Dr. Nick Bontis is one of the world’s leading experts on intellectual capital and is a tenured Professor at McMaster University and writes a weekly Hamilton Spectator column on business that covers much of both the international business scene and yes, our local one too! And a short disclaimer that yes, I’m the CMO of Snappay and a proud member of the management team too!

And the Saturday column I’m pointing out today, entitled “Give this Former Student Credit for Recognizing a Need in Retail” and it is well worth the click to read…but here’s the highlights of same….beginning with what our founder Lorne Lantz saw in the marketplace and how he responded to same…

“It was summer 2011 and my former MBA student Lorne Lantz was visiting a friend selling jewellery at an artist show. The friend was upset that she had just lost a $300 sale because she couldn’t accept the customer’s (preferred) payment by credit card.

As Lorne walked around the show he noticed that other vendors were also selling expensive items and had no way to accept credit cards either.

Paying by cash seemed to be the only option. After more research Lorne learned that the ability to accept credit card payments through a point of sale machine was out of reach for many small merchants.

Most often, to get a credit card processing machine required at least a $2,000 commitment with the bank and several weeks to get approved…”

All of course on point, and the result of course, was the creation and development of the Snappay app that Lorne built and we now offer to the marketplace of merchants who are looking for a cost-effective mobile POS app that they can use to charge a customer’s credit card and get paid instantly.

And as Dr Nick puts it so aptly at the end – well here, read his conclusion here yourownself….I couldn’t put it any better!

“With each technological innovation, Snappay becomes an even more attractive solution for mobile merchants around the world. Go ahead and try it yourself by registering at www.snap-pay.com and you can start accepting transactions in minutes.

As Snappay continues to make inroads in the world of mobile credit card processing, I’m sure it (and Lorne) will become another Hamilton success story…”

See what I mean? And if you’d like to know more and watch our video that shows you how easy it is to use Snappay to charge a credit card, then please just click on our logo here below….again, well worth the click!

Okay, it’s been a rough week – yeah, I know for you too… but especially since we’ve had everything from client fires to put out, new clients to pitch, clients to wine & dine (if that wasn’t you don’t worry, your turn is coming, eh!) and yes,  doing the normal SEO practice work all week long too!

That said, I did find a couple of real infographic gems and would like to share same with you and surprisingly a couple of them are on WordPress & SEO….so let’s take a look/see at what I’ve found this week, shall we?

Infographic #1 this beautiful Friday, is from none other than Joost de Valk (do wiki his name, you’ll be impressed I know) and it’s titled “WordPress: A Global Phenomenon” and it’s a real eye opener if you’re a WP user, eh! It was done for Joost, by DesignbySoap, a great firm that you can drop by to look over their many other examples of their abilities….if I was going to get one done I’d sure get them to quote! But back to the infographic – and a note that Joost asked Experian to provide some stats too, and it’s a pretty impressive look at the WP world…if you like the totality of a CMS and what it can provide, if you like the ability to find themes and use same, and lastly if you like being the real content creator of your own site or blog, then in my world, WordPress is for you! Do look at these surprisingly all encompassing numbers….WP rules it seems! Oh, and yup, if you’re reading this blog, then you are using my own WP site too!

SEOLite would be what I’d think of when I found the next infographic, here…at BizMeTheSEOProfits and it’s titled “8 Simple Steps to SEO EVERY SEO Enthusiast Should Know…” and it’s sort of interesting. By that, I mean that it talks yes, about some pretty basic items that one should know but also that it mentions Joost’s SEO plugin as a solid performer – big agreement here, eh!

It’s really pretty Lite in value, but I did think that it makes a couple of solid points – especially as it reminds all SEO practitioners that it is a big mistake to not practice “good permalinks” creation and usage….trust me in the WordPress world there are so so many that do NOT do that, it’s pretty easy to go right by them serp wise and take over your whole channel…..thank goodness! Er…wait, maybe I shouldn’t be telling folks that one….

Still on the SEOLite side of things, a comprable new infographic entitled “The 4 Biggest Ranking Mistakes” from the folks over at WebAndRank.com is also a good basic Lite item to look at too…as it outlines both the top most mistake that I see almost every SMB perform at some time early in their website’s life.

