Summer Special:

Power 10

Transcript

Toban Dyck  00:02

This is the Extensionist conversations with great thinkers in agriculture. I’m Toban Dyck,

Jay Whetter  00:08

and I’m Jay Wenner. Hey, Toban.

Toban Dyck  00:15

Hey, Jay.

Jay Whetter  00:17

Trying to keep it professional.

Toban Dyck  00:18

That’s good. How’s that working for you? It’s so. so listeners, listeners, we’re just we’re just coming off of a of a fairly serious laugh fest here in the studio, so we’re trying to kind of get our bearings for this recording. So without going into detail about what we were laughing at, today’s episode is is all about the highlights of the season, so it obviously brought out the best notes because we were just laughing. We’re in a good mood, talking about about about the great interviews we’ve had. So, what were they, Jay? Oh, so this this putting me on this a lot. This is a really hard one. Things come

Jay Whetter  00:57

okay. Well,

Toban Dyck  00:58

because it’s hard for us to remember all of the great things we know, we’ve had amazing conversations. That is full stop. The truth. It is hard. It’s hard to fix. It’s

Jay Whetter  01:08

hard to remember them.

Toban Dyck  01:09

Yes,

Jay Whetter  01:09

but I would say the one that stands out for me because I reference it all the time was Yolanda Jensen, which was actually the first episode of season two, way back a long, long time ago in October, I think, and she was just a steady stream of really good practical tips. And was it because she’s from the Netherlands and brings a different perspective? That’s possible, but she also has made a career out of extension and and the practice of extension. She just opened my eyes to a whole bunch of interesting practices, which we’ll talk about shortly as we discuss the some of the highlights from the year. How about you? What was any standouts for you?

Toban Dyck  01:51

Yeah, I mean, I think I think probably same with you. There’s there’s been many, but one one that stands out maybe because it’s a fairly recent one for us is the is in the Dean Jenkinson episode when he talks about about practicing, but practicing correctly because I I’ve gone off about practicing a lot, right? I talk about the importance of it, but but the fact that we you know if you if you’re practicing the wrong thing over and over again, yeah, that’s not a. That’s not. That’s that’s not beneficial. That’s so. It’s not practice in and of itself that has the value, right? You have to be practicing the right thing. So I think so. A having a comedian on a show was was was a departure and a really refreshing one. Yeah. And b that that that specific takeaway.

Jay Whetter  02:39

Well, I think between Dean and Owen Roberts, who was in and around like the the last part of the season, talking about Owen was talking. My takeaway from Owen was when he talked about the value of public speaking, which is kind of a lost art, but it’s still that in person, face to face, face to face presentation where you are engaging with the audience and not leaning so much on slides. I think PowerPoint has been a nice program, but in some ways it has destroyed this skill of public speaking. And we need to remember that maybe it’s not all about the slides. Yeah, yeah, and then so Dean to tie that in together. So Dean, as a comedian, I mean, that’s your life, is is public speaking and connecting with the audience, and through comedy, you’re often giving them something to take away and think about. Yeah, for sure.

Toban Dyck  03:36

And I mean, just the you you look at a season of of our conversations with people who are professionals in extension and in variety of ways, like it is just a wealth of information and content, and has nothing to do with us, right? I mean, these are these are just people who have devoted their their lives, their professional lives, to the study of this in many cases, and like there’s so many excellent models out there for or resources in these people for for for how to do it better. You could write

Jay Whetter  04:09

a book.

Toban Dyck  04:10

One could write a book.

Jay Whetter  04:12

I just read How to Talk Like TED by Gallo, Carmine Carmine Gallo. Yeah, basically it’s a book about TED Talks, things he learned because he’s involved with TED. So things he learned from TED Talks, or and then how he learned presentation skills from TED Talks, and so I think you could one could write a book about extension skills learned from the Extensionist podcast.

Toban Dyck  04:42

That’s a that’s a great idea. Should we start a TED? Should should like should the extensionists do a TED talk?

Jay Whetter  04:49

Yeah, you should.

Toban Dyck  04:51

Yeah, you should. I like that. All

Jay Whetter  04:54

right, shall we get on with our year in review?

Toban Dyck  04:57

Let’s do it.

Jay Whetter  04:58

Right on. Do you like what you’re hearing and want to support the Extensionists? If you are an agriculture company or association looking for a powerful way to get your message in front of Canadian farmers, then partner with us. Our listeners are farmers from coast to coast.

Toban Dyck  05:15

When you advertise with us, your brand isn’t just another commercial break; it becomes part of our story. Ads on the extensionists are personal and trusted. Our listeners value what they hear on the podcast.

Jay Whetter  05:28

Whether you’re looking for a 60 second ad somewhere throughout the podcast, or even an exclusive episode sponsorship, we have options that will work for you.

Toban Dyck  05:36

So if you’re ready to get your message out there and connect with farmers across Canada, let’s talk. Visit theextensionists.com for more information. All

Jay Whetter  05:52

right, our guest today is Yolanda Yanson, and Yolanda is a communications consultant and co-owner of Saint Anna Advice.

Jolanda Jansen  06:01

What happens in our brain is that if you look at this from a social science point of view, we know we have three basic needs. So we have a need for competence, we have a need for relatedness, and we have a need for autonomy. So if you say to a farmer, “You do this wrong, or “This could be improved, or this is. We did a checklist, and you know these are your critical control control points. In our brain, that works as you make me feel less competent. So what you’re actually telling me is I’m not a competent farmer. I’m in this business for 30. I’m I’m I’m in this family farm. I already do this for 20 years, but now you’re going to tell me that I do this wrong, so even if they would agree with you, somewhere in their brains it’s like with all quality schemes, it’s continuously telling me you are not competent.

Toban Dyck  06:50

That chat with Yolanda was a big highlight for us this season. Now let’s pivot to Jay and my reflection on why that lesson on competence and empathy was so pivotal. So I like Yolanda’s. Sorry, I just gave you a little tap there, but Yolanda was talking about the.

Jay Whetter  07:09

Oh shoot! No, I don’t know what I was going to tell you. But just on that note about the competence and the or the motivational interviewing. This is what I was going to say. Yeah,

Toban Dyck  07:19

yeah. We talk about this quite a bit. We do, yeah, yeah. But how?

Jay Whetter  07:22

So rather than saying, you know, you’ve been doing this for 20 years, but there’s a better way to do it, and so the and then the impression is, well, you’re telling me I’ve been doing it wrong all this time. But the motivational interviewing was like, okay, like this is how was your year? Anything you’d want to do differently? Anything, any challenges? And then, then you kind of get at what the farmers need to change is like what what is their motivation to change? And then you think, okay, well, let’s let’s talk about that. And then you kind of get into it that way rather than saying, oh yeah, you’re doing this wrong, and you’ve been doing it wrong for 20 years or 30 or whatever.

Toban Dyck  08:01

What struck me watching this again, you know, especially after we’ve like we’ve kind of done stuff with this content like since this episode, right? We we reference it quite a bit in our training and and and talk about it a lot. Is how how much of our current communications to farmers and in general, is kind of predicated on like this this idea of that the receiver doesn’t know, like or is incompetent, right? Right? Or how much of it is comes across that way, and how much, how many audiences are shut down just because that’s the tone that count that that’s the tone of lots of the communications that come their way,

Jay Whetter  08:42

yeah, and totally. I mean, it’s and it’s seems obvious when she says it out loud.

Toban Dyck  08:48

Yes, and

Jay Whetter  08:49

you realize, yeah, of course. I mean, why? What other way would you do it? You’re like, okay, no, because that is actually not how extension has typically worked. Well,

Toban Dyck  08:59

no, and I mean, like communication is like, I mean, I we all communicate on a regular basis throughout our day, right? How often do we actually think about, like, take the time to think about how does this does could this be received in such a way that the person thinks they’re incompetent, right? Yeah. If if they’re you know, if I if I say this to them, right? I don’t know.

Jay Whetter  09:21

Well, I I just think about like with canola and harvest losses, and we keep you know talking to farmers about checking behind the combine for harvest loss and doing it multiple times and shutting down the combine and doing the stuff that nobody actually really wants to do. It’s like okay, is is is the problem that the farmers are doing it, or is it is it the problem that we’re encouraging to to do a practice that actually nobody really actually wants? Yeah, that’s just

Toban Dyck  09:48

not not feasible, right? You got to find find a better approach, right? Yeah, that’s

Jay Whetter  09:53

right. Oh man, no,

Toban Dyck  09:55

that was that was a really that was a really good one and a good was that was that our first. Was that our first guest?

