I should be back in the swing of things by tomorrow evening. It’s not that I’ve been away from blogging though.
Tomorrow I’m heading up to Ocala, FL on the way back from this personal trip. I’ll be conducting some blogging and podcasting training there.
We’ll get up to date shortly.
Just last month USDA announced loans for the development of rural broadband. At the end of last week they announced more.
Agriculture Deputy Secretary Chuck Conner announced that nearly $30 million in loans will be provided to telecommunications firms in Iowa, Kentucky, Ohio and Texas. The funds are provided under the USDA Rural Development’s Broadband Access and Telecommunications Programs.
“Since 1949 USDA has been providing long term financing to build and maintain communications infrastructure that is the cornerstone of rural America’s telecommunications system,” said Conner. “These loans continue a long tradition of ensuring that rural residents fully participate in commercial and educational opportunities that can be provided only by reliable broadband and telecommunications services.”
It’s been a busy week but no where more busy than the Chicago Board of Trade it would seem.
The Chicago Board of Trade today announced its Agricultural complex set an all-time volume record yesterday. The new record of 929,546 contracts surpassed the previous high of 869,005 contracts set on February 22, 2005.
CBOT President and CEO Bernard W. Dan said, “The combination of increased demand in the Agricultural sector coupled with the August 1 addition of side-by-side trading in our Agricultural complex has created greater access and opportunity for the entire marketplace. This new record is a direct reflection of those demands and our determination to create an environment to meet them.”
Thanks to Diane Johnson for sending in a couple pictures from the Livestock Publications Council meeting that took place at World Dairy Expo in Madison, WI. Pictured first are Terri Smith, Select Sires Inc., JoDee Sattler, Dairy Business Communications, Cathy Bewley, Select Sires Inc.
Yesterday Livestock Publications Council hosted its first ever breakfast event during the World Dairy Expo in Madison, Wisconsin. It was an opportunity for LPC friends in the dairy industry to get together and hear more about LPC’s purpose and upcoming events. It was well attended for the first ever LPC organized function at a dairy event. We’ll definitely have a second one next year!
I wish I could have been there. Well, not really. I’m in Sarasota for my high school reunion. Went to the beach today for a while before driving around the old home town (Sarasota, FL).
This picture is Diane Johnson, LPC executive director (left) and Melissa Muegge, Allflex communications director.
It’s that time folks. Last Call for the Best of NAMA competition.
The deadline for submitting entries into the Best of NAMA competition is only one week away! Entries must be RECEIVED by Friday, October 13. Entries are sent directly to the NAMA office and are judged by industry professionals at a regional level for possible advancement to the national competition.
Remember, your local chapter receives $25 per regional entry. So, enter your work in Best of NAMA and support your local chapter at the same time. To view the Best of NAMA Call for Entries visit, http://www.nama.org/amc/bon/index.htm. Download the Entry Form in an Adobe .PDF document at http://www.nama.org/amc/bon/entryform.pdf.
With the help of Mary Knigge with the National Milk Producers Federation, we have this picture from the IDairy press conference at World Dairy Expo.
Representatives from the IDairy coalition officially announced the National FAIR system as the database for manageing dairy identification information on Thursday, October 5, 2006 at World Dairy Expo. During the press conference, a memorandum of understanding was signed by the six organizations naming National FAIR as IDairy’s choice to confidentially house dairy and livestock identification data in compliance with the upcoming national animal identification system.
“Dairy producers need a private animal identification database that can ensure confidentiality, while also complying with the needs of USDA, at a low cost,” said Jerry Kozak, National Milk Producers Federation President/CEO. “As the IDairy coalition looked across the industry for such a system, National FAIR was the clear choice. Producers who choose to work with IDairy can be ensured they are leading the charge for a national animal identification system.”
Dairy and livestock producers can visit the IDairy website: www.idairy.org to learn more about the IDairy database system.
I’m not sure what the ROI is on this advertising strategy but it’s sure making some old barns more colorful. It’s Bob Evans way of advertising their new Italian dishes.
Though not quite as enigmatic as Mona Lisa’s smile, there is another Italian painting that has been turning heads recently in Ohio. First, a barn on the Bob Evans Farm in scenic Rio Grande, Ohio, painted like an Italian flag, and now another in rural West Jefferson just like it. But the latex paint on barn siding isn’t meant to be a reminder of da Vinci’s 16th century oil painting on poplar wood, it’s part of a new advertising campaign created for Bob Evans Restaurants. In fact, it is a message to consumers that Bob Evans is introducing a line of new pasta dishes.
The barn will be featured in a new commercial for the restaurant chain that’s going to be filmed next week according to the news release.
If you listened to a recent ZimmCast you might have heard that I’m going to my 30 year high school reunion. Well, I’m leaving tomorrow for Sarasota, FL and the Riverview High School Class of 1976 Reunion.
What’s that you say? Will you be blogging? Of course. I won’t bore you with all that here but I’ve already got over 100 posts on the Reunion Blog I started last year and I can gaurantee you there will be a lot more before I stop.
You might be interested to know how the blog has helped impact our event. Last I heard we have almost 300 people rsvp’d. That’s way higher than the norm for a graduating class of 700. We’ve got people coming from Italy (found the blog online one day) and people who didn’t bother to come to the 10 or 20 and only decided to come after reading about this one on my blog. I’ve had almost 90 comments posted and received more emails than that from people who have found the website on their own, including a couple of former classmates I didn’t know lived here in Missouri.
So, posting might be a little light the next couple days. They’ve got me emceeing our events for some reason I can’t figure out. I’ll be driving back next week and stopping to do some staff blogging and podcasting training with a client on the way!
It’s amazing what you can find on the internet today. If you like old tv commercials you might enjoy a couple of old animated Dairy Council spots that are posted on AdJab.
If I’m pointing you to them I wonder how many other AdJab readers/subscribers are pointing people to them, or copying them onto their website, or forwarding them by email to a friend. Sounds like a Long Tail way of getting a message out there doesn’t it?
The “100% Chicken, Naturally.” folks, Sanderson Farms, will be taking part in a live webcast from the National Chicken Council annual meeting on Thursday. This sure seems like something that makes so much sense today that I don’t know why we don’t see more organizations or companies doing it. It’s a great way to reach the media that can’t attend, your customers who are interested and can’t attend and by recording and archiving it you can use elements of it in news releases, on your website, in your podcasts, newsletters and presentations. I’m guessing Sanderson Farms knows this and will be doing so.
Sanderson Farms, Inc. today announced that the Company will participate in the National Chicken Council Annual Conference on Thursday, October 5, 2006, in Washington, D.C. The NCC represents integrated chicken production and processing companies and its members account for approximately 95 percent of the chicken sold in the United States. Lampkin Butts, president of Sanderson Farms, will join other executives of public chicken production and processing companies in a roundtable discussion “Industry Insights & Outlook” moderated by Mark Hickman, president and chief executive officer of Peco Foods, the incoming chairman of the NCC. Industry analysts Farha Aslam, vice president of equity research for Stephens, Inc., and Michael Piken, research associate at Cleveland Research Company, will also participate in a question and answer session.
The live webcast of the session will begin at 2:15 p.m. Eastern time and will conclude at approximately 3:45 p.m. A link to the event may be found at the investor relations section of the Company’s website, www.sandersonfarms.com.
