USDA hosts Live Facebook Chat (October 1)
USDA Deputy Secretary of Agriculture, Kathleen Merrigan will hold a Live Facebook Chat about local food systems on Thursday, October 1 at 3:45 pm ET. Comments and questions can be submitted via the USDA Facebook page.
The discussion is a part of the “Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food” initiative launched in early September. According to the website:
USDA-wide effort to create new economic opportunities by better connecting consumers with local producers. It is also the start of a national conversation about the importance of understanding where your food comes from and how it gets to your plate. Today, there is too much distance between the average American and their farmer and we are marshalling resources from across USDA to help create the link between local production and local consumption.
As a former student of Kathleen, I am reminded of something she told us in her policy class: “think big!” She is dedicated to the “People’s Department” being just that, and this is her way of including all in the conversation.
Google Wave launches tomorrow
I’ve commented a few times on Google Wave, which launches tomorrow to the first 100,000 who signed up.
Stay tuned for screencasts and comments as I explore the service.
I also plan on organizing nutrition related Waves (groups) to experiment on how it might be be useful for various projects.
A social media presentation to Delaware dietitians by Rebecca Scritchfield
Rebecca Scritchfield is a Washington, D.C. based registered dietitian specializing in performance nutrition and weight management. D.C. An athlete herself, she regularly completes marathons and triathlons. Together with Bernie Salazar, at-home winner of The Biggest Loser, she co-created “The Nurture Principles” – Five mantras to help people change their lives and find wellness within.
As I become aware of presentations given to nutrition professionals about social media in professional settings, I will post them here to highlight the people who give them and encourage others to use them as examples.
The following is reposted with permission from Rebecca Scritchfield’s blog about a presentation she gave to dietitians in Delaware this year on social media. Visit her blog post here to read the comments: http://rebeccascritchfield.wordpress.com/2009/05/14/social-media-insights-for-dietitians/. Rebecca has informed me that she will be speaking again in April on the topic, and because she is a great example of how to use social media effectively I will be posting an email interview with her in the near future.
Hi, I’m Rebecca Scritchfield and I’m a dietitian. I’m also a reformed IT professional. Couple that with a master’s degree in communications from Johns Hopkins University and it starts to make sense why I’m writing this post on opportunities for dietitians in social medial.
I recently presented at the Delaware Dietetic Association meeting on social media in Wilmington, Delaware. My task? Educate dietitians on the opportunities with social media and inspire them to take action – in one hour!
It was a crash course in simplification! Lucky for me, I recently read Nancy Duarte’s book Slideology, which offered great tips on getting your point across with few words and pictures.
So I went with it and used mostly images to describe social networking and the logos from the popular social media tools to help guide my presentation. I decided that the best way I can “explain” the benefits of social media is by providing live demos of the tools in action – a very important piece because everyone had a chance to learn by “doing” and could discover themselves that there’s nothing too scary about social media.
After laying the groundwork on social media characteristics, I made my case that the ultimate benefit of social media is “POWER”. I took them on a journey starting with conversations and relationships and how this ultimately leads to influence and power. (Props to my Hopkins Prof. Nicco Mele and all the wonderful texts he made me read.)
After looking at it from a 30,000 foot view, I thought it would be fun to include an interactive game. I couldn’t think of a catchy name so I just called it “WIIFD” – what’s in it for dietitians. I randomly asked audience members to describe a job task and I would try to brainstorm an example of how they can use social media to their advantage. It’s always a risk to do something like this… could they stump me?
Some of the ideas I gave them for using social media include:
Network – make new (virtual) connections
Grow a business (consulting, counseling…)
Sell more products
Land interviews
Save time
Collaborate
Discover… and be discovered!
I then went through the following social media tools by discussing the “lingo”, the benefits, live demo, and tips for getting started. For example, “blogging may be for you if…” Here’s what we covered:
- Blogs
- WordPress, Blogger, and TypePad
- Microblogs
- Twitter (the almighty, these days)
- Social Networks
- Linked In
- MeetUp
- Social Media Tools
- Podcasts
- Vlogs/video
- RSS
- Flickr
- You Tube
I could not talk about social networking without talking about socialNOTworking… so I discussed how dietitians can make it work for them… bottom line… integration!
