Highlighting an Innovation in Print on Demand

There are some Kingdom innovations that are game changers. The advances in print on demand definitely fit that category.

Here is why...

1. You can now deliver ministry resources without any piles of books in your garage or in that back cubicle of the office.
2. You can now customize books for events and strategic ministry opportunities.
3. You can take resources that have been inaccessible for a long time and bring them to your key audiences.

One of the innovation leaders in this effort is a company called Snowfall Press. They partner with a nonprofit group called Virtual Storehouse. This nonprofit helps ministries to upload their Scripture/ministry products and offer them for sale online with a direct connection to the print on demand site.

But it is important for you to see why this is innovative. You can upload a print ready pdf of your book, offer it for sale through an online store, which is then custom printed and sent to the address they provide . . . all automated.

I really believe that print on demand innovations like Virtual Storehouse and Snowfall Press are key to streamlining our distribution of Scripture to the people who need them the most. The 20th Century was about mass production, mass distribution and mass marketing. This new century will see a new model. Now it isn't about printing 20,000 Bibles, it is about printing 1 Bible in just the right language, format and context to do effective ministry. Organizations that make this transition away from mass production to customized production will thrive in a world redefined by customization and the global recession.

Take a minute to check them out and see how you might be able to use this innovative service to leverage your Scripture resources for ministry audiences.

Stopping to Celebrate

Well, I'm in a celebratory mood. Probably because it is my birthday this week. But since I'm feeling this way, I want to share with you about the topic of celebration. It is a very important one and one at which we preform very poorly.

"Poorly???" you say...

Yes, we in the innovation business are good at many things. We are good at vision - almost on a daily basis we have a new idea that will change the world. We are good at work ethic - we put in far more hours than we should to see our vision come to reality. We are good at creativity - we see things that everyone else sees in the same old way through a whole set of new eyes.

But when it comes to celebrating we stink. We usually hit the milestone and then look right on past it to the next one. But that is a destination mentality instead of a journey mentality. I hope you know what I mean. We innovators tend to focus on the destination at the expense of the journey. We miss so many of the precious moments of learning, growth and, yes, celebration.

So in light of this fact, I would like to share with you five ways that you can celebrate on the way to seeing your next innovative idea come to fruition.

1. Launch your project right. Bring your prayer partners and ministry partners together for dinner or just a desert and challenge them to be praying and to seek God for how to proceed.
2. Pick a random milestone that you meet and bring bagels and coffee for your whole team.
3. When you get a breakthrough in your innovation, send out an email, facebook status or tweet telling your sphere of influence about what happened. Remember to ask for prayer as you move forward.
4. Make a list of all the amazing examples of God's faithfulness in your project and share it with those who are involved.
5. Finally, when the project is done, get all the people that helped you see it through together, thank God for His goodness and PARTY!