Author Archive for Leo Valiquette

What do a Christmas tree farm and a mortgage broker have in common?

christmas tree farm laura tasheiko 300x202 What do a Christmas tree farm and a mortgage broker have in common?

By Leo Valiquette

First up, a very happy New Year wish from all of us here at inmedia Public Relations.

Many of you were no doubt in the same boat as my wife and me over the holidays, at home with one or more young ones to entertain for two weeks during their break from school. Santa’s leavings only keep energetic rug rats occupied for so long. With various cousins in the west end of Ottawa all six years of age and under, the challenge for the parents was to find fun activities all could enjoy that did not involve exhaustive car trips or aimless visits to toy stores and pet shops.

So, given the vast expanse of Ottawa’s Countryside, what could we do that was easy, convenient and fun in the days leading up to Christmas Eve? Answering that question yielded an interesting example of how a business can position itself in its market niche and build goodwill with potential customers.

There are a number of Christmas tree farms west of Ottawa that provide the kind of family excursion typical of this time of year where you can venture into the wood lot to select and cut your own tree. The visit is complete with wagon rides, a bonfire and copious amounts of hot chocolate.

We contacted two different farms about coming to enjoy a day out, but without having to purchase a tree. One farm was all business. Trees began at $40 and that was the price of admission to even be welcomed.

Another farm, however, Cedar Hill Berry Farm, which, incidentally, was more affordable with its tree prices, welcomed families that just wanted to come out, slide on its hill, take a wagon ride and relax around the fire. A purchase wasn’t necessary to enjoy these other amenities. (But of course, having taken advantage of such hospitality, we did feel an obligation to pick up a few jars of home-made jam before we left.)

Now, as consumers who may be in the market for a real tree next Christmas (or for berries next summer), which farm do you think left the most favourable impression with us? Which one is going to garner the most word-of-mouth referrals? (This post is already proof of that.)

This is not to say that a business should be obligated to allow potential customers to make use of its products or services for free. But this example does illustrate the importance of being aware of who your potential customers are, what they need, and what could make a lasting impression on them. Consumers may not always be looking to buy today, but what can you do to remain top of mind with them so that, when they are ready, they come back to you instead of heading to your nearest competitor?

Another outstanding example of building this kind of rapport with customers and potential customers is a fellow I have dealt with for years for my home mortgage needs, local broker Dan Faubert with Ottawa Carleton Mortgage. Dan has always been there to answer my questions and offer potential solutions to the complicated scenarios with which I have presented him.

“Ah,” you say. “If he’s your broker, then that’s what he should be doing.”

True enough. But this past summer, with the purchase of my new home, I went directly to a local bank with my new mortgage needs instead of Dan because of a special promotion between the bank and the home builder that was hard to beat. Nonetheless, I still wanted some impartial, third-party advice to ensure I was holding the bank’s toes to the fire and getting the best terms I could. That third party was Dan.

Did he ignore my phone calls because I wasn’t giving him my business in this particular transaction? Not at all. He freely gave his perspective on the current state of the market, which allowed me to squeeze even better terms from the bank.

The result? Dan continues to command my trust and respect. If I hear of anyone in need of a mortgage, I immediately point them in his direction.

If there is a New Year’s Resolution to be found here, it is this: Don’t focus on just trying to close sales in 2011, consider how you can build relationships that will pay future dividends, too.

Photo from: Fine Art America

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Posted by: Leo Valiquette on January 3, 2011

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Posted in: Marketing strategy, Product marketing — Leave a comment

How to avoid becoming a pork belly writer in Topeka, KS

so you want tobe a journalist 300x220 How to avoid becoming a pork belly writer in Topeka, KS

By Leo Valiquette

Regular readers of this blog will recall that a few weeks ago I wrote about the U.K. court case of Meltwater vs. the Newspaper Licensing Agency (NLA), an ongoing story that spotlights the challenges of traditional media outlets to maintain control of, and monetize, their content in the age of Web 2.0 and news aggregation/media monitoring services such as Meltwater.

In that post I made passing reference to the dire straits of the overworked journalist, faced with staff cuts and diminished resources, who slogs away day after day trying to produce relevant and insightful news content that digs deeper than the headline and the news release. For these folks, the fiscal challenges of their corporate overlords have translated into longer hours, poor job security and loss of benefits.

Gawker.com recently published a hilarious animated short in which a seasoned journalist crushes the idealistic ambitions of a naive wannabe who wants to work for the New York Times, do important journalism and make a difference, oh, and meet the President, too.

Our world-weary veteran replies to these lofty goals with comebacks like:

  • “Would you like to write about pork belly futures for a trade magazine in Topeka, KS?”
  • “Would you like to live in your parent’s basement and work for the local weekly on a contract basis without benefits?”
  • “How about covering the financial services industry for a website, until the website is bought by another website and they move all the writing jobs to Bangalore, India, and then you get fired.”

