WHITWORTH X BALLOUing

Chuck Zimmerman December 6, 2006

I heard from Doug Ballou today and guess I just missed the announcement for his new company, WHITWORTH X BALLOU. I wish him the best of luck and look forward to hearing more about how things are going.

Veteran marketing executive Doug Ballou has founded WHITWORTH X BALLOU, an organization and business development firm that assists clients improve their marketing effectiveness and organizational performance. Located in Kansas City, Missouri, WHITWORTH X BALLOU offers a comprehensive menu of services to plan, implement and integrate the components of a sales, marketing, and internal performance playbook.

Charter clients of the new firm include MachineryLink, Inc., Kansas City, MO; Ingenuity!, Wichita, KS; Finity Technologies of Lenexa, KS, and Marketlink, DesMoines, IA.

To discuss your project needs and a list of client references contact Doug Ballou.

Agencies

All is Well With Alltech

Chuck Zimmerman December 6, 2006

I’m in Springfield, MO safe and sound. Driving west into the sun with everything covered in white was a painful experience. I guess I could have timed that better.

My first stop here was the local Alltech office and a short visit with Hillary O’Banion the office manager. She’ll be setting up a booth here at the Missouri Cattle Industry Convention sometime tomorrow afternoon. Unfortunately I’m here for a quick visit and will be back at ZimmComm headquarters by then.

Besides all the products for the agricultural industry that Alltech features they also own a brewery and have some of the best beer I’ve ever tasted. You can see some of the product on display in front of Hillary. I’m very happy to say that those “samples” will be going home with me. My plan is to drop off a few to a local distributor friend of mine in central Missouri and see if he would agree to start making Kentucky Ale available in our area.

Thank you Alltech. I hope you have a great show here in Springfield.

Agribusiness

Are Pigs in Pain?

Chuck Zimmerman December 6, 2006

Before heading out to the Missouri Cattle Industry Convention I thought you might want to know that piggies in Belgium are in pain. Actually an animal rights group has created a PR campaign to create awareness.

This is why you need to think about how to get involved in the online conversation folks. This campaign has: a website, a blog and a a YouTube music video which has been viewed a couple thousand times already. The group is GAIA for animal rights.

Via Adrants.

International, Pork

FCC Rules on Farm Journal Petition

Chuck Zimmerman December 6, 2006

As I reported previously here on AgWired, Farm Journal Media had filed a petition with the FCC regarding RFD-TV’s use of non-commercial DBS (direct broadcast satellite) channels. It’s not a real complicated issue but you have to read through some of the documents to get a handle on it.

Yesterday I received a notice from Farm Journal that the FCC has ruled on their petition. You can find a copy of the Order & Declaratory Ruling at that link.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) today granted Farm Journal Media’s November 2005 Petition for Declaratory Ruling against RFD Communications, Inc. (RFD). The FCC concluded that RFD, in acting like a commercial enterprise, does not meet the criteria to be classified as a non-commercial educational programmer for FCC purposes. As a result, RFD’s commercial programming disqualifies the channel from carriage on the Direct Broadcast Satellite (DBS) channels set aside by Congress for the exclusive use of noncommercial entities.

I placed calls and emails to both Farm Journal and RFD-TV to try to find out just exactly why Farm Journal did this and what this means to RFD-TV. Jeff Pence from Farm Journal responded “Farm Journal is not issuing any public comment or statement with regard to Monday’s Ruling. We feel that we’ve clearly stated our position and case in the filings to the FCC, and in our press releases.” He forwarded me a number of pdf files of these documents which really helped clarify the situation and I appreciate that.

As soon as I hear from RFD-TV I’ll update this post and/or do a new one. Both of these companies touch a lot of people involved in agricultural marketing so I hope this works out for the best of all involved.

Media

Learning More About MO DNR

Chuck Zimmerman December 5, 2006

For the first time in a couple of years I got to attend a Mid Missouri Agribusiness Club meeting today while someone else ran it. It’s much more relaxing this way.

Today we had our Missouri Department of Natural Resources Director, Doyle Childers, speak. I have to confess that it was more interesting than I thought it would be. For one thing the DNR here in Missouri implements EPA regs unlike states where EPA does it themselves. So as you can imagine DNR then has a hand in a lot of things important to anyone trying to farm. Childers says they hope to automate a lot of the permitting that has to go through their department in order to speed things up and decrease the man hours involved.

Water was a big topic of discussion. Bioenergy came up and Childers said that his department needed to become more involved in it as well.

He said that in his two years as the state DNR Director he was most proud of the closer working relationship DNR has with the ag community and the updating of their website to make it easier to find stuff.

Ag Groups

It’s Now a New Media Expo

Chuck Zimmerman December 5, 2006

I haven’t been able to attend either of the first two Expos but maybe the third time will be a charm next year. It used to be called the Podcast & Portable Media Expo. I’m pretty psyched that they’ve changed the name to Podcast & New Media Expo.

