I’ve raised this issue before, but it never seemed to have garnered the traction I had hoped it would, even though many experts are convinced that an adequate understanding of it and its implications is absolutely critical to the future of Cooperative Extension and higher education in general.
The issue can be summed up in one word: Platform. We have got to demonstrate to present-day and future Cooperative Extension educators the indispensable, if not central, role platforms will play in defining their work.
I really believe that.
Platforms convey a number of meanings within the English language, but in computer parlance, it’s typically understood in terms of how software and Web development often provide the basis for further tinkering and innovation.
Indeed, we’ve learned a lot about the significance of platforms based on what has come out of these two undertakings. The simple fact that the text you are reading is posted and readily visible on your monitor is a testament to the foresight and work of Tim Berners-Lee, who essentially built the World Wide Web off earlier software advances.
He built it by stitching it together from components that already existed. He found a way to stitch all these components together using hypertext markup language. In a matter of speaking, he built a new platform known as the Worldwide Web by stacking it on older ones. Of course, the Web, in turn, has served a platform for numerous other platform stacks, many of which have changed life on this planet in a myriad of ways.
These platforms have formed the basis for the growth of dense technological ecosystems.
Here’s the really fascinating part: The insights we’ve garnered from software and Web design bear a remarkable resemblance to what we’ve learned from disciplines as far removed as biology.
As Steven Johnson argues in his splendid book, “Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural Science of Innovation,” we see the same sorts of processes played out in nature. For example, what is a beaver dam other than a biological platform?
Beaver dams serve more than just a means of pooling water. They provide basis for the development entire ecosystems. To put it another way, dams provide a means by which other species can, in a manner of speaking, stack their own platforms — in other words, to develop their own biological niches.
In this respect, we Extension educators are a lot like beavers. We have been platform builders from the beginning of our history — a reality reflected in Seaman Knapp’s demonstration plots and Booker T. Washington’s “Movable School On Wheels,” better known as the Jesup Wagon.
Like busy little beavers, we have been developing ecosystems — or, in our case, knowledge ecosystems — for a comparatively long time, longer than most educational entities.
Within the past century, though, a number of factors have forced us to conceive our knowledge products in more lineal terms. We’re currently defined by how we deliver programs— programs that are still conceived and carried out in the same linear fashion they were at the beginning of the 20th century
There is still a place for this. Yet, a lot of people in all facets of education are more convinced than ever that the times are calling for a more open-ended approach to outreach. This will require Extension educators to return to something more familiar — to close the circle, in a manner of speaking.
That will involve changing how we develop our educational products in the future, because closing this circle will require us to focus more on becoming the platform architects and builders of the 21st century.
In other words, we will be valued more for the platforms —the ecosystems of knowledge — we create than for the linear programming that we deliver.
Some in our ranks find such thinking almost inconceivable. Yet, this seems to be where all the trends are pointing.
Yes, it is a scary prospect for some, because it undoubtedly will call for a complete rethinking of how we interact with those we serve.
I, for one, think it could prove to be our finest hour.