It’s funny because it’s true. And one has to focus on the humour because it would otherwise be far too depressing to reflect on how the Fourth Estate has been eroded.

The Gawker Guide to a Journalism Career, 2010 edition, is no less damning. Granted, Gawker’s take on the current state of affairs is an exercise in the cup always being half empty. Nonetheless, it is a fair reflection of the overarching trends right across the media and communications spectrum, from mainstream newspapers, trade press and broadcast media, to online media ventures and, dare I say it, public relations. There is no denying that the media marketplace is undergoing a paradigm shift that makes for a rough labour market.

Nonetheless, I remain stubbornly optimistic. I believe that the more inundated the consumer becomes with sources of information, the more valuable great writing will be to help put the chaos in context and find meaning. The challenge for all of us is to find a steady paycheque until this paradigm shift shakes itself out.

It all comes to what one defines as “great writing.”

There is a world of difference between a great writer and a skilled cut-and-paste artist, or a self-deluded hack who, blinded by their own brilliance, can’t step back and regard their work with the objectivity that is required to understand, and overcome, their weaknesses. Great writing is about much more than proper grammar and good syntax; it’s a union of analytical thought, thorough research, penetrating interviews, confident creativity and an ability to distil resource material into something fresh and new that both conveys and deepens understanding of the subject matter.

Great writing is the product of a great writer supported by a great editor. Raw talent is certainly a key ingredient, but this must be combined with humility. By humility I mean a writer must be a thick-skinned individual who appreciates, and can up their game with, constructive criticism. They are coachable. They appreciate that being a great writer means being a lifelong student. They are flexible and adaptive in terms of being able to tailor their creative output to serve a specific objective and speak to a specific audience.

So as someone who has worked as a journalist, editor, PR consultant and marketing writer for a multinational publicly traded company, I offer one key bit of advice, for what it’s worth.

Don’t pigeonhole yourself as a “journalist.” You are a writer, a specialist in communicating through the written word. A wordsmith. This is a transferable skill that can be applied in a host of ways. In the age of social media, organizations with a brand image to define, promote and protect need your skills now more than ever, even if many of them have not yet come to appreciate this fact.

If your true ambition is to one day be on the staff of the New York Times, don’t give up on that. But take advantage of whatever opportunities that exist now, journalistic and otherwise, to hone your craft and build an impressive resume. If those opportunities fall into the purview of “public relations” or “marketing,” think twice before dismissing them out of hand.

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Posted by: Leo Valiquette on December 20, 2010

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Posted in: Public and media relations, Random thoughts — Leave a comment

In a tough economy, don’t let the need for austerity cripple future prosperity

choppingblock1 300x225 In a tough economy, don’t let the need for austerity cripple future prosperity

By Leo Valiquette

For those of you who may have missed it, London has been a battlefield between police and tens of thousands of hostile student protesters over the past week as Britain’s coalition government targets higher education with its austerity measures intended to help with economic recovery.

Now, I don’t claim any deep knowledge of British politics, or more than a layman’s understanding of economics, but I couldn’t look at this powder keg situation without thinking that it is a sterling example of focusing too much on a short-term fix at the expense of long-term gain, a trap that can snare the management team of a company as easily as a government in power.

Despite campaign promises to the contrary, both Conservatives and Liberal Democrats in Britain’s coalition government are voting through legislation that will allow university tuition to be as much as tripled and other support programs, such as teaching grants, to be canceled.

While this may put money in government coffers in the near term, I find it difficult to understand how making it more difficult to obtain an education serves the best long-term interests of the British economy, or any industrialized economy. I tend to agree with the general sentiments that Ian Parkinson, president of the Bolton branch of Britain’s National Union of Teachers, expressed in an article last week. Talented youth will be priced out of higher education, making it that much more difficult to find gainful employment in a tight job market, he said. And if the next generation of workers cannot secure well-paying jobs and are saddled with huge student debts, what impact will this have on overall consumer spending?

While the immediate economic pressures cannot be ignored, what happens five, 10 and 15 years from now, as baby boomers retire and shortages of skilled labour in key sectors of the economy become more acute? How can a nation innovate and be competitive on the global stage if its young people can’t afford the education that will prepare them to take up the torch?

It is an approach that attempts to fix an immediate problem without giving sufficient consideration to the future. Janice Calnan, a specialist in organizational change with whom I have worked, asserts that any organization in need of change, regardless of whether it is a government, a publicly traded company, or a startup trying to bring technology to market, must focus on a vision of where it wants to be, rather than on the immediate problems it faces. Focusing on the problems, she says, only begets more problems.

My interpretation of this is that focusing too much on your immediate challenges and how to resolve them will cause you to lose sight of the big picture. It is tactics in the absence, and at the expense, of strategy.

