I am going to be a panelist tomorrow at NYU along with Brooklyn-based food activist and writer Andriana Velez and grassfed beef farmer Ken Jaffe from Meredith, NY. Please come it is free! Some info from NYU:

Earth Friendly in 2010 Panel
Kimmel center for student life, 60 Washington square south
8th floor, 800 series (rooms 804-805)
3:00pm-5:00pm

The format will be a long table loose Q&A, revolving around general issues of trends, labels, and earth friendly practices. It is open to the public but government-issued ID is required.

When giving advice to farmers and brands about how to engage potential costumers online Facebook is always part of my strategy. For farmers, it is particularly useful, and can make connections between you and your customers more meaningful and most importantly more profitable. The best analogy I have is that we no longer watch TV or read print publications we FACEBOOK. My mom is now a junkie and has been connecting with long lost friends. It is changing how we live and how we interact with content and if your farm has a page your feed and news become a subliminal advertisement. Not only do you benefit from the goodwill inherent in being a family farmer you get the chance to speak to the American consumer in an unprecedented way. The field has become a bit more level—the small farm can compete against the Cargills of the world even if it is only on a social media platform like Facebook. Will this last? I do not know, and with Facebook’s recent announcement that it will integrate other platforms into their new “like” system their web domination seems to be in the cards.

Rupert Murdoch is putting his papers under a pay wall. His decision was met with scathing remarks from internet blogs, one was particularly vitriolic penning a blog post entitled: “Rupert’s pathetic pay wall,” where the author argued that Mr. Murdoch had surrendered and was not interested in building online advertising solutions. I think this is unfair, granted it is a big gamble and could fail but, the fact remains that while print advertising dollars have dried up, brands have not committed their ad dollars wholeheartedly online. In fact, everyone seems to be waiting to see where the chips fall. While we wait to see if online content can be monetized newspapers are hemorrhaging and journalism as we know it is dying.

What I find curious is, if other industries have made the leap to digital sales with great success why can’t print journalism? Consumers seem to be willing to buy digital songs via ipod, and digital books via kindle, so why not digital newspapers and digital magazines? If digital print publications can be made more reasonable with attractive ads why can this not be a viable alternative? Why should journalistic content be free when we buy digital books and music?

Could the iPad make pay walls, and subscriptions to digital magazines viable?

Yes, it could. iPods made digital purchases of music main stream and kindle almost single-handedly saved the publishing industry, I foresee a similar role for the iPad. Could the iPad revolutionize how we view and pay for print media? It could, it is BIGGER and there is more room for advertising and more space for content. I foresee a time when pay walls,and online advertising finds a place in our mobile lifestyle and where we are willing to subscribe and read content that is payed by our subscriptions and advertising dollars.

I was invited to speak to SUNY Oneonta’s communication honors society about my ‘successful career’ in online publishing for their speaker’s series a week ago. I jumped at the chance because I love public speaking and, as SUNY Albany alum, I have a soft spot for SUNY students, I was also extremely honored to be asked. The speakers included a television anchor from Albany, NY and an owner of a local paper based in Cooperstown, NY. Both spoke about the challenges, but also the rewards, of being a reporter and touched upon the changing landscape of journalism and how it has impacted their career.

I was the last speaker and a lot of the students were interested in how to monetize the web and if websites and blogs can in fact ‘pay the bills.’ Good questions, no? So good actually that the greatest minds in publishing are trying to figure it out for themselves. Personally, I use my blog as a networking tool and resume and get work through it and do not get ad revenue from it. All bloggers have different ways of profiting off their website, but most do it for the love of it, or as a way of being ‘discovered.’ At a local book store I was struck by how many authors are also bloggers this is true for journalists too, and in this time of insecurity, I think it is a good investment to invest in your personal brand and cultivate your personal voice online.

Content and being paid for it is a tricky situation for bloggers and independent journalist. It is something that our greatest minds and power brokers are debating. Is content free? Should it be? Blogging is at its core extremely democratic, but what is happening to American journalism could have some profoundly undemocratic repercussions.

Ever since I listened to Adriana Huffington give this impassioned speech entitled Journalism 2009: Desperate Metaphors, Desperate Revenue Models, and the Desperate Need for Better Journalism at the Federal Trade Commission, I have been obsessed with the issue of monetizing the web and how to make content lucrative again. I am also trying to navigate it myself, as a blogging professional.

We are in a media flux right now, with some hopeful trends, a focus on more local news being my favorite. One such example is our local online paper the Watershed Post that covers a lot of local issues that really matter to us. Other not so rosy examples include the church of Scientology hiring two esteemed (but out of work) journalists to investigate the journalists that are investigating them. This is an unprecedented use of reporting as an intimidation tool, and belies how reporting for hire could become a new sinister breed of journalism. Like with all things there is good with the bad, but what cannot be denied is that we are in the midst of a paradigm shift. How will it end? Will the New York Times put up a pay wall? Will social media visionaries like Zachary Cohen be able to convince independent-minded art bloggers to join forces(hopefully)? Will we have mercenary journalists working for Exxon mobile and Monsanto? Or will our media landscape reflect a kinder, gentler local focus like Liza de Guia‘s charming and wildly popular Food Curated? Maybe a bit of both. And maybe this is a good thing.

What are your thoughts?

