Mobile app technology is growing fast in the ag industry. Even the dairy sector is seeing more and more of it. Take Select Sires which took their Select Detect activity monitoring system to a new level this year when they introduced the mobile optimized version at World Dairy Expo. I spoke with King Smith to learn more about it. In the photo he’s showing the new mobile app on an iPad.
This new mobile application allows dairy producers to access cow records from the barn, from the field or when they are on the go.
The mobile Select Detect application is optimized for iPhone®, iPod touch®, iPad® and Android™-based phones. It allows for a quick remote review of cows on the high activity list, low activity list and heat expectancy list. Both daily and hourly activity charts can be viewed to determine if and when A.I. should be performed. This removes the need for dairy producers to be in the office to review the software and allows for a quick snapshot of activity that is updated every hour.
It is the final day of World Dairy Expo 2011. The ZimmComm team had to return to headquarters but that doesn’t mean we won’t have more stories on World Dairy Diary.
Cindy and I have quite a few interviews to share during the next week so keep your eye on our sister site as we bring you more from this year’s show.
In the meantime, feel free to check out our photos. The colorful fall leaves made a beautiful scene outside between buildings this year and the weather stay just about perfect too.
Badger NAMA, the local chapter of the Nation Agri-Marketing Association, held its annual reception/meeting during the 2011 World Dairy Expo. Here’s chapter president, Travis Maier, Morgan & Myers. I spoke with him about how the chapter is doing. He says chapter membership steady at over 120 and has actually been growing. This meeting is one of their main ones during the year. I think attendance at the meeting was really good. I don’t know how many were there but it was a large meeting. Students were a big part of the meeting too with a program just for them.
Here’s a definition of a Tweet Up: “A real world meeting between two or more people who know each other through the online Twitter service.”
Pretty simple. The official World Dairy Expo Tweet Up took place yesterday afternoon. Here are some of our participants. We actually had more show up.
So why a tweet up? Because it’s a good opportunity to meet someone face to face that you may only know via 140 character messages. I don’t know how many tweet ups I’ve been to at this point but I’ve always enjoyed the opportunity to meet people who I’ve gotten to “know” electronically. The tweet up is usually organized via tweets. Makes sense and shows the communication power of the channel. BTW. Adding free drink tickets and some munchies never hurts a tweet up!
This is one of my favorite photos from yesterday at the 2011 World Dairy Expo. Yes, it’s the men’s bathroom. I had to wait until it was empty to snap a shot.
World Dairy Expo and the sponsors and exhibitors waste no space to get a message out there. In the bathroom we had advertising across the top of the mirrors and as you can see in their reflection, also above the urinals. I just couldn’t resist. It made for an interesting picture.
You can see a full size version in the photo album if you want to read the message.
The ZimmComm team is on site at World Dairy Expo in Madison, Wisconsin. This is the 7th year we have been here at WDX, but the first time the two of us have been here together. We were both here one year but switched off, so not together, and I have been here by myself or with daughter Carly for the past four years. It’s always nice when we get to be somewhere together!
Our great photographer friend Harlan Persinger took this shot for us this morning. The sweet heifer who posed with us is a Guernsey who goes by the name of Safari, owned by Krista Richardson of Ohio. Thanks to Harlan, Krista and Safari!
Photos are being uploaded, the weather is great, and we are enjoying seeing the usual suspects here in the media room. Thanks to our coverage sponsors this year, listed below.
This week the ZimmComm team goes dairy as in World Dairy Expo. Most of our coverage will be found on World Dairy Diary starting on Tuesday.
You can find the daily schedule here. You can also follow what’s going on at Expo with the official Twitter hashtag, #WDE11. Use that in your tweets so we can see what you’ve got to say.
Dairy industry enthusiasts will soon be traveling from faraway places to the Alliant Energy Center in Madison October 4 through October 8 to take a virtual trip “Around the World of Dairy in 5 Days”. World Dairy Expo, the destination, is expecting over 65,000 producers and industry professionals to converge from 90 countries for the five-day dairy celebration.
More than 2,500 head of North America’s most beautiful bovines from 37 states and 7 Canadian provinces will parade across the colored shavings within the themed Showring where official judges with a keen eye for cattle will select the champions. Each animal brings along a traveling caravan of professional fitters to make sure that their stay in Madison is clean, comfortable and relaxing.
We’d like to thank the companies listed below for their sponsorship of our coverage of this year’s show. Without them it wouldn’t be possible.