Jay Whetter  10:00

Yeah, first guest of season two. Yeah, yeah, it was a great way to start the season

Toban Dyck  10:04

for sure, for sure. And it’s just it was always fascinating, like like for Yolanda in Yolanda’s situation and most of our guests’ situation, like how much time they spend thinking about this kind of stuff, right? I mean, this is like their this is their profession. They think about it. They think about it all the time, how how to communicate and and the science behind it.

Jay Whetter  10:25

Before we leave, Yolanda, though, I I I need to quickly recap the pizza thing because you asked that question right off. Yeah, well, because

Toban Dyck  10:34

she’s a she’s a ski instructor. Yeah, that’s right. Like

Jay Whetter  10:36

that. So the this you’re like the breaking pizza, pizza. Come on, what’s wrong with you kids? Yeah, and she says, “Oh, yeah, actually, pizza. People think of pizza as being round, like it. So when you when you tell people to put their skis into like to slow down into the shape of a pizza, they’re like pizza, like how do I make my skis into this round shape? That’s right. There’s like stuff that you assume is like people are getting.

Toban Dyck  11:02

Yes,

Jay Whetter  11:03

it’s obvious that pizza is shaped like a triangle. Yeah, you’re like no.

Toban Dyck  11:06

Yeah, yeah, that’s right. I’d forgotten about that. Yeah, that’s awesome.

Jay Whetter  11:12

We’ve got Rob Caravo, who’s a professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Windsor, and also co-director of Ag U Win,

Rupp Carriveau  11:22

academics have, in some places, in some cases, earned a reputation for what I think is really a smash and grab collaboration style. I I never acted this way because I, I guess I just always wanted to help the make the people happy, make the relationship better. To me, relationships are are way bigger than projects, right? Because I, yeah, you have to live with yourself, right? So, but but I know that they they have in many cases farmers in particular, academics will go out and be like, “Oh, I understand you. You have this issue with your water, or or your pest management, or or fuel efficiency. Give us all your data, and you know we’ll work on something for you.

Jay Whetter  12:18

Rupp’s point about prioritizing relationships over projects really hit home. Here is Jay in my discussion on why that mindset shift is so difficult to execute. A good point. I mean, and so many researchers are trying to create relationships with farmers, but they just want to jump in, do some testing, get out. Yeah, and and probably like like Rupe was saying, you know, working on that relationship, and then it could be something that you could have for your whole 30-year career. I would sure make field studies a lot easier. But what I really, yeah, sorry, so valuable. Yeah, what I really liked about I gave you the old shoulder tap again. That’s two for two.

Gerry Friesen  12:58

Good. Charlie horse at some points or something. Well,

Jay Whetter  13:04

the calloused. Yeah, but Ruff was talking about this, the relationship, that network that he had with the. It was farmers around the Windsor area. Yeah, and that the it was greenhouses, and just this having this tight relationship with the farmers and the researchers in this network.

Toban Dyck  13:26

Yes,

Jay Whetter  13:26

and I really, I really like that idea. I think a lot of universities would probably borrow that, where the farmers feel like they’re part of something bigger than just like a one-off study.

Toban Dyck  13:37

I wonder how, like, it would have been. It would be interesting to chat with him more about how long, and maybe we did in in that episode how long it took to build that model because it’s you know it’s one thing to talk about it and talk about it as a good model and it’s intuitively a really good model like you’re not going to look at that and think what a what a waste of time

Jay Whetter  13:58

yeah

Toban Dyck  13:59

because but I imagine the hard part of that was how long it took to establish that, right? Because that’s not like, hey, we’re going to start this, and it’s going to be even this calendar year, right? Like it’s going to take, and and and for something like that, like how many challenges were there along the way where it’s like this isn’t working, yeah, this isn’t going to happen. This isn’t going as I thought. But then all of a sudden, over time, it just-I don’t know-that that’s the trajectory I have in my head of something like that because it’s so valuable and long term that it probably took a big a big commitment, a bigger commitment than we realize. And we we talked about this with him. He was very modest, right? Yeah, because he was basically the guy who did

Jay Whetter  14:44

it. Yeah,

Toban Dyck  14:44

like who who who made it and had that

Jay Whetter  14:47

vision and stuck with it, like you said, for as long as it took. But he knew that this was the right way to go, and

Toban Dyck  14:52

yeah, yeah, yeah. And he was he wasn’t willing to kind of go there with us, which is speaks highly for him. But but but yeah. Certainly came came out that he was that yeah phenomenal kind of like a Living Labs hey yeah

Jay Whetter  15:07

yeah like I’ve looked into the Manitoba Living Lab a little bit. I just don’t think the Living Labs ever got the farmer buy in that it was hoping to have

Toban Dyck  15:19

right right yeah

Jay Whetter  15:21

like so the the the concept was there.

Toban Dyck  15:24

The

Jay Whetter  15:24

researchers were on board, but did they ever get that critical mass of farmers? And then what? What often happened? This is maybe what what Roops doing that’s different is that there’s a longer term vision. Often in government funding, it’s five year blocks, and then we’ll reevaluate.

Gerry Friesen  15:41

Yeah,

Jay Whetter  15:41

and there’s no let’s we we need to keep this going for 25 years. Let’s fix it. Let’s fund it for 25 years.

Toban Dyck  15:47

Yeah, and I imagine too, like across because Living Labs rolled out across Canada. I imagine in some in some areas it worked better than others because it is so relationship driven, right? So it’ll be personalities.

Jay Whetter  16:01

Yeah, well, you can

Toban Dyck  16:03

you can build the model as you know, but still people who have to do it.

Jay Whetter  16:07

And Rupe’s a classic example of the personality driving the project. He knew this had to happen, and he was at the core of it. Even though it was a bunch of researchers, a bunch of farmers,

Toban Dyck  16:16

yeah,

Jay Whetter  16:17

they were the network, but he was that one leader who made it happen, which is often essential,

Toban Dyck  16:23

and so like underappreciated, right? Like you, you just said like if he loses passion for it, it’s dead in the water, right? So yeah, every day, even the days like you feel like you feel like crap, you still have to go there and and be passionate about it, right? And I could only imagine how hard that was.

Jay Whetter  16:43

Our guest today is Jerry Friesen. He’s a farmer from near Wamanisa, Manitoba, and he’s also author of a book called *The Recovering Farmer* What your friend did right that day when you finally decided you wanted to talk.

Gerry Friesen  16:57

He sat down with me,

Jay Whetter  16:59

yeah,

Gerry Friesen  17:00

and listened. He normalized and validated what I was feeling, and you. And I’ve heard people say this.

Jay Whetter  17:10

What does that language sound like when you normalize and validate? What does what did what did he say, or or did he say nothing?

Gerry Friesen  17:18

I get

Jay Whetter  17:19

it.

Gerry Friesen  17:20

That makes sense to me.

Jay Whetter  17:22

Yeah,

Gerry Friesen  17:24

I don’t think he even, and this is 20 years ago. I don’t think he even said, “Well, if I had, you know, I would do this. It was more just, “Yeah, I get it.

Jay Whetter  17:33

So that wasn’t. So back to my one and 10. There was. He. You didn’t need to hear from him. How can I help you? No. Right.

Gerry Friesen  17:40

He helped me by listening.

Toban Dyck  17:42

Talking to Jerry about the art of listening was such a defining moment for us this season. Here is our reflection on why that skill is so underappreciated. Like I mean, whatever. I I think I think we’re all guilty of this, right? Just in situations where somebody is talking, especially from the heart and from like a deeper place, there’s a tendency to kind of want to help, right? And just say things that are helpful, as opposed to just being there, right? And like, yeah, I don’t know. That’s a underappreciated.

Jay Whetter  18:17

Well, I learned a lot from you and from Jerry listening in on that, and and if you recall, I Yolanda. We didn’t talk about this when we talked about Yolanda, but there was that you know how how was this year out of 10 like your yeah

Toban Dyck  18:30

seven yeah yeah right and then

Jay Whetter  18:32

I thought well can you do that for people and how people are feeling and say how are you feeling out of 10 yeah and then you’re like so how what can I do to make that a three for you, like if it was a two,

Toban Dyck  18:43

yeah.

