Sad Day For Ethanol Industry

Chuck Zimmerman

Rather than update the previous post announcement on this I thought I’d just copy the post from Domestic Fuel:

Rahal-Letterman RacingToday the Rahal-Letterman Racing team suffered a serious blow when the #17 Ethanol car was in a pre-race warmup accident and driver and ethanol champion Paul Dana died from the injuries he suffered. “It is a black day for us, and on behalf of Rahal Letterman Racing, our sponsors and associates, our prayers and sympathy go out to the entire Dana family,” said team co-owner Bobby Rahal, the 1986 Indianapolis 500 winner. “This is a great tragedy. As a result, and in honor of Paul, we will not run the team’s No. 15 (with driver Buddy Rice, the 2004 Indy 500 winner) and No. 16 (with driver Danica Patrick, the 2005 Indy 500 and IndyCar Series Rookie of the Year) cars in today’s event.”

“Paul was a very special guy,” said David Vander Griend, president and CEO of ICM, a primary sponsor on the Team Ethanol car. “He demonstrated his belief in what ethanol can do for all of America through his racing. He helped us with so many things in bringing ethanol to the IndyCar Series. He will be missed tremendously. Our thoughts are with his family today.”

EPICDomestic Fuel sponsor and Ethanol Car sponsor, Ethanol Promotion and Information Council (EPIC) has released a statement. You can read the full release from EPIC here (Word doc).

I also spoke with EPIC Executive Director, Tom Slunecka a few minutes ago. He is obviously still in shock over the tragedy after spending some time with Paul during the last couple days and being onsite when the accident occurred. On behalf of the EPIC staff, board and members, Tom offers his condolences to the Dana family, his friends and teammates. You can listen to Tom’s statement here: Listen to MP3 EPIC Statement (1 min MP3)

Audio, Ethanol

Race Day Tragedy In Homestead

Chuck Zimmerman

HomesteadHere’s a post I wish I didn’t have to write.  Actually I was on my way home to link you to the posts we did yesterday about the big opening race of the Indy Racing League in Homestead, FL.  That’s because it’s the first race in which all the cars will be running on a blend of ethanol and one of our clients is the Ethanol Promotion and Information Council (EPIC).  However, tragedy struck today prior to the race. 

I found out just before the race started that Paul Dana, driver of the #17 Ethanol car for Rahal-Letterman Racing has died from injuries he suffered in a pre-race warmup crash.  This is an absolute shock since I had just interviewed Paul yesterday afternoon.  You can read the story on the Indy Racing League website here.

I will be speaking with Tom Slunecka, Executive Director of EPIC shortly and will post his statement.  EPIC is a sponsor of the car that Paul Dana was driving.

Cindy and I offer our prayers for Paul, his family, the Rahal-Letterman team, EPIC and all the people affected by this tragedy.  I had the honor to meet Paul and interview him several times over the last year.  He is a hero in my eyes.  You won’t find a better role model for what you can achieve if you work hard and stay focused.  He was an untiring champion of ethanol and I can’t imagine at the moment what we’ll do without him.

I’ll have more information to post soon.

Ethanol

Something Completely Different

Chuck Zimmerman

I don’t know if I’m the only Monty Python fan in agrimarketing but just in case I’m not I wanted to alert you to a great little video clip of the crew being interviewed on KERA in Dallas, TX in 1975. You can watch the video or download it in iPod format (which I did). It’s set during KERA’s pledge drive since they are a public tv station. The clip is brought to us by The Sound of Young America blog.

I started my career as an engineer at WUFT-TV in Gainesville, FL. I remember loading Monty Python’s Flying Circus on 2 inch videotape reels many, many a time. And I won’t ever forget pledge drives. Ask Cindy about them. She was talent (money begger) while I was behind the cameras in engineering or even directing the breaks.

via CNET Esoterica Blog.

Uncategorized

FarmPolicy Blogger Starts Interviewing

Chuck Zimmerman

Ag Policy SoupMy man Keith Good just keeps getting gooder. Now he’s using audio and making interviews on FarmPolicy available on a new blog site called Ag Policy Soup.

“Ag Policy Soup” is a blog that features audio interviews with U.S. farm policy experts on specific topics that are impacting the current political environment and future direction of domestic agricultural policy. Ag Policy Soup is brought to you by FarmPolicy.com, Inc.- publisher of The FarmPolicy.com News Summary.

The inaugural edition of Ag Policy Soup highlights the concept of revenue based farm programs and is now available at www.agpolicysoup.blogspot.com. Ag Policy Soup is a free webpage and new posts and interviews can be expected about twice a month.

You can hear his first interview Listen to MP3here (10 min MP3). Next up Keith is to podcast this thing.

Audio, Farm Policy

The Taco Tuinstra Tobacco Tour Blog

Chuck Zimmerman

Taco TuinstraFellow blogger Matt Mullen brought the African tobacco tourning tales of Taco Tuinstra to my attention. “He is on a tour of tobacco farms and leaf dealers in southern Africa right now and has set up a blog to chronicle his travels. Pretty cool that technology today allows you to do some of this stuff, even from places that remote.”

