A key trend that will face Extension Professionals (and almost all knowledge workers) is the need to initiate and complete projects in teams that are spatially distributed. As work has become more specialized and the layers of Extension workers and other researchers more thin, we will continue to need to work others across our systems and from other states. Information technology and new tools and systems to use the technology are making this more viable, although serveral challenges still exist.
I’m collecting more literature on this process for some upcoming papers on future trends. One source that I keep finding myself checking is Future Tense. This blog continues to have short, useful, and highly readable pieces on the future of work. I highlighted the blog a month ago here. Today they have a posting by Jim Ware with some thoughts on distributed work. Jim believes that we will need to rethink our management practices to cope with these changes. I agree. A starting point is to realize that with the technologies that exist (cell phones, wireless networks, hand held devices like PDA’s, etc.) we all literally work from virtual offices. We can access information from an increasing number of physical locations, and we can be accessed from multiple locations as well. Work is where we are (or choose to be accessible).
Implications for Extension Professionals: We will conitually need to re-think our structures and how we work. I suggest considering the wiki training that eXetension is proposing, along with learning other social technology tools. On the flip side, we must also understand that our clientele can use the same technology to obtain information and resources. Right now, in real time. This is happening right now, and I think will grow even more so in the future. To paraphrase William Gibson and also pun this topic, "The future is here, it’s just not widely distributed yet."