By Denzil Doyle
A few years ago, a group of hockey enthusiasts from southwestern Ontario embarked on an ambitious campaign to establish an NHL hockey club in their area. A nasty comment that went around at the time was that it would never happen because if it did, Toronto would want one as well.
That joke came to mind when I was asked to comment on the enthusiasm for the MaRS Centre, a Toronto-based innovation centre, only this time the shoe is on the other foot; MaRS appears to be a successful business accelerator that is being emulated across the country. In fact, it appears to have been looked at in some detail by the people who played a key role in the planning of the Ottawa Innovation Centre, to be located at the Bayview yards area.
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By Maurice Smith
I once spent a fortnight in Silicon Valley being trained in strategic planning. It was a fantastic experience. We spent the first week in groups trying to invent new products and industries, a motley crew of scientists, financiers and creatives.
In the midst of the workshops, a very opinionated participant from Miami told us – not once, but twice – that there were many modern technical inventions that no one had ever asked for – the minivan and the fax machine for starters.
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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, Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, The Huffington Post and copyblogger.
Startup Financing: There’s More Than One Way to Skin a Cat
One anonymous angel with a self-admitted “chip on my shoulder” provides their opinion on pay-to-pitch investment conferences.
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By Francis Moran
I had a conversation the other day with a senior executive at a company for which I occasionally do some consulting. The executive wanted my opinion on how his company handles warranty returns. Under their current practice, they oblige their customers to remove the faulty equipment, which is often tightly embedded in an operational environment, pack it up as best they can with their own resources, and ship it back at the customer’s expense. If the fault is determined to be covered under warranty, they refund the customer’s shipping costs. Meanwhile, the customer may have to do without what is often a mission-critical piece of gear, although most of this company’s customers do stock healthy inventories of spare equipment.
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By Leo Valiquette
There was an interesting story in the Globe and Mail last week that got me thinking about the distinction between product marketing and brand marketing.
The Globe’s Susan Krashinsky was writing about Newfoundland and Labrador’s tourism industry and how the province’s efforts to brand itself with a memorable advertising campaign has provoked the best form of flattery possible – plagiarism.
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A primer on strategic thinking
January 22, 2013 by Caroline Kealey
The word “strategic” is used so often that we’ve lost track of what it means. You might think it’s nothing but another bit of corporate-speak tossed around to make things sound fancier. In fact, something real and utterly important is at stake in this word […]
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Music and the brain
January 21, 2013 by Bob Bailly
Over the holidays, I found myself looking for a present for my wife, and was following the promise of a pre-Christmas sale at a local department store. During my time at the mall I realized I was being bombarded with generic Christmas music everywhere I went […]
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Great articles roundup: Bold predictions, Jordan Satok, wolves in sheep’s clothing, becoming an entrepreneur, Google Analytics
January 18, 2013 by Leo Valiquette
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 MarketingProfs, TechVibes, Forbes, Inc. and Dan Barker […]
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A year in the life of bringing technology to market
January 17, 2013 by Francis Moran
This is a word cloud of the more than 200 blog posts we published here in 2012. In one fell swoop, it graphically illustrates our preoccupations over the past year, the subject matter we returned to time and again as we looked at the unique challenges of bringing technology to market […]
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Let me wave my magical content wand
January 16, 2013 by Tara Hunt
It usually starts something like this: “Hey! Everyone I know is on Instagram! We should start an Instagram for the company!” The suggestion in itself isn’t wrong per se, it’s just not made with much of an understanding of how these social platforms work.[…]
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The revitalization of the Canadian venture capital sector
January 15, 2013 by Chris Arsenault
It was a good news day for Canadian entrepreneurs yesterday. The Prime Minister of Canada, the Right Honourable Stephen Harper, and Minister of Finance, the honourable Jim Flaherty, were in Montreal to announce the “Venture Capital Action Plan.” Under this plan, the federal government will put $400 million to work under the leadership of private sector fund of funds and venture capital funds […]
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Making the business case, face to face
January 14, 2013 by Leo Valiquette
They say the world is more connected than it’s ever been. You can push software to a global audience with the tap of a key, and serve customers worldwide from a desk in your living room. Of course, the trade-off is that it’s loud out there […]
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Great articles roundup: The series A crunch, pitching well, email and content marketing, scaring investors
January 11, 2013 by Leo Valiquette
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 TechCrunch, Polaris Venture Partners, Pando Daily, Gust and MarketingSherpa […]
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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...) [...]