Thanks to Brian Reuwee’s phone I got a photo from the Gateway NAMA chapter meeting I missed last week. The chapter hosted the John Brown Scholars of the University of Missouri for a crash course in public relations before heading out to a St. Louis Cardinals game. Almost 60 people attended which would make this meeting one of our largest in a long time.
Osborn & Barr hosted the session and panelists included representatives from Monsanto Public Affairs, Monsanto Social Media Group, Elasticity and Osborn & Barr. looked at crisis communications – both proactive and reactive – and how social media is changing the game. The Mizzou students were asked to share their insights, too.
I see a Facebook and YouTube logo on that screen. Are we talking about anything but social media lately?
Now if we could just get Mizzou NAMA going again . . .
Each of them provide a few of the points that they are planning to make during our session and share how social media has worked for them or a client. I think you’ll enjoy hearing what they have to say and it will whet your appetite for more on Friday morning.
I’d like to say a big thanks to everyone who participated in our pre-conference survey. Your remarks are very helpful and interesting. I’ll share a summary of that at the session. I also want to thank Successful Farming and Novus International for sponsoring AgWired coverage of this year’s Agri-Marketing Conference.
For all you Twitter experts out there, please remember to use the #NAMA hashtag this week in your tweets. I’ll be displaying them during the Connection Point hours in the ZimmComm booth and during our session which starts at 9am edt on Friday.
This week’s program ends with music from the Podsafe Music Network. It’s a song titled, “Social Competence”, by Peter Moren. I hope you enjoy it and thank you for listening.
You can download and listen to the ZimmCast here: ZimmCast 215 (23 min MP3)
I remember him well when he interned for me many moons ago. He was such a promising lad. Glad to see he kept his promise and congratulations Curt! The photo is from the ZimmComm archive at NAMA Boot Camp last year. Successful Farming announces the promotion of Curt Blades to Sales and Marketing Manager. In his new role Curt will direct and manage all interactive advertising and sponsorship programs online and at www.agriculture.com. This will include providing overall direction for the creation and implementation of integrated marketing programs with the Successful Farming editorial team and sales staff. He will also be responsible for managing and establishing strategic direction for Successful Farming’s research, database, and trade marketing activities.
Curt will continue oversee the Successful Farming direct response advertising efforts, and will maintain an existing client base. He will be a key part of the Successful Farming leadership team in helping to set the strategic direction for the entire business unit of Meredith Corporation.
Curt, his wife Betsy and daughter Halley will be relocating to the Des Moines area.
You can now sell your tractor by auction on the web at TractorHouse.com.
Online Auction Listings are now ‘live’ on TractorHouse.com. Consistent TractorHouse advertisers now have the option to auction their equipment to a worldwide buying audience, 24/7/365. All machines are auctioned directly by dealers to registered bidders on the Web site. Seller’s fees are minimal, and there are no auction fees charged to buyers. As a result, equipment can sell for less than at other conventional or online auctions.
“Buyers and sellers both are embracing the concept, even though it’s a fairly new idea to the industry,” says Nate DeWald, project manager of the Online Auction feature. The company reports that over $1 million worth of equipment has been auctioned in just the first few weeks since the feature’s introduction.
The company also has the live auction feature available on their MachineryFinder.com website.
The 2009 NCCC-134 meeting on Applied Commodity Price Analysis, Forecasting and Market Risk Management will take place April 20-21 at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in St. Louis, Mo.
Veteran database marketer Dave Wilson joins Farm Journal Media as vice president of new business development for the Database Strategies Division. Farm Journal Media Database Strategies also launches a new database menu that offers clients either Farm Journal foundation data (with 100 points of crop, livestock, demographic and psychographic data); the Government Compliance data (Farm Service Administration or FSA) with detailed field-level reporting; or the fully-integrated combination of both databases now called FarmReach.
United Fresh Produce Association President and CEO Tom Stenzel has announced the appointment of Ray Gilmer as vice president of communications.
