1. Include a clear, specific call to action: Don’t use terms like “learn more,” or “for more information …” Sewell cautions — make the reward specific and tangible.

2. Sell the offer:  “Remember, it’s not the company you’re selling, or the product, it’s that white paper or video or webinar the prospect gets when he or she fills out the form,” Sewell emphasizes. “If the offer is a video, show screen shots. If it’s a white paper, include excerpts, Amazon-type page previews, even reader reviews. The more detail, the better.”

3. Write a headline that reflects the ad copy: “Effective PPC campaigns start with effective, action-oriented ad copy that’s relevant to the search term,” says Sewell. “They end with an engaging, easy to navigate landing page that’s relevant to the ad copy.” The goal, he says, is one seamless user experience in which every step validates and rewards the prospect’s information needs.

4. Keep the registration form short, and above the fold: If you have a robust, systematic lead nurturing program in place there’s no need to capture every morsel of information from the prospect at first touch, says Sewell. Every required field you add to your registration form lowers your conversion rate accordingly. “Ask for the minimum information possible, and keep the form high on the page where the reader can see it (and act) immediately,” he recommends.

5. Don’t skimp on selling copy: “PPC landing pages are different in this respect from say, an e-mail landing page, because the reader barely knows anything yet about your company or the offer,” notes Sewell. Accordingly, he advises, be sure to include sufficient selling copy to: a) adequately sell the offer; b) address any anticipated concerns or objections; and c) help ensure a high quality score by offering what Google calls “relevant and original content” — i.e. content related to the offer in the advertisement.

6. Don’t include external links: “That means no links back to your home page, and for Pete’s sake no navigation bar,” cautions Sewell. “The landing page should have one purpose only, and that’s getting the prospect to fill out a form.”

7. Be cautious with customer logos, award icons, and gushing quotes of praise for your company or product: Testimonials of this type can detract from the primary offer and create the aura of a sales pitch for your company that runs counter to the information of value the reader is searching for, Sewell says. “Exceptions to this rule occur when your offer is a demo or free trial, situations in which an extra dose of credibility helps sell the offer,” he adds.

Source: Business 2 Community

ALSO COMING SOON:

• February 15: Licensee Red Flags: 12 Critical Signs that Should Trigger an Audit
• February 15: SBIR/STTR Grant Funding: Innovation Research and Technology Transfer
• February 28: How to Outsource and Offshore TTO Activities for Huge Savings and Efficiency Gains

Repurpose existing content from your website: “Many websites already have FAQ sections or areas focusing on product or service details,” notes Kniahynyckyj. “These pages may also see a good deal of visitor traffic. If you can repurpose FAQ or product and service content into a whitepaper or cheat sheet that lives behind a conversion page, you’ll get the benefit of generating a lead that downloads this content that can then be entered into a lead nurturing campaign.”

No time to blog? Make videos: If you’re an articulate speaker who is better at crystallizing ideas verbally than through writing, use videos as a content mechanism, suggests Kniahynyckyj. “You can then embed your videos in a blog post and post them on YouTube,” he says.

No time at all? Get some help: With the growing importance of content creation there are numerous content marketplaces like Writer Access or Zerys that offer access to quality writers who will produce website content for you at competitive prices, Kniahynyckyj notes. “Remember, Google (and Bing) reward hard work,” he says. “In many instances, that hard work comes in the form of regular, valuable content.”

Source: Business 2 Community

“A lot of this was driven by the desire of faculty to receive research funding,” says Pradhan, who notes that traditionally, OHSU researchers have always viewed industry as an “alternative source” to pursue if they were not getting federal grants; they did not always go to industry as a prime source. “What we’ve effectively been doing over several years, in response to the economy and changes in federal funding, is to proactively work with faculty, saying that industry should be considered as a prime source of research and collaborations,” he says. “The nature of the money may be different, but not necessarily the nature of the projects.”

Part of the “sell,” he explains, is that fundamentally both researchers and industry have a lot to offer each other. “Companies will approach problems from a slightly different perspective, and in order to have good science one should look at problems from various perspectives as opposed to through the same lens,” notes Pradhan. “From the collaborative standpoint, opening your research faculty’s eyes to the value the other side brings and then working with companies to express the value we bring as an academic institution is important.” A detailed article on OHSU’s approach appears in the January 2012 issue of Intellectual Property Marketing Advisor. For subscription information, CLICK HERE.

• Company location
• Investment portfolios
• Companies invested in
• Areas of focus
• Primary contact personnel
• Funding areas/indications
• Stages funded
• Total dollars under management

Having easy access to this critical data can mean the difference between getting the funding you need to advance your start-up or develop your technology and seeing it die on the vine from lack of resources. With the new BioWorld Biotechnology and Medical Device VC Directory 2012, you’ll have access to the information you need — covering VCs in the U.S., Canada, Europe, and Asia — so you can find the right financial partner and keep your company on solid ground. For more details and to order, CLICK HERE.

Follow them, too: Understanding the social behavior of your newfound prospects is key to making this form of lead nurturing successful, says Gray. “Use your marketing automation and CRM systems to keep track of the types of social media content that interest these particular prospects and respond with similar messaging both inside and outside of the social sites,” he recommends. He offers the following example: Let’s say you identify a group of prospects on your company’s LinkedIn page who tend to favor video content. They view it when you post it (and you know this because you’re using trackable video tools like Vimeo or NextSlide), they share and re-tweet yours and/or other video content, and perhaps they’re even posting their own video content on their sites. “This should be noted in your lead funnel,” says Gray. “Now you can schedule video content to be delivered to them through your other marketing channels.”

 Define success: “Too many organizations feel they aren’t seeing ROI around social,” says Gray. For 60% of businesses, he says, the success of their social strategy is measured by the number of fans, followers, and likes. “Getting people to follow your Twitter page isn’t very hard, and if you task your CMO with achieving this feat, he or she will easily go out and do it,” he notes. “If instead you tell them to boost leads by 15% percent through social channels, that’s a whole different ballgame — one that doesn’t have a lot to do with how many people ‘like’ you.” It may be a while before you can directly tie leads back to tweets, he cautions, and you shouldn’t be watching that pot waiting for it to boil anyway. “Lead acquisition and nurturing is about letting your brand be a magnet for prospects, getting them into your pipeline, and using their social behavior to drive how you nurture them,” Gray explains.

If you are already adding every person who follows you on Twitter into your lead funnel, he suggests you try this exercise: tally the total number of net new leads brought into your funnel through a social channel. Now see how many of those leads actually score high enough to qualify as a lead worthy to pass over to sales (be honest). “That’s a metric that shows social media value and it’s very easy to do with just about any marketing automation software,” says Gray. 

Source: CustomerThink

Know what your goals are: Depending on the business, goals might range from generating orders to attracting subscribers to building thought leadership, notes Schmulen. But whatever your goal, make sure you matches your offer to that goal, whether it’s a free trial, information, or downloads.

Make your offer shareable: The average Facebook member has 130 friends and the fastest way to spread a message is through social sharing, Schmulen says. Facebook automatically offers members the opportunity to share a Like, but the real creativity, he notes, comes when you can convince people to share some kind of unique content or offer you provide. For example, Intrepid Travel invites visitors to play a trivia game and share results with friends. Each answer to the quiz is shareable, as is the final score.

Keep it simple: For most small businesses, less is more, Schmulen recommends. He favors an approach like that of Fitness magazine, which rewards new fans with “our all-time favorite abs workout!” Fitness has a variety of other offers on its Facebook presence, but it leads with the simplest one.

Promote everywhere: “’Field of Dreams’ was a horrible movie for people who are learning about marketing,” Schmulen says. “Just because you build it doesn’t mean people will come. When you create a campaign, share it across all your social networks and e-mails. Use every channel you have.”

Measure: Facebook’s built-in analytics give you a pretty good idea of what’s sparking conversation on your page, notes Gillin, who suggests you take the 10-minute tour and learn what they mean. “PageLever is one of the first independent Facebook measurement tools, and I expect there will be more,” he says. “You can also use free and simple utilities like Bit.ly and Google URL Builder to track the popularity of links you post on Facebook.” Schmulen ticks off some factors to consider: “How many people visit the landing page? How many participate in the offer? How many share the offer? If people visit the page but don’t take the offer, it isn’t compelling enough. If they accept the offer but don’t share it, it isn’t distinctive enough. A great campaign gets people to connect, accept your offer and share it with their friends.”

Source: Business 2 Community

Intellectual Property Marketing Advisor,
Vol. 5, No. 1, January 2012

• Australian university the latest to adopt Easy Access IP model. If you see an innovative approach to disseminating IP working in another part of the world and want to adopt it in your university, there might be several ways you could go about making that happen. But perhaps the most direct option would be to hire the individual who pioneered it.
• “Joe the Researcher” helps teach faculty how to commercialize their innovations. A recent workshop used a slide show starring the fictitious “Joe the Researcher” to teach NC State University faculty members and grad students the ins and outs of commercializing their ideas.
• Cultural shift yields increase in sponsored research funding. Oregon Health & Science University generated a record number of industry-sponsored research agreements in 2011, with 118 such agreements generating more than $12 million. Arundeep Pradhan, MS, associate vice president for the university’s TTO, says this was no accident, but rather the result of a concerted effort to create the kind of “business-friendly” atmosphere that helps lay the foundation for such success.
• New blog highlights emerging technologies at Berkeley Lab. A new blog created by the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab’s Department of Communications & Media Relations is being used as a vehicle to feature promising new inventions and relate stories of successful lab-to-marketplace transitions.
• NIH creates new website to fully automate licensing of research materials. In a response to complaints about the length of time it was taking to license out its unpatented research materials, the National Institutes of Health has created a new website that cuts the response time from six months to a few days.
• All Scottish research universities on board for revamped IP portal. The University-Technology.com website was already enjoying a good measure of success as the first initiative of its type in the UK, bringing together leading innovations from 12 research universities in Scotland. However, with the recent launch of a revamped portal, all 19 Scottish universities are now participating.

Don’t be afraid to be bold: “Opting for a bold design element is a great way to modernize a website and keep it on trend in the coming years,” says Hockenson, who notes that a bold design can be obtained with very little money, especially for those who aren’t necessarily experienced in coding. “For example, web pages operating on a WordPress can find a host of free templates that offer a wide range of customizable options to suit any business,” she notes. “New and exciting fonts can be found via Google’s open API font styles and require a simple set of code to be dropped in for compatibility with a website. Inspiration and how-to’s for more hands-on DIY upgrades can be found at coding/design blogs like A List Apart, One Extra Pixel and Mashable‘s Dev and Design channel.”

Use HTML5 … with care: HTML5 offers a lot of exciting flexibility that can make a website truly interactive, Hockenson notes. Seamlessly embedded videos, drag-and-drop interfaces and dynamic message posts are all achievable via HTML5, and with relatively little code work. However, she adds, “as with any programming language, there’s always an issue of browser compatibility.” You can take several precautions to ensure that every user has a pleasurable experience on your website without you making a major investment, she continues. “Modernizr is an open-source, JavaScript-based tool that offers feature detection for HTML5, and its just-as-snazzy brother CSS3,” says Hockenson. “Instead of doing simple browser detection, Modernizr will figure out just what features the user’s browser can support and react accordingly.” This solution shouldn’t be implemented by a newbie to code, she warns, “but it does provide a simple way to implement exciting and revolutionary features while still providing support for the little guys.”

Cut the fat: The traditional layouts for websites often call for separate pages that encapsulate the “About,” “Contact” and other informational areas of the website, but 2011 saw minimalist designs from multiple websites which often translated to cutting these pages in favor of a sleeker overall design. Further exploration into one-page websites is a given, says Hockenson, but a single-page website has both its pros and cons. “HTML5 can help create a one-page website that cleverly contains all necessary information via pop-up boxes or other media, but the amount of information that can be on a one-page website is still relatively limited,” she notes. “Do you want your website to make a bold statement about your company and focus less on a blog-style format? If so, a one-page website could be right in your wheelhouse. Are you more interested in showing off testimonials, case studies and blogs from your employees? If yes, then this trend would be worth passing on.”

Tie in social media intelligently: This tip, says Hockenson, could also be titled “Quit it With the Widgets.” “Automatically updating widgets that stream in social media presence seems intrusive and outdated, not to mention that they can be a hassle for a DIY designer to install and maintain,” she notes. “To put it simply, social media should absolutely be a presence on a business website, but it should not be a dominating presence. Integrating social media, whether in graphic links or a social ticker, should be done with the user’s eyes in mind.”

Source: Mashable

Tech transfer professionals and IP practitioners need to quickly get up to speed on the details of this potentially damaging provision. That’s why our Distance Learning Division has teamed up with attorney experts Michael T. Siekman and Ed Walsh from the Wolf Greenfield IP Law Firm to present this hour-long educational webinar: Life Under AIA: Anticipating and Surviving Post Grant Challenges. Join us this Thursday, January 26, 2012, when Mr. Siekman and Mr. Walsh will provide a detailed review of the post-grant review provisions, their likely impact, remaining uncertainties as the USPTO deals with implementation, and strategies to begin planning now for both patent drafting and responding effectively to post-grant actions. For complete program details and to register, CLICK HERE.

COMING IN FEBRUARY:

• Wednesday, February 15: Licensee Red Flags: 12 Critical Signs that Should Trigger an Audit
• Tuesday, February 28: How to Outsource and Offshore TTO Activities for Huge Savings and Efficiency Gains

• When writing content, keep the newsfeed in mind instead of your wall: “Most people will view your content from their newsfeed, so you should write copy that grabs their attention and compels them to act by liking, commenting, or clicking,” says Jansen.
• Along that same vein, increase your comments by asking questions that require more than a simple yes or no answer: “Ask fans what they think about a breaking news story or what features they would like to see in an upgraded version of your product,” Jansen suggests.
• Take advantage of the viral nature of Facebook Photos: “Share plenty of photos, and ask your fans to share some too,” says Jansen. “You could even hold contests that include photos of fans using your products.”
• Keep a balance between your own content and content from other people: “Instead of making your Facebook content all about you, use the 80-20 rule to decide how much you’ll post from outside sources,” says Jansen.
• Show them you’re human: “Your fans want to know they’re interacting with a person, not some nameless, faceless brand or corporation,” says Jansen. “Let your unique voice shine through.”
• Post content hot off the presses (or newsreaders): “Give your fans first dibs on breaking news in your industry and updates about your company so they’ll know they can get the latest information right there on your Facebook Page,” Jansen advises.
• Keep mobile users in mind when you write content: “Many of us are accessing Facebook on mobile devices,” notes Jansen, “So you want to be sure your posts are easily read on the small screen.”
• If you have a physical location, take advantage of Facebook Place Pages to drive traffic to your store or office. 
• Invest in ads to find new fans and expand your network beyond your community’s reach: “To get more bang for your advertising buck, be sure to restrict ads to people who don’t already like your page,” Jansen advises.
• Use caution when using automated posting services to post Facebook content: “Services like HootSuite are great for filling in the gaps on the weekends or after hours, but you don’t want to alienate your fans with constant updates that have clearly been scheduled ahead of time,” says Jansen. “The goal is to be there for interaction surrounding your posts in real time.”
• Provide exclusive information to your fans to keep them checking for your updates: “When you share behind-the-scenes information,” says Jansen, “fans will appreciate being a part of your Facebook ‘inner circle’ and will anticipate knowing the latest news.”

