AgWired

The World Congress on Communication for Development got kicked off today in Rome. I guess we’re not the only ones to come up with the idea of a virtual press room. This is something I’d like to help companies and ag groups develop by the way.

Having participated in an event like this at FAO headquarters in the past, I know there’s a lot of dignitaries gathered there who want to help alleviate hunger in their respective countries. Of course food is essential and good communications is necessary to efficiently produce food. Ask any American farmer how important information is to him/her. What I think will be interesting is to see how the communications platforms develop in these countries. They probably aren’t going to be stringing wires all over the place to plug telephones into. Radio is going to be a big part of it (already is) and so will internet strategies.

USDA gets involved and had a report on the Congress out today which you can listen to:
fao-world-congress-1.mp3(1 min MP3)

My presentation here in Cedar Falls is over. We gave my Dell equipment a good workout and I hope I contributed some information that’s useful.

There were a few bloggers in the audience and even a couple of people involved in a podcasting project. Great questions were asked. As usual I found that the “comments” feature of blogging got a lot of questions. This is a challenging aspect of blogging for companies to deal with. How do you handle feedback and what if it’s negative? I think you just remember why you’re doing this to start with. Hopefully it’s to be more open and honest with your customers. I think we all learn from our critics. I know I have. I’ve also seen negative commenters turn into positive customers when they not only felt like their voice was heard but they got immediate company feedback (or saw positive comments from other customers) that addressed their concerns.

So long from here. It’s road time back to Holts Summit, MO (near Jefferson City).

Good day from Cedar Falls, Iowa. It’s a beautiful rainy morning, the kind that makes you just want to turn over and go back to sleep. But not the serious blogger.

I’ll be speaking at the Marketing, Advertising & Communication Professionals of Northeast Iowa luncheon which is being held at the Holiday Inn on University Ave. starting at 11:30am. Come on out if you’ve got nothing planned. Sorry for the short notice.

You can probably expect to see something from the meeting later on and during the presentation. That’s just how I like to do my presentations – live and online. As a little bit of a heads up I’ll be participating in a presentation on November 7 at the Farm Equipment Manufacturers Association convention in Minneapolis, MN. I believe we’re the general session that’s mid morning. That’s going to be fun.