September 21, 2021
Sharing Impact Through Stories
(Colleagues,
We are starting a new tradition with this week’s Tuesday Letter. We will be featuring guest writers in our opening message. The guest featured writers will represent a variety of positions and perspectives from within our system. Sometimes their messages will be inspirational and motivational. Sometimes they will be informative. All will be written with a deep respect for our mission, profession, and our organization.
Our first guest featured writer is Shannon Rogers, communications manager for the Post Rock District. Shannon shares her insights about what they have learned about telling impact stories in the hope to encourage you to get started. I know you will enjoy reading her Tuesday Letter article, and I hope you enjoy this new Tuesday Letter tradition. --GH)
Doing something we haven’t done before is hard, isn’t it? The blankness of a new page intimidates us. As with any worthwhile endeavor, the only way forward is to start where we are now. And I believe we must begin with renewed resolve each day because if we don’t tell people what we do, unreached people won’t know what we can do for them.
Embrace a bootcamp mentality to learn as much as you can about planning and platforms. My first training was a foundational New-Media Marketing Bootcamp by the Center for Rural Enterprise Engagement. Don’t stop there, though. There are outstanding online courses on writing, photography, and videography through Udemy, CreativeLive, the Adobe Creative Cloud learning library or YouTube. Many lessons are in short increments. Want the best learning opportunity for free? Our own KSRE Communications Solutions team provides excellent lessons through email and Canvas courses. Reach out to the always awesome Taylor Kennedy, Nathan Leatherman, or Meg Drake if you haven’t already signed up for their Canvas course.
The bootcamp mentality is active and bold. Someone compliments you on the educational value of your program - ask them if you can quote them and take a photo to share on Facebook. Remember to incorporate the KSRE photo/video release into your registration forms. The number one question I am asked about is our equipment. If you have a purpose and a smartphone, you are equipped enough for now.
Engage with KSRE social media accounts and quality non-Extension pages to learn how to tell your stories so that people pay attention. To learn to write, you read more. If you want to post engaging multimedia content, engage with quality content. Be curious and ask yourself questions. Does that generic stock photo honestly interest me? What content stops me from scrolling past? Why? Is it original? Relevant? What does John Stanmeyer do on his Instagram account that makes it consistently worth my time to immerse myself in his posts? What is it about the energy of Salomon Running videos that make me watch them? Are there things about those very different accounts I can synergize and adapt for an Extension message?
Go for it. Maya Angelou said, “Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.” I love long walks on dirt roads in the rolling hills of the North Central Kansas prairie. I paused and photographed a wild sunflower recently. It was vivid yellow and backlit by sunshine. Its beauty brightened my day and heightened my awareness of the transition between summer and fall. It was also missing a few petals. Imperfect effort can still make a difference in someone’s life. Commit to telling your stories consistently and enjoy the learning process with each new effort. The reward for your efforts can be surprising. One new resident in a Post Rock District community discovered our soil testing services by searching for North Central Kansas garden help on YouTube. There are unknown peoples who will find the help you offer when they discover the work you do to improve lives.
Invest continually in equipment and people. Once you put into practice your why and your how, you will want to invest in some key equipment. If you learn that going Facebook live fits your skills and personality, buy a good microphone and a tripod. If you prefer to record your content to be edited, buy a good microphone and tripod, and purchase or subscribe to video editing software that meets your needs. Please feel free to email or Teams chat me for a list of tools I use. I also recommend you consider whether your unit, department, or region should invest in communications professionals. A state legislator tracked down our District Director, Nora Rhoades, at one of our local county fairs because she was so impressed by the impact our district makes in our communities. She was holding our new Post Rock District impact magazine, https://www.postrock.k-state.edu/news/PRDMagazineFinal.pdf. That magazine was a huge project (shout out to Shelly Garlow, our outstanding Office Professional and InDesign expert for her hard work teaming up with me to produce an impact magazine). The next magazine issue will also be a huge project. Is there a lot you can do as an agent or specialist to tell your story? Absolutely. Can you alone create graphics, press releases, original photos, hybrid event productions, edited educational videos, social media posts, and printed magazines while educating Kansans? I believe it’s important to have conversations so you can determine what outreach you want, how much of it you want, and to recognize wanting it all will take people to accomplish. I am grateful my District Director, Board of Directors, and Regional Director invested in a full-time Communications Manager position in Post Rock District. That said, you can make a difference with a purpose and a smartphone and the commitment to create two Facebook posts a week.
Bootcamp + Engage + Go + Invest + Now = BEGIN. I love gardening, travel, and family time. I also love, absolutely love, my work. I look forward to walking to work every new workday. Projects excite me. The work you all do excites me. There will always be jobs that pay more, but far rarer are careers as fulfilling as serving our communities with K-State Research and Extension. My grammar checker redlines Extension because I capitalize the word, but I choose to capitalize Extension because I believe it is a mission too important not to capitalize. My hope is you too will embrace this new Tuesday with renewed passion to tell our stories so that we may be privileged to serve even more Kansans. The place to start is where you are. The time to begin is now. I believe in you and cheer you on!