Bike Month & Cycling in Toronto

Protect Where You Play

How good it feels to be on 2 wheels!

Yesterday was the start of Toronto’s annual Bike Month celebration kicking off with Bike To Work Day! It’s an event that’s been going on in Toronto for 25 years and every year the number of participants seem to grow and grow. I’ve been a bike commuter for over 3 years now and since I’ve successfully managed to sleep in the last 2 years and miss the BTWD celebrations, it felt pretty good to participate this year. At first, cycling was mostly an opportunity for me to avoid the TTC and have more control over my commute but over a short time it’s developed into something I really prefer when commuting around the city.

>> Little aside: Like many, I’m not a huge TTC fan. It’s stressful, frequently running late, slow, sometimes dirty, good customer service is never expected either… Basically, it’s nothing (for me) to look forward to…

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How to Get Press, the right way

Social & Business Media Opinions From The Old School.

Welcome To Onwords & Upwords

My good friend Bill Tibbles and I have been working together for the past 7 years. Bill has recently relocated to Fergus Ontario and so I don’t see him as often as I used to. So it was a very pleasant surprise when he showed up for coffee last night. We sat in our crowded little formal living room, which is really our main living room, while our basement family room is being completely redone from the floor on up. Long story.

Bill is one of the best designers and marketing thinkers I know. For years he ran one of Toronto’s premiere graphic design studios, Tibbles & Bird. Now he’s what he calls semi-retired. But really what he has done is taken a step to the left and is now designing and installing custom kitchens. Bill is a builder. He’s built his own ‘36 Chevy hot rod from a kit…

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Social Media 101 – Personal Branding

Confusingly Simple

Personal Branding

Two words that can strike fear into the strongest of people. This is the adult version of the “What I want to be when I grow up” essay you wrote in middle school, and the “where do I see myself in 10 years” essays you wrote in high school, or college.

A quick Google search for “Personal Brand Statement” returns over 100 million results! It seems that everyone has an idea of what Personal Branding means, and how to write the “perfect” brand statement for your career.

How important is your Personal Brand? Management expert, and prolific author Tom Peters, wrote this about Personal Branding:

“Regardless of age, regardless of position, regardless of the business we happen to be in, all of us need to understand the importance of branding. We are CEOs of our own companies: Me Inc. To be in business today, our most…

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Play to Your Strengths – Strategies For Product Positioning

Kris Pennella

The past few months have had me thinking a lot about product positioning. Several projects that I’ve had, and more than a few business plans I’ve reviewed recently, struggle with the concept of their product’s strengths. This can apply to companies as well as a positioning message of what they offer over competitors. Product positioning is all around us, whether you notice or it or not.

The goal of product (or service or company) positioning is to keep you in the customer’s mind at the time they are looking to purchase. A positioning strategy feeds into the marketing message in terms of how you talk about the product. The strongest brands and products you know about have succinct positioning statement.

But how do you get there? Define, then refine.
Much, if not all, of the data we’re going to look at below can be used for other product areas –…

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Is There a Point When a Marketing Message Gets Too Complicated?