2022-04-21 Implementation and Quick Connect Meet Up

MSA (AVL/NL) - Motion made and seconded to approve prior meeting notes as recorded on the wiki. Motion passed unanimously on voice vote. Determined that as this is not often a deliberative group with decisions and votes, we'll review without MSA for the time being. In the event there is a decision made, we'll formally approve minutes.  

• Update on MYM Schedule
• Update on capability and capacity chart
• Scheduling tools update
• Video participants update

Updates on the MYM Agenda:

• Nothing significant, most current is posted on the website.
• As of now, we are at about 78 registrants (not a-typical for an in-person MYM), a lot of times we will see a big hit at the beginning of the month. We are encouraging people to at least get in and reserve hotel rooms since the rate ends on 5/27.

Capability and capacity chart:

• Shared draft Smartsheet representation of older connectivity chart. Plan for it to capture not just the smartsheet in a visual chart, but also a form to capture capability by member, by member type.
  • Previously this was broken down by company, then by council/message/version. What we heard was that was probably a level of granularity we didn’t need to get to, so we’ve created one with company name, segment with standards and messages, and a company role.
  • Each of these is a drop-down, so we’ve identified several different capability levels (not versions). We can extend the options list if you think it’s necessary; this was more of the conversation starter that gets you to the QC table where you start going through the message/version implementation.
  • There is some question about whether including some level of text notes/clarification comments might be worthwhile (we wouldn’t publish that, but it would be helpful for MS if they get questions). 
• Q: Does “not capable” imply not interested? - A: I did think about if “not applicable” was another category we wanted to add, but I figured “not capable” would cover “not applicable”. Not capable means “I don’t have connection for that particular segment interest set up”.
• Q: I need to know who’s capable or not. A: I think it may be that there is an opportunity for a manufacturer to say they’re interested. Maybe one has a new line and they’re interested, but they don’t know if there’s a retailer or distributor who would like to engage in that conversation.
• Q: The journey of making the booklet that everyone seemed to really like, we keep going back to it, the journey got a little confused. Annual saw all the retailers in here, but I can see both sides of this, why it might be good to have a resource to know who has the capabilities and who I could talk to. I think that’s what this is doing. I guess I wouldn’t want it to feed the retailers into the capabilities spreadsheet/matrix later. A: Exactly. And that’s where this is more of the dashboard/conversation starter. It may help to generate that booklet. Currently what we’ve got is the capabilities matrix in the Wiki. That doesn’t give us the ability to filter/generate the documents. This allows us to filter that, “we want to do a QC booklet filtered specifically for a retailer to see who’s available and who can help.”
• Think this is good then for what we are planning on using it for. I don’t see anything missing unless there was a key point person. If I was going to look at it ahead of time, I know it’s hard to get people to put down contact info/a point person. Do we need to include a column for that?
• Brent: To further muddy the waters, we are looking at building some more advanced capability into the MyAgGateway tool. We are starting with it as a service directory for Allied Providers, to help them get to the more granular level of these are the offerings/standards/things that we can help you do. I mention this because I suspect we will share a little of this with the group to evaluate sanity, but I don’t think that will replace this. But as that directory evolves, there’s another path that allows a retailer to not just look at AP offerings, but also manu/dist connectivity possibilities. That gets us back to making sure we have good contacts, members are updating as folks change, looking for that self-service management of contacts. I don’t know that directly answers your question/concern Ann, but that’s something we are thinking about, how do we keep those points of contact fresh. We will have more conversation at MYM on the smartsheet.

Scheduling tools: I think we talked about that as a member services activity. Chris did some research, we thought we would go ahead with signup genius and provide updates through that for the QC meeting, but we thought we’d have a more fully-featured update for that at the f2f.

Smartsheet doesn’t look like it’s going to allow us to do what we need to do. It appears that signup genius would work, we just need to make sure the capability is there to notify folks when someone is signed up for their session.

