business

BeefCast update for June 25, 2009, The Resurgence of Cattle Rustling + Economic Ramifications of Animal Welfare Policies

John Blue — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 18:47:01 -0700

BeefCast^®
Update for June 25, 2009

The weekend before last my eyes were once again opened to the potential and bright future ahead for agriculture. For two days I served on the nominating committee for our next state FFA officer team. During the time I was able to see the passion and excitement that numerous high school graduates have for our industry. I was extremely impressed with their dedication, commitment and leadership ability.

While the challenges we face continue to grow, it is great to see so many young leaders actively engaged on our side of the battle. Several of them were involved in one way or another with dairy production. I believe any efforts we can take to recruit and develop young people to be active leaders in our industry will be magnified significantly.

Stay in touch, let me know what is important to you at feedback@beefcast.com.

BeefCast^® Conversations

Learn more from BeefCast^® conversations.

Audio: BeefCast 0382 - The Economic Ramifications of Animal Welfare Policies by Dr. Luther Tweeten.
Audio: BeefCast 0381 - The Resurgence of Cattle Rustling.
Audio: BeefCast 0380 - Susan Carter leads a discussion on horse slaughter.

BeefCast^® Headliners

Get the latest thoughts and commentary on the industry.

Blog: Dr. Ronald Lemenager, From the Beef Blog: New Compound Shows Potential for Mycotoxin Control. Read more.
Blog: Dennis DiPietre, Tastes and Preferences. "We usually think about demand in the two dimensional way that we are restricted to visualizing it in with a graph. That is, the amount demanded is a function of price. In actuality there are several other factors which determine demand that are embedded in those graphs but not visualized." Read more.
Blog: Don Tyler, When Tough Times Take an Emotional Toll. "Having an optimistic nature is a requirement for a person to even consider agriculture as a profession. The ups and downs of agriculture that are regularly served up courtesy of the weather, the markets, equipment breakdowns, and the occasional “stuff happens” are what we grow to accept as a part of the business." Read more.

BeefCast^® Conference Connection

Stay connected to industry conferences.

Updated seminar info from the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association Convention Weekend held March 20-22, 2009, Fort Worth, Texas, USA.
- Audio: Elizabeth Parker: FMD History, Progress & Perspectives.
- Audio: School for Successful Ranching - Business/Marketing - Ann Barnhardt: Bud Williams Marketing part 1. Parts 2 thru 5 are at presentation page.

Don't forget to add BeefCast^® to your playlist!

Thanks, again, for listening.

Trent Fredenburg
Your BeefCast Host

1.877.63Beefcast (1.877.632.3332)
Feedback@BeefCast.com

What is your social media read evaluate decide loop?

John Blue — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 13:40:52 -0700

What is your read evaluate decide loop?

With all these ways to send messages, share thoughts, have conversations, there is a sense of too many things and a bit too much chaos. When starting out this is fine. But after a while there is a need to weed out the things that are not working for you and bring focus on those that do (This presumes you know what "working for you" means:).

Having experimented and played and shared conversations with people (Brogan has lots to share! ) I have narrowed the public facing Truffle tools to Twitter, LinkedIn, and the core Truffle blogs. Oh, Flickr is in there too. And email (still a useful tool).

With these tools I have developed a read, evaluate, decide loop that I use to connect, share, discover, and act. Without some sense of process I would be all over the map and not able to achieve what I am aiming to do. Weekly, I have a set of actions I need to do to help make change happen for Truffle Media and our customers. What does that include? Read: Discovering interesting items. Evaluate: Sharing those via the tools. Decide: Linking those items to ideas others have suggested. Connect with my team mates. Update our partners. Aim to improve the business environment. Measure.

What I have not said here is I Twitter, Facebook, or Link(ed)-In. This are just tools. I need to how to use them so the tool does not become the focus but the results become the focus. How many of you have said "I used the Pencil today!"? What you really did was express and idea and share it.

So what is your business read evaluate decide loop?

BeefCast update for March 19, 2009, Top Ten Stupid Things Families Do to Break Up Their Business

John Blue — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 21:14:18 -0700

BeefCast^®
Update for March 19th, 2009

Today, I am traveling to Fort Worth for the annual Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association annual meeting and the School for Successful Ranching. It looks like a great program for the weekend. As always I will be bringing back educational conversations to share with you.

But this trip thanks to the goodwill and hospitality of the individuals responsible for the event, I will also be bringing you several of sessions and keynote presentations. You will be able to find them beginning next week in our Conference Connection. And if you are going to be in Fort Worth this weekend, let’s take a moment and catch up.

You have probably also noticed that March Madness is in the air. Just curious who you have winning it all, let me know at feedback@beefcast.com.

