Just over a week ago I attended a different church – the first one in a long, long time. No, I’m not leaving mine but was simply paying a visit to the one where my teenager now attends whilst at University.

The building is very typical Anglican in that it has a central seating area surrounded by two rows of pillars and two side seating areas either side of the pillars. Whilst this is a traditional layout for the seating area it can leave a lot to be desired in terms of being able to see – unless of course you like this or want to sleep during the sermon!

However, this church had overcome this and on each pillar there was a large screen TV (old style analogue but why not if it works?) – I guess 21″ or more along with a large screen off centre and down the front. All of these were centrally linked to the media projector for song words, presentations, notices, etc and they were also all linked to a recording device / live media streamer. It didn’t take me long to spot that they were using a dome camera (similar to these) with a 360 degree field of vision.

I’d loved to have had a chat with the operator or the person9s) responsible for the vision behind it all but I was there for family time so couldn’t justify it. However, I was impressed with the alternative use of a product that it wasn’t specifically designed for.

This got me to thinking about how I could use stuff I know about in differing ways. Hopefully more on that anon.

What novel ways do you use equipment, software, etc?