Have you played Combine Combat? If so, you’ve played one of the top 5 magazine web games according to minonline.com. Here’s what they said about it:
Years after its release, Agriculture.com’s simple arcade game remains one of the few b2b online games around, and it still holds up. You try to clear a field with your combine before the computer-controlled rival. There are several points of brilliance here. The John Deere-sponsored game uses Deere logos as power-ups and has you collect their new products as bonus points, all the while informing you of their product benefits. And then there is the ambient music (think Terminator for farm equipment) and background bird noises. We need more b2b games with this much attention to detail…and raw combat among professionals. There must be some uproarious game notions lurking somewhere in the minds of waste management or medical device trade publishers.
Successful Farming is sponsoring AgWired coverage of the NAMA Convention this week and I know I’ll have more SF news as the week progresses.
It was a wet and wild day at My Lady’s Manor Steeplechase races. Can you say “mud?” I left after the main race which you can see the winner of here. I got very lucky and was presented a pass to the owners and judges tower right over the finish line.
The race was pretty exciting but I don’t have the winner’s name. If anyone knows they’re welcome to leave it in the comments.
Before the events got started I met and interviewed Turney McKnight, direct of the Manor races since 1978. He says this is the 99th running of the race. He says the race evolved from the horse and buggy days and was a real source of sport. The distance hasn’t changed and is still over 3 miles with 16 jumps. The crowd can be as many as 7,500.
It pretty much rained all day while I was at the races. Turney was one of the first people I met and we sat in his truck to talk. You can listen to my interview with Turney here: drive-green-monkton-mcknight.mp3
I also shot a video clip of the end of the My Lady’s Manor race. You might here my Nikon clicking because I was shooting stills at the same time. I don’t recommend that. But us professionals can handle it!
This is what the John Deere Drive Green Utility Tractor Show is all about. Driving John Deere equipment. Today’s show stop is set up perfectly for people like Carl Daly, here to test drive the new line of utility tractors and vehicles. We’ll meet Carl in a video interview I’ll post with him on the show blog in coming days.
I’m up to 5 interviews so far today and with people who live from 3 to 60 miles away. They’re all looking for some features that these new tractors have and seem to be seriously interested. Of course that’s what John Deere wants to hear. I hope it turns into sales today.
Hello non-profits. Here’s a chance to obtain a grant for public relations services. The folks at Harvest PR & Marketing want to help you out. If chosen, they would start working for you in June.
At Harvest PR & Marketing, Inc., we believe big ideas can sprout from the smallest and unlikeliest of places. And, with a little nurturing, those ideas can grow and thrive.
We are seeking an opportunity to help one nonprofit thrive in 2009 — with the help of our first PR grant offering, Seed to Succeed.
We will donate up to $20,000 in services to promote one worthy not-for-profit organization or cause that serves to better agriculture — its reputation, its products, its future, the communities and families it supports from one generation to the next.
Please spread the word if you, or someone you know, could benefit from our own special currency of seed money. Interested parties can find more information at www.Harvest-PR.com. Qualified candidates are encouraged to submit a proposal by May 15 to be considered for this PR grant.
Okay. Here’s a new social network for animal agribusiness. What do you think? Good idea? It looks like it has internal special interest groups. Is this going to be of sufficient value/benefit to draw in significant participation? Although I’m a big fan of social networking I have wondered how these types of online communities are faring. I’ve seen some that are very active on some very niche topics. Will producers who are involved in Facebook utilize more than one social network? If you’re a producer what are your thoughts? Have you become a member of AnimalAgNet? If so, what do you like/not like?
WATT has announced the launch of www.AnimalAgNet.com, an online social networking community for the global agribusiness industry. The site is created for producers, processors, animal health and nutrition professionals, animal feed manufacturers, marketers and others working in any phase of the global poultry, pig and animal feed sectors.
Animal agribusiness professionals are encouraged to visit AnimalAgNet.com and join a community of their interest, view breaking industry news, ask questions, share ideas, network and/or catch up with their peers, or post photos and videos. Groups exist for poultry production, regulatory issues, animal health, feed trends, environmental issues and pig production. Community members are invited to start their own blog, form their own groups and invite their peers to join.