Jay Whetter  18:44

And Jerry and you both said no, that’s that’s not the right approach. Just it’s okay to be not okay. I think that yeah, does that sound like something you

Toban Dyck  18:54

said? No, no, for sure. That’s where I was going to go to now too. Just like that, it’s things can suck, and sometimes just having someone say, “Yeah, that really sucks.

Jay Whetter  19:02

Yeah,

Toban Dyck  19:03

and without like, but it’s gonna be good, but it’s gonna be great tomorrow, or like, yeah, some sort of platitude that you know I think we intuitively know is is is BS.

Jay Whetter  19:11

Yeah,

Toban Dyck  19:12

there’s something really nice about just, hey, yeah, really sucks, man.

Jay Whetter  19:16

Yeah,

Toban Dyck  19:17

yeah, like that’s great. Sucks, but you know, like you know what I mean. There’s something about just someone else acknowledging, validating what you. I guess maybe that’s it, right? Validating what you’re feeling, right? And that validation has has has value.

Jay Whetter  19:35

No judgment, just being there.

Toban Dyck  19:37

Yeah, yeah. And it’s okay if you don’t have a solution. It’s okay if it, yeah,

Jay Whetter  19:43

yeah,

Toban Dyck  19:43

yeah. No, I liked. That was a good. That was a fun. That was a fun conversation with with Jerry. I mean, fun. It was deep, but yeah, it was. But important, I should say.

Jay Whetter  19:54

Yeah, it was just a nice, good flowing conversation with. I would say a lot of takeaways for me, for sure. Yeah, on the empathy front, because you know that I’m kind of into that right now.

Toban Dyck  20:10

This is the first I hear of it. Also, with Jerry, so we we we you know we we talk a lot in the podcast. We make promises to guests. We did promise Jerry that we would golf again. Golf with

Jay Whetter  20:22

him. I have that on my reminders.

Toban Dyck  20:25

Do you?

Jay Whetter  20:25

Yeah, and he’s at LaSalle, so he’s close for me. Oh, that’s not this close for you, but

Toban Dyck  20:30

but kind of. I mean, it’s kind of yeah.

Jay Whetter  20:32

Yeah,

Toban Dyck  20:32

go to go to bridges. Yeah, that would we we we definitely should actually. Yeah, and

Jay Whetter  20:36

I haven’t done any golfing yet this year.

Toban Dyck  20:38

I went once. It wasn’t great, but.

Jay Whetter  20:45

guest today is David Lazarenko, who’s a partner and executive vice president of Think Shift Agency in Winnipeg. How do you take a marketing approach to extension? So I I would say I think

David Lazarenko  20:59

I mentioned this like this idea of storytelling. So, and I don’t say storytelling is in like, oh, you know, it’s like Goldilocks. It’s like you’re not making something up, but you’re, it’s how you’re delivering it. So, I think of when you were talking about that. I thought of Neil deGrasse Tyson right now. Talks about really complex scientific things, but he’s a really good storyteller. He uses analogies. He uses different tools to tell a story to make it make sense to anyone. Yeah, and and I think it’s the same thing. Like when we when we talk to farmers and growers and whoever else it might be, we are talking about some complex agronomic scientific stuff. It doesn’t mean that we have to just talk about it like it’s in a textbook. Yeah, and I think that’s where marketing could come in.

Toban Dyck  21:52

David challenged us to rethink how we tell stories in science. We dug into that. Here is our conversation on why being interesting matters.

Jay Whetter  22:00

Right, the marketing approach to research communications

Toban Dyck  22:06

and storytelling. I mean, yeah, for sure. I mean, it’s like I do feel, to be perfectly honest, I feel like I’ve heard the word storytelling so much the last probably 234, years. Like it’s been kind of just-it’s the big thing, right? And I mean, not that conceptually. Like what it actually is is more is more is more everlasting than that phrase, but in the term. But like, yeah, I mean, make making things making things interesting, right? Like, and and and just, yeah. I I I yeah. I don’t know. It’s a.

Jay Whetter  22:48

I think in some ways, scientific journal writing is suck the life out of science because it’s all there’s no there’s no personality allowed. There’s no flourish allowed. It’s just very rigid formulaic, and and that works because it’s important to capture those results properly. Yeah,

Toban Dyck  23:05

yeah.

Jay Whetter  23:06

But there’s that’s the focus. Yeah. How many journal articles have you published? Yeah. We don’t care if you can actually talk about your work in a way that’s interesting. No. Or that actually might inspire someone to to to make the change. But as long as you’ve written this 20-page, well-cited, boring journal article, your its job’s done.

Toban Dyck  23:25

This challenge, it’s yeah, it’s it’s interesting, right? Because it’s like that that that that format itself is associated with value, right? Like so, I think so. Yeah, that’s the

Jay Whetter  23:37

value. It’s not so you don’t really care if farmers actually do anything. No, no, but it’s that. It’s looking at

Toban Dyck  23:42

that thing. It’s like you know that that that thing you’ve created is the thing that has the value, which

Jay Whetter  23:50

is yeah the

Toban Dyck  23:51

problem, right? And and

Jay Whetter  23:56

because what inspires people is is storytelling or or taking them or or I mean, the marketing approach. I mean, that’s not what inspires people. But that mindset of we need to actually move people or motivate people. It’s not just. It’s not enough to do the science. In fact, if all you did was the science, then there would be no value in it. If no one’s going to actually read it or take any sort of action, and you need to create this narrative that inspires.

Toban Dyck  24:23

Yeah, and I mean, yeah, yeah, for sure. Shout out to shout out to Think Think Shift for you know for valuing that and for for you know for taking the time to think about different approaches to to make these things more more interesting to to farmers. Absolutely, but it’s it’s a funny it’s a funny thing with with like right with yeah especially with academia like research and and like you know these these these things these ways of communicating people learn in various university programs right. That are very like you said rigid formulaic, but it’s just, I mean, we’re just people, right? I mean, like you, you, like, like what, and the and the lack of introspection of like, well, what what do you find interesting? So someone will write like this rigid, rigid, rigid, like academic paper that no one is going to read, but the journal of record is going to publish. So that’s all you need. You’re happy, right? But then you’re going to go home and you’re going to watch, like you know, some some sort of trashy reality TV because you like it.

Jay Whetter  25:34

Yeah,

Toban Dyck  25:35

right. How do you like to spend some time thinking about that, right? Like like what what does that look like?

Jay Whetter  25:40

Yeah, we need a David Attenborough approach to agriculture extension,

Toban Dyck  25:45

right? So you you you like a certain kind of thing for entertainment, but yet you produce things that aren’t even close to that, that aren’t even close to entertaining. Yet you think that you know what I mean. So like the disparity between yeah yeah like yeah why can’t we be a bit more? I don’t know. Yeah,

Jay Whetter  26:04

well, just and then it’s. I mean, what what inspires people? Conflict or humility or admitting, you know, what we made a mistake here, and we actually learned this, or you know, at the end of the day, do we have a message for farmers? Well, I’m not really sure actually, because yeah. But this is this is what the trends are suggesting, but this is we we had this problem this day, and it was really funny, and yeah, you know, and I just think let’s let’s let’s get to know a bit about you as the researcher and some of the challenges along the way and the conflicts and and how that came up with a message that that might be resonating. Our guest today is Mohammed Yagi, and Mohammed is the vice president of the Innovation Hub and Ag Expert at FCC.

Mohamad Yaghi  26:49

But we’re also accessing sources from organizations like, let’s say, Aardar, for instance. They do a lot of research. Can we provide regionally focused information to our producers using Aardar’s research? Yes, it is. it is these partnerships that’s going to help us grow because the more partners we have across the country, the more regionally specific we can get and provide more tailored recommendations. I don’t suspect large language models are ever going to replace experts. It’s not what the tool was designed for. What it will provide is a first line of knowledge, and then afterwards can give farmers a sufficient base of information so that they can ask better questions. That’s the way I see it going at the moment. So I don’t see it again replacing anybody. I think it is actually going to really help enhance the the experience for producers with their experts.

