More on Brick Walls and Professor Pausch

Jeff Zaslow of Wall Street Journal of Moving On provides a recap of Professor Randy Pausch's Last Lecture and how individuals, media, and Carnegie Mellon University have reacted to his lecture.

Though you will find the 4 minute version inspiring, take the time to listen to his entire lecture. It is well worth your time to let him inspire you.

The 4 Minute video essay:


Be sure and watch the entire lecture on Google Video (1 hour, 44 minutes).

It is tempting to recap his lecture and to write my thoughts on any number of characteristics or philosophies that he shares. However, I believe that the points that mean the most to you will jump out at you and you don't need me to help guide you to these great philosophies of living, learning, and working. Like grieving and emotions, you will find his points very personal--taking on meanings that you will understand best.

As I back away, not listening to his words and the content of his stories, but observe his actions, his energy, and attitude, I am in awe of his humor and his ability to share his very personal thoughts, to teach us, and to not focus on brick walls.

Professor Randy Pausch has taken advantage, maybe unknowingly, of his tragic situation to give us all opportunities to live our personal and work lives more positively and with more respect and with creativity.

May God bless him, his family, friends and colleagues.

Social news sites: Ranking web content

Have you wondered when or even if you need to consider using social news sites for ranking web pages? Steve Spalding of How To Split An Atom compares Digg, Reddit, Stumble Upon, Shoutwire, Slashdot, and Truemors from the perspective of increasing web traffic.

I found his article, How to use social news sites, helpful in understanding the differences and what types of articles are the focus of readers of these sites.

Digg
Popularity of topics center around politics and very unusual stories or pictures. Digg readers hate Bush, love Linux, Apple, and pictures. Submissions have a 24 hour time frame in which to get voted up.

Digg also has implemented a major update this past week that enhances the site to a more social environment. Some of the improves include: increased friend capabilities so individuals with like-interests can communicate, and emphasize content by sending links to friends and discussing topics on message boards.

Reddit
Popular stories are more “news worthy” than stories in Digg. Reddit users like news, good titles, dislike Bush, Digg, and spam. Politics are big topics.

Stumble Upon
Stumblers like videos, cute pictures, and interesting content that can be presented at a glance. Stumble Upon is review based and is not time based. When submitting an article, think how the article can catch readers' attention in 5 seconds. Also, choose your category wisely.

Shoutwire
Very few stories are promoted a day. When a page makes the top list, it will be there a while. The Shoutwire readers are politically outspoken. Readers on this site like social issues, partisan politics, and non-technical articles.

Slashdot
Slashdot is the oldest of social news sites. It gets lots of traffic and has a crowd that includes industry insiders and a insightful community. Slashdot is almost exclusively a “news” portal and the stories are chosen by a combination of users and editors.

Technology related, particularly focusing on security and online rights, and science news articles are rewarded. How-to articles are rare. The new “Firehose” feature has added some social voting features. Slashdot users are the most likely to have insightful comments.

Truemors
Everything has a chance to be promoted, particularly because the number of submissions is small.

The Last Lecture

In more than an academic exercise, Professor Randy Pausch, Carnegie Mellon University, offers advice during his last lecture. Professor Pausch has cancer and is expected live only a few months.

He talks about his childhood dreams that he achieved, how setbacks invoke creativity, and how people's goodness will surprise you, if you wait long enough.

The lecture was recorded for his young children. The 4 minute video in the Wall Street Journal article is certainly worth watching.

If you knew you would live only a few months, what would you record for your family, friends, colleagues, students, and clientele? What advice would you give? What would you describe as important? Who would you thank?

The entire lecture can be found Randy Pausch's Last Lecture - UPDATE on ETC Global News.

QOTD: New kind of business hero

I was thrilled when two colleagues thought to provide me with this quote from Rosabeth Moss Kanter. Indeed, the quote follows my philosophy exactly. Everything we do is about relationships--the work we do, the education we provide, the life we live, the kids we raise, and the fun we have.

In business, too, it's all about relationships.

This new kind of business hero ...must learn to operate without the might of the hierarchy behind them. The crutch of authority must be thrown away and replaced by their own ability to make relationships, use influence, and work with others to achieve results.

