Andrew Douglas B2B journalist, turned PR man, specializing in new media.

Use Skype for better quotes. Countdown to A.K.

I'm interviewing a fellow ag geek tonight. I can't wait.

If I wasn't totally jazzed for this interview already, I got totally pumped after we hammered out the time for our call. This was his next question:

What is your preference: telephone, Skype, Google Talk?

Man, this guy is wired. And it meshes with a blog post I read this morning from my former colleague and reluctant geek, Lee Hart. I love his memories of communication on the farm back in the day.

I emailed back that I'd prefer Skype because I have an account setup already and, to tell you the truth, I hadn't heard of Google Talk.

I use Skype whenever I do an interview for a story or news release. I make the call through my computer, using a headset with a boom mic, and record the call on my Mac using $69 software called WireTap Studio.

Skype is easy to use. Just download the software from the website, create a user profile, and start calling. You can call another Skype user for free. There is a small charge to call a landline from Skype. It varies depending where you call but to make a call to a number in North America costs only 2 cents a minute.

If you're in journalism or public relations and want to start getting better quotes, use Skype and record the audio.

Andy Kleinschmidt

Now back to my interview. It's with Andy Kleinschmidt, an extension educator at Ohio State University Extension based in Van Wert County, Ohio. He's harvesting corn plots so we had to set the interview after 9 p.m.

He captured this piece of gold on Twitter the other day:

"YouTube is the new fact sheet."

More than anything I've heard over the past few months this quote captures the new communications opportunities. I'm more convinced than ever that we have to integrate audio and video in almost everything we do -- including boring fact sheets and manuals.

Kleinschmidt is right into social media. He's on Twitter, he blogs, and he's on Facebook. In a short email conversation he talked about "evergreen" websites and how they don't generate nearly as much ROI as social media. Bang on.

I sent him an email to get him thinking but I need your help to beef up my interview. Email questions for me to ask this geeked-up extension dude. I know he's on the cutting edge of business-to-business social media and that we can all learn a lot.

Here are my questions to get the ball rolling:

What type of farmer do you think you’re reaching or do producers who surf the web come from all demographics?

What tools have worked and which ones haven’t?

What posts generate the most feedback?

The interview is set for Nov 3 at 9 p.m. so email your questions early.