Volume 8 • Number 1 • Fall 2009

Sharing Secrets to Success, Web 2.0 Style

Since long before there was an Internet, UMass Extension has been a communications and social network with a broad reach and active dialogue, sharing collective wisdom among agricultural producers, natural resource professionals and many others.

Today, YouTube, blogs, Twitter, Facebook and other social media have changed the landscape of communication, and are offering new opportunities for sharing information, gathering data, and carrying out the Extension mission – ones that are already paying off for growers around the state.

When it comes to maintaining an interactive relationship with Extension stakeholders, and effectively providing the best information possible, the potential of social networking is huge, according to Steve Goodwin, dean of the UMass Amherst College of Natural Sciences.

“Social networking is a big piece of what Extension does and we just need to move along with the technology. Our audience knows that they can trust the information they receive from Extension,” he says. The new technologies show real potential for allowing farmers to get regular updates on weather and other conditions and the potential effects for their crops or stock.”

Social media represent an increasingly accessible way to provide alerts and point the way to new research, blogs, and articles. Critical information can be delivered instantly. One could sign up with Twitter or an email list right now and be alerted in real time to the path of a destructive pest as it moves from farm to farm across the state.

These developments are by no means all in the future.

Today, you don’t need to drive all the way to West Brookfield to learn about the new tall-spindle apple orchard planted through the Massachusetts Orchard Production Upgrade Program. Extension fruit specialist Jon Clements will share his “secrets to success”… courtesy of the Massachusetts Video Fruit Advisor on YouTube.

If you are in problem-solving mode about your chrysanthemums in your commercial greenhouse, specialized assistance is as close as your laptop, from the blog and rich reference resources of Extension’s Floriculture Greenhouse Update.

Credits:
Writing: Jim Shinnick
Photography: Ben Barnhart

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