By Leo Valiquette
Among the various blogs I follow, one that stands out for a daily chuckle is the Bad Pitch Blog, which outs and critiques bad pitches by those who attempt to pass themselves off as PR practitioners.
The individual reporter or editor is often swamped by pitches of one sort or another, whether it be a press release that’s been dispatched via an email blast or a more personal contact by phone or e-mail. Most often it’s the direct contact that’s going to net the most fish, provided the PR person in question has taken the time to ensure they are pitching the right story at the right publication and have actually provided said editor or reporter with something to chew on. In clear and concise terms, what is the news value and why is it something they should consider? If a PR person can’t convey this in less than 10 seconds on the phone, or in a few punchy sentences via e-mail, they’ve committed premature pitching. Rather than make the most of the opportunity, they’ve blown it. Editors and reporters who feel they’re being nagged by someone who hasn’t done their homework get cranky. (Trust me on this, I used to be one of those cranky editors).
As this latest from the Bad Pitch Blog demonstrates, even worse than not conveying your message crisply is bothering to pursue media with no message at all. It’s like sending a resume with a cover letter that only reads “it’s all in the resume.” See for yourself how a misguided PR practitioner earned her dubious kudos on the Bad Pitch Blog in 10 words or less.
[tag] public relations, pitching, media relations [/tag]
By inmedia
Our profession is under fire again this week with the lambasting the industry received from a CBS legal analyst, deriding PR as a wholly untruthful industry built on the premise that PR consultants are nothing better than paid liars on our clients’ behalf. He tried to dig himself out of the hole somewhat when he saw the incensed responses from commenters within and outside of the PR industry.
The PRSA has fought back with an official statement, defending both the integrity of PR practitioners and the industry as a whole.
The PR industry far too often is judged by its most ineffectual and dishonest members. PR agencies and practitioners that have integrity and their clients’ best interests at heart, would never agree to obfuscate the truth or to put out a bombastic news release that is full of so-called gobbledygook words that lack any real meaning and generally incite the conditioned response from editors and reporters of hitting the delete key.
This story is a tired one, but the usual suspects are covering it with gusto.
By Francis Moran
Last week was quite an extraordinary one for Ottawa’s start-up community.
Wow. When was the last time over the past six or eight or 10 years that I could make a bold statement like that and not have the guys in the white coats start measuring me for a jacket that buckles in the back?
And no, I’m not referring to a spate of product launches or company foundings or even venture capital funding announcements that would have been the basis of such enthusiasm in the past when Ottawa’s technology sector was dominated by capital-intensive efforts to invent a better telecom system or new semiconductor.
Instead, my enthusiasm today comes from a series of events we attended last week, all of which we blogged about and all of which contributed to a subtle but undeniable sense that something very exciting is afoot.
On Monday, I joined a warm and standing-room-only crowd at DemoCampOttawa9, where developers from six companies demonstrated their applications and received scads of intelligent, creative and constructively critical feedback from their peers.
Tuesday night, several generations of Ottawa technology entrepreneurs helped Ian Graham celebrate the official opening of his novel and creative co-working and collaboration space, TheCodeFactory. A series of short speeches was book-ended by veteran Denzil Doyle and emerging company founder Scott Lake. We here at inmediaare such big fans of what Ian is doing that we’ve signed on as founding partners of TheCodeFactory and we’ll be watching with more than passing interest as he builds a facility that is much needed in this town.
Wednesday night was The Ottawa Network‘s regular monthly Start-up Drop-in at LaBarge Weinstein and this was when the penny really dropped for me. As I wrote here Friday, every speaker was, among other things, sounding the consistent notes that Ottawa’s start-up community is focused on exciting new opportunities in the online world, is actively supporting its individual members and is building a broadly collaborative and globally minded ecosystem that may just yet spit out the next Facebook.
Thursday night I took a pass. But my colleague Leo Valiquette attended an event that in many ways emphasised one of the key realities of this exciting new world. In a session titled, “Buddy, keep your million, but buy my product,” The Ottawa Network in collaboration with the city’s various technology clusters came to the inevitable next stage of its now three-year-old series on how to tap into venture capital.
The first year, the title was, “Buddy, can you spare a million,” emphasizing the traditional route to building a company — beg for whatever venture capital you can lay your hands on.
The second year’s title, “Buddy why should I give you a million,” betrayed the fact that most of the begging was going wholly unanswered as VCs shut their wallets and became unyieldingly skeptical about the business plans they were seeing.
Last week’s title brought the whole thing full circle. If you can’t beg funding from VCs who either don’t have it or won’t invest it, then you have to build a company the old-fashioned way — develop a product and find someone who wants to pay you money to buy.
What a concept.
Fortunately, this reality now aligns with what Ottawa’s startups are doing anyway. Exciting and promising new ventures really can be launched on a shoestring. When a budding entrepreneur needs help, there is a wealth of events to attend, or many willing peers in the community who will contribute counsel or even hands-on support. When the venture grows a bit larger, places like TheCodeFactory will give it an affordable home. And by the time the VCs come calling, they really won’t be needed very much.
Hold the buckled jacket. It really is an exciting new day here in Ottawa.
By Leo Valiquette
What does it take to build a successful business from scratch without selling your soul to the venture capitalists? Pretty much what it takes to turn any vision into reality – persistence, optimism and thinking first about qualifying the market demand for what you want to offer.