Source: NetworkSolutions.com

In fact, says Gray, 41% of those surveyed for a recent study said they still don’t have definitive ROI for their social programs. “Evidently, social feels good, but there are still too many question marks as to how to turn that Google+ business page into a starting point for new leads,” says Gray. He offers the following tips for tying marketing automation back to social media — and vice versa:

 Make the technology your friend: “Most marketing automation platforms have some form of integration into popular social media channels such as Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn pages so you can use them to share content across those mediums,” Gray notes. “This means that once your organization has collected critical information about a prospect you can actually ‘mash-up’ demographic and firmographic info through popular data sources.” The next step, he says, is to mine your growing base of followers and pull the most relevant into your funnel. “Don’t just grab everyone who ‘likes’ your page; instead, have someone take the time to research new followers every week and slot them into the funnel accordingly,” Gray suggests.

Use mediums that work: “When thinking beyond engagement and into lead acquisition, the content being offered should be designed to drive fans and followers directly into your funnel automatically whenever possible,” notes Gray. “The question then becomes, what kind of content is going to act as the best bait in a social setting?” Eschew white papers or e-mail campaigns, says Gray. “If you’re a B to C company try surveys, games, videos — you know, fun stuff. Then tie in a link to a piece of content that expands on the messaging, preferably a piece you can track for usage,” he suggests.

“For B to B, one example of social success is the communication of trends and breaking news.” For example, he notes, Salesforce.com pulled off “probably the best-calculated social PR campaign following Benioff’s exclusion from Oracle World a few months ago.” They were able to lead their social followers back to a video talk they put on, he notes, and provided “a great channel to allow a video of that event to live forever.”

This is the first of two installments, the second of which will appear in next week’s edition.

Source: CustomerThink

• Providing a website for companies to find and license unpatented materials using a ready-to-go contract.
• Allowing a company to pay online through Pay.gov and receive the materials from the lab quickly.
• Providing faster turnaround time and simplifying the process for companies to find research materials available from NIH labs.

“We were hearing that it was taking too long for us to license out our unpatented research material to companies, and our workload is so heavy here that it made sense for our seasoned professionals to focus on patented commercial licenses rather than those for unpatented materials for internal research,” explains Bonnie Harbinger, PhD, deputy director of the NIH Office of Technology Transfer. “We thought if we created an e-licensing experience, then the materials would flow out automatically without a licensing manager or company having to spend the time and effort negotiating back and forth, while at the same time providing a platform to display the materials, because we did not have them displayed anywhere else.”

Harbinger asserts that eRMa is the first of its kind. “Nobody else has a system like this,” she claims. “This is an online ordering process from beginning to end.” Some universities, she notes, have sites potential licensees can visit to review unpatented material, “but then they have to go to the licensing person,” she points out. “This is all in the system — they don’t have to go to a person, negotiate, or wait for the call back.”

As opposed to click-through licenses, she continues, “what’s unique is the entire ordering process goes through on the site — not just the license you agree too, but ordering, payment and the validation process.”

A detailed article on this automated approach appears in the January 2012 issue of Intellectual Property Marketing Advisor. For subscription information, CLICK HERE.

To promote the center’s debut, the university is offering a course aimed at “kindling the spirit of entrepreneurship” by bringing a mix of expert speakers to cover the specifics of AMD heterogeneous computing technology, while also providing how-to background on entrepreneurship, commercialization and start-up creation. At the completion of the course, students will submit projects which will be evaluated for potential funding opportunities through the AMD Fusion Fund and IllinoisVENTURES.

Rob Schultz, senior director of IllinoisVENTURES and a partner of the Illinois Emerging Technologies Fund, says, “we are encouraging the university community to think big about what’s possible through software and web services by focusing on the creative aspects. The AMD Fusion Center of Innovation will provide a spark for new software and web ideas as students receive hands-on access to AMD APU technology and learn how to enable richer user experiences using heterogeneous computing.”

Source: MarketWatch

“In looking at our mission to transfer technology we realized that some of our gaps are really information gaps,” says Cheryl A. Fragiadakis, department head, technology transfer and intellectual property management. “Unless the investors, small business start-ups and major companies know about what we have to offer, there will not be that much progress we can make in putting together partnerships.”

As much as her department thinks that scientific publications and posting technologies on the lab’s website are getting the message out, she adds, “there are other modes people use to consolidate and translate that message in ways they consider to be most useful.”

The blog format, which was initiated by Jon R. Weiner, manager of communications and media relations, “will help to translate some of our scientific breakthroughs into accessible language to start conversations with companies and investors,” Fragiadakis asserts.

Weiner adds: “We have a very successful TTO, but on the communications side we look for a more conversational way of highlighting some of those technology opportunities. We’re story tellers, and there’s a lot of interesting technology available that people do not always know about; for us it is part of telling our story — that’s a lot of what we do as a national lab.” A detailed article on the new marketing effort appears in the January 2012 issue of Intellectual Property Marketing Advisor. For subscription information, CLICK HERE.

1. Forgetting to follow up: “There is a fine line between calling and e-mailing a reporter non-stop until they answer you, and leaving a friendly voicemail reminding them about your pitch or sending over a short e-mail following up,” notes Sprung. “Give them a day or two to think about the e-mail, and then make your contact. But most importantly, keep track of who you follow up with so you do not contact those who have already said ‘no.’”
2. Pitching at the wrong time: On a Friday afternoon your e-mail will not only get lost in the other mass e-mails from the week, but journalists will also not want to talk to you, says Sprung; it is almost the weekend, and many people will already be out of the office. “It is also important to figure out what times the reporters are on deadline because they will not be interested in hearing new pitches; they’ll be busy finishing up some of their other stories,” she adds.
3. Depending solely on press releases: Press releases used to be the best way to get out messages about new developments, but in a world dominated by social media and short messages, press releases are not always the most successful way to announce something new, Sprung cautions. “Combining press releases with e-mail pitches that have bullet points of the main information in the press release can be the perfect combination to get the press you are looking for,” she says.
4. Not conducting research about a reporter: “When you are pitching a reporter, make sure you are knowledgeable about his or her past articles,” Sprung advises. “Research what topics he or she likes to write about and whether or not the reporter has written about competitors.”
5. Not doing background research on your industry: “It is important to know a lot of information about your own industry, competitors, and other press in these areas,” says Sprung. “Before you get on the phone with a reporter, know all of this information like the back of your hand so your answers aren’t generic, but rather speak to the meaty topics in your industry.”
6. Making careless mistakes: Careless mistakes usually guarantee your e-mail goes right in the trash or your voicemail is deleted, Sprung warns. “In addition to proofing for grammatical errors, make sure you’re not misspelling a reporter’s name in a pitch, using the wrong news source, or point blank including incorrect information,” she says.
7. Not personalizing your pitch: No one wants to be on the receiving end of mass communication, Sprung notes. “Every pitch should make the reporter feel like he or she is special and that you put a lot of thought into a pitch that was appropriate for just one reporter,” she says. “Whether that means referencing past articles that the reporter has written or connecting with them via Twitter or other social media networks, it is a necessary step to get their attention.”

Source: Innovation America

That’s where an effective outsourcing strategy can help, as a growing number of TTOs are discovering. When structured and managed effectively, outsourcing can assist in getting more IP assessed, developed, and licensed while freeing up staff time and helping solidify faculty relations. And it can save money too — lots of money — by replacing high-cost vendors with less expensive offshoring options that maintain quality while stretching your budget dollars. On February 28th you can learn the ins and outs of outsourcing success from a team of experts in this practical distance learning program: How to Outsource and Offshore TTO Activities for Huge Savings and Efficiency Gains. Our program faculty will share their outsourcing success stories and provide you with usable takeaways you can implement immediately to start chipping away at your backlog and bring more technologies to the marketplace. For complete program and faculty details or to register, CLICK HERE.

AND DON’T MISS THESE UPCOMING WEBINARS:

• Thursday, January 26th: Life Under AIA: Anticipating and Surviving Post Grant Challenges
• Wednesday, February 15th: Licensee Red Flags: 12 Critical Signs that Should Trigger an Audit

She cites these tips, taken from 1979’s The Elements of Style by William Strunk and E. B. White, as “most useful” for creating energetic and interesting posts:

• Write in a way that comes naturally. Even if you’re in a highly technical field, write using a conversational tone and language, Hoppe suggests. Stiff, formal writing — the kind of writing you may have done for college papers — is difficult and uncomfortable to read and distances you from your audience.
• Do not overwrite. Get your point across, then stop.
• Put statements in positive form. Instead of saying, “You’re not going to lure many prospects with poorly written content,” change it to “You’ll lure more prospects with well-written content.”
• Make every paragraph a unit of composition. Strunk and White say you should begin each paragraph with either a sentence that tells the reader what the paragraph’s topic is, or with a sentence that helps the transition from the last paragraph. Every subsequent sentence, they add, should move the paragraph’s topic along toward a conclusion.
• Use an active voice. Instead of, “My first trip to Europe will always be remembered by me as fascinating,” write, “I’ll always remember my first trip to Europe as fascinating.”
• Use definite, specific, concrete language. Strunk & White use this example: Rather than “A period of unfavorable weather set in,” write “It rained every day for a week.” The second is clearer and more powerful, notes Hoppe.
• Omit needless words. Words that don’t add to your meaning detract from what you’re writing. Instead of “We will try to determine whether or not continuing the program in question is beneficial in the long-term,” write “We will determine if we need to continue the program.”
• Edit, edit, edit. Once you think your post is done, put it aside for half an hour, say Strunk and White. Then, go back and read it again.
• Write your headline first. By writing your headline before the content, they note, you clarify to yourself what you’re going to deliver to the reader, and keep yourself on track as you write.

Source: Business 2 Community

And if you’re not ready to invest in getting your own app yet, Simon says you should consider implementing these easy mobile marketing ideas:

• Make your website mobile-compatible: As an easy entry point, get your website optimized for mobile phones, Simon suggests. “It’s now easy to make your website small screen-friendly,” he says. “If you’re using WordPress, there are several free and premium plugins available.”
• Join mobile directories: Getting listed in a few mobile directories easily puts your business “on the mobile map,” Simon says. “The new Google Places offers one such opportunity,” he notes.
• Create a mobile website: “Someday soon, every business will need two versions of their website — one for computer users, the other for the mobile/wireless crowd,” Simon predicts. “Services such as Mofuse and Mofuse Premium and mobiSiteGalore offer mobile site design services.”
• Build traffic with location-based app marketing: Many local retailers, restaurants, charities and nightclubs tie-in with apps like FourSquare and Yelp to attract mobile customers, notes Simon.
• Start mobile advertising: Local mobile advertising on Google is a low-cost way to reach more customers, says Simon. “Bid only on what you’re willing to pay, either paying per click (PPC) or per phone call from a prospect,” he suggests. “You can even target multiple mobile devices, ranging from high-end smart phones to standard cell phones.”
• Connect via text message short codes or QR codes: “Most exciting are Quick Response (QR) codes — i.e., the new bar codes,” says Simon. “QR codes can be read by mobile phones. We increasingly see QR Codes in magazine ads; on web pages, billboards, and lawn signs; and even on T-shirts.” Once a mobile user scans your QR code, he explains, it’s easy to connect in real-time, sending the users coupons, announcements of events, RSS feed updates, and more.

To better meet the mobile crowd’s needs, Simon adds, pay keen attention to your mobile web analytics. “Google Analytics and similar programs can track mobile web traffic on a basic level,” he notes. “For finer metrics plus actionable detail for site optimization, use a more advanced SEO platform like Ginzametrics, which complements and integrates nicely with GA, Omniture or CoreMetrics. With Ginzametrics, you’ll discover the exact search terms that ‘hidden’ mobile visitors are using to land on your site. This analytics program also shows details of referred traffic from the top three search engines in 35 global markets. The Ginza dashboard even recommends an array of improvements you should make, to better optimize your web and mobile pages for more traffic.”

Source: Technorati

• Royalty Rates for Technology, 4th Edition
• Royalty Rates for Technology: Medical Devices and Diagnostics Edition
• Royalty Rates for Technology: Computers and Communications Edition
• Royalty Rates for Pharmaceuticals & Biotechnology, 7th Edition
• Royalty Rates for Trademarks & Copyrights, 4th Edition
• Royalty Rates in Copyright Agreements: Guide to Full-Text Copyright Agreements
• Royalty Rates in Biotech: Guide to Full-Text Licensing Agreements
• Licensing Trade Secrets: Overview and Sample Agreements

“Google+ is the new kid on the social media block,” explains Jason McDonald, senior SEO and social media director. “We see opportunities in Google+ for small businesses to establish themselves as ‘gurus’ on particular topics and to integrate social search into their SEO opportunities.” Among the topics covered in the webinar/video are:

• What is Google+? The session explains how to set up an effective Google+ page for an individual and how to integrate that individual page with a business page.
• What does it mean to be a guru on Google+? The session explains how individuals can position themselves as leaders in a field of knowledge and leverage Google+ to reach out to their followings.
• How do you leverage Google+ for social search? The session explains how Google is integrating search with social media, and how Google+ enables a business to leverage its customers and fans to spread virally through social media and SEO techniques.

Source: PR Web

She offers these six tips for improving your SEO in the New Year:

On-page Factors: Make sure title tags and meta descriptions read well. “Gone are the days of the mechanical title tags and meta-descriptions: conversational, catchy and well-written title tags and meta-description are incredibly important for SEO success now,” says Baumwell. “For those who were reluctant to spend a little extra time on these on-page factors, carving out creative time to do so might be a good (albeit, slightly late) resolution.”

Improve the relevancy of off-page factors: Link-building. Link-building is as important as ever, but with the Panda update, higher quality links are paramount, notes Baumwell. Further, she says, these links should be relevant to your site, and spammy links should be avoided at all costs. “Rather than simply building links for your highest priority keywords, be sure to focus on branding as well,” she advises. “And make sure to go after quality over quantity when it comes to link-building.”

Create high-quality content… and keep creating. “As Panda continues to be run, content will continue to rein over the land of SEO, and if you aren’t consistently creating fresh and unique content, you will be expelled from the kingdom,” cautions Baumwell. “Create content that users will want to read and engage with, comment on and share with their friends and colleagues; spend some time getting to know your audience before beginning to write, and you might notice improvement.”

Implement the Rel=Author markup. How do you prove the authority of your content? “Well, you use the rel=author markup (if Google approves you, that is),” says Baumwell. “This necessitates having a Google+ profile, and linking it to an author page on your blog. With a clear headshot, someone who has the rel=author tag correctly set up will likely see his or her information show up in the SERPs when his or her blog posts come up in the results.”

