By Leo Valiquette
Most of us in Canada are no doubt familiar with that amusing commercial from Rogers about a fellow bragging to his friend about his new high-definition flatscreen television, despite the fact that the picture quality is horrible because he lacks the HD box for his television to display a true HD signal.
Well, this week my eight-year-old antique gave up the ghost. I had long ago decided that, should the day come, I would go with a Sharp Aquos 1080p LCD television. Within 24 hours of the old TV’s death, I had the new one on the wall.
Now, to set up the new TV, I simply connected my standard cable without any HD box, fully expecting to be confronted by god-awful picture quality that would be unbearable to watch.
But, to my utter amazement, the picture quality was at least as good as it was on my old TV. There was none of the blurry distortion dramatized in that Rogers commercial. Maybe I am not enjoying the full HD experience, but I certainly do not feel a pressing need to rush out and buy the HD box.
Granted, this is my personal experience after having the new TV set up for only an hour. Perhaps I am missing something.
But before I even got the TV home, I was in the electronics store shaking my head at a split screen comparison of the quality difference between a regular DVD picture and a high-definition Blu-ray disc picture. Again, there appeared to be a little exaggeration at work. Later at home, I played a standard DVD movie on my standard DVD player through the new LCD TV. When compared to the split-screen comparison I saw in the store, the picture quality was much closer to that of the Blu-ray than it was to the standard DVD as it was portrayed.
Comparisons can be a very effective means of selling buyers on the merits of your product or service, but in the bid to create that “wow” factor that allows your product to fly off the shelves, be cautious about massaging the facts. Your product may clearly be better than your competitor’s, or the status quo, but be careful about trying to present those advantages more dramatically than they really are. Sure, you may dupe the unsophisticated buyer, but, guaranteed, there are plenty of savvy people who will see through the gimmick and out you on — oh, I don’t know — a blog, perhaps?
By Leo Valiquette
Before I head off to a long weekend of turkey, ham and all the various and sundry other foodstuffs that go along with it, I’m joining what promises to be an A-list crowd peppered with big names from the NHL for tonight is the annual CEO of the Year gala hosted by my former colleagues at the Ottawa Business Journal.
It promises to be a memorable evening, even for one such as myself who has only a lukewarm interest in the professional hockey season, with tributes from Wayne Gretzky and NHL commissioner Gary Bettman.
They’re coming, of course, to honour the 2008 CEO of the Year, Ottawa Senators chief executive Roy Mlakar. This year’s pick, as determined by OBJ senior staff and the winners from previous years, is a departure from the typical private-sector executive one would expect in a tech-heavy town like Ottawa, but as this week’s profile in the OBJ attests, Mlakar has proven himself a savvy and successful CEO who has confidently guided the franchise through some shaky times.
Congrats to Mlakar and hats off to the team at the OBJ for the work they do to recognize business excellence in our fair city.
By Francis Moran
Okay, this has nothing whatsoever to do with technology or marketing but I just had to write about this joyous new oasis in the heart of our city.
All summer long, as I trundled to and from work, I have been monitoring activity at a small city park on Main Street in Ottawa east. The neighbourhood, badly mauled when the Queensway — what our British readers would call a motorway and our American readers a freeway — split it in two more than 20 years ago, is gradually recovering. New residential developments have gone in, a lively farmers market on the grounds of Saint Paul University draws crowds every Saturday and the highly desirable blocks between Main Street and the Rideau River contain, by my reckoning, some of the most attractive housing to be found in Ottawa.
A couple of weekends ago, there were crowds of children and adults working on the park site so I knew some big changes were pending. Just what they were up to was immediately evident when I biked down Main Street on my way to work the following Monday and was greeted with this joyous burst of colour and life. It was such a happy scene I actually burst out laughing as I pedaled past.
