Part 10 in a 10 part series on Mickey’s Commandments as presented by Michael Lingerfelt, former Disney “imagineer”, in a recent conference.
10. Keep it up.
Maintain it. Right now if you go to Magic Kingdom you may be disappointed because Space Mountain is closed for remodeling. One of the store fronts on Main Street USA is covered over (in a very attractive way) while Disney works to keep the appearance and safety up.
The upkeep of what you have is critical, because while people who have been around a while may not notice something that’s broken or faded, for new people part of their first impression is the state of repair of your facility. Our church is over two decades old. There are a lot of things we should update, and will very soon.
When talking about this commandment, Michael Lingerfelt said something very interesting:
“Spend an extra dollar now, you will get a $6 return over it’s life.”
This goes to the heart of stewardship. How can we best utilize the resources available? Less expensive isn’t always better. Sometime less expensive means cheap. I have adopted the philosophy of spending that says if you can’t tell the difference, get the cheaper one. If you can tell the difference, get the better one, regardless of price.
Almost 20 years ago someone at First Orlando did the right thing. They bought a great quality broadcast capture system. I don’t know how much they spent, but we have state-of-the-art broadcast equipment for 1989. As a testimony to how good it is, we can still use it today to get a good quality picture. It’s old, and dying, but for over 19 years this equipment has helped us broadcast to tens of thousands of homes in the Orlando area every week.
As we look at replacing this gear with new HD broadcast equipment, we are taking a page from their book. While we are not buying the most expensive equipment available, we are buying top level, high quality broadcast gear from professional manufacturers. There are many kinds of gear that can do basic HD capture, but they are not true broadcast quality. Because we know we want this new gear to last a long time, and work without failure, we will replace our TV cameras and switchers with professional products. As it turns out, we are going to be able to get a great deal on this, too.
If Lingerfelt is to be believed (and I do believe him), paying a little more now for high quality equipment will save us a lot of time, money, and trouble over the next few years.
When looking at replacement or new purchases, can you tell the difference? If so, buy the better one. In the long run, it will save you more than any extra cost.
Scott Link Media 