Toban Dyck  27:41

Mohammed gave us a great breakdown on the future of AI. Now let’s get into the debate Jay and I had about whether it’s a tool or a threat. So I think I love I love that was that was interesting interesting chat for sure about AI. Yeah, yeah. What did you? What what were your thoughts before I dive into my? Well, I just

Jay Whetter  28:04

think that ties in nicely with the the message from David Lazarenko from earlier was that you know marketing and storytelling. I mean that’s that then what AI does and these large language models does is then puts the onus on us to make it locally relevant or make a connection, because those the AI and the large language models that they can pull the information, synthesize it into a paragraph or two. So you have the you have the data, but then putting a personal face on it, which is in ways in a way the the really the key communications component is that making it relevant and and putting a face on it. That’s when you’re going to see a difference. But these AI will be so good at synthesizing the data into quick little bites.

Toban Dyck  28:57

So I I wonder about this and just in general, like so. I mean, this is this was a great conversation, and it gets people thinking about AI, right? And and and I think people are thinking about AI right now. Yeah, I mean, this comment about it’s never going to replace people. I don’t know. I I I I like I like the I like the chat. That’s an evolving discipline. So much, maybe, maybe even at the time, I of that interview, I was thinking, yeah, you know, he’s right. It’s not going to replace people. But how much of that combat, and this is just a, just a, just a kind of a new thought, as if we’re interviewing him again today, is us defending, just kind of, it’s it’s kind of like us justifying our existence a little bit, or just being like being our kind of like our last kind of rebuttal against AI. It’s like yeah, it’s pretty good, but it’s not it’s not going to replace people. I remember taking a philosophy class in my in my undergrad, and it was it was a it was a kind of it was like it’s like not wasn’t psychological. It was it was neural. Neurological philosophy, or something like that, where it’s like, are are we is is there is there like a personhood in there? Is there is there something beyond just a very very complex bunch of synaptic kind of relationships, right? And it’s like at some point you think like, maybe not. Are

Jay Whetter  30:20

you talking about in like in the human, the actual human brain? Yeah, in the human brain.

Toban Dyck  30:24

So you think, yeah, we like to think of ourselves as having some sort of you know you know personhood or something beyond the physical, right? But maybe maybe it isn’t.

Jay Whetter  30:34

Just chemistry, or

Toban Dyck  30:35

so maybe it’s just it’s just a matter of complexity. So maybe maybe it’ll get there. Like maybe we are, like if you think of algorithms and how well they are at advertising to you and and figuring you out,

Jay Whetter  30:48

yeah.

Toban Dyck  30:48

Like it’s it’s eerie. So it’s and it’s only going to get kind of not better, but just just get more close to who we are. That I don’t know if it’s true. The image that just popped into my head was the movie Castro with Tom Hanks and this and it’s the volleyball. Wilson,

Jay Whetter  31:06

yeah. So maybe we just need a volleyball with a face on it to talk to to make us feel okay.

Toban Dyck  31:10

Yeah,

Jay Whetter  31:10

and and AI can be the volleyball.

Toban Dyck  31:13

Yeah, but maybe that maybe we’re chasing the wrong concept with AI. Maybe it’s not about will it will it actually you know replace humans. Maybe that’s not the most interesting question. Maybe there’s a different one we should be asking because probably if the way we’re treating it, it might be able to. But there still might be something that it can’t do. I don’t know. Just just a thought exercise. An open end. What

Jay Whetter  31:36

can’t whack you on the shoulder. It has an idea.

Toban Dyck  31:39

That’s right. Can can.

Jay Whetter  31:45

Our our guest today is Lauren Benoit. Lauren is a PhD student at the University of Saskatchewan and studying biological nitrification inhibitors of wheat with with Curtis Posniak.

Lauren Benoit  31:58

In order for the industry to get better, I think we have to believe that it can be better. Like if we get too cynical, and if we don’t like the way things are, and we kind of just get a little complacent with it, we’re we’re never gonna have stronger networks or stronger relationships. But you know, in order for us to kind of hit a point where we have really strong grower networks or really strong research ecosystems. We have to believe that we’re capable of doing that, which I think we absolutely are.

Toban Dyck  32:27

Lauren brought some much-needed optimism to the studio. Here is our reflection on why believing in change is actually the hardest part of the work.

Jay Whetter  32:36

Yeah, that’s a great comment. We, I mean, and you know, sort of getting getting stuck in the ways and and I mean change does take some energy.

Toban Dyck  32:46

Oh yeah, when I really think about

Jay Whetter  32:47

it.

Toban Dyck  32:47

Yeah,

Jay Whetter  32:48

like we talked about, like lots of new new ideas, but but the energy to put them into practice and to think about okay, this is the idea. What what’s the process that we’re that we can implement this, and then it goes. So it goes back to extension too, and and and communications and new ideas or better ways of doing things. Rarely do we just stop. Okay, are we is are we do are we effective, or how do we do things differently to be more effective. Let’s take two days and we’re going to brainstorm, yeah, and then let’s reevaluate everything that we’re doing. Yeah, I mean that is hard to do. Interrupting your regular schedule to do that with the potential outcome of a complete change in the system, but I kind of it’s kind of exciting and inspiring. Does it does it scare you, or how does it make you feel at the thought of doing that, either on your own farm, your own business, or with say one of the grower associations?

Toban Dyck  33:51

Like like that kind of analysis.

Jay Whetter  33:53

Yeah,

Toban Dyck  33:54

I mean it it it’s it’s scary, but it’s also exciting. I fully appreciate how valuable that is. It’s hard to measure the like business is one thing, right? I mean that’s you know in in some ways cut and dry, although that that that’s an oversimplification. But but in let’s say communications, the the effectiveness of certain approaches is is so hard to measure.

Jay Whetter  34:25

So hard to measure. So

Toban Dyck  34:26

hard to measure. And I find what what I find challenging, to be brutally honest, is like so. You you have clients come to us and and and you know ask us for that kind of analysis or or how do you measure success? And I find that I can I can talk about it in a way that I begin to doubt myself, right? Like I can almost become a little bit like you know silver tongued about it, right? Like really, really sell it, but but but in a way that’s like I I I at the end of it, I’m like I don’t I don’t know. That’s true, right? I can, I can, I can make a pitch, but it’s like, I don’t know. I mean, I you see it right right now to tie this to something kind of very current is a lot a lot of skepticism about social media in general, right?

Jay Whetter  35:14

Yeah.

Toban Dyck  35:15

So, how do you walk people through that? How do you how do you talk about the effectiveness of of this stuff, without sounding like you’re kind of just like a soft science pitch for right, and I I don’t I I don’t know the answer right, like it’s it’s a hard one.

Jay Whetter  35:37

Um, just before we leave, Lauren, because we’re going to move on to the next one. I just I think one idea that just and again not easy, but Lauren comes in with a whole bunch of energy. She just came out of the Nuffield Scholar like, and then how do you sit down and say, okay, you’ve got energy. We’ve been doing this for 30 years. Let’s think about our our business system or our organizational system. How do we tap into that that that energy, that exuberance, and perhaps think of a different way of doing things? Anyway, let’s move on. Yeah,

Toban Dyck  36:11

yeah, for sure.

Jay Whetter  36:14

Our guest is Sabrina Parrott, who’s an associate professor in anthropology at the University of Calgary.

Speaker 1  36:19

We also saw increasingly not just social media, but for example, electronic media, podcasting becoming a part of producers’ daily operations. They’re like, yeah, I like switch on YouTube, get on my combine, and you know have at it. I think that it does feel like something is shifting in the media environment as well, and and I would say again, like more broadly, the knowledge networks that are supporting producers in their everyday lives, whether it is agronomists, whether it’s traditional farm media, is traditional farm media as important as it once was, I think these are all. There’s some indication that things are changing, and this is something we need to think about much more and and understand in a better perspective.

Toban Dyck  37:13

Sabrina really opened our eyes to how knowledge networks are shifting. Let’s jump into our conversation on what that means for the future of extension.

Jay Whetter  37:22

Yeah,

Toban Dyck  37:22

yeah.

Jay Whetter  37:23

We we kind of were just talking a bit about that, and that not about the media generally, but just how connecting with farmers and whether social media was the right tool. We had all high hopes for it, but seems to have lost some of its scheme.