Get social, especially on Google+. “Think about it — Google wants to create a good experience for the user,” says Baumwell. “Isn’t it evident that users want to hear from a company, if that company is engaging and interactive with its customers and therefore popular on social media? If, last year, you knew this but didn’t act on it, maybe it’s time to take the proverbial leap of faith and get to work on social media monitoring and marketing.” This is especially true when it comes to Google+, she notes, “which we know impacts the rankings on the SERPs signed in Google users see. Plus, posts made on Google (like, say, from a business page) tend to show up pretty high in the search results.”

 Focus on local and mobile. “With an ever-increasing number of people using cell phones and tablets to access the Internet, SEO has had to adapt to a correspondingly growing local audience,” notes Baumwell. “Focusing on local keywords and mobile optimization will be one key to success in the coming year.”

Source: EverSpark Interactive

By readily identifying licensee red flags, you can avoid that risk and recoup lost royalties, as well as optimize the efficiency of your audit process by focusing your attention on those licensees with the greatest chance of finding errors, omissions, and underpayments. That’s why Technology Transfer Tactics’ Distance Learning Division has teamed up with a nationally respected expert to host a 60-minute webinar, coming February 15th, that will be jam-packed with proven tactics and strategies: Licensee Red Flags: 12 Critical Signs that Should Trigger an Audit. Attendees will hear royalty audit expert Daniel Burns, president of DBA, share his top 12 signs that should trigger the audit process — as well as the rationale behind them and the critical audit procedures needed to ferret out mistakes and missing dollars. For complete details and to register, CLICK HERE.

ALSO COMING SOON:

• Tuesday, January 17: Transform Your TTO Into an Economic Development Engine
• Thursday, January 26: Life Under AIA: Anticipating and Surviving Post Grant Challenges

“We’re trying to get the faculty engaged and the audience to realize that this is not a daunting process at all, but one they can go through step by step,” explains Kimberly Mayer, PhD, MBA,

technology commercialization counselor for the SBTDC (which is administered statewide by NC State on behalf of The University of North Carolina System). “We’ve presented workshops on these sorts of topics a number of times, and they’ve always seemed a little dry. Usually the format has included an IP attorney, someone for the TTO, and someone from our group, each of whom has talked for 15 minutes to half an hour. We tried to think of a way to make it a little more real.”

In the slide presentation, she notes, Joe the Researcher — a cartoon character — has a new ‘whiz-bang’ idea he’s come up with that he thinks could be commercialized, but he wonders, where do I go from here? “We send him to the TTO, we initiate market research, some of which he informally does himself; we have him consider engaging students in the process; and working with TTO staff in market research,” Mayer explains. “We also send him on his way networking, and through the entire commercialization process.” A detailed article on this creative faculty education strategy appears in the January 2012 issue of Intellectual Property Marketing Advisor. For subscription information, CLICK HERE.

LinkedIn

Company pages: While company profile pages have been available for some time now, LinkedIn continues to evolve features, notes Lewis. Most recently, status updates were added (replacing the optional Twitter feed). “Until social management platforms like HootSuite perfect the API plug-in, companies must manually post updates via login,” he notes. Another useful feature is the Recommend API, which is a snippet of code added to your product and service pages on your website, which then link to an associated description on your LinkedIn profile, adds Lewis. “The feature allows customers to review or recommend specific products or services from either location, which are then displayed in the company page.”

Advertising: “Far too few companies have taken advantage of LinkedIn’s ad platform,” says Lewis, “but our initial tests clearly demonstrate the potential ROI. A few months ago, Anvil developed a LinkedIn ad campaign for Axway that generated a 25% conversion rate and the lowest cost per conversion in the history of the company.” When building a campaign, he says, make sure you have compelling content (white papers, research, demos, trials, etc.) that direct to an optimized landing page, or expect low conversion rates.

Google+

Google’s effort to beat Facebook at its own game has come up short to date, says Lewis, but the rapidly evolving platform cannot be ignored by social media marketers for a variety of reasons. “First and foremost, Business Profile pages are now available to a limited audience,” he observes. Here are some other reasons to consider a Google+ marketing strategy:

• Business profile pages are now available to companies with Google Apps for business accounts.

• The Circles feature offers better targeting and segmentation of fans than Facebook.
• Hangouts offer Google Doc and screenshot sharing, in addition to video chat.
• Google will allow personal profiles to be ported over to business profiles (but be sure to proceed with caution, as the data might be sensitive).
• Look for analytics and integration with search and AdWords.
• Seamless integration with Google Apps means a better experience and faster adoption by business users.
• Look for +1 buttons on all forms of content within the Google network.
• Google’s massive database of content and behavior data means more opportunities for insights, connections, and monetization.
• Android phones synch seamlessly to Google+, which means greater usage and adoption.

Source: iMediaConnection.com

While the technology park has attracted millions of dollars in state, federal and private research grants, it contains other major research facilities worth marketing around the nation and beyond, according to Mike Panasko, president of Innovate Anderson, the county-affiliated organization that owns the park. “Marketing will have to be a reflection of what we have on the campus, the talent that’s there,” he asserts. For example, Clemson’s Information Technology Center, the sixth-largest supercomputing site among U.S. academic institutions, is headquartered there, as is the Clemson Computing and Information Technology department, which attracted $18 million in sponsored research in 2011.

“What we’ve learned is there was somewhat of a limiting factor when we say this is the ‘Advanced Materials Center’ — and then what are all these IT resources?” notes Panasko. “It didn’t necessarily make sense; sometimes you have to take a step back.” The center is poised for a name change in the coming months, he reports.

Source: IndependentMail.com

• Increase your commercialization success rate
• Objectively assess and triage your technologies
• Invest your patent, R&D, and marketing budgets more productively
• Avoid the high costs of non-performing technology assets
• Take the guesswork and subjectivity out of investment decisions
• Justify your decisions to faculty and preserve faculty relationships
• Keep politics out of your decision-making
• Back a high percentage of winning technologies

The affordable TechAdvance tool has been carefully tested over years of development and is designed to provide a consistent, organized, and objective system for investing your limited resources in technologies with greatest chance for commercial success. It is available as both a print workbook and online module. For complete details, CLICK HERE.

A November LIINC event, as one example of its activities, brought WVU faculty together with representatives from 22 private companies where defense-oriented product developments are underway, according to Russ Lorince, director of WVU’s economic development efforts.

“It was part matchmaking, part networking, and part social event,” Lorince says. “But it’s all about building an innovation culture.”

Growth in university-industry connections is a national trend, according to LIINC Business Development Manager Lindsay Emery, resulting in part from cuts in both government research funding and industry internal research and development funding.

LIINC is not the only WVU effort in that area, she notes. Others include the addition last year of several industry members to the WVU Research Corp.’s board of directors and the strong emphasis at the university’s Advanced Energy Initiative on faculty-industry collaboration. LIINC program visits to peer institutions considered successful at technology transfer — Virginia Tech, Ohio State University and Carnegie Mellon University so far — have revealed a range of models.

“Administrators need to keep supporting these sorts of efforts, reaching out, showing industry we’re here with open arms, we want to help you, we want to provide services, be a resource to you, build those relationships,” Emery says. “Because it’s all about whom you know.”

Source: The State Journal

Intellectual Property Marketing Advisor,
Vol. 4, No. 12, December 2011

• Start-up funding seen as leading metric for tech transfer efforts. Many TTOs rely on standard metrics such as licensing revenue or number of patents issued to assess their commercialization efforts, but Richard A. Miller, MD, recently named chief commercialization officer and research professor at The University of Texas at Austin, takes a different tack.
• UNH director views TTOs as the ‘original seed stage capitalists.’ Marc Sedam, executive director of the Office of Research Partnerships and Commercialization at the University of New Hampshire, has a unique take on the role of TTOs — which in turn colors the way he markets university IP. “I’ve always looked at tech transfer in a university in ways most people don’t,” he concedes. “We are the original seed stage capitalists — we ‘fund’ ideas.”
• Rutgers pursues diversified approach to generate business partnerships. Rutgers University places a high priority on business partnerships, and because of that it is pursuing several different strategies to strengthen its relationships with industry.
• Aggressive approach doubles university’s invention disclosure rate. An “aggressive” approach to faculty outreach at the University of Manitoba doubled the number of invention disclosures within 19 months and has kept levels high ever since, according to Garold G. Breit, CLP, executive director of the technology transfer office.
•  ‘Beer and Biotech’ fosters ties between industry, university researchers. While in some industries the “buttoned-down” approach still holds sway, that’s apparently not the case in bioscience, as the success of the new “Beer and Biotech” series created by the Virginia Biotechnology Association (VABIO) clearly attests.
• Effective patent landscaping can double as scouting report for potential partners. In the movie “The Paper Chase,” Professor Kingsfield predicts his students will “leave thinking like a lawyer.” While not all IP marketers want, or even need, to become attorneys, “thinking like a lawyer” can be a very good thing.

Facebook: “A significant number of corporations have created fan pages for their companies (if not dedicated pages for specific products, services, or geographies),” notes Lewis. “That said many companies are relying on a junior-level marketing person to create content (or worse yet, syndicating from a blog or Twitter profile).” Here are a few key opportunities Lewis says you should consider when developing a more compelling presence in Facebook:

Dedicated landing tabs: “Consider having an introductory page that outlines a value proposition that results in a ‘like,’” Lewis suggests. “The tab should also take the opportunity to set expectations for the relationship and promote specific campaigns and offers.”

Consumer insights and customer service: “Social media is the world’s largest focus group,” Lewis observes. “So how are you leveraging the opportunity?” 

Advertising: First and foremost, Facebook offers one of the world’s largest consumer databases, says Lewis. “Facebook ads can be targeted so effectively and affordably that it is a strategy that cannot be ignored,” he asserts.

Integration with other social profiles: Twitter, YouTube, and blogs can all be fed to dedicated tabs within your profile page, notes Lewis, further leveraging and integrating the social experience.

Immersive experiences: “Use iframes to create customized Facebook experiences, including videos, animation, and even e-commerce,” Lewis suggests. “Take advantage of Wildfire and NorthSocial apps to get the most from your Facebook presence.”

Twitter: Twitter offers a few unique opportunities for organizations looking to take it beyond syndicated blog or Facebook updates, notes Lewis. Here are a few ideas:

Consumer insights and customer service: “Twitter offers an excellent listening platform for brands interested in learning from customers, prospects, and other constituents,” says Lewis. “Free tools like SocialMention and Twitalyzer offer relatively powerful insights, based on keyword and profile analysis, which help identify trends and influencers.”

Advertising: “For whatever reason, very few audience members I present to on the topic of advanced social media ever raise their hands when I ask if they’ve advertised on Twitter,” Lewis shares. “Considering there are three ways to target and promote your profile or messages to users, there is no compelling reason not to test it.” Here are three basic options cited by Lewis:

• Promoted Accounts:
• Displayed on Twitter homepage
• Target most relevant users by who they are following and target keywords
• 50-cent minimum bid for cost per follower
• Average follow rate of 0.1%-0.3%
• Promoted Tweets:
• Shown on Twitter.com and other Twitter management tools (e.g., HootSuite) through search results and user timeline
• 10-cent minimum bid for cost per engagement (clicks, favorite, retweets, @replies)
• Average engagement rate of 1%-3%
• Promoted Trends:
• Top global trend for 24-hour period
• Users click on trend and land on results page of promoted tweets
• Fixed price of $80,000 for 24 hours
• 70 million impressions on homepage
• 6%-15% tweet engagement.

Source: iMediaConnection.com

While the changes won’t take effect until September 2012, tech transfer professionals and IP practitioners need to quickly get up to speed on the details of this potentially damaging provision. That’s why our Distance Learning Division has teamed up with attorney experts Michael T. Siekman and Ed Walsh from the Wolf Greenfield IP Law Firm to present this hour-long educational webinar: Life Under AIA: Anticipating and Surviving Post Grant Challenges. Join us Thursday, January 26, 2012, when Mr. Siekman and Mr. Walsh will provide a detailed review of the post-grant review provisions, their likely impact, remaining uncertainties as the USPTO deals with implementation, and strategies to begin planning now for both patent drafting and responding effectively to post-grant actions. For complete program details and to register, CLICK HERE.

ALSO, COMING IN JANUARY

• Wednesday, January 18th: Transform Your TTO Into an Economic Development Engine

1. Distribute link building content through e-mail: “Yes, e-mail is mainly about lead generation,” says Bodnar, “but don’t be short-sighted in your lead generation efforts. E-mailing lead generation-based offers is definitely a great idea, but by also distributing content like infographics or awesome blog posts occasionally via e-mail, you can improve the reach and, subsequently, the inbound links and authority of the pages where that content resides.”

2. Optimize for the best lead generation topics: Look at your e-mail data, Bodnar suggests. Which offers and topics have the best open and click-through rates? “If you have been doing e-mail marketing for a while, then you probably have great historical data related to your lead generation efforts,” he notes. “Use this data to help you prioritize your search engine optimization efforts. Then optimize for the top-performing keywords and offers from your e-mail campaigns.”

3. Test offer conversion prior to an e-mail send: You don’t have to e-mail an offer to your list the second it’s completed, says Bodnar. Instead, you can use traffic from search engines, pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, and your blog to take a look at the conversion rate of the landing page and the offer. “Use this data to make tweaks and improvements to the content or its landing page before sending it out to your entire list,” he advises.

4. Use pay-per-click to boost e-mail Click-Through Rate (CTR): “In the crowded world of inbound marketing, your prospects usually need to be exposed to your ideas several times before they will convert,” says Bodnar. “When planning your next big e-mail send for lead generation, plan a PPC campaign that starts the day before and lasts a few days after the e-mail send to help provide additional support for the e-mail and its offer. The awareness built through these PPC ads can help increase click-through rates for your e-mails.”

5. Search Engine Optimize landing pages: Landing pages are key to your inbound marketing success, Bodnar asserts. “Make sure that, beyond sending them out in marketing e-mails, you take the time to optimize the content of your landing pages for search engines,” he says. “This means killer page titles, a great URL structure, and relevant copy optimized with keywords on the page itself.”

6. Focus on e-mail sharing for link building: Part of building links for search engine optimization is getting your content in front of as many people as possible; simply sending out content to build links just isn’t enough, says Bodnar. “Instead, add social sharing links to the content you are promoting in your e-mail,” he recommends. “Include a quick message that also encourages folks to forward the e-mail to their peers.”

7. Use PPC to test e-mail subject lines: “Subject lines are a huge part of e-mail marketing success,” says Bodnar. “Instead of simply guessing which subject line you think will work best, use PPC to collect data on subject line options. Create five subject lines. Run a different PPC ad for each subject line. After you’ve accumulated enough data, determine which subject line had the highest click-through rate, and use it for your e-mail send.”

Source: Innovation America

Likewise, he notes, seed-stage investors don’t know early on if something will succeed. “So, I look at the patent budget as an investment fund; you have to make educated guesses,” says Sedam.

