ZimmComm - New Media, LLC

Meredith Medland Director of ADM

Chuck — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 00:11:45 +0000

The Association of Downloadable Media has picked Meredith Medland, host of the LivingGreenShow.com, to fill their new Director position. We congratulate and welcome her.

Meredith has a unique combined experience in goal management, accountability consulting, downloadable content creation, message training as well as her past association experience. Her background in the online advertising industry also provides the experience needed as ADM serves its constituents in the areas of advertising and sponsorship support.

Meredith’s responsibility will include supporting, tracking and reporting on mission-critical association projects to member constituents. ADM is a volunteer-run trade association with projects organized through its committee structure so Meredith will focus on tracking the work being done on the committees.

Her initial priority tasks include managing the process we’re going through to culminate in an advertising effectiveness research report, educating the market about the value of downloadable media through a series of deliverables and outreach, and continuing the association’s membership growth by working closely with the Membership Commitee.

You can expect that Meredith will be a capable “conduit” between what we are doing on a volunteer basis as members, and an effective project manager and “outcomes tracker.” Her position is part time based on our limited budget, and while the core work will still be achieved by members in the committees, she will provide transparency, and a holistic tracking approach to our collective work. Please join me in welcoming Meredith to the Director position.

Meredith’s background is further described below. I hope that you will agree she is an optimal choice to move our initiatives forward and will take a moment to introduce yourself to her and let her know both the support you’ve provided thus far to the ADM as well as any ideas and feedback you have for the future.

This is a very positive step forward in staying focused on our mission and our priorities and I look forward to our continued momentum.

Warm Regards,
Chris MacDonald
Chairman

Looking Ahead to the Next Verson of WordPress

Chuck — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 15:36:12 +0000

The latest version of WordPress is out and thanks to a heads up from Podcasting News you can watch creator Matt Mullenweg show us what to expect when this latest release comes out next month.

September ZimmNews

Chuck — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 19:33:43 +0000

The latest edition of ZimmNews has now been delivered to in-boxes everywhere.

In case you didn’t get it or just want to look at it online then you can find it here: September ZimmNews

Some highlights include:

I hope you enjoy it and thank you for reading.

State of the Blogoshpere From Technorati

Chuck — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 13:23:20 +0000

Technorati, the blog indexing authority, is releasing its annual “State of the Blogosphere” in 5 installments. Here’s an example of information from the first one.

Bloggers Self-Identified as Personal, Professional, or Corporate

Bloggers are not a homogenous group. One way of segmenting bloggers is by their blog type:

* Personal: blog about topics of personal interest not associated with your work
* Professional: blog about your industry and profession but not in an official capacity for your company
* Corporate: blog for your company in an official capacity

Four out of five bloggers are personal bloggers who blog about topics of personal interest. About half of bloggers are professional bloggers — blogging is not necessarily their full-time job, but they blog about their industry or profession in an unofficial capacity. 12% of bloggers blog in an official capacity for their company.

Of course, these groups are not mutually exclusive. More than half of professional and corporate bloggers are also personal bloggers. This could be on a separate blog, or they may blog about personal interests within their professional blog.

Where do you fit in?

AgNite Success

Chuck — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 21:44:33 +0000

AgNite in Minneapolis was a hugely successful event, attracting over 3,000 people to The Depot.

ZimmComm was on the scene, publishing content on both AgWired and the AgNite Blog.

This is one of the over 300 pictures Cindy and I shot during the event. You can see 200 of them in our online photo album. We also conducted 12 interviews and produced 1 YouTube video. So far we’ve produced 15 stories from the event and counting.

That’s what you get when you bring in the agriblogging and farm podcasting experts from ZimmComm.

Showcasing American Agriculture on AgNite

Chuck — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 00:46:55 +0000

Gulf coast weather permitting, Cindy and I will be be live blogging AgNite during the Republican National Convention. This is going to be very cool and a lot of fun. There’s an impressive list of companies and organizations already supporting this opportunity to showcase American agriculture to a national audience.

You can count on seeing some live video via AgWired Live TV and lots of photos and interviews. My coverage will be sponsored by the Minnesota Agri-Growth Council and AgStar Financial Services.

