Using Technology to Step Up Your Job Performance

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Using Technology to Step Up Your
Job Performance

• Barbara Woods, IA State University
• Trudy Dunham, University of MN Extension

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Group Participation

• Share a favorite technology tip / app
  /strategy that you use to be more productive
• Well add it to the presentation!

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How to Think About Technology

• Both a tool and a vocational skill
• Understand the concept, function
• Constantly changing
• Becoming mobile, smart
• Converging, multi-functional
• Lots of low or no cost options

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Nonprofit Nonessential Services Financial
Safety Net

• Tax base, investments, interest rates, donations
  are down
• Requests for help, client base are up
• Customers may be slower paying invoices
• More difficult to get financing

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We are Living in Uncertain Times

• To survive in uncertain times, you need to do
  three things
• Concentrate
• Focus
• Acquire the tools to change the world
• So you can make the change you want to see in the
  world!

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But its not good enough to just be more
productive in the old ways

• Imagine going to CYFAR as going to the Spa
• Rejuvenate Yourself!

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Trends Thought A Whole New Mind

• Four major 'ages'
• Agricultural Age (farmers)
• Industrial Age (factory workers)
• Information Age (knowledge workers)
• Conceptual Age (creators and empathizers)
• Crucial Questions
• Can a computer do it faster?
• Is what I'm offering in demand?
• Can someone else do it cheaper?

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Trends Thought A Whole New Mind

• Creativity becomes the competitive difference
• Daniel Pink outlines six essential senses
• Design Utility enhanced by significance,
  elegance
• Story Place facts in context, deliver with
  emotion
• Symphony Synthesize, big picture thinking
• Empathy Put self in others place read cues
• Play Bring humor, light-heartedness to work
• Meaning Have an impact, make a difference

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Lets start with the easy stuff you already
know it!

• Our inbox is overflowing
• Weve been asked to pick up another task or
  project
• Were feeling overwhelmed

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Organize Your Time and Tasks

• Use your calendar to reflect how to spend your
  time
• Schedule specific times each day to deal with
  email, blogs and phone calls
• Read email, blogs, reports online
• Take immediate action so you only touch it once

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One Note

• Part of the basic Microsoft Office Suite
• Aggregates, organizes notes
• Sources your pastes
• Makes it easy to integrate

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Organize Your Incoming/Outgoing Email

• Create folders for mail from key people, groups
  you catch up on periodically
• Folders list of new messages
• Use relevant Subject Line message
• Use Task Follow-up flags with timeline
• Categorize the rest of the stuff

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More Email Tips

• Remove self from lists that stuff inbox
• Open only when ready to deal with it
• Use trash to immediately get rid of
•  Forward immediately for someone else to deal
  with
• Dont procrastinate! It only builds stress and
  wastes the time you have to change your world!

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Develop Effective To Do System

• Remind self of deadlines and tasks to keep goals
  in sight, keep big projects manageable
• Digital reminders that come automatically
• Whats important, not just whats urgent

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Organization of Information

• Average worker spends 1.6 hrs / wk looking for
  info they can't find
• Define a place for everything -- in your office
  and on your computer --
• One Note folder for other documents.
• Work with 1 file or project at a time
• Title in ways you can find things

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Carrying Your Laptop With?

• Use laptop to take notes in meeting?
• Watch relationships or the screen?
• Haul laptop with me when travel ?
• Use business office / Blackberry or need to
  really work with documents?
• Your Work Style Your Memory are key

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Waste Energy or Time?

• Screen saver uses as much power as on
• Computer uses 65 watts/hr in regular use,
  5-35watts/hr in hibernation
• Decide if boot up time a factor
• Unless Tech Support is updating the software on
  your PC, no reason to leave tech on when youre
  gone
• Get a power strip with surge protector

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Rethink Rejuvenate

• Agatha Christie, in her autobiography, noted
• I never thought I would be so wealthy I could
  afford to own a car, or so poor I couldnt afford
  to have servants.
• Productivity tools change with the times
• As do how we get the work done!

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WHAT IS YOUR WORK?

