Thank you to all the early adopters of the new website – your efforts over the past months pave the way for others who are just getting started.

It’s through your willingness and persistence to try out and report on your experiences in using the Extension website that helps the web team make iterative changes and improvements, and to spot any irregularities that can occur when so much customization happens. As you have shown, this hands-on experience makes the website’s new structure less of a mystery and prepares for the digital way forward.

The opportunity to shape the website involves everyone at Extension regardless of whether you are on a content team or not. We are still in the early stages of this transition process from a minimal viable product to one that continually evolves to meet your goals and audience needs. It’s not too late to get onboard.

Be a Topic Steward

Have you looked at the Topic menu pages and wondered why a certain resource is at the top of the page, or found it difficult to locate the useful resource you always used to direct people to? If this describes you, then you may want to be part of a topic committee that decides what to feature on these topic pages, and how to organize it in a way your audiences will understand. You might also discover cool new content others are uploading that you didn’t know about before. Contact the web team if you have topic expertise and interest in this opportunity.

Be Recognized

If you work with Extension we want to see your updated profile and headshot photo on the site. To do this, anyone can click on the “My Account” link at the bottom of the Extension website and log in with their ONID to make directory changes. People will then be able to see you on the county/combined station office pages, or if you select one of the topics in the “Expertise” field of your profile, then you’ll be recognized under “Meet the Experts” on a topic page.

Be Informed

At the web launch in June, the county and combined stations stopped being the place where educational content lived. It now can be found under the Topic menu pages. The roles of the office staff also changed for the most part, as this type of content is now entered by content and program teams, and this frees up some of their time to prepare for the client database system that will need attention to enter and maintain contacts in 2019. For a visual of the journey through the new strategy, and milestone details see Phase 2 of the Timeline.

Thanks for getting involved and joining other Extension faculty, staff and leaders whose efforts have helped get the heavy lifting done, and now need a team to help carry it forward.