Clasen New President of Meyocks Group

Chuck Zimmerman

Craig ClasenHy Vee leader, Craig Clasen, has been named president of The Meyocks Group advertising agency. Ric Jurgens, chairman, president and chief executive officer of Hy-Vee, Inc., the agency’s parent company made the announcement. The move will be effective October 2.

For the past three years, Clasen has served as president of Hy-Vee Care, which distributes pharmaceutical products to patients in nursing homes and long-term care facilities. He began his career with Hy-Vee in 1977.

“In his role with Hy-Vee Care and throughout his tenure at Hy-Vee, Craig has demonstrated the enthusiasm and entrepreneurial spirit that can help The Meyocks Group grow, and grow rapidly,” Jurgens says. “We expect Craig’s leadership will help move the agency to a higher level of innovative service for all of its clients.”

Doug Jeske, who’s been serving as interim president has been named Chief Operating Officer.

Agencies

Fix those things you can fix Leave those you can’t well enough alone

Chuck Zimmerman

Randy TkachykRandy Tkachyk is a beef producer in southeast Manitoba who wasn’t sure what to do when BSE shut the US border in May of 2003. He started selling beef from his own cattle to friends, neighbours, relatives. Today he’s part owner of ManitobaBeef.Com.

On top of BSE, 2004 and 2005 were wet years destroying much of his hay crops. This year, it looked real good, but then it didn’t rain in June and July, leaving him short again. However, this young chap, a strapping 6 ft 4, maybe 6-6, keeps on keeping on. Many could take a lesson from him. Here’s his latest email to me. Read More

International

Using Digg For First Time

Chuck Zimmerman

I just created my Digg account so I can Digg stuff and maybe submit news to Digg. They’ve got some agricultural stories posted but not much. So I’m going to blog this as a test to see what pops up on AgWired. Besides being a test, I’m all for anything that will improve coffee!

Fungi are the secrets to tasty coffee, says a Brazilian researcher who is the first to identify the moulds that give coffee its distinctive range of flavours and aromas.

read more | digg story

Uncategorized

Ag Secretary Midwest Visits

Chuck Zimmerman

Mike JohannsOur Agriculture Secretary is sure getting around these days. He was in Kansas City this week. Here’s a couple more places we’ll be seeing him.

  • The 2006 Farm Progress Show. Secretary Johanns will visit the show on Wednesday, August 30. I’m sure he’ll get a tour and hopefully have a press conference.
  • The 2006-07 Gateway NAMA/St. Louis Agribusiness Club Kick-off Meeting. This will also be a celebration luncheon for the Ag Club’s 25th Anniversary. Secretary Johanns will be the keynote speaker, September 15. Check the Gateway NAMA website for more information and registration information.

    • If you can’t make either of these events, don’t despair because I’ll be there. Which means you’ll get to see and hear more about it here.

    USDA

    New MU Student Podcast

    Chuck Zimmerman

    CAFNRCastHere’s a podcast you might find interesting. Can you believe how many agricultural podcasts we get to point out lately?!

    The University of Missouri-Columbia’s College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources students have their own website called CAFNR Corner Post. On it you’ll find the CAFNRCast. It’s being done as a pilot project intended to expand opportunities for CAFNR students to practice not only print and photo journalism on Corner Post, but also to practice broadcast and convergence journalism. In case you’re not sure what “convergence journalism” is I found this resource to help you out.

    If you’re not able to subscribe to podcasts yet, you can listen to the first CAFNRCast here: Listen To MP3 CAFNRCast (3 min MP3). It’s being produced by MU Junior Tyne Morgan.

    Here’s the url for the podcast. Plug it into iTunes or whatever podcatcher you use and enjoy. Use this link and check out the Applications section for links to various programs that will allow you to subscribe to podcasts.

    Audio, Podcasts, University

    Student Blogger Kelcy Schroder

    Chuck Zimmerman

    Kelcy SchroderLet me introduce you to Kelcy Schroder, Iowa State University Student. Kelcy will be the next guest student blogger for AgWired at next week’s Farm Progress Show in Amana Colonies, IA. I am excited and happy to be working with her and hope you’ll welcome her to AgWired. She’ll start posting stories next week after we get together on Monday afternoon on site.

    Kelcy’s work is part of the Monsanto Future Ag Journalist Fellowship program that was started earlier this year at the Commodity Classic. Maybe you remember all the posts that Margy Fisher and Mary Irelan did for me then. Well, now it’s Kelcy’s turn.