Toban Dyck  37:37

Well, and this idea that I like, I liked how she, Sabrina, framed the conversation. These like these knowledge networks are changing, and just I don’t know. For me, it just paints an interesting visual, and I think it’s. I think she’s right. Like the use of like that that whole that whole system has changed a lot, like from even 1510, years ago, right? Like like, you know, it’s no longer just you know, Western producer publishes an article on you know certain practice and then it gets read and adopted or or whatever, right? Or or even let’s say 10 years ago, where it’s put on social feed and someone you know views it. You now have like just this battery of other of other approaches that I would say you and I don’t even know about right or participate in. What were you

Jay Whetter  38:45

thinking of?

Toban Dyck  38:46

Well, like I think I think a lot of young farmers are are using like WhatsApp in ways that are, yeah, we we we have we use it a bit, but they use it a lot.

Jay Whetter  38:57

Snapchat,

Toban Dyck  38:59

maybe.

Jay Whetter  38:59

Well, when I asked the university students how they what social media they use, they use YouTube to learn stuff and Snapchat to communicate. Yeah, still, which seems I don’t know if Snapchat’s been around for a while, but they still use it. Yeah,

Toban Dyck  39:11

but it’s but it’s interesting. Like they develop these these these networks. These like these they communicate with their friends. They’re really I think agile at at creating these groups.

Jay Whetter  39:25

Yeah,

Toban Dyck  39:26

these these groups in var. My my gut would be in in various mediums, in various formats. Be it on like you know creating messaging groups on on on just a messaging app on your phone or WhatsApp or you know whatever they find through Twitch like there are these

Jay Whetter  39:45

yeah

Toban Dyck  39:46

yeah it’s and it’s it’s it’s fascinating

Jay Whetter  39:49

I was just gonna say like it I mean the the media’s using a print media as a way to reach people and went down and then maybe it’s coming up again that was one of the comments. Made a month ago or so, yeah,

Toban Dyck  40:01

and I stand by that one for sure. Yeah,

Jay Whetter  40:03

but Ag Days is still well attended. People are interested in local farm tours, that kind of thing. They’re just fewer and fewer farmers. Like, so if we were thinking, like, what’s going on? Like, our readership has gone like this. Well, there’s actually a lot fewer farmers than there were a decade ago, or and obviously 100 years ago, but yeah, steady decline in the number of active decision makers as well in agriculture.

Toban Dyck  40:29

Yeah, and I think like I I do I do think if we’re going to take ag communications seriously and extension seriously, studying those those knowledge networks is is is really really important. Like what what are people doing? How are they?

Jay Whetter  40:48

Yeah.

Toban Dyck  40:48

How are they? How and where are they creating these networks? Yeah. And you know, it’s not it’s not just a few things anymore. It’s it’s a lot of things.

Jay Whetter  41:00

Right. Yeah. So our guest today is Owen Roberts, senior advisor of strategic communications for Grain Farmers of Ontario. Approach also to a live, like to a speech or a presentation, is just begin with some sort of anecdote. Get get the audience, warm up the audience with a with a real kind of experience. Yes,

Owen Roberts  41:23

yeah, a people experience because I find people still like to read about people, and I mean when you think about what we’ve talked about today, it’s these are people people talking right.

Toban Dyck  41:36

Owen hit the mark on the importance of putting people front and center in our communications, here’s our reflection on why that’s harder than it sounds, and it definitely is. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I never like hearing myself talk, but or or watching myself, but yeah. People always like reading about people. Like, there’s something. There’s something that’s like, you know, at the end of the day, are we overthinking all of this, all of this, all of this communication stuff? Because he’s that is that is 100% true, right? You think of like our local papers here, like in the Winkler, you know, the Pemina Valley, right? And it’s just you could you could just you could take a picture of just some random family and just write about them and put their picture on the front page and that’s going to get tons of views.

Jay Whetter  42:30

Yeah.

Toban Dyck  42:30

If readership those metrics are important, that’ll get read because people they’ll read it, they’ll share it with their friends and relatives, and then everybody else who knows them and be like, oh, I know that person. That’s Bob and Linda from down the street. You read that piece about this? Turns out, oh, that’s super interesting. Yeah, Linda’s a mechanic. She likes working with old VWs. That’s pretty cool, right? Like, or but so he’s not wrong, right? And and are are we getting it wrong in egg communications?

Jay Whetter  43:00

And that not focusing on the people and what they’re doing and the challenges that they’re having and yeah,

Toban Dyck  43:05

are we not writing about are we not are we not communicating about people enough? Like, is that is that are we are we taking people out of the?

Jay Whetter  43:14

Well, it comes back to the science, and we we talked about this earlier. Science communications is not about people at all,

Toban Dyck  43:21

right?

Jay Whetter  43:22

Like, in fact, if there were no people involved in science communications, I think the journals would be really happy about that. That’s

Toban Dyck  43:29

right. But but at the end of the

Jay Whetter  43:32

day, we want to we want to get to know the scientist and and and again what the challenges were and and what what their outcomes were and and just a real conversation about how they, how we might use their results in a way that creates behavior change. Yeah, I mean,

Toban Dyck  43:48

and that’s why we created the extensionist. Yeah, it was born out of out of that.

Jay Whetter  43:52

That’s right.

Toban Dyck  43:53

That desire to focus on people instead of science. People, the people behind the science.

Jay Whetter  43:59

It’s one of those things that sounds so simple and straightforward when you say it out loud.

Toban Dyck  44:03

Yeah, but I’m sure your canola for canola digest. I’m sure the metrics would tell the same story, right?

Jay Whetter  44:09

But again, we don’t have metrics. It’s hard to measure that kind of stuff unless you do another survey, which farmers are sick of surveys. Oh

Toban Dyck  44:19

yeah, Yeah. Oh, yeah. Or they, yeah, or they don’t answer honestly. Just, just to, just to be able to. How many

Jay Whetter  44:26

surveys a year do you do?

Toban Dyck  44:28

Me?

Jay Whetter  44:28

Yeah. Average

Toban Dyck  44:31

between one and two

Jay Whetter  44:32

a year. Yeah. Oh, okay. Yeah. All right.

Toban Dyck  44:34

But I know I know farmers who do who do get

Jay Whetter  44:37

onto lists and well,

Toban Dyck  44:38

like Stratus. Stratus will they’ll pay you like 10 bucks or whatever. Okay. So like they’ll, they’ll they’ll they’ll fudge their answers so that they get to do the survey, so they can get that.

Jay Whetter  44:49

Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Okay.

Toban Dyck  44:51

Yeah. So that’s great.

Jay Whetter  44:56

Our guest today is Dean Jenkinson, and Dean is a well-known Canadian. Comedian and did a lot of work with CBC over the years, and so you might know him from there. And he’s also now artistic director of the Winnipeg Comedy Festival.

Dean Jenkinson  45:09

But I think, like everything else in the world, right, it’s all getting the reps in, right? And you know, every night you get up and you’re you’re you’re working on it, and in a in a perfect world, you know, the the image I have in my head is like getting on stage and and doing your jokes every night is like putting your blade on the sharpening stone. But if you’re doing it wrong, or you’re not you’re not doing it thoughtfully, you’re not going to end up with a sharper blade. You can just you can just dull your blade down to nothing, right? Because you’re just getting up and saying it, and you’re not really connecting with it, and you’re not, and and your act becomes something that’s kind of calcified, and you no longer connect with it. It’s just words you say from night to night to night, and you lose a connection with it, and it becomes stale and dated, and you know your takes are all very 15 years old and kind of cringy, and you, you, and you’re just completely unaware because all this stuff used to work, and you just get up and you say it, and you say it, and you say it, and you say it, and every night it gets less and less and less potent.

Toban Dyck  46:16

That metaphor about sharpening the blade was a season favorite. Here is our deeper dive into what that practice actually looks like for

Jay Whetter  46:26

us. Yeah, that wow, it’s good to hear that one again.

Toban Dyck  46:30

Yeah, yeah, yeah. What’s what’s your takeaway from that?

Jay Whetter  46:35

Well, I mean, I’ve seen a lot of terrible presentations, and I just why I was really quite keen to talk to Dean is because I think comedians, I mean, they they practice, they polish, they work on the crowd work, making connections. But he also kind of shattered that illusion in a little in in a way, and that he said comedians like anybody else can kind of just slip into a routine, and then when you get hard into that routine, it really loses its effectiveness. So how do you how do you stay fresh? It’s almost something you need to write on a on a post it and put on top of your desk and remind yourself every year to stay fresh. Is this yeah? Am I excited about this? Yeah. If I’m not excited, then who else is going to be?