That item is that a owner new to online marketing will not use their Title tags as they are meant to be  used…and give up too too much link juice as Google reads same and values same as one of the very TOP items in their algo. Title tags are important. Search here on this blog for posts on same or at google.com itself and learn what to do and NOT to do when it comes to same….honestly, one of the best SEO tips there is can be found on this infographic and yes, believing in same has made our own Canadian SEO practice succeed!

A new item now on our Hamilton based Innovation Factory website is their publication of local success strories and the lead off one is of our own Snappay Founder, Lorne Lantz!

I am so proud of this young man – and yes, a reminder that I’m also involved with Snappay as their CMO and have been working hard for Lorne to help market Snappay, our mobile POS application that allows a user to charge a customer’s credit cards with no hardware!

And while I’d like to think that I could add something to the Spotlight story – I can’t so here’s a re-post of the whole piece….and if you’d like to see it over at the Innovation Factory site, then just click here!

Lorne Lantz -
Our  Snappay Founder

Elevator Pitch

POS systems are way too expensive for most small merchants around the world.  Snappay instantly turns any smartphone into a POS machine, no crazy fees, no additional hardware, just sign up and instantly begin accepting payment.

What was the inspiration for your company?

Everyday we make about 10 purchases, that cup of coffee in the morning, walmart runs etc. The way we pay hasn’t caught up to today’s technology. Why do merchants have to rent $50 terminals when they have an iPhone in their pocket? Why do I need a paper receipt when I can have it emailed to me? I’m passionate about payments and Snappay is my first mission to improve the way we buy & sell.

Did you have an ‘ah-ha’ moment when you got the idea to start your business?

Last summer I visited my friend, who was selling $200 jewelry pieces at an Artist trade show. She was so desperate to accept credit card payments through PayPal that she setup a table with a laptop, internet stick, printer and generator. As I walked around the show I noticed that the other merchants were all cash only. So I built Snappay.

What is the best part of what you do on a day-to-day basis? The most challenging part?

Everyday is completely new, my industry changes so fast and there’s always a new problem to solve. It’s like I’m playing a video game for the first time and I’m on the advanced level.

The hardest part of my days is maintaining focus on executing my existing plan. There’s so many shiny objects that come by me as entreprenuer, “Oh it would be cool to add this feature, oh it would awesome to do a deal with this company”, but you gotta stay completely focused on what’s gonna get you the win.

How do you measure success? What is the best recognition you have received?

Success = When you’ve made a positive impact on the world.

I really believe everyone of us has a special talent and we should all use our talents to help improve the world we live in. Peter Parker’s uncle said it best “With great power, comes great responsibility”

Best recognition I’ve gotten was walking up on stage to get my diploma after graduating from High School, Engineering, and MBA….you work so hard for so many years and your family is there to say “We’re proud of you”. Winning $10,000 at a big PayPal conference was pretty cool too.

What are your plans for the next year?

Continue improving the way we buy & sell things, and most importantly having fun!

Do you have any advice for other young professionals or students studying to pursue a career in your field?

Any success I have today is because I’ve failed in the past, and learned from those mistakes. Just need to go out, do it and the rest will follow. Surround yourself with people smarter than you, find good mentors, follow your passion, keep innovating, and most importantly Have Fun.

The flow chart below is a rough guideline of how I approach entrepreneurship:

When you were a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?

First a fireman, then a basketball star, then a musician, and then I got a computer and got hooked on making computer games…the rest is history.

What’s your current tech setup?

Android phone, with iPod to test Snappay on. Toshiba laptop with a large monitor….oh and did I mention the car computer?

What websites do you check daily?

www.innovationfactory.ca -  to keep up with Hamilton’s innovation scene

www.TechCrunch.com - to keep up to date with all the tech news

www.cbc.ca/international – to watch the news online each night, you can always skip past a story…

www.youtube.com/trends – the best way to see what’s trending in the world

If you were locked in Chapters overnight – what section would we find you in?

The programming section…I don’t have patience to read through a novel, but my attention is captured when I’m given the challenge of solving a problem. Looking up new coding techniques gives me new innovative ways to improve the way we buy and sell stuff.

If you could go to dinner with 5 people in the professional community – dead or alive, who would they be and why?

 Dave McClure – He’s like the rebel Venture Capitalist. Over the past years I’ve learned a lot from watching his speeches on youtube. My favourite Dave McClure speech is called “AARRR”. If I ever meet him in person I’ll be sure to give him my best Captain Sparrow impersonation.

