Cover story for Ontario Technology Corridor, thanks to market2world PRmarket2world is more than just our company name – it’s what we do.

In the past year market2world has staged publicity and product launch events in: 

• China (in support of an Ottawa Region Global Marketing and OCRI trade mission)
• Germany (twice – the first in support of Barbados-based, Pyramidal Technologies that launched its ALIAS forensic ballistics system at a tradeshow in Wiesbaden, Germany, and the second time to support an Ontario Technology Corridor cleantech delegation at Intersolar Europe 2010, in Munich)
• Spain (in support of an OCRI delegation to Barcelona’s 2010 Mobile World Congress)
• San Francisco, California (in support of the Ontario Technology Corridor’s gaming delegation at Game Developers Conference (GDC) 2010 San Francisco)
• Dallas, Texas (supporting an Ontario Technology Corridor cleantech delegation to WINDPOWER 2010)
• France (for the Ontario Technology Corridor’s gaming delegation to Game Connection Europe, held in Lyon France in 2009)
• England (in support of the City of Ottawa’s wireless industry and OCRI’s MOU with Cambridge Wireless and the OCRI delegation attending the Future of Wireless International Conference 2010)
• Waterloo, Ontario (for Memex Automation, based in Burlington, Ontario, that launched their factory floor automation system at a customer event in Waterloo, Ontario)
• Guntersville, Alabama (to support PR efforts for BI-AX International, with headquarters in Wingham, Ontario)
• Ottawa, Ontario (in support of the National Research Council’s Canadian Photonics Fabrication Centre's Impact Analysis Report released at a photonics industry event hosted by the Ottawa Photonics Cluster)

The market2world team routinely delivers international, national and local publicity, product reviews and awards for information technology, cleantech, digital media and economic development organizations across North America from our base in Almonte, Ontario, just outside Ottawa, Canada’s national capital city.

An example: BI-AX International is a Wingham, Ontario, client that manufactures a breathable microporous film called APTRA, which is used in the manufacture of a fabric that passes ASTM international standards for blood borne pathogen and viral penetration. This fabric is made into garments that protect healthcare workers from H1NI and other body fluid, blood and viral threats. market2world secured coverage in both the USA and Canada, including: Government Security News, Fibre2Fashion, Jumpintotomorrow.com blog, Plastics in Canada, Technical Textiles and others – as well as in local newspapers (including Guntersville’s weekly, the Advertiser-Gleam and The Huntsville Times), the regional business magazine (Business Alabama), and local TV (WAFF48 TV Huntsville AL, a CBS affiliate). The local coverage opportunities arose because BI-AX’s customer, Kappler Inc., is based in Alabama.

Innovators anywhere in North America looking to increase product sales or organizational profile across global markets in today's digital age need hard working, results-producing PR and marketing companies like market2world. Our team works globally and in collaboration with our clients, wherever they are situated, and wherever their markets take them.

(Jill McCubbin is a conversation architect with market2world communications inc., Ottawa, Canada's tech PR and product marketing agency.)

Ottawa's global marketing team is in Cambridge, UK this week promoting Ottawa's wireless advantage. Back at home, we're getting the story out to media on both sides of the Atlantic. And it's a heck of a story:

Four of the world’s top five wireless companies – Alcatel-Lucent, Cisco, Ericsson and Huawei – all have significant R&D facilities in Ottawa, home to one of the world's top wireless ecosystems. These wireless champions are part of a 360-company, 27,000-employee strong talent bank that spans the complete breadth of wireless infrastructure and services. They are building the next generation of wireless equipment, devices, components, sub-systems, middleware, apps and services, content, enablers, and professional services.

Ottawa’s home-grown wireless stars include DragonWave and Bridgewater Systems. Regional powerhouses including Research In Motion (RIM), Rogers Communications, and SiGe Semiconductor also have significant campuses in the city.  

What'a attracting the world to Ottawa's wireless ecosystem?

First and foremost, the wireless industry is attracted by Ottawa’s expansive and renewable R&D infrastructure. This infrastructure includes Communications Research Centre Canada and the National Research Council of Canada, two major Canadian universities, contract manufacturing and test facilities as well as large network operators.

Second, Ottawa wireless companies take advantage of Canada’s superior R&D investment climate. Canada’s R&D tax credit regime is one of the best in the world.

Third, in an era where wireless applications are growing exponentially, Ottawa’s diverse and deep software development talent is a major plus. The city already has some 600 software development companies focused on mobile gaming, engineering services, data security and other applications that will drive wireless growth – making for a complete Ottawa wireless ecosystem that has its roots in hardware, but its branches reaching up to the new horizons being offered in software.