    Kelcy is majoring in Ag Education/Communication and Communication Studies (double major). I know she’s going to do a fantastic job and hopefully she’ll get some valuable experience at the same time (photography, audio production, writing, etc.).

    I’ve got a lot more to post about the Farm Progress Show and Monsanto’s participation since they will be sponsoring my coverage of this year’s event. There’s a lot of cool things going on at the show so expect some pre-event coverage over the weekend.

    Farm Progress Show

    Power Out in Office

    Chuck Zimmerman

    FYI.

    Cindy just called to let me know the power is out in all of Jefferson City/Holts Summit, MO. Big time outage. Our battery backups don’t last long so the office is having a break.

    I’m getting ready to head to Ft. Myers airport return home. Hopefully we’ll have power before I get back there!

    Uncategorized

    Citrus Expo Photo Album

    Chuck Zimmerman

    Flickr Photo AlbumThe 2006 Citrus Expo is now over. From all I’ve learned it’s been the biggest and best one ever. For Gary Cooper and his Southeast AgNet team, it was a first time effort and I’m sure they learned a lot. Next year will be even better.

    As is customary with many of the events I’m blogging now, you’ve got a Flickr photo album available if you want to see what it was like. I used my new camera for this event and it has been a learning experience. I left Southeast AgNet with a CD containing all of them which they can use in their magazine, on their website, or in brochures for next year.

    Using the link below, you can look at photos in the album individually or watch them as a slideshow on your computer. I hope you enjoy them or any of my other event sets. Feel free to browse and if you use any of these, please credit ZimmComm New Media and Southeast AgNet.

    2006 Citrus Expo Photo Album

    Citrus

    Farm Podcasting In Florida

    Chuck Zimmerman

    Southeast AgNetOne of the coolest things we’ve done here at the 2006 Citrus Expo is introduce the first Florida farm podcast. I mentioned previously that Southeast AgNet was going to get started in the podcast realm and that happened today with the introduction of a series of interviews that are available through the Citrus Expo Podcast.

    All of Southeast AgNet’s on-air programs are short out of necessity since radio stations today just don’t program long form farm shows. Podcasting will now allow the company to make more use of the full interviews they conduct. That’s one of the joys of podcasting. There really isn’t a strict format you have to follow. Additionally, they’ll have a mechanism to reach growers and producers who don’t have a local radio station affiliate of the network to listen to. In fact, one of the audiences they’re targeting is an international one, especially South America where there is a huge interest in the citrus industry.

    So, the Citrus Expo Podcast contains 12 audio interviews that were conducted over the last couple days here in Ft. Myers by myself, Randall Weiseman, Lee McCoy and Gary Cooper. Growers (or anyone interested) will be able to use their computer’s iTunes or whatever software they have to subscribe using this file: http://www.agnetonline.com/citrus-expo-podcast.xml.

    This first podcasting effort has provided the company with a quality product for current and potential listeners and allowed it to learn how to produce and maintain programming for internet delivery. I’m sure we can expect to see more from Southeast AgNet in the future!

    Citrus, Media, Podcasts

    Multi-media Company

    Chuck Zimmerman

    Southeast AgNet StaffThis happy looking group is the staff of Southeast AgNet, the company putting on Citrus Expo for the first time this year. It’s not the first time the Expo has been held but it’s the first time this company has managed it. It came along with their purchase of Citrus Industry Magazine. Pictured are: (l to r) Robin Loftin, Lee McCoy, Betty Sanders, Gary Cooper, Katherine Bush, Randall Weiseman, Carole McKenzie. Not pictured but here also are Sherry Fisher and Ernie Neff.

    Southeast AgNet is a traditional media company that’s beginning to explore the new media waters. Southeast AgNet, the parent company is a farm radio network in Florida, Georgia and Alabama. They’ve long been a client of ours and owner Gary Cooper was our business partner once upon a time when we lived in Florida. Cindy produces a number of daily reports for the network. But now they own a magazine and have a large trade show.

    And in addition to that they have a blog which they’re unveiling this week at AgNet Online. They’re currently directing people to it through their company homepage but it is a stand alone website. This is their start into the new media world and they’ve got lots of plans for it. I put the site together for them not long ago and have been working with them on training and development. This week they had me down to “blog” the Citrus Expo and our next step is to start podcasting. There’s no question that we’re going to see more and more of this as time goes on. I’m happy to see my former business partner, now client, taking the lead in the southeast!

    You can see the Citrus Expo blogging we’ve been doing. Today we did 20 posts that contain pictures, stories and interviews. I got about 17 of them up and am working closely with Randall who will probably be doing more of this for them as time goes on.

    Citrus, Media