Toban Dyck  47:21

What I like the idea of like this this that that skate sharpening analogy where you do it every day and you you sharpen the skate. But if you’re doing it wrong, like so, this idea of like yeah, so you know I I go go on about practice at times and basically hits me telling myself that I need to practice more, but that’s why I get excited about it. But but you still have to practice correctly,

Jay Whetter  47:49

yeah. Right.

Toban Dyck  47:49

So you you can you can do the same thing over and over again, and you might be practicing. So practicing in and of itself isn’t the value, right? It’s actually you you have to you have to be able to practice the right thing, yeah, right. So I like that. I really liked because, yeah, yeah. Just it adds to it. It’s it’s it’s not so. It’s not just the act of, you know, standing in front of the mirror and reciting your speech to get it to become a better public speaker. If your speech sucks and you’re doing that every day, you’re actually doing something damaging, right? Or, or at the very least, it’s just not fresh as as fresh as it could be. So,

Jay Whetter  48:30

well, that reminds me of these dance lessons that I’ve been taking with my friend, and she are you just gonna

Toban Dyck  48:36

are you just gonna gloss over the fact that you’re taking dance lessons?

Jay Whetter  48:39

Well, no, it’s it’s fine. But the instructor said exactly that. It’s like okay, these are the basic steps. Don’t try to elaborate or embellish or whatever that word is. Just do these steps because then once you get the steps down, then you can start to do other stuff. But just so it’s like this repetition of like okay do do do do do do, and they’re just over and over again until you got the steps, and then we can have some fun with it. Because I I have this tendency to get my whole body into like the dancing, and you’re like no like the your upper body should be fairly rigid, and then you can like your feet should be moving. So he said, so it’s like radon. He’s like, Jay, like cut, cut that out.

Toban Dyck  49:25

These flourishes that you would add to it, or I could do this, but Anna can add this. But practicing.

Jay Whetter  49:32

My point is that, like, you need to practice the actual useful part of the skill. Don’t, don’t practice stuff that’s wrong, or that’s going to get you down a path that you can’t get yourself out of. Well,

Toban Dyck  49:46

I’m looking at my guitar in the corner here right now. I can see the dust underneath the fretboard, but then I took lessons during COVID, and it was the same thing. So it was just be like. These chord, like these chords, these kind of things that that I would do over and over again, I just got so bored of it, right? But he, my instructor, just kept saying the same thing, same thing as your dance instructor. Just like you need to familiarize yourself with these things. But I just, yeah, I makes me want to actually go get back to it, because yeah, appreciating the value of of that repetition,

Jay Whetter  50:25

yeah.

Toban Dyck  50:25

Which yeah, yeah, that was that was a good one. I mean, and and like, what comedians do, like to stand up in front of an audience, in front of a group of people, and tell jokes, to me is just like the pinnacle of, like, bravery.

Jay Whetter  50:43

Yeah, knowing that you know we’re probably gonna bomb.

Toban Dyck  50:47

Yeah,

Jay Whetter  50:48

or some of the market are just gonna lay fall flat. But that those few little laughs here and there is like the yeah the fuel that keeps you going. But yeah, yeah, bombing would be a scary scenario for me. Our guests today, we’re we’re very honored to have Honorable Rob Black as Senator Frontario, also Chair of the Standing Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry. It

Senator Robert Black  51:17

was the second day in sitting my my second day as a senator sitting in the chamber, and one of my colleagues called me over. We had a vote for bells, and there was 30 minutes, so we had to wait for the vote. And he called me over and said, “Senator Black, you can just be here three days a week. Like we really sit Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, and and we all get paid the same amount. If you’ve got extra as a chair, you get a little more bit bigger stipend and and things like that. But but this senator said, Senator Black, we all get paid the same. You only have to be here three days a week. I can see that you’re going to get bored if you don’t, and that was two days in. If you don’t find find your passion and run with it, and obviously ag is my background, rural community development, and and I have run with it, and I like to be busy. I I’m I’m proud of the work that happens that I’ve been able to undergo here in the Senate of Canada.

Toban Dyck  52:21

Senator Black’s passion for rural development is infectious. Here is our take on why finding your why is the only way to avoid just checking boxes.

Jay Whetter  52:31

I like the passion. Like you, kind of need that.

Toban Dyck  52:34

You do.

Jay Whetter  52:34

You don’t. You don’t want just to slide into a senator job and show up three days a week and check a box and be done, but

Toban Dyck  52:42

no, no, no.

Jay Whetter  52:44

What’s the takeaway there? Well, I

Toban Dyck  52:45

mean, I was thinking earlier about an earlier clip in this, in this, in this process, and I forget whose clip it was already, but this idea of like finding, you know, just kind of the the passion, like, and that’s a really kind of what you just said. That’s a really good point, and and and Robert Black is is Senator Robert Black’s very like you know that he talked about that is a really neat a really neat thing, and I wonder I wonder how much of our egg comms in general is like you know how how many of these researchers that that do that work for Egg Canada or for for wherever they work for have a have a strong passion or a strong reason for being there. You know, let’s say like they they were they grew up on a farm and they maybe they they saw their parents struggle with a certain aspect of of production and that kind of spurred their interest in in in pursuing in pursuing it or like a strong kind of a strong kind of why right why they did it right that that kind of anchors there and and maybe this is something that we need to we could you know guide our interviews towards like you know, what was that? We probably do ask it, but like, what was that strong reason why you you went into it? Yeah, that anchoring thing. And I mean, so I mean, that isn’t necessarily what what Senator Black’s talking about here, but just that that passion has become very important. And he’s and he’s such a champion. He’s such a people know him as somebody who is passionate about soil health. Yeah, yeah, yeah. How about you? And while he’s

Jay Whetter  54:30

inspired to so many other people to talk about soil health, that the soil health conversation that’s going on in Canada right now is sort of flying off in all directions. That’s what it seems like. And so, how do we actually figure out what really matters at the farm level-that’s our next challenge.

Toban Dyck  54:44

I think. Go go ahead.

Jay Whetter  54:45

No, just I was totally going to change it to the the passion part of the thing. So I don’t. What’s were you going to have a comment on soil health?

Toban Dyck  54:52

I mean, just that. I wonder with with that is is like how much of it is. Because it is a relatively, I mean, I don’t know how new of a conversation it is, but maybe, maybe hypothetically, maybe it’s a scenario where like it is new, so it is just kind of it is convoluted right now, and it’s just kind of necessarily so in terms of like the historical trajectory of this conversation, right, and that it will eventually come to some sort of clarity.

Jay Whetter  55:27

But ultimately, it has to land on a farmer audience that is actually that actually cares and wants to do something. Like on your farm, does soil health enter into? Yeah, exactly.

Toban Dyck  55:37

No,

Jay Whetter  55:37

like, is it something you think about even yearly, once a year? I

Toban Dyck  55:40

mean, you. Yeah, yeah. I mean, like I, for sure, for sure. It does. You know, I soil got my field soil tested, and it becomes a. It’s it’s a fat. It’s a factor, but nowhere near as important as prominent a conversation topic as the industry is making it out to be right now, right? So it is it is out of out of sync with which I think is going to

Jay Whetter  56:06

be a a problem unless the language starts resonating. Yeah, and right right now I would say you’re right on the money. It’s out of sync with the farm audience,

Toban Dyck  56:17

but but I do think as long as there’s people who are focused on that, like like what we’re talking about right now, like making sure that it gets back in sync, that it will. Yeah, I think that pendulum will swing, kind of will find its center. It

Jay Whetter  56:33

kind of goes back to the Rupp Carivo conversation from from earlier, and that it sometimes it’s one person with a vision and saying, “Hear me! Like this is why this is important, and you’re, and then you’re like, “Oh, okay, now I get it. Yeah, because now you’re speaking in a way that, you know, you’re marketing it to me. Yeah, right. Like you’re right. You’re you’re you’re saying it in a way. You’re telling the story in a way that connects with me. But right now, that there’s no connection,

Toban Dyck  57:01

yeah,

Jay Whetter  57:02

but that that will come. I think, especially with passion like Senator Black.