Ottawa is also a people story. The city has Canada’s highest percentage of creative class workers, and the Intelligent Community Forum ranks Ottawa among the world’s Top Seven Communities of the Year in 2010. 
Richard Florida, Director of the Toronto-based Martin Prosperity Institute and author of the international best seller “Who’s Your City?”, rates Ottawa as the “Best Overall” city in Canada on a “Creative Class Index” based on the 3Ts of economic development – Technology, Talent and Tolerance. Ottawa tops other major metropolitan cities including New York, Boston, Washington, San Jose and London, England.

Whether you are looking to relocate a wireless company, open a new R&D facility, or find a partner to supply new technology and development for your existing wireless business, Ottawa is the place to be. Join us! You can also learn more by reading 26 wireless success stories at www.CreativeEconomyCapital.com (another market2world production :)

(Nathan Rudyk is President and CEO with market2world communications inc., Ottawa, Canada's technology  and cleantech public relations and product marketing agency.)

One of the joys of this job is working with colleagues from another corporate life on their new ventures. Today's one of those great days as we launch veteran Ottawa software CEO Andy Coutts' new secure communications service called Evizone. Andy ran Databeacon Inc. from 1999 to 2005, where I joined a year after him as VP Marketing before Databeacon was sold to Cognos.

Evizone helps cure "The Tourre Syndrome". You may recall the April SEC testimony of Goldman Sachs executive Fabrice Tourre aka "Fabulous Fab".

As reported by The Globe and Mail, Tourre and his email trail are at the centre of a lawsuit filed by the SEC involving allegations Goldman misled investors about a mortgage-backed security Mr. Tourre created in 2007. As later reported by the Wall Street Journal, that lawsuit could end up with a settlement totalling a whopping $621 million. Here are some of Mr. Tourre's choice emails that appeared in the Globe and Mail:

In one e-mail sent to a girlfriend in January, 2007, he lamented that he had to “mentor others, in view of the fact that I am now considered a ‘dinosaur’ … I feel like I’m losing my mind and I’m only 28!!! OK, I’ve decided two more years of work and I’m retiring.”

In another e-mail to her sent at around the same time, Mr. Tourre called his work “a product of pure intellectual masturbation, the type of thing which you invent telling yourself: ‘Well, what if we created a ‘thing,’ which has no purpose, which is absolutely conceptual and highly theoretical and which nobody knows how to price?”

In a March, 2007, e-mail sent to another girlfriend he mentioned that his boss, Daniel Sparks, the former head of Goldman’s mortgages department, believed “that business is totally dead, and the poor little subprime borrowers will not last so long!!!”

In the hands of responsible employees and business associates, Evizone eliminates such email trails. 

A subscription service, Evizone can be used to secure communications between not only individuals, but workgroups as well. In the time it takes to send yet another unsecured email, any user can instantly form a workgroup for the secure transmission and viewing of messages and documents. By simply selecting workgroup members and setting the access and retention periods which Evizone will automatically enforce, all workgroup communications can be secured. 

New Evizone subscribers can start communicating securely within 15 minutes of registering online at www.evizone.com. Evizone provides personal subscribers with a 30 day free trial of the service. The standard service is available at $24.95 per month per user (with lower subscription rates available to large group accounts).

With Evizone, all emails and document attachments are secured and encrypted solely on dedicated Evizone servers, versus being spread across various computers and backup systems without the user's knowledge or control. Users view all Evizone communications on demand, and users have complete control over who can view their message and documents, and when. Once the retention period of an Evizone message or document expires, it is permanently deleted and no longer exists anywhere.

Evizone provides a fast, cost-effective solution for any private email-based conversations subject to regulatory requirements, legal privilege or that may become part of an e-discovery process – whether it is a Board of Directors considering a new executive hire, an M&A team working on a corporate takeover, a medical team conducting a peer review or a legal team working on a patent application. Unlike conventional email, Evizone helps organizations to comply with requirements such as SEC, HIPAA and other regulations simply by using the service.

As of today, market2world's working hard to make sure the world knows a lot more about Evizone. While we're making PR waves for Andy and his team, why not check out the Evizone 30-day free trial for yourself? Go for it.

(Nathan Rudyk is President and CEO with market2world communications inc., Ottawa, Canada's technology  and cleantech public relations and product marketing agency.)

