There is a moment. I can’t tell whether it has yet to pass or if it can rocketing through last Thursday. However in that moment the world has shifted again. As usual Seth Godin is “Johnny on the Spot” as the shift happens with the publication of this new book “Tribes” and a razor sharp blog post. The meme has 16 questions that just might be the razors edge that divides the have and have nots in our emerging attention economy.

Rich Schefren is on the money also, his recently released report “The Entrepreneurial Emergency” seems to name the gnawing feeling many people online are dealing with right now. As the gluttony of information expands exponentially and attention is stretched beyond imagination new methods are required. We have to process and handle knowledge more effectively.

Oddly enough to coincide with this intangible shift I notice tonight that Landcare Australia Limited have joined the semantic web, going all eExtension with a new Wordpress blog. Tip of the hat to Brian and the crew for that.
May I be so bold as to suggest if you are not updating your ability to wield knowledge, there is some pain coming. So take Seth’s test, and see where you find yourself. I know the test has kicked me in the pants to update skills and attitudes in an effort to ride the wave of the attention age.

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In Australia we can them Catchment Care Groups in North America they sometimes call them Watershed Association, either way many of the issues are the same and so are the solutions. In fact this morning I discovered just how parallel.

Through twitter (read a web 2.0 microblogging site) I discover thedublab as he is know in the twitterverse or Dave Riddell to you and me. It turns out Dave is Education Director: Environment and Sustainable Development Research Centre, University of New Brunswick, Fredericton, Canada.

Dave has been using some e-extension namely online video to tell catchment or watershed stories also. However the parallels don’t end there Dave used iMovie to edit his catchment video like I do to edit video for Better Burnett - a catchment recovery program by the Burnett Catchment Care Association.

Anyway check out some Dave’s doco work below or visit his blog . He is an interesting chap and is doing some great work.
The Canaan-Washademoak Watershed

If you are not yet using google earth in your NRM, Landcare, or Ag extension, you may be missing a very valuable tool. Google accesses very current data so imagery over most parts of the planet are pretty good, and in other places brilliant. If you aren’t familiar with google earth, can I suggest you check out some of the video etc at the homepage to get an idea of what can be done. For Better Burnett, (a catchment recovery program that eco2oh is contracted to coordinate, staff use google earth to discuss funding proposals and coordinate onground activity.

Below is a link to a video discussing some of the new features of google 4.3

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tG7cM5Yvhz4

so the good folk at APEN, held a great workshop giving extension staff everywhere a little taste of e-extension. lead by our fearless leader mr john james we conquered web conferencing, podcasting, wiki’s, e-surveys, email discussion lists, and so much more. the stand out for me on the day was the landholder initiated drought stories e-books that are part of the pioneering Leading Sheep program.

any way you want to know who won the competition, right?

oh yes that’s right we had a competition. i was lucky enough to be one of the webinar presenters on the day. i talked about some of the web 2.0 and e-extension projects i had been involved in. in an effort to encourage people to dive in to the whole sphere of web 2.0, i held a competition, a 9 day challenge. the participants had to do three things to go into the draw to win a 12 month premium subscription to a PBWiki.

the three task were as follows;

listen to a podcast
watch a vodcast or online video
and leave a comment on a blog

being the busy people extensionists are there were not an overwhelming number of entrants. however there were enough to warrant tearing up pieces of paper and the dropping them in a hat.

i am very pleased to say.

and the winner is …….

Melina Miles

congratulations melina i will contact you shortly with details for collecting your prize.

thanks to all who participated, commiserations to the other participants. perhaps consider subscribing to this site i am in final stages of preparing some material to introduce a range of web 2.0 concepts. so if you would like to know more about starting a blog, recording a podcast, or creating some online video for you agricultural or natural resource management program stay tune to eco2oh.com

as you can see guys this site is so new there is virtually nothing here yet, I’m still moving in! you’re welcome anyway.