At inmedia, we have seen numerous companies fall into the same trap. When times are tough and key stakeholders, such as shareholders and investors, want to see results to improve fiscal performance, out comes the axe. Unfortunately, PR and marketing activities are often viewed as areas of business that don’t have enough impact on the bottom line and take the first hit.

But when the volume of leads filling your pipeline is in decline, the marketing machine must become that much more aggressive. We have consistently advocated that companies that maintain — or even increase — their marketing presence during a downturn emerge from the downturn stronger than their competitors since they are in a position to springboard into the new opportunities as they arise.

One way to prime the pump and differentiate your brand from competitors is to employ a highly consultative approach, rather than market yourself based on cost and features. In this way, you develop a thorough understanding of the prospect’s pain and the willingness of the prospect to address that pain. They will come to see you as a trusted partner who is eager to serve their best interests. Having established this kind of relationship, where do you think they will turn when they are ready to spend again?

While reducing cash burn and improving cash flow are, of course, paramount when times are tough, austerity measures must be implemented as part of a long-term strategy. Don’t axe those activities that are vital to your ability to act when opportunity comes knocking. Without such vision, your organization may find itself too weak and forgotten by the market to take advantage of the recovery when it comes.

Picture: The executioner’s, or “heading,” axe on display at the Tower of London.

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Posted by: Leo Valiquette on December 13, 2010

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Posted in: Marketing strategy, Product marketing, Technology marketing, inmedia Public Relations — Leave a comment

Are you ready for the WikiLeaks of the world?

wikileaks logo1 199x300 Are you ready for the WikiLeaks of the world?

By Leo Valiquette

There has been no shortage of commentary on the ethics and relevance of WikiLeaks’ recent dump of politically embarrassing diplomatic cables and its threat to target Corporate America next.

To which I say, who cares?

Now don’t get me wrong. This is without a doubt a serious matter that warrants grave consideration by anyone with secrets, or a brand, to protect. But philosophical discussion around the “ethics” and “relevance” of such unauthorized disclosures is missing the point.

Bernie Charland at Public Relations Rogue wrote a great post last week about why WikiLeaks’ actions have “little in common with the ethos of Web 2.0, and it certainly doesn’t represent the best of social media.” He concludes his post with the valid point that the question to consider isn’t whether WikiLeaks can make this kind of information public, but whether it should.

However, I contend that the real crux of the matter is that, barring some heavy-handed government or court intervention, WikiLeaks will. And even if the Powers That Be were able to shut WikiLeaks down tomorrow, the path has been laid for others to follow. WikiLeaks, like Napster, will be paid that greatest of compliments – others will attempt to duplicate, or even improve upon, its model for disrupting the status quo.

Which means that for anyone who is sensitive about how they are perceived by the public, partners, associates and other stakeholders, the best defence is a proactive, rather than reactive one.

Here at inmedia, we regularly preach the merits of being engaged with the online community as a means to build brand awareness, engage with customers, and keep tabs on what is being said about your products and services and those of your competitors. (See Alex’s Part 1 and Part 2 on the subject from the perspective of the B2B revenue cycle.)

For everyone out there who remains leery, skeptical or scornful of social media, I have only one thing to say. WikiLeaks demonstrates that the decision whether or not to engage with the online community may be made for you by a third party who is external to your organization, a third party who may not be acting with your best interests in mind. In essence, Web 2.0 and social media are of vital importance to you whether you want them to be or not.

It therefore behooves any brand to have in place a strategy for crisis communications, a key part of which is building a vibrant online community that allows for interactive engagement with key stakeholder groups. Far too few organizations, however, have taken this proactive step.

In an article last week, E.B. Boyd at Fast Company cited a Harris Interactive poll in which only nine percent of respondents said they have crisis protocols in place.

Boyd spoke to several crisis communications experts who agreed that disclosures of the WikiLeaks sort are more likely to hit an organization’s reputation rather than reveal confidential corporate information. However, this can be just as damaging. Boyd pointed to the example of Bank of America, rumored to be on the radar as WikiLeaks’ first Corporate America target. Just the rumor of this hitting mainstream media was enough to cut three percent from the bank’s stock price in a single day.

At one time, the best defence against seeing anything embarrassing about yourself or your organization in print, on TV, or on the radio was to live by this simple rule of thumb – if you don’t want it out there, don’t write it down and don’t say it. “Burn the tapes!” But today, with disgruntled employees able to so easily hit “send” on a damning email, or walk out the door with a whole encyclopedia of embarrassments on a thumb drive that can suddenly appear on a Facebook page, this is no longer enough. You have to accept that dirty laundry of one sort or another is going to get out there, sooner or later. Just because your organization or brand isn’t big enough to warrant the dubious honor of a WikiLeak, that doesn’t mean there isn’t someone else out there, empowered by Web 2.0, with the means and the intent to do some serious damage.