Rosabeth Moss Kanter, When Giants Learn to Dance

Interestingly, when I started to investigate the origins of the quote, I also found that John Kevin Humphrey wrote a review of the book in Journal of Extension in 1992 indicating how the concepts in the book are applicable to Extension.

By establishing strategic alliances (sometimes with past adversaries), building quality teams, and developing synergies, product quality can be enhanced. Shifting from a philosophy of "individual stars" to "groups of stars" also achieves higher levels of quality with less bureaucratic structure. Kanter argues that a move away from bureaucratic structure to a post-entrepreneurial structure will facilitate needed changes and increase corporate effectiveness.

The quote and the concept of building relationships--even if these relationships are at a distance and outside of our organizations--are even more applicable today.

SMS and instant messaging advantages

In writing my last post that described activities that virtual teams can use to help communicate and develop their online communities, I omitted two very important tools, instant messaging and Short Message Service (SMS) or text messaging.

I overlooked these important tools because I use these tools all the time and I simply don't think about not using them. I use them like some people use a phone.

Instant messaging and text messaging are not just for kids.

Instant messaging is a way to:

• know if your colleagues are in the office.
• communicate what you are doing (examples, "I'm in a meeting" or "I'm at lunch").
• start (and end) impromptu discussions.
• find out answers to quick questions without interrupting ongoing office questions.

We often use instant messaging in our office when we are on support calls with clients and we need supporting information from our colleagues.

• keep up with your kids.

When they arrive home from school, you can know when they are online and they could IM you.

Text messaging is a way to:

• communicate in a pinch.
• communicate when phone use is disruptive.
• communicate when you don't know how disruptive your communication maybe to the recipient.
• communicate when asynchronous messages are preferred.
• communicate when cellphones don't work well (i.e., in emergency situations).

Because the way data messages are sent, text messages have better success in getting through when circuits are overloaded.

Team blogging

Online tools and blogging offer several advantages to advancing the knowledge of individual work teams, particularly for virtual teams.

Though I had prepared a slide set on online communities for a 1 hour presentation to a team of Extension agronomy agents and specialists (last week), we spent most of our time discussing their thoughts on how online tools and blogging can be useful to the members of the team.

This team has worked well exceptionally since its formation in 3 years ago. As teams should operate, each member is respectful of the talent and expertise of each other member. They know who to call for specific crop, variety, or irrigation problems and questions. In the discussions prior to my portion of the meeting, I often heard

"When I get these kinds questions, I always call (fill in a name of an agent or specialist)."

"Wouldn't it be nice to know what (fill in a name of an agent or specialist in Alabama or surrounding states) is working on".

These comments are indicators that this team is ripe for online collaboration, online community building (aka social networking). During the conversation on online tools, these points were made:

• Internet use and Internet behavior is changing to a "come to me" use.


• Communication failures abound, particularly email misuse.


• The team needs to know what others (members of the Alabama team and other specialists from neighboring states) are thinking.


• There is a portion of the farmers who do not use the Internet. One approach is to develop for the web 1st and print 2nd -- not leaving those out who do not use the Internet completely out of the knowledge loop.


• There is a need to help those who are not using the Internet to learn to use and be convinced of what's useful. (This comment is akin to John Dorner's post: "My audience doesn't use the Internet").


• The team wants to post information on the web faster and easier than they currently do.


• Using a newsreader, such as Google Reader, is imperative to keeping up with what is new on the Internet. Instructions to use Google Reader can be found:
  
• RSS in Plain English
  
  

• Instructions are also available on "How to use a news reader"


• Some feeds that Extension professionals may find useful and get started with can be found at www.pageflakes.com/aadrian

• YouTube, Slideshare, and Flickr offer learning resources that Extension professionals could find useful. Examples are:

• How NOT To Use PowerPoint by Don McMillan

  
  

  Wikis in Plain English by Lee

  
  

  Give a great presentation by John Dorner

  
  

  Dark Alley's of the Internet by ACES CTU staff

  
  

  Passphrase by Anne Adrian

We covered a lot of ground in 1 hour. However, there were several online tools that I simply did not have time to discuss.

