From the Editor

Editor’s note: The CEO Corner contains editors’ compilations of business insights and analysis of current news, which they have tailored for the dairy industry. This column inspires million-dollar dairy operations to think like CEOs in other industries do.

What if you could ask your smartphone to tell you which of your cows were lame? Or which cows were most likely to get sick in the next day or two? Or whether a switch from feeding last year’s silage to this year’s crop has impacted milk production? If you think that’s beyond the capabilities of Siri or Alexa, a Dutch-based company wants you to meet Ida.

For back-to-back years, the world champion team in baseball has contributed its success in part to a “glue guy.” I submit that to become elite, your dairy needs to find one too. Perhaps you already have one and don’t even know it. 

For the editors and marketing teams of Progressive Dairyman, it’s always heartening to attend events like World Dairy Expo.

These days, school is heralded as the only way to get ahead, be considered an expert or learn the cutting-edge way to do something. Not so. Let me save you some money before you decide formal education is the only way to move your dairy business forward.

My husband and I celebrated our first wedding anniversary at the end of September by going for a swim at our friends’ quarry lake. It hit 91ºF that day, tying a record set in 1936.

When I meet readers in person, they often ask me: “What are you seeing out there? What’s new?”

One of the things I’m seeing frequently is an emphasis on training and employee development.