Draft script(s) review (Paul Schrimpf) 20 minutes

The group reviews proposed scripts and stories for video collateral, provides feedback and identifies any additional valuable participants.

• • Video scripts and stories
  • Members and individuals
  • Necessary documents - release forms? Permission slips?

At this point I’ve been trying to put together a list of people who will participate in terms of who the key people are, some are coming some aren’t. I know we had the possibility of doing virtual interviews, I’d like to do live as much as we can for what’s put together for the video. There are folks I need to reach out to and get their approval, doesn’t seem like it’s going to be a problem, and talk through what we are going to get done. I don’t have additional scripts right now that are written, I need to reach out with these folks and get that together. I heard back from Ann for seed, Matt Garcia registered from Sygnenta, so we are getting some additional support there. I need help in terms of who specifically we want to have talking and what they’ll be talking about. I know folks have been very busy so if there’s any other thoughts on the approach there? Just shooting it as a less-scripted but getting a sense of what they’re going to say to keep it as natural as possible is the goal here, with major points laid out. Are there other things we need to get at? I’m going to need a little bit more background as I go into the next couple weeks of planning before MYM.

Natasha: You do touch on multiple/different divisions for sure. Maybe you’re talking about seed because it’s so well-known and people are connected, but now we want to get involved with CN, it’s almost like the skit would include multiples, or some that you’re missing in that division.

Paul: I feel it’s a possibility to do a fairly-expansive video, but we want people to get an idea of what this is about and get excited about it without having to sit through a long video. What is this thing, what are we trying to accomplish, what can they accomplish, leave them wanting more info about it and letting them reach out to us. Giving them a flavor for it without getting too lost in the weeds.

Natasha: One of the places you could play a longer version of the video would be the general session. If you did have a 2-3 min video at a general session you could possibly use that as an opportunity. This is what this is, make sure you sign up next year and get excited about this, use these resources. You’ve got everyone in a room for 30 minutes and you’re trying to highlight stuff.

Ann: I agree that would be a good place to play a longer video.

Paul: That’s a really good thought. The idea is to collect a lot of info in person we can turn into different kinds of media (a longer video with a shorter one tailored to different audiences). Then we can build what we need to build; I was thinking more about giving folks a flavor for it if they’re watching online or picking up something to get an idea of it, then a longer form for the general session would be interesting and makes a lot of sense too.

Jeremy: If Chuck Zimmerman is going to be there, what if he collects audio from a couple people we could share on our social channels as a prep for the video?

Paul: I just finalized him yesterday and I need to get a list of thing he can do while he’s there. Having him ask the right questions as a resource would be really important, I agree. As we get finalized with some of these folks definitely coming in, I’m going to be reaching out and getting them set up/prepped for participating in interviews while we’re there.

Brent: Did we touch on any thoughts about the need for release forms/corporate okay for these kinds of things? I know it’s not been an issue in the past, but as more and more organizations are looking to protect brands, I didn’t know if that was likely to become an issue for us.

Paul: That’s something I can bring up in conversations, I’ll let you know.

Jeremy: (conversation with Greg about preparing for an agronomic addition to QC) Brent and I met with Greg, and we are going to spend the next six months preparing for that agronomic group and beginning to roll that out. We have a lot of work going on with adapt and changes we are making there. Greg’s take on it was yeah we need to do it, but are we really ready? The whole idea is how do we get members to understand the other tools like adapt and mix ticket and ways we can get connected. Do we revisit that? Maybe we are just not exactly ready but we need to start taking steps to sharing the message of what’s available and setting the stage as we move forward. We will focus on the education side first.

Long Term Ideation (Jeremy Wilson) 10 minutes

Group considers other areas of implementation and connectivity.

• Retail to field equipment/FMIS connectivity
• Post-farmgate connectivity
• Holistic group fostering and encouraging implementation

is there anything else we are thinking about. We have signed a contract with a facility for 2023, will leave location to the conf comm to share, but if there are things we need to prepare for that they need to consider for budgeting purposes we need to have in place, that’s worth a consideration for the future. Anything else anyone is thinking about hat we need to put on the list for discussion/deliberation in the next 6-12 months?

