October 16, 2012
The ITBusiness.ca story we’re still waiting to tell
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October 13, 2012
Reduce automatic notifications to improve productivity
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October 12, 2012
Samsung a117 Facebook, not Twitter, is the social network for revolutions
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October 11, 2012
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October 10, 2012
Are you ready for Facebook Pages’ new rules?
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October 07, 2012
Windows Mango – Nokia Lumia 800 and 710
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Look who’s leading the way in low-cost broadband access
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October 06, 2012
Alexandra Reid is a consultant with Francis Moran and Associates.
By Alexandra ReidÂ
If you’ve read any of our posts here, you will know that we’re heavily involved in the Canadian and international startup scenes, from Ottawa to Montreal all the way to , the U.S. and the U.K.
On , we regularly offer advice to young companies in the process of bringing their technology to market. Our Startup Story series for which I write covers a handful of startups on their journey from idea to product development to commercialization. Our Technology Marketing 101 series also offers practical advice for startups and established companies. We frequently attend startup-focused events, both in Ottawa and elsewhere, and  regularly offers counsel to startup organizations and founders across Canada as an advisor to  and mentor at  and . Not to mention that we’re a heavily focused marketing agency that deals exclusively with B2B high technology clients.
All this is to say that I speak with a lot of technology-minded people. As someone with a background in journalism, I’m well acquainted with the process of digesting new information quickly and so I’m usually able to get a better-than-passing grade in communicating with these people and understanding the basics of what they’re talking about.
As a content marketer here, I have to thoroughly understand the details of a client’s technology to ensure their content, whether a blog post, tweet, SlideShare presentation or whitepaper, captures all the important details about what they do and communicates those details effectively to their target audience.
But, at my core, I’m a communicator with a deep interest in technology, not a technology person with communication skills. I can scrounge up all the information necessary to answer the what, when, why and where of a company and its products. But my weakness is the how.
Coding and communicating
I’m not talking about how a problem is addressed with technology. I’m talking about the product development process. Specifically, how that product was developed to meet the needs of the company’s target market.
Software is at the core of nearly all technology in the market today. And I’m ashamed that I don’t know how it’s written. In fact, it wasn’t long ago when my idea of code wasn’t a far stretch from that falling hieroglyphic-like nonesense from the Matrix. (Yup, there’s that confession on the table.)
I’m hoping that knowing basic code will help me communicate with my clients better (especially their development teams) and know their technology more thoroughly. In an ideal situation, this would help me use content to market that technology more effectively.
I’m a firm believer that we need to know where we’ve been to know where we’re going. Applying that logic to technology, knowing a product’s origins and development path could improve my ability to predict where it’s headed. And the more granular I can get with that knowledge, the better my ability to understand what’s possible, determine direction and estimate time to market for a particular product — vital elements for marketing strategy.
For personal and professional improvement
But it goes well beyond that. I use online tools every day for my job. While I know features and navigation, knowing a bit of code will help me understand how WordPress and other websites in general are constructed. It will also help me customize social media channels like Facebook and, perhaps one day, develop my own applications to run there.
I understand that from a marketing perspective it’s not necessary to know how software is written to do my job properly. I also respect that to get to even a basic level will take a tremendous amount of effort. I’m a total newbie. Do I think I’ll become a world-class developer? Likely not. But I am championing the idea that marketers at least familiarize themselves with the basic concepts.
Besides, the startups I speak with on a near-daily basis are so bloody inspiring, I may just go ahead and do my own startup someday, and knowing how to code will certainly come in handy … even if I just use it to understand my technical cofounder.
I’ve just touched on a few benefits of knowing how to code here, and I’m sure the more I learn the more benefits I’ll uncover.
I’ll be on  every afternoon, and have already started on JavaScript. Hold me to it, and wish me luck.
Am I out of my mind here or am I on to something?
is an associated team of seasoned practitioners of a number of different marketing disciplines, all of whom share a passion for technology and a proven record of driving revenue growth in markets across the globe. We work with B2B technology companies of all sizes and at every life stage and can engage as individuals or as a full team to provide quick counsel, a complete marketing strategy or the ongoing hands-on input of a virtual chief marketing officer. Â
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A Mac pro’s 5 minute Lion configuration
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October 05, 2012
Photo: Shutterstock
 and the team at  were back in Ottawa recently and my brief showing at one of the events left me with plenty of food for thought. Startup Canada wrapped up two busy days in Ottawa with a “Wine Down†event at  on Bank Street. For those of you who don’t know it, The Hub is a co-working, meeting and learning space focused around social entrepreneurship.
