U. S. Secretary of Agriculture, Mike Johanns, speaking to cattle industry members in San Antonio.
One of the nice things about being a member of the media is the ability to get close to the stage and take a nice picture! 
Sec of Ag Johanns First Speech Outside of DC
U. S. Secretary of Agriculture, Mike Johanns, talks at the Cattle Industry Convention on Friday, Feb. 4. You can listen to a few minutes of his comments here: ZimmComm Podcast.
Contact me at ZimmComm if you’d like to hear more from the Secretary. He spoke for about 30 minutes and then answered questions at a press conference and I have all the audio.
Record Media Attendance
I’ve been told that we have a record number of media representatives (reporters) covering the Cattle Industry Convention this year. I know I saw more at the media reception tonight than I’ve ever seen before. Thank you Merial for sponsoring it and the excellent food, especially the little steaks that were fork tender!
Because of all the reporters here I’ve spoken with many people we send Talking News Releases to. I like hearing the comments like, “Love what you send me. I’ve been using it.” Thank you. I wish they would write that to me and to you our clients!
As I was wishing that I got to my computer and checked email. Here’s part of an email I got from a farm broadcaster today that I thought you might be interested in:
“I also wanted to let you know that when you had the Machinery Link interviews months ago I had listeners comment on that report and really enjoyed the information about machinery cost, etc.
I told you about that at the NAFB convention, but never got it in writing! Thanks for your efforts!”
She’s referring to a release we sent on behalf of Blasdel, Cleaver, Schwalbe Communications for their client Machinery Link. Feedback is great.
So this is how I know our TNR service is being used by the reporters we send them to. We talk to them and know so many of them personally. Of course nothing beats a good story though.
Blogging Poll
I’ve been asking all the public relations professionals working here that I come in contact with if they know what a blog is. This is very unofficial or scientific and who knows what the margin of error is.
I’d say 95% don’t know. In fact, most say they’ve never heard of the word! Well that’s changing and this blog is helping speed the change up.
I’m also finding that it’s a lot easier showing them how this works and giving them examples of how they can use it than to just try to explain it in a casual conversation. Most discussions have started out as an “I’ve got 5 minutes to talk” and turned into about an hour of pretty intense discussion. I need to start charging for these initial consultations!
So, I can see that there’s a learning curve to go through and I hope I can help you with it. Some folks have given me the impression that they think this is just another fad that they’re not going to bother learning and that can be a little discouraging. But then the next call gets me fired up again.
Like this morning, I had an account executive from a major advertising/public relations agency call me today and spend almost an hour talking about how they can create blogs for themselves and their clients. They’ll be having an agency creative team meeting next week to discuss it and she was asked to contact us to help prepare information for the meeting.
They’re fired up about blogging and what it can mean for them and their clients.
Are you?
The Secretary is Coming!
Friday morning new U. S. Secretary of Agriculture, Mike Johanns, will speak at the general session of the Cattle Industry Convention. Come back tomorrow late morning and we’ll have audio from his comments. He’s also going to be speaking to the media after his speech.
I’ll have a picture then too.
Customers Playing Games
The trade show here at the NCBA convention is huge. Producers have lots of opportunities to talk to company reps or here at the Novartis booth, they can compete in a computer quiz for prizes that are awarded each day to the 2 highest scorers.
Impromptu Press Conferences
Although there’s a formal press conference room, impromptu press conferences pop up everywhere. Here’s Phil Seng (USMEF President) holding court with reporters in the news center.
Even The News Room Is Sponsored!
I know it’s not a very exciting picture but you can see how everything is sponsored. Reporters at the news center will leave this convention weighing several pounds more due to the large quantities of food bestowed upon them. Thursday’s breakfast included large steaks! After all we have to get our beef quota.
Farmers Getting High Speed Internet Access
Thanks to the USDA Rural Development Broadband program more and more rural communities are getting access! Listen to my interview with Gill Gonzalez, Undersecretary for Rural Development with USDA as he talks about the loan program that’s helping bring broadband to the countryside.
Listen here: ZimmBlog Podcast
South Florida Biodiesel & Texas Cattle
What do they have in common?
I’m at the NCBA/CBB convention in San Antonio and just sent a Talking News Release out for the National Biodiesel Board simultaneously with their live press conference going on at their annual convention in Ft. Lauderdale, FL. It’s amazing what you can do with computers and the internet today!
So, here I am covering the convention in Texas as a way to demonstrate how you can use a blog for your company and/or client. At the same time we have clients like the National Biodiesel Board who are having us do release projects for them. We’re about as mobile as you can get.
I think we’re also going to create a new blog just focusing on farm news and directed to farmers. What do you think of that? It just makes sense to have a couple of reporters who are running their own public relations company create a source for news and information which we’re helping produce. Of course it has to be transparent and we’ll be up front about what they will read.