Let’s meet the President of Charleston|Orwig, Mark Gale. In this week’s program you’ll hear a conversation that Cindy had with Mark at the recent World Dairy Expo. Charleston|Orwig, along with several of their clients were sponsors of our coverage of the annual dairy extravaganza once again.
Mark told Cindy that the agency business has made some dramatic changes in the past few years with the advent of social media and he is proud that Charleston|Orwig has been on the forefront of using these new tools to communicate.
Mark is also one of the founding members of the AgChat Foundation, which is dedicated to helping farmers and ranchers use social media platforms to connect with each other and advocate for agriculture.
This week’s program ends with some fun music from Music Alley. It’s a song titled, “Chocolate Milk” by The Two Man Gentlemen Band. I hope you enjoy it and thank you for listening.
The weather has been fabulous so far this week for the 2010 World Dairy Expo and Wisconsin’s own Fabulous Farm Babe (Pam Jahnke) has been hard at work as usual. She was the first person I saw when I walked in the door yesterday morning, so I figured she would make a great first interview for the expo since she has been the local farm broadcaster in Madison for over 20 years.
I talked with Pam about her background, her career, covering the expo as a reporter and judging cattle as a kid, how the show has changed and how the dairy industry in Wisconsin is doing these days.
Check out the 2010 World Dairy Expo Photo Album and the rest of our coverage of #wde10 on World Dairy Diary sponsored by Alpharma, Arm & Hammer Animal Nutrition, Charleston-Orwig, Novartis Animal Health and Novus International.
Cindy is on location at World Dairy Expo so I thought I’d share one of her posts from World Dairy Diary:
The World Dairy Expo exhibitor party sponsored by Hoard’s Dairyman is always a special event, but this year it was extra special because they are celebrating 125 years!
To mark the anniversary, the publication called in the University of Wisconsin marching band as surprise entertainment for the event. It just happened to be at the exact time that President Obama was speaking on the UW campus just a few miles away, so there was a little concern about whether the band would make it or not. But they made it right on time, giving up their opportunity to see the president visit their school to pay tribute to the dairy industry.
Watch the video of the band here:
Instead of getting presents, Hoard’s was giving presents to celebrate their milestone. They presented World Dairy Expo with artist Bonnie Mohr’s updated “Foster Mothers of the Human Race” featuring all seven dairy breeds. The original Foster Mothers print was created in 1957 followed by updates in 1963, 1991, and 1993 — all of which were painted by former Hoard’s Dairyman Art Director James Baird. Bonnie was commissioned by Hoard’s to paint the new version specifically for the 125th anniversary and it was unveiled officially in June. You can order prints online from Hoards.
The company launched the program earlier this year at the 2009 Agriculture in the Classroom Conference in St. Louis, Missouri. The program supports local school districts and colleges through initiatives that encourage students to learn more about agriculture and how their food is produced, and to share their insights and knowledge about what they learned. I talked with Dr. Lance Fox, Alpharma’s Director of Technical Services, at their exhibit during World Dairy Expo about the purpose of the program.
“Essentially the program is designed to reach out to our youth – elementary, high school, college-level students – our future leaders of tomorrow, to promote agricultural awareness,” Lance told me. “It’s not about products, it’s just about reaching out to the youth.”
It’s also about motivating young people to reach their own personal and professional goals, something Lance has done in his own life and he shares that story when he talks with young people of all ages. He grew up in the Wisconsin dairy industry, became a veterinarian, joined Alpharma as a technical services manager, and earlier this year achieved the personal goal of climbing to the top of Mt. Everest. “If you believe, you can achieve,” Lance says.
Find out more about the Reach Teach and Learn program, which features an essay and video contest for different age level students, at reachteachlearn.com.
Listen to or download my interview with Lance here.
Some of the Twitter-heads attending World Dairy Expo met up for a Tweet Up on Thursday afternoon at the Media Room.
Organized by Twitter AgChat moderator Michele Payn-Knoper, the Tweet Up allowed fellow tweeps to get together and discuss technical and agricultural issues.
If you have not ever participated in AgChat, it takes place on Tuesday nights from 8-10 pm central time.
Charleston Orwig must have more dairy industry related clients than any other communications agency in the country, which makes sense since they are located literally in the heartland of the state synonymous with dairy production – Hartland, Wisconsin. At World Dairy Expo this year they are working with a number of clients – including Alpharma, Arm and Hammer animal nutrition, Novartis, Dairyland Seed and Hoard’s Dairyman.
