Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Strengthen Family Ties
by Robert Dunford
with Adam and Bryan Dunford
Copyright 2008. Robert R. Dunford
1
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent
forth.
—Kahlil Gibran
Note: Throughout this book you will see three petals or links.
The link on the left represents your parents, grandparents and other
ancestors (i.e., the past)
The link in the middle represents you (i.e., the present), and
The link on the right represents your children and descendants, whether
you currently have any or not (i.e., the future).
You are the central link between those who have gone before you and those
who will come after you. If you don’t pass on important family traditions and other
teachings to your own children, who will? We invite you to think about this. You
are the key link.
If you are interested in learning additional ways to strengthen family ties, to preserve your heritage, and to share
and enjoy family memories and traditions for the benefit of your family and future generations, click here.
2
Introduction
I recently asked myself how much someone would have to pay me not to publish
this book. I suppose there may be some number, but it certainly would be in the
millions of dollars.
Why? Because what we have learned and enjoyed with our family has been
priceless to us. We want to share it with you.
We have found that staying close together as a family can be a strong defense
against, and a stable influence in, difficult times.
We have found that, in addition to one’s religious faith, which has proved be a
powerful stabilizing influence in hard times, three of the most helpful methods
of bringing about the stability we seek include the following:
If you are interested in learning additional ways to strengthen family ties, to preserve your heritage, and to share
and enjoy family memories and traditions for the benefit of your family and future generations, click here.
3
Table of Contents
Introduction 3
What is “Technology”? 5
Tool #1: Blogs 8
Tool #2: CDs/DVDs of family memories 11
Tool #3: Email newsletters 14
Tool #4: DVD slideshows with music 16
Tool #5: On-demand book printing 18
Tool #6: Online meeting services 22
Tool #7: Private websites 25
Tool #8: Videos 28
Tool #9: Online family meetings 32
Tool #10: Family organizations 40
Invitation 45
You are invited to reprint or redistribute this book freely. The only restrictions are
that the content and links may not be changed or edited in any way and that
proper credit and attribution are given to the author and his website,
www.strengthenties.com
If you are interested in learning additional ways to strengthen family ties, to preserve your heritage, and to share
and enjoy family memories and traditions for the benefit of your family and future generations, click here.
4
What is “Technology”?
Let’s first define what we mean by the term “technology.” For purposes of this
book, technology will mean “computer-based tools and software for
communicating with specific groups of individuals, such as families.”
Like money or a shovel, technology is neither good nor bad in and of itself.
Rather, it becomes good or bad depending on how it is used.
When I was a child our family was the first that I knew of to own a television. We
were probably also among the first to have a de-coupler installed on the power
cord when my mother realized we weren’t getting our chores completed!
The very technology that saves us time and expands our potential can
present barriers to basic human needs such as love and belonging. 1
We as parents are responsible for teaching our children how technology can be
used to support building happy and healthy individuals and families.
5
this past summer, I called on two of my married sons, Adam and Bryan, top
graduates from their respective colleges and excellent fathers themselves, to
assist me.
I knew they’d do a great job, and they did! Adam brought up the fact that there
are two big barriers to any technology: lack of awareness and lack of
comfort.
Ours is a pretty highly-connected family. I was grateful that both sons were
excited to help me teach in simple, non-marketing, layperson terminology
what great tools are out there for furthering family connectivity and the pros
and cons of each.
What follows are the essential elements contained in our BYU lectures, plus
some additional thoughts and suggestions where electronic technology can open
whole new vistas as tools for strengthening ties to and among your family.
If you are interested in learning additional ways to strengthen family ties, to preserve your heritage, and to share
and enjoy family memories and traditions for the benefit of your family and future generations, click here.
6
Ten Tools of Technology to Strengthen Family Ties
We hope you will learn enough about these tools to feel comfortable enough to
try out a few of them. See which ones will work best for you and your family!
By the way, we’re fully aware your children are likely more familiar with and more
savvy about these than you may be.
