I accidentally stumbled across this collection of proverbs on entrepreneurship. I found it to contain good advice for Extension professionals that are trying to serve in entrepreneurial roles in their organizations. My experience is that Extension systems (like most large organizations) talk a lot about entrepreneurship but do little to acknowledge or encourage true entrepreneurs. Part of this comes from the human nature of wanting change, but only in others. Part likely also comes from institutional resistance. A quick scan through the list yields several interesting tidbits. For example:
- Cool ideas are useless without great needs.
- Great things are made by people who share a passion, not by those who have been talked into one.
- Pay attention to the idea that won’t leave you alone
I originally discovered this from a link on Innovation Creators that focused on this piece of wisdom: “Don’t worry about people stealing an idea. If it’s original, you will have to ram it down their throats.” Good advice for change agents.
I came across this interesting blog post from FutureWire on blikis. Blikis combine the functions of blogs and wikis. Here is the wikipedia post on blikis. I can see my non-tech interested friends shaking their heads at yet another fad or tool to know about. Some potential Extension uses? How about tech support blogs or program related blogs. Each could have several authors with permission to post and update. The FutureWire post has a link about getting started.
Penn State has any interesting new publication devoted to farm watching. Evidently there are a growing number of people interested in watching and understanding the activities on farms. The publication is also a great introduction to farm operations and could be used with youth, elected officials, and other groups. I’m sure Extension professionals can think of several other uses. If you want a hard copy, here is the order page.
Tomorrow is the first day of the Association for International Agriculture and Extension Education’s annual meeting. I’m only here for two days, so I will have limited posting. I spent part of the day driving from Daytona to the Tampa area. It’s neat to be able to visit both Florida costs over a span of a few days. Today I was able to watch the sun rise on the Atlantic and set on the Gulf of Mexico. Some more R&R tonight and tomorrow, then onto the conference.
My concluding NETC 2006 notes. This was a very good conference, reminding of a smaller version of NACDEP’s conferences. Here are some of my random thoughts:
- My goal at most conferences is to approach each session and learn how people develop their programs, ideas, etc. Not just to learn about the specific program. This always seems to give me insights and generates ideas that are often very different from the actual topic being discussed. NETC is a good conference for this rule of thumb.
- I came away from several sessions more convinced that we need more work on web based training. Particularly on video. Iowa State seems to be a leader in this role, with Penn State moving strong in that direction.
- How does increased connectivity change things? Are we preparing our websites and other web content to be downloaded to mobile devices?
- Economics will drive us to develop more web-based educational tools. There is some good preliminary research out there that can help us be better at educational design for this media. We need to focus more on reviewing and adopting it versus just throwing programs together.
- Extension systems continue to use only a small portion of their technology capabilities. There are several systems that could lead to more collaborations and better interactions with our clientele. For example, Basecamp and delicious for sharing and project management. Podcasts and blogs to reach clientele when they want the information. And wikis as a collaborative writing instrument. Why not involve systems specialists from several states to jointly write training materials collaboratively?
- A recommendation that I plan on sharing with my director is to consider post-program debriefings. As an administrator I plan on doing this more often. It simply is taking 30-60 minutes to briefly meet with attendees from the conference to find out what they learned, their accomplishments, where the field is headed and what impacts and/or recommendations do they have for OSU Extension and me. A quick and easy way to add value and leverage the time the participants have already committed.
- Lastly, the Florida folks did a great job of getting wireless access for the conference. My ideal conference that focuses on information sharing would go like this: 1.) have each presenter submit their presentations in word and/or power point prior to the conference. 2.) post these as downloads on a conference website. 3.) I would relish the chance to be able to open the downloads during the presentation and take notes, click on hyperlinks, etc. during the presentation. I’m guessing that most attendees currently would not do this, but I sure would.
I’m a little late with this posting due to a 1.5 day vacation trip across Florida. Here are my notes from Day 4 at NETC.
The final day of NETC was as productive as the first three. I attended two morning sessions (see abstracts here and here) taught by Peggy Shuffstall from Penn State. Both discussed Penn State’s move away from face-face training to more online types training. Because of budget and staffing reductions, they have had no choice. What was really neat is that they used the new training as an action type research process. Feedback from participants, information on time and money saved, and future directions were shared. Some examples (comparing 2004 to 2005):
- Face-face trainings were reduced from 121 to 26
- Remote training increased from 25 to 86
- About two-third of the participants agreed that the length of time was correct (changed from 5 hours face-face to 2 hours), and that the training fit their learning style. For participants in video conferencing, two-thirds of the participant thought that video was as effective or more effective as having the instructor in the same room.
