Category Archives: NAMA

Communicating With MustangRED

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MustangRED Communications was announced just before the 2012 Agri-Marketing Conference. During the conference I had a chance to visit with founder and owner and good friend, Sally Behringer.

Sally says MustangRED works with a network of industry professionals to provide full service communications services. Sally has been in the business for a long time and really understands a wide variety of types of agricultural businesses, including government relations work. So, if you’re in need, give Sally a call!

Interview with Mustang Red Sally

AgCareers are Hot!

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Careers in agriculture are hot right now, a bright spot in the overall economy.

We talked with Eric Spell, president of AgCareers.com, at the recent National Agri-Marketing Association annual convention, where the company was actually born 12 years ago as a student presentation by the University of Florida. (Go Gators!)

“It is an exciting time to be in agriculture,” Eric says. “Through the first quarter of 2012 compared to 2011, we’ve seen a 17% increase in the number of jobs, which is great.”

Eric says one of the biggest growth areas in agricultural jobs is in precision. “It’s everything from aerospace to people who can service the equipment within the dealerships,” he said.

The tenth annual AgCareers.com Ag HR Roundtable is coming up August 7-9 on the campus of Tyson Foods in Springdale, Arkansas, which Eric says will also include their sister company, CareersInFood.com. “The speaker lineup will be the best yet and it will be a great celebration,” he says of the educational and networking event. Last year’s conference was attended by a record of nearly 200 participants and they expect this year’s conference to be even bigger. “The first one that we had, I think we had 87 attendees.”

Attendance is limited to 220 and Eric told us at NAMA when registration had just opened that they already had 30 registered – so if you want to be there, it would be good to register as soon as possible. It’s well worth it for agricultural HR people and anyone involved in food or agriculture education. Find out more on the conference website.

Listen to my interview with Eric here: Eric Spell Interview

Walter Bond Says Get Bigger, Stronger and Faster

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He’s America’s Accountability Leader. He’s Bond, Walter Bond. He was also our final speaker at the 2012 Agri-Marketing Conference with a session titled, “No One Can Stop You, But You.” Walter is a former NBA player.

I asked Walter what he wanted these agrimarketing professionals to take away from his presentation. He says the main message is, “I don’t want them to go back home and be the same professional when they left.” He says his background as a professional athlete taught him to get bigger, stronger and faster. He’s applied that same strategy to his post athletic career and suggests the same for NAMA members.

You can listen to my interview with Walter here: Walter Bond Interview

2012 Agri-Marketing Conference Photo Album

2012 Agri-Marketing Conference Excerpts

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ZimmCast 347In this week’s program you’re going to hear why the Agri-Marketing Conference is such an important program to have on your schedule each year.

I’ve taken some excerpts from two of our keynote speakers, Peter Sheahan and Ross Shafer as well as an interview with one of our Conference Planning Committee members, Scott McClure, and put them into a program. Let’s get started in show order with Peter Sheahan. Peter talked about “Making it Happen: How To Turn Good Ideas Into Great Results.” Peter talks about how you take good ideas and then execute. It’s in the execution that you take those ideas and innovate!

Next we’ll move along to Ross Shafer who spoke on “Are You Still Relevant?” Of course we’d all like to think we’re relevant. One of the first things Ross says that sticks with me is the idea of “quit going to ag meetings.” He highly suggests going to meetings for other industries. He says that you’ll hear ideas in those meetings you’ll never hear in an ag meeting. That might be just what you need to stay relevant!

And finally we’ll visit with Scott McClure, Brighton Agency, who was our Vice Chair of this year’s NAMA Conference Planning Committee. Scott says the success of this year’s Conference is a combination of the enthusiasm in our industry and the coming together of one of the largest gatherings of people we’ve had in a decade. Scott also says he worked on a great planning committee this year and gives them the credit for coming up with a really good program that included speakers like Peter and Ross.

Listen to this week’s ZimmCast here: 2012 Agri-Marketing Conference Program

Thanks to our ZimmCast sponsors, GROWMARK, locally owned, globally strong and Monsanto, for their support.

The ZimmCast is the official weekly podcast of AgWired. Subscribe so you can listen when and where you want. Just go to our Subscribe page.

Iowa State Student NAMA Wins Marketing Competition

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The announcement of the student NAMA team that wins the annual marketing competition at the annual Agri-Marketing Conference is always so emotional. There are smiles, cheers and tears. And you even find them on the students too!

This year the winning team is the Iowa State University Student NAMA team. I did not get to be involved in the team competition much this year so somebody needs to help me out and add a comment about what their product was. Sorry, I just did not get notes of that. However, I did capture the winners on video. Think they’re excited?