I talked to Lyle, the Orwig of Charleston Orwig, in the agency’s suite overlooking the expo arena about their commitment to agriculture and the dairy industry. “When we began with Charleston Orwig, agriculture was a focus for us, we didn’t just happen to get a couple of ag accounts and say – oh, let’s be an ag agency,” Lyle said. “Having grown up on a central Illinois dairy farm, it’s important for me personally, as well as the agency to maintain that connection to agriculture and so we have focused on that as we’ve grown the agency.” Lyle says about 85 percent of the agency staff have an agricultural background, either in agribusiness communications or growing up on a farm, or both.
One of Charleston Orwig’s specialties is reputation management, which is critical these days in the animal agriculture industry with critics such as PETA and HSUS becoming more aggressive in trying to sway public opinion against livestock producers. “Part of our mission is to help clients tell their story in a positive way and educate consumers on the need to grow crops and livestock for feeding the world as well as the U.S.,” Lyle says. Listen to my interview with Lyle below.
Charleston Orwig and two of their clients – Hoard’s and Alpharma – are sponsoring coverage of World Dairy Expo this week on our sister blog, World Dairy Diary, and be sure to check out the World Dairy Expo Flickr photo album for all the sights.
The theme of of World Dairy Expo this year is “Legendary” and the experience of having a Badger Dairy Club grilled cheese sandwich is a legendary expeirience. Today I took a moment to try one of their famous grilled cheeses and after just one bite you can tell they have grilled cheese sandwich making down to an art.
The Badger Dairy Club, a student organization on the UW-Madison campus, has become famous for their legendary grilled cheeses they bring to the World Dairy Expo. Every year members of the Badger Dairy Club come to the expo and prepare thousands of grilled cheeses to sell to hungry expo goers. This is one of the club’s biggest fundraisers. Members also put countless of hours before, during and after the expo making the sandwiches as well as setting up show ring displays, picking up milk, and cleaning up the barns.
“Using Popular Media to Tell Dairy Farming’s Story” was the topic of a Tuesday morning seminar at World Dairy Expo conducted by Jolene Griffin of Dairy Management Inc. (pictured on the left) and Polly Ligon O’Grady of Weber Shandwick (right).
Who would have imagined even just a few years ago that things with funny names like Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and YouTube would allow individual agricultural producers to communicate with people all over the world? And, as Jolene told the group on hand, it has never been more important for them to do so. “Other people are actually out there telling our story and they’re telling the wrong story,” Jolene said. “There’s so much misinformation about the dairy industry out there that we need to mobilize dairy producers and the dairy industry to counter that misinformation and to give consumers the correct information about dairy farming and the dairy products that they enjoy.”
Jolene says they launched the MyDairy program earlier this year to help producers learn more about using the various social media platforms and providing key messages to help them communicate effectively. “Since that time we have had over 600 dairy producers sign on for the MyDairy program and they’ve really embraced social media to tell their story,” Jolene said. Producers can sign up for the program by emailing mydairy@rosedmi.com.
We’re heading into dairy industry time. First up is the World Dairy Expo which kicks off tomorrow. Cindy will be attending along with daughter Carly. They’ll begin posting tomorrow morning here but primarily on World Dairy Diary.
The dairy industry’s spotlight will be trained on Madison, Wisconsin, when the 43rd edition of World Dairy Expo takes place September 29 through October 3, 2009. “Legendary” is the theme of this year’s show – a celebration of the legendary trade show, legendary cows and legendary people that make the first week in October one to look forward to.
Immediately following this week’s World Dairy Expo is the Alltech Global Dairy 500 Conference. I’ll be attending this one. So, ZimmComm will be very dairy focused for the next week. We’ll be looking for what’s new and bringing it to you.
“A global forum where dairy is the only topic and dairy farmers the main drivers”
2008 was a banner year for Alltech on many fronts including the inception of the Global Dairy 500 Conference. Over 300 dairy professionals representing over 40 nations assembled in Lexington to share ideas, experiences, and their own personal vision on the future of dairying worldwide.
Join us in 2009, as Alltech will renew its commitment to producers by again hosting the Global Dairy 500 Conference.
I’m still in World Dairy Expo mode and thought you might be interested in this program.
Grant Kohler is a dairy farmer from Utah where he milks 300 cows with a family operation. He was attending World Dairy Expo to talk about the Childhood Nutrition Fitness Initiative that’s a joint project of the National Dairy Council and the National Football League.