In today’s Web 2.0 world, you can no longer rely on simply keeping the leak in the dike plugged with your finger. You have to develop a strategy for crisis communications that levers all of the tools at your disposal, including social media, against that inevitable day when the dike breaks.

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Posted by: Leo Valiquette on December 6, 2010

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Posted in: Marketing strategy, Public and media relations, Social media — Leave a comment

If you read this headline, perhaps you should pay me a licensing fee

online news 300x225 If you read this headline, perhaps you should pay me a licensing fee

By Leo Valiquette

As a journalist and newspaper and magazine editor (and I still serve in these capacities from time to time), I’ve written my fair share of headlines. Thousands of them, in fact. But I would never have thought to label such creations, no matter how long I spent trying to come up with something catchy and engaging that would break nicely over two decks, as a “separate literary work.”

But that is exactly what has occurred in Britain in the latest ruling to come out of a legal battle between the Newspaper Licensing Agency (NLA), which is owned by the U.K.’s eight largest newspaper groups, and Meltwater News.

Meltwater is a media monitoring, news aggregator and clipping service that we subscribe to at inmedia. It is one of many such services available that constantly scour the web for mentions of our clients or of subject matter in which they have an interest. While such services are not 100 per cent effective, they are much more comprehensive and feature-rich than free monitoring services such as Google Alerts.

As a Meltwater client, we of course pay a subscription fee for regular reports on media coverage of our clients and their respective industries. It is this fee-for-service model that has raised the hackles of the NLA and led to the current dispute. A U.K. court has agreed with the NLA’s assertion that the act of copying an article’s headline and a short extraction of the text, and submitting this in the form of a report to a Meltwater client is a form of copying that infringes copyright. The most damning part of this judgment is that an article’s headline has been deemed a “separate literary work” on the basis of the time and creative effort that often goes into crafting it.

The NLA therefore expects Meltwater and its kind to pay licensing fees to copy headlines and submit them as part of a report to its clients. This is not in dispute.  Most services already pay licensing fees to the NLA. The issue is that the NLA also wants the clients of Meltwater and similar services to pay additional licensing fees for receiving and viewing a media monitoring report.

It should be noted that the NLA’s claims do not apply to free services such as Google Alerts, but only to the Meltwaters of the world that charge money for their services.

In an article published by the New Statesmen, David Pugh, managing director of the NLA, welcomed the ruling.

“We hope this ruling will help ensure a fair share of web monitoring revenue for publishers and a fair media monitoring market,” he said. “Creating news content for the web is a substantial investment for publishers – it is therefore only right that they take a share when others are profiting from it.”

For Meltwater CEO Jorn Lyseggen, however, this sets a dangerous precedent that undermines the basic principles of the operation and use of the Internet. In theory, it means that users of the Internet must obtain a license from the NLA to view copyrighted material, even if that copyrighted material can be viewed freely on a newspaper’s website without having to pay a subscription. The other irritant is the amount of the licensing fee that the NLA wants to charge to end users, relative to the small amount of material included in a Meltwater report.

“We will appeal this verdict, we think this verdict is a misinterpretation of copyright law,” Lyseggen told the New Statesman. “If this ruling stands it will be a significant step back for the U.K. Internet ecosystem. … If the court upholds this decision then we think the courts need to take a closer look at copyright law and see if it needs to be more up-to-date for today’s world.”

Who is right and who is wrong here?

This isn’t the first incident of “Big Newspaper vs. The News Aggregator.” Earlier this year, Rupert Murdoch’s News International blocked web aggregation service NewsNow from linking to stories on Times Online on the grounds that such services make money from journalism without contributing anything in return.

However, as the New Statesman’s Jason Stampers observed in his story on the subject, “newspapers don’t have to pay anything to brand owners when they write about them, of course. Which means Nike may have to pay to see where its name is used in newspapers, while newspapers can use Nike’s brand for free to help drive readers, web traffic and hence advertising revenues.”

Take it from the guy who has written his share of headlines and edited other journalists’ work to achieve maximum reader eyeball traction – the creative process of not only writing an enticing headline but also crafting the top paragraphs of a story to suck the reader in, is an unapologetically exploitative process. Newspapers try to profit from what could be someone else’s “copyrighted” material all the time, without paying any licensing fee or even obtaining permission. If there is a big name involved in a particular story, we are going to take advantage of that in any way we can if we think it will increase the story’s appeal.

And let’s look at this through the PR lens, since PR shops are the common end-users of Meltwater’s service faced with the prospect of paying these new licensing fees. I challenge anyone who would claim that there is any less creative effort involved to develop a strong headline and lead paragraph for a news release than for a news article. Does that mean that a designation of “separate literary work” and a licensing fee should also apply here?

