By Leo Valiquette
As a student of the written word, I’ve dealt with just about everything when it comes to catering to a client, managing a team of journalists and editing the work of others.
But the greatest challenge is often found in the mocking white glare of an empty page.
As we have discussed before on this blog, writing is one of those skills that only gets better with practice. Reading examples of great writing with a critical eye, heeding the wise counsel of quality reference material and, most importantly, appreciating the value of a good editor, are all fundamental to honing your craft.
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By Alexandra Reid
I shamelessly adapted the title of this post based on the original Fast Company article, Anything they can do you can do better, which explained that when it comes to designing new products, companies must aim to build them better than their competitors.
On the surface, this advice seems obvious. But it becomes more complex when you consider how fine the line really is that separates a pioneer and a “me too,” and what it takes to differentiate and improve your product enough for people to take notice.
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Editor’s note:
This is the inaugural post by Rob Woyzbun, whose work in marketing and broader business strategy I have admired for years. We get together periodically to share war stories, discuss strategy and generally commiserate on the sorry state of technology marketing. We always part with an expressed desire to find some way to work together and it is my hope that having persuaded Rob to become a regular contributor here is just the start of some stellar collaborations.
— Francis Moran
By Rob Woyzbun
The near-ubiquitous availability and always-on nature of the internet has changed how consumers learn about, consider and make decisions regarding almost everything — purchases, politics and even the causes they support. We live in a world where Marshall McLuhan’s prophetic claim that “the medium is the message” is true — in ways even he might not have considered (See: Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man; 1964).
Ironically, while the proliferation of paid, owned and shared media channels has created limitless opportunities for innovative thinking and tactics, marketers still drag old-school errors into this brave new world. In our media research and planning practice, we see companies continue to make the same avoidable, costly mistakes.
Here’s our top five list of old-school mistakes creeping into the digital and social media arena, and some ideas on how to avoid them:
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By Alexandra Reid
As a regular weekly 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 Business2Community, Financial Post, VentureBeat, eMarketer, and TechVibes.
‘Looking big’ is not an effective B2B marketing message
It’s not rare to see B2B companies sucked into the distorted reality that they must market themselves as larger companies to woo their prospect bases. The traditional logic is that if you are selling to larger companies, you should act larger in an effort to appeal to them. Author Brian Jameson explains that B2B marketing is not a boxing match where fighters fall into weight classes.
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We covered lots of new and interesting subjects on our blog last month. Contributor Caroline Kealey discussed the importance of measurement for communications people. Terry Lavineway shared important information on business incentives in the federal budget. David French further explored the world of patents and explained how get value for your money. Our Francis Moran covered recent developments in Waterloo and shared counsel on the importance of having a good startup team, while Alexandra Reid examined the importance of social media images and interviewed startup champion Victoria Lennox on Startup Canada’s cross country tour and launch, happening this week in Ottawa. Plus, we had our regular monthly check-ins with startups Genevolve, Screenreach and NanoScale.
These topics merely scratch the surface of our coverage last month. If you missed any of our posts, here is a handy roundup.
April 3: Getting ready for the big show by Francis Moran and Leo Valiquette
April 12: Learning how to deal with the unexpected by Francis Moran and Alexandra Reid
April 25: Do you know how to dance with angels? by Francis Moran and Leo Valiquette
And on a related note…
In addition to our series, our associates and guest bloggers were also busy writing on a great range of topics. Here are our other posts from April, as ranked by the enthusiasm of our readers:
April 19: What’s going on in Waterloo? by Francis Moran
April 24: There is no magic recipe for a successful company, only good cooks by Francis Moran
April 16: Innovation and the budget by Denzil Doyle
April 23: Tales from the trenches: New associate joins our team by Jeff Campbell
April 17: Social media strategy: Why meeting in the ‘real world’ matters by Alexandra Reid
April 2: Making measurement work for communications professionals by Caroline Kealey
April 5: How to municipimp your municipality by Alexandra Reid
April 18: What an entrepreneur can learn from a literary conference by Leo Valiquette
April 30: From whiteboard to customers: a perspective from the startup world by Jesse Rodgers
April 9: Are we getting value for all the money we’re spending on patents? by David French
April 4: There were other business-related incentive tidbits in the federal budget by Terry Lavineway
April 26: Victoria Lennox: Startup champion by Alexandra Reid
April 13: The importance of developing a social media image strategy by Alexandra Reid
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Lessons in entrepreneurship from the Startup Canada launch
May 03, 2012 by Alexandra Reid
“A million people walk into a bar in Silicon Valley. Nobody buys anything. The bar is declared a huge success.” […]
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Check your baggage at the door
May 02, 2012 by Leo Valiquette
Over the past couple of weeks, I have been speaking with a number of entrepreneurs, executives and others with a stake in Ottawa’s economy on topics ranging from international trade and building an export-oriented business to financing. The common theme has been what business owners must do to get out of their own backyards and make things happen […]
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Why startups should build social media communities before they launch
May 01, 2012 by Alexandra Reid
Social media has become an integral part of the marketing mix for new companies. Startups are employing these valuable channels to promote themselves, receive market feedback, interact with key industry players, and offer relatively inexpensive customer support […]
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From whiteboard to customers: a perspective from the startup world
April 30, 2012 by Jesse Rodgers
I am excited to write my first post for Francis Moran and Associates. Francis is someone that I have crossed paths with many times over the years and having him ask me to start writing for this blog was a nice surprise. I have always learned a lot from our interactions […]
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Great articles roundup: Blog trees, IT, marketing budgets, B2B social media marketing, mirror neurons
April 27, 2012 by Alexandra Reid
As a regular weekly 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 the Guardian, Information Age, MarketingSherpa, Social Media Examiner and Fast Company […]
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Victoria Lennox: Startup champion
April 26, 2012 by Alexandra Reid
As co-founder of Startup Canada, the country’s first-ever entrepreneur-led national movement celebrating Canadian entrepreneurship, Victoria Lennox is a bona fide startup champion […]
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Do you know how to dance with angels?
April 25, 2012 by Francis Moran
It’s been a busy couple of months for Matt Lemelin, CEO of Genevolve Vision Diagnostics, as he hustles across the U.S. to raise Genevolve’s profile and, ideally, its bank account. A year ago he made the mistake of letting his fundraising efforts lose steam after he secured a short-term investor. But those funds quickly ran out […]
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There is no magic recipe for a successful company, only good cooks
April 24, 2012 by Francis Moran
I have shamelessly adapted the headline of this post from a Wall Street Journal article I read on the weekend that reviewed two excellent books tracking the ascendancy of Africa over the past decade and predicting that the continent’s rise as an economic force to be […]
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As a student of the written word, I’ve dealt with just about everything when it comes to catering to a client, managing a team of journalists and editing the work of others.
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