At meetings I attended over the past two days, information technology experts explained the use of blogs, rss and podcasts for sharing information. This pushes those of us who weren't raised in the computer age a little further out of our comfort zone.

When I was hired by UC 17 years ago, I thought I was on the cutting edge when I was issued a laptop computer. The four-inch-thick, pasty white 20-pound Toshiba T1200 (which I still have here in my office) runs only DOS. E-mail and the Interenet weren't even on the radar.

I had a front-row seat as UCCE was pushed, sometimes dragged, into the information age. I learned a lot, and when new technologies are introduced, I try to remember the UCCE old-timers, now long-since retired, who had their secretaries print their e-mail for them because they were uncomfortable with new-fangled computer programs. And the ones who continued to use blurry overheads when young advisors were creating flashy presentations with the first versions of PowerPoint. I am trying to stay open to innovation.

So, I'm diving in. Here is the new ANR News Blog. I intend to write about news stories being generated by and about ANR advisors and specialists, promos about stories we have in the works, summaries with links to stories from other UC news sources that would be of interest to this audience, and from time to time, when appropriate, news-writing style issues. I hope you'll join me.