The “word cloud” graphic below is the result of plugging market2world’s home page content into a free online tool called Wordle. At www.wordle.net you can generate amazing “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater, weighted prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text, giving you a graphic clue as to the effectiveness of your Web site copy.

As of today’s writing, this is market2world's word cloud:

Note that if your Web site has no RSS feed (why not?), Wordle won’t work on your site’s URL, but if your Web site is RSS-equipped, or if you want to manually cut and paste Web page copy into Wordle then you are all set.

I’ve imagined quite a few uses for Wordle clouds, including:

• visual "confirmation" at your next board meeting that your home page is communicating the right key words / key messaging

• a graphic tool to present a job description in an new/exciting way

• a sidebar "illustration" that complements any content – as the illustration is based on words from the topic or newsletter or event description or blog post

• an easily generated image that any business can use to great effect to draw attention to / brighten up an otherwise static or word-heavy Web page

And something more to look into, if you're a visualization fanatic: Jonathan Feinberg, creator of Wordle.net, also contributed a chapter about Wordle to O'Reilly Media's book, Beautiful Visualization: Looking at Data through the Eyes of Experts. Wordle is definitely a tool for graphic artists, but also is perfect for creative entrepreneurs.

Note: If you have a blog integrated into your RSS-equipped Web site and on your home page, Wordle’s results will be affected by the blog copy, which can help you make a case for more keyword-driven blogging.

(Jill McCubbin is a conversation architect with market2world communications inc., Ottawa, Canada's tech PR and product marketing agency.)

People who watch this space know to look for tips and inspiration on marketing business better. One great way to do that is to "adjust your set", change the channel, and show your company's human side by getting involved with other humans via a grassroots charitable organization.

Stephanie Rudyk experiences SchoolBOX on a build in NicaraguaEven in challenging economic times, customers don’t want to see your company turn mean – quite the opposite in fact. 78% of U.S. consumers – many of whom are still in a recessionary mindset – expect companies to maintain or increase financial support for charities, according to a recent study done by Opinion Research Corp.

85% of customers have more positive feelings towards companies with charitable causes, and 75% indicated that they are more likely to buy a product if the purchase is directly tied to an issue they care about. Reaping goodwill and increased sales, many companies are wearing their charity of choice on their sleeves.

So when we were approached by Tom Affleck at SchoolBOX, a not-for-profit start-up that builds schools and hope for children in Central America, we jumped on the opportunity to offer our PR and marketing services at no charge. That was almost two years ago, and SchoolBOX (started in 2006) has grown from a barely five-figure charity to a fledgling organization that last year raised over $200,000 and built 17 primary-school classrooms while providing more than 10,000 educational packages to keep students in class. For our team at market2world, this is one of our proudest accomplishments.

On the publicity side, we've taken SchoolBOX from being a local (Lanark County, Ontario) media darling to regular appearances on Rogers TV, CBC Radio and TV, and several articles in the Ottawa Citizen. In 2010, in conjunction with a new SchoolBOX office in Toronto and expanded offices in Managua, our goal is national and international coverage.

On Facebook, we've guided SchoolBOX staff and volunteers to expand from 47 fans on a static social networking presence to a thriving community of more than 1,900 2,000 people who care deeply about the cause and are posting their photos, videos, observations, feelings and opinions. The Facebook site's also attracted several offers of help or potential synergies with other organizations. And we recently learned that Facebook traffic is tracking at four times the number of visitors to SchoolBOX's Web site, where we've also guided online communications strategy over the last couple of years.

On a personal level, I've recently accepted an invitation to join the SchoolBOX Board of Directors, and after being invited to go to Nicaragua to see our work in action, decided to take our family of five on a "school build adventure". Below is an excerpt from an article I wrote summarizing that experience, but suffice it to say, I'd recommend that any company looking for an outlet for its charitable giving consider getting involved with SchoolBOX. Why not build a school while you're building your team? Think about it. Adjust your set. You'll be glad you did.

Sandal-clad and bare feet give chase in a cloud of dust and determination. The kids in their blazing white school shirts are winning, as usual. Despite our high-tech footwear and ridiculous size advantage, they gleefully dominate on the concrete soccer pitch. When the ball careens out of bounds, it bounces off rebar, or a wheelbarrow, and rolls into one of the freshly dug foundation trenches where it's quickly plucked out for another round of play.

A half hour later, the Canadians once again concede the daily match to the cheering Nicaraguan children.

