Communications Meeting Notes
- Mikah Pinegar
- Emily Unglesbee
- Elizabeth Seyler
02-18-25
Wordpress
Revised weed factsheets have been uploaded to respective weed pages
Adam & Emily meeting with VML on Wednesday to discuss URL forwarding/redirects
WMP order form is up and running!
Communications
Weed Management Planner order news article is posted – could benefit from a quick readthrough by Amy, since it came together very quickly.
Amy updates
Jimsonweed page has been drafted
So have social posts promoting the page
Weedy Wednesday for February has been drafted
Seed impact mill piece scheduled for next Tuesday (can change to today, no news article has been published yet)
grow.iwm Facebook account disabled
Met with Eric Yu, article will be sent to Emily for edits on Wednesday
02-13-25
Wordpress
GROW is going to take over the WP Engine subscription fees
Kayla & Emily will huddle on this here briefly.
Next steps for the website!
Need to get the menu bar up and running (and add a dropdown for the herbicide search tool)
Need to redirect all the weed-specific pages on the old website to the new TA landing page, or specific TA webpages.
Need to loop Mikah in.
Emily will write a detailed ticket on URL link redirections
Then another ticket for finalizing front end updates
Menu bar update and clickable
Update old TA links within the website
Communications
Amy updates
Michael made a few edits in Seed Impact Mill piece, some are more editorial
Navdeep agreed to promote Weedy Wednesday at WSSA grad student luncheon, will prepare elevator pitch for him
Interviewing Eric Yu about his Minnesota cereal rye research next Monday at 10:30 am CT
VT grad student Juan Romero filmed a WW video for goosegrass with his daughter, goosegrass doesn’t yet have a factsheet but I will get one created and have the group review it in Thursday’s meeting
Feb 21 – Emily will schedule a performance review for Amy at 1 p.m. ET/noon CT
02-4-25
Wordpress
Need to get the TA pages published and make sure icons look okay.
Works on Safari and Firefox
ticket created to make TA video and icon pages mobile friendly
ticket created to make “join community” box on herbicide classification and privacy policy pages in TA colors and to rearrange social media icons
Communications
Amy updates:
Common lambsquarters, common ragweed, giant ragweed, and horseweed factsheets have been revised and are in Weed Pages folder under “Revised Weed Pages 2025”
Italian ryegrass factsheet revision in progress
01-28-25
WordPress
Take Action webpages:
Emily can’t submit until we have clear images – AMS is not going to approve non-visible/distorted images on a hopeful promise that they will look okay when published.
Let’s publish all the pages, but not make the link to them live (on the menu).
Also need at least a screenshot of what the menu will look like (not just the logo, but also with the dropdown pages listed).
Make a ticket for this and assign to Diksha.
Make a ticket for publishing the pages too. Assign to Brennen
Amy to begin deleting excess files from media library in attempt to reduce storage
We need to be very careful – many files are linked to existing pages throughout the website. How do we know if something is truly “excess” and unused?
Checking filenames with added numbers, going to the webpage to see which one is actually used, and then verify that it hasn’t broken anything.
Ctrl+Shift+R – use this to check on pages after deleting.
Make back-ups on WP Engine before each deletion session and make sure Emily is done working on the site.
Emily and Amy will go through unlinked images and do an audit
Where should she store unused photos (or should she store them?)
In google drive, in photos section.
Communications
Amy Updates
Facebook:
Personal account created under grow.iwm Gmail with hopes of being able to create a business/org page from there for central GROW member access. Attempt failed, this account has been suspended, appeal has been filed.
UPDATE: Emily has access to this email – Claudio had it all along and either didn’t tell us, and or was ignorant to it. We can get to any permission codes sent to this email, if the appeal ends.
Have created a new GROW page from Amy’s professional Facebook page, if necessary can change password and put login info on the proper Google Doc for all GROW outreach members to access since this account does not have any personal information tied to it
When do we want to launch the new Facebook page?
Have to change all Facebook links on GROW site to new Facebook?
Ultimately trying to play things super safe (read: slow) since Facebook loves to suspend accounts willy-nilly
Speaking of Facebook, still no response from Take Action personnel on being granted FB access
Dr. Yadav seed impact mill article draft coming up, expected to be sent to Emily for editing Wednesday
Emily will review and approve the rest of the factsheets by end of week
Kayla Updates:
Newsletter:
Website:
adding new pubs to the website
Maybe add Steven’s video, too
fixed the weird search bar aliases on psa site
Elizabeth Updates: GROW stories on research articles
April and Ramon’s article is done! Emily will review.
01-21-25
WordPress
Emily submitting TA webpages to AMS early next week
WP Engine update
completed
TA factsheet and video page icons still wonky after the WP update
Privacy page
completed
Change TA herbicide look-up tool to be in Take Action formatting and coloring
01-14-25
WordPress
Problem with the TA pages – some setting got messed up, so that the icon images are super, super zoomed in, and fuzzy. Was someone working settings that could have done this and how do we get it back?
WP Engine we need to upgrade to next size of subscription package. Adam will try to send Emily the cost of that before Friday.
Status of Take Action webpage requests:
Video topics have been expanded
Metadata has been added to all Take Action webpages and factsheets
Unable to center videos or add spacer between text and video
Video page still doesn’t have category dropdowns
Privacy page still not published and linked.
Need to get Herbicide Look-up Tool page into Take Action format (coloring, banner, footer, etc.)
Emily will make a Github issue
Emily is going to start submitting the webpages to AMS
We’ll use public preview links for now.
We’ll need a mock-up of the new banner on the GROW website with the TA logo, along with menu dropdown items installed (Herbicide Classification Chart, Factsheets, Videos, Privacy Policy)
Never mind – I have this.
