AgWired

It sounds like things went very well at the Chicago Farmers Farmland Investment Fair. Michelle Fowler sent me this picture of Andy Holstein with Tim Smith, center of Cropsmith Inc., and Dale Lutz, extension specialist with the Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics at the University of Illinois Extension.

I was also very happy to receive this recommendation from Rich Schell, Wagner & Schell, L.L.P.:

I was on the committee for The Chicago Farmers Farmland Investment Fair and we availed ourselves of Chuck’s new media skills. Getting ZimmComm in the game helped tremendously. With his help, we were able to effectively implement the new media strategy that Jeff Martin and I had developed. Despite an uncertain economy and a rough year for some farm investing sectors, we had very good attendance, picked up new members and may have interested folks in becoming corporate sponsors. In this economy, that is a very successful event indeed.

You can find Rich on his blog.

After my presentation this morning on ag communications and the new media world we had an informal session with some university researchers and teachers who are actively working on ways to employ online strategies for archiving and making educational presentations available.

It’s interesting to hear a different perspective from the university side of the industry. It seems like every sector has its own challenges when it comes to sharing information publicly and online. However, there are still common concerns such as, “how much will it cost?” “can I make it private?” “will this take up too much of my time?”

I couldn’t believe the amount of money WSSA was quoted by a local production company to create a video of a presentation here. The number is almost unbelievable. One of our participants suggested putting my Flip camera on a tripod and shooting it ourselves. That’s good thinking. Doesn’t get any easier than that. The other presenters suggested using some of the software options that are out there to include your slide show.

Here’s my group here in my presentation that’s taking place still at the WSSA meeting in Orlando.

Right now we’re discussing how to implement a new channel of communications and what would be the best one to start with.

I’ll be conducting a shorter session this afternoon during the general session. Getting feedback that showing RSS feeds would be a great item to focus on.