I am a Gen Xer, not a boomer, and yet, to be in that room, I certainly did feel my age in a way that I haven’t before. There was plenty of idealism, ambition and energy. There’s plenty of idealism, ambition and energy to be found all over Ottawa wherever young entrepreneurs tend to congregate, be it The Hub, , or any of the various open labs, watering holes and caffeine bars that lie within the orbits of Carleton, Ottawa U and Algonquin.
I was chatting with an old colleague of mine who falls into my age group and she made an insightful comment about the divide that lies between this next generation of entrepreneurs and those organizations that have the mandate to drive economic development across the region, which by default must also include the incubation of startups as well as the provision of those resources required by ventures at a more mature stage. I don’t have to name names here. If you know Ottawa, you know which organizations I am talking about and I don’t want the point that I’m trying to make undermined by appearing to aim a finger in only one direction. If there’s blame or criticism to be dished out, there’re lots of places for it to stick.
Startup demographics
The point which my colleague made was the fact that the gatekeepers of economic development are, by and large, Gen Xers and boomers – people who are middle-aged or older, often white males and usually in a suit. I don’t have an issue with age, ethnicity or gender (I do with lack of diversity). Neither did my colleague. Her point was this:
“They have to stop wearing damned suits to work every day.â€
In her mind, the suit, especially when worn with that most evil of accessories, the neck tie, is a symbol of the cultural divide that lies between the doers and the facilitators – the entrepreneurs and the policy makers. It is also a dress code favoured by this group because many of them come from public sector backgrounds. And no matter how well-intentioned, she argued, someone who is a bureaucrat at heart with a comfortable salary and no skin in the game (like an investor) will always struggle to see the world through the eyes of an entrepreneur and serve the needs of an entrepreneur with a suitable sense of urgency.
By the way, she is an entrepreneur speaking from personal experience.
A couple of months back I raised the question, “†With a nod of respect to Montreal’s quite successful International Startup Festival, I argued that Ottawa needed a similar signature event as a rallying point to build a stronger, integrated and collaborative startup environment in Ottawa. I was somewhat surprised and disheartened by some of the reader response to that post – snarky comments like, “it’s two hours down the 417.†Other readers assumed, in error, that I was preaching for the creation of an event that would give the Ottawa crowd a reason not to attend the Montreal event. Few seemed to grasp the importance of Ottawa defining its own identity, culture and personality separate and distinct from that of another city and another startup scene.
No bureaucracy required
Another acquaintance at the Wine Down expressed his disgust that the majority of Ottawa’s best and brightest will eventually pull up stakes and relocate to what they consider to be greener startup pastures. Someone else observed that Ottawa’s startup community remains fractured and scattered compared to other centres across Canada. If these comments are accurate, what does that say for the long-term economic prosperity of this region?
Entrepreneurs, by their very nature, don’t wait around for the bureaucratic cogs to turn. They quickly turn elsewhere for what they need, or, they pull together in grass roots fashion to help each other out and create the environment that will help them prosper. The most successful startup incubators, such as  and , began this way, not as a result of a public sector-led economic development initiative. While the “old guard†does have an important role to play, it must learn how to engage with those it’s attempting to serve to bridge the divides, build a cohesive community and achieve the desired outcomes. The grassroots nature of incubation and entrepreneurship was on display in spades at The Hub, but there were far too few of Ottawa’s economic development gatekeepers on hand to take notice and realize that, if they truly want to provide the help that is needed, they had better learn how to keep up and stay relevant.
Perhaps the best way to start is with a pair of jeans and sandals.
is an associated team of seasoned practitioners of a number of different marketing disciplines, all of whom share a passion for technology and a proven record of driving revenue growth in markets across the globe. We work with B2B technology companies of all sizes and at every life stage and can engage as individuals or as a full team to provide quick counsel, a complete marketing strategy or the ongoing hands-on input of a virtual chief marketing officer.Â
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Making waves in radio and television
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Hacker makes iOs look like OS X Lion
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October 04, 2012
Motorola bx50 battery bulk packaging Top 12 lies angels tell
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The weird and wonderful world of gathering customer insights
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October 03, 2012
Htc pure Twitter comes of age but still has room to grow
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Toasters hit with tariff to reflect bread’s value
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October 02, 2012
Burning the candle at both ends as the clock ticks down
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Warranty solution 1 year puremobile warranty u1000 Securing the new workforce
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October 01, 2012
Co-working gaining ground with tech entrepreneurs
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