By Francis Moran
Two inmedia clients, PIKA Technologies Inc. and Vocantas Inc., are finalists in two different categories of the 2009 OCRI Awards. Interestingly, both work with advanced voice technologies.
PIKA, a developer of media-processing hardware and software, made the cut in the Product of the Year category while Vocantas, which develops advanced interactive voice-response systems, is a finalist for Technology Commercialization Partnership.
We’ll be cheering on these favoured finalists and all the outstanding Ottawa companies that will be waiting for the envelope at the OCRI Awards Gala April 8.
By Francis Moran
Ottawa’s two start-up Scotts — I refer to their common first name, not their nationality, which would be spelled with just one ‘t’ — are in the middle of a six-city, two-country roadtrip to visit co-working spaces in each city and to spin the gospel according to Dex, the nifty CRM application now in beta from one Scott’s (Annan, that is) development company, Mercury Grove. The other Scott (Lake, that is) recently launched his own social media consulting firm and has been working on Dex with Annan.
The pair have been posting regular updates, including videos, at StartupOttawa. Besides catching Annan in the no-no act of texting while driving, the videos show co-working spaces in Ottawa, Montréal and Toronto, and report on the feedback Annan has been receiving for his new product. Next week should see reports from New York, Boston and Philadelphia.
Go down the road with these guys; it’s an interesting ride.
By Francis Moran
The quote in my headline comes from a beautiful little story that is warming the hearts of Canadians today. Jorma Hogbacka was a regular customer at the Tim Hortons coffee shop in his hometown St. Catherines. Apparently, he had a colourful way about him, part of which was to ask the coffee shop staff to help him pick his lottery numbers, with Jorma promising to share any winnings with them.
Well, Jorma won. Big time. His was one of three winning tickets in Saturday’s $43-million jackpot, netting the retired welder a tidy $14.8-million.
And his instant millionaire status did not cause him to forget his promise. True to his word, yesterday he handed a $30,000 cheque to former Tim Hortons staffer Melissa Grivich, who, according to the Globe and Mail, now works as a police officer. And Jorma is working with the iconic Canadian coffee chain to find four other employees he says are on his list to receive similar big tips for past performance.
I’m writing about this because I constantly harp on customer service and how it can be a sharp, effective and sustainable competitive advantage in a world where commodity pricing and reverse engineering rapidly erode any other leg up a company might initially have in the market place. And even though she is a paramount example of how things should be, the newly-enriched Melissa Grivich doesn’t think she did anything special.
“It was my job. I was serving coffee. It wasn’t the greatest job in the world, but I made the best of it,” the Globe quotes her as saying. “It’s just unbelievable how far customer service can go.”
‘Nuff said, Melissa. ‘Nuff said.
By Francis Moran
Why is a startup like murder? Well, according to two-time start-up veteran Shawn Griffin, it’s not because the long hours and uncertain outcome will kill you. Rather, as he told an assembly of alumni of OCRI‘s popular Entrepreneur’s Edge educational program last night, both murder and startups require the same three elements.
“Motive, opportunity and ability are essential for murder and also for a startup,” said Griffin, who delivered a two-fold return to investors when he sold his first company a mere five months after launching it but saw his second venture go down “in a very painful manner.”
The motive to start a new technology company must come from passion, he said, while the opportunity lies in identifying a real pain in the marketplace that the new company is going to solve.
As for ability, it “boils down to two things, people and money. The good news about today is that there’s a dearth of money but a wealth of good people.”
Griffin was speaking at the first-ever reunion for alumni of Entrepreneur’s Edge, a popular educational program that brings seasoned entrepreneurs and subject-matter experts in to deliver course material to participants. The next session of the program, now in its fourth year, runs from February 9 to 13.
By Francis Moran
Okay, I’m sure that headline reads like a naked sales pitch for our services here at inmedia Public Relations. And while it most certainly self-serves that function, it’s actually one of 18 tips on sales and marketing to help you recession-proof your software company published last week on softwareCEO.com. (I’m indebted to my good friend Jason Flick for bringing this article to my attention.)
We have consistently advocated that companies that maintain — or even increase — their market presence during a downturn emerge from the downturn stronger than their competitors and in a position to springboard into the new opportunities that the eventual recovery will bring. So it’s no surprise to us to hear other sales and marketing professionals echo that sentiment.
The softwareCEO.com piece, the second in a series that also includes 18 tips on finance and operations, is full of terrific advice. Within the piece on boosting your PR investment, it cites software marketing expert Judy Schramm of JMR Consulting and three low-cost ways in which your PR presence can be boosted. (We’ve been doing all three for some time now.)
I also liked the sales tips it outlined and I wasn’t surprised to see they came from Steve Kraner of Sandler Sales Institute. We’ve worked in the past with Sandler’s Ottawa-based sales-training guru, Terry Ledden who advocates that rather than trying to compete with other salespeople on price or feature set, you differentiate yourself from the outset by employing a highly consultative approach that helps you develop a thorough understanding of the prospect’s pain and the willingness the prospect has to address that pain.
I don’t know how many times over the past few months I’ve heard seasoned technology entrepreneurs say that downturns represent an opportunity, not a setback. The tough operating conditions wash the marginal players out of your way, force you to focus on where you create real value, and both reduce the cost and increase the impact of raising your voice in your marketplace.
Update: My Google Reader just fed me a post from the excellent Out of the Fog Marketing blog drawing attention to a Knowledge@Wharton article in Forbes titled, “Don’t skimp on ad budgets.”