Communications
Amy updates
Glyphosate-resistant kochia piece published and promoted on socials
Weedy Wednesday on Palmer amaranth scheduled for next Wednesday, January 22
Let’s do some research on how to add logos in YouTube video editing, so Amy can fully own WW once Claudio is gone
And explore CPN’s YouTube shorts: Crop Protection Network , for inspiration on future GROW content.
Working with grad students to begin filming future videos, February’s will either be Canada thistle or johnsongrass (Jenna Beville, VT).
Add velvetleaf and jimson weed high up because we are getting ready to publish Weed ID pages on them.
GROW factsheet spreadsheet created, only 3 weeds don’t have factsheets
Barnyardgrass, Broadleaf signalgrass, and giant foxtail; we’ll start with Barnyardgrass
Emily has two new research paper assignments, but we’ll go over them with the Outreach team.
Elizabeth Updates
I'm waiting to hear back from Ian on PNW organic wheat story. Writing the mapping biomass in cereal rye.
01-7-25
WordPress
Status of Take Action webpage requests:
Icons updated
Background image updated and text adjusted
Video pages annotated
TO DO:
Expand the video Topic – let’s make it a full sentence or two.
Center all videos
Send list of delinquent factsheets
Add metadata to Factsheet pages and all Take Action pages
Add a category dropdown to Video pages that mirrors Factsheet dropdown (Diksha?)
Privacy policy links to internal page and open in a new tab (Adam)
Adjust menu banner logo (Adam)
Brennen has finalized the last update to the Herbicide Look-up Tool!
Next steps: Move it to Production, and get it up to Take Action codes:
Orange coloring, Take Action banner image, Take Action footer,
Once WordPress gets updated in mid-January, Amy will be able to see the directory sizes and maybe we can make some progress on our storage issue.
Communications
Amy updates
Kumari cotton piece published and promoted on social media
Kumar kochia piece edits received, wanted to remove a quote
Next topic to be written about?
Emily is going through Weed Science journals this week and will assign things as they arise
Facebook probably inaccessible, need to start over
This might be fine, since we’ll probably have to rebuild some of the Take Action social media accounts, too.
Instagram accessible through Emily’s email?
Emily’s email is the back-up email.
X premium?
Amy will tackle this; needs to apply for tax exemption; Emily will send her the form. https://www.procurement.vt.edu/content/dam/procurement_vt_edu/forms/ST-12.pdf
Elizabeth updates
Finishing organic wheat today, then specific questions and complete draft to Ian, along with nudge for photos and videos
Pub date? late January
Should anyone else review it before we publish? Not unless Ian asks
Pub date for cereal rye biomass mapping? early Feb goal
12-17-24
Wordpress
SCCC Portal Page Password protection broken, Adam help please- Kayla
Breakdown of requested Take Action webpage edits:
Emily/Amy can handle
Removing select pointer from landing page icons. (Done)
Changing out the background image on main page and getting approvals
take screenshots of old one and new one – maybe send it to DST design and see what folks think
Adding author, date and topic blurbs to each video page
add metadata to those videos as well
Increasing text size on main page and adjusting orientation (Done)
Send list of delinquent factsheet updates to the Take Action team
Add metadata to Factsheet pages and all Take Action pages
Update Herb Classification Chart (Done)
Developer tickets to be written
Change weed ID category to “Weed Management & ID” (ticket #1)
Add a category dropdown to Videos just like Factsheets (ticket #2)
Get those category dropdowns to actually function (ticket #1)
Adam will make sure privacy policy links to the new internal page
Add dropdown menu items linking to Take Action resources (this is farther down the road)
Adam is going to try to get their logo on the far right permanently, where it will function as a menu item.
Website storage
No new updates, unable to see Wordpress tools tab or plugins
Adam is making her an admin on both Production and Staging
Communications
Kayla Updates
ongoing photo contest
pick up social media frequency in the new year
prompt for any last minute job postings/ announcements for the year for an all email since Dec newsletter has happened already thoughts?
Amy Updates
Cotton piece sent to Dr. Kumari for review, gave a deadline of 12.20 for response
Glyphosate-resistant kochia piece should be sent to Emily for editing today
PSU drill-interseeding cc’s guide should be sent to Emily for editing tomorrow
Working up “Happy Holidays” posts to be posted either Friday or Monday
Weedy Wednesday is tomorrow, Claudio has drafted YT short and other posts are ready to go (save FB)
Elizabeth
Interviewed Ramon and April today and Ian tomorrow.
Will aim to have these done sometime in January
Emily will set up 2025 Comms/Wordpress meetings and make Elizabeth optional (done)
12-10-24
Wordpress
WP Engine changes: Adam will be killing the staging & development sites, in order to lower our data usage.
Need someone to go through website and try to identify large website assets that are unneeded and can be deleted without disrupting the live Production webpages.
Look for something over 100 mb or more.
Work through them by category
Mock-up of Take Action main page menu item
Meeting on Tuesday with Take Action
Communications
Amy’s assignments
Wallace piece published on GROW website.
Soybean piece prepped.
Cotton piece and the promotional Soil Health Institute piece have been sent for edits.
Amy is meeting with Sarah Chu for a Weedy Wednesday transition plan.
Emily will email Claudio re: Facebook meeting
12-3-24
Wordpress
Emily now seeing the same missing buffer between text on her Chrome laptop screen for the GROW website. Anyone else?
Diksha should be working on some minor edits to her work on the Take Action webpages
Status of Privacy Policy page?
Status of Herbicide Look-up Tool?
