Blog The Truth About Your Company

Chuck Zimmerman

There’s a good little article on PRWeek that is worth reading called “Note to corporate bloggers: The truth shall set you free.”

I can’t agree more with this excerpt “While PR and marketing pros struggle to capture the blogosphere in a bottle – from agencies establishing entire new media practices to companies creating crisis plans for when blogs attack – few are stepping back to see the bigger truth about blogs, podcasts, and the like. And that is truth itself. At its heart, this is a universe founded on truth, myriad layers of direct-to-opinion points of view based on truth, justice, and the new media way. ”

It’s amazing what the truth will do for your image. Blogs are a very personal form of communication and if you’re truthful your customers will know it and respond to it.

Uncategorized

Want To Manage A Winery Association?

Chuck Zimmerman

Sonoma County WineriesSpeaking of California wines. The Sonoma County Wineries Association (SCWA) is looking for a new executive director after Jaime Douglas just retired. They have 170 winery members.

The SCWA has retained Benchmark Consulting to conduct a global search for a new Executive Director to lead the Sonoma County wine industry into the future. Interested candidates should submit resumes to www.benchmarkhr.com.

Ag Groups

A Bottle Of Your Best Paso Robles

Chuck Zimmerman

Paso RoblesThere’s more to California wine than just the Sonoma and Napa Valley. That’s what the Paso Robles region wants you to know and they’re putting up a multi million dollar advertising campaign to promote it starting with their website. Referrals, print and online advertising, and search engines are expected to drive traffic to the site. The winery alliance mission statement is: “The Paso Robles Wine Country Alliance communicates, reinforces and enhances our status as a world-class wine region.”

The campaign is being driven by the Paso Robles Wine Country Alliance, formerly the Vintners & Growers Association, a cooperative of wineries, wine grape growers and associated businesses established to market the Paso Robles wine industry. Graphic design for the campaign was executed by San Luis Obispo-based Kraftwerk Design. The branding campaign is multi-tiered and multi-faceted, targeting trade and consumers on various levels through a variety of avenues during the next five years.

Agribusiness

Kinder, Friendlier Pork Board Website

Chuck Zimmerman

Pork-Dot-OrgIt’s no longer porkboard.org, now it’s www.pork.org. This is the newly re-designed National Pork Board website. It’s truly a portal to a lot of pork stuff.

There’s two things I’ll point out first. Much better domain and way simpler and easier to deal with. The “old” one was overwhelming with too much on the homepage. This is taking a lesson from the KISS principle. You just don’t have to try to cram everything onto the homepage. Give us some logical choices and let us go where we want for more information. As Steve Krug says in the title of his book, “Don’t make me think.” Why don’t web designers get this?

Way to go Pork Board. Now if a couple other national ag groups would pay attention here . . .

From its powerful search engine to its revamped layout, the Pork Checkoff is combining the best of PorkBoard.org with new resources in a convenient, streamlined format at the newly named and newly designed Pork.org Web site.

“This new site is very user-friendly and helps you easily find the information you need to better manage your swine operation,” said Steve Weaver, a pork producer from Elk Grove, Calif., and a member of the National Pork Board. “I also like the new name, which is easy for producers to remember when they need information.”

Ag Groups, Internet, Pork

Bunge DuPont Biotech Alliance Program

Chuck Zimmerman

PioneerSo this is how the producer gets their payoff for using these news hybrids. “Up to” a 40 cent per bushel premium is a nice extra!

Bunge, Bellevue, Ohio, is one of a select group of elevators participating in a premium-based program for growing low linolenic soybeans from Pioneer Hi-Bred International, Inc., during the 2005-06 season. By participating in this Bunge DuPont Biotech Alliance program, Bunge will offer up to a 40-cent premium per bushel on low lin soybeans.

In conjunction with the premium program, the Alliance is marketing NUTRIUMTM Low Linolenic Soybean Oil to food companies to help meet increasing consumer demand for nutritious foods. Pioneer and Bunge are working with growers and local elevators to contract special low lin varieties used to produce NUTRIUM oil. “Soybean growers who participate in our low linolenic program not only are helping meet the increasing consumer demand for foods with improved nutritional profiles, they also are positioning U.S. growers as leaders and innovators in the global marketplace,” says Troy Hobbs, Alliance business manager.

Agribusiness

G10 Countries Express Trade Concerns

Chuck Zimmerman

As we get closer to the Hong Kong Ministerial of the WTO the rhetoric is heating up. Ag groups here in the United States have sure been sending out the “position” releases. I have to call them that since I’m not sure I would use the word news to describe the content of a lot of the ones I see. They are informative though for reporters, most of which probably don’t “use” them other than for background information.

What is interesting is to see the language and the us vs. them attitude that everyone has in this world trade negotiation. I’m sure the same thing happens in other countries and in fact, I received a release this morning from an interesting group of countries who see things very differently than our farm groups here in the U. S. This release was sent by the Swiss Farmers’ Union.