The dozen cheles (foreigners) in our group, ranging in age from 14 to 62, briefly retreat from the 30-plus-degree heat to the respite of shade and water. Then, with not a power tool in sight, we earnestly return to the repetitive, manual tasks involved with constructing two new classrooms in a suburban slum of León, Nicaragua's second-largest city after Managua.

For our family -- including sons Aaron, 14, Gabe, 16, and our 19-year-old daughter Stephanie -- it was the most exotic, exciting, humanity-expanding trip we've ever taken.

To read more click here.

Here are five tips to get your company’s news story working to funnel visitors to your website and new leads calling your sales department:

1. Include a current, high ranking “key word phrase” in the headline and possibly a few of these phrases in the body of your release or success story.  A current, high ranking “key word phrase” is a phrase most frequently being used online by those people looking for your company or your competitors’ products and services. Free, online tools such as Wordtracker, Keyword discovery, and the Google adWords keyword tool can help you find the top key word phrases for online searches in your industry. By incorporating a few of these phrases in your company’s news release or story, you’ll get more pick up in the search engines and higher ranking on the page.

2. Add the news release or customer success story to your own website first. Create a page at your site for your news announcement. Better yet, create a whole section on your site devoted to these news pages and to media stories about your company. Then, when you release your news to media online, and they begin writing about your story or news, your site is already indexed by Google (and others) as the first source of this news.

3. Take this opportunity to incorporate clear “call to action” content on every page of your site – not just your home page or contact us page. Any page of your company website is potentially the “entry page” for a new visitor. This is especially true of your site’s news page, as the newsworthy content is what drew them to your site in the first place. To capitalize on this situation, you’ll need a side bar or other form of highlighted content on every page of your site to offer key communication about what your company does, how it creates success and how to get in contact with you.

4. Consider using an online commercial newswire or news distribution service. PR newswire, Business wire and Marketwire are services with name recognition within global business communities. Each has a slightly different work-flow and release options. Do some research. Newswires co-operate with content distribution partners - other online media sites or news sites - to expose a news release online. 

market2world most often works with Marketwire mainly because we are able to target a release to highly relevant industry lists globally or within a specific geography. Marketwire also builds search engine optimization (SEO) short cuts right into its system: a news release is archived on its dedicated, search engine-friendly website, and easy to use options to include keyword-rich hyperlinks and social media links are free add-ons.

5. Finally, kick-start the online “links” to your news story and website. Use services such as Ping-o-matic, Twitter, Facebook or auxiliary sites at your company’s disposal to bring attention to your news release or story and link to the original news (posted at your site). When working with a new company, the market2world team actually goes one step further and recommends a company build their website using a hosted service such as SquareSpace that offers automated ping services in the architecture of the site.

Need more help? market2world has many more ideas and services in our marketing tool box.

(Jill McCubbin is a conversation architect with market2world communications inc., Ottawa, Canada's tech PR and product marketing agency.)

In Mexico, police are turning to animal sacrifices and spirit tattoos to seek protection from raging violence on the U.S. border (see video below). It's a human response born from a massive growth in gang-related shootings that have claimed the lives of 19,000 people in the past three years. In the U.S., ESPN has reported a "bullet bubble", with monthly sales averages over the last year for firearms about 29 percent higher than normal, and massive bullet shortages for popular handgun calibers.

In an socio-economic era that seems certain to become more dangerous, market2world is pleased to have launched a new forensic ballistics product called ALIAS, by Pyramidal Technologies Ltd. Created by Michael Barrett, the pioneer who brought the IBIS system to firearms examiners and technicians in the early 90s, ALIAS leads the next generation in forensic ballistics analysis.

ALIAS builds visually rich 3D cartridge images, then provides powerful tools to analyze them using topographically sensitive colorization, and adjustable light source and axis orientation.

ALIAS is easier and faster to use than the IBIS system Mike built and then sold in the early 90s. Taking back his leadership position in the field of forensic ballistics, Mike and a global A-team in Barbados, Canada, Switzerland and California have assembled a thoroughly modern hardware, software and database infrastructure that delivers an exponential increase in cartridge data available for investigation.

At market2world we've had ALIAS featured in law enforcement publications, I.T. publications, mainstream business news and broadcast outlets worldwide since its launch last October in Germany at the European Network of Forensic Science Institute’s (ENFSI) Expert Working Group Firearms/GSR annual meeting. So far over 19 news outlets worldwide have run features on ALIAS, recognizing its ability to solve more gun crimes, convict more criminals and ultimately, save more lives. And there are many more features and awards to come.

