Five Reasons You Should Be in Clearwater Next Month

Annual Conference Preview

Five Reasons You Should Be in Clearwater Next Month

AgGateway’s 2022 Annual Meeting is fast approaching. As of this writing, so is Hurricane Ian, and although we’re still a month and a half out from our conference I hope you’ll join me in wishing safety and minimal impacts to the Clearwater community and all those in the path of the storm.

I look forward to seeing our volunteers, guests, and Gateway to Ag Careers students at the Wyndham Grand the week of November 14. If you’re still on the fence about registering for conference, here are my five top reasons to get excited about the value of our annual meeting.

Early Registration Discount Extended! Register by October 14 and Save $100

1 – Networking! Always a top value when conference surveys come back, the Annual meeting is a great place to meet with your peers, share experiences, learn about new technologies, and build professional connections. Whether you’re a technology professional, line of business expert, or just breaking into data interoperability and connectivity, this is the place to come if you want to meet the people who are implementing the tools and resources that move the industry forward.

2 – Education. Member companies who want to implement standards and professionals who want to understand what resources are available require awareness of the tools that can help them succeed. We’re offering a special education session that walks participants through AgGateway’s document repositories and reference data resources so they can respond confidently when a manager says, “we want to connect with our trading partners, and we want to use AgGateway standards.” We’ll also host sessions on specific tools like AGIIS and the wiki, and offer opportunities to talk with Member Services, live and in person.

3 – Thought Leadership. We have some great keynote and panel discussions planned for the general sessions that provide market perspective at various altitudes. Jeff Blair, President and CEO from southeast retailer GreenPoint Ag, will challenge meeting attendees to embrace opportunities to lead in these times of rapid change. And Rob Dongoski, Global Food and Agribusiness Lead at consulting firm EY, takes a bigger picture view and shares key insights into important downstream trends and how they will likely impact the crop production channel, while also demonstrating the importance of our work at AgGateway. The agriculture industry’s data needs continue to expand, and these presentations will broaden your horizons and expand the way you think about interoperability, data, and business.

4 – Celebrations. Digital agriculture’s promise of sustainability, traceability, and efficiency is realized through the hard work and efforts of the volunteers who lead working groups, implement standards, and spread success stories. We love to celebrate the efforts of volunteers, member companies, and others through our awards program. I can’t wait to present this year’s AgGateway in Action and Ron Storms Leadership Awards. And we’ll celebrate the delivery and publication of a number of standards, guidelines, and tools as well.

5 – Working Groups, Meet Ups and Committee Sessions. Working virtually is nothing new to AgGateway volunteers. Since 2005 the majority of our work has been remote, and we’ve achieved many successes for members. In fact, several members have said that they would not have been able to navigate the work-from-anywhere world brought to us by the Coronavirus pandemic nearly as well – if at all – without the connectivity tools and remote work lessons developed in AgGateway working groups. That said, the annual conference is an excellent opportunity for in-person sessions to identify and work to solve business problems. Sometimes the breakthroughs happen in person and sometimes the next big idea comes out of a meet up. Want to share your pain point or be part of a solution? This is the place to be.

These are just a few of the reasons I’m excited to be with you in Clearwater. What are yours?