I reviewed how they can use WordPress and Woo to make their own website with a blog. They can link their tweets to their facebook status or use Tweet Deck as a way to keep up with their social circles.
I spent some time discussing some “hot” opportunities that they missed out on such as the RD Blogfest and recent online newspaper coverage.
Web2.0, data, and food supply
Filed under: Local/sustainable/organic Resources, Nutrition 2.0
Here is a great article by Harlan Hentges that I managed to miss from July: http://www.organiclawyers.com/blog/farming-and-ranching/17-are-we-headed-for-a-food-fight.html
It is a brief piece on big agriculture versus the alternative food movements, and how they are intertwined and need to capture the big picture from data available from both market perspectives.
A couple of points I want to highlight:
While some farmers and consumers have come together, the process is not efficient or profitable. The demand for food of greater value remains unmet because there is simply no easy way for the farmer and the consumer to connect and exchange the information necessary information to coordinate the supply chain and exchange money for products. Coordinating a new supply chain is a daunting task. There must be enough farmers and enough consumers to be economically viable. This will require very efficient access to information that is easy and inexpensive to process, but there is no easily accessible market information about farmers, processors, transporters, retailer, distributors or consumers for food of great value. Thus the demand remains unmet.
Some projects are taking it into their own hands to promote alternative foods with social tools, some of which are highlighted in our Local/sustainable/organic Resources category.
Industrialized agriculture will not destroy the cultural value of local, farm-raised food. An alternative food system will not destroy the economic profitability of industrialized agriculture. The industrial model and the alternative model do not embody each others destruction.
Instead, each embodies the key to the other’s success. An alternative food supply chain now appears to be possible due to information technology. In the way that social networking sites have transformed the coordination of our social lives by giving us extraordinary ability to access, process and exchange information, related technologies could enable the coordination of new, smaller and more valuable food supply chains. On the other hand, the existing food system could be transformed it recognized the usefulness of data related to farms and farmers, the welfare of animals, and the environment. If consumers, farmers and all supply chain participants were provided with the data and permitted to respond to social and cultural values the industrialized system would change and produce food of greater value.
The local food movement understands the information related to the values of producers and consumers, and will soon have access to technology needed to gather and process this data. The information age is reaching the food industry.
(via @MiNutrition)
Check to see if your desired moniker is available on many social media services
If you are just starting to dive into social media, you may be trying to decide on a good moniker to use consistently to identify yourself. Pick something too easy and not all sites will have it available. Something too difficult to understand and it may dissuade followers. Using your name and credentials may add credibility to your shared items and make you more personable. It is somewhat of an art to pick something unique that best represents you, and it would be very time consuming to manually check each service first to make sure your name isn’t taken.
Here is an easy way to check 130 social services at once: NameChk
Know your farmer, know your food
Filed under: Local/sustainable/organic Resources, Nutrition 2.0
Greetings Health & Nutrition 2.0 readers. I am pleased to join Colby in contributing to this very important site. It is crucial for health professionals to utilize technology to reach a rapidly changing population. I have found this site extremely useful and hope my contributions enhance the site.
I wanted to announce USDA’s award of $4.8 million to help support community food projects under the “know your farmer, know your food” initiative. As an RD who has a background in agriculture and food systems, I know the importance of people knowing how food got to their plate. I once asked a group of children, “where do hamburgers come from?” and one unknowingly answered, “the grocery store.” While he was half-correct, teaching people their connection to food can ultimately lead to positive health outcomes and increased environmental protection.
Again, I am please to join the site and please don’t hesitate to comment on posts, as conversations and questions are keys to learning.
Even the U.S. government is proactive with social media
When you think of the government, in general the words early adopter usually don’t come to mind. Yet more politicians and other governmental officials are using social media tools like Twitter to get their messages heard, and now the U.S. government has recently launched Apps.gov, introducing web tools to lower costs and improve communication.