So…
So these are the Ten Tools of Technology we’ll be discussing that you can use
to help strengthen your family ties. You may be using some of these already:
7
Tool #1: Blogs
They’re really easy to start. Here’s an example of one of the hundreds —or
thousands— of free blog templates available to help you get started:
My daughter, Brittany, like many bloggers, uses her blog as an online diary or
an information site for invited guests who can make comments about what has
been posted. It is a valuable way to communicate with a number of people when
one does not have the time for individual updates.
She relates marvelous insights about her family and activities. Reading about
them is almost as good as being-there, because…
8
…Sometimes more complete information is found on our daughter’s blog
than what we hear in conversations with her!
Many people use their blogs as an enriched personal journal because they allow
the insertion of photos, music, video clips and other material that would be
difficult to include in a regular journal.
After reading the preceding overview of blogs, you may already be asking
yourself…
…How does one decide which tools are best for one’s own family?
There are a number of criteria or decision factors that one can use to choose the
best electronic communication source to employ with a particular audience.
We have listed the eight criteria we use across the top of the chart below. In
each criterion we have shown a performance rating reflecting how well a tool
performs in that criterion, based on our experience.
Performance ratings are on a 1-to-10 scale: “1” = does not perform well; “10” =
performs very well. A similar chart after Tool #8 (p. 31) summarizes the
performance ratings of all the electronic tools evaluated.
9
Our evaluation chart for blogs can be found below. You may use your own
ratings for this or any other chart if your own experience leads you to disagree
with the rating shown.
data
Easy access to
Low cost
Easy to use
software,
Minimal equipt.,
maintenance
Low
permanence
High
High privacy
experience
Rich user
Totals
CRITERIA→
“Blogs”
performance 7 8 7 7 2 3 7 7 48
ratings:
Average of
all
6.8 6.4 6.4 6.8 4.4 5.8 7.8 7.3 51.4
performance
ratings:
Let’s turn our attention now to the second tool, CDs and DVDs of family
memories.
If you are interested in learning additional ways to strengthen family ties, to preserve your heritage, and to share
and enjoy family memories and traditions for the benefit of your family and future generations, click here.
10
Tool #2: CDs and DVDs of Family Memories
In our family we try to undertake a major project or event every seven years.
Borrowing from Jim Collins’ book, Good to Great, we call it a BHAG for “Big,
Hairy, Audacious Goal.”
At our 1998 family reunion when we were discussing our next BHAG with our
children and their spouses, I guessed they would want to set a goal to have
some “fancy shmancy” vacation in Aruba or Mexico at the end of the next seven
years.
Surprise, Surprise! OUT OF ALL THE COOL THINGS they could have chosen
to pursue (like a vacation in Aruba), the single goal they most wanted to
achieve in the next seven years was to develop what my oldest son, Matt, called
an “index of memories.” or a FAMILY ARCHIVE of all of our photos, videos and
other family memorabilia.
You could have knocked me over with a feather! I had no idea our family
memories were so important to them that they would pass up a vacation in Aruba
to have their own copy of our family archives.
I wish I could say we got all of the necessary digitizing completed in the
following seven years, but I can’t.
The sixteen CDs and DVDs shown above contain the beginnings of our family
archive, but it is nowhere near complete. We still have a bunch of movies and
videos to edit and digitize before the job will be complete. But we’re working on
it!
11
online family meetings,
animated picture frames, and
other family-memories-enhancing projects
Importantly, the peace of mind that we feel knowing that we have copies of
these import memories cannot be ignored. And each family has its own set,
meaning that even if our household were to suffer fire or flood, there are other
copies of the same information
CDs and DVDs of family memories can contain organized presentations, such
as music slideshows (explained in Tool #4) or be merely compilations of
electronic files of documents, photographs, recipes, etc. with no organization at
all.
Regardless, they can be a valuable and cost-effective way to make precious and
fragile material, such as photos and movies, available for the whole family.
Including some kind of a menu or index to the data can make the information
more easily-accessed. These are some of the advantages of digitizing memories
on CDs or DVDs:
Although they are not usually sold in regular retail stores, we suggest you try to
buy CDs or DVDs that are certified archive-quality.
