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?

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.

]]> http://extensiontrends.ag.ohio-state.edu/2007/04/14/extension-20-presentation-at-this-years-esp-national-conference/feed/ 7 http://extensiontrends.ag.ohio-state.edu/2007/03/15/postive-results-from-multi-tasking/ http://extensiontrends.ag.ohio-state.edu/2007/03/15/postive-results-from-multi-tasking/#comments Fri, 16 Mar 2007 02:37:22 +0000 thomas.69 http://extensiontrends.ag.ohio-state.edu/2007/03/15/postive-results-from-multi-tasking/ 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.

“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.

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.

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?

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).