Given that philosophy, Sedam goes beyond traditional metrics when making a “go/no-go” decision. “Of course you want to look at patentability and market factors, but I also look for the same thing the VC looks for; I look for passion,” says Sedam. “I’m just not that bright; I can’t be an expert in everything. I may know more than anyone in the state about drug transport science, but that may be the only thing I’m an expert in because I spent six years running a drug transport company. We can do a basic patent search, but you really need to work with faculty to see what other applications are out there.”

The job of the TTO at this stage, he continues, is to be creative with the inventor and “try out” additional applications. “So we say, ‘If you can do X then maybe you can do Y; we keep on stretching them until they say no,” Sedam shares. But, he continues, that’s not the end of the process. “Three months down the line they may be willing to go out a little farther,” he notes. “Our job is to stretch an idea like a pizza. You might have the most delicious dough, but you want to turn a ‘medium’ into an ‘extra large’ if you can.” A detailed article on UNH’s unique approach to patenting and IP marketing appears in the December 2011 issue of Intellectual Property Marketing Advisor. For subscription information, CLICK HERE.

For example, it can automatically use image analysis and enhanced optical recognition of chemical images and symbols to extract information from patents and literature upon publication. This is a task that otherwise takes weeks and months to complete manually, but can be done rapidly by using this new technology, IBM asserts.

Originally developed by IBM researchers and used to support the company’s patent and IP strategy, SIIP has been used by hundreds of IP experts across IBM for IP management and licensing, according to the company. The system has extracted more than 200 million chemical instances from more than 30 million patents and scientific abstracts and articles from around the globe.

 ”In the competitive R&D environment, it’s critical to respond quickly to changes in the patent landscape and quickly analyze data,” says John Kinney, PhD, a DuPont fellow. “IBM SIIP is a very powerful tool for allowing us to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of our different research programs and to help focus our resources on the most promising areas.”

Source: MarketWatch

• Considers all of the variables that determine IP value;
• Calculates discrete dollar and percentage amounts for IP value variables;
• Calculates IP competitive advantage relative to competing IP;
• Quantifies technical, market and intellectual property risk associated with IP;
• Equalizes return on investment in IP for parties engaged in an IP exchange.

Created by nationally recognized IP law expert Ted Hagelin, the CAV Software yields clear and logical valuation results at an extremely low price when compared with other products or typical consulting fees. The pricing is designed to make valuation expertise more widely available and allow any organization, regardless of budget, to conduct valuation analyses in-house. Under a special agreement with 2Market Information, the CAV system is available for only $350. For complete details and an online demo, CLICK HERE >>>

A tactic is not a strategy: Implementing a marketing plan that focuses on just one tactic is not a strategy, says Bop Design Business Principal Jeremy Durant. “I meet many small business owners who brag about how all their business is through referral or professional networking,” he comments. “That’s a fine strategy if you want to remain stagnant. If you want to grow, you can’t select one marketing tactic like networking and expect to dramatically increase your client pool.” Bop Design recommends a tactical mix that can include web marketing, print advertising, networking, referrals, direct mail, e-mail marketing, and so on.

Marketing and sales alignment: “Marketing may devise a strategy that is not effective in generating or nurturing ideal customer leads for the sales department,” notes Durant. “Marketing’s top priority is helping the sales team perform their job better so a business can generate more revenue.” Bop Design suggests that key sales team members are present in the initial marketing meetings to provide feedback on marketing successes and failures. The sales team can then identify marketing tools that can help them build more credibility with prospects.

Delegate the right tasks: As you plot out marketing strategies for 2012, owners and principals need to remember that typically no one does a better job at selling a firm’s services than they do, says Durant. “Sometimes business owners delegate the wrong tasks to employees,” he asserts. “When they become busy, the owner will hire a sales person while he or she performs administrative tasks, but they are the ultimate brand evangelists.”

Source: SFGate.com

*To be considered for this position you must apply online at: www.inl.gov/careers

Responsibilities

The role of this position is to assist the Sr. Commercialization Manager in establishing strategic, long-term relationships with external customers and with INL management and technical teams in order to promote access to INL facilities, capabilities and intellectual property in a manner that benefits the American economy and competitiveness.

Under the strategic supervision of a Senior Commercialization Manager, manage assigned portfolio of deployable technology and intellectual property (IP) to advance INL’s nuclear energy mission objectives, which includes:

• Building a strategic portfolio of deployable technologies that support lab-wide and nuclear, energy and environment or national homeland security mission strategies;
• Securing and building strategic intellectual property (IP) assets;
• Identifying the best use of IP and deployable technologies ;
• Providing opinions and valuations on potential IP;
• Developing and carrying out deployment strategies that support lab- wide and nuclear mission strategies;
• Defining and executing marketing strategies for the strategic portfolio of technologies and IP;
• Preparing for, carrying out and representing the company in negotiations in a manner consistent with INL’s mission objectives and Technology Transfer policies;
• Reducing negotiations to professionally written, mutually beneficial agreements;
• Identifying and communicating risks of technology transfer decisions to stakeholders/decision makers within the company;
• Mitigating risks of technology transfer decisions to the extent practical;
• Recommending final agreements for approval and execution;
• Managing the agreement life cycle, e.g., modifications, compliance, performance, termination, etc.;
• Understanding and ensuring compliance with policies, procedures, and regulations associated with IP and licenses and related contracts (including conflict of interest and fairness of opportunity); and
• Training INL professionals involved in nuclear mission accomplishment in technology management and intellectual property aspects;

Under the strategic direction of a Senior Commercialization Manager, identify nonfederal technology transfer opportunities and translate such opportunities to working relationships that promote the advancement of INL’s mission, which includes:

• Developing and carrying out nonfederal technology transfer strategies that support energy and environment mission strategies;
• Developing effective working relationships with external customers (including other DOE laboratories, other Battelle organizations, and industry) and with management and technical teams across the INL to enable access to INL facilities and capabilities;
• Preparing for and representing the INL in negotiations in a manner consistent with INL’s mission objectives and policies;
• Reducing negotiations to professionally written, mutually beneficial agreements;
• Recommending final agreements for approval and execution;
• Managing the agreement life cycle, e.g., modifications, termination, close-out, etc.;
• Identifying and communicating risks of nonfederal technology transfer decisions to stakeholders/decision makers within the company; and
• Understanding and complying with policies, procedures, and regulations related to Cooperative Research and Development Agreements (CRADA), Work for Others (WFO) and other technology transfer contractual mechanisms used at the INL.

Personally own and actively engage INL’s technology deployment mission. Brand Technology Deployment as a responsive, professional, high quality and fully integrated organization

Minimum Qualifications :

SP0100: Bachelor’s Degree in relevant technical, legal and/or business field.

SP0200: Bachelor’s Degree and 4 years experience or advanced degree and 2 years relevant experience in relevant technical, legal and/or business field.

Preferred Qualifications: Strong preference towards advanced degrees in technical/science/engineering, business, or law. Experience in commercialization of technology, including experience in contracting, technology transfer and/or intellectual property management highly desired.

Skills/Abilities: The Commercialization Manager must possess the ability to understand and appreciate complex legal issues, understand technical issues, manage multiple tasks and projects under time constraints, and communicate and interface and interact effectively with relevant Laboratory personnel (technical and managerial) and multiple external customers. The Commercialization Manager must be capable of representing the INL professionally during external negotiations. The Commercialization Manager must possess a knowledge and ability to understand financial information and intellectual property valuation techniques, and be willing to assume responsibility for activities of considerable fiscal significance. The Commercialization Manager must be able to initiate tactical actions to accomplish strategic goals, work independently with limited oversight from the Senior Commercialization Manager, and have the ability to engage cross-organizational and cross-disciplinary teams to accomplish technology deployment project goals.

Special Requirements and/or Training:

Certified Licensing Professional status or willingness/ability to obtain certification preferred or equivalent training.

Essential Functions

An Essential Function is a core duty required for the job position which the employee must be able to fulfill, with or without accommodation. Information provided below will be used during the interview to help describe the job so the applicant has a reasonable understanding of the job duties/expectations.

Essential functions include:

• Near Vision
• Typing/keyboard

Environmental, Safety & Health

Must be familiar with, and comply with all relevant health and safety requirements. Must be knowledgeable of emergency action policies and procedures, methods for reporting/resolving work practices or conditions to available cognizant professionals.

Please Apply Before:

January 15, 2012 (Midnight)

Equal Employment Opportunity

INL is an Equal Opportunity Employer M/F/D/V

The Idaho National Laboratory www.inl.gov is involved with a major growth phase and we are currently looking for highly skilled motivated individuals who can contribute and lead in the advancement of our mission in nuclear energy research, science and national defense. With 4,400 scientist, researchers and support staff, the laboratory works with national and international governments, universities and industry partners to discover new science and develop technologies that underpin the nation’s nuclear and renewable energy, national security and environmental missions.

The INL is located in Idaho Falls, ID www.visitidahofalls.com www.visitidaho.org The area is in the heart of some of the best outdoor recreation areas in the world. Access to Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks, Craters of the Moon National Monument, Sun Valley Idaho, scenic Shoshone Falls, Jackson Hole Wyoming, Salt Lake City Utah and areas of Nevada

*******Just a few of the benefits The Idaho National Laboratory can offer*******

Cutting Edge Projects
3.5 Weeks of Vacation (Accrual first year)
Every other Friday OFF! = 9/80 work schedules
Full Medical, Dental, Vision, Life, 401K
90-Hours of Federal Holiday Pay includes 2- Extra Floater Days
Educational Reimbursement Programs
Low cost of living

Reporting to the Executive Director, the Intellectual Property/Patent Manager manages the protection operations of Rensselaer’s intellectual property and is responsible for receiving, processing and managing new invention disclosures; determining patentability of inventions; preparing, filing and monitoring appropriate patent applications in coordination with outside patent counsel; and supporting the licensing efforts within the Office of Technology Commercialization.

Minimum qualifications include a Bachelor’s degree in a field of engineering or physical science, and registration as Patent Agent/attorney with a minimum of five years’ experience in the transactional and patent opinion/analysis, patent preparation and prosecution experience, and interaction with external counsel.

Preferred qualifications are Master’s degree in a field of engineering or physical science, and experience in the licensing of technology.

In order to comply with applicable export control laws and regulations, only candidates who are U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents of the U.S. will be considered.

Qualified candidates are invited to apply online at https://rpijobs.rpi.edu and reference job #20110248.

We welcome candidates who will bring diverse intellectual, geographical, gender and ethnic perspectives to Rensselaer’s work and campus communities.

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer

• E-mail management system: “The big guys work hard to capture your e-mail during any online interaction with you,” notes Ratzlaff. “They’ll reward you, entice you, invite you and engage you, all in an effort to obtain your permission to send you future communications about their products and services via e-mail.” She recommends that you set up an opt-in form on your website and your Facebook fan page, and include the URL for that opt-in page on all printed collateral customers see. 
• Segment the list: “Your most valuable customer or client is one that has already purchased your product or service and is happy,” says Ratzlaff. “Set up your e-mail database management system to allow you to see, at a glance, where any customer joined you. With e-mail database management systems like AWeber, MailChimp and others, you can easily set up multiple lists to reflect their point of entry into your brand, be it Facebook, a live event, a newsletter or an advertisement.”
• Test the opt-in offer: Experiment with different offers to see which one resonates with your customers, Ratzlaff recommends. Do they want discounts on your products? Are they motivated by free content? Do they take action when you make yourself available to them personally? “Test your offers one at a time and see which one(s) motivate people to sign up for your list,” she suggests.
• Internet commercials: “This is a fancy way to say add video to your marketing toolkit,” says Ratzlaff. “You can create video without spending a dime. Demonstrate something and capture it in video form using the built in software on your computer.” With Apple’s Keynote, she says, you can capture your presentations and upload them to YouTube and embed the video to your website. “For a relatively modest investment, you can install Camtasia or ScreenFlow and easily create video demonstrations of your activities online,” Ratzlaff adds. “You can upload still photos and add text and create a professional looking 30 second spot using Animoto, all for free, or you can purchase a pro account with much more flexibility for just $249.”
• Google Analytics account: “You simply must know which of your marketing activities, launches and product offerings are driving interest,” Ratzlaff asserts. “A Google Analytics account will tell you the number of hits your website is getting, how long people are staying on your site, which pages they are viewing, where they’re coming from (key information), where they are located and a variety of other information. This is a free tool and a must-use for all small businesses and entrepreneurs.”
• Social communications platform: A very wide variety of free broadcasting and communications platforms are available and easy to use, Ratzlaff notes. “Try Tumblr, Facebook fan pages, Twitter, YouTube, WordPress, Blogger to name a few,” she says.
• Facebook ads: “There is no budget too small to use Facebook ads,” says Ratzlaff. “I have clients who are budgeting as little as $20.00 a day and paying an average of $0.07 per click.” The price per click and the final costs depend on the keywords and competition for those words on Facebook during a given time period, she notes.

Source: Business Insider

Two universities that stand out as proactive examples of how to meet the economic development challenge. Rutgers University and the University of Maryland have each created a dedicated economic development office, and are actively employing creative strategies to stimulate economic impact and measure their results. Rutgers’ Dr. Michael J. Pazzani and UMD’s Brian Darmody will share their methods, challenges, successes, and measurement strategies in a webinar scheduled for January 18th: Transform Your TTO Into an Economic Development Engine. For complete program details and to register, CLICK HERE.

ALSO, COMING THIS FRIDAY:

• How Your University’s Innovations Can Become a Fixture in Big Pharma’s Pipeline — Friday, December 16, 1:00-2:30 pm (Eastern Time)

“We’d been doing a lot of events that were pretty standard — people would pay for a ticket, come to a reception, and we’d get CEOs and directors of business development,” recalls Mark Herzog, executive director of the non-profit trade association, whose members include bioscience and device organizations, as well as universities and TTOs. “One CEO of a member company in Charlottesville said there were a whole lot more companies and more people engaged in biosciences, and it would be really beneficial if they got together more frequently and even more people came.”

So, the idea was hatched for VABIO to “throw a party,” in the belief it would generate higher attendance and get more industry players involved. The first event, co-sponsored by oncology drug developer Tau Therapeutics, LLC, drew 65 people.

The concept is simple: No tickets are sold; attendees just show up. The event features kegs of beer, appetizer on a few tables, but no bartenders. “It is meant to be very relaxed and purely social; there are no speakers — it’s not a ‘think and drink,’” says Herzog.

This “non-sales-ey” approach has clearly caught on. Two months ago 160 attendees showed up to an event that featured a live band, as well as some curious elected officials who came by to see what all the fuss was about. “Now they take place all over the state,” says Herzog. A detailed article on this approach appears in the December 2011 issue of Intellectual Property Marketing Advisor. For subscription information, CLICK HERE.