Let’s not hold to any illusion that Meltwater is anything but a for-profit business trying to achieve a healthy margin with a fee structure of its own. But what is the NLA’s true motivation here at a time when traditional daily media continues to struggle to remain relevant in the age of social media and citizen journalism? And what of the overworked journalists who create all this content in this first place? Somehow I doubt that any additional licensing revenue charged by their corporate overlords will find its way to their pockets.

An online presence opens up a far larger advertising and reader base for a newspaper than was ever possible through print alone, without the costly overhead of newsprint and ink. No matter how much the world has changed, one fundamental thing remains the same — newspapers still need strong circulation numbers and click-through rates with which to impress potential advertisers.

So one would think that it behooves the industry to make it as easy as possible to drive more eyeballs to a newspaper’s website. And yet, newspapers by the score have put up paywalls around their content that require readers to pay a subscription for access in an effort boost flagging revenues. And if the NLA has its way, it will set a precedent where readers can be charged to be linked to content they may not otherwise been aware of, even if that content is available for free on a newspaper’s website.

The dispute between the NLA and Meltwater is the latest example of how newspapers are desperate to find new ways to monetize online content. The question, however, is whether or not they will ultimately end up stabbing themselves in the foot.

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Posted by: Leo Valiquette on November 29, 2010

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Posted in: Public and media relations — Leave a comment

Queen’s handlers demonstrate antisocial media

draft lens2183718module131735861photo 1289219828royal coat of arms Queens handlers demonstrate antisocial media

By Leo Valiquette

“If you are going to have an online presence in 2010, you just have to be on Facebook,” a royal official on the staff of Queen Elizabeth II told the media recently.

Really. Why? When embarking on any kind of social media strategy, the rationalization for engaging with the online community must be a little more substantial than “because.”

For the Queen’s staff, however, this appears to be reason enough. The Royal Family already has accounts on Flickr, Twitter and YouTube to feed the appetites of monarchists and anglophiles everywhere, so why not Facebook too? Earlier this month, the Royal Family joined the legions of Facebook users with an account called The British Monarchy.

But let’s take step back for a moment and consider this brave and not so new world of social media. What is the essence of social media? What purpose is it intended to serve?

Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary defines “social media” as “forms of electronic communication (as web sites for social networking and microblogging) through which users create online communities to share information, ideas, personal messages, and other content (as videos).”

The key word in that definition is “share.” This is nothing new, or innovative, or engaging about yet another website that is a one-way flow of communication. We’ve been there and have done that for almost 20 years. The Royal Family itself has had a website to serve this purpose since 1997.

So you could be forgiven for assuming that a monarchy often characterized as staid and dusty before the arrival of the next generation of royals has taken a leap forward in terms of finding a creative new way to engage with its fan base with Facebook. You would, however, be wrong.

Us common folk on Facebook cannot “friend” the Queen, poke her or send her messages. The British Monarchy, is, in truth, a glorified newsletter and calendar of royal events that completely contradicts the intention of Facebook and social media in general.

However, even a newsletter typically offers some kind of channel for reader feedback, but not The British Monarchy Facebook page.

It should not come as any surprise that within hours of this Facebook launch, anti-monarchist types got busy. Dozens of them clicked the “like” button to join discussions and then posted abusive messages about the Royal Family or called for the monarchy to be abolished.

How did the Queen’s staff react? Rather than initiate a dialogue on the relevance and value of the monarchy, as suggested by communications consultant and author Jeff Ansell in the Globe and Mail, they hit the delete button.

“When a company or organization tries to shut out social media, it speaks volumes. It dismisses comments and concerns raised by people with opinions and tells them loudly and clearly that it won’t put up with criticism,” Ansell said in the Globe. “For the Queen and her foray into Facebook, she might have been better off not even going there.”

Which strikes to the very heart of the issue. As we at inmedia counsel, pursuing a social media strategy, and deciding on which social media tools to put in the toolbox, begins with the same simple questions that apply to any kind of marketing activity:

  • What does our organization want to achieve?
  • Will this particular social media tool reach the people I want to reach?
  • What is expected of us as an organization and a brand if we use a particular social media tool? How must we present ourselves?

The last point leads to the question to which the Queen’s handlers failed to give sufficient consideration:

  • Can I effectively and consistently engage with my target audience in the manner they will expect with this social media tool? If not, then perhaps this is not for us.

Facebook, like any other social media channel, has its own codes of conduct, and while these may be more guidelines than actual rules, the point remains that Facebook is intended to be forum and catalyst for community conversation and sharing. For a major brand, and that is exactly what the Queen and the Royal Family are, it can be an excellent means to be part of the public discourse, proactively respond to criticism and steer things in a positive direction.

If the Queen’s handlers thought to achieve these goals with the public at large and convey the relevance and value of the monarchy, they have failed miserably. And if this was not their intention, then they simply do not understand what social media is all about. They’re still living in 1997.

