By Alexandra Reid
I sat down with Marc McArthur, manager of the Ottawa Cleantech Initiative at OCRI, to discuss the upcoming Canadian Cleantech Summit and how it will seek to further Canada’s global competitive stance in the cleantech sector.
As the largest event for clean technologies in the country, the Second Annual Canadian Cleantech Summit will offer a diverse program with presenters and attendees representing the scope of Canadian capabilities, expertise and opportunity in cleantech research, venture capital, international market access and policy decision-making. It will bring together leading entrepreneurs, investors, executives, international trade representatives, corporate partners and policy makers who will facilitate discussions to help draw a roadmap that will direct Canada’s future involvement in the space. Whatever role you play in the cleantech sector in Canada, there will be insight, relationships, networks and interesting sessions at the Summit to help you rise to the next level in your industry, says McArthur.
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This is the second article in a continuing monthly series that will chronicle the growth path of Screenreach Interactive, a startup based in Newcastle upon Tyne in England’s North East. Screenreach’s flagship product, Screach, is an interactive digital media platform that allows users to create real-time, two-way interactive experiences between a smart device (through the Screach app) and any content, on any screen or just within the mobile device itself. We invite your feedback.
By Francis Moran and Leo Valiquette
When we caught up with Screenreach Interactive founder and CEO Paul Rawlings last week, he was in the midst of packing for a trip to New York, where he was booked as a panellist for the Digital Signage Investor Conference.
Digital signage, a so-called form of “out-of-home advertising,” delivers video content, advertisements and messages to specific locations at specific times on static or touch screens, often in combination with movement detection and image capture technology. According to one recent industry forecast, the market is growing at a compound annual rate of 40 percent, with 22 million digital signs expected to be deployed world-wide by 2015.
For Screenreach, it’s an industry ripe for the Screach app.
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By Linda Forrest
Back when I was doing publicity in the music industry, working largely for independent artists, I’d often discuss with my colleagues what it would be like to be the publicist for a major, in-demand, household-name artist, how different the job would be. Rather than spending the majority of my time on outreach, I rather imagined that the role would be relegated largely to that of gatekeeper, traffic cop and reputation manager.
When it comes to media relations for technology companies, the same discrepancies apply – there are some distinct differences between doing media relations for a small- to medium-sized business and doing the same for a multinational conglomerate. But there are some best practices that hold true regardless of whether the company you’re promoting with its media marketplace consists of two employees or two thousand.
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By Francis Moran
When a product fails miserably in the marketplace, why is the customer blamed for not wanting to buy it?
Hang on, you say; that doesn’t happen, does it? Well, it did, and in spades, just last week.
Three well-established brands competed openly for the custom of a large pool of potential buyers. Their marketing campaigns used every media format available — television, radio, billboards and other outdoor, print, social media, telemarketing, direct mail, media relations, events and much, much more. Key spokespersons and local brand representatives travelled constantly throughout the marketplace bringing brand messaging directly to potential buyers. There has never been, perhaps, a more intensive, expensive and well-coordinated an effort to woo customers than was exhibited by these three brands.
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By Alexandra Reid
We have used the term “champion” many times on this blog to describe those risk-inclined individuals who become the essential drivers of progressive change within the commercialization ecosystem. Champions can wear many hats. We have described them as mentors, investors and, perhaps most importantly, advocates who take that leap of faith and make doors open at that critical juncture to snatch success from the jaws of failure.
In the process of creating and executing a social media marketing strategy to help bring technology to market, champions fall into two distinct categories:
- External champions of your technology who can be found, engaged and developed through social media.
- Internal champions of social media who advocate new tools and embrace enterprising tactics that allow their businesses to successfully compete within the social space.
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Part II: Dissecting the brain of the market pays off for BlueArc
October 11, 2011 by Francis Moran
In last week’s post, we introduced BlueArc, a maker of networked attached storage (NAS) systems for managing unstructured data in high-performance computing applications, and Ken Rosen, a corporate strategy and marketing consultant who worked with the Blue Arc team in the mid-2000s […]
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In PR, timing is everything
October 07, 2011 by Linda Forrest
If real estate is summed up by the expression, “There are three things that matter in property: location, location, location,” PR could easily misappropriate a slight variation of that: “there are three things that matter in public relations: timing, timing, timing.” […]
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Achieving marketing escape velocity
October 06, 2011 by Francis Moran
It was with a mixture of delight and trepidation that I learned a few months back of technology visionary Geoffrey Moore’s new book, Escape Velocity. You see, I’ve been using the phrase for years to describe what I think is a critical requirement in the marketing […]
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What an IP Co-ordinator should know: Closing patent loopholes
October 05, 2011 by David French
In the previous postings in this series I talked about the importance of having an IP Co-ordinator on the team and the three principles that apply if the objective is to obtain meaningful patents, This time, I will address how “loopholes” can seriously undermine the value of a patent […]
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September roundup: What does it take to get technology to market?
October 04, 2011 by admin
Thank you for being with us for the eighth month of our new blog. In case you missed them, here is a recap of our posts from September in chronological order. Last month, we concluded our Commercialization Ecosystem series and launched two new series […]
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Part I: BlueArc’s challenge to get past the low-hanging fruit
October 03, 2011 by Francis Moran
Last month, BlueArc Corp., a 13-year-old maker of network storage systems based in California, was acquired by Hitachi Data Systems for a reported $600 million. BlueArc’s business was networked attached storage […]
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Is public relations in the public interest?
September 30, 2011 by Francis Moran
My valued colleague, and an associate here at Francis Moran and Associates, Caroline Kealey, drew my attention yesterday morning to a Twitter disagreement she is having with McMaster University’s Dr. Terry Flynn, an assistant professor and interim director of the […]
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High-fidelity PR requires open communication between agency & client
September 29, 2011 by Linda Forrest
This one goes out to R.E.M., a band whose breakup last week reminded me of their full discography, including New Adventures in Hi-Fi, hence the focus of this post. Wikipedia describes high fidelity as follows: high fidelity—or hi-fi—reproduction is a term used by […]
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