By Francis Moran
To hear many of the speakers at last week’s International Startup Festival in Montréal tell it, there has rarely been as good a time as the present to start a new business. “Now is awesome,” said technology industry watcher Chris Shipley. “Resources for startups are raining down.” Dave McLure of 500 Startups agreed; resources are cheap and plentiful, he said.
This is not to say that either of these speakers believed that launching a startup would be a walk in the park. The tension and worry associated with doing so means that “Tums become a snack food,” Shipley said, while McLure, in trademark fashion, opened his remarks by saying to anyone present who wanted to be an entrepreneur, “You fucking idiots.”
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By Alexandra Reid
As a regular feature, we provide our readers with a roundup of the best articles we have read in the past week. On the podium this week are Joe Pulizzi, BtoB, Mashable, VentureBeat, and Business2Community.
5 reasons for the great content marketing correction
If you follow the stock market, then you understand what a correction is. Technically, a correction in the stock market happens when stocks (as a whole) decline at least 10 percent over a relatively short period of time, usually after a nice run up in stocks (called a bull market). Over the last 50 years, we’ve seen (for the most part), a bull market in paid media. It was clear back then and it is even clearer today: most brands were (are) overweight in paid media and underweight in owned media. In this post, Joe Pulizzi explains that the movement of content marketing is a necessary correction in the marketplace, and why this shift is occurring.
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By Jesse Rodgers
A tweet by Peter Mansbridge brought a lot of people’s attention to an article entitled Steve Jobs’ Lesson for RIM: Power of Perceptions, Turnaround 101, which focuses on how Steve Jobs changed the perception of Apple. That perception shift was driven a lot by product, and it wasn’t the iPod that did it. It was the other product — the Mac computer — and Apple’s ability to extend the life of a dead OS. Apple focused on revenue building and its “cult of mac” first.
The problem Steve Jobs faced with Apple’s OS going from the OS 8/9 to X and where RIM is now feels very similar. Apple extended the life of a dead OS while it built the OS for its future (OS X), the one that gave it the flexibility to build the iPod, the iPhone, and beyond. Did Jobs manage perceptions through how he spoke about Apple? Sure, but he also needed his product to deliver on the promise that Apple is innovative and cool.
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By Leo Valiquette
Earlier this year, I had the honour of being involved with Northern Lights 2012, a four-day conference that showcased economic and business development opportunities in Canada’s north, along with the social, cultural and environmental considerations that must be part of any commercial activity up there.
The emerging opportunities in the north, as well as the bargaining power its resources afford Canada on the international stage, are immense. The conference focused on the territory of Nunavut, the region of Nunavik in northern Quebec and the region of Nunasiavut in Labrador. Between them, these regions possess oil and gas reserves that dwarf western Canada’s, a diverse selection of mineral wealth, massive untapped green energy resources and new opportunities for tourism.
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By Alexandra Reid
As a content marketer, I read a lot of blogs. I subscribe to 201 blogs and have another two dozen or so outlets saved as links, which I monitor daily. I monitor streams on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook and plough through Google news for hours every morning. I’m also a recent Prismatic user. This is how I uncover news for my clients and our agency and stay on top of the latest developments in each industry.
Out of the hundreds of news items I skim every day, I read perhaps only a fifth of their leads. Of those leads, only a small fraction grabs my attention and tempts me to read on. Of those I read through to the end, only a few are shared on our agency’s and client’s accounts. Needless to say, the vast majority of content I read on the Internet today is rubbish.
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