Bill Gates – There’s so much of my life that was influenced by his products. I would love to have a casual conversation with him about where technology is going while integrating examples of how technology got to today.

Shawn Fanning – I would love to hear his whole story of Napster, which is probably my favorite technology that completely disrupted an industry. How is it that one kid writing code in his dorm room eventually led to record stores becoming obsolete, including the iconic Sam the Record Man.

Markus Frind – Guy from Vancouver who started Plenty of Fish. I just want to know what was going on in his head when he built the first ever free dating site. From my research everyone thought he was crazy when he made the site free, and in 2008 he made $10M in revenue just from ads.

Izzy Asper – How did he build a media empire out of the small town of Winnipeg? I’m sure he’d have some amazing stories to share from opening his first TV station to acquiring companies from Conrad Black.

 Favourite thing to do in Hamilton?

Bike ride from Westdale to Dundas. There’s a nice path along Cootes drive and stop for a drink at Café Domestique. Also Tally Ho is pretty awesome.

That’s Lorne….and you should NOT miss a chance to go over to the Snappay website to take a look/see at our video that shows the strength of our app too!

54 Hour event brings together designers, developers, and more to launch companies quickly!

Hamilton, ON (April 30, 2012) – Last weekend, 95 developers, designers, marketers, business professionals, animators, and engineers came together in the Collaboratory at Mohawk College to spend 54 hours trying to launch new startups in Hamilton.

3 months ago, Hamilton’s Regional Innovation Centre (RIC), Innovation Factory (iF) announced that they were once again joining forces with Software Hamilton to bring the international movement of Startup Weekend back to Hamilton after their successful first event in October 2011.  This time, other local organizations came onboard to help support and promote the event, including two other local RICs – Halton’s HalTech and Niagara’s nGen – and grassroots group Silicon Halton.  In addition, Mohawk College (Host Sponsor), Ridout & Maybee LLP (Gold Sponsor), Coral CEA (Silver Sponsor), PopChips and Deliverizer (food and beverage sponsors) provided resources to help the event gain momentum.

The 54-hour event was designed to provide superior experiential education for technical and non-technical entrepreneurs.  Beginning on Friday night, the 95 attendees met, shared their concepts through a series of public pitches, and voted on the most popular of 29 ideas before breaking down into 10 teams (they named themselves PassageU, StartupN.com, Honey Badger Automation, Pangea, The Help, SoLED, Nervu, Drawble, GymChum and Healthy Baby Steps).  The teams spent the rest of the weekend on brainstorming, business plan development, and basic prototype creation, and culminated on Sunday night with demos and presentations.  Participants created working startups during the event and were able to collaborate with like-minded individuals outside of their daily networks.  

The Friday night kickoff party included inspirational speeches by Kevin Browne (Software Hamilton), Robin Hopper (iF), and Dean McCall (Appficcient), while a panel of mentors worked with teams throughout the weekend to help refine their ideas and build better projects.  On Sunday afternoon, each team presented to a panel of judges – Chris Farias (kitestring creative branding studio), Mark Pavlidis (Endloop Mobile), and Karen Grant (Angel One Investor Network) – who selected four winners: StartupsN.com received a 6-month incubation package from Mohawk College, Nervu received a package from http://www.nas.net/, PassageU received a $1000 credit from enthuzr, and Honey Badger Automation received a private SEO seminar from KKT Interactive.  RIM provided 5 Blackberry Playbooks for teams to use throughout the weekend, which were given away as door prizes at the After Party at the Arnie Pub on Sunday evening.

And here’s some photos too, from same…

Stephanie and Tammy showing off the StartUpWeekendHamilton front page story in today’s Hamilton Spectator!

The Honey Badger team and yours truly in the pink sweater holding up their prize!

And our Event details are ~

Event metrics ~
Metrics: 95 attendees, 29 ideas pitched, 10 teams formed, 14 sponsors, 12 mentors,
174 cups of coffee, 402 bottles of water and 1 front page article!

Winners ~
• Congrats to StartupsN.com for winning a 6 month incubation package from Mohawk College!
• Congrats to Nervu for winning a Net@ccess package!
• Congrats to PassageU for winning a $1000 credit from Enthuzr!
• Congrats to Honey Badger Automation for winning a private SEO Seminar from KKT Interactive!