• Communicate
• Collaborate
• Develop programs, presentations, papers,
  curriculum
• Outreach
• Hands on program delivery

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Telework / Telecommute

• A way to grow without incurring more fixed costs
  give up real estate
• Giving employees a raise without changing salary
  saving the gas, parking, lunch clothes costs
• More personal control over work place
• Usually a blend, require communication
• Mobile Internet phone required

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Virtual Meetings

• Cut out the travel time and expense
• Use the level of technology needed for the
  meeting purpose, the networking /socialization
  to remain a strong group
• Webcam video for needed face time
• When powerpoint needed Connect, DimDim
• (See Scholarship for collaboration tools)

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SKYPE

• VoIP
• IM
• Conference call
• Send documents
• Get a headset
• W-W/o video

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DOODLE

• Deciding among a group of people
• Scheduling
• Selecting

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Scholarship

• Boyer, 1990
• Discovery
• Integration to give meaning to isolated facts,
  putting them in perspective (p. 18)
• Application
• Teaching

Amazon.com photo (source)
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ZOTERO

• Research based
• Manage the sources of info you find online

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DABBLEBOARD

• White board
• Can import image

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VUE Visual Understanding Environment

• Mind map
• Make slide show

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GOOGLE APPS multifunction group work
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WIGGIO multipurpose group work
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CO-MENT

• Critique with notes right beside the text

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JING Screen Capture
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SPLASH-UP Photo Editing
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FLICKR Archive / Gallery
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USTREAM Live Video Stream
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MERLOT

• Multimedia educational resources for learning and
  online teaching
• Educational content to be reused, customized,
  mixed

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MOODLE Course/CMS
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Pause to Do Nothing

• Dont allow tech change to stress you
• Tech is your tool youre not its tool!
• Develop habits to keep your focus
• Use participatory nature of media to share the
  burden
• Be productive in ways that facilitate your
  survival flourishing in todays world
  Important as well as urgent!

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Professional Development

• Take 20 minutes a day, build up to an hour, to
  invest in yourself and make yourself a better
  professional
• TED, YouTube.com/edu
• eXtension 30 minute tech sessions
• Online Courses Webinars
• RSS feeds for blogs, Friendfeed
• Online Journals
• Podcasts to go

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FRIENDFEED

• Aggregate the micromedia feeds
• Exposure to divergent , new ideas
• Separate out the personal, professional

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OUTREACH

• People who change the world need the tools to do
  it

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From The People Formerly Known as The Audience

• There has been a shift in power
• Blogs make us the Press
• Podcasting make us Radio
• Video make us channels into homes
• We are on our own clock
• We participate, create, communicate, share,
  influence, impact
• Social media is not a game played from the
  sidelines

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Tenets of SM Online Life

• All ideas compete on even footing
• Contribution counts gt credentials
• Hierarchies are natural, not prescribed
• Leaders serve rather than preside
• Tasks are chosen, not assigned
• Groups self-define, self-organize
• Resources get attracted, not allocated

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Tenets of SM Online Life

• Power comes from sharing information, not
  hoarding it
• Opinions compound, decisions are peer-reviewed
• Users can veto most policy decisions
• Intrinsic rewards matter most
• Hackers are heroes

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Doing Outreach with SM

• More about sociology than technology its about
  conversation, dialogue
• The best communication starts with good listening
  skills respect
• Opening up, loss of control, dynamic
• Need to get to personal, trust,
• Participatory, constancy, creative
• 24/7

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Our Audience / Customers

• gt35 is adopting SM consumer electronics (blogs,
  Twitter, iPod, FB) faster than any other
  generation
• Women gt55 are the fastest growing age group on FB
  -- use FB to communicate with family
• Boomers expect to work longer, need to keep
  digital skills current

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Strategies for Outreach Work

• Newsletters, Research Briefs, Radio Spots,
  Websites arent conversations or strategies
• New role go online listen. Find out where the
  important conversations take place, where the
  people who need you are.
• Engage in conversation. Speak with, not to. Add
  others contributions to yours.
• Develop your credibility, authenticity, utility

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Join Existing Groups

• Face book and other public

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Form Niche Groups

• Ning or private group
• Invite who you want

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Provide Brief Quick Updates
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Viral Marketing

• Getting the word out about your products, keeping
  a high profile.
• Twitter is the social media for that
• Community Emergency management
• Summer programming
• Listserv and text blasts other options
• Ask clients what works for them

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Build your Own Advocates

• In the online chatter of social networking, be
  where you can.
• But build Advocates clients and peers who know
  your work and will talk up your services and
  events, recommend you.
• Relationships and trust inherent in social
  networking today make your advocates an excellent
  speaker for you

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In Summary, Technology

• Tech will evolve,
• Profoundly affects the way we work,
• A means for empowering people
• Think differently about how we work
• Be productive in ways that facilitate our
  survival, more effective work
• What works for you -- no one right way to do it
•  

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cyf_at_umn.edu

• Thanks for the opportunity!