In case you needed another reason to have ZimmComm New Media blog an event let’s look at a search engine result from this afternoon. I just did a Google search for the words, Syngenta Media Day. Of 256,000 results, AgWired was the #1 result above Syngenta’s own website! Not too shabby for a little old “new media” outlet, eh?

We’re pioneering a whole new kind of online journalism here at ZimmComm New Media. I applaud Syngenta and their public relations agency, Gibbs & Soell for “getting it” and sponsoring my day there a couple weeks ago. This event started around 8am and was finished around 3pm. I posted 20 times including over 20 pictures and 5 audio interviews and they were all on AgWired before the end of the day (same day). Many of the posts were done during the actual presentations.

Syngenta can now point anyone they want, including customers or media representatives who didn’t attend, to go to AgWired and view the content and download audio or images. If someone needs hi-res pictures all they have to do is email me and I’ll return one to them immediately.

At the end of the event I burned all the pictures and audio to a CD and left it with them. They can post them onto their own website and it’s my understanding that is exactly what they plan to do. Their investment in this is minimal and yet they have immediate multimedia content that’s online before the other media attending even get home to their offices. This is not to say that you don’t want to have traditional media coverage. What I think it says is that what we can do is complement your traditional media and customer/member outreach. This isn’t a mutually exclusive proposition.