Pitch e-mails: While pitching to publications through e-mail is traditional and time consuming, it’s also an effective way to reach reporters and journalists, notes Lopez. “You can often find their e-mails on the publication’s mastheads online; however, being efficient and following up are key to getting a reporter’s attention,” she says. Here are some things to remember when pitching reporters with whom you haven’t already established a relationship.

• Catch their attention with the subject line. “If you don’t capture their attention with the subject line it will get lost in the abyss of their inbox,” Lopez cautions. “Make it enticing but avoid generic sales words such as unique, amazing, viral, state-of-the-art, solution, free, and, ironically enough, NOT SPAM.”
• Don’t send a mass e-mail. “Mass e-mails are highly offensive, so personalize the e-mail by addressing the writer by name, and make sure that you are e-mailing a writer who reports on a beat that aligns with your pitch,” says Lopez.
• Follow up with a phone call. “If you don’t follow up, your e-mail may be overlooked, so pick up the phone and call directly,” Lopez advises.

Look for opportunities: Always look for opportunities by doing consistent news sweeps of your industry, Lopez recommends. “Set up Google alerts for key words that pertain to your business and industry, and stay up to date with your favorite writers and publications,” she suggests.

Source: NOLA.com

Package marketing and promotion to launch your app: Regardless of the initial “cool” factor or appeal that drew the user to download, you must implement an ongoing plan to not only continue generating downloads, but also to sustain and increase the amount of time consumers spend using the app, says Lynn. Without engagement, your app is a virtual pet rock.

Understand your target audience and similar apps they’re already using: “Think you’re the first to offer a unique app in your industry? Think again,” says Lynn. “But, piggy backing off of successful trends and tactics is smart, efficient and appreciated by consumers,” he adds. “The mobile coupon industry, for example, is slated to be worth $46 billion by 2016. Jump on the bandwagon.”

Assign responsibility and empower app managers: “Google’s Eric Schmidt said it best – ‘Put your best people on mobile,’” Lynn shares. “All major media channels are headed to mobile — music, gaming, news, television, advertising. Heck, even money, from coins to banking to credit cards, is headed to a phone near you.”

Continually provide relevant and current content: “The three tips to a successful app are ‘relevance, relevance, relevance’ (and great functionality and user interface, of course),” says Lynn. “Mobile influence is similar to social media influence — the sponsor must continually update its content and always provide fresh incentive and reason to users to engage.”

Study your analytics and adjust accordingly: “It’s okay to fail, but learn how to do so quickly,” Lynn advises. “Monitor those features that generate the greatest use. What content do users share? What offers and ads do users ignore?” This will help determine which features need improvement, investment or even deletion, he notes.

Source: Marketing Daily

The company’s Tech Transfer University subscription program allows you to customize your training to match your organization’s specific needs while saving significantly on the cost of each program. You choose the number of programs and the specific sessions you wish to access, and the more you choose, the more you save! Also available is an annual Total Access Pass providing access to any or all of 100+ live and recorded programs. It’s a great way to stretch your professional development budget, eliminate travel costs while enhancing staff expertise, and conveniently get critical guidance on the key issues you must address to boost your performance. For complete details and to view the 2012 schedule of events, CLICK HERE.

Know why you’re making a video: You need to have clear business goals for your video content, or it’s likely going to be a waste of time, Lovellette cautions.

Brevity is a virtue: Lovellette’s rule of thumb for most cases: Two minutes or less. He also recommends including calls-to-action and other interactive elements to keep your audience engaged. However, if you go so minimal that your videos don’t make sense, that’s a problem, he cautions. If you’ve got a ton of worthwhile content, says Lynn, consider breaking it up into a series of shorter videos.

Become a screenwriter: You don’t need Academy Award aspirations; you do need a sturdy script to keep your videos on target, especially when they involve real people speaking on camera, says Lovellette, who adds that a good script could take the form of well-conceived talking points rather than memorized lines. “You’ll want to do some rehearsals and just talk naturally,” he advises.

Don’t skimp on audio: If you’re going to spend the time and energy to create a video, invest in how it sounds, says Lovellette. “[Poor] audio is one of the things that derail a video faster than anything else,” he warns. So get a good microphone and choose a space where you’re assured of quiet — no honking cars or muffled sounds from the office next door.

You don’t necessarily need a fancy camera: Video doesn’t necessarily require a high-tech camera, though when it does, Lovellette notes that the costs of filming in high-definition have decreased dramatically; in a pinch, even some smart phones produce passable video. But for product demos and other how-to content, a screen cast — essentially a video capture of whatever you’re doing on your computer screen — often does the trick. For screencasting, Lovellette offers the following advice: First, record your full screen and, if necessary, shrink it later in the editing process. This helps ensure production quality. Second, turn off reminders and other system notifications that might interrupt an otherwise smooth screencast; forgetting to do so can mean starting over from scratch.

Even Scorsese has an editor. Edit your videos, no matter the content or goal, says Lovellette. At minimum, prowl for any mistakes prior to going live. (Example: Did you forget to introduce yourself by name?)

 Consider standardized intros and outros: Create a standard intro and outro for each of your videos that includes your company name and other critical information, says Lovellette. Done right, this can also save you a good bit of time on each new video you produce.

Don’t forget context: Do anything you can to help people understand what they’re looking at, says Lovellette. Include visual cues that help a viewer intuitively understand what they’re watching — otherwise, they’ll focus on trying to figure it out rather than the content itself. “When they have to think about that and not the message you’re trying to get them, the message gets lost,” Lovellette warns.

Source: Informationweek

As Breit describes it, the approach combines some traditional strategies with others that clearly go above and beyond what most TTOs would do. “The first thing we do is the broadcast communications campaign, which goes to the larger group of community members,” says Breit. “We feel we have 11 or 12 constituencies, including inventors from the past and new inventors we did not previously know.”

Periodically, the TTO will follow up with opinion leaders, which includes deans, department heads, and so on. “That’s help us to get the word out one more time,” Breit explains. These first two tactics, he says, “are things all TTOs do.”

The activities that set the Manitoba TTO apart from others, says Breit, require ongoing activities that are more intense, more targeted, and much more time-consuming. “We want to get in front of every faculty member,” he says, noting that the initial one-on-one meetings take place at the faculty member’s office. At these meetings the tech managers pull out a number of recent patent applications in the field that they have collected. “We want them to see what other people are doing,” Breit explains. “Then we ask them if we can see their manuscripts, which we will mine for IP.” 

The tech manager then re-connects with the faculty member some three or four months down the road. “At that point we will send them new patent applications in their field, and invariably we’ll get a response from them concerning what they’re working on — or that they don’t currently have anything,” says Breit, who reports that faculty members respond 70% to 80% of the time.  A detailed article on U Manitoba’s disclosure strategy appears in the December 2011 issue of Intellectual Property Marketing Advisor. For subscription information, CLICK HERE.

“Even if you don’t have the time, manpower, or funds to execute an extensive PR strategy, there are still ways to promote yourself and stay in a positive light in the public eye,” she says. Here are some tips and resources that can help you become your own publicist, and create traction with the media:

Use social media to build relationships with national publications: “While we all know that social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn have been essential resources for expanding one’s customer base, and sometimes even business development, they can also be key tools in building relationships with people in the media,” says Lopez. “Twitter is a great way to start the relationship. Follow your favorite publications, bloggers, and writers who are reporting about topics that pertain to your business and industry, and be sure to read their tweets often to find opportunities to engage with them.”

Use free and inexpensive media relations tools: If you want to distribute a media advisory or press release to a wide range of media sources, there are several online tools that are free or inexpensive that allow you to post your press release on the site and answer inquiries from reporters looking for leads, says Lopez. They include:

– Free Press Release (free-press-release.com).The site offers paid and non-paid services to help you distribute news about your organization to different media outlets. 

– PRLog (prlog.org) is a free press release distribution and submission service. “You can also create free news alerts to easily monitor the media for news on your organization or opportunities in your market,” adds Lopez. 

– PRWeb (prweb.com) distributes your press releases to every major news site and search engine on the web, notes Lopez. “You can also track your news with detailed analytics. The site is helpful for those who have never written a press release before as helpful tips and advice are offered to help you create your announcement,” she notes. 

– Marketwire (marketwire.com) is another paid service that offers press release distribution, media contact management, multimedia, media monitoring services and other workflow solutions for public relations, investor relations, journalists and other communications professionals. 

Lopez notes these additional sites for media inquiries and reverse pitches:

– HARO (helpareporter.com). It stands for “Help A Reporter Out,” and is a free service that sends its members three e-mails a workday with journalists looking for sources to interview. “If you have a source that fits what they are looking for, you simply reply to the reporter with the relevant information,” notes Lopez. 

– Reporter Connection (reporterconnection.com) is a free online service that connects experts to reporters. “Register as a member of the media or an expert available for media to receive the free daily e-mail,” Lopez suggests. 

– ExpertTweet (experttweet.com). Created about two years ago by journalistics.com, it’s a free tool you can use to tweet your request for additional resources. “The message goes out to about 3,000 ExpertTweet followers, although the number of members is still growing,” says Lopez. “It’s a similar concept to HARO, but limited to the ExpertTwitter realm.”

– NewsBasis (newsbasis.com).“This resource works to help journalists improve their targeting of sources,” says Lopez. “As your media relations tool, however, you can create a profile on the database and position yourself for more interview opportunities.”

This is the first of a two-part series.

Source: NOLA.com

ALSO COMING SOON:

• TOMORROW, December 7th: IP-Included Label Licensing: A Win-Win Model for Maximizing Use of University Technologies
• Tuesday, December 13: Expert Corporate Relations Strategies for Long-Term Industry-TTO Partnerships

Here are some areas Spencer says you should think about when using calls to action throughout various marketing vehicles:

1. ‘Contact us.’ “Don’t forget show this throughout your literature and on every page of your website,” Spencer advises.
2. Give people different methods of contacting you. “This should include live support chat, phone, e-mail and fax if required,” says Spencer.
3. “Prospects who don’t want to engage you immediately might want to follow you on Twitter, add you on LinkedIn or like your Facebook page,” Spencer notes. “Give prospects these options so that you are still on their mind when they make a buying decision.”
4. Look at the highlights of your product offering and ensure that they are prominent within your marketing collaterals. “If you are the market leader in something, the cheapest, best quality or any other competitive edge, tell people; use a call to action,” Spencer suggests.
5. Add special offer messages: lower price, sale price, two for the price of one, and so on.
6. Don’t forget to up-sell. “If you have one product or service that complements another, remember to promote it close to the initial offering,” says Spencer. “For example, training courses in one discipline might link to online training courses for similar disciplines.” 
7. ‘View company video.’ “This is often a synopsis of your entire company wrapped up in two to three beautiful minutes,” notes Spencer. “We still only have 24/7, but we are becoming busier in life. People tend to skim-read brochures, articles and websites now, so an attention-grabbing video can be invaluable.”
8. Chat live. “Most business people of the younger generation will use this as online chat is rife socially,” Spencer observes. “It is now coming more into the business environment, and personally I would always use an online chat feature rather than picking up the phone.”
9. Download free advice. “This can be anything from top ten tips, recipes, user manuals, free coaching — basically anything that will get your market interested,” says Spencer. “These are often entered via a form on a website, where the user has to put their contact details in to access the information. Remember to ask them if they want to opt out of any marketing communication.”
10.  Gadgets, widgets and calculators. “We have developed these for some clients of ours – including fuel calculators, countdown timers and an alcohol usage calculator,” Spencer shares. “In terms of your website, this is the Holy Grail. If done well it creates more links to your site, which helps search engine optimization, increases enquiries, attracts extra traffic and raises your profile as an informative and expert source.”

Source: Rush PR News

Bruemmer says you can make your newsletter more effective by creating a reader-centric publication, following these tips:

1. Create personal copy. “Speak directly to your recipients by expressing a personality that matches your brand, product, or market niche,” Bruemmer suggests. “That means giving your newsletter a voice that might sound like a colleague offering business advice over a cup of java.”

2. Ask recipients to take action. “The heart of your e-mail message is the call-to-action, be it a request for product information, whitepaper download or webinar signup,” says Bruemmer. “B2B newsletters typically focus on product or company information, industry news, or how-to’s and tips on industry opportunities or problem solving of interest to customers.”

3. Segment Your Audience. “Divide your customer database into well-defined segments and sub-segments; then develop content that addresses the needs of these segments,” Bruemmer suggests. “You may not be able to achieve a high level of segmentation; however, you can simply segment by geography. Send one version of the e-mail to your North American audience and a different one to the European and Middle Eastern audience, with yet another version to your Asian audience.”

4. Avoid information overload. “This can happen if you include multiple topics to cover all of your audiences,” Bruemmer warns. “This can turn people off when they don’t have the time to scroll through to read what applies to them. You can focus on different audiences sequentially by offering at least one article in each issue that targets a specific audience.”

5. Create unique landing pages for each article link. “Don’t send readers to your homepage; many are likely to get frustrated and click away rather than try to find the right article,” Bruemmer cautions. “Set up informative landing pages that also link to related information like case studies, press releases, and so on, sending readers deep into your site.”

Source: TopTenWholesale.com

• Percentage of income derived from research grants
• Percentage of faculty who have ever received income from patents/licensing
• Cumulative earnings from patents/licensing
• Perception of fairness in licensing income distribution
• Perception of TTO effectiveness
• Attitudes regarding the TTO
• Number of invention disclosures filed
• Incidence of conflict or disagreement with university over intellectual property
• Perception of clarity in IP-related rules and policies

The report, published by Primary Research Group, is available to e-News readers in print or PDF for just $195. For more details and to order, CLICK HERE.

Here are a few reasons such complaints may arise, says Tobias:

• No one can find your unsubscribe button, but the “Mark as Spam” button is front and center in their e-mail client. Here is Tobias’ solution: Make it easy for your customers to unsubscribe. “Don’t hide the link, but put it somewhere easy to find,” he advises.
• Some people distrust unsubscribe links or can’t remember subscribing to your e-mails. “Remind your subscribers that they did opt-in to your e-mails, and personalize things so it doesn’t feel like you are blindly reaching out,” says Tobias.
• Your message wasn’t relevant. “For us, we send content that speaks to our audience,” Tobias shares. “If we know most of our audience is female and interested in salons, we don’t send a deal for half-off tickets to see Rampage and Kongo duke it out. Segment your subscribers based on their interests and your niche as content creator.”

