In the video I spoke about the great value I have received from Yaro Starak over the last 3 years. I have done a coaching course with Yaro and found his material brilliant and exceptional value for money. If you have been reading THINKeEXTENSION for some time you will know that I don’t use it to flog product. However Become a Blogger Premium Coaching is a product I have absolute confidence in, and I have no hesitation in recommending it to you.

Like I said in the video I am an affliate of Gideon and Yaro’s and stand to earn a commission should you purchase the links in this post. However if you discount my enthusiam by half to allow for any bias on my behalf, you will still find a sincere recommendation for this product Become a Blogger Premium Coaching.

However I have an adament recomendation, even if you don’t see value in signing up for the coaching. At the very least please make your way over to Become a Blogger and download the free Become a Blogger Roadmap, it will literally save you months of work. True to his form for overdelivering Yaro has even provided some more free videos on the signup page once again if you don’t make a purchase make sure you don’t miss this free content.

Tags: LandcareWebsite, NRMWebsite, ExtensionWebsite, Blog, LandcareBlog, NRMblog, ExtensionBlog, AgricultureBlog, Blogging

Why is it important for LAL to use a blog?

As the video shows LAL’s existing website is an excellent resource, it looks good, has lot’s of information and for the one time visitor it pretty much does the job. However it is left for dead by the new blog. Let’s compare the 2 sites.

Ok I admit I am pretty biased, I have Wordpress for 99% of the eExtension strategies I have implemented in the last 2 years. But don’t take my word for it. Try Wordpress yourself for free just visit http://wordpress.com and sign up for a free blog. You’ll be up and running in less that 10 minutes. There are currently more than 4.3 Million websites running on wordpress today, so I am not alone in my bias.

Wordpress is a very cool content management system.

If you don’t like the blog format you can always just use Wordpress as a content management system. Many people have done that also.

If you are new to blogs, can I suggest that you start today by leaving a comment on this site or on the new LAL blog. Let us know what you would like to know how we can improve our blogs because ultimatley we’re writing them for you.

What is a blog?

Below is a really cool video that explains blogs in a really simple way. It was made by the particularly clever Sachi and Lee LeFever of Common Craft. They make stacks of these videos for lot’s of social media applications.

Hopefully the video gave you the basics. My explanation goes something like this.

Blogs are websites that:

• are easy to create and update (if you can send an email or create a word document you can blog)
• allows effortless publishing of regular articles
• archive articles against categories, tags, and dates
• allow visitors to comment on content in articles (often creating a community of readers)
• allow readers to subscribe to a “feed” of articles
• promote connectivity with other blogs i.e. showing “trackbacks” when one blog quotes another

Understanding blogging is a bit like peeling an onion, the more you peel back the layers the more you understand. So don’t expect to pick a deep understanding on the first pass. However what is really important is why a blog is the staple of any clever eExtension strategy.

Why is a blog the foundation of any good eExtension Strategy?

A good eExtension strategy involves an appropriate combination of Social Media and/or Web 2.0 applications integrated with one another and a conventional extension strategy workflow. Depending on your extension strategy and your eExtension competency you might for example decide on a combination of photo sharing, online video, podcasting and micro-blogging would be perfect for your project. But how will you tie these components together, where will you send growers/ landholders/ stakeholders for project information? How will stakeholders search for information delivered at a workshop last year or last month? The answer to all these questions.

Your Blog!

A blog set up for a specific project or for an organisation or department is the glue that will pull together and archive all of your online content. Your blog can be used to share images, audio, powerpiont presentations, online video, conversations, SMS messages, testimonials and much much more. It will give your readers a searchable, shareable “one stop shop” of all your online information. Best of all it will give you a “feed“, a parade of content regarding your extension message, right into their office and or home.

So let me finish by giving reasons why in my humble opinion every Sustainable Agriculture, Natural Resource Management, or Environmental project should have a blog.

1. A blog will glue all your eExtension activities into one easy to find place, archiving your content and making it easy to search and navigate.
2. One day soon all your stakeholders will be getting their most trusted information via an RSS feed just like the one your blog will publish.
3. Your eExtension blog will build a community around it who will share their energy and insight regarding your extension efforts.
4. A blog will tell the whole world a positive story about something actually happening in agriculture and/or the environment. The world needs some many more of these stories.
5. A blog is a very persuasive form of communication. Since the objective of most extension projects is to support participants in trying and adopting new ideas or practices blogging is a very genuine and supportive media for this exercise.

There are many more reasons why a blog is a great foundation for any good eExtension Strategy. What reasons can you think of? I’d love to hear them (and I’m sure other readers will too) so what not leave a comment below?

Tags: blog, blogs, blogging, eExtension, eExtensionRockstar,