The PIE Center collaborated with the Center for Rural Enterprise Engagement (CREE) to facilitate CREE’s fourth annual Insight Summit in St. Paul, Minnesota, in February 2020. The conference brought together industry members and agricultural extension staff for training on the use of new and social media marketing to promote small, agricultural and horticulture-based businesses and extension programs.
Photo courtesy of Glenn Carstens-Peters on Unsplash.
Lauri Baker, an associate professor in the UF department of agricultural education and communication, founded CREE along with Hikaru Peterson and Cheryl Boyer while they were all faculty members at Kansas State University.
Since its inception, CREE has flourished into a transdisciplinary, multi-institutional center with presences at the University of Minnesota, Kansas State University and the University of Florida.
“CREE emerged out of a need to help small, rural, and agricultural businesses use new and social media better to market their businesses and survive in times of changing economies,” said Baker. “We conduct and interpret research on the use of new technology with a focus on improving small businesses use of these tools.”
Insight Summit was designed by CREE as an immersive experience to teach participants new skills in a practical, research-based manner and allow them to come away with an actionable social media marketing plan for their own business or organization.
Over the course of two days, participants at the 2020 Insight Summit learned about storytelling across platforms, basic and advanced analytics, social-media strategy, visual content, e-newsletters and selling online.
The PIE Center played a critical role in marketing and facilitating the Insight Summit, particularly when it came to curating an online experience for the Insight Summit’s first ever virtual ticket option to allow attendees to participate fully in the activities without traveling to attend in-person.
“It was important to us that we offered a meaningful and inclusive experience for our virtual participants,” said Phillip Stokes, PIE Center education coordinator. “We put a lot of thought into this preparation, including determining the instructional methods as well as what technology we needed to bring with us to St. Paul.”
By utilizing the interactive features of Zoom to livestream presentations, have breakout group discussions and enable participants to present to the whole group during in-person activities, the PIE Center and CREE were able to ensure that virtual participants were able to enjoy the same full experience that was had by participants in-person.
“The collaboration with PIE this year allowed us to take the event to the next level. Both the in-person and virtual experience were enhanced by the staff at PIE. Plus, the virtual ticket allowed us to extend our reach and make sure all participants walked away with new skills and strategies they could implement immediately,” Baker said. “This also prepared us for the unexpected as we are now being asked to coordinate and facilitate a multitude of virtual experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic.”
This story was part of the 2019-2020 Annual Report. Click the button below to read other stories included in the report.