12
Why? Because…
Here is our evaluation chart for the benefits of CDs and DVDs :
data
Easy access to
Low cost
Easy to use
software,
Minimal equipt.,
maintenance
Low
permanence
High
High privacy
experience
Rich user
Totals
CRITERIA→
“CDs/DVDs”
performance 10 7 4 6 5 8 8 7 55
ratings:
Average of
all
6.8 6.4 6.4 6.8 4.4 5.8 7.8 7.3 51.4
performance
ratings:
If you are interested in learning additional ways to strengthen family ties, to preserve your heritage, and to share
and enjoy family memories and traditions for the benefit of your family and future generations, click here.
13
Tool #3: Email Newsletters
Email newsletters are another example of a great way to correspond with a
number of people, especially your family, at one time.
My daughter, Heather—a busy mother of five—is the driving force behind our
family newsletter for her siblings and parents. I think you will believe me when I
say that every monthly issue brings smiles, laughter and often a lump in our
throat.
Although one could make it fancier, with bold headings, colors, etc., a good
newsletter can be nothing more grandiose than family email messages pasted
one after the other, as in the following example. It’s the content that counts.
In some families, newsletters are sent as a chain letter where one person writes
his or her information and then sends it to the next member of the family.
The next member adds their information and forwards it to the next, and
so forth.
When the letter is finally returned to the original member, he or she
deletes their old information, adds new and begins the process again.
Our way, however, is to have all participants send their information to Heather as
our “family record keeper” who combines them all into a single newsletter
which is sent simultaneously to all participants.
Unlike the “chain letter” format, the single newsletter requires all contributors to
submit their entries by a specific date to send out a newsletter covering events
from the period before. A reminder results in more responses.
BUT… emails can be very fragile and are easily misplaced. Further,
14
For this reason, many families have found it valuable for the record keeper to
print hardcopies of the newsletters to make an additional form of preservation.
Some advantages of email newsletters, then, include the following:
Low cost
Easy to use
software,
Minimal equipt.,
maintenance
Low
permanence
High
High privacy
experience
Rich user
Totals
CRITERIA→
“Email
Newsletters”
10 10 9 9 4 2 7 3 54
performance
ratings:
Average of
all
6.8 6.4 6.4 6.8 4.4 5.8 7.8 7.3 51.4
performance
ratings:
Let’s turn our attention now to tool #4, DVD slideshows with music.
If you are interested in learning additional ways to strengthen family ties, to preserve your heritage, and to share
and enjoy family memories and traditions for the benefit of your family and future generations, click here.
15
Tool #4: DVD Slideshows with Music
When I prepared my first video slide show for my siblings and their families years
ago, it was just that: a slide show of 35mm slides recorded on VHS video. It was
about our deceased parents and their ancestors, with accompanying narration
and music.
I wasn’t prepared for their reaction. Following the screening for my siblings
and their spouses there was dead silence. “Don't they like it?” I wondered.
When the lights came up I could see that my oldest brother was in tears—
completely unlike him at the time. Why? I asked.
Everyone knew our mother was an angel, but he said he’d forgotten what a great
man our father was. It was then that I learned first-hand that…
Unlike my first slide show, DVD slideshows do not usually contain spoken
dialogue. Nevertheless, images combined with appropriate music can make for
a moving and impactful presentation.
16
A still image should be changed about every six seconds.
This means an average of ten still images per minute are required.
A twenty minute DVD slideshow, therefore, will need about 200 images; a
ten-minute video will use about 100 images.
There are many providers, both of “Do it yourself” software and of “Let us do it for
you” services. Here are a few:
iDVD
ProShow
DVDSlideshow
LastingLinks.com (sponsor of this eBook)
Slideroll.com
Dvd-photo-slideshow.com
Low cost
Easy to use
software,
Minimal equipt.,
maintenance
Low
permanence
High
High privacy
experience
Rich user
Totals
CRITERIA→
“DVD
slideshows”
3 7 7 7 5 8 7 9 53
performance
ratings:
Average of all
6.8 6.4 6.4 6.8 4.4 5.8 7.8 7.3 51.4
ratings:
If you are interested in learning additional ways to strengthen family ties, to preserve your heritage, and to share
and enjoy family memories and traditions for the benefit of your family and future generations, click here.
