June 2008 Archives

We are so excited that Open Access is live and will really be introduced to the public tonight or tomorrow at Deeper Still in Atlanta. I feel like we've given birth and are giving her a little debutante party!

It is a little nervewrecking, of course, since this is an entirely new process. Will anyone subscribe? Will they post to the discussion forum? Will I have embarassed myself by letting poor editing out in the public? I keep trying to remind myself that it IS a rough draft and everyone should know that. But still...

I hope you're excited about digging into Going Beyond and discovering your own promised land. I know we're thrilled to hear feedback from all of you!

Jessie Weaver, copy editor

One of the things we want to do with Open Access is not only give a chance to help create the Going Beyond product, but also give a glimpse into the processes that make up our product development. At out last Open Access meeting, I brought along my camcorder to film a bit of what goes on around the meeting table. I cut the hour-long meeting down to the highlights, but I'm sure you'll be able to pick up on some of the conversations we're having.

Sure, it's not the most exciting thing in the world (it is, after all, just a meeting), but you'll get to see a bit about how we get things done and resolve outstanding issues. There's also a few hints sprinkled in about our future plans for the product and process. Enjoy!

Of the two million Israelites who received God's invitation to experience Him in the promised land, only two actually enjoyed fulfillment of the promise. Likewise, millions of modern-day Christians have the promise, but only a few walk into their promised land. In this six-session study, Priscilla Shirer will encourage readers to be among those who see the goodness of God in their lives, live beyond their circumstances, and expect to see God move in supernatural and miraculous ways every day. Participants will travel with the children of Israel out of Egypt, through the wilderness, and finally into the promised land. Along the way, they will find God's purpose for the journey. Following the two who crossed the Jordan and entered Canaan, women will receive direction on how to "go beyond" into their promised land.

Ever have one of those days?

Thursday started out fine. I came into the office, settled in, and got to work putting in Priscilla's edits on session 2 of Open Access (we're still calling it Going Beyond around the office, unsure of final title yet). The editor-in-chief of the project, Dale, and I had met with her on Monday to discuss sessions 1 through 5; and I was anxious to get all those changes in so we can be sure to have that PDF ready by end of June!

So I worked all Thursday morning, with a brief visitor to the chiropractor thrown in ... my 20-week pregnant back has not been agreeing with me! About lunchtime, though, I noticed that the file would not let me save. It wouldn't let me check it back into our system. Something I probably should have noticed a few hours beforehand! And after I called our technical specialist, I got the oh-so-pleasant news that I would have to redo everything I had done that morning.

I had meetings in the afternoon, which required sitting in a hard chair for over an hour. By the time the meeting was over, my back was screaming and I still wanted to cry over the hours of work I had lost. The fact that I can barely sleep at night did not help my phenomenal attitude! To make matters worse, I had company coming in Thursday night and had left my husband home to do the cleaning ... no telling what would be done/not done when I got home.

By Friday morning, life was OK again. But it was SO one of those days. I should have just stayed in bed. ☺

--Jessie, copy editor

In this video conversation Aaron Linne talks with Dale McCleskey about the importance of a good title and how they settled upon the title of Priscilla Shrier's study that we're examining here, Going Beyond.

In acknowledgment to the organic nature of the Open Access project, I scheduled this video conversation upon receiving an email that the title was finalized. As you'll hear in the video, however, it's not quite that simple and the title is still a bit in flux; Dale even mentions that he hopes the participants of the project can help the team settle on a title name. Check it out: