This is just not being scheduled at a good time for me. Why don’t people call and check my schedule first? Anyway, I’d love to go since the Portable Media Expo & Podcast Conference is all about what we’re all about here at ZimmComm. I know we’re all about agricultural marketing but that includes embracing new ways to distribute information.
Take blogging itself as an example. A year ago most of you (me included) didn’t really know much about this. Look at what’s happening today, even in ag!
In most big time stadiums you’ll find the “suites” where you’ve got your own little room to watch the game with your friends and clients. It’s the same here at the Coliseum at World Dairy Expo.
In this case companies like Charleston Orwig have serious meetings taking place with their clients. In case you can’t tell, these folks are having too much fun at this early meeting. I think it had to do with the photographer interrupting things.
Isn’t this a sight? You’ve got Bob Bosold, Col. Jon Phillips, Randy Koenen and Emery Kleven plotting World Dairy Expo coverage strategy. Yeah, that’s what they were talking about all right.
The media room at Expo kicked into high gear here on day two. The attendance on day one was way up at just over 10,000 visitors. That includes visitors from 54 countries!
It really is an international event.
I just have to post this here on AgWired since I really like bagpipes. My sister played them for our high school “Kiltie Band.”
These guys played at the awards ceremony in the show ring at World Dairy Expo for the Ayrshire awards. I’ll leave it up to you to figure out why they do that.
You can listen to them right here: 
(2.3MB MP3 File)
You always have to celebrate the end of the first day at a farm show. World Dairy Expo is no different. The exhibitor reception was sponsored by Hoard’s Dairyman. Isn’t this a great looking group?
Thanks to the people in red for sponsoring our reception. Opening day here at Expo was beautiful and traffic was great. We’ll get some traffic stats tomorrow morning.
While I was in the media room here at World Dairy Expo a little while ago I found out about next year’s “theme”. It’s already designed and they were providing us with posters. So here’s your first look at next year’s theme – Dairy Central. Let me know what you think!
You can learn more about the themes for World Dairy Expo on their website.
Speaking of World Dairy Expo, one of the ways we’re promoting World Dairy Diary is on the audio billboards that play over the speaker system on the grounds. They are meant to thank sponsors and bring your attention to things that are going on.
There’s even one about World Dairy Diary! You can listen to it here:
I didn’t receive a release on this but was alerted to a new Monsanto website for farmers. It’s all about how to take care of pesky weed problems and called “Weed Resistance Management.”
I got excited when I saw a section on the site called “Voices From The Field.” Now that would be a place to “hear” a voice and sure enough there are a couple of audio files. They’re saved as .wmv files which will play fine if you have Windows Media Player but I would recommend saving them as .mp3 files which will play on basically any media player. Hey, maybe Monsanto could podcast them too, then growers could subscribe to them and listen on their computers or digital audio players when they’re on the road!
You never know who you’ll see when you go to a farm show. I’m here blogging the World Dairy Expo (World Dairy Diary) and the booth next to my little office is for the Southwest Plains Dairy Directory. I posted an announcement about it here on AgWired recently. And the person who’s working the exhibit is Kathy Cornett, Chairman of McCormick Company and a past president of the National Agri-Marketing Association I might add.
The Dairy Directory her company has put together is an interesting project and one that shows how companies, and yes even advertising agencies, can and I think, should start looking at ways to grow their business in new directions. Of course McCormick has long been a company that does things in a non-traditional way. Remember when they started AgriTalk for example?
I like that non-traditional stuff. Instead of saying “That’s the way we’ve always done it.” I prefer “Let’s do something we’ve never done before.” Like a blog about agricultural marketing!
CornTalk, a weekly program for the Missouri Corn Growers Association, features an interview with the CEO, Gary Marshall. Gary talks about added value – and how it is benefiting Missouri corn growers. Last week USDA Rural Development announced the awarding of grant assistance under the Value Added Producer Grant program, and Missouri received more funding than any other single state.
You can listen to this week’s CornTalk here:
CornTalk is a weekly AgWired podcast which you can subscribe to using the link in our sidebar.
I like seeing a “farm” background in the bio on someone involved in agrimarketing. However, it’s certainly not required. Congrats John.
John Christenson has been promoted to account executive at Bader Rutter & Associates in the agency’s account services group. Christenson joined Bader Rutter in 2003 as an assistant account executive. His previous experience includes working for the Nebraska Department of Economic Development, The Ad Store in New York and on his family farm.