In the news ~
In case you missed it, the Hamilton Spectator did a piece on SWH2 – see it here.  Plus, it made the FRONT PAGE!

How you can stay connected with other attendees ~
• Join the Facebook group and upload your photos there
• Follow @starthamilton on Twitter
• Follow our blog
• Join us at Startup Drinks on each month for more collaboration!
• Join us at Startup Weekend Hamilton 3 – details to be announced soon!

Reflections/suggestions ~
This was our second Startup Weekend Hamilton and we are so proud of everyone who participated – it takes a lot of guts to try out a startup and a lot of strength to do it in 54 hours!. But, our next one will be even bigger and better!  We’d love your feedback – there’s always something new to learn!  Please send me your suggestions, big or small, on ways we can make the Startup Weekend experience better for YOU.  Or, if you loved Loved LOVED it, send us a testimonial for our website!

Thank you ~
Organizers: Stephanie Shuster, Tammy Hwang, Kevin Browne, Ash Ayyaswamy, and Leah MacCharles
Sponsors: Mohawk College, Ridout & Maybee, Innovation Factory, Haltech, nGen, Software Hamilton, Silicon Halton, Coral CEA, Enthuzr, KKTI, Net@ccess, RIM, Deliverizer, and PopChips
Speakers: Kevin Browne, Robin Hopper, Dean McCall
Judging Panel: Karen Grant, Chris Farias, and Mark Pavlidis

My thanks too on a personal note for the great leadership of all the above…who gave freely and greatly to our wonderful startup community! #kudos to you all!

Update: latest video just posted on the whole Startup Weekend Hamilton:2 …

Well, Thursday night really, but hey this is the only chance I’ll have in getting my normal Friday blog piece done and posted…because of my total commitment to our StartUpWeekend Hamilton:2 that begins tomorrow up at our Mohawk College and runs for three days straight!

<grin> My commercial over and if you read here regularily you know that I often intersperse my Canadian SEO practice with a recap the week’s best Infographics and this week is no different, eh!

And so I begin with an old friend, Yahoo. I go back so far with this search engine that I remember when it was called something else…and in the 18+ years since I first went to their directory to find data, all I can say is “gee, fellas…what the heck happened?” Like our own A&W drive-in restaurants up here in Canada that had a lock on the early market for fast food and who obviously fell asleep and let folks like McDonalds surpass them in spades, Yahoo has been so totally poorly run, poorly managed and poorly performing that it’s just a shame for the founders!

Sure I know that there is a new CEO and I think he has just about the toughest job on the web in trying to rebuild Yahoo back into the power that it once was. Will Thompson be able to do that – I dont know…but it’s IMHO the job of the year…and here’s an Infographic on the actual state of Yahoo right now, reported here by eConsultancy but the original I think is from High Table.

Moving away from those who aren’t doing so well, I would like to point out that one of the developers that I very much like – Joost de Valk who has created some amazing WordPress plugins – has had the following Infographic made for him by Design by Soap, and it can be found here along with many other great examples of this type of mining data visually.

These are pretty interesting numbers and from what I can gather they’re based on Joost’s own 3 million downloads of his own Google Analytics WordPress plugin and from there he got more data from Experian to help flesh out this lengthy infographic. Do give it a look/see…the statistics are fairly new to me and surprising too!

And to finish off this post, I thought it necessary to add one more great infographic, from Adam Sherk, a blogger who’s on my daily list and I drop by to see what he has to say on a regular basis. Up at the Enterprise level, Adam is fairly well known in the SEO world and this infographic – by him mind you – is a great one. If you look at anything from this blog post of mine….click here to see what I mean and remember….information in an infographic is the real item that one needs to pass along….and if you click on Adam’s link….you’ll see what I mean, eh!

Have a great weekend….and I’m ready for a full weekend of startups!

Okay, it’s not a normal Monday morning and while I’ve slept on my frustration, I can tell you that I am totally pissed off at two of the countries leading telecommunications companies – Rogers and Primus.

But let me explain – calmly. Rationally. In moderated tones rather than the screaming that I’ve had to resort to to try to get somone to fulfill a change made to my accounts with both of these huge firms. Wait…let me count to 10 again…as I’m getting upset just reading my logs on these changes.

