By Leo Valiquette
I got a call last week from my incumbent Canadian telecom services provider eager to justify its existence to me.
We all get these calls from time to time. One of those “how can we serve you better” calls. This shouldn’t have been surprising, considering how my service provider’s top rival had been crawling all over my neighbourhood the past couple of weeks installing new fibre services.
I don’t mind taking a call in the middle of a workday if the intent truly is to find a better way to serve me, and for less money, to boot.
But my patience had worn thin after 20 minutes on the phone while this less-than-nimble customer service rep fumbled around; it was all for the sake of a mere $7 a month, after all. Then I got lost in some on-hold void waiting to seal the deal with the verifier.
I finally hung up at the 30-minute mark. There was no profusely apologetic followup call through the remainder of that day. In fact, the service rep didn’t call back until the very same time the next day, when I had less time to spare. I didn’t take the call. She never left a message. Maybe I’ll call them back later this week. Or maybe I’ll call those other guys about their fibre service.
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By David French 
“Don’t disclose your invention or you’ll lose your patent rights!” This is the type of advice that you will typically get in a coffee shop, or over a beer around 5:30 in the evening before you head home. Is this true?
Well the answer really is, “Yes and no.” How can this be?
The answer is that you will lose your patent rights in Europe and countries generally that adopt a standard of “absolute world novelty” as a requirement for granting a patent. I like to describe this as requiring that an invention be “pristine” in order to qualify for a patent grant under this standard. But you will not lose your patent rights in Canada, and not in certain other important countries, simply by disclosing the invention yourself. At least, you will not lose your patent rights immediately.
At least four countries in the world — Canada, USA, Australia and the Republic of South Korea — provide an unqualified one-year grace period to excuse public disclosures made by an inventor (or applicants claiming rights under an inventor meaning assignees). A number of other countries, such as Japan, do have grace periods but they are often limited to six months and in some cases only protect certain types of disclosures. All countries around the world are required by an international convention to give a period of protection against an applicant’s own disclosures where the disclosures occur at a recognized international exhibition, according to Paris Convention Article 11.
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By Daylin Mantyka
Every Friday we summarize the top articles we read over the week. This week, we loved articles that were published on Entrepreneur, Gigaom, Fast Company, Spin Sucks and memeburn.
First up, an article about the perks of working for a small business rather than corporate giants, followed by a post on raising $2 million online. Third, a piece on how stories can be infectious. Finally, we’ve got an advice post on how PR professionals can become better makers and last, a piece that introduces the concept of feature-market fit.
Startup perks Wal-Mart and Amazon can never offer
In this article, Gene Marks asks how small businesses can compete with corporate giants for talented employees. To him, the answer is easy. Although small businesses may not be able to offer the money, benefits or sex appeal of the big guys, they can offer less bureaucracy, greater flexibility and a family away from family.
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By Francis Moran
TiE, one of the largest networks of entrepreneurs and business people in the world, is bringing its legendary networking conference, TiECon, to Canada for the first time ever next week. I’ve been to a couple of TiECon events in Boston and am looking forward to the combination of inspirational speakers and full-contact networking when TiECon Canada rolls into Ottawa on Thursday and Friday.
More than 45 speakers will make presentations over the two-day event, with Thursday’s activities taking place at City Hall in downtown Ottawa and Friday’s at the Brookstreet Hotel in Kanata, nicely catering to the two main centres of entrepreneurial activity in this city. Headlining the list of speakers are keynotes Vivek Wadhwa from Singularity University; Paul Singh, a venture partner at 500 Startups (and doubtless less profane than his colleague Dave McClure); TiE Global chairman Ashok Rao; Bluecat Networks founder Michael Hyatt; Brad Loiselle, Author of Keep Moving 4ward; and Montreal’s Julien Smith, founder of Breather.com, who will speak at the closing gala Friday evening.
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By Anil Dilawri 
I deal with lots of executives who are good presenters — in some cases, really good presenters. But, they choose to work with a presentation coach because they want to become remarkable presenters. Remarkable presentations are memorable and inspiring, and they cause the audience to take action.
Inevitably, during an executive’s career, he or she is required to deliver a monumental presentation — to land that big contract, to attract that strategic investor, to solidify oneself as the right leader for the job. This is when delivering a good presentation isn’t good enough. Something special is needed.
Being a remarkable presenter is hard work. It takes lots of time, effort, and resources. The payback is huge and in some cases game-changing. Here are just a couple of ideas for getting from great to remarkable:
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Kobo has proven big brands can seldom afford to beg forgiveness
October 22, 2013 by Leo Valiquette
While Canadians lament the shaky future of BlackBerry, I wonder how many have been following the PR nightmare that’s been faced by another Canadian brand, Kobo […]
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Canada’s focus needs to be on tech products, not research
October 21, 2013 by Denzil Doyle
Canada’s current Prime Minister seems to have a better understanding of the impact of technology on the country’s economy than most of his predecessors […]
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Great articles roundup: Copywriting, crowdfunding, lean startups, marketing and Canadian technology
October 18, 2013 by Daylin Mantyka
It’s Friday again, which means that we’ve compiled a short list of the top articles we read and love this week […]
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Are surveys the last great Potemkin village of media relations?
October 17, 2013 by Francis Moran
Grigory Potemkin was a Russian nobleman who, in an effort to impress his benefactor, empress and lover, is supposed to have erected facades of villages throughout Crimea when Catherine the Great came on an excursion through the southern regions of her empire in 1787[…]
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Unshackle your local marcom efforts from head-office control
October 16, 2013 by Leo Valiquette
“We will embrace blogs just as they cease to be effective.” Such was the lament of one of my clients during a recent conference call […]
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Best of: Culture of risk: Are you willing to bet the farm?
October 15, 2013 by Francis Moran
In our various interviews for this series, one of the most elusive topics of discussion has been culture of risk. Elusive in that it strays into the realm of stereotype and generalization […]
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Happy Thanksgiving
October 14, 2013 by Daylin Mantyka
From all of us at Francis Moran and Associates, we hope you have a relaxing and safe Canadian Thanksgiving weekend. Regular posting will resume tomorrow […]
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Great articles roundup: Startup fundraising, growth, performance, investors and marketing stunts
October 11, 2013 by Daylin Mantyka
By Daylin Mantyka We’re startup-heavy this week for Friday’s roundup and have selected some great content from Forbes, Entrepreneur, ZDNet, the Globe and Mail and The Kernel. We’ve got two great articles on raising capital and growing your business. We found an interesting post about dealing with non-performers in your company and another about finding […]
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