"We have been fortunate enough to have worked over the past nine months with Francis Moran and Associates to deliver virtual CMO services for our company, and so far it has been highly effective. With this relationship, we get access to a level of experience and expertise which would be unaffordable to us if we were to hire a full-time equivalent." Dave McIlhagga, Founder and CEO
"When I hired Francis Moran to lead our marketing efforts in 2011, I had very high expectations. We needed to completely rebuild our marketing from the ground up. Francis and his team not only met those high expectations but exceeded them. He brought a very high level of strategic thinking, professionalism and creativity to our organization that will be felt for many years to come in our quest to build a successful IT company."
Marty Hilsenteger, Founder and CEO
A few weeks ago, my colleague Linda wrote a blog entry about how difficult it is for her to imagine what pre-Internet public relations would have been like. After going through the exercise of building an international media list for the launch of the Touch Bionics i-LIMB Hand, I can’t imagine how such a list could have been compiled in any reasonable period of time without the help of Google and the ability to access online content from print and broadcast media outlets. Notice, I don’t mention any branded media contact database as my savior. That’s because we don’t rely on them.
I’m willing to bet that more than a few PR firms, or at least their newly hired interns, would think we’re crazy for not using one of the available media databases to grab all seemingly relevant contacts, export email address and blast out news releases.
John German, one of the first patients to receive the revolutionary new prosthetic hand, the i-LIMB, that inmedia helped launch in July has posted an endearing video to YouTube detailing the amazing array of uses to which he puts his bionic hand on an everyday basis. He gets a bit carried away, taking a Lee Majors-like leap over a running car, but the biggest impression I was left with was just how easily John has integrated the arm into his life.
There has been a trend emerging in recent years of pharmaceutical companies creating generic versions of successful off-patent drugs as a method of speeding the laborious, expensive and time consuming clinical and regulatory requirements of bringing a drug to market. When generic drugs hit the market, typically between seven and 12 years after the brand name drug was made generally available and the 20-year patent protection has ended, the cost for both the generic and the brand name drug decrease because of the increased competition. However, the results of a study by Canada’s Competition Bureau show that Canadians could be paying less for these drugs than they currently are. The rebates that generic providers are giving to pharmacies as incentive to stock their products are not being passed along to the consumer. The full study, which explains why these benefits are not reaching the consumer and suggests possible solutions, is available on the Competition Bureau’s web site.
Yesterday, Google announced its decision to partner with wireless developers, manufacturers and operators to offer the first open source development platform for mobile applications. Already, there’s been a fair amount of speculation about what this means for the enterprise and IT managers. Head over to InformationWeek, The Wall Street Journal and ComputerWorld Canada to read what the experts are predicting.
Let’s set the scene: A technology company begins working with a much larger partner to deliver a significant new offering for the bigger firm. Everything leading up to the launch seems to be going great, and the partner has even stated that they will ensure you get some good media exposure as a result of their own public relations efforts. Then comes the launch and everything changes. The big guy hogs the limelight and you are left fighting for any scraps of media attention that come your way.
It’s not an uncommon situation, and one that I have witnessed on more than a couple of occasions.
By Jill Pyle While many of us are thinking about how the rise of the Canadian dollar will help us save some money when shopping online for holiday gifts, many business owners are trying to find ways to deal with the challenges it presents. Today, Computerworld Canada takes a look at what the rise in […]
By inmedia According to eWeek, software as a service or SAAS has moved into the mainstream. In this slideshow, eWeek presents the ten things you should know about this delivery model.
By Linda Forrest A lot of our clients include conferences and trade shows as part of their market-facing activities. In fact, the last few weeks have been filled with such events for our clients across an array of sectors, including BioPartnering Europe, ECOC, Call Centre Expo, Consumer Healthcare Informatics Summit, the 2007 Financial Services Technology […]
By Danny Sullivan Remember the amazing wind-up radio that appeared in the late 90s? Well, the Freeplay Foundation, the organisation behind that remarkable invention is close to extending the technology into an area that could have an even greater impact on third-world countries: home lighting. The BBC reports, “As part of its LifeLight Project the […]
By Jill Pyle At inmedia Public Relations, we work incredibly hard to generate media coverage that will help our clients meet their business objectives. Being in the high tech B2B space, industry-specific publications often make up the vast majority of our clients’ Tier 1 media targets. While company and product-launch announcements sometimes spark some interest […]
By Eliot Burdett Re: Francis’s Ottawa inferiority complex theorem There is no question Ottawa has its own culture – the prevalence of government, where success is measured differently, probably has a lot to do with it. There are no free rides in a world of entrepreneurship and being mediocre usually means you are fighting to […]
By inmedia A piece entitled “VoIP vs. TDM voice” in this morning’s ComputerWorld newsletter caught my eye. The clickthrough led me to discover Network World’s list of the 50 greatest arguments in the history of the networking industry. The fact that it’s currently the most read story on Network World’s web site shows that the […]
By inmedia Right now, the most popular headline on Information Week is Growing Pains: Can Web 2.0 Evolve Into An Enterprise Technology? The article explores the benefits and risks associated with using Web 2.0 technologies like wikis, blogs and social networks in the workplace, apposed to solutions developed specifically for the enterprise. After weighing the […]
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...) [...]
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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...) [...]