Uh…logs? Yes, if it’s one thing that I’ve learned it’s that when you wish to make a change to a service provided by any supplier – Rogers and Primus in this case – that it is a “carved in stone” need to document the requested changes and the reference numbers supplied by the cust service rep that you talk to….so that when something is wrong you have a reference point to get the latest cust service rep to refer to….sigh….

So, I wanted to make changes to my 3 cell phone accounts with Rogers. I called and spoke to someone (after wading thru one of the stupidest call answering serivces I’ve ever had the misfortune to have to use) and this was on Thursday April 19th at 9:30 am EDT….and I called to cancel my service with Rogers. I intended to move over to the WIND network at $25 per month for our 3 lines to total $75 monthly before tax and get my monthly Rogers bill down from $140 a month which would simply save me money. After trying to cancel my service with 2 operators, I was finally moved to a dept that I can only think might be called the Rogers “save the customer” dept. and after once again explaining I wanted to cancel the nice lady there made me an offer I couldn’t refuse – she would match the WIND deal for me and maintain all the current services and addons that I had already. No extra $. No canx fees. Sounds like a winner I thought and so I said yes, sign me up…which she “said” she did…but I knew to ask for a ref # which I did get, an “I” number of 9 digits.

And 5 minutes later, my spouse calls me and says “hey, our BBM messaging ain’t working” so I had to call back, wade thru more call answering stupidity, and finally get tech support that said “gee, sorry, you need a Blackberry to use BBM.” Have one, I replied, and you’ve been managing same for years. “Oh sorry, yeah I can turn that back on for you” meant to me at least for both our Blackberry phones (our third line is my son who has an iPhone). He gave me another “I” ref number…and I thought we were done.

I wont bother here with the further 8 calls back to cust service and tech support, as Rogers constantly kept “losing” our BBM service, then our emails, then our BBM messaging again, then our internet browsing abilities. I have on my logs now 9 “I” reference numbers. I have also lost any respect I might have had for Rogers and their ability to “manage” my account with them. One thing I do know is that in October of this year, when my 3 year contract is up I will move to WIND then. No ifs ands or buts or other offers will deter my feelings of disgust with the way that my changes were handled over the past 5 days. And from what I see when I go to google and try a search on “rogers bad customer service” it’s not at all surprising that there are more than 2 million hits there….and a quick read of any of same shows what I now know to be true….which is that Rogers is not for me.

Now to Primus….and this is just about the same thing once again…and yes, I did know that when I began these changes to my telecom suppliers that I “might” face some issues, I had no idea that they would be so rife with incomptancy and ineptitude….and NO, Primus does not offer up any type of ref number to use as a reference point for past communications…..sigh….

Primus is the supplier that I use for my VOiP business line and I thought that yes, I’d need a new one added to my service. So once again I called in, waded thru poor call answering stupidity, and then got someone who quite nicely had my account on her screen. I made my request for a new line, and as I’m a geek at heart, I know how to setup same and I was told all those changes were done right then and there. No waiting. You now have a second line – well, soon as you “okay” the 911 authorization…and the rep conference called me into her software to make some entries…then I had to listen and validate same. Didnt’ work. She hung up and tried 3 more times, then said “um….okay, I’ll look after this, as I guess our software is wonky” and I was told I’d have my second line within a day. That too was Thursday just passed and I waited till Saturday to phone back as you guessed it, the second line was still not activated. Called in again, call answering stupidity again, got another rep who said “huh? you have no second line, Mr. Rudnick….”

…Sigh…once more the exact same transaction took place – lost that previously issued phone # – had to get a new one – and then the 911 routine again and yes, once more the Primus software did not work. Not even a little. “Sorry, the rep said, can’t do anything for you then….” and would not consider just placing a X in the box that said that yes, I understand how 911 works and as I already have a working Primus line I should know how it works….sigh….but could I please start a tech support ticket. Which I did. And I got an answer almost immediately that said “thanks” for starting a ticket. No more, of course…but then it was Saturday afternoon…

Sunday. No new Primus phone # was enabled, so once again make that call and wade thru all that call answer stupidity…and once again got a rep. But this time as I was totally pissed and upset with both Rogers and Primus – I demanded that they escalate the call to tier 2 service, which they seemed to be unable to do, as I got a brand new cust service rep who said “yes, can I help you?” and no knowledge of all the preceeding communcations as they lack any reference number system. However, this rep was more than ready to admit that their 911 service sucked. That yes, she knew that. And she would just do a “work around” and I wouldn’t be bothered by this. I guess she must have done just that…as the new line came online about 6 hours later and that made me happy.