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Posted by: Leo Valiquette on November 23, 2010

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Posted in: Marketing strategy, Social media — 2 Comments

From local consultancy to global service provider in two weeks

By Leo Valiquette

Communications strategist Caroline Kealey has, over the past 10 years, marched to her own drum as the founder and chief executive of Ingenium Communications.

Her consultancy has carved a niche for itself in the nation’s capital and across the country in the “art and science of communications and marketing strategy” providing, in addition to its strategic communications and marketing services, facilitation, training and organizational development.

As with so many other consultancies, regardless of their discipline, this meant that Ingenium’s intellectual property resided almost entirely within the grey matter of its people, and especially of its leader, Kealey herself.

Six years ago, Kealey decided to change that. Despite being a busy single mother with a full-time business, she set out to lever the insight and expertise developed over a 20-year career into an educational resource for professional development and training. The Ingenium team, with a substantial amount of goodwill and in-kind support from friends and allies, set to work. The outcome is the Results Map, deemed by its creators to be the most comprehensive online tool for strategic communications planning available in the world.

Kealey took the time to share her thoughts on the tenacity required to launch her new venture, the challenges of bootstrapping, and the strategic marketing that has turned a largely local consultancy into a global play within a matter of weeks.

Q: Where did you get the idea for Results Map?

A: I think the idea came from my experience in having written now close to 400 communications strategies across a wide range of sectors and clients. I realized that much of the process is quite repeatable and that we had quite a lot of expertise in this specialized area. I also realized that, while seemingly a bit odd coming from someone who makes her living as an external consultant, optimally this process is most beneficial if it’s done in-house. So, I came up with the idea to package what we’ve learned from experience and create a methodology that communicators can easily apply within their organizations, tapping into their unique knowledge and experience with their subject matter and audiences.

Q: How did you go about validating the idea?

A: This whole project has been bootstrapped on the back of our traditional consulting practice and therefore integrates hundreds of conversations as part of regular client engagements and workshops. We carried out extensive market research to establish if there is anything like this … we looked at comparable solutions for other disciplines and went through an extensive process of one-and-one interviews in 2008 with people in different facets of the industry – academia, public, private, para-public sectors. We used all this to map out a business plan and worked with a focus group of 30 people to validate the concept from both a business and marketing point of view.

Q: What key challenges did you face turning this into a commercially available product?

A: This was far and away the most significant and complex project I have ever managed. The process has been ongoing over a six-year period and has been self-financed. The sheer tenacity and the focus required was a major challenge since the project had to run alongside our regular work and business development. Stitching this together into something coherent with an end goal in mind was a very significant challenge. This is not for the faint of heart.

Q: Where did you turn for sources of funding and other support to develop and launch Results Map?

A: One of the most extraordinary experiences throughout this process has been the generosity of the community in providing expertise (and) resources and offering to make valuable connections. I was really moved to the extent to which people are willing to support an entrepreneur who has a dream. That was a big part of our success – tapping into a lot of local in-kind support, and connections. We wanted to self-finance as much as possible, but did call upon the BDC and a private investor, both of whom have been extremely supportive.

Q: How do you characterize your experience, as an entrepreneur, in trying to secure funding and other key pieces of the puzzle?

A: As is often the case, it’s hard to appreciate the sheer volume of work and energy that this has required. In terms of lessons learned, you can’t underestimate the time and effort that isn’t immediately visible when you set out – the complexity of translation to another language, finding an online payment solution that works, developing a marketing plan, and addressing innumerable technological challenges. It all takes deep consideration, analysis and quality decision-making to position the company for success, and adjust in real-time to dependencies and changes in the development plan.

Q: What key entrepreneurial lessons did you learn through this? What would you do different next time?

A: If you roll back the clock, this could have gone in many different directions. Early on I became concerned by time-to-market and that other people would come in and scoop us. But that was fairly short-lived because I had trouble imagining that there would be too many others who would have the passion to drive through such a difficult task … call it stubbornness or stick-to-it-ness, it was clear that it was the road less travelled.

Most of the development work I did on this was between 5 and 7 a.m. before I got my kids up to get ready for school; that’s obviously not everyone’s cup of tea.

The technical development of the product took place over six months. This was very aggressive and in hindsight could have been done more comfortably over a year or 18 months. However, we had committed to complete and present by June 2010 at the International Association of Business Communicators World Conference in Toronto. As a result, we licensed our training platform from Telesto, a local development firm. Again, my whole orientation was on niche expertise, not on developing a tool in-house, from the ground up. This proved to be a good decision because the time and cost required to create a platform from scratch would have been prohibitive.

Q: What has been the market response to Results Map?

A: A few weeks ago I was running a local consulting company. Now our technology is on four continents and we are writing proposals for Fortune 500 companies … We have reached into some spheres that would not have been possible two weeks ago. We even have the government of Tanzania interested in our methodology.

This is precisely what we wanted to do with this product, have a global impact, and so far it’s off to the races.

