I’ve pointed you to Steve Rubel, Micropersuasion, a number of times. I hope he’s on your feed list. If you’re in media, marketing or communications I suggest it’s a must have. Anyway, Steve just wrote a great post about how we need to change the way we describe new media. He seems to like “all media” as a term. Here’s some excerpts from his post.
With the democratization of media we’ve come to rely on a bunch of terms that are now completely unnecessary. These include “social media,” “user generated content” and – my favorite – “consumer generated media.” Do any of these matter any more?
The problem with all of these balkanized phrases is that they connote that the content created by digitally empowered individuals is somehow bush league. It’s like we’re a separate entity from the rest of the so-called “mainstream” journalists, filmmakers, photographers, etc. who do what we do and get paid more for it. We sit in a special dish like leftover meatloaf so we need a special name. If you use these phrases you’re unintentionally perpetuating that myth.
The fact is that everyone who is contributing to the dialogue – be it in video, text or photos – has earned the right to be called media. Let’s can the compartmentalization and recognize once and for all the world has changed. We are all media – period.
I like the idea of being a digitally empowered individual. While I was at the IFAJ meeting last week one of the leaders looked at me and said, “You’re always online.” Out of about 30 journalists there I was not only the only one online. I was the only one carrying a computer and using it. And I didn’t have my mobile phone with me and I can’t tell you how many times I reached for it. I felt a little naked without it I can tell you.
One thing I didn’t mention in my post on this week’s ZimmCast is that Adrian Bell, the guy I interviewed, says in the interview that his professional career matches the public introduction and development of the internet. He doesn’t even know a professional world without it. Think about what our young farmers and ranchers are growing up with today (besides websites like AgWired)! In case you’re wondering, I was working professionally before there was an internet. We can learn if we want to.
Thanks to 
Rob McAlister at 
I’m just jet lagging a little bit this morning and I think you can probably hear it in my voice on this week’s ZimmCast. Bouncing back and forth across the big pond does have a cost. In this week’s program I’ve got an interview with Adrian Bell, 
Adrian talks about using new media in work his agency is doing for its clients and makes a point that there’s not an either/or decision to be made when it comes to using new media. By that, he means and I agree, that a company should still work with traditional media outlets and journalists while using new media as an additional new channel of communications with their client and one that allows them to communicate directly. I brought this up during the seminar and I think that some of the journalists and even company representatives in the room are afraid that new media will replace what they do. I think they should embrace it themselves and use it for the same reasons that companies are themselves.
In this week’s program Adrian talks about a podcast series his agency has developed for Bayer Cropscience (United Kingdom) called 
I know it sometimes seems like we do a lot of this at an 
The IFAJ professional improvement session is now underway here at Green Week. These panelists will each be making remarks before things open up for a general discussion. The topic is, “How journalists can work more effectively with public relations professionals and vice versa.” The panelists include:
I can already tell from the remarks given so far that there’s still a lot of “traditional” thinking going on in the industry, including areas other than the U. S. By that I mean the whole issue of separating journalism and public relations. Todays new media mechanisms are blurring the lines in my opinion. When every person out there who has a camera, computer and internet connection can post instantaneous online information and when that includes the corporations themselves I’m not sure where you’re going to draw the line. The traditionalists seem to very easily dismiss new media outlets but they do so while their audiences decline and move on to those new media outlets. That’s why I evangelize the use of information platforms like blogging and podcasting.
Here’s the whole group gathered together at the Green Week press center meeting about the very important things facing the IFAJ. We’ve got committee reports going on right now. Mike Wilson is discussing the communications committee. One of the things the organization is looking into is a change in the IFAJ website to make it easier to post current information and perhaps have more people involved in doing that. You can be sure that I’ve voiced my ideas on this issue!
Here’s the head shed (leaders for those of you in Rio Lindo) of the 
Some of the best looking vegetables I’ve ever seen are growing indoors here in one of the main agriculture buildings. I wish my garden looked like this. But I guess it would if I had a guy in overalls (there were a lot them) manually grooming and treating each plant every day. This building looks like a collaboration of many companies and you could essentially follow agricultural production through the whole chain from field to plate since you had crops, animals, processing and even a small grocery store set up to show how the consumer where their food actually comes from.