Elanco President Jeff Simmons wants people in agriculture to speak up and make it personal when it comes to safe, abundant, affordable food. The NAMA Agribusiness Leader of the Year says it all boils down to those four words. “I do think that we need to get our of our bubbles, get off of our farms and speak up because …
NAMA President Thrilled With State of Industry
The president of the National Agri-Marketing Association (NAMA) is thrilled with this year’s conference attendance and the current state of the organization. “It’s always good to be the queen when things are good,” said Vicki Henrickson of BCS Communications. “We have 1700 members this year, we haven’t had that many since the year 2000. We’ve got 1200 registrations for conference …
Become An 800-Pound Gorilla
The first educational session at this year’s Agri-Marketing Conference focused on “Becoming and 800-pound Gorilla: How To Dominate Your Market.” Our presenter was Bill Guertin, Chief Enthusiasm Officer, The 800-Pound Gorilla. Well I guess he should know how to do it then! I talked with Bill before his presentation. He says that the 800-pound gorilla is “the dominate player in …
Giving Reversible a New Meaning
I’ve owned reversible jackets, pants and hats, but I’ve never owned a pair of cotton flannel double-thumbed gloves. They might look a bit of an oddity, but they were quite popular back in the day for husking corn. Corn picking was done by hand, and then you’d have to take the husks off before putting it in the sheller or …
Making Agri-Marketing Google Juice
It has been a great opening day to the 2011 Agri-Marketing Conference. ZimmComm has continued to make Google Juice and actually shared a little with our fans and clients in the Connection Point trade show. So cheers from Kansas City, MO. Cindy and I will be collecting stories and interviews throughout the meeting and probably won’t get them all posted …
Judging NAMA Student Marketing Competition
What would a NAMA Student Marketing Competition be without judges? Here are some judges hard at it this morning during the preliminary presentations. I spoke to one of them, Kelly Loganbill (center). She’s just another example of NAMA member volunteer in action. Kelly says these students represent “the fantastic future of agriculture.” She got involved to give back to the …
Hall Monitor Maven
It takes a lot of volunteers work to put on an Agri-Marketing Conference and a student marketing competition. Nancy Barcus, Agriculture Future of America, Director of Leader Development Programs is one. She’s the hall monitor during the early round of student presentations. She has to keep the hallway clear during presentations to prevent distractions. This is important stuff here! Nancy …
Visiting With Vance
What is the one thing you like best about NAMA and the Agri-Marketing Conference? For me it’s the opportunities for networking and fellowship with clients and friends. That’s what I got to do at the Vance Publishing reception at The Cashew last night. While there I met Tim Tobeck, VP/Publishing Director. Tim is relatively new to Vance so with my …
AgWired App Now In Android Market
The AgWired App is now available in the Android Market. You asked for it and you’ve got it. One of the new features we’re offering in this app (and soon to be added to the iPhone version) is the ability to share out stories via multiple mechanism like email, Twitter, etc. The first person to download the AgWired Android App …
Actions Speak Louder Than Words
Our last ZimmPoll asked the question, ” How should farmers respond to critical documentaries such as Food Inc.?” It’s not an easy question to answer really. Here’s what our poll results show. 45% said to Let their own actions shape their reputation, 43% said Promote ag through social media, 8% said Be informed but don’t initiate discussion and 3% said …