17
Tool #5: On-Demand Book Printing
When we were teenagers, my brothers and I rarely left the house on a date or
with our friends without our parents sending a familiar admonition ringing after
us:
Yes, there were some photographs of old people we knew were relatives
sitting on the mantle, but we didn’t know much about who they were.
So…
When we married and had our own families, we resolved to change that.
My son Bryan designed the cover made up of photos all the newspaper clippings,
my father’s journal, letters, watch, etc. in this picture:
The book’s purpose was to help our own children fulfill that admonition given by
our parents so often so many years before.
18
Although intended to benefit our children, my siblings and I were major
beneficiaries, because we learned so many things about our parents and
their ancestors that we never knew before.
A statement by my older brother, David, during one of our progress reports aptly
described the new appreciation each of us had for our parents: “I wonder if any of
us,” he said, “will ever measure up.”
I realize that not everyone is fortunate enough to grow up in a family like I had.
But our family wasn’t perfect. No family is.
Nevertheless, great value has come from preparing our family history. Both
good examples and bad examples have provided cautionary and insightful
tales that have benefited, and will continue to benefit, our children and
grandchildren.
Modest, middle-class income families like ours could not have afforded to
purchase the hundreds of books in a typical printing run of years gone by. Today
however, print-on-demand (or P.O.D.) books are not printed until they are
ordered. New technology makes small, short runs possible.
P.O.D. uses digital technology to print items for a fixed cost per copy,
often without regard to the size of the order.
It eliminates the need for large inventories of books and the waste from
unsold ones.
If more books are needed, the process of reprinting materials is quick and
usually no more expensive per-copy than the original run.
P.O.D. books also allow one to make additions as new material is
developed or found (as in our experience with another book of family
history).
Although not as initially flashy or interactive as other tools, content printed
in books can often move people very powerfully, as we have experienced
in the books we have created as a family.
19
We have two family history books in print that you may also see online:
Remember Who You Are, available in excerpts here: Google Books and in
a complete edition here: Family History Archives
The Isaac and Leah Bailey Dunford Family Story available in excerpts
here: Google Books and in a complete edition here: Family History
Archives.
The writing, printing and binding of any book, but especially a book of family
history, can be a major undertaking. For this reason, as the general editor for
both the above two books, I involved a number of family members to help with
such things as:
Research
Writing
Editing
Layout
Funding
Cover design
Nine key contributors were involved with the first book and eleven key
contributors were involved with the second. This proved to me again the old
adage…
As with DVD slideshows, there are a number of providers, both in the “Do it
yourself” vein and of “Let us do it for you” services. Here are a few:
Blurb.com
Borders.com
Lulu.com
LastingLinks.com (sponsor of this eBook)
Mimeo.com
MyPublisher.com
Low runs
Nearly fixed-cost per copy
Easily reprinted
No technical or format obsolescence
No “crashes” or “booting up” time required
Usually long life
Can be physically held, touched and enjoyed.
20
Here is our evaluation chart of the benefits print-on-demand books:
data
Easy access to
Low cost
Easy to use
software,
Minimal equipt.,
maintenance
Low
permanence
High
High privacy
experience
Rich user
Totals
CRITERIA→
“Print on
Demand
Books” 9 5 6 7 5 9 8 7 56
performance
ratings:
Average of
all
6.8 6.4 6.4 6.8 4.4 5.8 7.8 7.3 51.4
performance
ratings:
If you are interested in learning additional ways to strengthen family ties, to preserve your heritage, and to share
and enjoy family memories and traditions for the benefit of your family and future generations, click here.
21
Tool #6: Online Meeting Services
One day about two years ago I was pondering on my family’s progress when I
received the following inspired thought (which I viewed as direction): Use my
business’s online meeting service to strengthen our family’s ties to one
another.
