Speaking of NAMA. I’ll be the NAMA blogger once again this year and you can find posts on the NAMA blog.
As you can see it’s being sponsored by Successful Farming, just like AgWired! Thank you Agriculture.com.
Cindy will be with me and we’ve got help from Michelle Kautz, who is doing free lance writing for us on our Domestic Fuel website. So that’s the ZimmComm crew you’ll find in Atlanta next week.
It’s looking like we’re going to have a great show so rest up. The games begin next Tuesday!
It’s a travel day for the agriblogger. I’m heading east for a couple days work on the Drive Green Utility Tractor Show. These stops will wrap up the east/south route and then the big rig heads west through Missouri.
I had to stop off the highway on the way to the airport this morning for this photo. You can also find one I tweeted from my phone here.
I’ll get home on Easter and have a day to pack for NAMA. You’re all going right? Last I heard the trade show is sold out and we’re on our second overflow hotel. If you’re not there then you’re . . .
Remember that when you stop by the ZimmComm booth you can register to win a very cool giveaway – HP Mini Netbook!
With an alert from the Quarry Integrated Communications Twitter feed I was pointed to their blog: Idea Exchange. It contains “a series of articles examining ways to thrive, not just survive, in 2009.” Here’s an example.
You all know the deal. During periods of economic instability, your organization will focus with laser-like precision on the bottom line, allocating dollars to only those areas they know will deliver positive business results.
While clicks matter, it’s the outcome of the click, not the click itself, that really counts.
Your CFO doesn’t care about how many clicks you generated on your Web site. Neither likely does your CEO. And your VP Sales doesn’t want more leads. They want better-quality leads. The bottom line? While clicks matter, it’s the outcome of the click, not the click itself, that really counts. In 2009, your organization will want you to “show them the money” – that is, prove to them not only your impact on demand creation, but importantly, your impact on revenue creation.
Continue reading →
I know that the flooding in North Dakota may have subsided but I’m sure the results are going to be felt for some time to come. I have been meaning to post this but hadn’t really had a chance to until this morning. The folks at AdFarm’s office in Fargo were certainly in the thick of it. For example, the photo is of AdFarmer Leah Brakke taking a break from sandbagging with the Red River creeping up behind her on a day when seven inches of snow fell on Fargo.
For the past week, the AdFarm Fargo employees have been busy helping their community with sandbagging efforts to slow down the flooding across the region.
Fargo-based AdFarmer Carina Emil wrote in company-wide email yesterday: “It was one long week of sandbagging at our housing developments and throughout the City of Fargo. Thankfully, each of our homes are dry and we are praying that they stay that way until the Red River falls to 37 feet or lower. As you may have heard, the Red River crested on Saturday at 40.82 feet which is a new record for Fargo.”
Now, as the snowstorm that covered Bismarck with more than two feet of snow hits Fargo, all AdFarmers are hopeful that the quickly constructed sandbag levees and earthen dikes hold and continue to protect the city.
AdFarmer Katie Pinke, who lives in Wishek near Bismarck, passed along these links to videos depicting the courageous efforts of the City of Fargo.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZ6X4Vc8KaY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMun8i7b768
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcMZ_0guIgE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdxtwROYTgE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKlK1bnkHNs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvkE_F0LXp0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=851tKxPaOXc
I hope this isn’t a trend we’ll be seeing in the industry. It’s a very short announcement sent out today by Deere & Company:
Deere & Company said today that 160 employees of the John Deere Des Moines Works will be placed on indefinite layoff later this month due to reduced market demand for the factory’s products.
Deere said the layoffs affect production workers with the least seniority and that employees were told of the plans in meetings today at the factory. The layoffs are effective April 27th. The John Deere Des Moines Works manufactures tillage, planting, spraying and cotton harvesting equipment for agriculture.
A workshop examining the relationship between public- and private-sector research and agricultural productivity growth, both in the United States and worldwide, takes place later this month at the National Press Club in Washington, DC.
Farm Foundation has teamed up with the the National Agriculture Research Extension, Education and Economics Advisory Board for the April 28th workshop, entitled Agricultural Research and Productivity for the Future.
Growing demand for food in developing countries, expanded use of agricultural crops for biofuels and increased feed demand are changing the landscape of U.S. agriculture away from commodity and food surpluses and low prices. “This challenge to increase productivity comes at a time of increased pressures on natural resources,” says Farm Foundation President Neil Conklin.
Historically U.S. agriculture’s competitiveness in global markets has been driven by a combination of public- and private-sector investments in research, education and technology transfer. In recent years, the growth in U.S. agricultural productivity may have slowed. While funding for agricultural productivity enhancing research in the United States has slowed and in some cases declined, other nations, such as Brazil, have increased their investments agricultural research.
The workshop cover a variety of subjects, including a discussion of economic returns to public agriculture research, productivity trends and prospects for future returns to agricultural research. In addition, in true Farm Foundation fashion, there will be lots of give-and-take as both sides get their voices heard in coming up with solutions for some major challenges facing agriculture, such as climate change, food safety in a global economy, livestock production issues and options and strategies for public- and private-sector funding.
Register at www.farmfoundation.org by April 21st. Make your room reservations by April 13th, since the host hotel, the Doubletree Hotel, 1515 Rhode Island Ave. NW, Washington, D.C., has a limited number of rooms at $189 per night plus tax.
I participated in a very cool use of Twitter tonight. Let’s call it #agchat. That’s the hashtag we used for our tweets to post into the conversation and to reply to each other. As of this post we have 248 tweets posted. Post Update: by ending time we have 331 tweets.
The idea is to do this on Tuesday evenings from 8-10pm eastern. I believe credit for the idea goes to Michele Payn-Knoper, Cause Matters.
She’s already got a Facebook group set up for participants too. You can join by doing a FB search for #agchat.
Questions posed during the online discussion included ones like, “Just to get us warmed up, what do you feel are the most pressing issues in #agriculture right now?” and “So, who does agriculture need to form relationships with to better tell our story? And, how have you done that?”
Responses were flittering (fast twittering). You can still see the posts on Twitter if you search with the hashtag – #agchat. Just go to search.twitter.com.
Maybe we’ll see you there next week?
I had a very enjoyable lunch today with my good friend Derry Brownfield. I know a lot of you know of Derry. He’s that farm broadcaster who is rude, crude, obnoxious, politically incorrect . . . (self description). I worked with Derry for almost 10 years and we covered a lot of miles together.
Derry is still hosting his daily Derry Brownfield Show, “the talk show with a country flavor and a common sense point of view.” He’s in some very spacious office and studio space in California, MO and this was my first visit to his new location. After lunch we came back to his studio and had a nice chat which I recorded for you. It contains some of my favorite Derry Brownfieldisms, like, “ignorance gone to seed.”
His show is being podcasted and you can use this link to subscribe. He also publishes the Common Sense Chronicle.
The Common Sense Chronicle is a monthly newsletter published by The Common Sense Coalition™. Each issue includes thought-provoking articles, musings by Derry, thoughts from Beth, witticisms, advice, and more.
Listen to my interview with Derry here: derry-brownfield-interview.mp3
I hope you enjoy it.
Nothing fuels an Earth Day dinner better than beef.
I think that’s what Beef Ambassador Allison Grainger and friends are telling us in this Earth Day Beef Rap video.
Let me know what you think. I’m sure Allison will be watching.
