By Francis Moran
Startup Canada, the grassroots campaign that is seeking to foster a more entrepreneurial culture in Canada, today launched its most audacious initiative so far with the creation in 15 different cities across the country of Startup Canada Communities, a combination of online and in-person networks intended to give entrepreneurs swifter and more immediate local access to all the resources needed to start a new venture.
We’ve been enthusiastic backers of Startup Canada from its very inception, and as I attended town hall meetings and other events across the country last summer and fall, one consistent theme sounded by entrepreneurs everywhere was that they needed both a one-stop clearing house for information about all the programs and resources available to them and a network through which they could connect with other entrepreneurs, with mentors and with all the other elements of the startup ecosystem.
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By Leo Valiquette
Last month’s lineup featured great posts on how established companies should innovate, a startup CEO’s tips for wooing investors, the risks of discounting your product and the need for philanthropy to be a natural part of doing business. And of course, there was plenty of sage advice on what it takes to make marketing work.
In case you missed any of it, here is a handy recap of our posts, as ranked by the enthusiasm of our readers:
April 18: In search of that Entrepreneurial Spark, by Maurice Smith
April 23: What have you done for someone else lately?, by Leo Valiquette
April 11: Want more business from your website? Here are 6 things your customers need to see, by Tim Peter
April 24: A startup CEO’s tips for wooing investors, by John Hill and Leo Valiquette
April 25: The folly (or possibly the wisdom) of discounting, by Francis Moran
April 10: Best of: The saddest marketing story I’ve ever heard, by Francis Moran
April 17: My top travel tips, by Francis Moran
April 8: When is it time to say, ‘Our CEO’s got to go?’by Denzil Doyle
April 16: The imperatives of leaders, leadership and leading, by Bob Bailly
April 29: In it until everyone crosses the finish line, by Leo Valiquette
April 15: What an entrepreneur can learn from a literary conference: Part III, by Leo Valiquette
April 4: Trademark hygiene: A cautionary tale, by David French
April 30:Patent harvesting versus mandated innovation, by David French
April 3: ‘You can’t cross a canyon in two leaps’, by Francis Moran
April 2: Best of: Just the facts … no, these facts, by Leo Valiquette
April 9: What an entrepreneur can learn from a literary conference: Part II, by Leo Valiquette
Image: April 2013 Calendar Printable
By David J. French
The expression “patent harvesting” has surfaced in management jargon. These words invoke a scenario wherein corporate management looks under the carpet, so to speak, to see if somewhere in their organization the staff have generated good ideas that are worth patenting.
However, corporate management philosophy has also introduced the further concept of “mandated innovation.” According to this latter concept, a corporation, instead of waiting for inventions to surface from within the organization, actively analyzes the kinds of innovations that would advance corporate plans for the future. A mandate is then issued to technical staff to generate the details necessary to support such innovations.
In both cases, the corporation hopes to obtain patent protection for ideas and innovations which will have real market impact and add further profit to the bottom line.
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By Leo Valiquette
In my various engagements as a freelance writer and marketing communications consultant, I often find myself working with the clients of a client.
It’s a situation that adds a whole new dimension to the relationship between service provider and client. Not only are you serving the needs of that primary client, but now you are also in the role of their ambassador; how you conduct yourself with their clients reflects on them.
For me, this typically manifests itself in this way: My primary client is providing a service to its clients which includes my services as writer and consultant. This most often involves situations where a media outlet is selling advertorial space (in other words, content marketing space) to their advertisers and I come in to help those advertisers fill that space with strong and effective content. There can be quite stringent deadlines to meet and my role is that of project manager as much as it is writer to herd the cats and ensure the job gets done on time.
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By Daylin Mantyka
As a regular feature, we provide our readers with a roundup of some of the best articles we have read in the past week. On the podium this week are Techvibes, Financial Post, Ventureburn, Velocity and Fast Company.
Why even startups should practice content marketing
Greg Marlin outlines some compelling reasons why startups should engage in content marketing. The benefits of deploying a smart, well thought out plan include message and market testing, awareness and traffic generation, and shortening the sales cycle, for example. Read on to get a more in depth look at the pros of creating engaging, consistent content.
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The folly (or possibly the wisdom) of discounting
April 25, 2013 by Francis Moran
I doubt if there’s a single business ever that hasn’t been asked at some point or other to discount its prices. For startups, it’s almost an inevitable part of the process in bringing their technology to market. As you can probably guess from the headline, I’m not a big fan […]
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A startup CEO’s tips for wooing investors
April 24, 2013 by Leo Valiquette
Investment. It’s big news in the startup world. Sites such as TechCrunch and The Next Web are full of stories about how much a company has raised and what it wants to do with it. But if you’re set on putting together a round for your business, you’ve got to think about more than just passing around the tin […]
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What have you done for someone else lately?
April 23, 2013 by Leo Valiquette
Last week I had the pleasure of sitting down with several individuals who reminded me how important it is for philanthropy and giving back in some way to the community which sustains you to be a natural part of doing business […]
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Great articles roundup: Lean methodologies, story-centred design, real-time marketing, value proposition, pitching editors
April 19, 2013 by Daylin Mantyka
As a regular feature, we provide our readers with a roundup of some of the best articles we have read in the past week. On the podium this week are Ash Maurya: Practice Trumps Theory, GigaOm, Fast Company, Marketing Sherpa Blog and Social Media Explorer […]
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In search of that Entrepreneurial Spark
April 18, 2013 by Maurice Smith
Jim Duffy is a man in a hurry. Since creating Entrepreneurial Spark little more than a year ago, he has expanded twice, helped more than 130 would-be entrepreneurs and stirred up the start-up environment in Scotland.
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My top travel tips
April 17, 2013 by Francis Moran
It doesn’t have much to do with bringing technology to market but today’s post is one I’ve been meaning to write for a while. Having spent the last two weeks travelling across three continents, six time zones and nearly 20,000 miles, it seemed appropriate that I tackle it today […]
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The imperatives of leaders, leadership and leading
April 16, 2013 by Bob Bailly
Over the last several months Canadians have watched the eldest son of Pierre Trudeau move from the fringes of the Liberal Party to become its newly elected leader. But what constitutes an effective leader? […]
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What an entrepreneur can learn from a literary conference: Part III
April 15, 2013 by Leo Valiquette
Focus. It’s what distinguishes talkers from doers, which I touched upon in last week’s post about lessons learned at a literacy conference that apply to entrepreneurs as much as they to do authors. While I was at that conference I ran into Canadian fantasy fiction author Ed Greenwood […]
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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...) [...]