Inc. 500 Company Social Media Adoption Grows

Chuck — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 14:01:45 +0000

Perhaps you’re still wondering if your company or organization should be getting involved in new media. Have you started participating yourself (Facebook, LinkedIn, Blog, YouTube) to become personally familiar with it? It’s kind of hard to evaluate a medium you’re not familiar with.

I just saw some interesting new data on how Inc. 500 companies are making use of social media. Here’s a chart comparing their use in 2007 (green) with 2008 (blue). You can click on the image to see a bigger version of it.

Research Highlights:

* Four out of five companies in the Inc 500 rate social media technology as important or very important;
* 21% of the companies are podcasting and 39% blogging;
* The number of companies blogging and podcasting has doubled in the last year;
* The Inc. 500 are adopting new media technologies much quicker than Fortune 500 companies.

The research suggests that companies that are using social media & new media technologies are growing faster than other companies.

The research was done by the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Center for Marketing Research. You can download the study, which I recommend.

Via Podcasting News.

August ZimmNews

Chuck — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 19:34:42 +0000

The latest edition of ZimmNews has now been pumped out into the world wide web.

In case you didn’t get it or just want to look at it online then you can find it here: August ZimmNews

Some highlights include:

I hope you enjoy it and thank you for reading.

Social Media Seminar With Aggie-Lance

Chuck — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 13:02:31 +0000

In the last week I think I’ve helped bring almost a hundred agricultural marketing and communications people closer to an understanding of new social media mechanisms. If you weren’t one of them then you’ve got a chance next week. On August 6, I’ll be participating in a tele-seminar that’s being conducted by Mark Jewell, Aggie-Lance. I do like being called one of . . . “ag industry’s brightest social media minds.” Register here.

Tune your phone lines to a special event this August 6th, as some of the ag industry’s brightest social media minds converge in one jam packed tele-seminar. Hosted by, Aggie-Lance.com, founder Mark Jewel this seminar will feature Chuck Zimmerman from Agwired.com and Zimmcomm.biz, John Blue from Truffle Media, and Liza Markle from the National FFA Organization. The topic at hand: What is social media, and WHY do we need to be using it in the agriculture industry today? Expect to come away with a couple tangible ideas that you can apply straight away!

Social Media has grabbed hold of the marketing world – yet in traditional fashion, the Agriculture Industry is one of the last ones to catch on. It doesn’t have to be this way! Are you prepared to bridge the generation gap by facing the facebook crowd? Did you know your business can benefit by using this online social media tool? There are more than 72 Million blogs on the internet, does my company really need one…and can it help our marketing? Now wait a second, that YouTube thing is just for kids right? And pod casting is only for people with iPods, if I am not mistaken. “Don’t fool yourself; there is business value in just about every aspect of social media,” says Mark Jewell of Aggie-Lance.com. “This tele-seminar will help people to better understand the world of social media.”

Who should listen to this call?

Marketing Directors, Sales Professionals, CEO’s, VP’s, , IT people, Recruiters, Journalists, Ad Agencies, Anyone in the agriculture sector who communicates!

Get on board and start learning how to use social media for your benefit! Join us for no cost. It will be worth your time! The event will be held at 11:00am Central Daylight Time; all you’ll need to do is dial in. Simply register today at www.aggielance.com/teleSeminar.aspx

Can’t make the call? That’s okay. It will be available for download after the call. Go ahead and register anyway, and you will receive an email with the download link!

WordPress For iPhone

Chuck — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 21:28:06 +0000

While we’re still celebrating iPhone 3G release day I thought I’d point out something that may make it a more desirable choice for bloggers. If you’re a WordPress user like me then there will be an application which allows you to post directly from your iPhone.

The WordPress for iPhone App is nearly ready to go. It supports WordPress.com blogs as well as self-hosted WordPress.org blogs running version 2.5.1 or newer.

Timing wise, with the launch of Apple’s iTunes App store this morning, we expect to see this showing up very soon.

While we wait, here is a brief video showing the App in action. (It’s high quality, so may take a moment to kick off.)