AgWired

Alltech’s Director of Research, Karl Dawson just got things started at the opening session here at the Symposium. He introduced the mayor of Lexington, Jim Newberry who gave us a very thorough overview of the city and it’s business structure.

Unfortunately I have to go. Right now Dr. Pearse Lyons is on stage giving the opening address. He’s talking about the global need to feed the world while meeting energy needs and consumer demands. The opening video showed some of the ways Alltech is working to address these things.

Well it’s time to hit the road. See you later.

The Fun Run is done. A lot of people showed up at Transylvania University this morning for the Alltech Fun Run. We did about almost 2 miles around the campus. Here’s Alltech founder Dr. Pearse Lyons with the women’s competition winner. I’ve got a few more pictures in the photo album. These are from my phone.

Today the program really gets started with the opening session in just a couple hours. I’ll make it to that session before leaving and heading back home. Maybe next year Alltech will have me back to attend the full conference.

So have a great morning if I don’t get more posted before leaving and stay AgWired!

One of the IFAJ members took my picture this morning while I was doing my agriblogging and farm podcasting presentation. I’ll have to get his card so I can let you know who. Another member thinks it’s funny that I blog about me blogging.

It was a good session with lots of questions about things like how I promote my blogs to drive traffic, how do I exercise editorial control, how do I make money doing this? I saw a lot of note taking so I’m hoping to see some farm news blogs showing up around the world very soon.

The IFAJ board should be finishing up their meeting shortly and then it’s time to go to the international reception and dinner. I slipped out of the board meeting since I’m not on it and did a little downtown run in preparation for tomorrow morning’s Alltech Fun Run. I guess they’ve always had a run at the Symposium and I’m going to do it before heading back out on the highway.

Probably the biggest disappointment of the Alltech tour was that their in-office Irish Pub was closed. You have got to love a company that has their own pub on the premises. I’m sure I know where happy hour is.

These are the taps in the pub because they only serve Kentucky Ale from the Lexington Brewing Company. This is an Alltech company and if you’re an AgWired regular you’ll know that I’m a big fan.

In my next post I’ll feature an interview with Alltech founder, Pearse Lyons. You’ll hear him talk about his background in the brewing industry in Ireland. He’s built an incredible company from using his brewing background.

Talk about forward planning, Alltech is going to be the sponsor of the World Equestrian Games which will be held in 2010 in Lexington, KY. It’s a multi-million dollar investment and you might wonder why they would choose this venue.

Here’s how they put it to the IFAJ group in a short presentation about the future games. The Olympics bring in about 500,000 people, the World Equestrian Games will bring in about 600,000 people. I would have never guessed that. Additionally, the exposure from these games will be reaching a much more customer oriented audience than another venue might.

In June 2006, Alltech proudly became the first ever title sponsor of the World Equestrian Games (WEG), to be held in Lexington, Kentucky from the 25th September – 10th October 2010. These world-class events are the major international championships for equestrianism, administered by the Fédération Equestre Internationale (FEI).

The games are held every four years, half way between each pair of consecutive Summer Olympic Games. Past games have included seven disciplines: dressage, show-jumping, eventing, cross-country, vaulting, combined driving and reining. Paraequestrianism will be included for the first time at the Alltech FEI WEG 2010.

It’s afternoon now and our IFAJ board meeting group took a break to tour the Alltech headquarters building. First we stopped at the convention center to get registered and then board a bus.

I understand there will be almost 1,700 people here from around the world attending the Alltech Symposium. It’s truly an international experience. In fact this evening’s dinner is called an international dinner. I assume we’ll have an interesting menu.