If you really want to learn about this whole new media thing we’ve been trying to help you understand you can either: 1. Set up a personal ZimmComm New Media consultation or 2. Attend the Podcast & New Media Expo.

The next one is scheduled for September 28-30 at the Ontario Convention Center in Ontaria, CA. The Expo covers these topics:
Audio & Video Creation
Business Podcasting
User-Generated Content
Sponsorship & Advertising Models
Audio/Video Podcasting 101
New Media in Education
New Media in Music Promotion
Virtual World Business & Marketing
Social Networking
Delivery, Syndication and Licensing
New Monetization Models
Mobile Content

Podcasts

Reach For a Green Star

Chuck Zimmerman December 5, 2006

At the NAFB convention recently I spent some time in the John Deere booth. Pictured here are Seth Crawford (l), Leigh Ann Cleaver (BCS Communications) and Barry Nelson (r).

I interviewed Seth about John Deere’s new “Reach For The Stars” program they announced in conjunction with the American Soybean Association. This program is designed to provide U.S. soybean growers with opportunities to learn more about precision ag systems. It also has a contest portion in which selected growers will be able to choose from among “15 premium level precision ag systems, each with a suggested retail price of more than $20,000, for the entire 2007 U.S. growing season. After the program ends, qualified participants will be offered an opportunity to purchase the entire system, or just the components they want to own, at a greatly reduced price.”

You can learn more about it in my interview with Seth.

Interview with Seth Crawford: nafb-johndeere-crawford.mp3

Agribusiness, Audio, Equipment, Tractor

I Might Change My Route

Chuck Zimmerman December 5, 2006

I’m a little confused after getting the latest W. K. Kellogg Foundation, Routes of Change newsletter. I thought they were a food company that supported agriculture but now I’m wondering. The Foundation receives most of it’s income from the W. K. Kellogg Foundation Trust which still owns a substantial equity in Kellogg Company.

I guess that whenever you see the word “sustainability” you need to immediately realize that it’s code for whacko food activist stuff. One of the things they say they support in this issue is the Media That Matters Film Festival which so far has such lovely little comedy films as “The Meatrix” and “Profit Cola.” I wouldn’t call them “Good” or supportive of agriculture or livestock production.

Screenings of “Media That Matters: Good Food” and distributions of the DVD of the collection are being organized by Arts Engine with help from partners, says Golding. They are The Food Project, Slow Food U.S.A., Community Food Security Coalition, Food and Society Policy Fellows, Chefs Collaborative, and the Brooklyn Center for the Urban Environment. The W.K. Kellogg Foundation’s Food and Society initiative is a supporter of “Media That Matters: Good Food.”

Food

Talk to my iPod

Chuck Zimmerman December 4, 2006

You don’t have to be a farm podcaster to appreciate what the Griffin iTalk Pro lets you do with your Nano or iPod. Finally there’s a tool that lets you easily record onto the iPod.

It has built in microphones or you can plug in an external microphone. This allows you to also plug into a mult-box at a press conference too.

Since it uses the voice memo function of the iPod you can choose two different recording quality levels. It saves the audio as high quality WAV files which can be edited in just about any audio editing software out there.

With a 30GB video iPod you can do a lot of recording! I’m betting we’ll see some of these popping up at farm meetings this winter.

Thanks to Podcasting News for the alert.

Podcasts

Proud of that Poultry

Chuck Zimmerman December 4, 2006

Here’s some big news for all you chicken lovers out there. Pilgrim’s Pride and Gold Kist have agreed to a merger. Now that’s a lot of poultry.

Pilgrim’s Pride Corporation and Gold Kist Inc. today announced that the two companies have entered into a definitive merger agreement under which Pilgrim’s Pride will acquire all of the outstanding shares of Gold Kist common stock for $21.00 per share in cash. The transaction, which was unanimously approved by the boards of directors of both Pilgrim’s Pride and Gold Kist, has a total equity value of approximately $1.1 billion, plus the assumption of approximately $144 million of Gold Kist’s debt.

Together, Pilgrim’s Pride and Gold Kist will create the world’s leading chicken company in terms of production and the third-largest U.S. meat protein company by revenues. The combined company will have a broad geographic reach and customer base, while maintaining a balanced portfolio of fresh chicken and value-added products. In particular, the enhanced geographic diversification will enable the new Pilgrim’s Pride to compete more efficiently both in the U.S. and internationally.

It’s interesting that the top story on the Gold Kist website is one in which the company recommends to stockholders not to accept Pilgrim’s Pride’s offer. I think they need to update that don’t you think? Over on the Pilgrim’s Pride website they already have the release posted.

Agribusiness, Livestock, Poultry

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