Q: How did you take advantage of your attendance at the International Association of Business Communicators World Conference to launch of Results Map?

A: We had a whole strategy to make a splash at that event to capitalize on the fact that there were 1,500 communicators there from around the world. We ran a Twitter contest, a guerilla marketing campaign, exhibited with a booth, and I was a speaker. We very much took our own advice on having a plan and executing against that plan on a shoestring budget. People told us we were one of the highlights of the event, and that is entirely the result of our careful planning in terms of marketing, planning and positioning.

Now the challenge is chasing down all of our leads. The scope of our business has exploded in the space of a couple of weeks so while I’d thought the product development was the end of a goal, it really is just the beginning.

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Posted by: Leo Valiquette on August 9, 2010

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Posted in: Startups, Technology marketing — Leave a comment

Canadian bacon sizzles in the Valley

c100 logo Canadian bacon sizzles in the Valley

By Leo Valiquette

Last night, I had the honour of attending the Canadian launch of the C100 in downtown Ottawa at Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada.

What is the C100? It’s a group of those ex-pat Canadians who we refer to when we lament the “brain drain.” They have stepped up to put their time, money and Rolodexes into helping our strongest early-stage companies acquire the mentoring, business contacts and exposure to potential investors they need in North America’s hottest technology nexus — Silicon Valley.

Or to say it another way:

C100 is a non-profit, member-driven organization dedicated to supporting Canadian technology entrepreneurship and investment, comprised of a select group of Canadians based primarily in Silicon Valley, including executives of leading technology companies, experienced start-up entrepreneurs and venture capital investors.

There are Canadians that fit that bill all over the Valley said Chris Albinson, one of the founders of the C100 and co-founder and managing director of life sciences and technology investment firm Panorama Capital.

Last fall, overwhelmed by stories from disheartened Canadian entrepreneurs who were struggling to stay afloat as investment dollars dried up due to the economic downturn, as well as the demise of Nortel Networks and the impact this would have on the entire Canadian innovation ecosystem, the founders of C100 decided to do something. They looked to the examples set by other ex-pat communities in the Valley, notably the Israelis, and the networks they had set up to help start-up companies from back home make a name for themselves in the Valley.

At a dinner where 65 guests showed up despite only 50 invitations having been sent out, the audience was challenged to step up and commit to doing something. By the end of the night, 64 guests had endorsed the idea that would become the C100 and each had committed $800 to its creation.

Five months later, the C100 has earned the support and sponsorship of government, economic development agencies and technology incubators across Canada, from EDC and DFAIT, to OCRI, MaRS and Communitech in Ontario.  Seventy Canadian companies have been introduced in the Valley and provided with crucial mentoring and exposure from those who have been there and done it first.

After only five months, five of those 70 companies have secured venture capital investment — a total of US$45 million. And this is just the start.

Incidentally, one of the companies that has benefited from C100′s help is cloud data governance specialist PerspecSys of Waterloo, a new inmedia client. Only last week, PerspecSys was one of 20 Canadian companies that were part of 48hrs in the Valley, a C100 initiative carried out in partnership with the Consulate General of Canada. 48hrs is a fun and intense two-day mentoring and business development program designed to help Canadian entrepreneurs connect with the advice, resources and networks they need to grow their businesses.

While on the junket, PerspecSys competed in the elevator pitch sessions before a judging panel of hard-nosed Valley investors and other tech sector players at the Plug and Play Spring EXPO. It beat out about 40 other U.S. and Canadian companies to take top honours due to the strength of its go-to-market strategy and an innovative solution that lies at the confluence of two key growth markets – cloud computing and securing sensitive corporate data to meet compliancy requirements.

So, hat’s off to the C100 — yet another example of how adversity breeds creative leadership and opportunity. It is this kind of grassroots community effort that will drive a bright future for Canadian entrepreneurship and innovation.

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Posted by: Leo Valiquette on May 26, 2010

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Posted in: Technology marketing — Leave a comment

New Ottawa angel organization takes flight

By Leo Valiquette

Last week, a new angel investing network launched in the National Capital Region to support new business initiatives, mentor the next generation of entrepreneurs, and of course, generate great returns for investors.
The Capital Angel Network (CAN) is an informal network sponsored by the National Angel Capital Organization (NACO) where angels can view potential investments and discuss them as a group. The goals are to increase the quantity, quality, and success of angel investments in Ottawa, to create a greater pool of capital for innovative start-up companies and to complement existing angel groups.

Laurie Davis, a long time angel investor in the Ottawa area and a member of CAN’s board of directors, took a few moments to share his thoughts.

What was the impetus behind the creation of this new network?

Davis: I meet with entrepreneurs all the time and they tell me they have a great deal of trouble raising money. It’s always been difficult, but much more so in recent times for various reasons. It takes a lot time and effort to find enough angels to give you the amount of money you need. So if you can gather a number of angels together in a group, it saves the entrepreneur a lot of time and effort.