“AnimalAgNet is designed as a place for animal agribusiness professionals to network and share knowledge in a safe, business-only environment,” said WATT Vice President of Content Bruce Plantz.
Every time the USDA issues an important crop report, the Minneapolis Grain Exchange hosts a conference call for reporters with a market commentator. We have been responsible for recording and uploading that call to their server for the past couple of years now.
Today the call focused on the April Supply Demand report and the commentator was Mike Krueger from The Money Farm, who said that normally this month’s reports are normally not that significant since we had the big prospective plantings report out last week.
He said the reports include the “typical monthly revisions of supply and demand” which all came in well below the range of analysts’ estimates for ending stock numbers.
Farm Market iD has released two new data files. Due to continued demand, the company has updated its popular Turf & Ornamental Database now representing almost 210,000 companies and facilities who purchase equipment, seed, chemicals, fertilizer and other products and services. For more information about the new Farm Market iD databases, contact Dick Olmsted at 800-313-4778, ext. 202.
The 2009 Ag Media Summit which is being conducted jointly with the International Federation of Agricultural Journalists will bring together an estimated 700 agricultural communicators from around the world for workshops, panel discussions, tours and networking opportunities. The meeting will be held Aug. 1 through Aug. 5 at the Renaissance Worthington Hotel in Ft. Worth, Texas.
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced that USDA is making more than $17 million in grants available under the Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program. Vilsack also described recent initiatives, such as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), designed to help producers and keep farmers on the land.
CoBank has named Mark Yonkman executive vice president and general counsel.
Speaking of NAMA. I’ll be the NAMA blogger once again this year and you can find posts on the NAMA blog.
As you can see it’s being sponsored by Successful Farming, just like AgWired! Thank you Agriculture.com.
Cindy will be with me and we’ve got help from Michelle Kautz, who is doing free lance writing for us on our Domestic Fuel website. So that’s the ZimmComm crew you’ll find in Atlanta next week.
It’s looking like we’re going to have a great show so rest up. The games begin next Tuesday!
It’s a travel day for the agriblogger. I’m heading east for a couple days work on the Drive Green Utility Tractor Show. These stops will wrap up the east/south route and then the big rig heads west through Missouri.
I had to stop off the highway on the way to the airport this morning for this photo. You can also find one I tweeted from my phone here.
I’ll get home on Easter and have a day to pack for NAMA. You’re all going right? Last I heard the trade show is sold out and we’re on our second overflow hotel. If you’re not there then you’re . . .
With an alert from the Quarry Integrated Communications Twitter feed I was pointed to their blog: Idea Exchange. It contains “a series of articles examining ways to thrive, not just survive, in 2009.” Here’s an example.
You all know the deal. During periods of economic instability, your organization will focus with laser-like precision on the bottom line, allocating dollars to only those areas they know will deliver positive business results.
While clicks matter, it’s the outcome of the click, not the click itself, that really counts.
Your CFO doesn’t care about how many clicks you generated on your Web site. Neither likely does your CEO. And your VP Sales doesn’t want more leads. They want better-quality leads. The bottom line? While clicks matter, it’s the outcome of the click, not the click itself, that really counts. In 2009, your organization will want you to “show them the money” – that is, prove to them not only your impact on demand creation, but importantly, your impact on revenue creation.
StollerUSA announced university research results on the effect of Root Power on onion crops. The research was performed by Dr. T X Liu, professor of entomology, Texas Agri-Life Research, at the Texas A&M University System Weslaco site.
The American Soybean Association celebrated more than a decade of diligent and persistent work on behalf of U.S. soybean farmers to advance global acceptance of new biotech soybean traits after LibertyLink soybeans (A2704-12) from Bayer CropScience received food safety approval from the Korean Food and Drug Administration (KFDA).
Bayer CropScience announced that it acquired certain assets and technology related to biological development products of Agrogreen, Ashdod, Israel.
