By Ken Rosen
Hai! This Japanese word for “Yes” may be the most famous international communication error in U.S. business folklore.
The tale, of course, is Americans say “Yes” when they agree. But Japanese say “Hai” when they understand the speaker … even if they disagree. Many the proverbial American thought they had agreement with Japanese partners only to realize they were still at square one.
Pepsi hit a less famous speed bump in India in 2004. It ran an ad storyline that it, Coke, and others have run a thousand times in the U.S.: Sports team on field. Sports team thirsty. Child brings drinks. Cue music. What could be cuter, right? Except in India, this was viewed as promoting child labour. Result? Litigation and the comically non-controversial court assertion “no advertisement depicting child labour should be aired until further orders.” (Did I just see your eyes roll?)
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This is the 29th article in a continuing series that examines the state of the ecosystem necessary to successfully bring technology to market. Based on dozens of interviews with entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, angel investors, business leaders, academics, tech-transfer experts and policy makers, this series looks at what is working and what can be improved in the go-to-market ecosystem in the United States, Canada and Britain. We invite your feedback.
By Francis Moran and Leo Valiquette
Over the past two weeks, we’ve talked about how Canada falls short when it comes to commercializing university IP and the leadership from the business community that is needed to address the gap. We’ve talked to entrepreneurs and technology transfer officers who straddle the line between the university lab and the marketplace.
But what about the students? How do we inspire and lever our next generation of innovators and entrepreneurs to drive commercialization from the university setting?
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This is the next contribution to this blog by Associate Andrew Penny, an Ottawa-based business development and market strategist for B2B companies, and president of Kingsford Consulting Ltd. We welcome your comments.
By Andrew Penny
I work with dozens of business owners and executives every year. Many of them have been successfully running their businesses for the last 10 to 20 years – steady as she goes. What many of them don’t realize, however, is that a massive shift is taking place in business, driven by the relentless aging of the incumbent “decision making” class.
In fact there are 71 percent more people aged 45 to 65 than in 1990. In the next few years, these people will be leaving the workforce and the next generation will be in charge. The point is that it is not a gradual migration; it will be a rapid and exciting changeover.
About 11,000 people are retiring from the North American workforce every day – many of them are the decision makers you have been selling to for the last 20 years. As they retire, who is taking their place? I guarantee that this new person will be younger and think very differently.
What makes them different?
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Associate Peter Hanschke is an Ottawa-based product management specialist. His post is part of our continuing series about the ecosystem necessary to bring technology to market. We welcome your comments.
By Peter Hanschke
I’ve seen this situation far too often.
The engineering team and product management decide on what the next revision of the product needs to be or, in a new product introduction case, what the new product will be. The development team goes through its process to define how to build the features or product and starts a large development cycle.
There is always a great deal of interaction between engineering and product management, but, sadly, marketing is left out. I’m not sure why; maybe they feel that marketing won’t “get it.” Instead, the development process winds through the last test phase without any input from the marketing team. When all the critical bugs are fixed the product is released. It is at this point that marketing gets the product information thrown over the wall with the unrealistic expectation that it will create an immediate miracle. And then everyone wonders why the press release, the collateral, the web site, and so forth are so late in coming.
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By Linda Forrest
Does everyone remember the game broken telephone? There’s a brilliant example of it from the Simpsons that added the phrase “Purple monkey dishwasher” to the lexicon of some circles.
What does this have to do with B2B marketing? When it comes to the media, quite a bit, as it turns out.
As Francis wrote last week, while media coverage is more credible than paid advertising, the message is hard to control:
Media relations practitioners have no say over how much space their story will get, where or when it will run, or what other messages — even opposing messages — might also run in the same story. You can mitigate this lack of control and vastly increase your chances of achieving your desired outcome, however, through the effective and strategic planning of your media relations efforts along with a sharp tactical understanding of how newsrooms operate.
In today’s age of media aggregation, it becomes even more challenging to control the message as media coverage that could be incorrect, misleading, or otherwise wrong can mutate and propagate well beyond the initial piece.
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