• Del.icio.us or Diigo: Share bookmarks so you know what each team member is reading. Del.icio.us is my favorite online tool for sharing knowledge--knowing what my colleagues are reading; and hopefully, they find it helpful to know what I am reading.


• Twitter: Build relationships on the team by knowing what members are doing AND it's fun.


• Facebook: Build a community or group based on interests.

This group of individuals, working as a team, sees the need for using these online community tools. Now is the time to support them in their adoption of whichever tools they decide to use.

What are the purposes of our web sites?

On my 1st day on the job 20 years ago, an associate director firmly said repeatedly "We provide education--we supply more than information--we provide education". This distinction is an important one.

Though, I wonder even if "providing education" adequately describes what Extension does. Extension's objective is to help individuals to learn through educational efforts to make decisions that improve their quality of life. Providing information and education are not enough to improve quality of life, we must also be influential.

If education and information are all it takes for individuals to improve their quality of life, then we would be miracle workers. We are quite good at disseminating research-based information.

If individuals learn a new process, concept, practice, or technology, does that mean that they will adopt and use the new process, concept, practice or technology? For changes to occur that improve quality of life--such as leading healthier lifestyles, improving parenting skills, increasing crop yields, and reducing environmental effects--individuals must choose among many options to make changes that are appropriate for their individual situations.

In developing programs, Extension professionals in their local communities understand the differences between information, education, learning, and influence. They walk individuals through the process of learning a new concept or a new practice. They help individuals weigh options within the decision-making process. Extension professionals know how to make a difference by not only knowing the information and providing education, but by also knowing how to influence individuals by being credible and respected and understanding the individuals.

Are our web sites providing information, education, learning, and influence? What makes us different than other information and education providers? Are we doing all we can in our web presence to influence appropriate individual choices?

Information: Extension web sites do provide quality, research-based information. eXtension demonstrates that we can provide collaborative-developed information. In our institutions, we can, however, make these sources of information more web friendly and more accessible. We can find better ways to feed information in flexible formats.

Education: What is education? Wikipedia describes formal education as:

Education encompasses teachingand learning specific skills and also something less tangible but more profound: the imparting of knowledge, positive judgement and well-developed wisdom.

Also,

Education means 'to draw out', facilitating realisation of self-potential and latent talents of an individual. It is an application of pedagogy, a body of theoretical and applied research relating to teaching and learning ....

Are our web sites and our web presence educational? Do they apply pedagogy principles? Are they only informational? Does the information on our web sites impart knowledge and develop skills?

Learning: What is learning? Is learning different from education?

Learning is the acquisition and development of memories and behaviors, including skills, knowledge, understanding, values, and wisdom. It is the goal of education, and the product of experience. Learning ranges from simple forms such as habituation to more complex forms such as play (activity), seen only in large vertebrates.

Do our web sites and our web presence draw clientele into a learning process? How do our web sites and the information contained in them contribute to learning? Are we using methods that help guide individuals to learn? Do we provide ways for individuals to learn and acquire more knowledge?

Influence: Do the learning opportunities on our web sites invoke changed behaviors? Is it our goal to influence behaviors? What are we trying to convey and provide with our web sites? Are our web sites only a support system of information for our local programs or do we want our web presence to invoke learning and changed behaviors, as well?

Your opinion? Should Extension use our web presence as only sources of information or as educational, learning devices that help individuals make decisions and develop skills? Are we already using pedagogy concepts in some of our web applications? If so, what are those and can those serve as models for other areas? Should we be creating a web presence that engages the learner through an online relationship, social environment?

New Extension Blog: Extension Mission

Jim Langcuster has created a blog specifically describing examples that fulfill Cooperative Extension's mission. Jim is also known as ACES-wikiman and the author of the first full-length Wikipedia article about a state Cooperative Extension organization.

Jim's understanding of history, sociological changes, and Extension impact will provide informative and enlightening reading about Cooperative Extension’s work and challenges.

His latest article compares the news media's challenges to Cooperative Extension challenges in staying relevant. His question is one we should all be asking.

"..how will Cooperative Extension, an organization nurtured within an early 20th century social, cultural and technological context, strive to remain relevant in the client-driven and increasingly socially networked world of the 21st century?"

Enjoy "Mission Extension: The Weblog"!