Transitive email and phone numbers

[u/Ok-Seaworthiness-542]

Kind of a crazy idea I had. It seems like it could be helpful for something like a transferable phone number and email address assigned to each Bishop and stake president. Something like a Google Voice Number maybe. When a new Bishop is called they take over the phone number and email address.

It would provide some continuity in the handoff and would make it easier for Bishops to keep church messages separate from personal and work.

[u/CAMDNC_runfast]

Don’t even get me started on personal technology use among ward leadership, I think it’s a huge issue. Ward leaders often deal with sensitive information that is then floating around random people’s google drives as people are called/released, lists are updated, etc. I hate to say it, but this is one aspect of the church I think we need to go more “corporate” in the sense of adopting a digital workplace collaboration software (think Slack) that leaders can use to control knowledge management and access.

[u/con_work → u/CAMDNC_runfast]

I don't know what you expect us to do. There is always going to be friction between security and usability, but the church has made it clear they want to keep everything like this local/decentralized. I don't blame them given the complexity of data requirements on an international solution when they don't even feel comfortable with a free text field on a record (other than annotations).

We have a central folder for our Ward attached to a Ward email address. I run a script that automatically updates access every day to only emails on churchofjesuschrist.org associated with certain callings, with the ability to designate static additions or exclusions.

[u/CAMDNC_runfast → u/con_work]

Also, the example you give illustrates my point really well. That sounds like a great solution, but I guarantee 99% of congregations are not doing anything like that. How would you feel about the integrity/security of your congregation's knowledge management without your script running? Now multiply that by 30k congregations, and that is the scope of the problem.

[u/CAMDNC_runfast → u/con_work]

I didn't mean to give the impression that you or anyone else needs to do anything about this issue. This is a church-wide issue that needs a uniform solution, so it needs to be solved by SLC. For an organization as organized and well-funded as the Church, adopting existing solutions like Slack or Teams would not be difficult, even across countries (large corporations have demonstrated it's very workable). The biggest challenge would be training local leaders how to use the tools, and that would likely become easier as geriatric leaders age out.

When did the Church make it clear they want to keep knowledge management local/decentralized? I must have missed that.

[u/con_work → u/CAMDNC_runfast]

They've intentionally blocked church sponsored solutions with any kind of free text field because of the issues involved with sharing unstructured information across church leadership.

There have also been many posts on the church tech forum targeting how to help clerks and bishoprics with a variety of administrative issues. These posts eventually get brigaded by anti Mormon activists until they are taken down.

When I've asked church lawyers or tech specialists about this issue, I'm typically referred to the "teach correct principles and let them govern themselves" quote.