As you guys may have guessed by now, we have been in somewhat of a crisis, a national one, a global one, a once in a generation one, the likes of which happen every 50 years or so. Whatever the politics or the science of it all, this was\is something that our Guru Ghar could not simply ignore and hope it would go away in a couple of days! It’s here to stay with us for a little while yet, and the #Gurdwara team needed to act fast to keep our sangat safe and within Government guidelines.
Connected
How were the D&T meant to keep the Sangat connected and in tune with #Guru Ji’s bani that brings so much warmth and heart to our souls? Would we rely on the good folks of the Punjabi-centric satellite TV channels that we all know and love to fill that void??! How could we bring the Gurdwara we know, love and respect to our sangat…?? Well the D&T team sprang into action in earnest.
Zoom in…
First of all, a whole bunch of the team got together like most children and Governments all over the world, via the Zoom web-conferencing platform. Other platforms are available to most, but as our children have been showing us how it’s done, why not go with the flow!! So, we Zoomed-into a web-conf discussed ways of connecting the sangat to the Guru Ghar whilst maintaining social distancing guidelines. It has proved a vital resource and tool available to all the teams. In many ways and ironically, it has been the perfect way to gently coax some of the technophobes among us into making use of digital comms channels that we had never even heard of let alone use!
Anyway, I digress…we discussed ways to bring programmes to the Sangat via our various social media platforms, why re-invent the wheel eh?! The audiences are already there, doesn’t cost the Gurdwara anything, with over 11k followers to our Facebook page, it was a no-brainer!
Seamless automation…
So, one of our D&T sevadars went to the Gurdwara and gave a training session (whilst maintaining social distancing) to the Gianis and Granthis on how to broadcast on Facebook live, set up the equipment. This has now resulted in multiple daily services being broadcast around the world. Not only that, but the process for the sangat to request Ardaas has seen a seamless automation end to end. A member of the sangat requests Ardaas through a webform (soon also to be via app), and through automation logic in the backend, results in the request being sent to a printer from where the Giani ji picks up and will say Ardaas at the time requested. We shall explore the technology and process in a future blog.
It really has been a pivotal moment for our Guru Ghar. We have not only brought our Guru Ghar to our sangat, but pinned it onto a Worldwide map, like never before. Our digital platforms have seen unprecedented levels of traffic and a sort of engagement that never entered our first thoughts previously. Our Giani jis have moved on from crumpled up pieces of paper to a digitised workflow in a matter of weeks.
As I shall I discuss in upcoming posts, we shall see how this has evolved, and even brought much needed comfort to families in their hour of need…
Disruption…
It just goes to show how technological disruption can shape and change how we digest our surroundings and everyday lives; this is another smallyet significantexample… and then going forward, how will we continue to use these technological innovations as we emerge from lockdown…
Please let us know your thoughts on this, how we can improve, add to what we have been doing up until now, there are lots of exciting projects we are working on (Mobile app anyone?!?), and ideas on what we do on Gurpurabs. The team had already shown great agility in bringing the amazing Vaisakhi programme to the sangat, in such a short space of time; I shall discuss the hard work the team of sevadars put into producing this fantastic experience to us all, and who are working hard and long hours to help bring a legacy for future generation and sevadars…
Until Next time…
Waheguru Ji Ka Khalsa, Waheguru ji ki fateh.
A good read!