He says, “It brings a package not just to the cafeteria of the school but a package that can engage the principals and teachers.” The NFL teams are on board to provide their players as spokespersons when and where needed. He says the program includes a full nutritional plan that of course includes dairy. He’s proud to say that over 40,000 schools have already signed on. Here’s some excerpts from a recent release on the project.
To poise the multi-year program for success, the NDC will spend $100 million over five years to support this initiative, including school grants. The NDC will spend an additional $150 million on other efforts aimed at improving child health and wellness.
“We are taking a leadership role to help kids win the battle for good health,” said NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell. “Our players know the importance of staying healthy, and it’s important that we help young fans understand the value of exercise.”
You can listen to my interview with Grant as part of our Milking Parlor Podcast: milking-parlor-39.mp3
To subscribe to the Milking Parlor podcast, here are some instructions.
If you’re a media person needing some dairy information, especially photos, then Dairy Impact is where you need to go.
This is a website of the Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board. Here’s WMMB, Vice President, Producer Communications & Programs, Matt Joyce, showing it off to World Dairy Expo Dairy Woman of the Year, Marion Barlass at this year’s Expo.
Matt says you’ll find the largest collection of dairy related photos on the web when you visit.
You can listen to my interview with Matt as part here: wdx-08-joyce.mp3
She says they were there to remind dairy producers that they’re also beef producers. I got there just in time to sample some of their flat iron steaks they were serving. In fact, I’m making one for supper tonight!
In this week's program Chuck talks with Mike Adams, AgriTalk.
Chuck and Mike often wind up at the same events all over the country so it seemed like a good idea to do a little AgriTalking about the changes they've seen in the ag media landscape.
Mobile app technology is growing fast in the ag industry. Even the dairy sector is seeing more and more of it. Take Select Sires which took their Select Detect activity monitoring system to a new level this year when they introduced the mobile optimized version at World Dairy Expo. I spoke with King Smith to learn more about it. In the photo he’s showing the new mobile app on an iPad.
The ZimmComm team is on site at World Dairy Expo in Madison, Wisconsin. This is the 7th year we have been here at WDX, but the first time the two of us have been here together. We were both here one year but switched off, so not together, and I have been here by myself or with daughter Carly for the past four years. It’s always nice when we get to be somewhere together!
If you missed the 2010 World Dairy Expo, you missed a lot!
Let’s meet the President of 
Mark told Cindy that the agency business has made some dramatic changes in the past few years with the advent of social media and he is proud that Charleston|Orwig has been on the forefront of using these new tools to communicate. 
The weather has been fabulous so far this week for the 2010 
Cindy is on location at World Dairy Expo so I thought I’d share one of her posts from 
Instead of getting presents, Hoard’s was giving presents to celebrate their milestone. They presented World Dairy Expo with artist Bonnie Mohr’s updated “Foster Mothers of the Human Race” featuring all seven dairy breeds. The original Foster Mothers print was created in 1957 followed by updates in 1963, 1991, and 1993 — all of which were painted by former Hoard’s Dairyman Art Director James Baird. Bonnie was commissioned by Hoard’s to paint the new version specifically for the 125th anniversary and it was 
“Essentially the program is designed to reach out to our youth – elementary, high school, college-level students – our future leaders of tomorrow, to promote agricultural awareness,” Lance told me. “It’s not about products, it’s just about reaching out to the youth.”
Some of the Twitter-heads attending World Dairy Expo met up for a Tweet Up on Thursday afternoon at the Media Room. 
I talked to Lyle, the Orwig of Charleston Orwig, in the agency’s suite overlooking the expo arena about their commitment to agriculture and the dairy industry. “When we began with Charleston Orwig, agriculture was a focus for us, we didn’t just happen to get a couple of ag accounts and say – oh, let’s be an ag agency,” Lyle said. “Having grown up on a central Illinois dairy farm, it’s important for me personally, as well as the agency to maintain that connection to agriculture and so we have focused on that as we’ve grown the agency.” Lyle says about 85 percent of the agency staff have an agricultural background, either in agribusiness communications or growing up on a farm, or both. 
The theme of of 
“Using Popular Media to Tell Dairy Farming’s Story” was the topic of a Tuesday morning seminar at 
We’re heading into dairy industry time. First up is the 
Immediately following this week’s World Dairy Expo is the 
I’m still in World Dairy Expo mode and thought you might be interested in this program.
If you’re a media person needing some dairy information, especially photos, then 
The 
In this week's program Chuck talks with Mike Adams, AgriTalk.