Brennen is moving into a full-time backend developer position, starting January 1
He thinks he can get it done before then, though
Plus he will remain as our “emergency IT” web guy via Slack
Developers will be all-hands on deck on the DSTs starting around Christmas-time.
DST Roadmap Tutorial
Communications
Amy’s Assignments
Started on draft of Wallace CC termination factsheet article.
Soybean piece sent to Dr. Kumari for review/approval.
First draft of cotton cover crop piece almost complete.
Soil Health Institute webinar tomorrow morning, "Using Cover Crops for Soil Health and Weed Suppression in Cotton.”
2025 Spray Drone End User Conference Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram posts created (not posted).
Still waiting on Take Action and GROW Facebook access.
Let’s put it on the Thursday meeting agenda to set up a time to go through it with Claudio and relieve his concerns about the Facebook account
Emily will make Amy an administrator of the GROW LinkedIn page ASAP
Elizabeth’s assignment updates--waiting to hear back from Ian and Ramon
Eliz questions for Adam on DST dev
Kayla updates
USB Grant Reporting try contact: cdavis@unitedsoybean.org
Emily will reach out to Jack Cornell & Meghan Fullington again re: doing that reporting.
11-26-24
WordPress
Nov 16 spike in web traffic, but no clear defined webpages visited – what does this mean? Web developers at work?
Likely a sweeping hack attempt or web developer or loading issue for someone’s page.
Final page tweaks – Looks like Diksha is working on them?
Send Diksha the herbicide classification chart page image to use for Take Action pages.
Brennen & the Look-up Tool: progress update?
Communications
Elizabeth’s assignments: examples:
Researchers Use Drone Cameras to Spot Herbicide-Resistant Plants
Catch & Kill: Targeting the Seedbank with Harvest Weed Seed Control
Contact Ramon and April for one, Ian for the other. Ask for photos and videos: GROW can embed clips up to 10 seconds in WordPress; longer can go on YouTube and embed that way
Both are evergreen stories
Amy’s assignments
Social media status & scheduling
Facebook?
T-giving posts?
11-19-24
WordPress:
Amy Sullivan shows site looking wonky on Safari desktop only.
Seems Safari-specific, so we won’t make any moves right now. But could be fixed
Ticket check-in! Where are we on final changes to Take Action pages?
We MIGHT need a web departure notification for Take Action pages – Adam recommends we see if USB actually asks for it.
Make a ticket for it, but put in PSA backlog
Communications:
Amy Sullivan introductions
Review of Amy’s current assignments:
Cover Crop & Herbicide study
Cover Crop and Cotton study
Dec 4 webinar
Review of Elizabeth’s bandwidth for assignments (pushed to next week, as ELizabeth is covering the USDA AI in Agriculture conference virtually today).
Steven, Chris, Amanda, and Matthew are presenting on Tue afternoon.
https://bookdown.org/cameratrapdetector/AIUF_Online_Program/session-details.html
Updates from Kayla on PSA web/social/comms?
having issues using Divi in WordPress for SCCC
Kayla has re-taken over SCCC website.
11-12-24
WordPress
New tickets coming:
We need a single webpage stating USB’s privacy policy to link the new footer to. It will need new header, footer, and subscribe button.
We need to start tackling the Take Action subscriber lists (they need to go through some sort of email cleaning – possibly lots of dead/defunct accounts that would muddy our email statistics, which are clean and powerful right now). Let’s just input the nicer, cleaner smaller lists and label them separately, as Take Action subscribers.
The video page needs a header and search option, subscribe button color change and center videos.
The factsheet page needs a header and search options, subscribe button color change
Comms
Amy Sullivan will join us next week. Based in Oxford, Miss.
Emily will add Elizabeth to the Outreach meeting at GROW starting Nov. 21
Comms handoff: Kayla has taken over everything but social media, which Elizabeth is doing just this week.
Kayla working on the newsletter
Kayla starting socials next week
PSA website priorities: Still some clean-up to do on old links showing up in Google search results
Emily want to review the soc media posts? Sarah’s good with them.
Emily has some new research papers to be written up – what is Elizabeth’s current bandwidth for writing?
Elizabeth is editing a book chapter for Heather, written by many people. Will know more later this week. Will let Emily know later this week and will let Emily know on Thursday how much time they will take. Chapter due at end of next week. More critical end of Dec, early Jan.
We need to add images of people collecting AgField IR images of cover crops to the wishlist.
Eliz and Kayla will both watch for photos in Slack that could be added to Comms/Photos folders by topic. Navjot uploaded some to #image-repositories, and Eliz downloaded and added them to the AgImageRepo folder.
11-06-24
WordPress:
Gameplan for inputting updates trade names/active ingredients database: Diksha did all the active ingredients associated with sites of action on her own. Will tackle the next upgrade next week probably.
Update on what interns are working on:
Brennen finished footer and subscriber box update and it looks great!
Emily will make a new ticket for headers on Take Action pages including the logo and then having the title underneath.
Brennen is getting trained on back-end development so he will get spread even thinner.
Emily will start adding new content to the pages.
Comms
Housing and registration for Commodity Classic exhibitors opens on Thursday next week. Emily will register both herself and Elizabeth and try to grab housing ASAP. (It goes fast). Watch for communications on that. Might need P-card info, for example.
USDA conference in mid-November. Elizabeth is planning to cover it. https://events.tti.tamu.edu/conference/2024-forum-on-ai-applications-to-usda-science/
Emily needs two tabletop banners – can she borrow your template/supplier? Elizabeth designed hers through Canva 11 X 17 banner, printed through Staples. Elizabeth will send a link.
Emily looking through weed science journals for monthly news assignments and will be in touch with some if she finds them for Elizabeth.
