By Francis Moran
It has been a common lament of technology companies in Canada that this country lacks high-quality sales and marketing talent, driving CEOs to source their c-level executives from south of the border. The most common refrain is that they are looking for someone who has “been there, done that,” and such folks are simply not lying thick on the ground in these parts.
I’m pretty sure I don’t buy into the underlying proposition but let’s assume for the moment that it has merit. I certainly wouldn’t argue that you would want to de-risk your go-to-market and sales strategies by hiring folks who can demonstrate they have the ability to build and drive world-class sales and marketing organizations playing in your target market. While I do think such folks can be found up here in the frozen north, the bigger criticism I have with CEOs who go head-hunting for talent down south is that they perpetuate a chicken-and-egg situation that ultimately plays against them.
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As part of our ongoing series examining the ecosystem necessary to bring technology to market, we asked Carleton University’s Tony Bailetti to share his thoughts on regional economic development and common pitfalls startup technology companies can avoid. This is the first of his commentaries and we welcome your feedback.
By Tony Bailetti
When bringing technology to market, a supplier typically produces a set of sound bites in order to feature and describe how its products and services benefit potential customers, partners and investors. A sound bite is a very short piece of information considered to be an important feature the supplier wishes current and potential stakeholders to remember. Sound bites also serve as points of emphasis in a supplier’s message to individuals and organizations in the business ecosystem in which the company operates.
The marketing collateral of 12 local technology companies distributed over the last four months was examined and it is evident that the quality of sound bites needs significant improvement. A technology company that is serious about commercializing its products and services needs to produce a set of high-quality sound bites.
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By Alexandra Reid
Outsourcing social media has received mixed reviews and it seems that this debate is growing fiercer as businesses become increasingly more aware of the enormous impact social media can have on their reputation. This heightened awareness likely stems from a combination of horror stories of outsourcing gone wrong, such as the well-studied case of Chrysler’s social media disaster, and what seems to be a recent increase in research in this area conducted by social media consultancies, internal marketing departments, PR and marketing agencies and third party publications.
In our view, outsourcing social media is both safe and effective if you are judicious in selecting an external partner that is worth its salt. It is no secret that damaging and irreversible mistakes can occur in social media, so it is vital that you chose a well-established agency with a history of above-standard communications that knows your business through-and-through and that there be an iron clad, error-proof system of review between agency and business. This study conducted by SocialMediaToday on in-house and outsourced social media advises businesses to establish visibility into what the agency handling their social media activities does and make sure they are tracking, measuring and course-correcting constantly. We couldn’t agree more, having established these connections for open communication with our clients where each and every message sent out is reviewed, scrutinized and improved and where questions can be asked and responded to with immediacy.
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This is the 18th 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
Throughout this series, we have often referenced startup accelerators and the important role they play in the commercialization ecosystem, as well as where government support fits into the equation. So we thought it was time to take a closer look at these entities by profiling three different ones from Canada, the U.S. and the U.K.
This week, we start with Waterloo’s five-year-old Accelerator Centre. We recently spoke with Tim Jackson, COO of the AC, about the role that this kind of organization plays in the process of getting technology to market, what makes it tick, the culture required to support it and how it measures success. What follows is an abridged transcript of our conversation.
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By Linda Forrest
Reading yesterday’s post about the role formal education plays in entrepreneurship, I was reminded of an article I read a few months ago about the “real reason women quit engineering.”
In Stemming The Tide: Why Women Leave Engineering, two University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee professors report on their survey of over 3,700 women with engineering degrees. They found that just one in four women who had left the field reported doing so to spend more time with family. One third left “because they did not like the workplace climate, their boss or the culture,” while almost half departed due to “working conditions, too much travel, lack of advancement or low salary” (respondents were allowed to check more than one reason). The researchers also found that among women who got engineering degrees but never entered the field, a third made that decision “because of their perceptions of engineering as being inflexible or the engineering workplace culture as being non-supportive of women.” And, unsurprisingly, “Women engineers who were treated in a condescending, patronizing manner, and were belittled and undermined by their supervisors and co-workers were most likely to want to leave their organizations.”
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OMG! There’s an entrepreneur on campus
May 26, 2011 by Francis Moran
Over the past couple of weeks, we have explored where and how government can facilitate the process of commercialization to help technology entrepreneurs get their products to market. Throughout this series, we have talked about the entrepreneurial right stuff and the value of those soft skills collectively referred to as emotional intelligence […]
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QNX’s customer-centric culture pays dividends
May 25, 2011 by Leo Valiquette
It’s been a thirty-year journey for Ottawa’s QNX Software Systems, largely under what has jokingly been referred to as “stealth mode.” Last year, the company saw its brand boosted through its acquisition by Research in Motion […]
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Sustainable viable product: The next step
May 24, 2011 by Peter Hanschke
Up until now I’ve talked about getting to your Minimum Viable Product (MVP)and creating your Market Validation Plan. To re-cap, MVP is your product with the minimum set of features and capabilities to satisfy the needs of your early customers […]
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Government: Picking winners, losers and champions
May 23, 2011 by Andrew Fisher
As someone who engages with entrepreneurs, investors, bureaucrats and politicians on both sides of the Atlantic, it is clear to me that we don’t stimulate and nurture the entrepreneurial spirit in Canada and the U.K. […]
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Three good and three bad reasons to hire a PR agency
May 20, 2011 by Linda Forrest
Over the past few weeks, news stories about PR have reinforced what constitutes good reasons to hire a PR agency, as well as bad ones. Why should you, or should you not, engage with a PR agency? […]
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Social Media Breakfast Ottawa: Designing for Humans
May 19, 2011 by Alexandra Reid
Martin Gomez spoke yesterday at Social Media Breakfast Ottawa on the principles behind the design and development process and how they could be applied to web design to boost online presence […]
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Government: The road to hell is paved with …
May 18, 2011 by Francis Moran
As we stated in last week’s post, government’s role in the commercialization eco-system should be to create that “supportive and normative framework.” The common sentiment among the various VCs, angel investors, accelerator and incubator executives, entrepreneurs and others we have interviewed is that government should stay out of the way as much as possible […]
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How to track social media efforts and reach your benchmarks on a startup budget
May 17, 2011 by Alexandra Reid
As in all marketing efforts, establishing benchmarks and measuring metrics in social media is fundamental to determining success.
Benchmarks are the standards against which all measurements and metrics are measured […]
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By Francis Moran
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The Future of A&R – Walabe : [...] http://francis-moran.com/marketing-strategy/top-10-questions-every-strategic-communicator-should-ask... [...]
Traditional Marketing is Dead – Long Live Bikini Waxer Marketing | Scalexl : [...] pointed out by Alexandra Reid on the Francis Moran website content marketing is becoming more and more like journalism. So, it is not just about the content, [...]
It’s Summertime…and the Networking is Easy? | THE MERRAINE BRAIN : [...] In fact, summer is perhaps one of the times least used to network, yet at the same time has shown to be the most productive time to network. People tend to be in a brighter mood compared to during the gloomy winters-especially where I am from in England! Networking needs to be fun and not approached as another chore, like mowing the lawn. (http://francis-moran.com/marketing-strategy/social-media-strategy-why-meeting-in-the-real-world-matt...) [...]