Earlier this year the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) held what they called an Elevator Pitch Challenge. The goal of the challenge was to help researchers who get funding from the stem cell agency do a better job of communicating with the public. They invited any researcher who gets CIRM funding to prepare a 30 second videotaped pitch, keeping it short, simple and something anyone can understand. CIRM staff then voted who they thought did the best job.
As CIRM’s press release says, “We are a publicly funded agency and the money we use to fund research comes from the people of California, so it’s only reasonable to expect researchers to be able to explain the importance of what they do to Californians, and anyone else they might meet.”
Sound familiar? This is the same challenge the public value approach presents to Extension programs: Explain to people with no connection to your program why they should fund it. I haven’t seen any public value messages on video, but there’s no reason it couldn’t be done. Has your organization asked Extension programs to record a public value “pitch”? Should we give it a try? If we assembled a series of videotaped messages, what would be the most effective use of them? Maybe we can start an #Extensionpitch Youtube channel to share our efforts and spark ideas of how to use the videos.