My business associates and I had been using an online service for our weekly
meetings. It saved a lot of time and effort not having to drive across town to
meet together. We found we could be just as effective reporting to each other on
our progress via a computer screen and conference call as we could in person.
When I brought up the idea (of using our online meeting service for family
meetings) with my associates, it was favorably received. Just as long as my
planned Sunday night family meetings didn’t interfere with workweek business
meetings, it was fine with them.
For our purposes right now let us summarize by saying that there are several
online meeting services available in varying levels of cost, quality, and ease of
use/installation.
22
Additionally, although many of these services could be used at a “web café”,
library, or other public internet location, for privacy and convenience, we
recommend a home-based or private internet connection and computer.
Examples of providers include:
DimDim.com
GoToMeeting.com
Oovoo.com
Skype.com
Yugma.com
Features include:
Our evaluation chart for online meeting services is on the following page:
If you are interested in learning additional ways to strengthen family ties, to preserve your heritage, and to share
and enjoy family memories and traditions for the benefit of your family and future generations, click here.
23
data
Easy access to
Low cost
Easy to use
software,
Minimal equipt.,
maintenance
Low
permanence
High
High privacy
experience
Rich user
Totals
CRITERIA→
“Online
Meeting
Services” 5 5 7 7 5 3 9 8 49
performance
ratings:
Average of all
performance 6.8 6.4 6.4 6.8 4.4 5.8 7.8 7.3 51.4
ratings:
24
Tool #7: Private Websites
When a former business partner’s son took his own life, and when my daughter-
in-law came out of surgery for a brain tumor blind, mute, and virtually paralyzed,
we and both our families were devastated.
It turned out that a method our group had recently developed for creating
private, password-protected websites, provided centers of family and
friends’ communications and support for both of us during these difficult
times.
Both of us were able to meet the needs of a large number of concerned family
and friends who wanted and needed to…
Grieve,
Share their feelings,
Receive answers to their questions,
Contribute memories of happier times such as photos, stories, poems and
other information,
“Be in the loop” on detailed updates, and
Rejoice in the positive things surrounding the lives of our respective
children
Now, two years later, my daughter-in-law seems 80%-90% recovered from her
surgery. Through her “recovery website” we’ve been able to easily communicate
with and update more than 80 concerned family members and friends on her
progress on a regular basis.
25
Unlike social networking sites like MySpace or Facebook, private websites are
password-protected. Here’s the scoop on private, password-protected
websites:
getmyfamilysite.com
lastinglinks.com (sponsor of this eBook)
myfamily.com
26
mygreatbigfamily.com
thefamilypost.com
ning.com
data
Easy access to
Low cost
Easy to use
software,
Minimal equipt.,
maintenance
Low
permanence
High
High privacy
experience
Rich user
Totals
CRITERIA→
“Private Web
Sites”
7 6 8 8 6 5 9 7 56
performance
ratings:
Average of all
performance 6.8 6.4 6.4 6.8 4.4 5.8 7.8 7.3 51.4
ratings:
If you are interested in learning additional ways to strengthen family ties, to preserve your heritage, and to share
and enjoy family memories and traditions for the benefit of your family and future generations, click here.
27
Tool #8: Videos
Videos prepared for private settings as well as those viewable publicly over the
Internet have become hugely popular ways of sharing information on a myriad of
subjects. In the U.S., more than 11 billion online videos are watched on a
monthly basis and the number is climbing. 2
Although our family has more than 50 VHS and 70 Hi8 videotapes in the process
of being transferred to DVD, we have only 10 or 15 of what we consider real
“videos” in our family.
We don’t consider videotaped raw materials to be real “videos” until they have
been made watchable at least by editing, and preferably the addition of music
for emotional impact, titles, and even narration or scripting for storyline.
Our finished videos include the presentations made of the courtship and
marriages of our sons and daughters. One daughter told me that when she
moved to Alaska with her new husband to help start a new business, she
watched the video we made for their marriage nearly every day.
Videos can also include productions for the fun and enjoyment of family
members. When our sons were serving missions for our church at various times,
the brothers at home would sometimes make a video for whichever brother was
serving away at the time.