Comms hand-off-- Elizabeth & Kayla will decide during meeting with Sarah how slow or fast the transition of each resources will be.
Victoria requests that Elizabeth keep Anna Morrow in the loop on User Testing; she’ll be added to the 9 a.m. Tuesday meetings.
We lost Claire Akin; a replacement Cora Bobo-Shisler is coming but will have to play catch-up and may delay the western seeding rate calculator data for a year.
Social media this week: GROW Releases New Herbicide Resistance Resource for the Industry. Will on PSA accounts on FB, X, LinkedIn; will create a post for Instagram.
New GROW/Take Action comms team member, Amy Sullivan, will start joining these meetings in late November.
10-29-24
WordPress
Let’s go through the Take Action Landing page with Nisarg
Tag Brennen when you tell Nisarg to add the Take Action footer
Adam is adding to the Landing page ticket that we see if we can change the color scheme of the subscribe box on Take Action landing pages. At some point, we’ll to change that text to GROW & Take Action
Can we look at the Herbicide Look-up tool, too? Diksha finishing up some javascript work and will turn to this on Thursday. Will need to do herbicide inputs together later this week – Emily, Adam and Diksha
Emily is nearing place where she can start uploading updated factsheets, so will take a close look at that and the video page to make sure it all looks okay.
Farmer Forum accordion page is now in GitHub
Comms
Elizabeth/Heather: Elizabeth available to GROW for writing/editing
Will do initial clean-up on the GROW/PSA Style Guide
Elizabeth may start joining GROW outreach meetings as needed
Kayla will be invited to this meeting moving forward to keep everyone looped in on her PSA work
Emily will work up new duty/job list for new GROW team member (Amy) and Elizabeth
Emily will make the new meeting and add Adam/Elizabeth/Victoria/Mikah/Kayla
Webpage Acknowledgements. Needs award number for “United Soybean Board (USB) Project: One-Stop Shop for Farmers: Bringing Chemical and Non-Chemical Weed Control Resources Together for the Industry.”
10-22-24
WordPress
Let’s start getting the Take Action pages built, if they’re not in progress already (Landing Page and Chart page, in particular).
Farmer Forum accordion page: Emily will add this soon.
Herbicide Look-up Tool: Diksha should be wrapping up this week. Tool should be finished – need to add herbicides in this week or early next week. Nail in it by next Friday.
WP Engine has a daily 5 a.m. ET back-up that you can always restore the website to, for future page meltdowns:
10-15-24
WordPress
Emily has a rush website update: adding factsheets to the CC Termination Webpage – look for a ticket shortly. Needs to be in place and functional before Oct. 23. Brennen will start work on this tomorrow. Emily will assign it to Brennen in GitHub, Slack and in a blurb within the ticket.
Herbicide Look-up Tool status update? Hit a roadblock – trying to figure out how to get around it. Brendan and Diksha will be tackling it the end of this week.
Still working on Farmer Forum page ticket
Comms
Newsletter – Emily still needs to get to this, sorry
Emily will send Farmer Forum advertisement to Elizabeth on Monday for listserv distribution
Still want to review PSA soc media? Emily will take a look.
User testing updates/needs?
GROW writing projects – when should they commence?
Can start ASAP – Emily will start passing them on.
Webpage Acknowledgements. Susan W has no info nor an award number for “United Soybean Board (USB) Project: One-Stop Shop for Farmers: Bringing Chemical and Non-Chemical Weed Control Resources Together for the Industry.” Are you sure it should be listed?
10-08-24
WordPress
Database of active ingredients: Brennen and Diksha working on this to button up the look-up tool this week. Emily, Adam & Diksha will work on manually annotating herbicides.
Cover Crop termination accordions done and ready to be moved to Production
New ticket from Emily: Farmer Forum page under Resources
New Outreach person in interviews
Comms
Clarifying for when Kayla takes over. The PSA Ag Events Calendar is redundant with what Victoria collects for grant reporting, such as this SAS-CAP spreadsheet. Some PSA researchers balk at being asked to also send me outcomes. Others are fine with sending photos, # and type of attendees, etc., like recently from Esleyther. Victoria fine with my duplicate efforts, which are useful for newsletter and social media.
Check Victoria’s reporting before asking researchers for info, at the end of grant year
VegSpec, GitHub, user testing
Oct newsletter content
Emily will send Elizabeth a visual and blurb for the GROW Farmer Forum on Nov 18
Selected Publications page sections: Outreach, Scientific Articles
SAS CAP is ending, and we’re becoming a tech and services data team; publications page useful how?
PSA Photos – reviewing/organizing folders, collecting high-res for Media Kit and to know what’s missing
Emily will start sending some GROW writing work to Elizabeth as she pivots to User Testing Coordinator position more fully.
10-02-24
WordPress
Status of current tickets?
Still waiting on database of active ingredients
Emily will nag Christy for this.
Comms
Conference went well! Elizabeth will email an intern suggestion to Christ, Steven, Mikah, and Adam and ping them on Slack. Will put newsletter sign-up out next time.
Taking trainings in GitHub, Teams, SharePoint for user-testing management and NRCS interactions
Website:
Pubs web page coming along; Google alerts pick up far more than we can use bc many not PSA funded
Completing other page revisions before passing it to Kayla
Gradual transfer to Kayla this month; Elizabeth will start diving into VegSpec and the drone software V1
Reviewing photo needs before friendly competition and Oct trip
Order more swag for Steven
20 hats and 20 tumblers
Overall, we need more tote bags
Soc media post for this week
09-10-24
WordPress
09-20-24
WordPress
Look-up Tool – still waiting on database of active ingredients
New page for Chart
Staging site transferred to Production Site, except Look-up Tool
Two new Github issues coming from Emily:
New Accordion for CC Termination page
Pigweed identification Need to add
Make ticket for the Landing Page of Take Action
09-10-24
WordPress
Herbicide resistance page status update
MailPoet transition complete – 2,500 subscribers; newsletter goes out tomorrow (fingers crossed)
Updates from Adam:
Look-up tool: Almost ready for spreadsheet input – Emily will remind Take Action this week.