Source: iMedia Connection

Intellectual Property Marketing Advisor,
Vol. 4, No. 11, November 2011

• Alumni cited as vast untapped resource for TTOs. The good news: Most alumni feel close to their alma maters and are more than willing to help them succeed. The not so good news: a relatively small number of TTOs have developed successful alumni outreach programs.
• Use these strategies and tools to improve IP assessment and triage. The main steps in IP triage and assessment are fairly standard and widely used by TTOs of all types and sizes, but as a webinar recently hosted by Technology Transfer Tactics clearly shows, what sets programs apart is what happens within each of those phases. During the webinar, “Best Practices in IP Portfolio Assessment and Triage,” both presenters agreed it’s critical to access a wide range of expert opinion (i.e., inventors, industry, and research assembled by interns) as quickly as possible.
• Visibility, transparency essential elements of successful faculty outreach. An effective faculty outreach program is essential to the success of any commercialization effort, but it becomes even more critical — and time-sensitive — when a new TTO director arrives from another institution.  Michael P. Straightiff, MBA, who was recently named director of the University of Virginia Patent Foundation after serving as director of biomedical engineering commercialization in Case Western Reserve University’s Technology Transfer Office, is keenly aware of that challenge — and he’s also very clear on how he’ll go about addressing it.
• Look beyond numbers when evaluating your marketing initiatives. While TTO leaders agree that metrics are important tools to use when evaluating your marketing programs, they warn against becoming so wedded to hard numbers that you fail to see the entire picture.
• “UPstart” organization helps nascent companies move toward the market. A number of universities have set up organizations to help launch spinoffs, but in many cases those organizations are separate and distinct from the TTO. At the University of Pennsylvania, however, the UPstart program is part of Penn’s Center for Technology Transfer.

Users can register to be the first to hear about any new technology opportunities from Scotland’s universities via an e-mail alert, and can also follow University Technology on Twitter (@universitytech) or RSS feeds.

“The technology alert system is a wonderfully simple and easy way for me to keep up to date on areas of interest to 3M Healthcare on potential licensing and technology transfer opportunities from Scottish universities,” says Catherine Ramsay, technical specialist at 3M Healthcare. “No need to scan individual websites or newsletters for information in our particular areas of interest as once registered it is automatic. If an alert comes in that looks interesting I can readily get more information to consider or to pass onto colleagues.”

Scottish land remediation company ERS Remediation Ltd. has already seen the advantages of using University Technology. ERS contacted Robert Gordon University after seeing their “Heavy Metal Sensor” technology on the University Technology website. With support through the SFC Innovation Voucher Scheme, the University and ERS are now working on further development of this sensor as well as field trials to prove the technology using real soil samples.

Source: University Technology

• Wednesday, December 7th: IP-Included Label Licensing: A Win-Win Model for Maximizing Use of University Technologies
• Tuesday, December 13: Expert Corporate Relations Strategies for Long-Term Industry-TTO Partnerships
• Friday, December 16: How Your University’s Innovations Can Become a Fixture in Big Pharma’s Pipeline

1. Build up your Facebook fan base, because fan count matters. “For starters, your fan count acts as social proof and can attract new fans,” says Porterfield, adding that it can also increase your traffic. HubSpot recently did a study of 4,000 small businesses and found that those with more than 500 fans saw 3.5 times more traffic than pages with less than 500 fans, she points out. Fan pages with more than 1,000 fans had 22 times more traffic than those with less than 1,000 fans.

2. Use Facebook engagement ads to build a quality fan base quickly. “Facebook engagement ads . . . promote and increase the exposure of your Facebook page. So you are not running ads that are linking to external pages, say a sales page outside of Facebook, but instead you are keeping your target audience inside Facebook and driving them to your fan page,” says Porterfield. When you set up an engagement ad, the key is to create an ad that grabs your audience’s attention with a thought provoking call to action, she continues. ”For example, if I were a personal trainer, I might create an ad that says, ‘Click Like if you struggle to find time to work out regularly,’” Porterfield says. “When someone clicks the Like button in the ad, they automatically become a fan of my Facebook Page.”

3. When using ads, send people to a custom tab — never to your page’s wall. “Since conversations are happening on your wall at any given time, it’s confusing for someone who lands there for the first time before being introduced to your business,” Porterfield says. “Most importantly, this custom tab allows you to give a call-to-action and encourage the potential fan to click the like button.”

4. Focus your landing tab on getting the “like,” then reward your fan with the “reveal tab.” When you attract potential fans to your custom welcome tab, keep things simple and focus only on encouraging them to click the “like” button, Porterfield says. Then, you can create something called a ‘reveal tab’ that changes and reveals new information once they’ve “liked” your page. The reveal tab might offer an opt-in giveaway you’ve set up, or a free report or maybe a free video series, in exchange for their name and e-mail.

5. Engage your fans. “Facebook uses an algorithm to score engagement activities, and they are monitoring if people are engaging with your posts,” Porterfield says. “That means if you rarely get your fans to engage with your posts . . . Facebook takes note and may decide that your posts are not important enough to send out into the news feeds of all your fans.”

Here are three ways to engage your audience, according to Porterfield:

• Ask easy questions: When you ask a question, make sure that it won’t take a lot of effort to answer it.
• Mix things up: Of course you should talk about your industry and your business, but it’s also important to throw some fun in there, too.
• Use fans’ names: Using your fans names can go a long way in growing real relationships, says Porterfield. This small gesture makes people feel heard and adds a personal touch.

Source: Fast Company

When UPstart begins working with start-ups, he notes, they are what he calls ‘virtual’ companies. “We’ve worked with over 50 faculty members in the past two years to start companies, but they are not really companies,” he says. “We seek to get an entrepreneur on board and get them funded — that’s the goal. While one aspect of tech transfer is to provide translational research dollars back to the university, our goal of commercialization is to turn research into a product and to help society.”

In almost all cases, says Poisel, the faculty member is discussing commercial strategies with their licensing officer and they or the officer will bring up the possibility of starting a company and furthering their research. “We understand that many of our inventions are very early stage — maybe too early to get a license,” he notes. “If the company can exist to the point of incubating the technology to where it’s licensable, that’s great.”

The first thing UPstart does, he says, is to file in the state of Delaware to create a company for the inventors. “Then we begin the process of assisting them in working towards an SBIR, registering them with any agencies we think are necessary, and we hire a consultant to help them write the proposal; that’s the first step,” notes Poisel. However, he continues, “if we stop there we’re simply creating a research vehicle. In order to create a company, we also need to look for an entrepreneur, because the faculty will not be running it.” A detailed article on the UPstart approach appears in the November 2011 issue of Intellectual Property Marketing Advisor. For subscription information, CLICK HERE.

After helping a diverse group of brands boost their mobile presence, Faletski says he’s seen firsthand what works and what doesn’t work when it comes to the mobile web. Here are some ways he says you can improve the success of your e-mail campaigns in an increasingly mobile world:

1. Subject and sender name matter. “Too often marketing teams labor over each word in the body of the e-mail, only to leave the subject and sender fields as afterthoughts,” says Faletski. “Each element of the e-mail is a small conversion opportunity.” Use a recognizable name or brand in the “from” field, he recommends, and use your subject line as effectively as possible. “Keeping it under 30 characters (including spaces) is best, and phrase your subject as a promise of what can be found when the recipient opens the e-mail,” Faletski offers.
2. Simple beats pretty. HTML e-mail will fall flat in many situations on mobile devices, warns Faletski. “With limits and caps on mobile data plans, many users choose not to download images as a default setting or as a selection in each e-mail,” He notes. “Graphics often can fail to load, leaving the recipient with an incomplete message or a hole in their e-mail message.” Accordingly, he says, consider sending plain text e-mails. “In particular, consider plain text e-mails for system messages, such as account activations, password retrievals, alerts, or anything else that you need to be sure gets into people’s hands,” he adds.
3. Be brief. On mobile devices, displays are small so each line is precious real estate, says Faletski. “Get your message as high up in the e-mail as possible even if it means foregoing fancy graphics,” he suggests. “The same goes for sentences and paragraphs. Keep them short, crisp and active.”
4. Optimize the site behind the e-mail. “When your e-mail succeeds and the recipient clicks through with their mobile device, what do they find on your website?” poses Faletski. “How easy is it for them to take those critical next steps while still on a mobile device?” As a marketer, he continues, you know you worked hard to get that first click. There’s no reason to lose the conversion on the second click by requiring the recipient to revisit your e-mail at a later time from their computer because your website is not mobile optimized.
5. Early birds catch worms. E-mail is often checked first thing in the morning, usually from a mobile device, notes Faletski. “Sending your e-mails overnight or early in the morning can help you reach your audience before the day has started and they’re hit with countless distractions,” he observes.
6. Create a sense of urgency. “We’ve found that mobile shoppers are typically focused on purchasing or researching a specific item,” says Faletski. “If something is on sale and limited in quantity, mobile consumers will want to take advantage and will want to share the opportunity with others.”

Source: Econsultancy

• Trade Secret Value Sources
• Trade Secret Floor Value
• Factors that Prolong Trade Secret Value
• Factors that Kill Trade Secrets
• Inadvertent Disclosures
• Trade Secret Agreement Terms

In Licensing Trade Secrets you’ll also find examples of actual license agreements that incorporate trade secrets. By reviewing these real-world documents, you’ll learn how other organization characterize and monetize their trade secrets and enhance the overall value of their technologies. For details and to order, CLICK HERE.

To improve online discovery of your business blog’s content, Odden offers a few key questions to ask for an “Optimize and Socialize” blog strategy:

• Who is the blog intended to influence? Prospects, customers, employees, industry analysts, reporters, bloggers?
• What content will your blog offer that will meet target audience needs?
• How will addressing those customer needs and telling the brand story manifest as a blog content plan?
• What search keywords and social topics are relevant to your target audience?
• Where does your blog content fit in the customer lifecycle of communication with the brand?
• If the blog content is properly optimized and socialized, how will it influence (directly or indirectly) measurable business outcomes?

Interest in your blog is related to your blog’s interest in readers, notes Odden. “One of the reasons business blogs fail at being optimized and socialized is that their content tends to be very brand-centric,” he asserts. “Most business blog posts talk about the brand, its products and services, without a lot of consideration for customer perspectives and language.”

Conversely, he continues, a search and social optimized business blog develops and participates in social communities online, offline, internally and externally. To do that, he notes, blog editors need to figure out where the great ideas and stories are in the company.

“All this said, it’s not enough simply to have an optimized and socialized blog content plan that aligns brand solutions and ideas with those of your target audience,” says Odden. “To tap into a high quality stream of customer-centric content ideas for your business blog, it’s essential to engage relevant social communities. Ask them questions, crowdsource content ideas, and give those who participate recognition and repeat. By shining a light on the awesome within your community, you’ll provide the fuel of positive reinforcement to motivate fans and customers to partake in both content creation and promotion.”

Source: Top Rank Blog

Les Field, deputy chancellor at UNSW, notes that “80% of [the university’s] intellectual property is typically never commercialized and never finds its way into productive uses in the community.” By adopting U Glasgow’s Easy Access IP model, the school hopes to provide a streamlined licensing process and attract more industry partners. Field calls it a more “liberal approach” to managing IP. To gain access, licensees will need to provide:

• a statement of intent, discussing the market and social need for the technology;
• an outline of development plans and “critical milestones” over a three-year period; and * explain how they intend to maintain an ongoing engagement with UNSW.

Once a license is granted, licensees must acknowledge UNSW as the originator of the IP and report annually on the progress of their development.

According to John Fairburn, an intellectual property lawyer at Minter Ellison in Sydney, the model could attract investment in patents that might otherwise sit dormant, and could help raise the research profile of the university. “The system makes sense if they have a large patent portfolio,” he observes. “It is expensive to prosecute and maintain those patents on a global basis. If you make a subset of your portfolio available for free, you essentially allow the market to choose the ones that are worth investing in.”

He also notes that UNSW does not seem to be insisting on controlling improvements in the licensed inventions, or the basis on which they can be exploited. “You often see a different approach in free licensing schemes,” he notes. At present, this new approach is not mandatory – researchers can opt out if they wish to pursue a tradition path to commercialization.

Source: COSMOS Magazine

ALSO COMING SOON:

• Tuesday, November 29: Reap the Benefits of a Strong Post-License Monitoring System
• Wednesday, December 7th: IP-Included Label Licensing: A Win-Win Model for Maximizing Use of University Technologies
• Friday, December 16: How Your University’s Innovations Can Become a Fixture in Big Pharma’s Pipeline

“A strong program helps to streamline the process and enables you to provide documents and a game plan to be used for internal and external stakeholders,” said Zachary Miles, Esq., associate director of the University of Utah Technology Commercialization Office. The internal stakeholders, he explained, want to know what you’re going to do with their invention, while the external stakeholders want to know what the invention is, what it will take to get to the next level, what it will cost, and what resources the university has to help it along. By the same token, he noted, it’s just as important to get feedback from both groups.

Speed is also of the essence, he continued. “If you can assess IP fairly quickly you can identify those innovations that are not ready to go through to commercialization,” he notes. “Then the process can be turned back to the researcher, or you can develop a specific game plan to get the IP to where it’s ready to be protected and commercialized.”

To help in this process, the Utah TTO uses an intern pool of five or six paid individuals that includes students in law, science, and business. “They are our core team,” said Miles. “We try to hire at least a couple who have expressed a desire to be around awhile, and we train them to be the next leaders of this program. We also have a relationship with other departments and graduate assistant programs that provide scholarships for them to come in and help us to assess technologies.” A detailed article on IP assessment and triage appears in the November 2011 issue of Intellectual Property Marketing Advisor. For subscription information, CLICK HERE. And for details on ordering the recorded webinar “Best Practices in IP Portfolio Assessment and Triage,” CLICK HERE.

She offers the following tips for successful video marketing:

• Know your audience: Just like in sales, mirroring your audience is important in a promotional video, notes Izzo. “Know your desired prospect and match your dress and delivery to this audience,” she suggests.
• Plan the shoot: Izzo says you must plan ahead to nail the style of the shoot. Will it be a series of interviews? What will be the location? What do you want to be the audience’s takeaway? “Plan this out ahead of time and you will save time and resources during the actual shoot,” she notes.
• Script, but don’t over script: “Just like any other marketing tactic, content is king,” says Izzo. “Don’t sound like you are reading your brochure; make the video conversational.  Know your target audience and speak to their needs and interest. Give them valuable content.”
• Production value can make or break a video: Use a tripod to avoid “shaky camera syndrome,” Izzo suggests. Also, take some test shots to check lighting. “You may want to block the sunlight coming through the windows to avoid looking washed out or add additional lighting,” she notes. “You can make interesting effects with shadows to create an interesting background, especially if you are filming in front of a blank white wall.” Using a wireless mic will capture the best sound for an interview type of video, she adds, and it’s best to use a professional to edit your video.
• Consider using a musical score:  “Keeping your content interesting and informative to the audience is helpful, but you will be surprised how adding a musical score to the background of an interview clip can give the audio more depth and appeal,” says Izzo.
• Be aware of your surroundings: If shooting the video in your office or conference room, be sure to “stage the area,” Izzo advises. “Clear off the desk of messy papers, staplers, etc., and be conscious of the overall look of the shot,” she says.
• Keep it short: Be mindful of the attention span of the online hunter of information, Izzo cautions. “We recommend editing to a two- to three-minute length for posting to the web,” she says. “Three to five minutes will work for more specific uses, such as information requested by particular clients.”
• Repurpose your videos: “You can shoot a general video and break it down into segments (for example by service sector or industry topic) and embed sections in presentation files  to use for proposals, a kickoff meeting introduction, blog posts, or embedding in your website,” Izzo suggests.
• Share: Most importantly, set up a YouTube channel to store your videos, and share your videos via social media, says Izzo. “Another idea is to use QR codes to link your videos to your business cards or other print collateral,” she offers.
• Have fun: “From first-hand experience, being on video can be uncomfortable at first, but keep in mind that your comfort level and personality will come across on video,” says Izzo. “Loosen up, have fun with it and focus on giving your audience an impression they will remember and share.”

