Sustainable Agriculture is a carbon sink not a carbon source. A healthy prosperous future requires both a healthy environment and a vital food and fibre production. The challenge for designers is to create ecological systems which have a nett positive effect on soil, biodiversity, air and water as well as producing healthy food and fibre. The future farmer will be as revered for farming carbon as for farming delicious healthy food.
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- @jcolman anything online to read RE your Australia web marketing fellowship? #
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July 18th, 2008 by dean Uncategorized
- Having a glass of red reflecting on a great day. Good meet w local member + look at restoration site #
- O’connell creek Bundaberg might have the most diverse patch of coastal rainforest on Aust East Coast #
- Gnocchi or Pizza hmmm what do you think? It’s real pizza @vivaitalia bundaberg hmmm #
- The gnocchi was an inspired choice @vivaitalia in bundaberg. #
- Is there any evidence of twitter real estate speculation? i.e. @Sex @freemp3 , etc #
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July 15th, 2008 by dean Uncategorized
- Preparing for a big week for BCCA and eExtension. Lot’s of writing. #
- Dear friends showed up from Byron Bay last might with choc coated coffee beans. Holy smoker they do the job! #
- wow simple /brilliant Dan Roam …. again http://tinyurl.com/5htofo #
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July 14th, 2008 by dean Uncategorized
I had a call the other day from an old friend who has decided to make the move and leave a long time position with a State department for a new freelancing role. Basically he will contract the majority of his time to one organisation and pick up smaller contracts opportunistically, good move.
Anyway he rang for some advice on resources to help set up his business. After sending the email I decided I should share these resources here on the eco2oh blog for any extension people who might consider starting thier own consultancy or start doing some NRM freelancing. Good luck if you have decided to make the move.
Some Resources
Freelance Switch
A great source of strategy and tactic on becoming a freelancer often quite tech based but you can ignore those parts. Definitely on the coal face regarding new tools and applications
http://freelanceswitch.com/
Billing Manager
From the folks who make Quickbooks a free online invoicing system you can have the system email invoice or print them and post them yourself. They even have a fee for service option to allow you to accept credit card payments
http://billingmanager.intuit.com/billing/welcome.url
Skype
This will save you a bucket load on your most common phone calls especially when you get your colleagues on Skype too (that makes your calls free), you can purchase Skype credit to call landlines or mobiles (for STD telstra or a mobile cap can be competitive). You can get a Skype in number (a capital city number) for about $40 / year that allows people to call a brisbane number and you can take it on your laptop or computer wherever you are, you can also get an extension like hot recorder to record calls (it’s easier then taking notes). Skype is great for doing conference calls to a combo of skype users and landlines. Best of all Skype is free to downoad and free to call any other skype user.
www.skype.com
iGoogle
Google has a swag of free tools so get a gMail account (almost unlimited storage space) use your iGoogle page or google reader to subscribe to blog feeds like freelanceswitch.com and betterburnett.com, use google docs to share collaborative documents online, get a google calendar and keep it on your iGoogle page
Some Advice
- Do invoicing on time! So important putting this off for a couple of days can cost you big bucks
- BP Mastercard saves 10% on fuel get one before you resign
- Don’t print anything you can avoid printing it’s bloody expensive
- Do lot’s of research before buying a printer there are 3 variable (cost of the printer, cost of the cartridges, cost per copy) cost per copy is the one to focus on it is very easy to get lured into buying a cheap printer with very expensive cartridges or cartridges that only do a small number of copies
- Check out http://www.gettingthingsdone.com/ for incredibly simple but effective strategies for managing your time and info. Wish I knew about this 2,3,4,5 years ago I just got the book and audio book
- Think about an Apple computer if you don’t have a computer already they are designed with freelancers in mind
- Get yourself out there get a website (preferably a wordpress blog), a twitter account, a flickr account, a facebook profile, etc interlink them all and use them as your online portfolio
- Think like the boss and not the employee (I still find this tricky)
An article from Farfax’s “The Land” reveals a fight back by NSW landcare groups in the wake of job cuts. As a result the upcoming C4OC Open Grants Round is going to be very competitive. By the sounds of it the Holbrook Landcare Group still have plenty of passion and are convinced that the landcare model is valuable to their stakeholders. Read the full story by clicking on the link below.
Fighting for future - State News - Agribusiness and General - Services - The Land
Tags: SustainableAgriculture, Agriculture, Landcare, C4OC
Shared with Flock - The Social Web Browser
http://flock.com
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- anyone got a recommendation for a wordpress friendly, scalable green hosting solution? #
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July 10th, 2008 by dean Uncategorized
As the sun begins to set on current Natural Heritage Trust NHT arrangements, people employed by Regional Bodies, Catchment Care and Landcare Groups, Research and Extension projects and all manner of NHT funded roles wonder about their future. A cloud of uncertainty mars the competition of successful Natural Resource Management projects. At a time when successes should be celebrated, and processes reflected upon in the spirit of continuous improvement, many of the front-line of sustainable agriculture and natural resource management are scanning the employment columns and surfing seek.com.au. This is not an uncommon event but none the less it causes pain.
In 2006 while working for the Burnett Mary Regional Group BMRG I had the good fortune to attend a forum “Young People In Extension” organized by Australasia Pacific Extension Network APEN. Two things happened at that event that influence my outlook on the push and pull that sporadic funding puts on Natural Resource Management careers.
The Future Of Employment
During the first evening of the event after a round of ice breaking by a group of people whose profession is facilitating where subject to an ice breaker session. Is that life imitating extension? Anyway with that uncomfortable session out of the road we where shown a video of an English futurist who specialised in workforce trends.
His advice was that in the future employment would become more entrepreneurial. Workers would have many employers in a lifetime, work would be more likely to occur on a contract/freelance basis, people would collect a portfolio of successful projects and a roster of clients.
In his 2002 book 
;Free Agent Nation”, Daniel Pink wrote a manifesto for people finding themselves on the eve of such an age.
Secondly our Queensland APEN forum found that the biggest issue facing Young People in Extension was a lack of security in employment due to the cyclic nature of funding. Luckily I was chosen along with Peter Hocking to travel to Melbourne to present a paper at the APEN National Forum.
Peter and I were most certain our fantastic paper would floor everyone and our group’s finding that a lack of employment security was the number issue facing young people in queensland extension would be a revelation. It will probably come as no surprise that every other state presented the cyclic nature of employment as the biggest issue in their states as well.
There was a convergence of messages.
On one hand the futurist telling us that we should become more entrepreneurial on the other a national forum telling us overwhelmingly that as young people in extension our careers were likely to be characterised by cyclic employment. There and then I decided to look for ways to get on the front foot.
The Number One Issue
At around the time I was completing my employment with BMRG I noticed another trend. All around me NRM professionals seemed to be saying “… until the broader population see Sustainable Agriculture and Natural Resource Management as an real issue we are going to struggle to have a real impact on sustainability…” or some variation of that. It seems to me that the message of just was not getting out, not reaching the people who needed to hear it. Preaching to the converted, always the usual suspects, and similar statements were common amongst colleagues. It seem that the number one issue was Who Cares??
The Future Of Natural Resource Management
What does your NHT future hold? In 2013 when “Caring For Our Country” potentially expires will you be taking a short holiday and hoping for swift funding negotiation and a plethora of job offers when you return. If the future of employment is more contractually based, more freelance, more entrepreneurial, why not start now? One small step might be to consider starting a blog or some eExtension activity.
Working in Natural Resource Management, Sustainable Agriculture, or Environment is a rewarding career path if not turbulent at times. So my question to you is What colour is Your NHT Parachute?
