quickly . We also have people who need more time and everybody in between . Still , there were zero issues .” Case in point : it recently took Watkins only five minutes to train a social media manager on how to use creative . space . This speaks to another major benefit of switching to this storage solution …
Better collaboration across all work groups Importantly , by implementing creative . space , Without Walls was able to shift from a linear to a parallel workflow . This bears some explanation . If , for example , a youth event is coming up , the youth team might put together a rough graphic to promote it . They ’ d email it to the creative department for design . The design team would send it back to the youth team for input . So on and so forth . “ It ’ s a bouncing-back-and-forth of emails ; we call them V1 , V2 , V3 — version one , version two , version three ,” Watkins explains . “ There might be 15 versions of a graphic or video before we land on a final product .” In contrast , using creative . space , the appropriate departments are enlisted only when they need to be . Watkins likens it to a highway : “ It may start here and end there , but everyone ’ s on the same road .” This streamlined process is vital for the social media team , for example . “ They ’ re managing content , not creating it ,” Watkins explains . “ So , they don ’ t really care about the first three versions and don ’ t need to be involved until near the end . We ’ ve taken it from this ‘ big box of bouncy balls ,’ as I call it , to a parallel racetrack where everybody seamlessly works alongside each other .” The centralized , on-premises design of creative . space makes this possible . “ It ’ s fifty feet away from me right now ,” Watkins points out . “ If there is ever an issue — if the drive goes out , for example — it ’ s easily accessible . It ’ s a five-minute swap .” Moreover , the creative . space team monitors the solution around the clock , so they ’ re often aware of an issue even before the church team . Even remote collaboration is simple using creative . space . If the social media director is at home , the video editor is onsite at the church , and Watkins is traveling , they can all tap into creative . space and work on the same project . “ And a lot of times , there ’ s zero latency ,” Watkins says . ( Zero latency refers to a general operational objective in which rapidly changing information is available across the entire organization , leading to more informed and coordinated decisions .) “ We can view that same editable file within the server , without having to email duplicates back and forth ,” he adds . “ I ’ m not aware of another solution that offers that , and it ’ s been really , really big for us .”
Driving real , tangible ministry wins Better collaboration across all departments is just one game-changing benefit Watkins and his team enjoy . As mentioned , Without Walls uses RED digital cinema cameras with “ Camera 2 Cloud ” functionality ; so , files automatically upload to creative . space as soon as filming ends . Before , on a typical Sunday , the production team would ferry the hard drives of up to six cameras to an office , where they were uploaded to one of dozens of drives . It would take up to three hours before the production team could work with those files — precious time spent away from family , on the Sabbath . Often , it was late Monday or early Tuesday before the production team could pull memory cards out of the various hardware across the property and work on all of those recordings . Today , it ’ s a much different picture on Sundays . “ Now , worship is over , and all of our equipment , relatively speaking , is linked to creative . space via IP ,” Watkins explains . “ Our editors are able to take a lunch , come back thirty minutes to an hour later , and everything ’ s already transferred , sitting in a designated space for them to access and start editing .” In essence , creative . space has taken a 12- to 48-hour process and condensed it to a fraction of that time , every week . “ If you look at the time savings from a staff standpoint , I ’ d say we ’ ve saved each production team member — a video editor , for instance —
three to five hours per week ,” Watkins says . “ From a ministry standpoint , work-life balance is important . If you ’ re sitting here at the church for three hours on Sunday just waiting to do your job , that ’ s three hours away from your family , your spouse , your kids .”
A solution they can grow with Looking to the future , creative . space is designed to seamlessly scale as we grow and create more and more quality content . Watkins explains . “ We have 192 terabytes of storage on site currently . On Sunday , we use five cameras , each with isolated recordings . Ingesting that media — moving it into creative . space — takes up about 1.5-2 terabytes . So , each Sunday , we know that we can set aside about 2.5 terabytes [ of storage ] that ’ s never accessible for any other use , and we ’ re covered .” Although Without Walls is nowhere near maxing out its 190 + terabytes of storage , Watkins says he could see it happening in three to five years . That ’ s plenty of time to plan ahead . When the day comes to add storage space , it ’ s likely that just about every ministry at Without Walls will be using creative . space in some capacity . “ We still have a couple of ministries that don ’ t need it yet ; it doesn ’ t make sense right now ,” Watkins says . “ I want to introduce them to creative . space when the time is right — kind of in keeping with the parallel workflow we talked about earlier .” If the past is prologue , their learning curve will be simple , too . “ Feedback-wise , everyone — starting with myself — has said , ‘ Wow , this is so easy ! We expected something different ,’” Watkins says . “ And when we do have feedback on what might work better for us , we share it with DigitalGlue . They ’ ve been really receptive , like , ‘ Oh , that ’ s super easy to implement ’ or ‘ We can ’ t do it that way , but here ’ s another solution that achieves the same goal and it ’ s actually easier .’”
Regardless of how Without Walls ’ media storage needs expand and change , Watkins , his team , and the entire church staff can count on one thing : more time for ministry . “ Using creative . space , there are more creative ideas flowing in meetings , for example ,” Watkins says . “ We did a merchandise shoot the other day . We ’ re doing a photo shoot today . There are so many other ministry projects to spend our time on as opposed to waiting on file transfers or tracking down files from years before . “ Basically ,” he concludes , “ time well spent on the front end — on organization — is saving us countless amounts on the back end .”
For more information , visit creative . space .
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