The other winners included:

2nd place – University of Minnesota,

3rd place – Kansas State University,

4th place – University of Wisconsin-Madison,

5th place – Arizona State University,

6th place – University of Illinois-Urbana/Champaign.

2012 Agri-Marketing Conference Photo Album

Flapcakes with Chef Ray

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Chef Ray made both kinds, pancakes and flapjacks. We call them flapcakes. So did you AgWired fans at the 2012 Agri-Marketing Conference survive the Brownfield Party for a little After Party Pancakes with Rhea + Kaiser? These folks did and I did too. There’s just something about having an early morning breakfast and then a later in the morning breakfast that gets your day off to a great start. Know what I mean?

In case you didn’t make it to Chef Ray’s breakfast you can still learn a little etiquette from him.

2012 Agri-Marketing Conference Photo Album

NAMA Membership and Conference Attendance Growth

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The 2012 Agri-Marketing Conference was a good one with an attendance near the record set in 2000 according to National Agri-Marketing Association President Beth Burgy, Broadhead. I spoke with Beth during the conference and agreed with her statement at our board meeting that it is really nice not to have major “issues” to be dealing with. However, the NAMA Executive Committee and Board are still working on the NAMA Strategic Plan and are continuing to explore ways to fully and successfully implement it. Beth says we have a “youth movement” going on in NAMA and lots of opportunities exist within the industry. Beth says she’s having a wonderful time as President and looks forward to the rest of the year.

You can listen to my interview with Beth here: Beth Burgy Interview

2012 Agri-Marketing Conference Photo Album

Some #NAMA12 Social MentionAtivity

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We always want to know about how to measure social media. Do you with there was some simple mechanism that just takes one click? Yeah. Me too.

Here’s a graphic looking at the 2012 Agri-Marketing Conference hashtag – #NAMA12. This is using Social Mention and looking at the “all” category. I like seeing 102 unique authors and zero negativity!

It’s also interesting to search the hashtag to see what you can find there.

2012 Agri-Marketing Conference Photo Album

2012 NAMA Best of Show

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Thanks to a little help from the NAMA staff I can share photos of the Best of Show winners from the 2012 Best of NAMA competition.

Up first is Best of Show – Advertising

Client: South Dakota Corn Growers Association, Sioux Falls, SD – Teddi Mueller

Agency: Paulsen Marketing, Sioux Falls, SD – Mindy Dale

Message: Agriculture is a growing and innovative industry that is very important to the state. It is also important in our daily lives as corn and other agricultural products are used to make many items we use in our everyday lives from fuel for our vehicles to toothpaste and toothbrushes.

Audience: Youth and school children in urban and rural areas of South Dakota.

Next up is Best of Show – Public Relations

Client: Case IH, Racine, WI – Julie Rudnick

Agency: Morgan & Myers/Equity Creative/Thomaswerks, Waukesha, WI – Ellen LaRose

Message: To showcase the Case IH Steiger, Magnum and Puma tractors which were postitioned to deliver Efficient Power – a combination of the most available power with the lowest fuel consumption.

Audience: Farm owners/operators, farm managers, used equipment purchasers and part-time farmers.

Congratulations to all the Best of NAMA award winners. You can find the complete list in the current issue of AgriMarketing Magazine.

2012 Agri-Marketing Conference Photo Album

NAMA 2012 Marketer of the Year Award

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The NAMA Marketer of the Year Award is the organization’s highest honor for an active member and this year the recipient is Greg Guse, Paulsen Marketing. Pictured is Greg receiving his award from Rich Jefferson, AEM/AG CONNECT Expo, Professional Recognition Committee Chair (left) and NAMA President Beth Burgy, Broadhead.

You can listen to Greg’s remarks after receiving his award here: Greg Guse Award Remarks

2012 Agri-Marketing Conference Photo Album

NAMA 2012 Agribusiness Leader of the Year

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The NAMA Agribusiness Leader of the Year is the organization’s highest award. Receiving the 2012 award is John Becherer, United Soybean Board. Here’s John (right) on stage at the 2012 Agri-Marketing Conference receiving his award from Rich Jefferson, AEM/AG CONNECT Expo, Professional Recognition Committee Chair (left) and NAMA President Beth Burgy, Broadhead. John was introduced by Rich and I recorded the remarks we heard from them for you.