Course, both of these firms don’t care. They provide the MVCS (minimum viable customer service) levels that they can get away with.

 They do not care a whit about trying to improve their customer service and as a result, there are millions of google hits for them. Too bad, really….but I do hope that others in the telecom channel listen and learn…the space does need a “Southwest Airlines” or “Apple” in same to provide both leadership and service….you provide that and I’ll be a customer for life!

Innovation Night is Hamilton’s key event for innovators and entrepreneurs to share and develop their ideas, practice and perfect their pitch, and present to their peers and the local innovation community…and we were there on Wednesday night for the latest rendition of same….and what night it was!

First the “pitchers” who numbered more than a dozen and we loved the variety of the startup ideas that we heard! Well, to be totally honest, as we help mentor the Innovation Night workshops that occur a week earlier and last week we were there to listen and offer advice and counsel…and that alone is a real challenge.

Let me explain why. Entrepreneurs are fairly unique in the real world – oh, they are in the vast majority in the business world but that’s not what we get for our Innovation Night candidates. What we get are passionate young men or women who have an idea, and they bring that idea to the workshop, where we mentors help craft their pitch to the best that it can be.

That’s not to say that candidates listen. That’s not to say that they are even “coachable” but we do try. At last week’s workshop, ably led by Ron Neumann the Innovation Factory Executive Director, and assisted by Tammy Hwang the Innovation Factory Experience Manager and myself…we tried to help, aid and abet….and judging by what we saw last night, it worked!

Judges too are important to the Innovation Night contest and we were ably backed in that area by Pamela Hensley of IDEAWorks up at Mohawk College, David Adames the CEO of our Hamilton Chamber of Commerce and Meg Coppolino, a creative lead over at kiteString! Smart – yes! Business oriented – yes! And did they ask probing great queries of each of the presenters – again yes….they determined the ultimate two winners and I couldn’t have agreed more…

Our M/C last night too, was Kevin Browne of our community SoftwareHamilton initiative who also started up and developed our StartUpDrinks evenings, our DemoCampHamilton events and who also happens to be taking on a major role next weekend in our second StartUpWeekendHamilton:2 !

Thanks Kevin so so much for your leadership on this too!

And our winners last evening? Well all the pitches were great – but there were two that did stand out for me too….Nervu.ca and it’s founder Mohamed El Mahallawy won as did Craig Denby of Refreshing Oxygen Bars too….well worth the clicks to see what they’re all about.   

One more thing…I often forget to mention Sponsors…but this is too much a part of our #HamOnt community to forget this time! Our Innovation Nights are sponsored by SB Partners, our MIPs Centre and our Innovation Factory too.

Big #kudos to you all….your efforts and help in bringing our latest batch of entrepreneurs to the forefront of our community…much thanks to you all!

The news is out and Communitech, the giant in the Ontario wide RIC network announces today that they’ve just launched Hyperdrive! It is a $30 million Incubator initiative that will offer up to Canuck startups the chance to be funded and mentored and incubated in the Kitchener-Waterloo area….and in my book, that makes it a true Canuck winner!

For more info pls go here – http://www.communitech.ca/communitech-launches-30m-hyperdrive-incubator/ and take a good read about the Program itself, it’s funding partners and while I didn’t see the online application there yet – I’m positive when it’s posted there’ll be one heck of a lineup for that first cohort, eh!

#Kudos Communitech….job well done!

And what resources the Harvard Business Review has, eh!

First a bit of background….the Harvard Business Review is a subscription basis service that features as they put it -

• The latest business research and ideas
• The secrets to creating and executing strategy
• Access to the in-depth online archive

 And they couldn’t be more spot-on!

First their reference to the latest in business research and ideas is understated…after a look – well, after more than an hour of cruising thru various titles and pouring over the contents, I can say with all honesty – the authors you’ll find here are smart. Dang smart. Sure some are Harvard profs and some arent – but all know business. One I really liked (as we use contractors for our SEO work to some degree) is “Managing a Virtual Team” which I read. Twice. Printed out too and it’s going to be on our next team meeting agenda. Yes, the business info is that good!

