THINKeEXTENSION

Blog, Web Log, Blogging, Blogger. You have probably heard these terms before. If you’ve been online in the last 2 years you have most likely read one, you may be subscribed to one, you might even have one. What really is a blog and why should you care if you work in Sustainable Agriculture, Natural Resource Management, or the Environment?

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,