Emily add ticket on adding Group # with screenshot to show where it goes, put it on first upgrade ticket.
Nisarg fixing issue with Video Look-up page
YouTube button: Nisarg will add a space
Communications
Adam?…”Updates to Google Drive connection to Squarespace forms
ISTRO presentation and poster; tips on mailing promo materials to a hotel?
Poster needs to be finalized this week; Elizabeth will send both to Emily & Steven
Media Kit drafting precisionsustainableag.org/home-1-mediakit
Eliz will ask the CCC leaders whether they want to share their logos; set folder to “completely public” at the bottom
Be sure to provide photo attribution instructions: PSA
Sifting through / managing Google Scholar alerts
Emily looks at journals, not using Google Scholar: primary researchers and topics that sound relevant; sometimes she asks GROW leadership;
Make a list of articles for Sarah to review
Very low response rate to soc media posts. Ways to improve?
Ask folks to follow/promote you in the newsletter
Just keep posting! It’s often a slow build
Consider paid promotion options--maybe LinkedIn only
Media registration for AGU in DC in Dec
friendly competition for great PSA photos? Low-hanging fruit, prizes
Creating schedule for Oct 23-25 trip
Will start at Building 3 for check-in
1:15 appointment to pick USDA ID at Building 3
E will talk with Maria Laura; she organizes mini-tours for people coming to BARC
Final CC-Seeding Rate Calc color design decision: Emily will send the last two options to Mark VG for his perspective
09-03-24
WordPress
Herbicide Resistance 2 page status update
Nisarg working on video search option for TA video page
Herbicide Look-up tool status update
Take Action working on the CSV file of active ingredients
Emily will break that into two different tickets
Take Action chart landing page – the Google order form is in place on the old website & already taking orders!
Github ticket priority discussion
Comms/DSTs
Eliz visit Oct 23-25 or 28-30? Mikah in Ashville, 4 hours from Raleigh. He might be able to come to Raleigh while I’m there. Eliz leaning toward former; Thu/Fri good for Mikah right now. (Adam is in San Diego, Calif)
Working with Victoria on ISTRO presentation/poster
Emily will review social media posts this afternoon
Don’t talk about the Gates project on any public-facing media
08-27-24
WordPress
Herbicide Resistance 2 page: status update & request for back up from Brennen
Adam will recommend this.
Herbicide Look-up Tool status update
Emily will make tickets for the upgrades
Trade names = Alternative Trade Names with same Site of Action and collapsed into accordion that can be opened.
Make each Herbicide SOA read: Site of Action – NAME
Create CSV showing which actives in which trade name for which trade name (ask Christy?) which will be used to create a relationship and output with the Look-up Tool to generate ONLY the active ingredients in each trade name.
Make note that we COULD keep the full listing of actives in a each SOA and just make it collapsible and labeled Alternative Active Ingredients with same SOA.
Take Action chart page update from Emily
Emily & Creative B3 created a Google order form
Can add a Github ticket now on this, but might also try to embed the order form in the old Take Action website so it’s a smoother ordering process for Creative B3 from now until new webpages launch.
Footer progress?
Migration meeting at 1 p.m. reminder for Adam & Mikah
Comms/DSTs
Africa visit with Gates Foundation & CGIAR network went well. Pilot project with phenotyping software & hardware, hoping for 2-year continuation. Uses a version of Oak-D camera, six of them mounted on three sides; collects images and metadata.
Game Theory is compiling results from user testing. Went over new design they are experimenting with based on A-B testing. Will probably send Slack of new design images and let PSA crowd weigh in. Once confident with that, will build out other pages of seeding rate calculator.
61 responses from user testing; just missing one farmer. Results still coming in from asynch testing. Most testing was 1-on-1; actually didn’t accomplish too much async testing.
Next Tuesday 9 a.m. meeting will be looking at mock-ups Marguerite is working on. Hoping many people can come.
GitHub task Conduct Seeding Rate Calculator User Testing is closed
08-20-24
WordPress
Have an even higher res Take Action logo now, but I think the white one looks pretty good.
Any progress on changing the footer? Adam is going to work on assigning it out. Probably out to Brennen.
Herbicide Look-up Tool: We have a spreadsheet from Christy that contains the current actives & trade names.
Diksha is working hard on this and it is taking a lot of work, time and troubleshooting. Immensely complex
Herbicide Resistance page: any progress from new intern? (Nisarg)
Nisarg has the right template
Mail Poet is on the to-do list this week! We have time – still have 190 subscribers left on free plan.
Emily will create a Github ticket for the Take Action ancillary page. With order form for the chart.
Emily will create a Github ticket for adding links to the YouTube channel to the website.
07.30.2024
WordPress
Factsheet Page Update
Emily reached out to Creative B3 for a high-res Take Action logo
Change name to Take Action Resources & orange color
Herbicide Look-up Tool progress
Brennen walk-through of adding a Resources page to A Wordpress site
Take Action Meeting tomorrow!
Brennen will try to have the mock-up Resources page polished and ready to show
Mail Poet & Herbicide Resistance page still pending…
New Confluence page for WP Engine: WP Engine How To
DST/Comms
Logging into social media accounts: let’s get it done by end of week
07.23.24
WordPress
MailPoet: Emily still needs to address this.
