The Winnowing Oar

Bob Johansen lived up to the moniker "futurist." Near the beginning of his presentation this morning at the 2009 National eXtension Conference, Johansen said, "Some of the best forecasts are the ones you don't like. The ones that make you say, 'I'm not going to let that happen.'" Judging from the faces and comments at my table, Johansen's forecast was not well liked, but it definitely was provocative, and it may get us thinking seriously about the future we want to make for cooperatve extension.

Drawing on his new book, Leaders Make the Future: Ten New Leadership Skills for an Uncertain World, Johansen described a vision of the future in a "VUCA" world, marked by increasing volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity. Although the future he describes can be frightening, Johansen said there will be opportunities for those who have mastered the leadership skills that empower them to "make the future."

Johansen shared a rough outline of the ten-year forecast prepared by the Institute for the Future (IFTF), an organization with which Johansen currently serves as a Distinguished Fellow and board member (he also served as IFTF president from 1996 to 2004). His presentation included "artifacts from the future" created by IFTF, including a video that depicted a world in which video was the medium of choice; a future where anything could be made into a video display and where video will be a part of every brand and learnning strategy. Not surprisingly, some of the content and web developers at our table disagreed with this forecast.

Among the other thought-provoking points Johansen brought up was the new definition of a generation. The typical time span we associate with the passing of a generation is becoming shorter. Johansen suggests a genration now represents a time span of just six years, meaning 25-year-olds are hopelessly out of ouch with 19-year-olds, and  19-year-olds are hopelessly out of touch with 13-year-olds. This is bad news for any extension professional adverse to change. If we take 2-3 years to fully implement a new initiative, we have no chance of catching up with the needs of the next "generation." 

Johansen also evoked a future (or present) in which the more a brand tries to look and feel trustworthy, the more suspicious people will feel about the brand. Many folks in the room laughed at the image Johansen shared of the "Bible Bar," the snack food "God intended," but others of us squirmed as we thought about this while looking at the eXtension banner professing our own credibility and objectivity.

The forecast from IFTF was, by Johansen's own admission, frightening, but he also pointed out that cooperative extension has a unique opportunity to thrive in this future.

We also heard, briefly, from Russ Roberts this morning. Roberts, adjunct professor, Management and Organizations Department, Kellogg Graduate School of Management, Northwestern University, has been working with eXtension on strategic direction. He asked a pointed question, "Will cooperative extension shape the future or be shaped by the future?"

Roberts said the near monopoly which cooperative extension was granted at its inception has created a mindset and organizational design nearly incapable of acting with urgency. This, of course, can be a big problem in a world that is changing so rapidly. This monopoly-mindset, Roberts says, is a significant internal challenge. Coupled with the external challenges of a diminishing of our traditional customer base and an increasingly competitive landscape, this challenge cries out for action now.  

Both Roberts and Johansen challenged leaders in cooperative extension to "make the future." Their forecasts may not be what we would like to here, but at least we have the power to make a future of our own (unlike tomorrow's weather forecast in St. Louis - rain and 59 degrees. I'd complain but I can't change it anyway.)

I promised to provide Twitter updates throughout the conference. Alas, today Twitter was not cooperating. Please hang in there and continue to checkout http://www.twitter.com/ndbob and http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23NeXt2009