CNN.com and The Twittering Farmer

Chuck Zimmerman

CNN.com has a nice story by John D. Sutter that covers how farmers are communicating today with their smartphones and Twitter. He spoke with my main man Steve Tucker, Nebraska farmer and Any Kleinschmidt, Ohio State University Extension Agriculture Educator and Assistant Professor and yours truly and also mentions AgChat. Here’s an excerpt:

As he rolls across the wheat fields of his Nebraska farm, Steve Tucker often has his hands not on the wheel of his tractor, but on a smartphone. Steve Tucker, a Twittering farmer, pauses in front of his tractor in Nebraska.

He sometimes posts a dozen messages per day on Twitter, commenting on everything from the weather to the state of his crops to his son’s first tractor ride and even last night’s cheeseburger.

He wants to bring urban Internet users along for the ride. And in doing so, he’s become a sort of text-happy evangelist for rural America.

I love the term, “twittering farmer.” We need more of them and there are a lot already. What’s your take on farmers using new social networking tools to communicate with each other and the general public?

Social Networking

YouTube As Your Home Page

Chuck Zimmerman

ZimmComm YouTube StatsCould you use your YouTube channel as your website homepage? Of course you can. Take BooneOakley, a full-service ad agency in Charlotte, NC as an example.

Want to know about their agency? They’ve got a video for that. Want to know how to contact them? They’ve got a video for that. And so on. The videos have links in them to each other. I need to learn how to do that.

I’ve upgraded our YouTube channel to the new theme viewer and notice that you not only have email built in but you can now do posts in the Recent Activity section. This is really adding new and useful functionality to the site. The image here is from the Insight statistics that are now available to you which give you a lot of information about your video downloads including some basic demographic information. As an example, it shows that we’re getting about 500 views of our videos a day on average. That’s over the 267 videos we currently have archived.

Looks like you’ve now got another great option for starting your own website without a lot of $’s invested! Would you do it?

Inspiration via Smays.com.

Uncategorized

Growth Energy Growing eTeam

Cindy Zimmerman

Growth Energy is building a team from the grassroots to speak up for the ethanol industry.

Tom BuisCEO Tom Buis says they created the eTeam to be “an army of thousands of ethanol consumers and supporters who are willing to take action to spread the message that ethanol is a clean, green renewable fuel available today.”

Buis says they already have 1200 eTeam members signed up who are armed with factual ethanol information to comment on blog posts, write letters to the editor, speak to local organizations, participate in community events, and contact their state and national lawmakers about policy issues.

“Now’s the time we have to stand up in a proactive manner and go out and tell that good story,” Buis says. “Tell people that we’re a low carbon fuel, we emit less greenhouse gases than gasoline, tell them we create jobs and we are helping our nation address a problem that has existed for the past 35 years, that literally our economy and our nation are held over a barrel – an oil barrel.”

Growth Energy is reaching out to people in rural communities where ethanol has created jobs, to farmers, and to consumers who believe in the benefits of ethanol for the economy, the environment and energy security.

Sign up for the eTeam here.

Listen to or download my interview with Tom Buis about the eTeam here:

Audio, Ethanol

Some Sales & Training Days

Chuck Zimmerman

Dave LarsonI might have been a little “quiet” here the last two days but that’s what 760 miles of driving will do to you. This morning I had a brainstorming session with our sales guy Dave Larson, seen hard at work on his Eee PC. No way I was going to get out of a meeting without a picture. Many of you will be hearing from Dave in coming weeks. He’s looking forward to discussing how to promote your agency, clients, product, services, company using the ZimmComm News Network.

Yesterday I spent time in St. Joe, MO with Andrew McCrea, American Countryside and Tom Brand, KFEQ. We just finished building a new website for Andrew and I was doing a little training with them. Andrew has a daily radio program that he also offers in podcast form and Tom helps him with production.

I also had other meetings that included dinner with Joanna Schroeder, 4R Communications, last night and BCS Communications this afternoon. Joanna contributes to AgWired and our Domestic Fuel website. We’re providing her with some website support for two new ones for other clients of hers. At BCS we discussed the John Deere Drive Green Utility Tractor Show project which is coming to a close for now.

So, it’s been a busy time and tomorrow I’ll be off to the Missouri Beef Industry Council for advance blog and Twitter training.

ZimmComm Announcement

Michelle Rook Interviews President Obama

Cindy Zimmerman

President Barack Obama reached out to the farm media this week to promote his administration’s National Rural Tour.

Michelle RookDoing the honors of interviewing the president on behalf of the National Association of Farm Broadcasting was past president Michelle Rook of WNAX, Yankton, SD. Michelle was able to ask Obama about several agricultural issues in the ten minute interview, including renewable fuels, the climate change bill, whether farmers should be concerned about increasing regulations, and how the government might be able to help the livestock industry.

Vice President Joe Biden, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, Commerce Secretary Gary Locke, and Federal Communications Commission Chair Julius Genakowski kicked off the “rural road trip” today in Pennsylvania, announcing $4 billion in loans and grants to bring broadband internet service to rural communities. Other stops are planned in Alaska, Louisiana, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Virginia and Wisconsin. USDA has even launched a Rural Tour website and a Twitter feed for the tour.