Taco seems to be doing okay although he just got started yesterday and found out how pricey food at Heathrow Airport can be.

After flying all day yesterday, I spent the night at the Heathrow Hilton in London, and now I am having $35 scrambled eggs with orange juice. The Britons must all be millionaires (or not eat out often). They have to, with these prices, because otherwise they’d all be at poverty level.

Ain’t it the truth. It should be interesting following this trip via blog. Taco and Matt write for Tobacco Reporter.

Publication

Auburn Student Blogger Critiques Us

Chuck Zimmerman

Lara's BlogI know that Auburn University has people who get new media. A trackback to a post on AgNewsWire.AgWired.com.com alerted me to an example of it. It led me to Auburn public relations student, Lara’s Blog. Lara had to critique an audio news release (what we call a Talking News Release) and she found one we produced and distributed for the Ethanol Promotion and Information Council.

I’m happy to say she wrote very positively about the release. Way to go Cindy, who is our main editor.

What I’m very impressed with is Lara though. Here’s a budding public relations professional who’s blogging while still a student. She’s creating an online resume that a prospective employer can visit and within a few moments know more about her and her capabilities than any traditional resume will ever show. Not only is she providing us a glimpse into her abilities and personality but she’s using one of the new media tools that are going to be a standard part of the work she’ll be doing for her clients in the future. She’ll be able to provide her clients with advice based on personal experience.

I can tell you without reading more than a few posts that Lara would get my serious consideration. How many of you public relations professionals are blogging? Want to dip your toe in the water. Give me a call or better yet, get in touch with Lara.

Public Relations

Premise Registration By Manitoba Pork

Chuck Zimmerman

Harry SiemensManitoba Pork Council is circulating premise registration forms to the more than two thousand swine production units across the province. The Canadian swine industry, as part of its preparation for participation in a national multi-species livestock identification and traceability system, is collecting registration information from all farms that produce swine. In conjunction with the premise registration, swine farms will also receive new tattoo numbers.

Manitoba Pork Council emergency preparedness and technical affairs specialist Jeff Clark said the premises registration kit requests information such as the plot of land on which they farm using the legal land description on their certificate of title and, to clarify, a premise is the actual farm.

“We’re not so much interested in the actual producer but rather the plot of land, the barn, because that will be central to traceability, to tracking disease movement etceteras, production information such as types of animals, numbers of animals, manure storage, manure application and then contact information, both the barn owner and also barn workers,” said Clark. “In the event of an emergency authorities will have to get a hold of the owner but they’ll also need to get a hold of whoever it might be on farm and, in some cases, those might be different people.”

By using the premises, MPC will assign market tattoo numbers that will be specific to each premise. Clark notes the original goal was to have producers begin using their new tattoo numbers on May 1st but there have been requests to push that back to June 1st. The intent is to coordinate this so all hog farms in western Canada can switch to the new tattoo numbering system on the same day.

Siemens Says

International

Farm Journal’s Henderson Wins Grand Neal

Chuck Zimmerman

Pam HendersonPame Henderson has won a big award for Farm Journal. I hope Pam enjoyed the presentation. The Waldorf-Astoria is a nice little facility don’t you know.

Pam Henderson, Crops and Issues Editor of FARM JOURNAL has been awarded the Grand Neal Award, the premier prize of the 52nd Annual Jesse H. Neal National Business Journalism Awards for editorial achievement. The Neal Awards are described as the “Pulitzer Prizes” of business-to-business journalism.

As the first agricultural journalist ever to be honored with a Grand Neal, Henderson was chosen from 32 category winners announced at a luncheon attended by journalists, publishers, media executives and advertisers from all sectors of U.S. business at The Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City. There were 101 finalists out of 1,250 entries in the American Business Media (ABM) competition.

You can read the American Business Media release here and see a list of all the awards.

Publication

Rural Broadband Use Growing Fast

Chuck Zimmerman

PEW InternetI almost missed a memo from the PEW Internet & American Life Project (pdf) that shows that although rural broadband internet use is lower in rural vs. urban America, it’s catching up fast.

The report says:

. . . rural areas show fast growth in home broadband uptake in the past two years and the gap between rural and non-rural America in home broadband adoption, though still substantial, is narrowing. By the end of 2005, 24% of rural Americans had high-speed internet connections at home compared with 39% of adult Americans living elsewhere.

This means the use of new media communications options to reach rural (farm) Americans is a only going to continue to grow in importance.

Internet

Some New Media Tidbits

Chuck Zimmerman

I thought I was done for the day until I stared checking my feeds. Email me if you don’t know what “checking my feeds” means.

I noticed on Blog Business Summit a link to the slides (pdf file) that Anil Dash used in his presentation at the SXSW Interactive. Even without hearing Anil they’re worth a read if you’re still wondering about blogging for business. Good stuff in there.

While you’re at it you can hear a panel discussion on Podcasting 2.0 here (57 min MP3). It features Chris Pirillo, Eric Rice and Rob Greenlee.

Bonus info tip: Even President Bush encourages the use of new media. Now if he had just mentioned ZimmComm . . .

Podcasts