ALIAS is a great example of types of products we are priviledged to promote - products that make a difference, products that deserve global recognition, and in this special case, products that directly save lives from their usage.

(Nathan Rudyk is President and CEO with market2world communications inc., Ottawa, Canada's technology  public relations and product marketing agency.)

There is such as thing as "creative destruction" – the economic theory of innovation and progress popularized by the Austrian School economist Joseph Schumpeter – and Ottawa's wireless sector is proof positive.

This evening Mike Darch, OCRI's Executive Director of Global Marketing, spelled it out in his "live from Barcelona" interview with CFRA's Business@Night host Greg Hebert from the site of Mobile World Congress. Mike's job is to traverse the globe and engage in conversations with trade commissioners, entrepreneurs and investors who often have no idea tech Ottawa exists, and turn them on to our possibility.

DragonWave 12-month stock chartTalking with Greg, Mike said Ottawa is fighting back against "the Nortel situation, the downturn in the economy, et cetera, that has created a lot of people who wonder if Ottawa's time has come to an end."

Mike went on to emphatically state that Ottawa's successfully reinvented itself in the past, and is doing so again. He pointed to Ottawa-base wireless infrastructure firms like DragonWave and Bridgewater, applications companies like March Networks, and a slew of innovative mobile applications studios like Magmic and Fuel Industries that today employ some 18,000 people across almost 200 companies.

To contrast, let's go back in time to tech Ottawa's huge (talk about an unbalanced portfolio!) telecom sector concentration in the 90s. Then, a mere four companies (JDS, Mitel, Nortel and Newbridge) employed almost 40,000, or half the tech workers in Ottawa. You can see that a mere decade later, we've got a sturdy new crop of innovators. Wireless is one great sector. Cleantech is another among a total of some 13 unique ones.

Yes, we could have more VC money for them. Yes, we could have more government support and more effective/enlightened science policy. And OCRI among other national and regional tech organizations is tirelessly working those agendas. And yet ... the reinvention HAS occured. The Ottawa telecom supernova exploded into a series of new wireless stars. 

What's the bottom line? Try this one from DragonWave's most recent quarterly results. DragonWave, the Wi-Fi infrastructure star with founders from Newbridge and a Nortel-trained CEO who earned his stripes at another start-up, reported CDN$107.3 million of revenue for the first nine months of fiscal year 2010, an increase of 235 per cent compared with $32.0 million for the same period the previous year. DragonWave also expects revenue of approximately $170 million in fiscal year 2010. The company started precisely one decade ago. There are more like it in Ottawa, and there are more coming.

Just ask Mike.

(Nathan Rudyk is President and CEO with market2world communications inc., Ottawa, Canada's technology – and cleantech – public relations and product marketing agency.)

When international cleantech companies consider business expansion to North America, the usual suspects are New York, Boston, Washington and San Jose. Now they can (and should) think Ottawa.

Richard Florida, Martin Prosperity Institute Director and author of the international best seller Who’s Your City? rates Ottawa as the “Best Overall” city in Canada on a “Creative Class Index” based on the 3Ts of economic development – Technology, Talent and Tolerance – and 22 places higher than New York, 2 places higher than Boston, 4 places higher than Washington and 1 place higher than tech-rich San Jose.

So Ottawa's a great home for any technology company, period. For cleantech companies, there's even more incentive.

A Knowledge-based Industry Survey released last week by the Ottawa Centre for Research and Innovation (OCRI) shows Ottawa’s fledgling cleantech sector is the strongest of any of the city’s 13 unique technology clusters. The number of cleantech companies is up from 103 companies to 114 as of December 31, 2009, an increase of 10.7 per cent over the previous year, and the number of Ottawa’s cleantech employees is up from 2,050 to 2,567, an increase of 25.2 per cent.

The kicker for cleantech companies (rightly) considering Ottawa as a new home is that, compared to any U.S. city, Canadian business taxes are lower, and set to go far lower still, while the Obama administration has all but promised higher taxes in America for corporations. Take a look at the chart above.

Had a good look? Excellent. Now book a flight to Ottawa and become part of our fantastic cleantech growth story in 2010!

(Nathan Rudyk is President and CEO with market2world communications inc., Ottawa, Canada's technology – and cleantech – public relations and product marketing agency.)

Ever since Alexander Graham Bell pronounced that his "photophone" was his most important invention after he proved in 1880 that he could transmit sound on a beam of light, photonics has been instrinsically linked to the telecommunications industry. Thanks to Bell, photonics companies had a great run in the 20th century with fiber optic applications. Yet 21st century photonics entrepreneurs may well owe their success to the advances they can produce in cleantech.