You can listen to John’s remarks after receiving his award here: John Becherer Award Remarks

2012 Agri-Marketing Conference Photo Album

Getting Our Photos Taken Together

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Just to prove people wrong . . . I kept hearing that “you and Cindy never get your pictures taken together.” Oh yes we do. But when you’re the photographers you’re mostly focused on other people.

But just to show that we do do get our pictures taken together we took pictures of each of us at the same time during the Brownfield Party. So there.

By the way, we’ve added all the photos we’re going to in the online photo album. Hope you enjoy them.

2012 Agri-Marketing Conference Photo Album

The Brownfield Red Solo Cup Dancers

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This year at the 2012 Agri-Marketing Conference Brownfield Party we were treated to a performance by the Red Solo Cup Dancers. Here’s the dancing and singing troop before things got rowdy started. I wish I had all their names but I think they’re most well known as a team. So you can figure out who they are.

You may also be able to figure out who some other people are in the video performance I recorded at Thursday night’s Howl at the Moon event. There are also some photos in our online photo album since it has finally been updated.

2012 Agri-Marketing Conference Photo Album

Corporate Social Media How “Not To”

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Hello AgWired fans. I’ve been getting a lot of questions about why our coverage of this year’s 2012 Agri-Marketing Conference has been so “skimpy.” The simple answer has been two words, internet access. The Sheraton here has apparently had major problems with their internet access. So I will be uploading hundreds of great photos that Cindy and I have taken including from last night’s infamous Brownfield Party and R+K Pancake After Party. I’ve got some wonderful content to share with you so you can expect it over the next several days.

Now, getting back to the Sheraton and their internet access. After realizing the hotel lobby wireless was about the same quality as rural dialup I tried my hotel room wireless (which I am not being charged for at this point). It worked even worse and the in-room ethernet port did not work at all. So after talking more than once with hotel customer service we had an ethernet cable dropped off that actually had broken connectors on the ends! Not sure why they dropped it off. However, on a follow up phone call I was assured that a technician would show up. He never did even though I waited an extra almost half hour for him. So, being the social guy I am I posted about this on the Sheraton corporate Facebook page. Here’s the exchange:

Chuck Zimmerman
Guest room wireless not worth paying for at Crown Plaza in KC, MO. Only getting .47Mbps down, .21Mbps up right now. Ethernet cable connection doesn’t work at all. Already had one tech look at it. Terrible. Lobby wireless almost non existent too.
20 hours ago · Like

Sheraton Hotels & Resorts Hello Chuck,
Can you please clarify which hotel you are staying at. We have The Sheraton Suites Country Club Plaza, Sheraton Kansas City Hotel at Crown Center and The Westin Kansas City at Crown Center. Once we have this information we will contact the hotel to further address.
Thank you
20 hours ago · Like

Chuck Zimmerman
The Sheraton KC, MO Crown Center. Used to be a Hyatt. Last time I called customer service he promised a technician within 30 minutes. After 45 min I had to leave. No one showed up. Earlier in the day a technician dropped off an Ethernet cable with broken end connectors. It didn’t work. We’ve tried on both PC and Mac.
17 hours ago via mobile · Like

Sheraton Hotels & Resorts
Thank you for this information. A manager will be reaching out to you to further assist. If you would like to discuss this matter further with us please feel free to email us at smassistance@starwoodhotels.com.
16 hours ago · Like

So, at this point it has been 16 hours since that last written promise of contact. Nothing. I at first thought that this was cool. They were responding on a corporate level even though local management wasn’t doing a good job. However, a social media response is not worth much if there is no follow through. It makes for a good lesson in how a company can use social media, or should I say, not use it correctly?

Post Update:

Here’s the rest of the FB thread to this point. And, no, no one left me a message on my room vm. That’s not true.

Chuck Zimmerman No one reached out to me at this point. Never had this kind of service at this hotel. I’m guessing your takeover and management changes are still a work in progress. Oh well. Thanks anyway.
Yesterday at 8:49am · Like

Sheraton Hotels & Resorts Hello Chuck Zimmerman, We understand a manager left a voice mail for you in your guest room yesterday. If you have already checked out and are unable to speak to a manager, please email us at the above address so we can have someone follow up with you directly.
Yesterday at 10:40am · Like

Agri-Marketing Conference Twitter hashtag – #NAMA12.

2012 Agri-Marketing Conference Photo Album

NAMA Connection Point Off To Great Start

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The 2012 Agri-Marketing Conference trade show known as the Connection Point got off to a great start tonight. Here’s the ZimmComm team including our daughter Caitlin on the left with Cindy and myself. If we didn’t get to see you there yet then please stop by sometime tomorrow and pick up your screen cleaner since Cleanliness is next to Appiness. Here’s to hoping you’ve got the AgWired App on your smart phone.

