Richards named 2016 eXtension Foundation Fellow
Writer: Paul Schattenberg, 210-859-5752, [email protected]
Contact: Daphne Richards, 512-854-9600, [email protected]
AUSTIN — Daphne Richards, Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service horticulture agent for Travis County, has been named a 2016 eXtension Foundation Fellow.
eXtension, found at https://extension.org/, is an online repository for knowledge resources from America’s land-grant universities and the nation’s Cooperative Extension System. It provides tools, services and development opportunities for Extension professionals, plus a platform for sharing and creating innovative approaches to serve communities nationwide.
The eXtension Fellowship Program seeks applications from Extension professionals to pursue research, development and dissemination of innovations of their choice that they believe can inform, transform and increase the impact of Extension’s work in the future. Fellows are chosen from eXtensi0n Foundation premium member institutions and spend one year advancing knowledge on applied innovation in their topic area.
Fellowships support those selected toward developing, testing and exploring the scalability of innovations in the areas of technology, processes for working differently, program development, business models, networking, marketing, branding and more.
Richards was chosen for her efforts to pursue a more effective management of social media platforms by Extension professionals nationwide through the development and distribution of more “evergreen” content.
“Most Extension professionals have tried one or more social media platforms, including videos, infographics and webinars,” Richards said. “However, there is a good deal of duplication among these offerings that might be addressed with a single ‘evergreen’ product applicable for a broad geographic area.”
She said although Extension agents must continue to respond to emerging issues, there are many timeless topics that could be addressed with a video or infographic that would be long-lasting and valuable over a wide geographic area.
“For example, composting: with 25 horticulture agents in Texas, we don’t all need to create a video on composting,” she said. “One of us needs to do it, or a team of us, and share it with our peers. But composting is really no different in Lubbock than it is in Laredo, even though those are areas of the state are hundreds of miles apart.”
Richards said her efforts as an eXtension Foundation Fellow will be to investigate topics ripe for development as evergreen content and to provide guidance for Extension professionals and teams considering this approach for their social media platforms.