the contest

let’s clear this up first. if you participated in the APEN eExtension workshop you are welcome to enter. if you didn’t, i’m sorry but you should have been there. ok now it’s pretty simple, this web 2.0 stuff is very powerful and very cool but it took me a little while to dive in. you might call me a reluctant geek, however if you are bold and leap in there is an exciting new world to be revealed.

to win you must:

1. listen to one podcast (you might try CSIRO’s excellent podcasts or good old ABC)
2. watch one online video or vodcast (just go to one of the video sharing sites and click youtube veoh live video
3. leave a comment on a blog
   (click on the title of one of the articles at any blog.
   below the article you should find a comment section. it will probably ask for your name, use anon is you feel afraid.
   it will probably want your email (this won’t be visible) and it may ask for a website (this is not necessary but it does provide a link for others to find your site if that is what you want).look in my links at the bottom of this page if you can’t find a blog!

do these three things and then leave a comment on this post before 5pm friday 20th july. in your comment tell us the links to the podcast you listened to, the video you watched, and the blog you commented on. i will randomly drawn one name from a hat and will contact you by email. i will put up a post on monday announcing the winner. good luck to everyone

the prize

12 months premium subscription to pbwiki. it’s valued at $250 US

the presentation

the bones of my presentation had it not crashed were

pfsq blog

private forestry southern queensland was the first blog i set up. i set it up for 2 reasons;

a) the blogging software (wordpress) that publishes the site is an easy to use content management system (that mean it is as easy to use as a wiki .so you don’t need a web designer each time you want to add a project update or advertise a field day). best news is wordpress is open source so it’s free
b) blogging software and most particularly wordpress are search engine magnets. so i use wordpress on sites for my clients because it gets them ranked high in search engine results very quickly (provided you make regular updates to your site)

google reader

this is the easiest way to get updates for a blog or rss feed . i know some of you thought i was joking (at least in nambour) when i said rss means “really simple syndication” but it actually does. rss is a format that allows you to easily have the latest updates from your favorite sites delivered to you without having to tramp all over the internet to check for new information.

to set up google as your rss feed reader.

simply go to google

click on the iGoogle link and register for a customized page. then when you find a blog you like click on thier rss feed button or link and choose google as your feed reader. (this whole process is easier if you use firefox for your web browser instead of say internet explorer [sorry about that mr gates])

pb wiki

what is a wiki? a wiki is a very easy to edit website, designed for collaboration. i tell people that they are unbreakable, they have superb version control so if you kill something you just revert to an earlier version. i like austin’s definition a cross between a word processor and a web page.

there are plenty of wiki providers out there i like pbwiki because you can create a free private wiki in about 2 mins. below is a cool video explaining wiki’s (sorry if your IT dept block this, go to an internet cafe and check it out).

i use the wiki for quick and easy collaboration and file sharing particularly in project startup!

what is a podcast?

the purist’s would say that a podcast is a periodical audio show (something like a radio show) distributed by an rss feed. they are probably correct but for our purposes any audio presentation distributed on the internet can maybe pass as a podcast is the short term. a good way to distribute and subscribe to podcasts is via iTunes [sorry mr gates there are some microsoft products that i love, i just can't think of any right now]

to find loads and loads of podcasts go to podshow podcast alley or just search google for “podcast directory”

what is a vodcast?

when is a vodcast not a podcast or a vlog. now it get’s really confusing, so listen up

the purist’s would say that a vodcast is a periodical video show (something like a tv show) distributed by an rss feed. the purist’s would say that a vlog is a video blog i.e. a personal video weblog. the trouble is people call all sorts of things podcasts, video, audio, episodic audio, episodic video, alternate video and audio delivered episodically, you get the idea.

broadly speaking a vodcast is a video distributed over the internet.

that is probably enough for one post. after the eExtension workshop and now this little post we have covered a lot of territory. if you have a question leave a comment or send me an email.

if you would like to know more about the web 2.0 and how it applies in an extension, NRM, or agricultural context you might what to think about subscribing to this blog. i will be adding a load of free content along those lines. in the future i will be offering both free and fee for services products from this site however i enjoyed the e Extension workshop and i hope this post answers some questions for you.