Source: Business 2 Community

• Implement clean, clear landing pages: “The design of your website, microsite or landing page is critical to B2B search marketing success,” says Nord. “Through extensive testing, I’ve learned that web design that is often considered boring, uninteresting, or stale from a consumer perspective may perform quite well when targeting business prospects.”
• Focus on visitor benefits: All marketers tend to focus on how great their company is, but business buyers want to know “what’s in it for me,” notes Nord. “Focus your webpage content, calls-to-action and downloadable assets on what will benefit the prospect,” he advises. You should also take care to give business visitors something of value. “For example, market research studies convert much better than marketing brochures,” he observes.
• Offer choices: “Not all visitors are the same and acknowledging this is the first step to converting them into prospects,” says Nord. “Empower visitors by allowing them to decide for themselves what they want. Test various types of offers and assets.”
• Ensure promises are accurate: Make sure your website engagement process is straightforward and simple. Ensure “promises” are accurate and consistent, says Nord. “For example: A link sending visitors to a registration form should not read ‘download now,’” he notes. “A more accurate statement would be ‘register for instant access.’”
• Create demand and urgency: “Website visitors’ attention span is fleeting,” notes Nord. “Because of this, business marketers must present compelling, actionable information and offers should instill a sense of urgency. Utilize limited time or limited availability offers for that little extra push to compel website interaction.”

Source: Search Engine Land

• Focus the brand: “Occupy Wall Street never had a really clear message — mostly energy,” says Allen Weiss, the founder and CEO of MarketingProfs and a professor of marketing at USC Marshall School of Business. “The message is blurred and diffused,” adds C. Samuel Craig, deputy chairman of marketing at NYU. “One of the basic tenets of marketing is to have a singular purpose in what you’re communicating. Coca-Cola, for example, does one thing and doesn’t deviate very far from that.”
• Find a pitchman: “If it was a small-business client of mine, I’d want to know, ‘Who’s the CEO?’” says Steve McKee, president of McKee Wallwork Cleveland, an Albuquerque, NM-based marketing firm. “If I were going to recommend how to brand Occupy Wall Street, who would I even recommend it to and who would have the power to implement it? Who would I give the advice to? The guy on the street corner? The guy on the news last night? It’s a puddle, not a glass of water.”
• Remember, positivity sells: “Marketing is more about what you’re for than what you’re against,” McKee says. “They’re not articulate about what the movement is for, so people can decide what they’re aligned with. In our business, we often say nothing happens without a transaction. Where exactly does the transaction happen, between whom does it happen and what happens? How do you get to that transaction? What is the transaction that Occupy Wall Street wants? Policy change? Regulation? And who are ‘they’? You can’t tell that by pointing to a crowd.”
• Get organized: “The 99% percent signs are effective, good for visuals, good for cable news — it’s what you see under those signs and the confusion that takes away from the positive message,” says Michael McIntyre, the author of The Authentic Salesman. “It comes down to organization.” What should they do next? “First of all, they should form a committee consisting of one to three people from every occupied city, establish a leader, meet in Washington, DC, over a weekend to get a platform established, call for a cease and desist of all destruction and mayhem, file permits and reestablish credibility,” he suggests. “They should meet with congresspeople, get political muscle on their side, and clarify and define a three-point message and sell it, if they can.”
• All start-ups have growing pains. Learn from them and move forward: “Two months is a very short period of time,” Craig says. “Some of the successful brands have been around for decades. You don’t necessarily build a brand overnight. I’m not too concerned with the fact that they’ve been in existence for two months. I think the life cycle is shorter, though, and if they hope to accomplish something, they have to find a way to achieve a stronger focus from this juncture onward.”

Source: Huffington Post

One that has, the BYU Technology Transfer Office, has done it through networking — using both new media, including social networks, and the “old-fashioned” approach — building personal relationships. “I would recommend to anyone in tech transfer to join business groups associated with their university,” says Dee Anderson, associate director of the TTO. “This is just one of the many things we do — establish relationships and get to know people.” Anderson adds that alumni represent a vast resource that is largely untapped by tech transfer offices, “and finding ways to connect with your alumni will be one of biggest drivers of performance over the next decade.”

Lindsay Lennox, assistant director of marketing and communications at the University of Colorado TTO, is actively seeking such connections. “We’re working on rolling out a new alumni outreach program with the alumni group on CU’s Boulder campus, which is by far the most active in this area,” she says.

“We had noticed that when we contacted companies and had the good fortune to stumble upon someone who was an alumnus they wanted to tell us what was happening in Boulder and were more than happy to pass us on to people who could help us,” she recalls. “After that happened, we found that they were very engaged in particular from the Boulder campus — and working an awful lot in technical fields. Given that set of traits we wanted to see if there was a way to more systematically tap into that network of contacts.”

As she investigated the possibilities further, Lennox found out the alumni association had recently hired a new director who was very interested in new contact points for the alumni. “They were in a change phase already, so we knocked on their door at a good time,” she notes.

A detailed article on tapping into alumni connections appears in the November 2011 issue of Intellectual Property Marketing Advisor. For subscription information, CLICK HERE.

1. Know your objective: “Since a subject line distills the essence of an e-mail, consider writing it first, as this will keep you from straying off point,” Engelbrecht advises. “Think about what the objective or end goal of your e-mail marketing programs is; in most cases your end goal is not necessarily high open rates, but to have subscribers take a specific action. Determine what that one action is and make sure all components of your e-mail, especially the subject line, will highlight a clear path to the objective.”
2. Study the newspaper: Subject lines, where possible, should clearly state what your reader can expect from your e-mail, what’s in it for them or what you want them to do, says Engelbrecht. “If you’re stuck at square one, emulating the headlines from newspapers can be a good starting point for your e-mails,” he suggests.
3. Key information first: It’s important to mention the most significant information first when it comes to both your subject line and the e-mail body copy itself, notes Engelbrecht. “You need to convey one compelling line that prompts the recipient to both notice and open your e-mail,” he says. “If you have an answer about what would make your readers care enough to open your e-mail in 50 characters or less, you probably have your subject line, or something close to it.”
4. Lead without misleading: “While it’s important to create a sense of magnetism and urgency with your subject lines, it’s even more important to maintain your company’s dignity with every communication,” says Engelbrecht. “This means never misleading people with the subject line in order to get them to read further. Don’t stretch the truth, make grand claims or offer more than what you can or intend to deliver.”
5. Personalize: Where appropriate, using someone’s first name can be a very effective form of personalization, says Engelbrecht. “If you want to include this in your personalization strategy, take the time to go through your database and make sure that you actually have the first name for every record and that the names in your database use proper capitalization,” he advises. Subject lines can also be personalized based on the preferences of the recipient, or on their interests, past purchases, website visits, links clicked or more or less any other commercial data you have captured about him or her, he adds.
6. Make it deliverable: The greatest factor influencing the deliverability of your e-mail is your reputation score with Internet Service Providers (ISPs), says Engelbrecht. “If enough of the people mark your e-mail as spam, or if you routinely use words that trigger spam filters, your ISP reputation will get damaged and your e-mails will end up in the junk folder netherworld,” he warns. “There’s a fine line between a catchy line and a spammy line, so run your e-mail subject through a content checker to identify any spam-like words, phrases or construction.”
7. Test, test, and test again: “Testing subject lines give you better data and ultimately better campaign results,” says Engelbrecht. “If you’re dealing with a big list of names, run tests to a small group before sending to your full list,” he advises. “An A/B test involves splitting a list into two different headlines, without making changes to any other part of the e-mail, to see which had the better result.” Use the metrics from each segment to determine which subject line delivered the highest open rate or click-through rate, he continues. “Every e-mail send is unique, so you will need to repeat this testing phase every time you send a message, to consistently identify the higher-performing subject line,” says Engelbrecht.

Source: memeburn

ALSO COMING SOON:

• Tuesday, November 29: Reap the Benefits of a Strong Post-License Monitoring System
• Wednesday, December 7th: IP-Included Label Licensing: A Win-Win Model for Maximizing Use of University Technologies
• Tuesday, December 13th: Expert Corporate Relations Strategies for Long-Term Industry-TTO Partnerships

He offers the following social media tactics to move your prospect closer to becoming a customer:

1. Take your time to get to know the customer: As they are getting to know you, they will identify your capabilities, notes Craig. “Contrast this with traditional marketing, where expertise leads, and then relationship follows,” he shares.
2. Allow the customer to take the lead: “It’s more likely that they will initiate the sales process when they are ready — after all, they know their needs better than you ever will,” says Craig.
3. The customer is not a single voice; engage with the fans and followers: Focus on the customer experience and their engagement with your social media voice, Craig advises.
4. Ask for the sale if it feels right: Asking for the sale prematurely may do more harm than good, warns Craig, but exposing your expertise over time within the context of a two-way, non-broadcast relationship, is a far more powerful implicit ‘ask.’

“Social media activities should make an effort to improve credibility and grow the relationships,” notes Craig. “Shouting ‘buy me’ is the quickest way to lose ‘friends.’ How long does it take to make a sale? It depends how quickly you earn it; trust takes time.”

Source: ExpertClick

1. Is this a site where my target audience hangs out? Links are valuable for two main reasons, says Stamoulis. First, the more quality links a site has pointing towards it the more valuable it becomes in the eyes of the search engines. Second, every inbound link serves as a potential doorway to your site. “You want to get links on sites that your target audience routinely visits because you are more likely to drive a targeted visitor through to your site,” he advises.
2. Is this a trusted/respected site? “While having a large link portfolio is important, real link value relates to the site you are getting that link from. Each site has a certain amount of trust with the search engines,” Stamoulis observes. “It’s is much more valuable in the long run to accrue fewer links from large, well-respected and trusted sites than it is to get hundreds of links for spam blogs or link farms.”
3. Can I build a relationship with this site that goes beyond the link? If you play your cards right, there is much more long-term value to be had than just getting one more inbound link, notes Stamoulis. “Let’s say you are leaving a comment on an industry blog,” he offers. “Can you become a regular commenter so the blog owner starts to remember your name? Can you have conversations with them in the comment field? Can you approach them to write a guest blog post or ask them to review your latest whitepaper? Think big with your link building!” 

Source: Business 2 Community

1. Make it original: This is one of the most challenging aspects to content development, but if you want your content to stand out, says Donston-Miller, it has to be different from everything else that’s out there.
2. Make it useful:  “People will read and pass along content that is purposeful and meaningful — something that helps them do their jobs, makes them clearly understand a complex topic, or just helps them see something in a new and refreshing way,” she says.
3. Make it fresh: “If your organization decides to, say, set up a blog, there has to be a commitment to updating the blog on a regular basis,” Donston-Miller cautions. “Few things turn people away faster than a blog whose last post was published months ago.”
4. Go out on a limb: Provocative content will attract attention, she continues. Of course, she adds, there’s a difference between provocative and offensive or outrageous, and you need to find that line, which is admittedly not always easy. “If you’re not sure, a good rule of thumb is to run your content by at least a couple of trusted colleagues before posting,” she advises.
5. Don’t ignore comments: Responding to criticism (without being defensive), answering questions, providing additional insight, and so on will engender affinity and continue to brand individuals and organizations not only as experts but as go-to entities, says Donston-Miller.
6. Put things in perspective: It’s easy to share a news story, she notes; it’s much more challenging, but of much more value, to put the news story in fresh and meaningful perspective for your audience.
7. Match the message to the medium: Some content works better in a PDF whitepaper form, some works better within a web page, and some works better as a video, Donston-Miller observes. “It’s important to align the content with the platform on which you are delivering it,” she says. “For example, it would be a waste of people’s time and company bandwidth if this list of recommendations were offered as a video. At the same time, a Q&A with a company executive might work better in video than written form.”
8. Employ (updated) SEO best practices: The increasing importance of social, local, and video, among other things, is changing the way people search for content and how Google returns results, notes Donston-Miller.
9. Write well: “Spelling does count. Good grammar and punctuation count, as well,” she asserts. “Watch how quickly your message gets lost when people spend all their time commenting on the fact that your subjects and verbs don’t agree.”
10. Be empathetic: “As a publisher, which is really what many organizations are turning out to be, you can’t go wrong if you start the process by asking yourself, ‘What do my customers need?’” says Donston-Miller. “Creating content that meets those needs will have value. Period.”

Source: The Brain Yard

His comments come just months after a pioneering move by Glasgow University to offer selected intellectual property to business and entrepreneurs free of charge. In a recent letter to the Scottish Funding Council (SFC), which administers government funding of university research, Russell said all institutions should consider doing the same. “Any barriers to the exploitation of research for economic and wider societal benefit must be removed, so that the people of Scotland can benefit directly from the Government’s sustained and generous support for research in our institutions,” he said.

 “Specifically, I believe there is merit in the model … established by Glasgow University being adopted by all institutions … so that as much intellectual property as possible generated by the sector is readily available to business and industry, particularly to Scottish small and medium-sized businesses.”

Professor Anton Muscatelli, principal of Glasgow University, says he hopes the “easy access” intellectual property scheme could be expanded further. “Working in collaboration with King’s College London and the University of Bristol, we have secured funding to develop the model further and to encourage other institutions to adopt it,” Muscatelli reports. “We also hope to create a consortium of easy access institutions that will help us to work towards the model being recognized as an industry standard.”

One company that has already benefited from the scheme is Hertfordshire-based Elliot Scientific, which produces scientific equipment for research and industrial use. Using the easy access approach, the firm took advantage of advances in the measurement of microscopic particles made by physicists at Glasgow University. “The technology was handed over within two days and this enabled us to increase our offering,” reports Mike Elliot, chairman of Elliot Scientific.

Source: Herald Scotland

Participating firms will pay a license fee of $1,000 for each U.S. or foreign patent application filed and made part of the license. They will also reimburse the university for expenses related to acquiring patent rights. Eugene Krentsel, assistant vice president for entrepreneurship and innovation partnerships, says he expects the low-cost deal will appeal to large companies and start-ups alike.

“A thousand dollars is a trivial expense when it comes to protecting potentially important discoveries,” he notes. “Firms could easily spend more than that just on legal fees related to negotiations.”
If a third-party is interested in a license, that company will be charged no less than what the research sponsor was charged plus an additional $1,000. This construct, Krentsel says, provides the original research sponsor with a competitive advantage and demonstrates the university’s appreciation of their initial investment in the work.

“We want partners,” adds Scott Hancock, director of intellectual property management and licensing. “We’re signaling to companies that this is the best deal you can get from us, short of becoming a member of one of our research centers.”

