I’m excited about the trip. I’ve never been to South Dakota and am looking forward to visiting Sioux Falls and then Brookings and South Dakota State University. I’m even more excited about talking to Extension peers about the tools that can help to create a 21st Century Extension professional.

Our ability to attract audiences still appears to remain high, but converging societal trends make it difficult for all non-formal and volunteer based organizations to draw audiences. Gas prices have some impact, although there seems to be scarce research to demonstrate direct impacts.  Regardless, Extension and outreach professionals will need to find alternative ways to connect with clientele and volunteers.
A bigger impact of fuel prices occurs internally. Many Extension and third sector organizations continue to  face the double squeeze decreasing travel funds and rising fuel/reimbursement costs. Extension professionals  essentially see their travel budges reduced while the per mile reimbursement increases.  One impact from this dilemma is an increased focus on adopting (or more accurately, adapting) tools that allow for distributed collaboration.

Finally, consumers can and do change their behavior based on incentives. What new (or old) programming can we offer related to energy conservation?

If history is a reliable guide, the recession of 2008 is now unavoidable.

The dismal jobs report released Friday showed overall employment to be lower than it was three months ago. Every time such a slump has occurred since the early 1970s, a recession has followed — or already been under way.

And if the good times have really ended, they were never that good to begin with. Most American households are still not earning as much annually as they did in 1999, once inflation is taken into account. Since theCensus Bureau began keeping records in the 1960s, a prolonged expansion has never ended without household income having set a new record.

Implications for Extension include more programming to meet increased economic stresses, community economic development strategies. And once again we need consider the impacts on Extension funding and budgets. It also forces us to consider more uses of technology and new organizational systems like Extension 2.0.

Good advice for Extension professionals caught in daily white water. If you can’t at least focus on your key commitments for at least some of each day they will slip away.

Here is the site link.  See this link for a brief mission statement for the conference.

More later!

I am also part of a team presenting a workshop on Extension restructuring, Centers, and moving to multi-programmatic programming. And a way from less geographically maintained programming issues (see the top of page five of this PDF for a brief description). And eat some real cheese steaks. Bring on the Cheez Wiz!

If you are at the conference be sure to look me up.

• An icebreaker
• An “after break” tool
• A meeting starter (different from an ice breaker in that you know and are familiar with everyone around the table)
• A way to see how many other folk like you are out there in the US…or how few
• A tool to understand the power of large groups

As of 3.13.07 there are 28 other Jerold Thomas’ in the US and 2,066 Jerry Thomas’. Try it. Then try your significant other, parents, friends, etc. Check out the stats page.