Check out their lists of social media and productivity applications.
Welcome Ashley Colpaart as an author on this blog!
When I started this blog earlier this year, I knew I would need different perspectives to give examples to the wide range of nutritional career choices available. Through Twitter, I found a link to Ashley’s SXSW proposal, which represented exactly the type of complementary perspective from food policy that would benefit this project.
The Good Food Movement is using twitter, blogging, newspapers, movies and other creative forms of media to fuel changes in the way we eat and produce our food.
As added to the author page, here is a little about Ashley:
Ashley Colpaart RD LD | Email | Twitter: is earning her Masters in Food Policy and Applied Nutrition at Tufts University with a focus on Sustainable Food Systems and the Environment. Colpaart serves nationally as Policy Chair and Steering Committee member for the Hunger and Environmental Nutrition Dietetic Practice Group of the American Dietetic Association (ADA). As a writer with a public citizenship focus, Ashley keeps a much-liked blog called “Epicurean Ideal” and is also a much-trusted and highly-valued writer for Tufts Professor Wilde’s blog on “U.S. Food Policy.” Colpaart’s blogs are notable for their substance and facts, presented with a distinctive passion. Her posts on food policy have several times received links from larger national web media sites, including leading national economics and sustainable agriculture blogs. She has also been published in various newsletters and professional journals.
Check out her blog, Epicurean Ideal, and her contributions at U.S. Food Policy.
Education and social media
Occasionally, I will highlight how other fields utilize social media and how it is changing how we learn and work.
Recently, high profile news sites like CNN and the New York Times have written about an online University that is going bold with tuition free schooling called the University of the People.
University of the People (UoPeople) is the world’s first tuition-free, online academic institution dedicated to the global advancement and democratization of higher education. The high-quality, low-cost and global educational model embraces the worldwide presence of the Internet and dropping technology costs to bring university level studies within reach of millions of people across the world. With the support of respected academics, humanitarians and other visionaries, the UoPeople student body represents a new wave in global education.
The Times article shows the vision:
“The idea is to take social networking and apply it to academia,” said Shai Reshef, an entrepreneur and founder of several previous Internet-based educational businesses. “The open source courseware is there, from universities that have put their courses online, available to the public, free. We know that online peer-to-peer teaching works. Putting it all together, we can make a free university for students all over the world, anyone who speaks English and has an Internet connection.”
A CNN description further demonstrates how Reshef “gets it”
“We are fitting the current culture into the academic culture.”
“A recent study conducted by the U.S. Department of Education found that “on average, students in online learning conditions performed better than those receiving face-to-face instruction.”
Education is changing and will continually become cheaper as information becomes more free and available, and formal schooling saves by shifting to online mediums.
*It should be noted that the University may not receive accreditation, but nonetheless represents a change in the educational landscape, giving those an opportunity to learn who otherwise could not. As more schools try this method, we will likely see a forced recognition of the validity of this type of learning.
Finding nutrition Twitter users
Here are a few ways to discover nutritionists on Twitter.
This is a recent general nutrition group I created on TweepML, which allows for easy following of a large group of people with one click.
Click here to add yourself or others to the list.
Twibes has a number of nutrition groups: http://www.twibes.com/search?q=nutrition&search=Search
Add yourself to a wiki I created to better categorize nutrition related users: http://recomp.com/wiki/index.php5?title=Nutrition_2.0
Submit yourself or others from this form and I will add it for you.
The following are more difficult to find quality informational sources because they rank by follower number and are not human moderated:
http://wefollow.com/twitter/nutrition
http://www.twellow.com/search?q=nutrition&search_cat=
Please forward this page to followers; these lists will help those getting started easily find people to follow.
If you know of other good lists, let me know and I will add them to the Directories page.
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Join the Nutrition 2.0 FriendFeed room to further discuss these topics: http://friendfeed.com/nutrition20 -
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Join the Nutrition 2.0 FriendFeed room to further discuss these topics: http://friendfeed.com/nutrition20 -