This week we've been all about that opportunity. Working with three Global Advantage cities (Ottawa, Berlin, Tucson) that represent over 500 photonics companies, market2world has been alerting the international photonics and cleantech media to the fact that the trillion-dollar cleantech opportunity offers fantastic promise for photonics technology.

Some facts:

• According to the Cleantech Group LLC, cleantech is now the largest category for venture capital investment in the world, accounting for 27 per cent of all venture capital based on Q2, 2009 numbers, and global demand for clean technology solutions is estimated at $1 trillion
• A November, 2009 Ernst and Young survey confirms that cleantech spending is largely immune from the global economic slowdown, with 85 percent of 308 executives working across all industry sectors planning to accelerate their company’s response to climate change issues compared with two years ago.
• Two cleantech applications for photonics technology include photovoltaics, a $15 billion market with an annual growth rate of 25%, and light-emitting diode (HB-LED) and organic light-emitting diode (OLED) lamps, a $5 billion market being spurred on by the U.S. Department of Energy’s goal of a 50% reduction in energy use for lighting by 2025.

It's fair to say the Ottawa photonics cluster is "on trend". This week the Province of Ontario announced its investing $3.6 million to support Ottawa's Group IV Semiconductor Inc. in its quest to use photonics to transform lighting in homes and businesses. The company's technology could lead to low-cost light bulbs that will use up to 90 per cent less electricity than regular bulbs and last much longer, significantly cutting greenhouse gas emissions and reducing the waste burden on landfills. And another star Ottawa's photonics star, Cyrium Technologies Inc., was recently named a Next 10 Emerging Cleantech Leader by Corporate Knights Magazine. Cyrium manufactures a line of high-efficiency concentrator photovoltaic (CPV) cells for land-based, commercial solar applications that are expected to outperform all commercially available CPV cells.

You can learn more from our press releases here and here, and of course, in upcoming news articles as we build cleantech photonics momentum with Global Advantage cities.

(Nathan Rudyk is President and CEO with market2world communications inc., Ottawa, Canada's tech public relations and product marketing agency.)

In ramping up for a presentation at the Conference Board of Canada next week, I'm finding it almost too easy to make the case that ignoring social networking in government or corporate communications strategy is like deciding to nip downstairs for a drink at the beach-front bar just as the shadow of a tsunami's wave blocks out the sun over the palm trees.

Let's look at a government example as presented by University of Ottawa and digital advocacy guru, Professor Michael Geist. This week my Pittsburgh-based brother asked me "Do you guys have a government anymore?" He was referring to the Dec. 30th decision by Prime Minister Stephen Harper to progrogue i.e. suspend Parliament, for the second time in a year, this time until March 30th.

Presumably, the Prime Minister's advisors chose Dec. 30th as a time when mainstream media couldn't or wouldn't pick up on the story to the same extent they would, say, if Canadian weren't as a nation focused on things other than politics. The story would just ... fade away. And presumably, they didn't take social networking into account. Yet, as Geist points out, Christopher White, an Alberta University student, "proved the experts wrong, building the largest Facebook group in the country, one that's the focal point for national discussion and voter discontent."

Christopher's digital advocacy group has, as of this writing, 206,676 members. Stephen Harper, Michael Ignatieff, Jack Layton, and Gilles Duceppe, Canada's four national party leaders, have less than 100,000 members combined on their respective Facebook pages, says Geist. D'oh.

Let's switch gears to some fresh (as of yesterday) stats from Forrester Research (see chart below). As reported by The GigaOM Network's Liz Gannes, Forrester analyst Josh Bernoff has recently observed a “new behavior” in the company's two and a half years of tracking and classifying social technology usage.

There's a new category of social networkers called “conversationalists", or  “people who update their social network status to converse” on at least a weekly basis. According to Forrester, the category is 56 percent female, more so than any other group, with 70 percent aged 30 and older.

These aren't a bunch of "no-nothing kids" with no clout in the world (and if you think that, order another drink at the beach-front bar. Don't pay any attention to that wave thingee). They're voters. They're consumers.

They ... require ... your ... attention. 

And it'll be very interesting to see the numbers on Christopher White's Facebook group on March 30th, and what the Canadian government's fate will be this Spring. Stay tuned.

(Nathan Rudyk is President and CEO with market2world communications inc., Ottawa, Canada's tech PR and product marketing agency.)

