It's good to fail... fast

A little under a month ago, some friends and I announced an offer to launch a free service - free to set up, free to use, free to leave, free of advertising. The service is a way of getting up and running with a modern, social web site - that's the technology - and a community of willing helpers collaborating to get better results for everyone.

It was for a specific niche - UK churches. It was to address a specific, known problem - that (according to a recent study) the vast majority of UK churches don't have a current, active website at all. And of those that do, a small proportion are interactive as well as active - that is, most church websites are brochures to read rather than communities meeting and welcoming others.

We had direct experience (independently of one another) of some of the underlying issues. Many churches struggle making decisions involving expenditure more complicated than buying another box of tea bags. People with relevant skills often feel put upon, expected to do for free what they are normally hired to do, and faced with unrealistic expectations ("you do websites, don't you?" = "I don't care if you're a back end developer, a front-end developer, a designer or an account manager, just make my problem go away, now!"). And the "norm of niceness" that infects so many churches means that everyone knows what they don't want, few will be willing to turn their vague thoughts into definite ideas, and a dominant voice will effectively dictate the outcome.

We didn't think we wanted to tackle those issues - there are plenty of companies selling outdated, proprietary CMS-driven websites to churches, driven by their ability to navigate the particular buying and implementation processes. Good luck to them! Most are well-intentioned, at least, and a few are quite good.

Instead, we saw an opportunity. We're people who know how the technology works and how costs build up, and so we were able to define a technical solution that would cost a few hundred pounds up-front to create, a few tens of pounds a month to run, plus time and goodwill. We decided to build on WordPress, because (a) it works, (b) it has a vast resource base, (c) the software is free to take, use and adapt. We identified multiple ways to create the service, and looked at take-on (making it easy to get people from nothing to something nice-looking and actually usable) and push-off (making it easy to get people off our platform and onto their own or someone else's). And we did technical validation - yes, it works in practice as well as in theory.

So we got to the 'ready enough' point. We knew we could create the service, and we knew our way around the detailed options we would be choosing between. So we knew we could build a real, live service to meet the promise with a few more hours of work up-front, and a reasonable enough workload in terms of hours per week post launch.

So we launched. Sort of.

Specifically, we said we'd launch the live service if 50 UK churches wanted a website for free. To signal this, they had to tweet a hashtag, like a facebook page or fill in an online form. All of these things required a small amount of effort, and we didn't work hard on promotion.

We got into double figures, but nowhere near the 50. So we won't launch. (I predicted we wouldn't!)

We failed. We failed fast. It's good to fail fast.

You can't fail unless you try. Most people talk a lot about things they want to do, very few try to do them.

Until you fail, it's hard to learn. Most projects exist in a kind of twilight world, where the expectations and effort have gone down, but there's still a dream. By saying "we've failed - and we're moving on," you get to look at things objectively.

And when you fail fast, there aren't so many loose ends to tie up. There's no long, painful running uphill, draining your practical and emotional resources to the dregs. So the learning you achieved, you can apply. Or you can choose another venture. Either way, you start with a positive attitude and a bit of momentum, released by being prepared to say, "That's it. We failed. Now, what shall we do?" Well, almost every meaningful success has come off the back of one, several, many failures. The trick is to welcome failure, and fail fast.

Or, as Samuel Beckett said, "Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better."

Churches, the web, social media, all that

Why did books take off? You know books - those things where you make flat sheets of paper, bind them together - those things. Why did they take off? Well, at least one of the reasons was that they were a very good way to get to the Bible and its constituent bits - way more convenient than scrolls. And when printing made its way to Europe, what rolled off the presses? You guessed it!

Books weren't the only way the Bible moved round the world, but they were pretty important. And the Bible wasn't the only text that became widely distributed in book form, but it was a biggie.

So why are churches so far behind the times when it comes to the web, facebook, twitter, tumblr, even email? Er, good question.

And as far as I can tell, five of the leading answers are:

1. We don't want to commit to anything too new: we already have an OHP, a church noticeboard and a hearing aid loop, and that'll do for now
2. Printed books are cool, especially when they have rainbows on them, but the Internet is Satan's sock-drawer, full of ne'er-do-wells and general naughtiness
3. We don't know how to do this, and all we hear are horror-stories of aged websites that make us look really, really stupid
4. We already have a website: here! (I wonder who uses it...?)
5. Haven't you seen our online presence? We have a search engine optimised website, all our rotas are online, our facebook page is humming. Behind? 

(In the interests of disclosure, I'm an ordained minister in the Church of England, so you could say I have a professional interest. I would welcome any contradictory views on anything I say here.)

If you're in category 1, I suggest you go and ask half a dozen under 30 whether it's too early to risk this. If they all say 'no' then well done, you can bide your time.

If you're in category 2, then ask yourself, if Jesus rocked up to your town, would he be hanging out at the church bookstall, and if not, where, and who with? (For those of you reading this paragraph who are now going, tsk, this guy doesn't even know it's "with whom," I give up!)

If you're in category 3, then I have good news and bad news. It's simple... But it's not easy.

And if you're in category 4, then I have bad news and good news. You need to start again. But at least you have an idea, now, of what's good and what's bad.

Finally, if you're in category 5, then congratulations! Now, you have some work to do: help another church get (at least some of the way) to where you are.

Now, some friends and I are trying to do just that. Here's how.

• We won't spend very much money - we haven't got much to spend if we wanted to
• We're building the whole system using WordPress (which apparently powers 8.5% of the whole Internet), so the skills people will need to have or develop are widespread, as are learning materials
• We're making it easy for people to get started - our assumption is that everyone needs things to be super-easy
• Our objective is to meet everyone's needs in getting off the ground - and we'll be happy when people outgrow the service
• We'll make it easy for people to migrate away from our service
• If 50 churches sign up for the private invitation, we will launch; if they don't, we won't
• The cost to sign up is £0, the monthly cost is £0, the cost to take your site somewhere else is £0
• We won't inject adverts into your website - it would be lovely if some people donate towards the running costs, but if they don't, we'll manage
• If anyone wants to help, that's good too - we'll run non-profit, so your reward won't be ££££s

Privately, I don't think we'll get 50 takers. Why not? Just a hunch. I can hear the scepticism already. "Nothing's free. There's a catch. Who are these people?" 

(Why only 50? We know we can support 50 churches without having to buy anything we don't already have, we're confident that we can support 500 next phase, and we need to learn how to do this for 50,000 if we have to!)

So if you want to get involved, what do you do?

You could like the Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/pages/JdapYes/343711312359652 (UK only, sorry!)

You could tweet using the hash tag #jdapYes (start at https://twitter.com/#!/jdap/status/195479387192311810)

That will work whether you want to help or be helped.

STOP PRESS... STOP PRESS... STOP PRESS... STOP PRESS... 


You can now also let us know you want to take part by going to:

www.churchfreeweb.co.uk