Trends and Issues in Extension

My Extension 2.0 paper proposal for this fall’s ESP conference has been accepted. I’ve been actively collecting enterprise 2.0 and web 2.0 type posts, reports, documents, etc. to help prepare for the presentation and some related journal articles. Any ideas, suggestions or just pointing me to new resources is greatly appreciated. Related to this, I’m also part of a team that has a session on virtual work in Extension. For delicious users, here is my current delicious Extension 2.0 list.

Below is the Extension 2.0 abstract:

Extension 2.0? The impact of Web 2.0, Enterprise 2.0 and other forces in creating new organizational work structures in Cooperative Extension

Jerold R. Thomas

Ohio State University Extension

Several authors have been writing about structural changes in work environments brought about by new technology, changing demographics, global competition, and external issues like energy costs. This presentation will demonstrate how the Web 2.0 tools can be used and provide recommendations about how Extension systems can use Enterprise 2.0 techniques to improve their efficiency and effectiveness.

Many technology writers (Tim O’Reilly is a leading example) have been discussing a significant change in information technology that has been dubbed Web 2.0. Web 2.0 refers to new online technologies that allow users to interact with writers of web content and each other. Examples include wikis, blogs, podcasting (both audio and video) and other collaborative platforms. Web 2.0 changes the direction of discourse from top down (whoever posts information) to a more collaborative partnership. Early examples in Extension include the structural organization of eXtension. Enterprise 2.0 has followed Web 2.0 as researchers and practitioners look for ways of incorporating Web 2.0 tools into work structures. Leading researchers in this area include McAfee and Lakhani from Harvard University. Enterprise 2.0 is important because it focuses not on the technology, but rather on the technology as a tool to help develop and create systems that make us more effective and efficient. Enterprise 2.0 also encourages the development of systems and structures rather than imposing them.

Other trends that are converging to push society to Enterprise 2.0 functionality include demographics (the increased generational difference in the use of mobile and other electronic media), increasing energy costs that have led to more collaborative and geographically distributed work teams and systems and competition from around the world in adult education and providing of information resources.

The presentation will cover the major trends, address what Web 2.0 is and briefly demonstrate some of the tools (specifically a collaborative program management program, a blog, a collaborative writing instrument teams can use, and podcasts), and then introduce Enterprise 2.0 concepts and their impact on Extension. Dialogue and interaction will be used throughout the presentation, with questions and reflection encouraged.

Summary:

The presentation will cover major trends like technology, demographics, and energy and provide an overview of Enterprise 2.0 theory and how it increases effectiveness in Extension systems. Specific tools that will be demonstrated include: a collaborative program management program, a blog, a collaborative writing instrument teams can use, and podcasts.

Jack Vinson has an interesting post about a Computerworld article that discusses some positive benefits of multi-tasking related to technology tools. One of the articles comments makes a nice point that much of what is being referred to as multi-tasking is simply switching between tasks.

Rod Boothby at Innovative Creation has a really salient post on communicating Enterprise 2.0. Mainly that we keep talking about what technology does versus the issues or problems that it can solve. Pretty obvious after Rod points it out. And a point that I keep finding myself guilty of falling into!! Here are some quotes from Rod:

“Big companies are slowly starting to adopt Enterprise 2.0 technology.   But, selling technology isn’t the answer.   And selling technology misses the point.”

And…..

“It is my belief that if you are trying to help people, you need to tell them what problems you are going to solve, and not necessarily how you are going to solve the problems.”

Good points, now I just need to follow Rod’s advice as I put together some of my Extension 2.0 pieces. One key way we are currently doing this is with an internal research project at OSU Extension. More about that program in a few months (We’re currently under IRB review and will distribute the instrument soon, but it’s a system wide census so I don’t want to introduce bias at this point).

I also recommend Rod’s 15 page white paper on Web Office. Here is Rod’s post that contains a link to the PDF of the white paper.

The power point slides for my November, 2006 National ESP presentation “Using Technology to Improve Communications and Develop Collaborative Teams in Geographically Distributed Extension Work Systems” is online at the National ESP website. Use this post and then cruise to the bottom of the page to the hyperlink that opens the graphics. It was a fun hour presentation with a very engaging crowd (here is one of the session photos).

