I took several hundred photos and conducted many interviews with presenters and participants from a variety of countries. These are posted to the website and Alltech receives a copy of the photography and interviews. It’s a great deal and the most recent example of our unique brand of on location event coverage.

Dairy Solutions Symposium 2010 Photo Album

So I took over 1,500 photos, conducted 14 interviews and posted them along with a couple of video clips to our websites and the Iowa Corn Promotion Board Facebook page. They got copies for their own use too. That’s a hallmark of our event coverage! It’s kind of like an old fashioned live radio remote on the internet and you get high quality production at the same time!

You can listen to audio from the start of the race here: Iowa Indy Corn 250 Start

Here’s where you can find my photos: Iowa Corn Indy 250 Photo Album

Meanwhile, Cindy and Joanna will covering the Fuel Ethanol Workshop in St. Louis. They will be there Monday through Wednesday. So we’ll have a lot more photos and interviews to share this week via the ZimmComm News Network.

Chuck gets to close out the week working with the Iowa Corn Promotion Board for activities leading up to and including the 2010 Iowa Corn Indy 250 race in Newton, IA. This will be his third year of covering the event.

To start with, Cindy will be attending a BASF Sustainability Summit in Chicago. From there she’ll join Joanna Schroeder and John Davis at World Pork Expo working with sponsors Boehringer Ingelheim and Novus International. It’s going to be a busy week for the @FarmPodcaster.

Next week Chuck will also be on the agriblogging highway starting with the Corn Utilization & Technology Conference in Atlanta working with the National Corn Growers Association. From there he’ll head to the Carolinas to ride and drive new Gator Utility Vehicles with John Deere. Make sure you follow @AgriBlogger and AgWired to keep up with all the action.

Have you got us on your event’s schedule? We’d be happy to live blog your event while providing professional photography services!

You can find our event photos in our Flickr set: Normal CornBelters Home Opener

Top Ten Reasons to have ZimmComm cover your next event:

10. We “Tweet” u right – in so many ways. We have multiple established Twitter accounts with thousands of followers on several different topics and can help tweet your event to tweeps all over.

9. Flickr Photos up in a Flash – get your photos uploaded and out for media to use and everyone to see faster.

8. Google Loves Us – Search engines pick up posts from ZimmComm blogs fast and furious, both news and web searches.

7. We Flip for YouTube – short, web quality video clips give your event a YouTube presence.

6. Audio on Demand –interviews with key presenters and speeches can be available on-line to listen or download.

5. First Class Photography – we take high-res photos of everything so you don’t have to.

4. Targeted Exposure – We can post on your blog and one or more of our own – with audiences that include agribusiness, renewable energy, dairy, and precision farming. We can even design and build a blog for your specific event.

3. Event Blogging Trail Blazers – ZimmComm was one of the first pioneers of event blogging, starting with the National Biodiesel Conference in February 2006.

2. Multi-tasking is our Middle Name – We often do audio, video, photos, tweets, blogging and more at the same time – while chewing gum and balancing a book on our heads. Ok, we made the last part up.

1. Historical Preservation – Your event is archived for history on the web and we provide a digital copy of all photos, video and audio sent to you for the sake of posterity after the event.

A signature feature of our on location online event coverage is a photo album and I took quite a few during this event: President Obama POET Biorefining Photo Album

I’m not sure where I’ll be at actual inauguration time. Heck, I’ve got to look up what time it is. I haven’t really been that interested. However, I did download the new Ustream.tv app to my iPhone and it works great here at KCI Airport wifi. It requires a wifi connection but allows you to watch live streaming video like Agwired Live TV! They’re supposed to have a live feed from the event. You can already watch some live webcam video from the area.

Just think of the possibilities for events of your own!

Imagine having this done for your event or company.

Besides posting on these clients blog sites we’ll also be posting on our own, Domestic Fuel, AgWired and World Dairy Diary. These ZimmComm-owned sites provide you with a “sponsorship” opportunity to have online exposure even if you don’t have your own site to provide this kind of event coverage.

