By Daylin Mantyka
Last month’s contents were newsworthy and informative. Leading the pack was David French’s post on confidentiality agreements followed by Francis Moran’s timely piece on angel investing in Ontario. As always, we had some great contributions from our guest bloggers on customer service, forecasting culture in startups, PR agency etiquette and the value of testimonials, among others.
In case you missed any of it, here is a handy recap of our posts, as ranked by the enthusiasm of our readers:
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By Leo Valiquette
I love Tom Kumagai.
As a spokesperson for Toyota, that is.
He is the modest building inspector from Chatham, Ont. who has appeared in television commercials for Toyota with his 1998 Rav-4. His mileage on the vehicle is well past the 600,000-kilometre mark. Previously, he owned a 1980 Toyota Corolla that he took to more than 400,000 kilometres.
Kumagai attributes the reliable performance to the fact that he keeps to the manufacturer’s recommended service schedule and only trusts his local Toyota dealership to do the work.
There is nothing boastful about these advertisements. There is no need to be. The facts speak for themselves. And while not all Toyota owners have the same experience, and the automaker itself deals with quality issues and recalls like any other, the understated tone of these advertisements gives them weight and authority.
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By Daylin Mantyka 
It’s time for Friday’s weekly roundup. Throughout the week, we’ve read some great content written by the creative folks at StartupCFO, Marketo, Velocity Partners and Tech In Asia.
On deck we’ve got an article that talks about the importance of defining and sticking to your values as your startup grows, followed by an interesting read on using behavioral targeting to get your customers opening emails. Third, we’ve got a slide presentation on one of the secrets to content marketing. In our fourth pick, one writer explores the reasons why some Asian startups no longer care about saving face. Enjoy! Read More
By Denzil Doyle
If I had only one piece of advice to give CEOs in the high-tech industry, it would be to work hard at implementing a forecasting culture in their companies. The most visible sign of such a culture would be a bonus system that rewards employees not only for meeting budgets that have been approved by senior management, but for their ability to forecast how close they come to doing so.
Most CEOs give forecasting a low priority; it’s often seen as another level of reporting that is not worth the effort. In fact, there’s also little agreement on the parameters to be included.
The cornerstone of any forecasting system is the sales forecast. At the beginning of each month, every salesperson and sales agent in the distribution channels should be required to forecast their bookings (orders received) for each of the next four quarters. In the jargon of the trade, this is referred to as a monthly updated four-quarter rolling forecast. Then, at the end of each quarter, every salesperson would have his or her actual booking figures compared with those that were forecast at the three intervals during the quarter.
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By David J French
It’s true: Millions of dollars in investment opportunities go to waste on a daily basis. This is happening as opportunities to file for patent rights around the world expire. Let me give you an example that is not so hypothetical.
An inventor makes a good invention and follows all the proper patenting procedures to create an application under the Patent Cooperation Treaty. An advantage of the PCT is that a unitary single application can be filed that is good for over 145 countries worldwide. Additionally, the PCT allows an applicant to delay for at least 30 months before making filings in individual countries. The PCT route is not a procedure for obtaining a single international patent; no such thing exists. Rather, it is a pipeline for the central processing of a single patent application that can be broken up into multiple national patent applications after a 30-month delay. Those national applications under the PCT are called National Entry filings.
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Never expect mission-perfect prose in the first cut
September 24, 2013 by Leo Valiquette
Ernest Hemmingway once said in an interview, that he rewrote the last page of A Farewell to Arms 39 times because he was having trouble “getting the words right.” […]
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Ontario angel investments up 41 percent
September 23, 2013 by Francis Moran
In yet another good sign of growing angel investor interest in backing promising startups, the Network of Angel Organizations – Ontario today announced that its members reported a 41-percent increase in direct investment into 77 Ontario companies over a 12-month period in 2012-2013 […]
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Great articles roundup: Content marketing, marketing, social media and entrepreneurship
September 20, 2013 by Daylin Mantyka
Compliments of the folks over at Duct Tape Marketing, Marketo, Social Media Explorer, and Fast Company, this week’s roundup is marketing heavy with a little bit of entrepreneur […]
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Selling ideas at the intersection of interest
September 19, 2013 by Francis Moran
I had an excellent and productive meeting earlier this week with the hard-working folks at Startup Canada who are, among an impressive roster of other activities, preparing for a […]
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Why confidentiality? (Part 3)
September 18, 2013 by David French
In the previous two postings (here and here) on the above topic we addressed why disclosures relating to inventions, for which patent applications have not yet been filed, should only be made on a confidential basis […]
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A great consultancy should be heard, but not seen
September 17, 2013 by Leo Valiquette
It can sometimes be a thankless job, this eat-what-you-kill world of marketing and PR guns for hire. As I wrote about last week, poorly managed expectations can torpedo any client engagement […]
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Great articles roundup: Failed and winning marketing, lessons from a startup and inbound marketing strategy
September 13, 2013 by Hailley Griffis
This week’s article roundup is all about marketing, courtesy of Huffington Post, CopyBlogger, Forbes and ClickZ. […]
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Canadian angel investments double in quantity but rise only 13 percent in value
September 12, 2013 by Francis Moran
Angel investors, that group of high-net-worth individuals who are often the first source of external funding for new companies, were a great deal more active in Canada in 2012 […]
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