Optimizing for Health: Linking Land Grant Knowledge Assets in Support of Healthy People, Food Systems and Communities. When a living system is suffering from ill health, the remedy is found by connecting with more of itself. – Francisco Varela Village rice fields, Shirakawa-go, Gifu-ken Japan (photo by Joel Abroad, https://www.flickr.com/photos/40295335@N00/4888037629/). The scene above is an example […]
Andaman Islands coral reef. Photograph by Ritiks, distributed under CC BY-SA 3.0 license @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Coral_Reef_at_the_Andaman_Islands.jpg Emergent by Design: Solutions Creating More Solutions Over several previous posts1 I’ve written about why Cooperative Extension and the Land Grant system as a whole might (and in some cases already has begun to) embrace a more network-centric approach, enabling it […]
Cultivating Solutions in Place through a Network-Centric Approach The Death of Expertise? Many would agree our recent elections have revealed deep and troubling divides in our country. Though there are certainly several contributing factors some have framed and perhaps foretold this as part of a larger global populist wave rejecting what many perceive as elitist experts and […]
Systems Which Learn -An Equity Imperative Martin Luther King Jr., from Wikimedia Commons “Through our scientific and technological genius, we have made of this world a neighborhood and yet we have not had the ethical commitment to make of it a brotherhood. But somehow, and in some way, we have got to do this…We are tied […]
Part 1: Knowledge through Conversation It’s always a pleasure reconnecting with and learning from colleagues at eXtension conferences. Last March’s in San Antonio was no different, which included convivial meals along the River Walk and several stimulating workshops. One workshop led by my Network Literacy CoP cohorts included this video by UMN Extension program leader Nate Meyer. In it he encourages […]
In January I talked about Building Relationships, the second of five key elements of Working Out Loud. Those five elements are: purposeful discovery, relationships, generosity, visible work, and growth mindset. This month I will talk about Generosity. Generous by Design Let’s answer the hard question first. To the existential question of “Are we generous?” The […]
eXtension recently went through a redesign of extension.org. As project manager, I found it a great experience, not only to work with our engineers, but to observe the design process and how our web developer navigated through the project. I learned a lot from this project: the importance of being agile and maintaining precise focus on the […]
Last month I talked about Purposeful Discovery, the first of five key elements of Working Out Loud. Those five elements are: purposeful discovery, relationships, generosity, visible work, and growth mindset. This month I will talk about Building Relationships. You Are Social Are you social? Of course you are, as human beings we are wired to […]
Recently, I’ve come across a website called Stack Exchange a number of times—whether in a Google search, or in conversation with colleagues who use it regularly. As I explored Stack Exchange I realized there is one thing Extension does more effectively and for free—that is answering people’s questions. What is Stack Exchange? Stack Exchange is […]
Over the next few months I will be sharing my thoughts on John Stepper’s book Working Out Loud. Specifically, John lists five key elements of Working Out Loud. Those five elements are: purposeful discovery, relationships, generosity, visible work, and growth mindset. In November my colleague, Kevin Gamble, wrote about Working Out Loud events recently offered by eXtension. In this […]