The most recent Neilsen Global Online Consumer Survey of over 25,000 Internet consumers from 50 countries concludes that 9 in every 10 Internet consumers worldwide (90 percent) trust recommendations from people they know, while seven in every ten (70 percent) trust consumer opinions posted online.

And how do consumers share recommendations with “people they know”? Using one-to-one direct connections like email and text messaging of course, but increasingly via one-to-many social networking tools like Facebook and Twitter... and they are using their smartphones.

Nielsen reports "the market is primed for accelerated growth well into 2010. The Gartner Group predicts that smartphone sales will account for 46% of all mobile phone sales worldwide by 2013." Also,

SMS (short message services), or text messages, reached 4.2 billion standard rate transactions in the U.S. on AT&T and Verizon in Q2 2009. The clear leader was Twitter with 1.3 billion messages, followed by FOX (due in large part to MySpace) with 740 million texts, Facebook at 465 million, and 4INFO at 257 million transactions. Total traffic was generated by 50 million unique users.

Yet, the Twitterati, or (social) networked consumer phenomenon, doesn’t negate solid online branding efforts. The Nielsen survey says brand websites – the most trusted form of advertiser-led promotion – are depended upon by as many people (70 percent) as consumer opinions posted online.

And check out the stats (in the chart above) on the importance of good old fashioned editorial content and other forms of mainstream media – still holding up/ahead of sexy search engine results ads.

What it all means is that today’s marketers have to master what they knew, and learn (fast) what they don’t know, while keeping in mind our CEO’s observation that “the only two media that haven’t had to co-exist with the others are stone tablets and lamb-skin scrolls. Everything else has required marketers to adapt and integrate new media into their existing media mix.”

Need help? We’re here for you.

(Jill McCubbin is a conversation architect with market2world communications inc., Ottawa, Canada's tech PR and product marketing agency.)

It was fantastic, i.e., "incredibly great", to once more fill up all three rows of our minivan this weekend as our daughter Stephanie returned home mid-way through her first term at Queen's University. It was also fantastic, i.e., "odd and remarkable" to learn about last Tuesday's flash mob at her rez, where 700-plus students, linked via Facebook, spontaneously stood up in Leonard Hall cafeteria at 6:30PM to sing "I Want It That Way" by the Backstreet Boys.

The flash mob was concieved by "Q-Sauce", or Queen's Students Assembling United Collective Enthusiasm. All timing and communication regarding the flash mob was coordinated via Facebook less than 24 hours prior to the event. Students were asked not to pass it on other than by Facebook. Just prior to the flash mob's activation, 300-plus responded via Facebook that they were "attending" while nearly 400 said "maybe attending". In fact, just about everyone who heard about it participated. Stephanie said there were so many people in the caf there weren't enough seats. And as you can see in the YouTube vid many students ended up standing on their chairs as they sang. Herewith, the Q-Sauce guidelines as published on Facebook:

TONIGHT at exactly 6:30 PM at Leonard Cafeteria....
WE WILL SING.
We will get up on our chairs, and we will sing, with all of our hearts, the ENTIRETY of The Backstreet Boys' "I Want It That Way".
If you don't know the lyrics, you have UNTIL TONIGHT to learn the song.
Nobody will start the sing-a-long, everyone will begin..as one.
RULES:
You cannot discuss project Sing-A-Long to anyone outside of this group. You can only invite people in via Facebook.
No public conversation about project sing-a-long may take place.
It will simply begin.
After the song is over, continue eating.
See you TONIGHT, warm up your voices.

"So what!", you say. "Wacky students ..." Er, nope. Think about what happened there. Think about your brand.

Armed with social networking sites like Facebook, that are in turn linked directly to smartphone apps students carry with them 24/7 on their iPhones, Blackerrys and Droid phones, social-network savvy consumers, the ones coming out of colleges and universities in four years or less, can, and will:

a) spontaneously sing your praises (hopefully with something better than Back Street Boys :)

b) or, trash your stock/association's reputation/political party standing by disrupting your carefully scripted Annual General Meeting

c) or, protest a product pricing/policy decision they don't like by showing up on your head office steps by the hundreds or even thousands with the (hyper-network-enabled) media in tow

This isn't one of those oh-so-yesterday online phenomena limited to the nether regions of the blogosphere that then finds its way into mainstream media over a number of days/weeks/months. This is hundreds or thousands of people acting in near-real-time, with life-sized massed physical presence, on what they believe is right or wrong about what your organization's doing for or "to" them, as they see it. 