Last night at the Marshes Golf Club, six local entrepreneurs, a couple fresh out of school, the rest somewhat grayer, manned a panel to discuss how they developed their individual businesses without the aid of venture capital dollars. The event was called Buddy keep your Million – but buy my product! To my mind, their insights are key to the success of any venture regardless of who is filling your bank account.
First up was the energetic Aydin Mirzaee, founder of bOK Systems Corp. and Chide.it. For him it’s all about persistence. He told the story of how Col. Sanders, a retiree not so keen about living on a fixed income, hit the road with his family chicken recipe and endured over 1,000 rejections before finding a restaurant willing to pay him royalties.
Next came the equally young and enterprising Kareem Sultan of RaceDV. The right mentor made all the difference for him. In this case, an employer who encouraged him to use his downtime at work to pursue his interests and to “go out and learn something.” When things began to move along, his employer continued to help him incubate his idea, and, most importantly, allowed him to retain full ownership of his intellectual property.
Moving down the line came a more seasoned entrepreneur, Scott Lake, founder of Jaded Pixel and Shopify. With his focus on open-source software development, he puts a high premium on cultivating a passionate community following around a product to generate word of mouth and provide user feedback. But in addition to that, it must be an interactive communication, in which your developers have a dialogue with this community. It’s all about harnessing the power of social media.
Next up was Paul Slaby. His latest role is CEO of Kaben Wireless, but he has a long track record in Ottawa, with start-ups that include ATMOS and VoIPShield. What he found when he arrived at Kaben was a very strong engineering culture that needed to refocus on sales and marketing. Customer money is the best money to have he said, and one of the most effective ways to get it is to develop the services side of your business early. For him, that has translated into joint ventures on product development and providing that partner with outsourced R&D services with a running royalty arrangement.
For the next speaker, Wael Aggan of TradeMerit, one truth has been self-evident since his first venture in Egypt more than 30 years ago—define a market niche first, figure out how you will engineer a product to fill that need second. His preference is always to define a niche and dominate it, rather than pursue a broader market opportunity where there might already be established incumbents or too much open playing field for “me too” rivals to muscle in.
Lastly, Rob Lane of Overlay.TV discussed how it was the right choice for his company to secure venture capital financing. For the market his company is trying to tackle and the big incumbents that are already there, an infusion of VC cash was the only way for his company to generate adequate market momentum. However, his message is that each individual must first define what success means for them. Is it a $1-million venture, a $10-million venture, or a $1-billion one? (And of course, VCs won’t bother with anything that doesn’t have the potential to become at least a $100-million enterprise). He also stressed the importance of global networking thanks to the dramatic impact of social media.
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What bloggers want
May 30, 2008 by Danny Sullivan
By Danny Sullivan A lot of PR people seem to be a little nervous when it comes to dealing with the blogosphere. There exists a sentiment that there is some kind of black magic at play – and if you don’t know the magic words you might end up spending the rest of your days as a toad […]
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Propagating the Ottawa startup community
May 30, 2008 by Francis Moran
By Francis Moran The official theme was “Ottawa’s digital media industry,” and the gamers, social networkers and content developers were there in spades. But what I heard at Wednesday night’s regular Start-up Drop-in put on by The Ottawa Network at LaBarge Weinstein had as much or more to do with propagating and supporting the entire […]
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It’s about more than the written word
May 29, 2008 by Linda Forrest
By Linda Forrest It’s true, a lot of a PR consultant’s time is spent writing; writing news releases, backgrounders, bylined articles, biographies, blog posts (ahem)… all in the hope that interested journalists or editors will take what we’ve written and repurpose it or use it as source material to develop their own coverage of our […]
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TheCodeFactory: ‘A place for innovation to grow’
May 28, 2008 by Leo Valiquette
By Leo Valiquette Now we’ve got it, let’s put it to good use. Last night was the official launch of TheCodeFactory, a private business accelerator/incubator intended to help fill the gap between a great idea and a commercial product gaining traction in the marketplace. It’s the cherished baby of business consultant Ian Graham and its launch attracted plenty of interest […]
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Ottawa DemoCamp9 showcases novel applications
May 27, 2008 by Francis Moran
By Francis Moran A fascinating array of new applications, ranging from a web site allowing private pilots and other airport nuts to share their enthusiasm and knowledge, to a sophisticated new system to reduce intellectual property contamination while writing software code, were demonstrated to a standing-room-only crowd last night at Ottawa’s ninth DemoCamp. A new […]
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Building small companies that roar
May 20, 2008 by Leo Valiquette
By Leo Valiquette Small is the new big. These words came from Jerry Everett, director of sales and founder of six-year-old conference services firm onconference Inc. Everett was part of a panel of speakers reflecting on six years of entrepreneurship in Ottawa at an OCRI event this week with the catchy title of “Blood on […]
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How may my technology help you? Take 2
May 13, 2008 by Francis Moran
By Francis Moran I’ve written here before about the abject failure of most technology implementations intended to assist in the delivery of customer service. And I know criticising customer service is such an easy target that it makes shooting fish in a barrel seem a highly skilled undertaking. Still, my experience last night with Rogers, […]
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Copyright compliance
May 12, 2008 by Linda Forrest
By Linda Forrest Having previously worked in the music industry where copyright was king and the profligate flouting of said rights has resulted in that industry’s expected implosion, I feel especially passionate about the issue, as any of my close friends will tell you should they admit in my presence to illegally downloading music… But […]
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