I also slipped into a presentation on wiki’s by John Dorner of North Carolina State just long enough to grab a handout. Most of the systems specialists from OSU attended a session by Jeffrey SoRelle from Texas A&M on using blogs to communicate information. They came away impressed enough to call back to Columbus and had their own blog set up before noon.
Day three at NETC zoomed right along. I’m learning a lot about the capabilities of online teaching, and generating a lot of ideas for how this stuff can work in other ways. The lunch presentation was focused on using wireless technology to control farming operations. Very cool, and a great presentation to help to generate ideas. We were able to watch several remote control features of machinery, doors, lights, etc. It reminded me how tantalizingly close we are to ubiquitous connectivity. Add in RFID tags and you create an interesting world. The ppt slides can be found here in PDF format.
One thing that I found interesting and useful has been a focus on educational design to teach learners, not just on the technology. Two very good presentations related to this were given by Sonja Jo Serna (New Mexico State) and Becky Nibe (Iowa State). Abstracts are located here and here respectively.
Another great evening meal and plenty of time for vigorous networking.
Day 2 of NETC started with an interesting topic: Extraterrestrial Agriculture. Robert Ferl from UF discussed work that faculty and staff in Ag Engineering and Horticulture have been conducting about growing plants in space. The idea is that for any long term space activity (Mars missions, for example) humans will need to produce their own food. Later in the day I toured some of the research facilities at UF that are devoted to this line of research. One key concern is the two focus areas of NASA: the space station and a moon visit. Funding for this type of research seems to be drying up. For a quick read on the space program, see the chapter about space in Glenn Reynolds’ book An Army of Davids.
There were only two concurrent sessions, but I picked up a lot of information on web design and content capture methods. After two days, it seems clear to me that Iowa State and Texas A&M have a lot going on related to technology.
The highlight of the day was the 404 awards. These are a parody of a formal awards program filled with numerous examples of techie humor. I even got most of it. The key point was that it promoted a sense of team versus recognizing individual accomplishments. This led to more team building at the hotel bar which in turn led to my delay in getting this posted. One and half days of NETC left, and I’m still excited by the program content.
Day one of the NETC conference is over. So far it has been an interesting conference. I’m enjoying the networking and have attended several good sessions. Here are some tidbits from the day.
A good opening session that allowed brief remarks by Larry Arrington, Dean for Extension, University of Florida /IFAS. Dean Arrington had two really interesting points. First, he commented that he used to feel like Extension in Florida was keeping ahead of their clientele with technology. Not so anymore – it is almost impossible to do so. But, he also announced a new UF Extension webpage called “solutions for your life” that goes online in the next week or so. His description sounds exciting and I’m looking forward to finding out more about it.
Dan Cotton also gave an overview of eXtension. 2005 was the forming year for eXension, 2006 is the year to build up the content and populate the site, and 2007 is scheduled for the formal unveiling to the public. The activity level really seems to be cranking up and several sessions at the conference are devoted to eXtension topics.
I attended two interesting sessions in the afternoon. Anne Adrian from Auburn gave an interesting paper on the decision making process for adopting new technologies. She borrows research from the medical and psychological fields that focus on the steps people go through to seek treatment. It also led me to a discussion with Bruce Emmons from NC State about his past dissertation work on computer anxiety and communication styles. More to add to the reading pile.
Finally, the last session I attended had several interesting points on distance learning and education. Howard Beck from Florida and Kathy Wright from Kansas State discussed a current program using streaming video and audio. The big value for me was in the discussions on concept mapping and educational design. Kathy also introduced some concepts from a book by Clark and Mayer that I need to get my hands on.
A very productive and worthwhile first day! More updates as the conference moves along.
I’m spending the next nine days splitting my time between conferences in Florida and hope to do a little blogging about each. First is the National Extension Technology Conference in Gainsville. This is an annual event and not a specific organization. I’m simply a participant at the conference (I’m subbing for a collegue at an eXtension meeting), but I’m really excited. I think Extension is on the cusp of either adopting and developing cutting edge technologies to help us reach clientele and organize ourselves or falling behind and becoming irrelevant. NETC has both technical and application tracks – the first more for techies, the other more for those interested in applying the technology as a tool.
The second meeting is the annual conference of the Association of International Agriculture and Extension Educators in Clearwater. I’m only hanging around for one day, but I’m giving a carousel presentation co-authored with Daney Jackson on Future Trends in Extension (see the link here for the title information). This conference draws an interesting cross section of Educators from around the world.
Two good meetings for Extension professionals to attend. See the respective websites for information about future meetings for each conference.