BeefCast^® Podcasts

Learn more from BeefCast^® conversations.

Audio: BeefCast 0347, Opportunities to use technology to make education more effective and efficient.
Audio: BeefCast 0346, Part 2 of the Top Ten Stupid Things Families Do to Break Up Their Business.
Audio: BeefCast 0345, Part 1 of the Top Ten Stupid Things Families Do to Break Up Their Business.

BeefCast^® Headliners

Get the latest thoughts and commentary on the industry.

Blog: Dr. Ronald Lemenager, From the Beef Blog: Retail perspective: Associated Food Stores on Vimeo. See more.
Blog: Dennis DiPietre, The End of Obesity is Just Around the Corner. See more.

BeefCast^® Conference Connection

Stay connected to industry conferences.

Reminder: BeefCast will be at the TSCRA Convention Weekend March 20-22, 2009, Fort Worth, Texas, USA. Selected material from several presentations will be available after the conference.
Also, BeefCast will be capturing selected presentations from the The National Institute for Animal Agriculture's The Changing Face of Animal Agriculture conference, March 31 - April 1, 2009, Louisville, Kentucky, USA. These will be available at BeefCast's Conference Connection.
BeefCast has available selected material from several presentations from the Cattle Industry Annual Convention, held January 28 - 30, 2009, Phoenix, AZ, USA.

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Update your BeefCast^® email profile.

Don't forget to add BeefCast^® to your playlist!

Thanks, again, for listening.

Trent Fredenburg
Your BeefCast Host

1.877.63Beefcast (1.877.632.3332)
Feedback@BeefCast.com

How to use info from "The Realities of the New Ag Economy... and What It Means for Agri-marketers"

Truffle Media Networks — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 00:45:02 -0700

Here is some good agri-marketing info from a webinar titled "The Realities of the New Ag Economy... and What It Means for Agri-marketers" from December 15, 2008, sponsored by AgriMarketing Magazine and Planalytics Life Sciences. This is helpful in that it has input from experts in the agriculture world sharing their outlooks on future.
Ways to use this:

Looking for job? Use this as input on your mission, as a job seeker, to solve prospective employers with their problems.
Already in a job? Use this to identify opportunities that your company can tackle.

Presenters include:

Lynn Henderson - Publisher, AgriMarketing Magazine
Dr. Kevin McNew - President/CEO, CashGrainBids.com
Paul Corby - Sr. VP Energy, Planalytics Inc.
Jim Farrell - President/CEO, Farmers National Co.
Mark A. Lakers - President, Agribusiness and Food Associates
Dr. David Downey -- Exec. Director, Purdue University Center for Agribusiness

The presentation: http://tinyurl.com/dzupsz
The transcript: http://tinyurl.com/cqf2tg
The video: http://tinyurl.com/agfjdr. Note: this video is a WMV file and works only on Window machines. If you want a converted version (though audio quality is lower) try this: http://blip.tv/file/1730160.
All this material comes from http://tinyurl.com/acsqvp.

Photo "Agriculture diarama" by Frankie Roberto.

business, information, marketing, reports, resources

New Media Refresh, some pointers to helping traverse 2009 into 2010

John Blue — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 21:29:52 -0700

Truffle Media Update
December 30, 2008

Usable info for marketing

The end of the year is here and we at Truffle, like many of you, are looking at the cross over to 2009 and 2010. To help you refresh and upgrade, here are our picks of the year.

Marketing Over Coffee. Christopher S. Penn and John Wall provide insight and usable tools for marketing in the connected digital world. Check out the The Twitter Power Guide eBook and an audio Q&A session from a Seth Godin presentation on his book Tribes.
Chris Brogan. Chris has insight on the community and social media "space". Hire Chris!. Actually, he said you could hire him or read his blog and get the same info for free!
Read E-Myth. Michael Gerber wrote about being in your business more than 20 years. Great practical reading and coaching for your business.
Edward Tufte on design. Edward Tufte, well known professor on design, has a series of books and courses that provide insight on design. He also has a very resourceful forum on his web site; check out the recent conversations on election results/data.
Trends, everyone wants to be on the front of trends. While by no means the best or first, TrendWatching.com has material that can help provide inspiration and tickle your deep thoughts on the coming future. Good tip: Know why you are tracking trends. "Trend spotting can be fun. Makes you feel in the now and in the know. But that alone is not necessarily going to make you or your company more money. The way we see it, in a nutshell, is that tracking consumer trends is one way (and there are many ways!) to gain inspiration, helping you dream up profitable new goods, services and experiences for (and with) your customers. So trend watching should ultimately lead to profitable innovation."
Check out Springwise for new business ideas. Springwise scans the globe for the most promising business ventures, ideas and concepts that are ready for regional or international adaptation, expansion, partnering, investments or cooperation. They ferociously track more than 400 global offline and online business resources, as well as taking to the streets of world cities, digital cameras at hand.
Folio...Find out what the world of the print media (magazine and newspaper) is doing. Yes, you will see info on layoffs and sell-offs in the print industry. But you will also see what those companies are trying to do. It was via Folio that I discovered the blog post by Jessica DaSilva, at the time an intern at the The Tampa Tribune. She wrote a post about the Tampa Tribune's shift in strategy and the message to the staff “People need to stop looking at TBO.com as an add on to The Tampa Tribune,” editor in chief Janet Coats said. “The truth is that The Tampa Tribune is an add on to TBO.”