Toban Dyck  57:06

Well, and it’s and it’s a sense of like, like with Rupp. Also, like these things will take. This will take time. Like that answer, putting it in sync with farmers or making it sync up with farmers. That’s not gonna, that’s not happening tomorrow.

Jay Whetter  57:23

No,

Toban Dyck  57:24

right. That will be a. That’s a. That’s a fight that’s gonna feel at some points. I’m guessing futile and and and kind of failing before it before it becomes successful. Yeah. But it’ll take someone to see the chorus, right?

Jay Whetter  57:40

Yeah. Yeah. Ah, exciting. All right, let’s move on to the next one. Our guest today is media personality Des Daniels. And by the

Dez Daniels  57:48

third page, I find that if there’s something that I’m seeking resolution for, that something there’ll be some kind of insight. It’s kind of magic. Like if you’re trying to noodle through a problem, three pages. That’s what they talk about, and it really is kind of shocking. By the end, literally by like the middle towards the bottom two thirds of that last page, it’s like oh, like it’s really bizarre. So that kind of sometimes there’s like okay, I can do that, or oh, I can think about this in a different way, or feel differently about it.

Jay Whetter  58:19

Do you think do you think companies or organizations could use that as an as like a an exercise before a meeting or something? Wow! Why not? Yeah, like just so write down everything you you want to accomplish with this board this year. Make everybody

Dez Daniels  58:35

write three pages before you start the meeting. Yeah, you know it’s an it’s an option. I’m just thinking of any

Jay Whetter  58:40

sort of tool to to create get the creative juices going or communicate in different ways. Dez

Toban Dyck  58:44

gave us a practical tool with that three page writing exercise. We had to test that theory. Here is our discussion on why and how it actually works. I like that a lot. Yeah, I forgot about that. Yeah, me too. Such a great tip. Yeah, it is some sort of some sort of exercise before before a meeting or before a before a meeting where you want that kind of engagement from somebody to to have. We should do that. Actually, we should do that for our training.

Jay Whetter  59:15

That’s a great idea. So just take three minutes and write down what do you need and what do you want to get out of this, or like, or do we keep it more broad than that, and just say, you know, what are your challenges? Or yeah,

Toban Dyck  59:27

yeah.

Jay Whetter  59:27

And then about after, like she said, I mean, sometimes you need to get into page three before you’re really getting somewhere in terms of exploring your mind and your needs and and creating a concrete thought, or

Toban Dyck  59:39

or it’s like, or it’s like you give you give somebody a scenario, you know. Say even just like has nothing to do with with egg extension, but it’s like you know, you know, kind of the beginnings of a of a fictional story, and then you say, okay, everybody take 15 minutes and write the end of this. Yeah, where does it go? And then it’s. It’s a way of like thinking differently, and then getting them to to come. Yeah, I don’t know. I think there’d be. I know. I think there’s something to that. That’s that was that was really neat.

Jay Whetter  1:00:10

That was good. I’m glad we saw that clip again because yeah, sometimes you you have these great conversations and then you can’t remember what exactly was you talked about. For sure, Dez had a few few good ones, but I remember that that now that now that we see the clip, I do remember that now. So how do we yeah how do we put that into practice in in terms of generating ideas or making sure that a meeting comes to some sort of resolution that is satisfying for the participants and and maybe that that exercise to kick off would be worth doing.

Toban Dyck  1:00:43

Yeah, yeah. I think I think so. I think I think it’d be worthwhile to think about like like I’d say like a dozen different different exercises that you could use.

Jay Whetter  1:00:52

Yeah,

Toban Dyck  1:00:53

and only using one per meeting, but like just have kind of this rotation of different ones, right? That that you that you that you get get people started with something that makes them a bit uncomfortable or is a bit out of the ordinary.

Jay Whetter  1:01:05

Yeah, to

Toban Dyck  1:01:06

get to get those those creative juices.

Jay Whetter  1:01:09

Well, this comes up a lot: is that we have all the all these ideas, and everybody does. Which ones do you do you chase after? And and sometimes it’s just a matter of facilitating the the the action. So let’s yeah put let’s put it on our agenda, give it a try once, see how it goes, and if it goes well, then then the the people who participate take it back to their organizations, and

Toban Dyck  1:01:34

yeah,

Jay Whetter  1:01:35

it becomes one of those things that is a great ideas generator or or thought synthesizer. That’s a hard thing to say. Thought synthesizer. I don’t even want to try it. Thought

Toban Dyck  1:01:46

synthesizer. So what I also really liked is is this idea of which I think we might be talking about right now. But this like so you write three pages, and at the last like your last line is going to be the one that’s most the more the most important. So you know, you’re a writer. You you get this. I think you write, you know, more often than than I do right now. You’re probably better at kind of coming to a page and kind of starting with your lead. Not not that it’s not that it doesn’t change after you’re done, but I know that when I say I haven’t written for a while, then I bury the lead for sure. When I when I’m kind of getting back into it, then on that last paragraph of the third page will be the most important thing. And just and I think Des’s one of Des’s points there was that the lead is often buried, and the process of writing those three pages is so valuable to get at the nugget that you didn’t even know was a nugget before you started that process, right? So how important that process is for say a group of people before a meeting because they they don’t even know what they want to talk about or what’s on their mind until that last paragraph of the third page, where it’s like, oh yeah, that is the thing, right? So

Jay Whetter  1:03:10

reminds me of Warren Buffett’s five whys. I don’t know whether Warren Buffett invented this. I might be attributing it to the wrong person, but the gist is the same. So if someone comes to you and says, “I’ve got, I’ve got a problem, and you say, well, why is that a problem? Because this. Well, why? Why are you doing that? Because of this. Then, like, why? And so you just get until you finally, oh yeah, okay, this is the nut of the problem.

Toban Dyck  1:03:32

Yeah,

Jay Whetter  1:03:32

it’s not this bigger thing, but it finally whittled down to if I could change this, then it kind of moves back up to into a different pathway.

Toban Dyck  1:03:41

Yeah, I mean, and you, and you. I think you surprise yourself in the process sometimes too, right? Where

Jay Whetter  1:03:46

I’m just thinking, like, of. I remember having this conversation with my colleagues once about weeds, Lisa. It was just like herbicide resistant weeds. Well, why are herbicide resistant weeds a problem? And like, blah blah blah. Well, then why are farmers doing this? Oh, okay. Then blah blah blah. And then you, then you get okay. The real the again, I can’t remember what the problem. But you like realize okay, so everything kind of trickles down from from this issue. Okay,

Toban Dyck  1:04:09

we we we chastise kids like you’re like a petulant child, right? Why why why why? But yet now we’re adults and we’re saying how important that is to keep asking until you get at the at the core. Anyways, that was a very interesting kind of like look back on the on the season and just you know we just reminder of how like I mean how much content we talk about in a in the course of a podcast season. Hey,

Jay Whetter  1:04:39

conversation move on, and you realize that we need to just sit and dwell on that for a little while and think about the the actions we just talked about. Because again, it comes back to the people. I mean, these are all people with great ideas, and sometimes we forget how great they are, and then we move on, and it’s gone.

Toban Dyck  1:04:59

Yeah. Yep. Anyways, that was that was a great

Jay Whetter  1:05:06

exercise.

Toban Dyck  1:05:08

There’s the word. Yeah, we’ll do. Yeah, exercise. Great

Jay Whetter  1:05:10

practice.

Toban Dyck  1:05:11

Yes. Hey there,

Jay Whetter  1:05:18

listeners. If you’re enjoying the conversations here on the Extensionist, you will probably love to get our newsletter.

Toban Dyck  1:05:24

Yeah, it’s the best way to stay connected with us, with Jay and and myself. Yours truly. I’m excited about the newsletter, to be honest with you, because I think why you excited. Well, so many of our guests have so sorry. Why are you excited about it? Say that differently, Jay. So many of our guests are. They say so many things of interest, right? And I feel like the newsletter would be a great will be a great way to to share that with our our listeners, like quick take

Jay Whetter  1:05:50

homes,

Toban Dyck  1:05:51

yeah,

Jay Whetter  1:05:51

summaries, yeah, absolutely, one liners, absolutely,

Toban Dyck  1:05:54

absolutely. I think about each each guest. We could probably write a whole bunch of articles from each of our guests, right? So to give our our newsletter subscribers like summaries of you know the key takeaways of of these things, plus plus information on upcoming guests, all they got to do, all listeners have to do, is go to theextensionists.com and follow the prompts to sign up for the newsletter. I think it’ll be I think it’ll be great.