Listen to Michelle’s interview with Obama here:

Audio, NAFB

Congratulations Colleen Callahan

Chuck Zimmerman

Colleen CallahanI just found out that good friend Colleen Callahan has been named State Director for Rural Development for Illinois.

“Colleen Callahan will be an important advocate on behalf of rural communities throughout the state and help administer the valuable programs and services provided by the USDA that can enhance their economic success,” said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack.

Callahan is currently the President of Chicago Farmers and runs Colleen Callahan Communications, where she provides communications services to a variety of organizations, including the USDA. In 2008, Callahan was a candidate for the 18th congressional district of Illinois. She has extensive experience in broadcast radio producing segments on agricultural and agribusiness issues. Callahan was the first woman elected as President to the National Association of Farm Broadcasting in 2002, and has received many awards for her broadcast work and contributions to agricultural associations. Her family raises purebred Angus cattle on a family farm near Kickapoo, Illinois. Callahan has a bachelor’s degree in agricultural communications from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Uncategorized

Karlie Elliott Joins ACDC Staff

Chuck Zimmerman

KarlieACDC, not the group, has a new helper. That would be the Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

We extend a special welcome to Karlie Elliott who joined the ACDC staff during May following her graduation from the agricultural communications program here, with a news-editorial emphasis. She is helping search for documents, review them and process them into the collection. This fall she will enter the masters degree program in the Department of Advertising here at the University of Illinois.

Education, University

Meat Water?

Chuck Zimmerman

Meat WaterMeat Water is billed as a “High Efficiency Survival Beverage.” Seems pretty fishy to me. Why? Because it’s the brainchild of German born artist, Till Krautkramer. Till “was born on planet earth in Heidelberg, Germany, just in time to watch the1969 moon landing. It’s possible that the ontological anxiety brought about by this historical event helped shape his rare personality type: The German With A Sense Of Humor.” He’s an artist and photographer. He’s very well connected socially since you can find him on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and a blog connected with Meat Water. And there’s even a blog to point out that Meat Water, just plain “isn’t.”

So, visit DinnerInABottle.com and pick out your favorite flavor. This one seemed especially humorous to me.

IN HONOR OF OUR NEW PRESIDENT, Liquid Innovations, maker of MeatWater™ is introducing HopeJuice™ “Kenyan Beef Stew” as the first Economic Survival Flavor exclusively for Airforce One and the White House and soon for the entire Free World as a whole.

Kenyan Beef Stew

Beef Chuck, Onions, Tomato ( Tumeric + Ginger)

I HAVE A DREAM!

YES WE CAN. . . CHANGE OUR ENERGY DRINK! This is the flavor Barack’s father was dreaming about! Tomatoes, beans and garlic along with a secret combination of African spices and the finest Kansas corn-fed beef are cooked slowly until the flavors meld together into an inspiring, hope-filled beverage that provides sustained energy for when the White House phone rings at 3AM. We promise this will satisfy both the Left and the Right! And with times the way they are, who has the cash to buy all these ingredients? It’s Economic Stimulus in a bottle!

Best enjoyed at oval office temperature!

Food

Zimfo Bytes

Melissa Sandfort

    Zimfo Bytes

  • Monsanto Company announced it has entered into a collaboration agreement with Dole Fresh Vegetables, Inc., to develop new products that will enhance consumer vegetable choices.
  • BASF has more than 100 plot tours planned this summer to demonstrate the performance of the new Kixor herbicide technology.
  • The National Pork Board is seeking input from pork producers across the country for a new plan to shape the future of the U.S. pork industry. The objective of the planning process is to find new solutions to the economic, social, and scientific challenges facing the pork industry.
  • The Iowa State Dairy Association is now accepting nominations for the Ralph Keeling Leadership Award.
    Zimfo Bytes

    Reach Teach Learn With Alpharma

    Chuck Zimmerman

    Alpharma Reach Teach LearnIt seems like more and more companies, organizations and individuals are taking the initiative to help educate our young people today about where their food comes from. Alpharma has joined the effort with it’s new Reach Teach Learn program. Their goal is to “provide youth with the information they need to ensure that honest, educated decisions are made.” Of course you can find them on Twitter.

    Alpharma Inc. Animal Health announced the launch of Reach Teach Learn, a grassroots educational program, 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.

    “There has never been a better time to familiarize students with current agricultural trends and how their decisions affect society,” says Jeff Mellinger, Global Leader, Sales & Marketing for Alpharma Inc., Animal Health. “These initiatives are small steps towards better, more informed and educated students.”

    Reach Teach Learn consists of two main initiatives, a student video contest and an essay contest. The video contest gives college students enrolled in agriculture coursework the opportunity to display their passion for agriculture by creating a video depicting current, ethical agriculture practices. The essay contest, which will be launched for the first time this fall, was created in collaboration with “Ag in the Classroom,” a grassroots program coordinated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In this initiative high school students are asked to provide their perspective writing of an essay on agriculture based on a lesson plan based on a selected book.

    The contests will begin in September and will run through the middle of December. To learn more about Reach Teach Learn, specific initiatives and official contest rules, please visit the program Web site at www.ReachTeachLearn.com.

    Agribusiness, Education