Searchable factsheet set-up: Brennen will address this
Diksha working on Herbicide Look-up Tool
Getting information moved over to GROW development site
Take Action Meeting: July 31
Emily will send Herbicide Resistance page to Brennen/Diksha by the end of the week.
DST/Comms
Elizabeth working on newsletter and drafting PSA in the News posts
Both Mikah and Elizabeth have USDA guest contractor onboarding training to do
1.5 weeks out from Ag Media Summit
Thursday Extension meeting - Elizabeth is attending and will bring PSA & NECCC materials
Down the road, Elizabeth may need a proper camera (Nikon/Canon) for high resolution images for web/promotional materials.
07.09.24
WordPress
MailPoet: Emily got permission to use purchase card for subscription; will proceed.
Farmer Case Study webpage: are we good to push to production? Yes. Emily slacked Brennen.
Second HR page will be in Brennen’s hands soon – maybe end of this week.
Might be Diksha working on it, with back-up support from Brennen.
Take Action meeting set for July 31.
PDFs editing: We can import the PDFs into Canva and update them there. Tables will be tricky – have to add a table (Elements), overlay it with the old one, recreate the cell structure and add your new information.
DST/Comms
NRCS Facilitator meetings: going well?
Yes, 10 scheduled this week and Elizabeth popping in as she is able.
Fine to let them get up to speed with PDFs, but Eliz will still tweak and publish pages. Better for Cover Crop Council managers. Probably best to send the links to those to Karl so he can house them internally for the NRCS team.
Cover Crop Council facilitators? Meeting tomorrow at 1 p.m.
PWM page: Elizabeth has a Google doc where she suggests text and photo revisions and suggestions for links to PSA webpage.
Sarah gave a kill order for the short blurb write-ups for each published paper for the website
Elizabeth will hang onto the ones she did (5) and we’ll find another home for them. Maybe news page, or newsletter.
July 12th meeting still on.
Elizabeth will try to make Ag Media Summit webinar tomorrow.
Elizabeth 4-month review – is there a format we’re supposed to follow, per UVM?
07-02-24
WordPress
Mail Poet Update?
Emily needs to sign into her account, purchase the level, will get an activation key and replace it with the current one in MailPoet plug-in.
She needs to check with VA Tech on how to purchase that.
Take Action: Adam and Brennan are going to start pulling factsheets over and building the new webpage, so we have something to show the Take Action team in July.
Farmer Case Study webpage:
Let’s add it under IWM as a third dropdown menu option on the staging site and then Emily will send that staging site link to the Outreach team.
Weed ID library pages: go ahead and make them direct links (as long as they open in new tabs).
Emily will make a Github issue to fix this.
Take Action meeting (only 3 responded, including Emily at the moment) for the meeting poll.
Adam will fill it out and Emily will send out a reminder later this week.
DST/Comms Team
NRCS having difficulty accessing Google products
need to ask Shannon and Marguerite to make settings as public as possible
Thoughts on Precision Weed Management page and fleshing it out?
NRCS VegSpec comms piece – status?
done
Can we get the PSA Twitter & Facebook account re-started this month – maybe a post about new webpage design?
Could Buffer be a good resource for PSA? Probably more work than its worth.
Elizabeth working on PlantMap 3D poster
Elizabeth is headed to an NRCS office to do eAuth; Emily needs to find an NRCS office that will do this for her.
Journal assessing: Elizabeth setting up Google Scholar alerts for PSA researchers
plus going through current published papers and writing up short blurbs for a Resources page
She is still setting up Google alerts – she’ll do that after she finishes the list of names Steven will review.
July 12th 10 a.m. meeting with a State of the DSTs & user testing for all cover crop councils
06-25-24
Attending: Emily Unglesbee, Elizabeth Seyler, Mikah Pinegar, Adam Smith
WordPress
MailPoet meeting Take 2 with Adam & Emily – scheduled for Wed
Old Google workspace – email seems defunct; we’ll let it go.
Farmer Case Study webpage update
Adam and Brennen are meeting on this and will review design options with Emily on Wed meeting, plus hopefully fix missing images from PWM page
Move to Google Analytics 4.0 update
yes all done!
Update on floating download button
These are done
Adam will change the color to the brighter green and offer examples of blockier button option.
Do we want our out-linked items to go to a landing page and link, or straight to the resource? Question for Outreach team.
Herbicide Resistance Management page is through peer review & almost ready for the web upload
Meeting scheduled with Adam and Emily for late July to discuss a pivot to ingesting Take Action material into the website, starting in mid-August.
Emily will try to nail down their priorities for the new webpage by that meeting
Emily will also try to create a meeting the second to last week of July with Adam & Take Action team. First week of August he is not super available, so between July 24 to end of July.
DST/Comms Team
Confluence and GitHub links Mikah gave Eliz are on the new DSTs page
we still need a Confluence one for Econ tool. Mikah: Not avail anytime soon; Rick working on that.
Fleshing out Precision Weed Management pages on GROW – Elizabeth will review it and send Emily/Adam her list of suggested updates/changes/revisions.
Emily will look into grant titles for PSA web page Acknowledgements.
Elizabeth doing a table for PSA/NECC at a field day at UVM July 25.
Emily will make a folder in PSA comms of photos from the June USDA event that Maria Laura and Steven attended.
Victoria taking a first stab at a comms piece on what NRCS is doing with VegSpec with PSA & the Councils and will loop us in for an edit.
06-18-24
Canceled
06-11-24
Attending: Emily Unglesbee, Elizabeth Seyler, Victoria Ackroyd, Mikah Pinegar, Adam Smith
WordPress
MailPoet: doesn’t do phone calls; they sent a detailed list of steps, and Emily & Adam should meet to go through it. Meeting at 12:30 p.m. June 13 to do this.
