November 12, 2024
A Minute or Less
During our recent annual conference in Manhattan, the World Café was divided into two sections.
The first section was programmatically oriented. My last Tuesday Letter article -- Conference of Opportunity, Part II -- reminded us of potential opportunities for the new transdisciplinary team (TDT) to pursue:
• Childcare.
• Housing.
• Volunteers.
• Disaster preparedness.
• Climate resiliency.
• Workplace/job site health.
It also reviewed the eight issues Kansas State University was going to focus on:
• Water.
• Rural health.
• Broadband, leadership.
• Higher education access.
• Childcare.
• Housing.
• Developing a hunger free Kansas.
To all of those who have already indicated to me which of the new TDT and/or eight focus areas you were planning on contributing to, I say, ‘Thank you.’ If you have not done so yet, please email me your intentions at ghadley@ksu.edu.
In this Tuesday Letter article, we will begin focusing on the second part of the World Café, which focused on internal matters. The impetus for these issues came from the internal stakeholder and/or external stakeholder sessions of our Delivering on the Promise discussions.
In particular, we will focus this Tuesday letter on the following question:
“When we run into someone who isn’t acquainted with Extension, can we explain who we are and what we do in a minute or less?”
This question evolved from Delivering on the Promise, as it was pointed out that the public and our stakeholders often do not understand what we do and who we are. One participant indicated that we needed an elevator speech. Thus, this question came forward.
Why is this question important?
It has been estimated that when you are meeting with clients and stakeholders in a busy setting, you have one minute or less to have them become interested in you, your organization, and its role in society. This statement should either encourage them to talk to you more right then and there, or it should make enough of an impression that they will circle back to you in the future.
There were several examples of one minute or less statements suggested. Some were individualized. Some suggested what to include or not include. Others were presented as a template so all could adapt them.
Paraphrased examples include:
- I am a K-State employee who conducts applied research to help Kansas producers stay sustainable and proficient.
- Extension is your Kansas State University classroom in every county in the state. We are educators and community change agents. My specialty is ______.
- We provide education and skill development to help people improve their health and quality of life and increase their capacity to contribute to local systems and economies.
- Our mission is to make a difference. Our goal is to be the people in the communities trying to make our communities a better place. That may mean ______.
- I am a connector of resources with the big picture of improving the well-being of everyone. I focus on _____.
Those and all of the suggestions were -- and are -- pretty good, especially for spur of the moment ideas.
How will this information be used? This information will be used to help us develop public value statements for our K-State extension and engagement work and impact. These statements will also be used to develop templates by March 2025 to help you develop your and your unit’s one minute or less statement that concisely, clearly, and compellingly describes your extension and engagement work and impact.
I’ll keep you posted on our organization’s progress.