There is been a lot said, and written, about how the American highway has dictated how we eat and interact. Public policy decisions on where highways would be placed have had a profoundly negative impact on our food culture, and I would argue, on our culture as a whole. As a New Yorker, I know the potential of a populace that is committed to spending their dollars in small businesses, and because of this shared commitment, I can get quality, fresh food. When given the opportunity, people will opt for tastier, and fresher food choices. Unfortunately, many Americans do not have access to fresh food and when you are on the road(like many of us are) choices can be even more limited.

Last Friday, I took a long road trip but it was entirely different. My little sister is a film student at SUNY Oswego and needed a ride home for spring break, (and because I am working to stop a proposed cattle finishing facility in Oswego County) I jumped at the chance to pick her up so that I could take some pictures of the port, city and surrounding farmland. Road trips are quintessentially American, but there is something that can ruin them: chain restaurants. They take away from discovery, they obliterate a sense of place, and rob us of local flavors, food and people. Enter the smart phone. Your personal local guide, which makes the ‘convenience’ of a fast food stop a lot less enticing and can connect the highway traveler with local ,independently owned restaurants and farms.

This is HUGE. It can change how we travel, engage and eat. Granted, everyone does not have a smart phone, but many do, and it means that the highway ramp does not hold the power it once did. We can go downtown with the knowledge and confidence and support main street. Not only that, it is more experiential. My sister and I were ready for lunch when we were driving past Syracuse, NY, a large but rundown upstate city ,that is bisected by huge highways. With my Motorola Droid and the useful Yelp app I was able find a small Greek diner downtown. I clicked to get directions which brought up google maps and I put it in navigation mode and had voice directions to the diner.

Very simple. We drove past the whole city, gorgeous, but neglected stately homes and empty Gothic cathedrals greeted us as we drove through. When we finally made it to downtown Syracuse we had a feeling of place, we felt like we were visiting, not just driving through. Granted the drive took us 15 minutes, but it was well worth it and there was no chance of getting lost because of Google map technology.

This brings me back to the point of sustainability and how instrumental new technologies will be in connecting farms and small business to consumers. Will we see more farmsteads offering grass-fed burgers from their farms? Or simply prepared dishes from their produce? Hopefully, and smart phone technology and applications that connect travelers, tourists and community members could be key. There is a unique opportunity to create sustainable communities online and off that can benefit us all. It is just up to us to connect the farm to the car.

I was on Cathy Erway’s radio program last week where she and Austin food blogger Addie Broyles were talking about South by Southwest. They spoke about how important food was becoming to the festival, and how technology and the food movement are developing together. I am curious to hear what ideas come out of the festival this year. Hopefully smart phones will be part of our slow food and slow money strategies because it would make my father dream ‘s of a grass-fed burger stand viable.

My conclusions

1. We are at a crossroads. A paradigm shift is happening, people are seeking a greater connection to community and food.

2. There is a unique window for us to poke holes through corporate messaging with blogs, yelp and other user generated platforms.

3. Many farmers, like my father, would love to find sustainable economic vehicles that can get our products to you.

4. Smart phones and application technologies could be a powerful tool of connection and empowerment.

We can feel the energy of the food movement but for many grass-fed producers it is hard to know exactly how to make the connection to it. There are many ways, and many of you are probably already successfully marketing yourself, your farm and products but if you are looking for other tools I think that social media is ideal. It can be a way of finding new customers, connecting with journalists and bloggers, helpful non-profits and other producers who can be a source of support and advice.

Why social media? Haven’t you heard? Everyone is online; with Facebook having almost 350 million users (each spending on average and hour on the site each day) and micro blogging sites like twitter changing how we dispense information there is a unique opportunity for your farm to broadcast it’s story. Not only that, YouTube has become the second most used search engine in the world and an important source of information and entertainment. With millions of Google searches daily, people are informing themselves and investigating food topics on their own—-this is why your opinions and experiences should be online, we need more farmer’s voices, teaching and connecting with Americans. With traditional media in a state of flux, there is a unique opportunity for farmers to market directly online, just like the big guys but in a real meaningful way. Americans are yearning for a connection to you as a farmer and also a more authentic understanding of what is on their plate and in their markets.

So how do I get started?

STARTING A BLOG
Blogging is the best way to start out using social media, it will help you fine-tune your narrative and learn from other bloggers. It will make you a better writer, understand how to interact with internet the community and most importantly create content for other platforms. Remember, even the most simple daily occurrences on the farm can be interesting!

Content is key, blog post topics can include:

• Essays about your farm
• Family recipes
• Pictures
• News from your farm
• Your farming philosophy
• Policy concerns

Ways to promote your blog

• Find blogs you admire and comment.
• Link to blogs you like.
• Respond to comments on your blog.
• Meet up with bloggers in your area.
• Use other platforms to drive traffic to your site, like twitter and facebook.

How to set up a blog. I am one of the few established food bloggers that uses www.blogger.com but I really like it. It is free and easy to use. With that said, www.wordpress.com is a far more professional platform and if done well can also serve as a website. You can get a free version here but you will need to buy a web domain name to host the blog though on your own website address. There are many templates available online, and one that I have heard a lot of positive feedback on is thesis but you have to pay for it. Another I have heard positive things about is go daddy which will host your site as well. Again, www.wordpress.com requires a certain amount of web savvy to use but many bloggers swear by it!