After intensive discussions with governmental and WTO officials in Geneva, we farm organisations from the G10-countries of Japan, Korea, Norway and Switzerland, express our grave concerns about the development of the WT O negotiations in agriculture. Exporting countries like G20 and USA have continued to put forward aggressive negotiating proposals such as drastic tariff reductions, tariff capping, and limitation on the number of sensitive products while importing countries’ requests for reflecting non-trade concerns and providing flexibility in market access have not been properly accommodated. We are also deeply concerned about the recent proposal of the EU including tariff capping and deep cuts in tariffs. These proposals do not consider the special situation of the agriculture in the net food importing countries.

Who would think that countries like Japan, Korea, Norway and Switzerland would get together on anything? The release also mentions “multifunctionality” which is a concept we don’t discuss much here. It takes a little bit of explanation and understanding the cultural differences that exist between these countries and the U. S. If you delve into it you’ll start to understand the thinking behind the folks we’re negotiating with a little better.

I don’t personally believe we’ll see much accomplished again this year. If you think differently please feel free to comment.

International

NAMA Agribusiness Forum Blog

Chuck Zimmerman

NAMA ConnectAnnouncing NAMA Connect. It’s the National Agri-Marketing Association blog. You may remember they blogged the Boot Camp this summer. Well it’s time to move on down the blogging super highway.

Yours truly will be the NAMA guest blogger for the Agribusiness Forum. In fact, I’ve already started. Visit the site now to hear an interview with Forum chairman, Scott Kurfman, AdFarm. He talks about the program and says it’s not too late to register.

If for any reason you can’t make it to the Forum keep tuned to NAMA Connect (and of course, AgWired) to keep up with what’s happening. Also, as Scott says, the sessions will be recorded, so you can always listen to the speakers later.

This will be fun.

NAMA

Photo Album From World Dairy Expo

Chuck Zimmerman

Entrance To World Dairy ExpoI took a lot of pictures while I was at the recent World Dairy Expo blogging away on World Dairy Diary. Although I used a bunch of them during the course of writing about the event there were many more not used. So, it was Flickr photo album time.

Just in case you’re interested I thought I’d post a link to it here. I took 262 photos during Expo and uploaded 201 of them. So there’s a lot to look at. This link – World Dairy Diary Photo Album – will take you to the Flickr photo album. You can look at them individually or as a slideshow. You can download them too. If you use them, just give us credit please.

I hope you enjoy them. It was fun taking them.

World Dairy Expo

Touring Tessenderlo Kerley In Kansas

Chuck Zimmerman

TKI Fertilizer Forum GroupNow isn’t this a good looking group? The Tessenderlo Kerley folks brought in the media to tour their plant. That’s a great idea. Bring the media in and do a show and tell. Best way to get everyone on the same page! It’s part of that whole transparency thing.

Tessenderlo Kerley, Inc., held a fertilizer industry update forum and tour of its liquid fertilizer plant in Coffeyville, Kan., on Wednesday, Oct. 26. The purpose of the forum was to provide the latest information on fertilizer production and supplies for the 2006 season, as well as overview fertilizer options to help producers improve nutrient efficiency management and save money. Presentations on current fertilizer market conditions and options were given by Dr. Larry Murphy, Fluid Fertilizer Foundation; Neal Barkley, Coffeyville Resources; Randy Whisenhunt and Jeff Mayfield with Ag Services of Hillsboro, Kan.; and Brian Lawrence of Tessenderlo Kerley.

Attending the forum and tour were (left to right) Terry Anderson, Lee AgriMedia, Tekamah, Neb.; Greg Vincent, Vance Publishing, Overland Park, Kan.; Beth Riffel, Grass & Grain, Manhattan, Kan.; Doug Rich, High Plains Journal, Lawrence, Kan.; Brian Lawrence, Tessenderlo Kerley, Kearney, Mo.; R. Kelly Schwalbe, BCS Communications, Kansas City, Mo.; Bill Spiegel, Kansas Farmer, Manhattan, Kan.; and Stacey Irwin, Farm Industry News, Raymore, Mo.

Agribusiness

ScanControl In The Palm of your Hand

Chuck Zimmerman

Scan ControlAt first glance the news about ScanControl’s service and software enhancements is pretty difficult to digest. Pretty technical language for one thing and lots of it. That’s why I was very glad to see that they included a link to a flash demo. Pictures speak a thousand words or at least make something like this easier to understand!

You can find the demonstration here.

ScanControl, a global provider of data collection solutions that “put crop management in the palm of your hand,” announced enhanced scalable support for smart phones, Wireless devices, GIS, and barcode technologies in CropTrak™ software, providing vineyards and diverse agricultural businesses with on-demand, cost saving crop sampling and field operation reporting.

CropTrak’s new “Sync over Cellular” wireless synchronization eliminates delays in field data collection by connection through cellular networks to instantly enter and remotely synchronize field data. The benefit of on-demand reporting of crop status and field operations is automatically obtained through immediate updates to databases and spreadsheets, without the time, cost, and labor of returning to the office to manually enter new information.

Agribusiness