The internet access in the Sheraton is horrendously slow in all forms, including lobby or paid in the room and I have not had much luck with either my AT&T hotspot or Verizon one either. A new batch of photos is uploading from today. Maybe they’ll all be there by tomorrow morning. One can only hope.

Remember to use the conference hashtag in your tweets – #NAMA12.

2012 Agri-Marketing Conference Photo Album

NAMA Executive Committee Meets

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The Executive Committee for the National Agri-Marketing Association has been meeting all afternoon in advance of the 2012 Agri-Marketing Conference. We discussed the strategic plan and how things are going with the core areas for it as well as other business of the organization which will be discussed further in tomorrow’s board meeting.

It’s time now for NAMA leaders to freshen up before meeting the students who are all here getting started on their marketing competition. I’ve already seen a number of good friends and NAMA colleagues and can’t wait for the rest of the NAMA games to begin!

Remember to use the conference hashtag in your tweets – #NAMA12.

We’ll be collecting photos to the 2012 Agri-Marketing Conference here: 2012 Agri-Marketing Conference Photo Album

Be AgWired Appy at NAMA

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be appyOur theme at the 2012 National Agri-Marketing Association conference is “Don’t Worry, Be Appy!”

Our AgWired app, sponsored by Raven Industries, is almost two years old now – available for both iPhone and Android users – yet we continue to get new downloads every day and people tell us they use it all the time. It’s a handy way to check the latest posts on all of our websites with just a few clicks. Even those folks who have Blackberries or some other type of phone often download the app to use on their iPad or iPod Touch.

afbf golden plowSo, in honor of our app, our giveaway this year is the cool “Digi-Clean” handy wipe for all types of screens – from cell phones to cameras to iPads and laptops. What is really cool about this tiny little screen cleaner is that it sticks to your device, then unsticks when you want to use it and re-sticks again! They come in several sizes from REALLY tiny to almost 3.5″ wide, but we went for the tablet size that is still small enough for the phone, but big enough to be used on a good sized laptop screen.

So come on by booth #412 this week at the NAMA conference in Kansas City and get yours. Chuck is already there for NAMA business stuff, but I will be heading that way tomorrow with our youngest lovely daughter Caitlin to help us out this year.

We’ll be “appy” to see you there!

NAMA After After Party With Chef Ray

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Pancakes and Flapjacks are the specialties of Chef Ray. He says they are not the same thing. They are on the menu for the Rhea+Kaiser After the After Party this coming Thursday night, or morning, depending on your definition. Watch below if you have not met Chef Ray yet.


Here’s a little info about Ray:

I’m Ray. Work? Not really into it. But, I do own the Kaiser Roll Diner. And, I’m the resident chef @ the 2012 NAMA Pancake Breakfast..after the AFTER party (Brownfield’s shindig). Midnight. 4/19. Be there. Don’t make me come after you.

Find ZimmComm at Connection Point

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Finding ZimmComm at the 2012 Agri-Marketing Conference Connection Point is not hard to do. But this graphic makes it a little easier. We’re hoping to see you there!

Cindy and I will be getting a helping hand from daughter Caitlin and we’ll have some helpful items for you to pick up just for stopping by and saying hello. Our sales manager, Dave Larson, will also be on location with us during the day on Thursday so we hope you’ll get a chance to visit with him too.

Connection Point Hours

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 18
6:00-7:30 p.m. – Best of NAMA Celebration Reception

Thursday, April 19
12:30-2:00 p.m.-Trade Show Luncheon
12:00-1:30 p.m.-Student Mentor Luncheon
3:00-4:00 p.m. – Break
5:00-7:00 p.m. – Trade Show Closing/ABEF Silent Auction

You Won’t be SOLO at the Brownfield Party

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I’ve already seen mention of it more than once on Facebook. It being the annual Brownfield party at the NAMA Agri-Marketing Conference. This year it’s back to Howl at the Moon. How many of you remember being there a couple years ago? How many of you were there but don’t remember being there :) ?

I’ll be the Brownfield photographer again this year so get ready for some great party shots. I mean pictures. Of course.

Cindy and I have our Brownfield party SOLO cups ready to be filled already. Can we use them and then bring them to the party and re-use them? I think so and I’m pretty sure it has already been done!

Just a reminder: The Brownfield NAMA party is for Professional members by invite only. So student NAMA members, keep that in mind and I hope you have a wonderful time in KC, MO. We’re sure looking forward to it.