I know that the flooding in North Dakota may have subsided but I’m sure the results are going to be felt for some time to come. I have been meaning to post this but hadn’t really had a chance to until this morning. The folks at AdFarm’s office in Fargo were certainly in the thick of it. For example, the photo is of AdFarmer Leah Brakke taking a break from sandbagging with the Red River creeping up behind her on a day when seven inches of snow fell on Fargo.
For the past week, the AdFarm Fargo employees have been busy helping their community with sandbagging efforts to slow down the flooding across the region.
Fargo-based AdFarmer Carina Emil wrote in company-wide email yesterday: “It was one long week of sandbagging at our housing developments and throughout the City of Fargo. Thankfully, each of our homes are dry and we are praying that they stay that way until the Red River falls to 37 feet or lower. As you may have heard, the Red River crested on Saturday at 40.82 feet which is a new record for Fargo.”
Now, as the snowstorm that covered Bismarck with more than two feet of snow hits Fargo, all AdFarmers are hopeful that the quickly constructed sandbag levees and earthen dikes hold and continue to protect the city.
AdFarmer Katie Pinke, who lives in Wishek near Bismarck, passed along these links to videos depicting the courageous efforts of the City of Fargo.
I hope this isn’t a trend we’ll be seeing in the industry. It’s a very short announcement sent out today by Deere & Company:
Deere & Company said today that 160 employees of the John Deere Des Moines Works will be placed on indefinite layoff later this month due to reduced market demand for the factory’s products.
Deere said the layoffs affect production workers with the least seniority and that employees were told of the plans in meetings today at the factory. The layoffs are effective April 27th. The John Deere Des Moines Works manufactures tillage, planting, spraying and cotton harvesting equipment for agriculture.
In this week's program Chuck talks with David Armano, Global Innovation and Integration.
David conducted a presentation on delivering expert opinion via social media to an audience at the start of International Poultry Expo week. He's got some great information about who consumers trust and how you can use today's consumer behavior to help communicate your message.
Thanks to Brian Reuwee’s phone I got a photo from the Gateway NAMA chapter meeting I missed last week. The chapter hosted the John Brown Scholars of the University of Missouri for a crash course in public relations before heading out to a St. Louis Cardinals game. Almost 60 people attended which would make this meeting one of our largest in a long time.
In this week’s program I interview the panel members of the NAMA breakout session I’m moderating at the end of the week – 
Last year you got to meet Cory Cart, Agricultural FINDERBINDER here on 
I remember him well when he interned for me many moons ago. He was such a promising lad. Glad to see he kept his promise and congratulations Curt! The photo is from the ZimmComm archive at NAMA Boot Camp last year.
You can now sell your tractor by auction on the web at 
Have you played 
I saw my first steeplechase races live and exciting today in Monkton, MD thanks to the 
The race was pretty exciting but I don’t have the winner’s name. If anyone knows they’re welcome to leave it in the comments.
This is what the John Deere Drive Green Utility Tractor Show is all about. Driving John Deere equipment. Today’s show stop is set up perfectly for people like Carl Daly, here to test drive the new line of utility tractors and vehicles. We’ll meet Carl in a video interview I’ll post with him on the 
If you’ve got to work on Good Friday at least doing it in a place this pretty helps. This is just one of the farms in the Oxford, PA area.
Hello non-profits. Here’s a chance to obtain a grant for public relations services. The folks at 
Every time the USDA issues an important crop report, the 
Today the call focused on the 
Speaking of NAMA. I’ll be the NAMA blogger once again this year and you can find posts on the 
It’s a travel day for the agriblogger. I’m heading east for a couple days work on the 
With an alert from the Quarry Integrated Communications 
I know that the flooding in North Dakota may have subsided but I’m sure the results are going to be felt for some time to come. I have been meaning to post this but hadn’t really had a chance to until this morning. The folks at 
I hope this isn’t a trend we’ll be seeing in the industry. It’s a very short announcement sent out today by 
In this week's program Chuck talks with David Armano, Global Innovation and Integration.
