Support The AAEA PIF

Chuck Zimmerman

American Agricultural Editors Association The American Agricultural Editors Association has a Professional Improvement Foundation that provides guidelines and training activities for AAEA members.

One example of how they support members is by picking a couple of members to receive a stipend to assist with expenses in attending the International Federation of Agricultural Journalists Congress each year. I received one of those last year.

They’ve got a fundraising push on to collect funds to assist with their activities. If you would like to support the AAEA PIF, you can download this reply card now (Word doc).

ACN

Greg Vincent Joins R&K

Chuck Zimmerman

Greg VincentIf you’re going to hire someone to do public relations work it’s nice if they’ve got some experience in the shoes of the people they’ll be working with on the editorial side of things. That’s what Rhea & Kaiser Marketing Communications has done in hiring Gregory Vincent as senior account supervisor, leading the Bayer CropScience corn and soybean team.

Vincent brings more than 10 years of agency and publishing experience to the position, including marketing and public relations responsibilities in both agriculture and business management. Prior to joining Rhea & Kaiser, he was associate publisher and editor of Lenexa, Kan.-based Vance Publishing Corp., where he most recently managed all editorial aspects for AgProfessional and Dealer & Applicator magazines targeted at crop protection and fertilizer retailers.

He is based in the Kansas City, Mo., area.

Agencies

Webby Award Nominees Are Aggy

Chuck Zimmerman

BPFAAPerhaps you’ve heard of the Boneless Pig Farmers Association. Perhaps not. However, their website has been nominated for a Webby Award in the Weird category. I can’t imagine why. You’ll have to visit their site to understand. Hint: It’s all about McDonalds.

Some other ag-related websites have been nominated. In the Association category nominations include:

Cotton, Inc’s – Team Cotton and EPIC’s driving ethanol

If you want to help them out feel free to vote in the People’s Choice awards by May 5.

Internet

Hall of Fame Cows

Chuck Zimmerman

Eat Mor ChikinNo doubt you’ve seen these cows on a billboard somewhere. They are now hall of famers.

After more than a decade of using renegade antics to push their pro-chicken messages, Chick-fil-A’s “Eat Mor Chikin®” Cows have been inducted into outdoor advertising’s hall of fame. The Outdoor Advertising Association of America (OAAA) recognized Chick-fil-A and its renegade Cows with the organization’s OBIE Hall of Fame Award during a gala held earlier this week in Palm Springs, Calif.

Created by Dallas-based ad agency The Richards Group, the “Eat Mor Chikin” campaign was first introduced in 1995 as a three-dimensional billboard concept depicting a black-and-white cow sitting atop the back of another cow painting the words “Eat Mor Chikin” on the billboard. To everyone’s surprise, the Cows’ clever self-preservation message would be the beginning of a campaign still running strong more than 10 years later.

Food

Students Helping Blog Clean Cities

Chuck Zimmerman

Clean Cities Congress & ExpoThe Clean Cities Congress & Expo is coming up starting this weekend in Phoenix, AZ. I’ll be blogging it on Domestic Fuel but not alone. I’ll have help! Once again – student bloggers. They will bring a fresh and interesting perspective to our coverage of the event. This is similar to my coverage of Commodity Classic with Margy & Mary. You see how a good idea catches on? I’m sure we’ll have some good content for AgWired too. So, let me introduce them to you.

Peter WestFirst of all let’s meet Peter West. According to Peter’s bio he sent me: Peter West grew up in a log cabin at the top of a cliff in Colorado. Though the mountains were an amazing place to be, he left them for city life on the East Coast. Currently he is a marketing major at Emerson College in downtown Boston. Welcome to the blogosphere Peter. I’m really looking forward to meeting you and working with you.

Lauren CiemnakAnd our next student blogger is Lauren Ciemniak. I am a straight A student with a 4.0 GPA. I received the outstanding citizen of the year award. I plan to major in journalism in college. I have been dancing for 13 years and I love to travel! Welcome to you too Lauren.

They’ll be writing on Domestic Fuel by the end of the week and start out providing their expectations for this experience. After we get together in Phoenix we’ll work out who will cover what. So stay tuned.

Alternative Fuel Vehicle InstituteDomestic Fuel coverageSouthern California Gas Company
of the Clean Cities Congress is made possible by these sponsors.

Biodiesel, Ethanol

Them Hogs, Them Hogs, Them Lean Hogs

Chuck Zimmerman

CME40 years of lean hog futures. That’s the CME celebration this month. They’ve been hedging a lot of hogs for producers over the years.

An important indicator of grocery store prices for items such as pork chops, ribs and pork loin, annual contract volume has grown from just over 8,000 contracts since its launch in 1966 to more than two million contracts in 2005. The CME lean hog contract has evolved since its inception from a contract of physically delivered live hogs into a cash settlement-only contract of lean hog carcasses, which makes this a more viable hedging tool for international producers and pork importers and/or exporters.

Agribusiness

Ken Dean Says “Wow”

Chuck Zimmerman

What a difference a bunch of advocates can make. Ken Dean, High Plains Journal, led an effort to promote and grow membership in the National Agri-Marketing Association this past year. He just sent out a note to all of us which I think shows what can happen when we try:

NAMA Advocates:

Congratulations! Your efforts this past NAMA season, culminating with our recent national conference, contributed to the first positive-growth membership in the past several years, up between 5 and 10 percent.

We proved that more people getting involved with our continual membership growth effort made a solid, on-going impact. Your help made this a great year in new membership!

We couldn’t have done that without King Ken. BTW. Ken received the NAMA “Workhorse of the year” award at the NAMA Conference for his efforts.

NAMA

New Business Developer For D&PL

Chuck Zimmerman

Rob NixonRob Nixon will be joining D&PL as their director of business development. He’ll be responsible for leading business initiatives to grow and expand the company’s U.S. and international business.

Nixon will be working across several groups within the company to expand into new markets, license new technologies and commercialize new products. Nixon has worked in the agricultural industry for more than 10 years, with his focus on seed and trait commercialization. He began his career with Limagrain Canada Seeds, Inc., which was later purchased by Monsanto Company. Nixon has worked in several capacities at Monsanto focusing in the areas of strategic development, licensing and commercialization of traits. His career includes extensive experience in analyzing markets, industries and competitors as well as developing strategic plans based on that analysis.

Agribusiness

Double Digit Growth For Internet Use/Access

Chuck Zimmerman

ZimmCast67 - Internet Use InformationInternet use in America just continues to skyrocket. The latest Pew Internet & American Life Project report shows that 73 % of adults are online. That’s double digit growth from a year ago and the same holds true for broadband access. What does this mean for agricultural communications?

This is something I discuss on this week’s program. Additionally Cindy reports on some of the ways we’re using audio both on our blogs and for other client projects. I also have some information on the new traffic records set in April by AgWired and Domestic Fuel.

You can listen to this week’s program here: Listen To ZimmCast ZimmCast 67 11 min 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.

Audio, Internet, Podcasts, ZimmCast

Mootube Let’s You See What Cows See

Chuck Zimmerman

MootubeThis is different. Cows with cameras. Actually I’m not sure what category to put this in. Someone has way too much time on their hands. It’s called, Mootube.

You can see cow cams and they even have a blog: From The Pasture

As they say, “Mootube was created to give the world an idea of what things look like from a cow’s point of view.”

Who is this and I have to ask, “Why?”

Video