Editor Escapes High Anxiety at Midwest Workshop

By John Walter, AAEA president

The well-organized, well-attended Midwest Regional Design & Writing Workshop last month had as its theme, "The Nuts and Bolts of Ag Communication." Beyond presenting practical "nuts and bolts," a number of the speakers considered the big picture status of our profession. About half-way through the day, I noticed that picture was starting to give me a fair amount of anxiety.

In fact, by the end of the day, I had come down with an old-fashioned case of future shock.

Yes, in the brave new media world, "content is (still) king," as digital media expert Jim Brophy intoned at one point in his presentation.

But seemingly just about everybody is creating content these days, and we're not only competing with each other for the attention of readers, but also with search engines, bloggers, Twitterers, Flickrers, Jabberers, and the whole rest of the wide world of social media.

By the way, did you know that MySpace, if it were a country, would be the eighth largest in the world, and that Google and E-Bay are the most popular Web sites for farmers these days? These were gleanings from two of the workshop sessions.

And why was I feeling these swelling waves of anxiety thinking about all of that?

But wait until you see what's coming down the pike next in interactive media. The Googleization of the world is just getting started, Jim Brophy said. Effective communicators will need to start thinking in terms of how to unify a grid of Web tools, community features, search and content, if they want to get with the program, he said.

More unsettling thoughts arose around Owen Roberts' presentation, who asked how we even define "traditional media" anymore. The University of Guelph professor mentioned the need for writing seven-word leads to optimize search engine performance. So, successful new media writing all comes down to seven-word compositions to appease a search engine?

Owen further suggested that ag journalists need to think about developing five-tool skills - writing, photography, blogging, video and audio recording. It wasn't that long ago when publishers were impressed if you could both write and take pictures.

Are you starting to feel some of my angst?

Beyond the challenges of new media, agriculture has lost the ethical high ground to most of its critics, said Charlie Arnot, an industry consultant. Agriculturalists had better learn how to reclaim their credibility, and fast, he said. "What we do is a noble calling," he said. "But, it feels less like that all the time."

Then there is the case of information overload. Farmers are increasingly overwhelmed by all their magazines, newspapers, advertising and email, members of a farmer panel told workshop attendees.

Jennifer Dammann, a southwest Iowa farmer, said that she is a kind of gate keeper for the deluge of print and digital information she and her husband Justin receive. Jennifer sorts off the material she thinks Justin needs to read, in effect guarding the last mile you must travel to reach the Dammann farm.

What kinds of stories make the cut? She mentioned a practical story, one on how to build a calf cart, and another on the rising costs of inputs, a business trend item. Both were deemed highly relevant to the farm couple, she said.

There's another editor who serves their farm. "We only get about two radio stations down there in southwest Iowa, she said, and we listen to a farm broadcaster who really does a good job of sorting through everything and keeping us up on what we need to know."

Perhaps editors increasingly need to think of themselves as a kind of information concierge, someone who presides at the front door of all the data. We sift through it and say, hey, here's something you just have to see.

Already there are ways to personalize your information on the Internet, of course. But that's all a matter of letting a dumb computer do the job. When you set up a personalized home page, for example, you're assuming you know what you need to know.

There's still a role for human intervention, isn't there? Perhaps farmers and ranchers are saying to us: You tell me what I need to know.  My gut feeling is that we've been called to do that job, come what may.

John Walter is director of multimedia at Successful Farming/Agriculture Online. You can reach him at 515-284-2802 or john.walter@meredith.com.