Gary decided the best way to get me started as his intern was to have me work on something he knew I had experience in: Online Communications. The Hawaii 4-H website is outdated and hard to navigate, they have no official social media presence, and have no way of communicating information to each other except via "old school" email and telephone. Mix that in with the majority of 4-H staff/volunteers being "set in their ways" and refusing to connect with others, let alone learn any form of technology, and this presents a problem.
For the past week I've been working on ways to improve the website, as well as looking into different social media platforms that will allow easier user access and information flow. Today, Gary and I finally had a meeting with the 4-H County Agent - Claire - who maintains the website (on top of all her other roles for 4-H and the University). My eyes were opened very quickly to how difficult, if not impossible, this process is going to be.
First off, the University of Hawaii does not have any set Website policies or Social Media policies, but it seems different upper ranks of departments hold the proverbial gate key to any online presence associated with the University of Hawaii. Secondly, a major problem with the current website (and organization as a whole) is that there is a lot of information missing! This is a result of the lack of communication throughout this organization, leading to an even bigger problem that no one officially knows what anyone else is actually doing! Additionally, the disorganization of the organization and the University system makes it even more complicated to get anything accomplished (you might remember a previous posting on small portion of this disorganization). To even inquire into whether or not we can even change/update the website we have to go talk to four different people besides Claire. We managed to track one down during our meeting and she was adamant that NO STUDENTS be allowed to touch the online communications, so we couldn't even approach the subject with her. It's an endless game of "talk to this person, go talk to that person, etc, etc, etc." This is just the tip of the iceberg.
Other things we discussed during our meeting were topics such as: the generational gap, how to effectively get through to State 4-H leadership who are stuck in their ways and don't have to report to the necessary people, the military branch/programs being separated and considered the "step-child" of the organization, staffing decisions made without the consensus of the fellow staff (only an issue because of original staff accountability), communication complications going beyond digital communication, the need of diversity training (which is in the 4-H curriculum, but not regarded throughout State 4-H leadership), marketing strategies and previous attempts at marketing, and whether or not "the website should drive the program or the program should drive the website." It's so complex that each of the previous topics could have it's own blog posting!
My head is definitely still spinning. Gary and I don't even know where to start, but we know something needs to be done. Gary said, if nothing else, I'm helping him discover where the major holes in the organization are. I guess that's useful. However, I'm starting to get more and more concerned that with my short amount of time here (which is approaching 1/6 of the way done) that I may not be able to get to much of my position description. What does that mean for my capstone paper? There is plenty of material to write about, but not necessarily material that connects to my Course-Linked Capstone (CLC).
Now I understand why they say our practicum should be 6 months to a year! It doesn't seem like there is enough time to actually get the ball rolling!
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