizations that have technology components to their mission, but don’t desire or need to have technology as a core competency. One such ministry is NetAccountability, who has contracted with me to help manage and plan their technology plans, from development to infrastructure. We’ll be working on future versions of the tools that support their ministry, as well as helping them evaluate how to proceed with their technical assets and strategy.

Other opportunities I want to explore with WorkFlow are centered around multimedia and Audio/Video technologies. As an avid FinalCutPro user (no pun intended!), I’ve been exploring this area for a while, and there are indeed some possibilities for bringing an out of the box technology approach to old processes in the post-production and broadcast realms.

There are wide-open gaps in the post-production workflow, especially where tracking media from content acquisition through post all the way to broadcast is concerned. There are standards popping up (AAF, MOS, etc.) that are supported by the standard products in the newsroom, but few solutions that tie these pieces together, especially economically. The interesting thing to this market is that if you don’t charge what Sony charges, you’re not seen as a credible player. But the technology is coming on so strong that the capability exists to string together a full and complete solution without bowing to Sony or Panasonic. We’re talking potential orders of magnitude reduction in price. And if you can get a single customer to bite on that and have success, it’ll spread like wildfire. That’s what I’m aiming for.

Originally my thinking was that I’d branch out and explore these opportunities separate from WorkFlow. But as I discussed things with Lance, we decided that it might make sense (for both WorkFlow and myself) to do this under the umbrella of the existing organization. I was flattered for Lance to consider that as a possible approach, as it gives me a lot of flexibility and stability to step out and pursue this. Quite honestly, it actually may be the thing that allows it to succeed. If so, we both benefit. I will still be available to WorkFlow for Sales Engineering and Architecture engagements, so I feel my skills/talents/etc. will be utilized more appropriately than in the past.

I’m excited! More as the days go on…