This article explores the literature and practice of how the Cooperative Extension Service does its work and asks if traditional outreach and engagement models have room for innovative delivery mechanisms that may identify emerging trends and help meet community needs. It considers three innovative approaches to the educational mission: sense-making, contextual (typological) framing, and an internal starting with why concept. It discusses how each might offer processes that would help Extension workers identify and act on community needs, and how the approaches could become critical work skills that will help sustain Extension in the future.