Don't forget to add Ag Media Conversations to your playlist!

Have a Happy New Year!

The Truffle Media Networks team
feedback@TruffleMedia.com

blog, business, community, fun, information, information design, marketing, new media, research, resources, social media, tools

AMC 0014 - Highlights of a recent large agricultural producer survey - TruffleMedia.com

Ag Media Conversations — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 20:27:42 -0700

Ned Arthur and Dr. Allen Gray chat about the highlights of a recent large agricultural producer survey. Dr. Gray is the director of Purdue University's Center for Food and Agriculture Business.

Click Play button below to listen to audio on line.

To download an MP3 version to your desktop, right click on link below and save to your local computer.
Highlights of a recent large agricultural producer survey.

FYI, Watch an archive of the 2008 National Conference Webinar, presented on Oct. 16, 2008: https://gomeet.itap.purdue.edu/p10671788/. This is a webinar page with video and slide presented.

agribusiness, data, data, market research, purdue, survey findings

Podcasting and making money ...

John Blue — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 19:48:50 -0700

I am at the New Media Expo, listening to Leesa Barnes, author of Podcasting For Profit.

This is another session (see JasonVanOrden.com and Colligan.com) of a person who is an expert in podcasting selling services about podcasting to podcasters. Leesa is good at energetically presenting but when she focuses on "Helping you make Tons OF Money" as the focus of the presentation then I feel this is an infomercial. Each thing Leesa talks about in here presentation is a bit of bait / teaser to the audience with the subtle goal of getting this audience to buy her book, services, time, etc.

There is nothing wrong with this approach. People showed up at this session because money is certainly what drives this world and wanting to be a part of that is a strong motivator. But I think Leesa should fully disclose this: She makes her living selling her book, making paid presentation, and selling consulting services about podcasting.

Ok, what was useful from her presentation?

She is great at presenting case studies of podcasting business models. She presented Hulk Hogan as an example for Indirect Method Persona (the entertainment / star model). She broke down the Oprah model in a great fashion as part of the Integrated Method Persona. And she leveraged Big Bird as an example of Direct Method Persona.
She really engaged the group, sought their input, and made them want to participate. This is the kind of person you want at a conference speaking!
She is an idea generator person.
She has a methodology to share and utilize which help people focus.
ShowTaxi.com allows you to create unique feeds on your software, SubscribeCast.com and PremiumCast.com help you create web based unique feeds, AMember.com helps you manage members.

Final message: You do need multiple streams of income and you need to develop the strategy for each. Use what you know! You must be your brand because all the other brands are taken:)

business, information, marketing, NME2008, podcasting, social media, truffle media networks

Video podcast show production using MacBreak as an example

John Blue — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 18:08:51 -0700

I am at the New Media Expo, listening to Alex Lindsay from PixelCorps. Alex is a great person to hear for video knowledge.

Here are some of his thoughts:

Great comment: How much thought is done on what is already out there when thinking about a new podcast: None. They think about their topic and go with that. They leverage partners to make the show delivery successful.
Equipment is cheap and people are expensive. Put in place process steps and tools that will save people time.
MacBreak Weekly is what it is because of the guests.
Keys to show quality:
- Personality. Find someone that will be that fit for your show.
Sound is critical on video. People will watch bad video with good sound. Bad sound will put people off.
Equipment/software
- Get a camera with an HDMI port.
- HV 20/30 is a great sub compact camera to utilize.
- Zaxwerks Pro Animator is a kung fu secret weapon for 3D creation ... simple and no need to know "3D" stuff.
- Camtasia is the best by far for capture.
Plan. Plan. Plan. This will save you in post production.
Put in place a naming convention and file structure. This will save you time when you need to find things.
Backup, backup, backup.
We don't mind making mistakes. We just don't want to make the same mistake twice.
Three things to keep in mind
- Big soft lighting.
- Great sound.
- Capture and drive.

business, content, information, marketing, NME2008, truffle media networks, video