Adam is finishing finalizing our move to Google Analytics 4.0
WMP landing page: should be ready for Production (URL question for Adam)
New web projects:
Floating button for download factsheet on Weed ID pages
May need to replace the Subscribe button those pages
Adam will look into this after Emily makes a Github issue and assigns him
Could WMP be a slightly interactive web page farther down the road?
New Farmer Case Study page
Cover crop & HWSC
Set up a ticket for design conversations in GitHub, and they’ll have some ideas
Emily will create a more comprehensive list of the case studies we have
DST/Comms Team
OK to encourage NRCS folks to try out the Seeding Rate Calc between now and when user testing starts?
Staff page: Adam’s title? (when FT); Emily and Eliz’s titles?
Front-end Website Developer
Emily: Director of Outreach and Extension GROW; Outreach and Communications Specialist
Elizabeth: Outreach and Communications Specialist
Anyone missing from Slack requests for headshots and titles?
Did Emily receive the PSA newsletter? Nope. Mikah not likely.
Mikah unifying timelines across projects. GitHub Roadmaps
Eliz current focus: drafting user testing materials to send to GT. Getting leadership feedback on new website pages, finalizing and publishing. Then: Outreach Deliverables Calendar, Comms plan, Google alerts, doc templates and PSA Comms folder cleanup.
06-04-24
In attendance: Emily Unglesbee, Elizabeth Seyler, Victoria Ackroyd, Mikah Pinegar
WordPress (Push to next week when Adam is back)
MailPoet: doesn’t do phone calls; they sent a detailed list of steps, and Emily & Adam should meet to go through it.
WMP landing page: should be ready for Production (URL question for Adam)
DST/Comms Team
User Testing meeting:
Emily & Elizabeth: https://docs.google.com/document/d/10ifiSTCHvxS654zowuQGwrhoDtLtQdelSN5QPDtV6zM/edit?usp=sharing
05-28-24
In attendance: Adam Smith, Emily Unglesbee, Elizabeth Seyler, Victoria Ackroyd
WordPress
MailPoet: Let’s gather all the information we have, and get on a call with MailPoet, Adam says.
last message from John Himics: I believe you'll have to create a new account here: https://www.mailpoet.com/ just for a license key.
We have a basic one (and a legacy plan that's not offered anymore), but all the configuration is on the site's side, not MailPoets, as far as I remember.
You'll also want to put an SMTP plugin in place and a transactional email system, so the website can more reliably send emails. We've used MailGun in the past for our sites, and I believe we mentioned that on the transfer notes.
Emily can send a draft of the Weed Management Planner landing page to Adam & Brennan. Emily will make a ticket for this.
Auto-scroll on the Herbicide-Resistance page
Subscribe button on HR page? Adam can’t find the reason; in the interim, let’s update it to open in a new tab, so people don’t lose the HR page.
DST/User Testing
People need to fill out the survey by FRIDAY. Need leadership to show up on Tuesday next week so we can review the survey and have a list of goals to hash out and finalize.
We’re going to have to reschedule – let’s slack Shannon and ask for a different time slot next week. Tuesday, June 4, between 1 to 3 p.m. or Monday, June 3, between 3 and 4 p.m. are times when Steven, Mikah, and possibly Chris can come. Eliz asking Heather, Marguerite, Shannon.
PSA/GROW (Emily & Elizabeth)
05-14-24
In attendance: Adam Smith, Emily Unglesbee, Victoria Ackroyd, Mikah Pinegar, Elizabeth Seyler
WordPress
Herbicide Resistance Page status
Emily will do a final review of the page & give the go-ahead to publish
Still working on fixing auto-scroll
Adam & Emily will meet and figure out increasing the MailPoet subscription
DST/User Testing
Emily: Cover Crops Council Testing Roles in DSTs. Eliz to send to WCCC folks.
Mikah is showing Steven the Admin Roles we created to set the goals for DST user testing and once confirmed, we’ll send it to Marguerite.
05-07-24
In attendance: Adam Smith, Emily Unglesbee, Victoria Ackroyd, Mikah Pinegar, Elizabeth Seyler
WordPress
DNS transfer complete! Happy Dance
Emily has successfully sent out a newsletter & made changes to posts, with no issues
But old newsletters are now full of dead links – Emily sent an example to Adam so he can investigate. Not high priority.
Hoping post notifications on old site will remain inactive, as long as no news posts are happening there. We’ll know for sure tomorrow morning.
When do we kill the old site?
Once we’re satisfied the WP Engine has everything and there are no complications or anything to retrieve, we should let First Ascent know.
Has Adam met with First Ascent yet?
Yes they recommended an import/export tool
Having trouble trying to move the Herbicide/MOA lookup tool; Adam is going to keep trying this week but if no progress, let’s halt and consider rebuilding the tool entirely using an updated data set of AIs and trade names, later on, when the grant is finalized.
Brennen is going to work on Weed Pages non-centered video issue
Adam & interns working through short list of minor issues (not all related to the transfer) – any issues or questions?
Herbicide Resistance page status?
Brennen has some mock-ups ready to share – look for them after this meeting
Emily has the draft of a second Herbicide Resistance page in editing and will be ready for addition soon.
Brennen is moving from 40 hrs/week to 5-10 hrs/week in late May, so his time will be shorter then.
Emily needs some budget line items to share with group of specialty crop weed scientists who are interested in getting their content shared through the GROW website/network
Mikah can look into the intern costs at different education levels, colleges, type of work
Elizabeth can offer some page and web building numbers, too
The meeting is May 17th
DST Communications
Definitions document sent to NRCS? Yes
Emily & Elizabeth did the eAuth thing but is not sure it worked.