From the angel’s point of view, I enjoy working with others in a group and hearing their perspectives on things before agreeing to commit money.

What are your key objectives and goals?

Davis: Obviously this is only a useful exercise if companies get funded. In the end, the goal is to have people fund companies they find useful and interesting. We are going to track what happens and see if by the end of the year we have four or five companies that have been funded.

How is CAN different from other angel investor organizations that we have seen in Ottawa over the years, such as Purple Angel, Band of Scoundrels and the Ottawa Angel Alliance (OAA)?

Davis: I am a member of Purple Angel, a founder of OAA and friends with members of Band of Scoundrels. What are we doing different? We got some feedback when OAA wound down that there wasn’t much appetite for a formal organization. With OAA, you had to pay membership dues and commit to a certain level of investment. People didn’t like that level of formality. The bottom line is to try something different until you find something that works. The challenge of course, is to make sure you have real investors, as opposed to the room getting filled up with lawyers, accountants and other service providers looking for business. With the informal model that becomes a little harder, but we’ll be watching it.

Where do you think we have the most significant gap in turning great ideas into competitive commercial products that make it to market?

Davis: In general we have people who know how to go about building a product, but that whole go-to-market strategy, to know how to get a product to customers and to identify real customers – that’s the problem we have.

How will CAN help early stage companies overcome this hurdle?

Davis: We are not going to be tackling it directly. The key thing is, if you have a group of smart people in a room, the expectation is that someone will step up and help. The whole idea of angel investing is not to just provide money, it is to get involved and help where you can. We hope to see a lot of that.

What do you think of Terry Matthews’ recent announcement of his new commercialization fund?

Davis: It all helps. None of us are competing. There is a problem out there that needs to be solved and anything that can be done to solve it is a great benefit to the community.

What is the future of the venture capital model?

Davis: I wish I knew. It certainly is not pretty out there right now. If you look at it from an entrepreneur’s perspective, it is painful. And they are trying to address that by creating companies that need less capital. There are some businesses that you can launch with a few hundred thousand dollars, but others you simply can’t without tens of millions of dollars – and those are the companies no one wants to start right now. This is a huge problem and I don’t know how it’s going to be resolved. There is talk that institutional investors will invest directly in companies, as they once did – that would certainly help, but I haven’t seen this happen so far.

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Posted by: Leo Valiquette on March 4, 2010

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Posted in: Startups, Technology marketing — 1 Comment

Garnering publicity the right way

By Leo Valiquette

The non-adventure of balloon boy last week got me thinking about the pitfalls, and potentially pointless expenditure of time and resources, of resorting to gimmickry to get media attention in the context of a marketing and promotional campaign.

And while companies that attempt to woo the media with whatever manner of promotional material is at their disposal are clearly not in the same category as someone who perpetrates a hoax as a publicity stunt, such an effort must nonetheless be held up to the harshest scrutiny to ensure value for money.

As a business journalist, I saw all manner of swag cross my desk: gift baskets, trinkets of varying practicality, cute stuffed animals dressed in First World War flight gear, even a quality pair of boxing gloves to illustrate a certain cellular provider’s “light weight” and ”heavy weight” service plans. Not to mention the VIP invites to rock concerts and hockey games. And this humble inventory pales before some of the antics undertaken by organizations with a true flair for showmanship, a la Sir Richard Branson.

But at the end of the day, did any of this sway my judgment as a journalist? Did a fluffy desk pet, or even a private box at a hockey game, ever compel me to pick up a story that I otherwise would not have? Nope.

What mattered most to me were the merits of the story articulated on the piece of paper or in the CD-ROM buried beneath the “gift” at the bottom of the box. Save the gadget or the toy for a trade show or Toy Mountain. Just tell me your story and articulate why it is of value and relevance to my readership. Therein lies the difference between a marketing effort to build awareness of your brand, and a PR effort to put yourself on the radar of the media that have the potential to move your market.

When it comes to garnering the kind of media attention that will support your business development objectives, it is the value of the story you bring, not the slick way that it is packaged, that will get the attention of the editors and beat journalists with whom you need to engage. Buttering the substance of your message with a  little style or constructive goofiness can be fun. And, I will admit, sometimes it can help make you stand out from the crowd with media that are suffering from attention deficit disorder. But such efforts must be backed up with something of value, especially if they are draining precious time and resources from a tight PR and marketing budget.

At a time when many organizations have made the questionable decision to scale back their marketing and PR efforts to conserve cash, it is vital to deploy the resources you have as effectively as possible to maintain profile in the market. Unless that cute company mascot is in fact your top customer with a compelling story to tell, it should not be the media’s introduction to your business.

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Posted by: Leo Valiquette on October 19, 2009

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Posted in: Public and media relations — Leave a comment