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How Technology is Changing FDI
How Technology is Changing FDI Walmart, McDonalds, Costo – each of these retailers is a household name in Canada, yet few Canadians understand the complicated process through which they have established a Canadian presence. Foreign direct investment – or FDI – is...
The Minimalist Guide to Monitoring Government
The Minimalist Guide to Monitoring Government A couple of weeks back, I wrote a post on using strategy and media-monitoring software to reduce information overload. The responses I received solidified my view that overload is one of the biggest problems in the...
4 Reasons Monitoring Municipal Government Matters
Two weeks ago, while most Canadians with an interest in politics were following the Paul Calandra debacle, I was thinking about municipal government. I'd been doing some research for a Gnowit project on government relations, digging through recent surveys and notes,...
Using Media Monitoring to Escape Data Overload
Using Media Monitoring to Escape Data Overload In workplaces across the globe, information overload is weakening office morale. It’s diminishing productivity, quashing inventiveness, and launching industry leaders into spates of poor decision making. The constant...
If Canadian Cities Were Seen as Products, Which Cities Would You Buy?
If Canadian Cities Were Seen as Products, Which Cities Would You Buy? The strength of a product or brand relies not only on public perception, but also on how that perception aligns with the image its brand managers want to project. Think of the stereotypical Mac vs....
How Open Data Can Help Fix Youth Unemployment
How Open Data Can Help Fix Youth Unemployment In April of this year, CBC’s chief correspondent Peter Mansbridge hosted a segment on The National entitled, Class of 2014: Generation Screwed? Over the course of the fifteen-minute feature, Mansbridge interviewed...
Rob Ford is a Great Teacher. Here’s Why.
Rob Ford is a Great Teacher. Here’s Why. Let’s begin with a question: would Rob Ford have a better public image if he had accepted the substance abuse allegations in 2013? One could easily argue that the public perception of Ford would be negative either way. During...
Should the Government Outsource its Media Monitoring?
Should the Government Outsource its Media Monitoring? Media monitoring costs are always an issue, especially when taxpayer dollars are involved. Back in 2012, the Harper government came under harsh criticism for spending close to a million dollars to monitor a wide...
What do PR Disasters and Marvel’s S.H.I.E.L.D. Have in Common?
What do PR Disasters and Marvel’s S.H.I.E.L.D. Have in Common? WARNING: This short story contains spoilers if you haven’t seen Captain America: The Winter Soldier or Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. past episode 16 (and, to some extent, Iron Man 3). That being said, even if...
3 Branding Lessons Learned from the World Cup
3 Branding Lessons Learned from the World Cup Have you wondered why World Cup fever manages to inflict millions of people all around the world every four years? Soccer, or perhaps the politically correct term ‘football’, is one of the sports I view the least when...
Warning! Early Success Reality-Distortion Minefields Will Destroy Your Startup – Part 2
Warning! Early Success Reality-Distortion Minefields Will Destroy Your Startup – Part 2 According to the Startup Genome Project, 74% of high-growth Internet startups, with serious star potential, fail. Many of these tragedies are the consequences of the leadership...
Warning! Early Success Reality-Distortion Minefields Will Destroy Your Startup
Warning! Early Success Reality-Distortion Minefields Will Destroy Your Startup “We need to figure out how to scale this system to support a million users simultaneously” –– CEO of an education software technology company (2008) during a private discussion. I was...