ZimmCast Interview With Monsanto

Chuck Zimmerman

ZimmCast63 - Interview With Mica DeLongThis week I’ve got an interview with Monsanto Public Affairs Manager, Mica DeLong. Mica and I talked about their Future Ag Journalist Fellowship and what they thought of having students blog the Commodity Classic on AgWired.

In the interview Mica says for example, “We learned a lot about blogging. We didn’t really realize the power of it. And when we got back to the office, myself and my colleague, and we realized how many people did actually read Margy and Mary’s blogs and just found it fascinating to see the show through their eyes, we realized what a quick connection it can deliver back home. And what a different kind of connection, rather than just reading an article or hearing a broadcast, that the blogging was really personal.” Mica says that this experience will be helpful to Monsanto as they look at how they deliver their message to their customers in the future.

You can listen to this week’s program here: Listent To ZimmCast ZimmCast 63 (13 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, Commodity Classic, Podcasts, ZimmCast

Checking In After Being Away

Chuck Zimmerman

Boy did I need some time away from the phone and computer. 2 1/2 days without a mobile phone, email, internet, computer, etc. I highly recommend this for everyone at least once a year.

I was afraid the inbox would be bad but I only have 215 emails to wade through after deleting 150 spam ones. The blog only had 19 spam comments to get rid of. Not as bad as I thought.

I almost didn’t leave. Our hosting company decided to move our server last week right before I left and as of Friday morning several of our websites weren’t fully functional. I took a chance and left anyway. By the time I arrived and my retreat location they were up and running. That was a nice feeling to have.

The main reason we moved servers was to provide our clients with even more services and options. We already host several client websites but now we can offer even more services in addition to the design and installation of your website! Boy am I glad that’s over with.

I’ve got a lot of things to post for you over the next several days. I just hope I can fit them all in. There’s a lot of good new information to share.

Uncategorized

Posting Vacation

Chuck Zimmerman

Actually I’ll be incommunicado for a couple days on an annual retreat. Gotta re-charge those batteries. Cindy might post something if she gets time otherwise you’re stuck without me until Sunday evening sometime. Lots of good information came in today and I would have posted more of it but this server move has created some challenges.

This means that there will be lots more coming so feel free to browse back through posts you might have missed.

Until then . . .

Uncategorized

South African Milkman Is Blogging

Chuck Zimmerman

Leon The Milkman BlogHere’s a great example of how you can use a blog to accomplish a communications goal. You need to meet Leon the Milkman. He’s a blogger in South Africa who was fed up with all the negative information about dairy on the internet. He’s also got a website at Dairy-Info.org. He’s offering a free dairy dictionary if you visit either of the sites and register.

Leon the Milkman says that he finds it quite easy to get new issues to discuss on his blog – he just writes about everything that happens during his workday. He finds blogs to be the easiest way to get his ideas on the Internet and also likes that he can easily change the template and look of his site, using the WordPress Blog Leon The Milkmanformat. This comes in handy with changing seasons or wanting to change the blog’s look for a special holiday, like making everything green for St. Patrick’s Day.

“I find it so easy to just sit back at the end of a day and writing something short for the blog – it even helps to get perspective – much like writing in a journal would.” Leon philosophizes, milk in hand. Yes, he blogs in the evening, because mornings are for fresh milk deliveries of course.

We can all learn from a little from Leon.

International

The Best Time To Send Email

Chuck Zimmerman

Exact TargetI posted this last night but it got deleted in our server move (which is still in process). I’m sure I wrote this differently but here’s today’s creativity.

The question of when to send out an email or e-newsletter is definitely one everybody has an opinion on. Now we have some interesting research from Exact Target to help us decide. Guess what. It’s Friday. Of all days. I wouldn’t have thought so but . . .

Emails sent on Friday had the highest average open rate in 2005, according to the 2005 Response Rate Study by on-demand email service provider ExactTarget. The most comprehensive study to date includes data collected during the 2005 calendar year from more than 4,000 organizations, 230,000 email sends and 2.7 billion email messages.

“ExactTarget’s 2004 study asserted that there is no such thing as a universal best day to send email, and we still hold this view,” said Morgan Stewart, director of strategic services at ExactTarget and author of the study. “The results of our 2005 study show that organizations still must conduct their own tests to determine which day of the week works best for them, but all organizations should consider Friday and Sunday as viable challengers.”

According to the study, Friday had the highest average open rate for 14 months straight – from October 2004 through November 2005. Read More

Internet

Moving To New Server

Chuck Zimmerman

Hello AgWired fans. We’re in the process of moving to new servers. This is a bigger challenge than I thought it would be but we’re working through it. So far the only glitch is losing the last 3 posts I did last night.

This should all be completed within the next day or two. I’m only letting you know in case something else happens that would affect your viewing of the site.

Uncategorized

Zimfo Bites

Chuck Zimmerman

Zimfo Bytes

Adventures of Moopheus and Leo

Chuck Zimmerman

Meatrix IIIf you’re in the dairy business and have seen The Matrix then I hope you’ve got a sense of humor. This is funny. Actually it’s really a sad waste of misguided talent. It’s a Matrix film spoof to blast corporate farming called The Meatrix II. I never heard of it before but the group doing this claims the first one’s been downloaded over 10 million times and they’ve won awards for it. They are short animated movies.

They even have a blog about it which you can find here. The whole thing is a project of the Global Resource Action Center for the Environment (GRACE).

Now if you want the truth about corporate dairy farming you might want to visit this website.

Dairy, Video

Ag Podcast Two-fer

Chuck Zimmerman

First, Truth About Trade has a podcast series going. I guess we didn’t get the release but they’ve got about 13 episodes done it looks like. I just subscribed and will listen while I’m on the road tomorrow.

Second, the latest installment of Monsanto’s “Conversations About Plant Biotechnology” is out, featuring Klaus Ammann, former director of the Botanical Garden and an Honorary Professor Emeritus at the University of Berne, Switzerland. This is in a video podcast series that I just subscribed to. Works beautifully and looks great on my iPod.

Agribusiness, Podcasts