These videos are hilarious and often exciting spoofs of famous adventure
movies with amusing content and titles such as
Each features the fight of good against evil (with themselves acting both as
heroes and villains) and contains feats of skill and daring mixed with physical
28
prowess and inside family jokes. These videos became cult favorites in the
neighborhood and, later on, often drew many viewers at college dorm
screenings.
The girls in the family (mother, sisters and wives of our sons) got tired (or
jealous) of all the attention the boys’ videos were getting and made their own
spoof of the boys’ spoofs. Shot in one Thanksgiving weekend, their version of
the above “The Trilogy of Mayhem” was entitled Demosnik’s
Revenge. It was so entertaining that it became the fourth member
of the now-renamed collection, “The Tetralogy of Mayhem.”
The important thing about these videos is not whether they were
well- or poorly-executed. (There is much of both in these videos.) The
important thing is that they provided an enjoyable
vehicle for our sons and daughters to work together
unitedly as a team to accomplish a good, mutually-
edifying end.
Unlike a slideshow DVD that usually has just pictures and music, a video
documentary often includes those elements plus interviews, and views of
actual locations where events took place. A documentary can require a
29
significant amount of research, even writing a script and perhaps selecting a
producer, etc.
Low cost
Easy to use
software,
Minimal equipt.,
maintenance
Low
permanence
High
High privacy
experience
Rich user
Totals
CRITERIA→
“Videos”
performance 3 3 3 3 3 8 7 10 40
ratings:
Average of all
performance 6.8 6.4 6.4 6.8 4.4 5.8 7.8 7.3 51.4
ratings:
If you are interested in learning additional ways to strengthen family ties, to preserve your heritage, and to share
and enjoy family memories and traditions for the benefit of your family and future generations, click here.
30
Summary Evaluation of Electronic Media Tools
As promised earlier, and inasmuch as the final two tools are not strictly electronic
but are facilitated by electronic tools, let us summarize at this point our
evaluations of the performance of the foregoing technologies. Again, the scale is
from “1” to “10” where"1" = does not perform well and "10" = performs very well,
within each criterion.
data
Easy access to
Low cost
Easy to use
software,
Minimal equipt.,
maintenance
Low
permanence
High
High privacy
experience
Rich user
Totals
CRITERIA→
Blogs 7 8 7 7 2 3 7 7 48
CDs/DVDs of family
10 7 4 6 5 8 8 7 55
memories
Email newsletters 10 10 9 9 4 2 7 3 54
On-demand book
9 5 6 7 5 9 8 7 56
printing
Online meeting
5 5 7 7 5 3 9 8 49
services
Private websites 7 6 8 8 6 5 9 7 56
Slideshow/music
3 7 7 7 5 8 7 9 53
DVDs
Videos 3 3 3 3 3 8 7 10 40
Average of all
performance 6.8 6.4 6.4 6.8 4.4 5.8 7.8 7.3 51.4
ratings:
Ratings key: "1" = does not perform well; "10" = performs very well.
31
Tool #9: Online Family Meetings
This tool and Tool #10 for strengthening family ties may incorporate electronics,
but we will be focusing on their content, rather than on the method of delivery.
Nuclear and extended families are often strung out in various cities and states
from coast-to-coast, if not in other countries. “Getting together” periodically on a
face-to-face basis can be a difficult, time-consuming, and an expensive
undertaking.
32
Today’s modern electronic meeting methods can minimize or remove entirely
much of the difficulty, time, and expense involved in getting together on a
regular basis and in turn aid in strengthening family ties.
We call our online meetings, “TeleTime with Nana and Bapa”. Our purpose is to
strengthen our relationships with our children and grandchildren scattered across
the country. You may have a different purpose and a different audience. The
following is an example of a typical meeting.
We organize a slide show, often by selecting and putting in order photos of our
children when they were younger, which their own children now love to see.