Kevin Kelly has a post on his Technium site that really got me thinking. Kevin discusses the additional cost of keeping technology and gadgets going after we have purchased them. Kevin calls this the “true cost of ownership”. I first breezed over the article a few days ago, then found myself bouncing back to it. I was subconsciously adding up how much time I’d been spending trying to get a new computer camera working with both AIM and Skype. Kevin estimates that for every $1 you spend on technology, you will spend a $1 of your time (defined as the cost of a tech person’s time) maintaining it. Kevin also shows some data that indicates that the percentage of time that is spent on maintaining software has almost doubled since the 70’s.

There are several important issues from this post for Extension to consider. Here are a few:

• Has the upkeep time came at the cost of other time? Or is it that we have saved time with the technology and that they increased time is really an investment? I think it is the later, but it still illustrates other needs. See below.

• Skills: What kind of continual training do Extension professionals need to keep up with maintaining and enhancing the technology. Just as important, what kind of training do we need in how to use the systems that we create by having the technology. For example, once I get my camera consistently working with Skype how can I better learn to use the system for various work efforts and increase my efficiency and effectiveness?

• Staffing: Who do we need to support us? What is the role of tech support? What additional skills do we need to look for as we hire educators. Can we share support across Extension systems?

• Equipment: What types of equipment and software do we need? If Web 2.0 platforms become a reality will it save us time? Are there standardizations across systems that we can use?

Some things to ponder and think about. It would be an interesting research project to actually track the economic impact and cost of our time.

Our office has incorporated IM into our operations over the last five years or so. This has occurred mainly due to the fact that we are using virtual and distributed office settings. So IM has primarily been an internal tool versus an external tool for us. We use it for our internal operations versus as a means to connect with clientele. Libraries seem to be using it more and more to be more accessible to their clientele. Here is a good post from Bibliotech’s archive about IM use with librarians. It’s from this more recent post that notes:

As of this Fall, 2006, our IM Reference stats at Butler University have surpassed our email Reference stats and are regularly more than half of the number of Reference questions we get by phone. And this is only the second academic year we’ve offered this service.

The first post provides a succinct overview of why libraries need to use IM to connect with their clientele. I’m really uncertain how well (if at all) Extension is using IM. Especially given the changing demographics and technology use of current youth. There appears to be a demand. Any ideas?

Continued light blogging from me as I’ve worked on several projects simultaneously. Several of these are related to Web 2.0, distributed/virtual work systems and Extension futures research. One recurring item that I continue to see related to Web 2.0 is the new (fill in the blank)  ___2.0 of everything. Education 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 are current examples. All feature interesting arguments about how Web 2.0 activities are leading to structural changes in organizations and how we work.  Hopefully I will post more on all of these soon. I’m hoping to use the upcoming ESP 2007 call for papers as a deadline to put together a proposal and potential JOE article on Extension 2.0. This would include the opportunities (I think they are great) and some of the hype. Any feedback is appreciated or comments are appreciated!

For now, here is a link to an interesting Harvard Business School case study on the debate about having an Enterprise 2.0 post on Wikipedia.

I mentioned earlier that Ryan Schmiesing and I are starting to work on a youth collaborative software project. This means that I’m doing spurts of research on the subject. One area of information that I’m collecting compares current youth generations to older adult generations. So I was really interested in this Business Week article about

Millennials serving as interns (found via Tom Peters’ blog). It’s an interview of an entrepreneur that hired summer interns and takes 3-4 minutes to read. The culture clash is interesting, and I still wonder how much of it is generational differences versus typical kids working for typical baby boomer adults. Two key differences that I do think are real: A generation that knows nothing of the cold war and that take multi-tasking as a way of life.

