By Alexandra Reid
I see, time and time again, in professional articles and blog posts and hear in every day conversations the misuse of the terms marketing and public relations, and it annoys me.
But I admit I am not entirely innocent either. It’s really easy to mix up these two terms because they are complementary fields that share so many similarities. They are both public facing, require many of the same skill sets and share some methods of media and public engagement. However, it is important to understand that their goals and processes for reaching these goals are distinct.
Boiled down to its bare bones, the answer is quite simple. The goal of marketing is to determine the customers that a company should sell to and to devise a strategy on how to reach them. PR involves creating a purpose-driven, active dialogue with a target audience, whether it’s potential customers, employees or stakeholders, with the goal of developing visibility and a positive corporate image and reputation by relating it to its interest groups.
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As part of our ongoing series examining the ecosystem necessary to bring technology to market, David French, a senior Canadian patent attorney with 35 years of experience, now provides the third of his commentaries on the importance to a company of protecting its Intellectual Property.
By David French
In a previous blog posting, we talked about the importance of having an IP coordinator on the team and how this role fits into an organization. We identified the role of the IP coordinator as including:
- knowing or able to understand all of the issues and requirements in order to ensure that there is good IP hygiene within the firm
- acting as the guardian of the intellectual property within the firm
- understanding what should be done and seeing that things are done on a timely basis
- communicating with outside legal professionals
- being present when your patent lawyer, trademark lawyer, litigation attorney etc. speaks at a meeting, and explaining what was said once the professional has left
- maintaining cost control over your IP expenses
This person was summarized as being your contact with the IP universe, your scout, your guide, your Man Friday in matters IP.
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By Linda Forrest
When Microsoft announced that it had acquired Skype for the tidy sum of $8.5B US, the tech world positively buzzed with questions. (As an aside, the acquisition means good things for all Canadians as the Canada Pension Investment Board is looking at a 3x return on the investment it made in Skype less than two years ago! I just might get a pension yet!)
What would this acquisition mean from a functionality perspective? Was Microsoft, as ZDNet suggested, just trying to head off prospective buyers Google and Facebook? Did Microsoft wildly overpay, as TechCrunch says? Was this a strategic acquisition that will kill Skype so that Microsoft offerings that have similar functionality can dominate the market? Was this purchase, the largest in the company’s history, a good move financially for Microsoft? As the Financial Times asked, does the Skype acquisition provide the “glue” in Microsoft’s multimedia strategy? As Wired succinctly put it, “Microsoft buys Skype for $8.5B; why, exactly?” Does a boon in M&A mean a rebounding US economy?
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As part of our ongoing series examining the ecosystem necessary to bring technology to market, we solicited this opinion piece from the dean of Ottawa’s technology sector, Denzil Doyle. We welcome comments on Denzil’s commentary.
By Denzil Doyle
Anyone who is involved in high technology in Canada would have to agree that the country has a very strong R&D lobby. Politicians and policy makers are bombarded with messages from both industry and academia on a daily basis saying that we need more of it, even though our incentives for doing it are already among the best in the world. And everyone in the debate is frustrated because they know that we are not getting the appropriate economic results from the R&D we are doing. As evidence, they point out that our economy is still too dependent on the sale of raw materials like lumber and minerals and that most of the technology that is developed for those activities tends to get developed elsewhere. They argue that if we were better at innovating, economic diversification would be automatic. And there is a broad consensus that R&D is the engine of innovation.
But a closer look at those incentives will reveal that they may be a little too focused on R&D and not enough on other things that go into the commercialization mix, like marketing (and particularly market research), selling, raising risk capital, and product management. The country’s two most popular incentive programs are NRC’s IRAP and SR&ED, but in order to use them effectively, a company must have a pool of its own cash to perform the other functions. And that money is hard to come by.
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This is the 15th 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
How much should government intervene in the process of innovation and commercialization? In a truly entrepreneurial culture that has healthy risk tolerance, one could argue that the government doesn’t need to play any substantial role at all. Entrepreneurs worthy of that title just get out there and do what they must to succeed.
In his book, The Way Ahead: Meeting Canada’s Productivity Challenge, Tom Brzustowski, RBC professor for the commercialization of innovation at the University of Ottawa’s Telfer School of Management, wrote, “I believe that it is only the private sector that creates wealth.” The public sector, on the other hand, is a consumer of wealth in order to bankroll the two fundamental roles it plays.
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What’s in a startup’s name? A lesson in tough changes from Tara Hunt of Buyosphere
May 06, 2011 by Alexandra Reid
Startup entrepreneurs have a lot on their plate already without having to decide on a fabulous name. And who cares about the name anyways? You can always change it later […]
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For business, the social media honeymoon is over
May 05, 2011 by Linda Forrest
Thanks to the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge for inspiring the title of this post; much to the chagrin of my colleagues, I was quite excited about the wedding, hence the title. In all seriousness, when this last week’s many news events – the royal wedding, Osama bin Laden’s demise, and the Canadian election […]
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How to define, embrace and lever your startup DNA
May 04, 2011 by Jason Flick
As I mentioned in my last post, startups don’t have a culture, that’s a myth created by 95 percent of people who’ve never worked for a startup, perhaps even intentionally so. Who would want to search out and work for a company that can’t pay much if anything in salaries, expects you to work 12-hour days and in the end, has a 50-percent chance of failure? […]
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Tories are a PC, NDP are a Mac, Bloc’s a RIM. Are Liberals a Kodak?
May 03, 2011 by Francis Moran
The morning after the election that wouldn’t change anything, the political landscape in Canada has been radically, perhaps permanently, altered […]
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Culture of risk: Oh, those Israelis
May 02, 2011 by Francis Moran
“If Canadians were as good at innovating as we are at explaining why we’re bad at it, Canada wouldn’t rank 14th among industrialized nations in the Conference Board of Canada’s report card on innovation. And because innovation is the key to improving productivity, we wouldn’t be earning $7,000 less a person each year than Americans.” That blunt comment came courtesy of none other than Conference Board president and CEO Anne Golden […]
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Startup lessons from Tungle.me founder Marc Gingras
April 29, 2011 by Alexandra Reid
The Canadian startup community rang in another win this week as RIM, the maker of BlackBerry phones and the new PlayBook tablet, acquired calendar and scheduling application Tungle.me […]
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Election emotion and the politics of fear
April 28, 2011 by Bob Bailly
In my first posting I promised that this blog would investigate how human evolution has impacted the way we do business, why we are the way we are, and why we act and feel the way we do in our personal and business lives. When it comes to evolution, two areas of investigation are of interest: first, the evolution of the human brain as it relates to how we make decisions […]
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Trade magazines are dead, long live trade magazines!
April 27, 2011 by Linda Forrest
One thing you can rely on in the media game is change. The media industry, as ever, has been aflutter this past week as trade publications both in North America and Europe either swallowed whole their counterparts in a high-profile merging of brands, or print editions of long-standing B2B trade publications announced their intentions of moving strictly online. In reaction, many proclaimed, once again, the death of the trade magazine […]
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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...) [...]