This is the next contribution to this blog by Associate Phil Newman, a London-based marketing and commercialization strategist for technology companies. Phil’s post is part of our continuing series about the ecosystem necessary to bring technology to market. We welcome your comments.
By Phil Newman
Yield management involves the strategic control of inventory to sell it to the right customer at the right time for the right price. Book your flight to New York two days before you’re due to fly and you’ll get the idea of purchasing at the top end. Rather than considering late booking as a negative, why not apply airline pricing to your business to create demand among early buyers, or early adopters?
Airline pricing is an art that has helped airlines grow revenues and price their services to align with seasonal shifts, Icelandic volcanoes and the vagaries of economic downturns. Robert Crandall, former chairman and CEO of American Airlines, gave yield management its name and defined it as “the single most important technical development in transportation management since we entered deregulation.”
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By Linda Forrest
Last week, Chrysler experienced a PR crisis when a Tweeter at its social media agency posted a Tweet that not only used an expletive, but was completely off-brand. From a marketing perspective, this came at a very bad time for the company, which had made a splash with its “Imported from Detroit” campaign launched at the SuperBowl. The company issued the requisite apology, which it later explained in more depth. The employee was fired from the agency, and the agency lost Chrysler’s business.
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This is the seventh 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
“Nothing disheartens me more than meeting an entrepreneur in B.C. who says his ambition is to one day conquer the Ontario market,” Anthony Lee, general partner at Altos Ventures and co-founder of the C100, told us in an interview a few months back.
While building a globally competitive company may not be the right objective for everyone, Lee makes a key point. For any venture to succeed, its founders must have a vision that will stretch the boundaries of what they know and challenge what they believe is attainable.
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This is the first contribution to this blog by Associate Caroline Kealey, an internationally recognized communications strategist, speaker, trainer, facilitator and author.
By Caroline Kealey
In my experience, decision making executives in a variety of sectors often fail to recognize the value their communications people bring to their organization. Often, this arises because the communicators themselves have not adequately conveyed the value they provide in a way that resonates with management.
As a senior decision maker, regardless of whether your organization is a startup or a mature technology company, you can make a powerful shift in your thinking by framing the communications function as a strategic element of your organization’s business development and revenue generation activities. Effective communicators contribute far more than the typical “stuff” of communications, such as news releases, speeches or events. They can provide unique counsel that will bring insightful and strategic “outside-in” thinking to your organization.
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By Alexandra Reid
I know what you’re thinking because it’s what I was thinking before I went to Social Media Breakfast yesterday: “What the heck does the gaming industry have to do with marketing?” Coming out of the event, I am not only intrigued by the psychology of “gamification,” the tactics of engagement and how it could be incorporated into a marketer’s communications strategy, I am also convinced that it will play an increasingly important role in how businesses attract, cultivate and retain brand enthusiasts over the coming years.
First, what is “gamification?”
According to David Nicholson, former VP of product development at Power Change and host of yesterday morning’s event, “Gamification is all about modifying people’s behaviour.” Incorporating this tactic into a business strategy can increase retention, virility and engagement of a community around a brand.
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Incubation: Whose job is it, anyway?
March 09, 2011 by Francis Moran
“Government doesn’t start companies,” Iain Klugman, CEO of Communitech, told us a little while back. “Individuals do.”
Nonetheless, government does have an important role to play in the value chain of bringing technology to market […]
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Hug an entrepreneur
March 08, 2011 by Andrew Penny
A lot has been said about creating an Innovative Culture. Research labs, government departments and agencies are all trying to figure out just how to make us innovate. The thought being that innovation equals wealth creation. However, to create this wealth someone has to do something with the innovation, someone who is prepared to take the risk that things may not work out quite as planned […]
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Google is your homepage: Startup steps to SEO
March 07, 2011 by Alexandra Reid
To break the ice at a recent IABC Ottawa event that dealt with measuring online marketing, Alex Langshur, President of PublicInsite, displayed the Google homepage on an overhead and asked the audience what it was. People shouted out the obvious answers like, “That’s Google of course,” and, “It’s a search engine,” but no one was able to provide Langshur the answer he was looking for […]
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Why intellectual property is profitable
March 04, 2011 by David French
The theme of this website is getting technology to market. This is an honorable objective. Indeed, I would like to present why Intellectual Property is a key part of the business case for getting technology to market. And doing it right.
Intellectual Property, e.g. patents, copyright, trademarks, designs and corporate secrets, all have an important place in the modern business enterprise […]
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Capital angels flock to new format
March 03, 2011 by Francis Moran
The Capital Angel Network, a new angel organization whose launch we covered about a year ago, is stepping up its activity levels in support of what organizer Laurie Davis said this morning is an effort “to make Ottawa a more vibrant (investment) community and a better place to start a company.” The first step in that process was this morning’s […]
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Silicon Valley: A big bright heat lamp for startup incubation
March 02, 2011 by Francis Moran
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, talks about the “social contract between science and society in the U.S.” that arose in the late 1940s and gave rise to that unique eco-system we know today as Silicon Valley […]
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February Roundup: It’s all about getting technology to market
March 01, 2011 by admin
Thank you for being with us for the first month of our new blog. In case you missed any posts, here is a recap, beginning with, in chronological order, our special report on getting technology to market, The Commercialization Ecosystem, which continues this month […]
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Marketing lessons from the Oscars
March 01, 2011 by Linda Forrest
I’ll admit it – I look forward to the Oscars all year. I’m an ardent movie fan, and so I look forward to seeing which movies are the most celebrated at the annual awards ceremony. This year was no different but I did feel highly skeptical going into it about the hosts that had been selected in an attempt to lure in a younger demographic to watch the show […]
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By Phil Newman
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