I’m especially interested in the group of youth called the Digital Native generation. This is the generation that grew up in a complete digital lifestyle and knows nothing different (I picked the term Digital Native up from Glen Hiemstra’s new book Turning the Future into Revenue. Glen credits Marc Prensky with coining the term – see this article by Marc. See also p. 15 of the Glen’s book for more information). Another interesting term is “Mypod generation”– from Myspace and iPod - two tools that almost every teenager understands. For more on what the newer digital savvy workers expect, see this article from the September 2006 issue of Optimize. What we need to understand is this is the only life that many of our youth have experienced. Hence our efforts to look at both Extension youth and adult programming to better understand how youth use social collaboration software. Extension can play a key role in helping both the youth (via understanding the pros/cons of social software, the consequences of what they post, understanding job and other life skills) and adults (to actually better understand tools like Myspace, how club and other advisors can use the tools, and how to work with mixed generations of co-workers and citizens).

I’m a somewhat unrepentant multi-tasker. It just comes naturally to me. I have no flow issues with jumping from one item, conversation, project to another, then another, then another and then maybe jumping back. I find that this really disturbs the people around me that are really focused on single tasks. There is also some evidence that multi-tasking can diffuse effectiveness.

Drucker really pushes this in the Effective Executive. While that book was ahead of its time, it’s really tough in today’s environment for busy Extension Professionals to have the luxury of “checking out” and devoting long blocks of time to specific projects.

So what is the answer? To middle ground options that I’ve been playing around with are “chunking” and “time boxing”. I think that both can be good tools for Extension Professionals to test. Here is a quick summary of each.

Time Boxing

I found time boxing through

Dwayne Melacon’s link to this post on Dave Cheong’s blog. Time boxing refers to setting a pre-determined time frame for each project or task. Dave’s post has a good overview of the process. I like the idea because I think we in Extension tend to suffer from Parkinson’s Law , which generally states that “work expands to fit the amount of time allotted to its completion” (see interpretations applied to other uses here). I really liked Dave’s connections to doing the most important things first and his discussion of “null time”. 

Chunking

Related to time boxing is chunking. I found this via

Lisa Haneberg’s blog. Lisa talks about chunking your day into blocks of time as an alternative to multi-tasking. See her post here for her idea of chunking and a tool she uses.

Both of these tools are closely related and can benefit Extension Professionals by allowing more time for them to focus. If you’re an Outlook user, you might want to look at this post for a brief description on how to create 30 minute chunks of time in Outlook.

This past week I was able to spend parts of three days attending various meetings and workshops on developing high impact teams. Ohio State University Extension hosted Arlen Leholm and Ray Vlasin, authors of the book Increasing the Odds for High-Performance Teams, from Sunday evening through Tuesday. Arlen is the current Dean and Director of Cooperative Extension for the University of Wisconsin and the former Director of Michigan State University Extension. Ray is University Distinguished Professor Emeritus for Michigan State University Extension, the former Director of the Natural Resource Economics Division of USDA’s Economic Research Service, and a Staff Economist for the House Public Works Committee.

It was time well spent. Given the fact that most Extension work is done via teams (and committees) we really need to focus on ways of improving our teams’ performances. As an institution that touts science-based research for decision making, we do a terrible job of actually looking at the literature for teams and applying it to our own work. Leholm and Vlasin do just that in Chapter 2 of their book. This chapter has a very good and very succinct overview of the literature about teams. It is so succinct that it is easy to miss the density of detail it contains. The book also has several case study chapters, including one discussing two Extension High Performance Teams (one at Michigan and the other in Ohio).

The book will be especially valuable for those interested in developing longer term, self-directed teams. Much time was spent discussing the differences between self-directed teams and single-leader teams. And the organizational architecture required to have true self-directed teams. And the time frame – maybe two or more years - to really get the team humming.

So without giving the book’s contents away, here are some key concepts. It is possible for organizations to “increase the odds” of developing high performance teams. But they need to truly empower them, build trust and commitment among team members, and help provide the context to develop clarified and realistic team expectations, rules and team purpose. To be truly self-directed, teams must have an infrastructure to keep them focused on performance. And that infrastructure is their own formalized (read written) purpose and operational statements.

To get a better understanding see this 2004 presentation by Arlen and Ray to. For twenty bucks, the book is a cheap investment for Extension professionals.