Jay Whetter  1:06:24

Hey Toban, did you like that trip down memory lane?

Toban Dyck  1:06:26

I did. I did. Did you?

Jay Whetter  1:06:28

I did. Yeah. It was well. You know, it’s a useful exercise because I forget all the great stuff we talk about. Yeah. Did we say yet that you should write a book?

Toban Dyck  1:06:36

You did.

Jay Whetter  1:06:37

Yeah. You get ChatGPT to write that book for us.

Toban Dyck  1:06:40

So have you? So like, it’s been a great season. So we want to get into that for sure. Do you ever? You never get chat to to write stuff for you. Not not I’m not asking you to confess to submitting things that you’ve gotten chat to or AI to write, but for fun, have you have you done

Jay Whetter  1:07:00

it? Yeah, I did it for fun because I asked it to write something in this in the voice of Jay Wetter.

Toban Dyck  1:07:04

Sure,

Jay Whetter  1:07:05

it really sucked.

Toban Dyck  1:07:06

Yeah,

Jay Whetter  1:07:06

because it did it.

Toban Dyck  1:07:07

Yeah,

Jay Whetter  1:07:08

but I haven’t used that for any official capacity.

Toban Dyck  1:07:12

Yeah, yeah, I’m. Yeah, I’m.

Jay Whetter  1:07:16

How about you?

Toban Dyck  1:07:17

Yeah, I mean, I have. So again, not not not submitted, but I’ve certainly I’ve certainly got it to do that. I’m curious. Yeah, I don’t want to get too philosophical now in our in our last our last. But I’m curious about what this is going to do to the to the writing discipline. And I I’m not gonna. I I try not to be too skeptical of these things because there’s always so many skeptics out there. I always try to kind of counter that, but I am a little well. Well, I’m a little skeptical.

Jay Whetter  1:07:43

So, just in as a promo for season three, we’re going to record our 15 seconds of each of our voices, and we’re going to ask our guest to talk for 15 seconds, and then we’re going to give ChatGPT a book that the guest read, and we’re going to say now that you know our voices, just create a one-hour episode talking about that book.

Toban Dyck  1:08:05

Oh, jeez, and just see see what it does. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Could do that

Jay Whetter  1:08:08

quite easily.

Toban Dyck  1:08:09

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, I know. I know. It’s so anyway. So true.

Jay Whetter  1:08:14

I what I find fascinating, and I don’t know how often this is happening, but like at university, what do you call them? Convocations? No. What is it? You know. So they’ll mention AI, and then everyone will boo.

Toban Dyck  1:08:27

Yeah. So I think that upcoming.

Jay Whetter  1:08:28

Yeah, the upcoming generation is either afraid of it, or just annoyed with it, or just can’t stand the thought of a whole career driven by by AI.

Toban Dyck  1:08:37

So season three is not going to be AI driven. It’s actually going to be Jay and I in the studio in a new studio.

Jay Whetter  1:08:45

Yeah, doing real conversations with real people.

Toban Dyck  1:08:49

Real conversations with real people about real stuff, and it’ll be really interesting. So I’m reeling with excitement. No,

Jay Whetter  1:09:02

oh,

Toban Dyck  1:09:02

jeez.

Jay Whetter  1:09:03

I’m just gonna let you wheel,

Gerry Friesen  1:09:05

wheel

Jay Whetter  1:09:05

free, free reeling.

Toban Dyck  1:09:08

But no, it’s gonna be great. I, I, I’d like to think, I’d like to think that. Do you think we’re getting better? Like, so this is gonna be season three. Do you think we’re on a trajectory of just like improvement?

Jay Whetter  1:09:23

Definitely, season two improved on season one.

Toban Dyck  1:09:26

Yes,

Jay Whetter  1:09:26

I’m not saying the guests, but just the. I think we elevated our conversations. So,

Toban Dyck  1:09:34

so here’s here’s something, right? So we are we are we are practicing because we’re doing it, and we’ve been doing it, you know, for X amount of episodes now between two seasons, two full seasons. But are we practicing correctly? Are we sharpening the skate in the right way? You know, I mean, I’m not going to lie. I do, I do think about that. So I think, you know, you know, for the audience, like, should, like, should you and I go to, like, you know, get. Some training on being podcast guests, or or like you know, speaking in a in a in a in a podcast, or or whatever. Do you think about getting

Jay Whetter  1:10:10

to the point and stuff like that?

Toban Dyck  1:10:12

Sure.

Jay Whetter  1:10:12

Elocution lessons. Actually, after the Ag Days live experience, which was the first time we ever did that, Merle Massey said to me afterwards that we didn’t project.

Toban Dyck  1:10:25

Oh, you mentioned. Remember, so Dez

Jay Whetter  1:10:27

Daniels, who had a whole career in radio,

Toban Dyck  1:10:30

projected and

Jay Whetter  1:10:31

TV projected. But you and I were used to our sitting on a couch talking into excellent mics.

Toban Dyck  1:10:36

Yes,

Jay Whetter  1:10:37

voice,

Toban Dyck  1:10:38

right?

Jay Whetter  1:10:38

So I think some lessons in projecting. If we ever do another live episode, would be good.

Toban Dyck  1:10:44

I wouldn’t mind. Like, I wouldn’t mind pursuing like some professional development opportunities for podcasting because we shouldn’t assume that we. I mean,

Jay Whetter  1:10:52

we didn’t write the book on podcasting. No,

Toban Dyck  1:10:54

no, no, 100% I sort of think like in order to kind of have an edge in in a market that is like basically saturated with middle-aged white dudes, maybe we could do ourselves a favor by by doing some skills development. Yeah, exactly. We’re just you know we’re we’re we just we just kind of the privilege of just oh it’s it’s us of course we’re interesting. Yeah, that’s right.

Jay Whetter  1:11:20

On that note, on that note, season three,

Toban Dyck  1:11:23

it’s gonna be a doozy. No, no, it’s gonna be. Can

Jay Whetter  1:11:28

you imagine the skills we’re gonna have as we come into season three with all of our professional development? Yeah,

Toban Dyck  1:11:32

yeah, skills, skills with a Z.

Jay Whetter  1:11:34

Thank you very much to our listeners. Obviously, it’s we we can’t do this without you. Thank you so much to our sponsors. Absolutely, and Toban, you’re a good friend, not just a not just a podcast co-host. Yeah, this one has been fun. I’ve been I’ve enjoyed getting to know you over the past two years.

Toban Dyck  1:11:52

Two years?

Jay Whetter  1:11:53

Yeah,

Toban Dyck  1:11:53

this is this is wonderful. How many do we sprinkle the sprinkle the sentiment on me, Jay? I’m like, I’m going to start. Should we

Jay Whetter  1:12:02

hug? Okay, on to season three.

Toban Dyck  1:12:04

No, no, no.

Jay Whetter  1:12:04

But you’re

Toban Dyck  1:12:06

just gonna end this? I don’t know. Did you want to say something nice to me? It’s been great doing it with you as well. Of course. What did you say? But five years? Have you been friends for five years?

Jay Whetter  1:12:17

At least, yeah.

Toban Dyck  1:12:18

Yeah, I would say. I would say so. Let’s have some

Jay Whetter  1:12:21

picked about three years ago.

Toban Dyck  1:12:22

Yeah, it’s true. We picked boat three years ago. Some some rocky bits, some plateaus.

Jay Whetter  1:12:31

We’re looking forward to turning it around in season three.

Toban Dyck  1:12:33

Yes. This this relationship on life supports. Oh my gosh, that’s very funny. I hope that I hope that stays in. Oh, that’s so good. All

Jay Whetter  1:12:52

right, gold. We are the extensionists. I’m Jay Wetter.

Toban Dyck  1:12:54

I’m Toban Dyck. Till season three.

Jay Whetter  1:12:59

This has been a Burfors Group production.

Toban Dyck  1:13:01

Jay, did you know that the podcast couldn’t happen with the hard work of the people behind the scenes?

Jay Whetter  1:13:07

And I’ve got their names right here. They are Abby Wall, producer and editor; Ashley Robinson, researcher; and Michelle Mcmullan, marketer.