One of the mainstays of Main Street, in operation for more than 100 years, has been Lady Evelyn Alternative School, which my two lads attended, first at the excellent Rainbow Kids’ School, a preschool housed in the same building, and then through eight years of kindergarten and elementary school. A few blocks up from the park, Lady Evelyn is an amazing institution in this city, even if its decided lack of emphasis on academic performance has teachers at other schools rolling their eyes. It is, rather, a warm, community-oriented and nurturing place, where a dozen or more languages can be heard spoken at any school gathering and where my boys thrived in their personal development and did well enough academically to qualify for competitive arts and enriched programs when they moved on to junior and senior high school.
The new kids park, formally known as the Old Ottawa East Children’s Garden, is very much a partnership between students at Lady Evelyn and a group called Sustainable Living Ottawa East. According to a story in the Ottawa Citizen, each student at the school painted one of the 300 pickets that border the park while corporations such as Home Depot, Microsoft Canada and UPS kicked in materials and money. Despite a late start, an organic vegetable garden has yielded some produce this year and other plants, many of them donated by neighbours, abound.
It’s a beautiful thing, and I salute everyone involved.
By Leo Valiquette
I’ve commented before on the impending death of print and how this funeral dirge has evolved to include all traditional media since the rise of social media in all its various incarnations. Many enthusiastic proponents would have us believe that social media will soon emerge triumphant as the medium of choice for people to keep abreast of the latest news and information.
Who needs such staid institutions as daily newspapers and national television networks when citizen journalism can deliver in real-time a street-level perspective of what’s going on in the world through such avenues as Twitter, YouTube and the blogosphere?
Well, perhaps we’re turning in that direction, but there’s a long way to go yet, at least according to a report carried this week on Bulldog Reporter. According to a survey of more than 1,000 adults across the U.S., television, newspapers and radio (in that order) are still considered the most reliable sources of information ahead of online sources.
Now, we are left to assume that “online sources” refers to sources on the web other than the websites of those same television networks, newspapers and radio stations.
I contend that there will always be a distinction between in-depth coverage and analysis of the day’s news and events and the quick blurb or sound bite, from whatever source, that can be easily digested while on the go. They compliment each other, rather than cannibalize. And when it comes to seeing social media displace traditional media, I wholeheartedly agree with the viewpoint that there will always be a need for trusted sources of information with a track record of accuracy and impartiality.
As we increasingly turn to online sources of news and information that we can readily access while mobile, non-traditional sources of information will compete for our attention with the traditional. And print, radio and television will increasingly have to offer competitive online services to grab and hold readers. But it’s the commercial printing industry, in the business of killing trees, that will feel the most profound pain from this shift in our habits as consumers of news and information.
By Leo Valiquette
Kudos to Ian Graham and TheCodeFactory for renting out the entire fourth floor of the premises at 246 Queen St. in downtown Ottawa.
I had the honour of being among a select group of friends, family and supporters that celebrated the milestone last night over wine and cheese.
With the fourth floor fully rented, the facility now has a firm foundation on which to proceed as it works to drive up the volume of users for its informal co-working space on the second floor. With the start of the school year, Ian says the amount of foot traffic is rising steadily, as word gets out that this is the place to come for collaborative work, complete with full Internet access and a coffee bar as well as a Wii and a foosball table to let the steam off.
Ian launched TheCodeFactory in May to serve as a private business accelerator and incubator intended to help fill the gap between a great idea and a commercial product gaining traction in the marketplace.
TheCodeFactory’s fourth floor is the incubator space, offering office space for startups looking for a desk without all the administrative and costly aggravation of setting up their own offices. The co-working space on the second floor is intended to serve as a proving ground for entrepreneurship and innovation, for entrepreneurs at every stage and code warriors from local schools to network, collaborate, troubleshoot and refine their ideas, even connect for potential employment opportunities.
It’s a great addition to the local tech scene and Ian should be commended for his dogged persistance to get TheCodeFactory off of the ground. To say it’s been a labour of love is a gross understatement.
Congrats, Ian.
