I’m back. It’s been a long day of blogging, teaching blogging and demonstrating AgNewsWire.AgWired.com. I promised to post some audio though and here it is. I decided to post Tim Ganschow’s (Agristar Global Networks) complete presentation today on “Bringing Internet Access To Rural America.” You sure can’t find a subject more near and dear to my heart. It was a great lead-in to my blogging seminar that followed today at the Gateway Nama/St. Louis Ag Club meeting.

You can listent to Tim here: Tim Ganschow Presentation (19MB MP3 – 41 min.)

I know it’s long but I think you’ll find the information very interesting. If you don’t want to listen to Tim’s full presentation I’m planning to cut it up and use it in next week’s ZimmCast. Tim has a written report on this subject that I’m going to ask him for. If he’ll let me I’ll post it for you or at least excerpts of it.

As most of us in agricultural communications know, the only reason why farmers lag behind the general public in some categories of internet use is the lack of broadband. With the availability of broadband access farmers will quickly catch up to the rest of the population. A point that Tim made which I really liked is that as communications professionals who may in some cases be waiting for this “catch up” point, the tools to make use of broadband internet access are already available. These would include rich media options like video and audio. Tim’s company is just one that’s working rapidly to expand farmer access to broadband internet. He mentions at the end of the talk the desire to pull together a “Broadband Alliance For Agriculture.” I think he can count on ZimmComm and AgWired to be a part of that alliance.