This is what the slide show “light box” looks like in which we arrange our photos:
33
A few minutes before the meeting begins, we connect using the meeting
service’s interface like the one below…
…and dial the conference call number, show the opening screen and wait for
the other family members to logon. This is our welcome screen:
We wait for about five minutes for everyone to get online, and then launch into
our pre-prepared slide show. Sometimes the slideshows have music, sometimes
not.
34
Often, we will have made copies of the pictures from favorite children’s stories
and narrate the stories as we advance the pictures.
Here’s an example of a series of slides from ‘The Princess and the Pea”:
35
After about five or ten minutes, we turn the time over to the other families for
“Sharing Time.” If the families have any pictures that children have drawn, or
photos from recent activities like a birthday, or school event, they will show them
during this time.
We asked for responses after our first TeleTime. These were one family’s
reactions:
36
Computer
o Faster is better
o Dictates video speed and choppiness/smoothness
o Some laptops have camera and microphone built in
Internet Connection
o Faster is better
o T-1 is best, then cable, then DSL; dial-up not feasible
o Quality of conference call is often determined by lowest
common denominator (slowest connection)
Apart from free and fee-based categorization, online meeting services can be
grouped into the following categories, depending on user need:
2-party, 2-way communication
o Typically one-on-one discussions, often used for technical support
o Requirements: computer, internet connection, software, phone
and/or headset or microphone/speakers required for both parties
o Optional: webcam for either party
Optional:
o Headset/microphone, depending if others will be talking or taking
turns presenting;
o Webcam for any party;
o Speakerphone if several persons are present
37
Services Review, Strengths & Weaknesses
The following is not a comprehensive listing, but rather shows the range or types
of services available.
Googling “web conferencing services”, for example, will generate a large number
of additional options worthy of evaluation, such as DimDim, Yugma, and others.
The decision factors or criteria you may want to consider in choosing the solution
that is best for your family are shown across the top of the chart below:
“Grandma
Document
Webcam
Sharing
Internet
Ease of
Factor”
Phone
Voice
Total
Chat
Use
Name & Brief
Description Cost
Skype: a specialist in Free 6 8 8 8 7 9 7 53
this field with a lot of
support and a large base
of users. Phone
expertise.
Oovoo: a relative new- Free 7 7 6 10 5 5 5 55
comer, but many users
like the slick interface.
Both audio and visual
presentations.
GoToMeeting: web $49/m 8 7 Not No 6 8 8 n/
conferencing specialist. o. rated a
Chat, slide
presentations, change
presenters. Simple
interface. Small software
install.
MSN Messenger: has Free 9 7 8 9 7 10 8 58
been around a long time.
Still primarily a
chat/instant messaging
application.
Note: “Grandma Factor” refers to overall lack of likely technical intimidation for
installation and use.
Ratings key: "1" = does not perform well; "10" = performs very well. (Max.
of 80 points possible)
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Conducting an Online Family Meeting
When conducting an online family meeting, especially for the first time, consider
the following recommendations:
Although most applications allow the meeting organizer to send an
invitation via email to all parties announcing the meeting date, time and
access (password, link) information, don’t depend on a single email to
get your audience to your “meeting”.
With everyone’s busy schedules, meeting reminders (email, personal
telephone calls, etc.) on the day of the meeting are almost always
required to generate the greatest participation.
Participants should download, install, and test the software in advance
so the meeting can start on time and issues can be debugged before it
starts.
Hardware (computer, microphone, headset, speakers, webcam, etc.)
should also be tested in advance. Microphone settings are especially
important to test to avoid unnecessary feedback, noise, etc.
When not speaking, sound quality for other participants will generally
improve if everyone’s microphone but the speaker’s is muted.
Overall quality is affected by internet connection speed and computer
hardware—a faster internet connection and better computer hardware will
result in a better overall experience. A fast internet connection is
required for the best results.
Rather than focusing on the technical whiz-bangs and gadgetry of the various
services, it is important that the emphasis be on the individual family
members and strengthening relationships.
The first few experiences using an online meeting service may be frustrating.
Some participants will likely have technical issues and feel embarrassed
or frustrated.
Patience and understanding on the part of everyone will go a long way
towards a positive experience.
