2010 UM Fall Program Conference

Constructing a public value message in real time

construction
As I mentioned in the previous blog entry, a couple of weeks ago I taught a one-hour “mini” public value workshop as part of the University of Minnesota Extension fall program conference. With such a short amount of time, we really had to pare down the presentation, and there wasn’t enough time for participants to complete exercises. My co-organizer, Aimee Viniard-Weideman, wanted us to at least give the participants a sense of how the construct a public value message. Aimee suggested that we invite a colleague, who had already completed the BEPV workshop, to demonstrate how her program’s message came about.

We included a blank version of the public value message graphic, like the one below, except with empty boxes. Prior to the session, we asked Sue Letourneau, program leader for health and nutrition programs, to share a public value message for Extension’s Simply Good Eating program. I created a slide that included Sue’s text within the message graphic and added animation that brought the text in one box at a time. At the session, I asked Sue to present her message, explaining how her team arrived at the language they chose.

Given the short amount of time, we hope this approach helped participants see how a program team can go about constructing a public value message, even if they didn’t get a chance to do so themselves. It also gave an example of a UM Extension program that had completed the workshop, hopefully dispelling concerns that it would be too demanding. Finally, Sue helped participants see how the public value message was related to the research agenda that the Simply Good Eating program team is currently implementing.

PV Diagram

 

Fall program conference input

I am on the planning committee for the University of Minnesota Extension Fall Program Conference. For any readers from University of Minnesota Extension, please share your ideas or preferences for this year’s conference. Would you be interested in any public value trainings? What other kinds of offerings would be useful? Feel free to share in the comments or in an email to me. Thank you!

University of Minnesota Extension