Gibbs & Soell Has I Power

Chuck Zimmerman

ZimmCast97 - I Power at Gibbs & SoellLast week Gibbs & Soell announced a branded service they now offer not only to clients but to anyone who’d like to take advantage of it. It’s called I Power.

I PowerTo learn just exactly what I Power is I interviewed agency vice president, Steve Halsey. I was particularly intrigued by his statement, “It is amazing what can be accomplished when you bring the right people to the table, turn off the computers and wireless phones and have a thorough, well-structured and strategic discussion.” A meeting without computers or wireless phones? Sounds like it would be way too productive to me. But that’s the point he says.

Gibbs & SoellUsing a proprietary process developed by the agency, I Power helps organizations maximize their return on communications investment by creating concise, credible and audience-relevant messages. Originating from the agency’s media training program, I Power has quickly evolved into a stand-alone service for developing communications strategy. It is currently available to existing clients, as well as other interested parties, on a project basis.

So to get the full scoop on this new service from Gibbs & Soell you can download the ZimmCast: Listen To ZimmCastZimmCast 97 (13 min MP3)

Or listen to this week’s ZimmCast right now:

zimmcast97-12-11-06.mp3

The ZimmCast is the official weekly podcast of AgWired which you can subscribe to using the link in our sidebar. You can also subscribe in iTunes.

Agencies, Audio, ZimmCast

Have Your-elf a Happy Holiday

Chuck Zimmerman

I'm an ElfIt’s time to start getting into the holiday spirit so I thought I’d offer you some (strange) holiday cheer to perk you up when you get into the office on Monday morning.

OfficeMax has some really wacky little online stuff to help us all out. So without further ado here’s where you get your morning fun.

I didn’t want to leave Cindy out so you can watch her doing the elf dance here too.

Thanks Steve.

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Sell Your FarmRanchHome

Chuck Zimmerman

FarmRanchHome.comDo you have some real estate you’d like to sell? Are you wondering how you’re going to market it? Here’s a place you might want to check on. I don’t know who this is behind it but I’m sure I can find out.

Your FREE Real Estate listing and photo will reach thousands of potential customers who visit FarmRanchHome.com every day. FarmRanchHome.com allows you to create listings based on a variety of criteria, which quickly directs visitors to your home, farm, ranch, land, or commercial property listing. It’s quick and easy! Simply visit www.farmranchhome.com/create.php and create a free account. Then you can begin adding an unlimited number of listings, absolutely free.

So there you have it. An absolutely free commercial post for FarmRanchHome.com. They also have a couple of other sites: WesternEvents.com and Cowboy.com.

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Farm Futures Management Summit

Chuck Zimmerman

Farm FuturesThis week I’ll be attending the first Farm Futures Management Summit in St. Louis. The conference is full so I guess they’re on to something. I’m going to help create a significant amount of multi-media content for them which they’ll be using in follow up to the conference. However, don’t be surprised to see some posts from this event.

The Summit is titled, “Winning in Turbulent Times: How to build a high-performance farm business in a changing global market place.” They’ve got a great lineup of speakers and presentations. If you weren’t able to attend this year I’m sure they’ll be doing it again next year.

It takes place Wednesday and Thursday. This is going to be fun. Farm Futures is part of the Farm Progress Companies.

Publication

Meeting Season Cranking Up

Chuck Zimmerman

AFBF LogoAlthough the next two weeks seem very busy, they’re nothing like what the schedule will be like after the holidays. It’s winter meeting time and I’m sure a lot of state organizations are actively meeting. Our annual Missouri Governor’s Conference on Agriculture is kicking off today at Lake of the Ozarks.

On the national level one of the first ones to get things going in the new year is the American Farm Bureau Federation annual convention. I won’t be attending this one but I’ve got a number of others I’m working on. If you’re in the media and haven’t registered for AFBF yet you can find the form to do so here (Word doc).

Some of the ones I’m confirmed to attend include International Green Week, Cattle Industry Annual Convention & Trade Show, National Biodiesel Conference and Commodity Classic. Others I may be attending include Beltwide Cotton Conference, National Farm Machinery Show and National Ethanol Conference. Do you have one you’d like to have covered personally on AgWired? If so give me a call and let’s get it on the schedule.

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Morgan & Myers Cooking Up Iowa Corn

Chuck Zimmerman

Morgan & MyersIowa Corn just picked Morgan & Myers to handle their account from their Waterloo office. They’ll be taking care of membership retention; government, research and business development; and market development, which includes ethanol. Iowa Corn is the Iowa Corn Promotion Board and Iowa Corn Growers Association.

“Iowa Corn is excited to be working with Morgan&Myers,” says Mindy Williamson, Iowa Corn director of communications and public relations. “Their industry knowledge speaks for itself. Morgan&Myers has the staffing and the reputation to work with consumer audiences and traditional agricultural markets. We’ve hit the road running and look forward to what we can accomplish in the future.”

According to Morgan&Myers’ Janine Whipps, a partner and leader of the agency’s integrated marketing communications practice area, “We’re thrilled to be partnering with Iowa Corn during a time when so much is happening on the corn new usage front, with ethanol and E85 leading the way.”

Ag Groups, Agencies, Corn

THE Microphone For the iPod

Chuck Zimmerman

Griffin iTalk DemoHere’s the newest recording sensation for the serious farm podcaster. The Griffin iTalk attached to a video iPod. The iTalk is the little thing about the size of pack of chewing gum at the bottom of the iPod.

I really think it’s eerie that I’ve been doing similar posts to my sensei Steve. He demos his with his Nano.

Not only does this little gem have built in stereo microphones but you can record in mono or stereo and plug in an external microphone or audio source. It records in .wav format so you can edit it in just about anything.

Last night on Blog Business Success Radio the host, Wayne Hurlbert, said that my website seemed to be all about podcasting. I don’t know where he gets that idea.

iTalk Demo: italk-demo.mp3

Audio, Podcasts

The Blog Business Show Went On

Chuck Zimmerman

Wayne HurlbertThese Canadian guys are ahead of the curve when it comes to blogging and podcasting. One of them is Wayne Hurlbert, Blog Business World.

Even as we were being attacked (AgWired was by spammers) last night the show went on. That is the Blog Business Success Radio show on Blog Talk Radio.

We had a nice hour long conversation which Listen To Audio you can still listen to if you missed it live. We talked about agricultural communications, Talking News Releases, blogging, podcasting and all from the perspective of how these new communications tools can be used for business purposes.

So, if you have time feel free to listen in.

Audio, Podcasts

Website Attack Update

Chuck Zimmerman

As I posted previously, it looks like the spammers were out in force big time yesterday. We have ways to deal with this but unfortunately my hosting company support staff freaked out and disabled a vital part of the website. That’s why you’re seeing my old theme as of this posting. You can trust the fact that I’m not happy about this and will be having a discussion with them this morning.

We’ll be working on this some more this morning to get everything back to normal.

In about an hour late yesterday afternoon we had almost 4,000 spam comments thrown at us which all generated corresponding emails to my email account. That’s unbelievable. AgWired was the only site hit of our network. We normally receive about 100 a day.

Uncategorized

We’ve Been Attacked

Chuck Zimmerman

In case you may have been wondering where AgWired disappeared to, it was an attack. Someone spammed our comments and our hosting company had to shut us down temporarily because it was overloading the server. I’m not sure what kind of person gets their kicks doing this kind of thing but I’d love to have a few minutes alone with him.

I apologize for any inconvenience or confusion this may have caused and by the time you can see this post everything should be back to normal. He said hopefully.

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