President's Letter

Fellow COSDAnauts –

If you are anything like me, you stay busy keeping abreast of news involving agriculture and politics. Knowing who said what is crucial when a local reporter calls to ask what your boss thinks about this, that, or the other. But media monitoring is only part of my job. I am also responsible for developing key messages and communication tools at the drop of a hat, which would be a snap if it didn’t frequently involve issues that are evolving or about which little information is available.

Fortunately for communicators like you and me, there’s an organization whose members face the same daily challenges -- the Communication Officers of State Departments of Agriculture. Time and again, COSDA members show they are willing to help a fellow member with an issue the communicator feels he or she is trying to address alone. We all know how good it feels to get messages, feedback and communication advice from another communicator who’s faced a similar challenge.

We’re lucky that technology has evolved to the point where we can share scads of information with a simple mouse click. But, if you’re like me, you want to find ways to use technology more effectively. That’s why I’ve arranged for Chuck Zimmerman to provide our professional development at “Kansas 2008: COSDA ‘til the Cows Come Home.”

Chuck Zimmerman is president of ZimmComm New Media, which specializes in blogging and podcasting, two communication techniques I’d like to know more about. He will explain why these techniques are useful, and he will train us how we can incorporate them into our existing communication strategies.

Information posted on www.ZimmComm.biz show how blogging is changing the way we communicate:

• More than 147 million Americans use the Internet and more than 57 million read blogs.
• Of companies surveyed, 89 percent think blogs will be more important in the next five years.
• Twenty-two of the 100 most popular websites in the world are blogs.
• Blog readers average 23 hours online each week.

Podcasts, on the other hand, are media files that are distributed on the Internet for playback on portable media players or personal computers. Just last week I received an email from USDA announcing that U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is offering 30-second PSAs to educate folks about how to say safe and cope with the stresses of flooding. The PSAs are available to the media for broadcast, or they can be downloaded for playback by individuals.

Technology is changing the way we communicate, and COSDA members need to keep pace. Plan to attend our meeting October 19 to 22 in Topeka, Kansas, so you, too, can learn how to use these new communication strategies.

Lisa Taylor
COSDA President
Kansas Department of Agriculture