Let’s see if Lori can find and “sponsor us”
Status of using GitHub for project management for DSTs?
Elizabeth will look into it on her own (GitHub projects), then Mikah & Elizabeth will meet 3 p.m. on Monday, May 20th to discuss.
04-30-24
In attendance: Mikah Pinegar, Emily Unglesbee, Elizabeth Seyler, Victoria Ackroyd, Adam Smith
WordPress
Update on DNS transfer from Mikah?
Mikah initiated a transfer to new registrar, Porkbun, for 60 days and then it can be transferred back to Squarespace. Transfer should be complete within 5 days, and then this Saturday, Mikah can update the DNS to point to the WP Engine site.
Meeting with First Ascent on how they handled development & release
EMAIL FROM NICK: I've spoken with the development team and we agree that this would be best talked through, rather than sent over. After meeting with Sean, we've taken a look at our calendars and we would love to set up a 30 minute call with you to discuss this.
I've included our availability below. Please let us know if you have 30 minutes during any of these timeslots:
May 1st (1pm-4pm)
May 2nd (10am-12pm) (3pm-5pm)
May 3rd (10am-1:30pm)
May 6th (11am-1pm) (3pm-5pm)
Adam will get back to them with his availability
Emily has created this week’s news post on two sites: First Ascent & WP Engine, and will be doing the same for a newsletter going out this week. That kosher?
Post notifications need to be in off position on ALL websites except the First Ascent one on Wed.
Any updates on other web project progress (Brennan requested Google Drive access to HR page docs, but he should already have it)
Ameya has finished with Toolbox; Adam will review
Brennen now has access to the HR Page mock-ups
Emily, Adam & Brennen should meet to discuss what changes we’re looking for. Adam will check on Brennen’s availability.
Adam is 75% done with Herbicide Lookup Tool transferred. Need to rename Take Action “weeds” category to “herbicides”
Communications
Good idea for Eliz to use Confluence to help manage user testing? Scheduling, comm with developers, keeping track of GT. If so, suggest any tutorials? Mikah uses GiHub projects, 8 people. Set up own columns, views, etc. Make issues in a repository, then projects link to issues and tie them together. Create views and columns and buckets. I can set it up.
Steer clear of Trello.
Action Items:
Adam will schedule with First Ascent for meeting
Mikah will update the DNS on Saturday morning
Adam will check when Brennen is available to discuss the HR page
04-23-24
In attendance: Emily, Mikah, Elizabeth, Adam & Victoria
WordPress
Website transition plan: Emily & Adam still working through some migration issues
Still on track for Saturday?
Emily will go into the backroom and make the small changes (1, 2 & 6) she can do on her own; other two new news page posts can be handed off to Brennen.
Adam will try pulling in ALL news categories and see if that fixes missing news pages; if not, he’ll delete all and try importing them from the old site.
Media cleaner produced problematic results – another plan?
Emily needs to add GitHub issue on Toolbox Menu changes
Interns will then start work on Herbicide Resistance page redesign
Adam will tackle Take Action transition.
Communications
Mikah’s list of DST roles?
User testing roles, Mikah will look in notes.
Confluence and GitHub links (and images?) for DSTs new web page
Decision Support Tools this link contains links to all of the tools, and a link to the GitHub organization
Current DST timeline, including adding history of each DST; in a month, completion of Seeding Rate and Species Selector; VegSpec is close, too; Econ, possibly, too
One tutorial for each DST or four (one for each region)? Mikah: Start with one; if people find it confusing might need one for each council. They’re pretty similar. West will have irrigation and other variations. “Filters might be diff in diff regions, but most elements the same.” Let users know they may see diff crops, diff input sheets, but getting same type of info at end and options to revise. West uses ecoregions, state, and another factor, but these are populated when farmers enter address.
most farmers are working with cover crop mixes
Puerto Rico
NRCS folks are expected to manage in English
Not concerned with the tool being in Spanish
Job sheet
Victoria will send a job sheet
Action Items
Victoria will send Mikah a job sheet
Mikah will look in notes for user testing roles
User testing
NRCS will be a part of the councils user testing group
NRCS is identifying users now (approx 120 so far)
All the councils + NRCS together for testing each tool
First test will be learning the process, they should be great by the time we get to vegspec
NRCS facilitators may go out and find farmers, or they may have other NRCS people test the tool
NRCS people will be both facilitators and testing the tool
Anticipated minimum workload is 10 hours per month
Councils
Council project manager identifies 2-3 facilitators (council members, farmers, university agent, seed rep, etc)
Each facilitator will find 3-4 farmers to test the tool
Anticipated minimum workload is 10 hours per month
No incentives will be provided
Priorities
Highest priority → seeding rate calculator
Next highest → economics
Then vegspec in stages based on readiness
Role of the game theory liaison from PSA (@Elizabeth Seyler)
Schedules trainings between game theory and trainers
Makes sure benchmarks are filled out
Communicates with developers (patch notes, current issues)
Communicates back to all 4 councils about the status of the testing and release schedule of the tools
Keeps track of game theory and their next steps, timelines, etc
Questions as a group
Are we doing testing sessions per council or all together?
Will users choose a tool to test or do them in a sequence?
Will NRCS identify a list of facilitators?
Who will be the NRCS point f contact for user testing?
Emily will go into the backroom and make the small changes (1, 2 & 6) she can do on her own; other two new news page posts can be handed off to Brennen.
Adam will try pulling in ALL news categories and see if that fixes missing news pages; if not, he’ll delete all and try importing them from the old site.