Let’s face it, there’s no more interactive, up to the minute, interesting, search engine optimized way to showcase your activities than with online coverage on the websites we create. Let me know if you’d like to discuss doing this for your company or group.

Online event coverage is already shaping up to be one of the biggest components of ZimmCom’s business. We provide that service for not only our own online publications like AgWired but also for proprietary client websites like Precision Pays.

If you’ve got an event that you need outside help with photography and audio or video production then keep us in mind. We’re your online media production company.

This week I’ve been blogging at the World Championship Appaloosa Show in Ft. Worth, TX. Pictures like this are to be found everywhere and I’ve got lots in the online photo album for the event.

I’ve never seen the American flag displayed in action on horseback while our National Anthem is being sung. It was very moving (no pun intended).

I’ll be attending the conference with longtime friend and former business partner (now client), Gary Cooper, Southeast AgNet. The activities take place at the Ontario, CA Convention Center.

Friday – Sept. 28, 2007
Keynotes & Conference – 9:00am-4:15pm
Exhibit Hall – 10:00am-4:00pm
Attendee Reception – 4:00pm-5:30pm
CultureCatch Salon – 8:00pm-11:00pm

Saturday – Sept. 29, 2007
Keynotes & Conference – 9:00am-4:15pm
Exhibit Hall – 10:00am-4:00pm
Expo Concert – 6:30pm-9:00pm

Sunday – Sept. 30, 2007
Keynotes & Conference – 9:00am-12:45pm
Exhibit Hall – 10:00am-1:30pm

This certainly goes for today’s media representatives who need that access and time to post their stories but I think it also applies to anyone who’s on the road at an event. We’re beginning to see more attention paid to this element of planning for events but there’s a ways to go.

I’ll be attending the Podcast and New Media Expo later this week. I would certainly hope we’ve got good open access there! Look for some posts from that event here and on AgWired.

As of right now I’ve spent 67 days on the road doing event blogging and Cindy has spent about another dozen. That’s quite a few and I think shows how interested companies and organizations are to have the story of their event unfold as it happens on their website or on one of ours.

I can go into so many reasons why this makes sense but I think I’ve done that before (search engine optimization, multi-media content, direct customer/member communication).

You can see examples of my most recent trip on Appaloosa Blog Spot from their National Show that just concluded in Oklahoma City. In 3 days I post 22 times on their site. Those posts contained 18 audio interviews, 1 YouTube video and an online photo album containing 155 high quality digital photos.

Online Event Coverage

ZimmComm New Media offers a company or an organization a unique way to provide customers and members with near instantaneous online coverage of events that includes pictures, audio and video interviews, video of product displays and demonstrations and text summaries of activities. All this multi-media content is posted onto the organization’s blog site or ZimmComm will create a site for the event. Pictures can be uploaded to online photo albums using services like Flickr which allow visitors to search for individual photos or watch them as a slide show. Video clips can be uploaded and made available via services like YouTube which provides the hosting and a simple player to display the content. The audio may be posted in a click to listen format or in a podcast format where it can be easily found and listened to with popular podcast software like iTunes. All the content is hosted within very highly search engine optimized software/services making it easy to find with key word searches. The site would have a built in RSS feed allowing customers to subscribe to the posts made onto the site. If ZimmComm builds the site we would install web tracking software like Mint which is a very easy to use web accessible statistics option.

A ZimmComm “reporter” will attend the organizational event armed with cameras, recorders and computer. Working under the direction of staff the reporter will take pictures, record video clips and interviews and then edit, upload and post the content onto the website at every available opportunity. The number of daily posts would be determined by the event and the time available for posting. Although the reporter will be equipped with a wireless computer data card it is recommended that the organization provide high speed internet access and a place centrally located to the event activities to set up a secure work station. This could be a media room already set up for the event.

After the event concludes all ZimmComm content (images/audio/video) is provided to the organization on dvd for archiving or use in other organizational communication mechanisms like commemorative event CD’s, newsletters, brochures, main website, slide shows, etc. A very cool idea is to pre-load the content onto iPods which may be given as gifts to significant customers or sponsors or used in drawings or other contests.