Jeremy: I want to challenge you to find a time to sit in on the in-field product ID session Joe Tevis and Scott Nieman will host. Some of it will put you to sleep I understand, but I’ve been part of it and see the value of how we are touching the grower and see the data that really matters. My field computer manufacturer chose not to be part of this, so I don’t have the luxury to go into the existing computer to see all the data. As I think about what seed connectivity has done and how they’ve streamlined the process, what I’m witnessing on my farm this year has tons of potential. It’s going to come back to this group to engage more field computers. The value we are creating here is off the chart. We’ve got the foundation completely laid now to document where the order is placed, seed into your warehouse to the farm, and the farm into the planter. There’s something we have to stay close to, and if one or two of you can endure some of the technical side and see the deliverable on the data, I think there’s a tremendous opportunity to take the work we’ve already done and get that info down to the grower so he’s not trying to guess the hybrid or variety he bought.

Brent: Thanks Jeremy.

Natasha: I would like to add one thing to the list. Paul sent me a note in March saying we’d like to update your case study and I have it as an unread item in my email, you’re still on the list. I guess I didn’t see that on here as an action item, and I still think it’s really important, there’s stories we haven’t captured. We owe it to this effort and our organization to get this updated, but I do think it’s really important and we’ve hard a lot of really good comments out of them. I don’t know if that’s an item/call out something we could do at MYM, how do we get people excited about it? It goes across all meetups/councils/groups involved, and I don’t think we’ve told all the stories.

Brent: That’s a great point, hugely important. Every time I do a presentation, I’m always looking for the members’ perspective to see the value they’ve gotten. How do we capture that, how do we help volunteers not look at a blank page and be overwhelmed by that? My initial thought was Paul sitting behind a Peanuts psychiatrist booth saying the communications guy is in. Maybe that’s it, we have Paul at a table, come tell your story.

Paul: I’m more than happy to do that. I know the hardest part is transition. Just give me bullet points, no amount is too big or too small, I can sort through and ask other questions. I can figure out the narrative and give it life from whatever form it comes to me. Tell me who to talk to; it just has to start somewhere. I’ll help as much as I can to get that done, I’ll sit in a booth and listen to stories, that would be fun.

Ann: I’d like to see us get some of those stories from the avenues that really haven’t been there before. That way people who may be interested in venturing into those processes know how it works.

Josh: On that same vein, it may not be a bad idea to at least try to openly encourage people at the opening session, if we had a bullet point format of success stories, to be more bold about voicing some of their successes they’re experiencing. It is daunting to think you have to write something that is a big paragraph or multiple paragraphs, but that’s less intimidating if it’s bullet points.

Brent: Here’s your powerpoint slide, put 5 bullet points and we will put the rest together.

Josh: Broadcasting that and making sure people know we are always looking for it.

Brent: I agree that’s an easy add.

Ann: I think we should encourage some people at MYM at sign up to sit down with Paul for ten minutes to tell the story and see if we can knock out some of it. At the registration counter.

Paul: We could follow up with them/double-back now and see if we could get people to respond to that beforehand. I’d be open to both.

Brent: Good conversation, good ideation. Anything else we want to add to case study for MYM and beyond?

(none)

Natasha: Who’s running the QC session, who is taking notes?

Leslie: I don’t have a facilitator listed for the session.

Natasha: I was going to, but I can’t make it, so I don’t know who’s doing it.

Ann: If needed I can do it.

Brent: We will have someone from MS in capturing notes for the discussion, that will not be an issue. We are working through the staff assignments; Leslie is working on that and should be squared away next week.

Leslie: we will make sure we do more follow-up this year so that doesn’t happen. Ann, do you want me to put you down for QC?

Ann: That’s fine.

MYM In-Person Agenda Items:

• Soliciting, updating contact, capability information in time for the annual