By Leo Valiquette
Last month’s content lineup featured great posts that shattered common myths about finding and defining a customer base and how to market an app, as well as insights on securing a patent and recognizing a great CEO. We also looked at the genius of Audi’s Spock vs. Spock ad campaign and some of the weak links in Canada’s commercialization ecosystem. And of course, there was plenty of sage advice for neuromarketers and strategists alike.
In case you missed any of it, here is a handy recap of our posts, as ranked by the enthusiasm of our readers:
May 13: The marketing genius of Audi’s Spock vs. Spock, by Leo Valiquette
May 15: Design by committee is just plain wrong, by Francis Moran
May 27: The third way that government can, and must, support Made-in-Canada tech, by Leo Valiquette
May 21: Why shouldn’t it be made in Canada?, by Leo Valiquette
May 07: If you’re so afraid of spilling the beans that no one knows you have any …, by Leo Valiquette
May 02: Startup Canada Communities seeks to build regional economies ‘from the inside out’, by Francis Moran
May 23: ‘Everyone’ is not your customer, by Francis Moran
May 09: 6 small business statistics that may surprise you, by Brent Barnhart, Chamber of Commerce
May 08: Accelerator metrics in Canada (or anywhere), by Jesse Rodgers
May 14: The business of evolution: We’re not as clever as we think we are, by Bob Bailly
May 16: Fiction: Media relations is ‘free advertising’, by Francis Moran
May 30: To sponsor or not to sponsor: 6 questions to consider, by Leo Valiquette
May 22: So you’ve developed an app … now how do you market it?, by Peter Hanschke
May 28: Selling an invention to a patent examiner, by David French
May 29: Everyone has competition, by Francis Moran
May 06: Peeling away the layers of a great CEO, by Denzil Doyle
Image: May 2013 Calendar Printable
By David J. French
One of the most critical jobs of a patent attorney is to convince a patent examiner to grant patent rights to your client. This means convincing the examiner that your client is entitled to exclusive rights over a described version of the invention that, while being of the widest scope possible, will meet the novelty requirements of the patent law. The key requirement is that you have to define the invention in language that does not describe anything that was previously available to the public. But you also want to use language that will shut-down competitors without leaving any loopholes. Not an easy job.
Read More
By Leo Valiquette
“Canada is open for business.”
So said Jason Kenney, Canada’s Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism, in a media release issued last week to promote Canada’s new Startup Visa.
In what the federal government is touting as a “first of its kind in the world,” the visa is intended to accelerate the immigration and citizenship process for entrepreneurs from abroad, particularly technology entrepreneurs, who are vetted by criteria that include investment, and endorsement, by Canadian VCs.
“The new Start-Up Visa will help Canada attract the world’s best and brightest entrepreneurs to build businesses, create jobs, and fuel economic growth,” Kenny said.
Read More
By Leo Valiquette
Last week I had the honour of being involved with Canada 3.0, a digital technology conference put on by the Canadian Digital Media Network. Over two days, the conference explored the many ways that digital technology is transforming our lives and how we are progressing toward the CDMN’s “moonshot goal:” That anyone can do anything on line by 2017.
In addition to a variety of breakout sessions, there were some incredible keynotes about the profound transformations gripping the media and content-distribution industries and how the need for individual self-expression through social media is redefining traditional marketing and advertising.
Read More
By Jesse Rodgers
I spent a little time at StartupWeekendHamilton3 in April as a mentor and was talking to a young founder who proclaimed that there was one great accelerator in Canada. Who he said it was surprised me a little and got me thinking, what makes an accelerator “the best” and why should an eager founder care? The baseline in my mind is Y-Combinator. No one can argue it is the best seed-stage accelerator based on its results. What is difficult for everyone to agree upon is what does it do to achieve those results or even harder, what defines success?
Read More