Additionally, it is helpful to take turns or have the meeting
coordinator/conductor endeavor to hear from each party to ensure no
party is left out of the experience.
Finally, let’s turn our attention to tool #10: family organizations. Few groups ever
perform well if they are not organized. Inasmuch as they are the most important
organizations on earth, let's spend some time on how to organize families
successfully.
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Tool #10: Family Organizations
In the closing days of one’s life, you never hear anyone approaching his demise
say, “I should’ve spent more time at the office,” or “I wish I could have bought
that bigger house.” No, if there are any regrets, they often surround the family—
how he treated family members and how he invested his time with them.
This final tool is about how you can organize your family to strengthen and enjoy
family ties here and now, and not leave it to someone else after you are gone.
Strengthening ties that bind families together requires us to look to the needs of
present and future generations of our children and grandchildren, as well as to
know and appreciate past generations.
We are all aware of the great challenges and opposing forces in the world which
tend to tear down families and family values. Do what you can do now to
organize your own and/or extended family. Strengthening family ties to combat
the distractions of the world and to accomplish good works can be both
challenging and exhilarating.
No society or civilization on the face of the earth has prospered or endured that
was not based on the success and protection of its families. From the beginning
of recorded history, stable families have provided the key to stable societies.
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Ancient Babylonia
Mesopotamia
Greece
Oral traditions of Africa and the Americas
Confucianism
Taoism
Hinduism
Buddhism
Shinto
We believe that there is no success that can compensate for failure in the family.
There are several tools that the immediate family organization of parent and
children can use to help strengthen family ties. Here are some we use:
Online meetings (discussed in Tool #9.)
Email newsletters (Discussed in Tool #3)
Family councils
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Because the first two have already been discussed, let us say something briefly
about family councils.
When I was laid off from work a number of years ago, we called a family council
to discuss the situation and what we should do about it.
I drew for the family a picture of a bathtub with the water level representing our
current financial resources. The faucet, representing our income, was shut off.
The drain, representing our expenses, was still open.
Even the youngest child could easily see that our resources would dwindle to
nothing if our expenses were uncontrolled and our income didn’t resume soon.
Grandparent Organization
The grandparent organization can be responsible for keeping the family and its
traditions going through such activities as:
Regular get-togethers
Newsletters
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Reunions
Social activities
Cultural activities
Soliciting funds for worthy goals, such as writing and publishing
histories of parents and grandparents and their ancestors
Goal-setting
Ancestral Organization
When ancestral family organizations deviate from this major objective and
seek primarily to provide social, cultural, or other types of activities, they take
over the legitimate domain of the immediate and grandparent organizations.
It requires only one person to take the initiative to get the ball rolling.
Get as many individuals involved from different legs of the family as
possible, which includes more people in the effort.
Involve the younger generations in the organizing and work, which
helps keep things going beyond the older group that typically does
family history work.
If you are interested in learning additional ways to strengthen family ties, to preserve your heritage, and to share
and enjoy family memories and traditions for the benefit of your family and future generations, click here.
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Helpful Hints
Establish goals, objectives
Work together on something
Make it fun
Keep an active committee
Involve as many as possible
Review progress regularly
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Invitation
That’s about it. We have implemented these tools in our family and know that
they work powerfully to help strengthen family ties.
We sincerely hope you will try the ones that might fit your family needs best. See
if they won’t help strengthen you and your family’s ties, as they have ours.
If you are interested in learning about ways to preserve, share and enjoy family
memories, click here and you will be taken to their web site.
If you have any thoughts or feedback you’d like to share, we’d be pleased to
receive them. Just click here and an easy-to-use form will open where you can
submit your comments. This will help us improve future editions for families like
yours. Thank you!
1
Isaacs, M. & Sabella, R.A. (September/October, 2002). For better or for worse: Technology and the
family. School Counselor, 10-11
2
ComScore.com, March, 2008, http://www.comscore.com/press/release.asp?press=2223. Retrieved
5/21/08.
3
David C. Dollahite (Ed.) (2000), Strengthening Our Families, Center for Studies of the Family, Brigham
Young University, 370-381.
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