What can you do about it? Nothing at all if you're not on top of the social networking scene. And even if you are, you're going to have to morph corporate communications and/or product messaging strategy and/or senior executive response at the speed of text messaging. Stilted, stunned or insincere posturing in the face(book) of the networked consumer era is going to lead to certain grief.

Assuming your communications team does devote resources to understanding social networking, what can they do to promote vs. defend the brand? Inspired by a flash mob kick-off to Oprah's 24th season kick-off party that drew 21,000 people plus more than 2 million views on YouTube, last Saturday mall marketers organized some 2,000 people in Davidson, North Carolina to form a flash mob in celebration of the mall's annual Christmas tree lighting ceremony. Have a look. That's one happy mob, and I bet after they celebrated lots walked inside to buy a bunch of stuff. Smart.

If you've got all this sorted out, excellent. If the hair on the nape of your neck is tingling because you think you need to prepare for this certain networked consumer/stakeholder future, our team would be happy to help yours.

p.s. If you watch till the end of the Queen's YouTube vid you'll wonder what occurs at the end of the Back Street boys song ... it's a "fighting anthem", called Oil Thigh, that Queen's students seem to sing whenever they're happy. Hey, I went to the University of Waterloo, so I guess I have to believe that explanation :)

(Nathan Rudyk is President and CEO with market2world communications inc., Ottawa, Canada's tech PR and product marketing agency.)

Ottawa’s innovation sector has long been constrained by limited venture capital (VC) investment, a situation now further eroded by a recession that has stifled fund raising efforts through the past two years.

According to today’s Ottawa Business Journal, data from a report released Tuesday by Canada's Venture Capital and Private Equity Association shows Ottawa-area investments totalled $10.94 million in the third quarter, down from the $51.5-million peak recorded during the same period a year earlier, and also from the $18.39 million invested in the second quarter of 2009.

So if you’re a growing company in Ottawa with an innovative product or service that’s market ready, but are cash constrained and have limited prospects for raising traditional venture capital in the near future, what are you going to do to survive, much less grow?

One solution – look to a public venture funding program that has been fueling the growth of resource, technology and innovation companies across Canada since 1987, and is available to Ottawa companies.

“Canada has long had limited access to traditional venture capital, in spite of vibrant resource, technology and life sciences sectors that badly needed to find a sustainable way of sourcing seed and early stage growth capital for emerging companies showing strong market promise,” said Glenn Williamson, a Phoenix-based investment banker who moved from Canada to Arizona more than 20 years ago, and is also founder and CEO of the Canada Arizona Business Council. “That’s what led to the development of the Capital Pool Company (CPC) program offered through the TSX Venture Exchange (TSX-V).”

The program allows 3 to 5 founder/directors to collectively invest between $100,000 and $1.8 million into a capital pool company that issues a prospectus offering, and upon completion of that offering, receives a public listing on the TSX-V. That company, essentially a public venture vehicle, then has 24 months to complete a qualifying transaction – identifying, disclosing and acquiring a target growth company.  At the time of the qualifying transaction, another private placement is usually completed, typically raising an additional $2 million to $4 million, or more, depending on the operating needs of the acquired growth company and its market appeal.

Since the inception of the CPC Program, 2,021 companies have been listed, 80% have successfully completed their qualifying transaction, and each has an average market capitalization of $13.6 million. Some have gone on to even greater success, with 247 former capital pool companies currently trading on the TSX, which requires that a minimum company market capitalization of $30 million be maintained.

Lowell Thomas, a Tucson-based partner with Snell & Wilmer LLP, who specializes in business and finance with an emphasis in cross-border U.S. and Canada transactions, including several deals involving TSX and TSX-V companies, said, “There are a number of things you have to have in order to make a deal successful. You need Canadian board members with capital market experience that can work with your management team, a strong broker champion who believes you have something unique to the market and can execute your growth plan, good advisors who can help you plan ahead for tax and legal considerations, and a focused and sustainable investor relations program. With those things in place you have a clear route to a listing that is internationally recognized.”

One reason for that recognition, Thomas points out, is that both the TSX and TSX-V conduct a due diligence process that’s at least equal, and probably more rigorous, than what traditional venture capitalists would put a company through.  Extensive background checks – more than 7,000 annually – are run on prospective company directors and officers.

“The bottom line though,” said Thomas, “for the right companies, executed the right way, this is a program that can work and provide a sound platform for sustainable financing.”

(Peter Vanderlee is an Arizona-based Senior Communications Strategist with market2world communications inc.)