And the claim that they publish info on creating and execuring strategy? Again yes and this piece on “The Real Leadership Lessons of Steve Jobs” shows more than what you think you know – written by the Steve Jobs biographer….could it be any better?

And the last claim that they made on the access to the online archive? Been there. Done that….and what a huge archive it is too. Books. Magazines. Blogs. Audio & Video. Webinars and yes, even Courses are even offered.

But a note here too…that while much and I do mean much of the true value is totally free – the site is a Subscription site – and access to much more than you ever imagined, must be purchased but at one full year of online access for only $129 US that’s a deal that can’t be discounted as anything but a good deal.

So yes, give it a look/see….and “go to Harvard!” 

Bonus: Here’s a great item from the HBR ~
“Vision Statement: How Hot is Your Next Innovation?
Choosing which innovative ideas to pursue is often an exercise in guesswork. But by using existing management tools in a new way, you can effectively gauge your innovation’s potential along two crucial dimensions: Can it withstand market pressures from competitors? And can it deliver more economic value to customers than alternatives? Here’s how it works…and here’s where to find it…click here for this great infographic…

Okay, the title is a bit muddy in it’s meaning, but what I did try to capture is that we – both myself and my latest startup – were featured in our local press and for that reason, it’s a #FabulousFriday! This is a double hit day and already we’ve had 8 phone call “congrats” too!
<big grin here>

First the media notice – the local press I’m talking about is the Hamilton Spectator, a daily paper here in the #HamOnt area that has a great business section and yes, I do read it daily and have been doing that since the 50′s, since I learned that from my Dad. I like the Spec as we call it and the reporting from my POV is always “spot-on” and I wanted to say thanks to the Spec!

Next the reporter who covered both stories that I talk about here is a Ms. Tricia Hellingman – a local Press/PR CEO who writes the BizzBuzz Spectator column on a weekly basis, and while I’ve never worked with her, I can tell you that she’s well respected and highly sought after too!

And finally to the mentions in the column – here I’ve just copied same….take a look at what was reported -

Hamilton Startup Launches Sale App !
Hamilton based startup company Snappay has recently launched a mobile point-of-sale system for merchants who work trade shows, conferences, seminars and gallery openings. Partners Lorne Lantz and Jim Rudnick developed the system with the help of mentors Ron Neumann and Robin Hopper at the Innovation Factory. The Snappay app allows customers to ue their iPhone, iPad or Android phone to charge purchases to their credit cards. Merchants with a smartphone simply need to download the Snappay app and within minutes can beging accepting payments. “Our pricing is the lowest of all other mobile point-of-sale systems and our sign-up takes less than five minutes,” says Rudnick. The company charges merchants only 3.9% of the amount of the transaction, plus 30 cents for each transaction. There is also a $29 per month plan for high-volume merchants. In the two weeks since lanuching, the company has already signed up more than 100 merchants. For more information, visit www.getsnappay.com!

Well, such a great column insert deserves praise – so thanks so so much, Tricia!

And as I said up front, my “double hit” included another nice addtion to that BizzBuzz column about my winning of the first ever Annual Mark Chamberlain DiFIZEN of the Year Award from our Hamilton based Innovation Factory and that was covered here -

Rudnick takes Innovation Award!
In a related story, Jim Rudnick has been honoured as the first recipient of the Innovation Factory’s Mark Chamberlain DiFIZEN of the Year Award for his outstanding contributions to Hamilton’s Innovation community. “The choice was easy,” says the Innovation Factory’s chief advocate, Keanin Loomis. “Jim has been to every one of our events, he’s participated as a volunteer mentor at workshops and one-on-one with our clients, and is always available to help us in any way he can.” Rudnick is also CEO at KKT INTERACTIVE. The search enginge consultant is a former student of Westdale HS and McMaster University.

As you can see, I’m chuffed about both the great stories and the fact that we received same too!

Nice to see us in the press, but on an larger community issue, it’s so nice to see that folks and firms get noticed and reported on too! That’s the raison d’etre for newspapers it’s true, but when the story is about you or your firm (or both!) it personalizes that reach and makes it a wonderfully #FabulousFriday!