AgWired

The inaugural AGMasters Conference is underway at the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana and there is a good crowd on hand, despite the fact that many farmers around the state are still out harvesting corn. This event is a new format for a conference that has a 60 year history at the university. Once upon a time, it was called “Spray School” – but it has evolved into so much more.

I talked with one of the co-chairs, Mike Gray, an entomologist with the Department of Crop Sciences. Mike says the organizers of the conference decided to move to the beautiful new I Center this year and have it in December instead of January. “Who would have known with this late harvest that we would have some issues surface because of that,” he said.

They also decided to change the format to a general session the first day and a classroom setting with breakouts on the second day. Check out the AGMasters conference blog for full coverage.

Started a Flickr photo album here – and you can listen to or download my interview with Mike below.

As Chuck heads out of the country, I am heading out to Champaign, Illinois today to cover the inaugural AGMasters Conference at the University of Illinois. I will be providing coverage here on Agwired and other ZimmComm sites, as well as on the AGMasters Conference blog – with the help of several ag comm and crop science students from the university whose profiles you can read on the blog now.

According to the organizers, “this year’s conference represents a significant transition from a rich history of conferences conducted over a 60 year-span to a new era. Those conferences included the Custom Spray Operators’ Training School, Illinois Agricultural Pesticides Conference, and the Crop Protection Technology Conference. Each of these conferences continues to leave us a lasting legacy of the commitment of the University of Illinois to our agricultural stakeholders and clientele.”

The two-day program is jam-packed with an array of presenters and session covering a variety topics important to agriculture, from the global perspective, to increasing yields, biotechnology, fertilizers and glyphosate resistance.

On-site registration for the event is still possible, and I would definitely encourage you to attend if you can. This conference promises to be a great one. But, if you can’t be there in person, we will be providing wall-to-wall coverage with photos, audio and more. Stay tuned!

It’s just natural for people to look for the next big thing and in media it’s no different. I’ve been asked a number of times by clients and friends “Is blogging still relevant?” or “With Twitter, do I still need my blog?” My answer is that a good blog is as much or more relevant than ever. Here’s one reason IMHO. Ideally, you are trying to create a community of followers/friends/customers/members. For the AgWired community I believe that revolves around the blog AgWired.com. This is my online publishing platform. I can’t say this much in 140 characters. I think Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, Facebook and all the others enhance the center of the community – AgWired.com. They’re like spokes on the wheel. They help me promote the blog and have side conversations with specific community members who favor one mechanism over another.

Matt Mullenweg, creator of WordPress, our blog platform, agrees and says, “new forms of social media, including micro-blogging, are complementary to blogging”

It’s not really a “versus,” it’s an “and.”

Via Podcasting News

Would you agree or disagree? Feel free to post how you think your blog fits into today’s communications plans.