Events need sponsors and one of the AMS sponsors for the Sprecher Brewery reception was Bayer CropScience represented by Charlie Hale and Stephanie Gable. You figure out who is who. Thank you Bayer! Good party. Also, thank you Lane Kaplan, Rhea & Kaiser, for making sure we got our sponsors featured here on AgWired.
Our other sponsor of the evening was John Deere but I just didn’t get a picture. Sorry Barry! We’ll see you in the Info Expo.
When in Milwaukee you must respect your brewery! The Ag Media Summit group went to Sprecher Brewery, which is celebrating its 20th year. While I was there, besides tasting some good beer and eating good food, I got to interview Karen Schoenung, who is a manager at the brewery. She describes some history, products and other tidbits about Sprecher Brewery.
You can listen to my interview with Karen here 
(3.5MB)
Ethics again. I interviewed David Markey by phone a few days ago at his office in Dublin, Ireland and now he’s here in the states. He just gave a workshop on “Can Publishers Afford To Be Ethical?” It’s clear that the whole issue is very “unclear.” However, in his publication group everything is run by his editors. He issues no mandate from on high. As we heard yesterday at the ARC meeting and again today, there’s just more and more pressure being put on ag media to run public relations material. I thought it was very interesting that although David will publish an advertorial he charges 25 percent more to the advertiser. Makes sense to me.
Charlie Hale, Bayer CropScience, was in the room and encouraged all the publishers and editors to hold their ground when the pressure comes to bear. He said that the media credibility is what he buys and he wants to make sure that’s maintained.
The afternoon sessions of the Ag Media Summit have just concluded. One that was standing room only was conducted by Mike Raine, The Western Producer, on “Digital Image Management.” I don’t know why everyone was so interested. Don’t you just dump all your images off your memory card onto a CD and put it in the pile on your shelf? Not. Get a “system.”
One of the seminars at the Ag Relations Council meeting focused on “Ethics in Public Relations” and one of the panelists was Gary Myers, founder and past president of Morgan & Myers. Gary is still providing council to the agency. I spoke with him about his thoughts on this subject and his suggestions for young people entering the profession.
You can listen to my interview with Gary here
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Now that the Ag Relations Council meeting is over it’s time for the Ag Media Summit! To get the work underway it was board meeting morning. In this picture it’s the Livestock Publications Council board meeting. They actually started last night and were just finishing up this morning.
At the same time this morning the American Agricultural Editors Association board was meeting. I’m sure we’ll get some news from their meetings over the next couple days. I’ll pass along whatever I learn.
This afternoon there are several seminars taking place and the opening reception which will be held at the Sprecher Brewery.
The last panel on the Ag Relations Council program was on Lifestyle Producers. Speaking were (l-r) Gene Hemphill, New Holland, Brad Schu, Purina Mills and Jeff Young, Bader-Rutter. Each presented information about what they’ve learned from research and ways they’re using that information to market products to this very diverse market segment.
At the Ag Relations Council business meeting president, Jeri Omernik, reported that there are currently 74 members and that the legwork has been done to organize and set up new procedures to jump start a solicitation of new members and re-institute the Golden ARC Awards program. She said that the transition from having NAMA oversee the organization is complete and they’re seeing a lot of renewed interest from past and potential members.
German Fest wouldn’t be authentic without polka music right? So that you can get the flavor of the event, here for your pleasure is a cut of polka music from one of the live stages at German Fest in Milwaukee.
You can listen here
So what do you do at German Fest? You find a good beer and sit down with friends and enjoy. Here’s some of the happy group from the ARC meeting doing just that.