Source: www.newschannel34.com

PLUS: DON’T MISS THESE OUTSTANDING UPCOMING PROGRAMS:

• Tuesday, November 15th: Exit Planning for University Start-Ups
• Tuesday, November 15th: The Prosecution of Professor Roth and Its Aftermath
• Tuesday, November 29: Reap the Benefits of a Strong Post-License Monitoring System

1. Put yourself in the customer’s shoes. Force yourself to think about your message from the perspective of the customer — and you need to be honest, says Barineau. “What’s the No. 1 issue your customer has that your product/service solves? What two or three other smaller details help differentiate your product/service from the competition? Those three or four points, and only those points, should be the focus of your tour,” she advises.
2. Keep the video content relevant. “I don’t care how proud you are of the entrance to your new company headquarters,” says Barineau. “Unless that gorgeous sign over your door helps your customer in some way, leave it on the cutting room floor.”
3. Don’t bore the viewer. The same rule that applies to your company signage applies to your mission statement and vision statement, says Barineau.
4. Show customers the value of your product. Showing is always better than telling, says Barineau. “Don’t tell me about the new heavy-duty motor you put in your vacuums. Show me your vacuum sucking up heavy ball bearings from the thickly carpeted floor,” she says.
5. Tell a story. People remember stories better than lists of facts, Barineau notes. “It doesn’t have to have actors or characters, but it should have a storyline,” she advises. “What happens first, second, third?”
6. Involve your customers. Maybe your video tour could be a case study of how a customer had great success using your product/service, Barineau suggests. “What was the customer’s main problem she was looking to solve? Why did she try your product/service? What was the first thing she did with your product/service? What happened as a result of that? What did she do next? What result did she get then? And so on,” she comments.
7. Quality matters. “You cannot redo a first impression,” cautions Barineau. “If your video is poorly lit, badly scripted, or hard to hear or understand, it’ll make your whole company look like a group of amateurs.”
8. Appear polished. “If you run a T-shirt company, a small cupcake shop, or a deep-sea fishing company, then maybe a semi-rough, unprofessional YouTube-style video is just what you need. But if you sell software, IT services, or healthcare-related products or services — or you want to sell to companies much bigger than yours — the last thing you want to do is look like the kid on YouTube who plays air guitar in his bedroom,” warns Barineau.
9. Hire a video production company. If a homemade video doesn’t seem right for you, ask around for recommendations of video production companies, says Barineau. “Talk to three or four of them, and compare their samples,” she recommends.
10. Hire a professional writer. “If you can afford nothing else, pay for a professional to write your script,” Barineau urges. “The message is more important than lighting, editing, actors, or anything else. Hire someone who’s written lots of scripts. Be sure you’ve seen videos that were produced based on those scripts. Ask yourself whether you liked the tone and style of the message. Did you get the point? Did you feel motivated to buy the product or take a certain action?”

Source: MarketingProfs

“With our marketing evaluations we’re not super-focused on numbers, but [rather] whether we are getting quality leads,” adds Lindsay Lennox, assistant director of marketing and communications at the University of Colorado TTO. “In other words, did we reach the right companies, and are they interested — not just fishing? If we do that, even if we only get a few leads that’s good, because it means we’re getting to the right people.”

“After every event we review how many people we saw and who,” adds Steve Wille, associate director and senior technology manager at UIUC. “We not only review their name, but who they are in the company — so it’s more than a number you look at; it’s who you talked to.”

“Sometimes metrics do not tell the whole story,” notes Nair. When releases are disseminated through Newswire, she notes, she gets a report on impressions and click-throughs, “but we’re not getting information on whether it prompts someone to call us for licensing or sublicensing, and that’s more important — that tells us we’ve been effective.”  A detailed article on marketing metrics appears in the November 2011 issue of Intellectual Property Marketing Advisor. For subscription information, CLICK HERE.

1. “Social” is something you are, not something you do: “If your company culture doesn’t focus on building relationships with your customers, then chances are that you won’t use social media to do it either,” says Blanchard. “The ‘media’ doesn’t dictate how social a company is or isn’t; it simply enhances its ability to be a social business.”
2. You cannot outsource customer relationships to an agency: “Can you outsource your presence at Thanksgiving dinner to an agency?” Blanchard challenges. “Do you send your PR team to social events and parties when you have better things to do than attend? Social media isn’t any different.”
3. A blog is just a blog. It isn’t a magical trust and influence publishing converter for the web: “Publishing propaganda or marketing content is just that, regardless of the publishing platform,” says Blanchard. “Just because you publish marketing content on a blog doesn’t mean it magically morphs into something ‘authentic’ that ‘engaged customers’ will spread through ‘word of mouth.’”
4. Marketing on social media channels isn’t “social.” It is just marketing: “Every time I hear a company proudly state that they have a social media program when, in fact, all they have is a marketing program that uses social media channels, I feel sorry for its stakeholders and customers,” says Blanchard. “ If you are a professional in this space, either build a real social media program — one that is actually social – or get out of the way because those of us on a mission to do it right are coming in hot.”
5. Transparency isn’t just a word. If you don’t intend to practice it, don’t preach it: “You already know what’s right,” Blanchard asserts. “And by ‘right,’ I don’t just mean ‘ethical’ or what you can get away with. I mean ‘right.’ Do that. Treat your customers with respect and treat your program on foundations of integrity and professional pride.”
6. Change management, not social media tools and platforms, is at the crux of social media program development: “If you don’t really care about your customers, social media won’t magically transform you into someone who does,” notes Blanchard. “You have to want to become this type of individual and for your organization as a whole to follow suit, in order for the socialization of your business to be successful.”
7. People are more important than technology. Hire people who care about other people: “Start with your people, not your tools. They are what makes social either work or fail,” says Blanchard.
8. Social media should not be managed by marketing anymore than your phones should be managed by sales: Blanchard notes that 41% of social media directors are marketing professionals while only 1% are customer service professionals. “Would you care to guess as to why it is that only 1% of social media programs seem to be yielding actual results (and I mean business measurables, not just web measurables) while the rest are just making noise and turning anecdotal BS into ‘case studies?’” he challenges.
9. Shut up and listen: “Listen to your customers. Listen to your competitors’ customers. Everything companies need to know is passing them by because they are too busy talking,” says Blanchard. “Just make great products, consistently create exceptional experiences for customers, and focus every bit of energy in making sure no customer of yours is ever disappointed, and you’ll be good to go.”
10. Any consultant, “thought leader,” agency or partner who doesn’t tell you these things isn’t fit to be consulted on the subject: “Do big promises, miracle cures and fairy tales sound like reality to you? ‘If you buy X, your business will suddenly grow and improve?’ Really?” poses Blanchard. “It doesn’t matter where your new ‘advisors’ have worked, who they have worked with or how many people follow them on Twitter. Of course they are all going to have great stories to tell. It’s called ‘marketing.’ Ever heard of it?”

Source: The BrandBuilder Blog

“OpenUlster is a service in its own right,” says Dr. John MacRae, the technology commercialization manager. “Technologies that are available for license are listed on the site. Entrepreneurs, firms and other interested parties can see immediately the ones that are under evaluation and ones that are available.” To take out an evaluation license, which costs just one Pound, the visitor just clicks on the link to download the documents, fill out two forms and return them both to Ulster. “When the license is countersigned by one of our commercialization team, the firm has exclusivity to evaluate that technology,” says MacRae. “Full information will be provided along with any published patents, experimental data and prototypes or software. At the end of the evaluation period, which can be as short as three months and as long as one year depending on the nature of the technology, the evaluation license can be converted into a full commercial license.”

Creation of a distinct brand also makes the OpenUlster service easier to promote. In addition to normal outreach activities, every time a new technology is added the university’s partner network is notified using social media such as Facebook, Twitter and, particularly, LinkedIn. Using social media as a marketing tool in this way gets OpenUlster connected and close to the community it wants to engage with.

Sitting behind Ulster’s public face of open innovation is a new process of evaluating which technologies are suitable for OpenUlster. The assets chosen must have “hard” intellectual property, such as patents or designs, and be capable of legal protection, and will be offered with an exclusive evaluation license. The technology must also have reasonably complete evaluation data and self-explanatory documentation. Software and any other prototypes will be provided to licensees if available.

Source: Irish Times

ALSO COMING IN NOVEMBER:

• Tuesday, November 15th: Exit Planning for University Start-Ups
• Tuesday, November 15th: The Prosecution of Professor Roth and Its Aftermath

“We want to give faculty the opportunity to ask questions, and solicit opportunities for better engagement,” says Straightiff. “We have a small window of time in which to ask for feedback, and to give them the opportunity to comment on our future direction.” He perceives the window as “small,” he says, because in order to achieve successful culture change you “have to find quick successes.”

Straightiff explains: “Whenever you enter into a new environment that has had turnovers and ups and downs, and there is also somewhat of a philosophical change happening, the first thing you have to do is embrace the faculty, staff and students in the innovation community. Their invention disclosures and research form input to our pipeline — and without those things we’re sunk from the very beginning.”

Straightiff says his perception, based on his short tenure at UVA, “is that the Patent Foundation has been a very legal-focused organization, from its name on down. We tend to file a very large amount of provisional patent applications, and diligence is more back-loaded than front-loaded.” His hope, he says, is to improve due diligence on the front end and “really focus our efforts on strong business development in the local entrepreneurial community and in the larger industrial community.” In other words, he explains, “this has to be a business and innovation focused community, as opposed to one devoted entirely to the creation of IP.” A detailed article on the changes occurring at UVAPF appears in the November 2011 issue of Intellectual Property Marketing Advisor. For subscription information, CLICK HERE.

1. Always keep in mind that Twitter is about discussion rather than a hard-sell of your products or services, says Willoby. “Twitter is not the platform for blatant sales tactics, and if you decide to try it, it will most likely make your followers quickly become ‘unfollowers,’” she warns.
2. Promote Twitter-only sales and specials. “Whether it’s a special phrase your customers have to say at your restaurant to get two for one drinks or a unique code that customers can use for 25% off your products online, this is a good enticement for your Twitter followers — and it doesn’t alienate them [like a hard sell],” says Willoby.
3. Use hashtags to your advantage. A hashtag, Willoby explains, is simply a pound sign (#) followed by a phrase or word. “If you want to run a contest, get your followers talking about something, or promote a product or service, you can turn it into a hashtag and get your followers to join in,” she explains. Here’s an example: ‘Like’ us on Facebook for a chance to #win a Custom QR Code! RT this enters you to win too! #Qrcode
4. Some companies are now utilizing Twitter as a way of taking orders for products and services, says Willoby. “The direct messaging feature on Twitter allows companies to utilize an online ordering feature on their own accounts,” she notes.
5. Use Twitter as a direct customer service line for your customers. This only works if your Twitter account is managed on a regular basis, notes Willoby, but it can help establish trust and credibility, as well as encourage repeat business.
6. Twitter is a great way to recruit new talent to your company’s team. “Since Twitter is community-focused, you’ll find that your tweet about any open positions will be re-tweeted many times by your followers, giving you more exposure and possibly helping you gain more followers — as well as new employees,” says Willoby.
7. Want to promote an upcoming event? Using Twitter is a fantastic way to go about this, Willoby says. “Be sure to include the reasons why this event is so great — whether it’s giveaways, in-store promotions, free food and drink, etc.,” she suggests.
8. Use your Twitter page as a way of fundraising for a designated charity and highlighting your company’s charitable contributions. “Showing your followers that your company gives back will reveal the ‘human’ side to your company and leave a positive impression,” Willoby asserts.
9. Offer valuable tips to your followers to establish credibility and encourage interaction. “Give industry advice on whatever topics your company is knowledgeable about, whether it’s nutrition, fashion, web development, home improvement, or anything else,” Willoby suggests.
10. “Utilize tools, like Bitly and Friend or Follow to give you valuable insight about how many people are clicking on the links you post and who is following you back on Twitter,” says Willoby. “After a couple weeks, it’s best to ‘un-follow’ anyone who isn’t following you, and Friend or Follow allows you to quickly do just that.”

Source: Business 2 Community

• Align your goals: Traditional marketing initiatives can have vastly different goals, and the same is true of social media, notes Vinjamuri. “Are you trying to reach your brand evangelists or consumers who are not aware of your brand?  Are you looking to develop prospects or increase awareness of a new product launch?  Do you want loyal customers to engage more deeply with your brand or purchase more often?  These are all different goals and will require different measurements,” he says.
• Talk to PR: Your next step, he says, should be a check-in with your PR or corporate communications counterpart. “Social media works more like PR than traditional advertising,” says Vinjamuri. “A PR expert can help you understand the portfolio nature of social media (placing lots of little bets so one can pay off). In addition, there may be a system in place for measuring earned media that already has senior management buy-in.”
• Know what you can measure: As a marketing leader you’ll probably never look at a Facebook Insights dashboard, says Vinjamuri, but if you understand the sorts of measurements each social media platform can provide you’ll be better equipped to discuss measurement. “Some (but not all) of the information you can get from four common platforms:
• Facebook – likes, impressions, demographics, signups, links clicked, purchases. 
• Twitter – followers, re-tweets, links clicked. 
• YouTube – plays, pauses, mutes, hot spots, stops, view time, full screens.
• Foursquare – check-ins, by time, top users, gender breakdown, broadcasts to Twitter & Facebook.”
• Negotiate: Now is the time to negotiate a set of measures that is both objective and reasonable, says Vinjamuri. “Push your agency [or marketing staff] to find comparable programs for which some measurements are known,” he advises. “If you’re making a big bet, it is fair to have higher expectations. If you’re just putting a toe in the water understand that you may need to do a lot of experimenting before you find success.”
• Create a feedback loop:  “With traditional promotions, we often wait until after a program ends to analyze it and learn from our mistakes,” says Vinjamuri. “But social media requires us to make frequent adjustments and measure the effect of each change. Many brands are not set up to do this. Make sure you have a process [to] monitor the performance of your campaigns on a daily or hourly basis and [then] make adjustments.”

Source: Forbes

If you’re a beginner, says Kilgore, take these tips into consideration when visiting or revisiting your landing page optimization strategies:

• Know your goals: “If you don’t know your goals, it is hard to develop a strong landing page,” says Kilgore. “If your goal for a given landing page is to act as a form of lead generation, make it known. If your landing page is designed to showcase a new product, you might want to make your lead generation tactics a secondary item.”
• Develop user-friendly content: “This is your chance to tell your visitors why they should choose your products or services over your competition,” Kilgore notes. “Develop content that isn’t deceiving or off-topic.” Stray too far from your intended audience’s area of interest in your organization, he warns, “and I can assure you that you will see higher exit rates and less interaction.”
• Have a clear, concise call to action: “This is probably the most important tip,” Kilgore asserts. “After a user reaches your landing page, what are they supposed to do? If the purpose of your landing page is to gather contact information, make sure your lead gen forms are clear and visible and easy to find. If you are promoting a new product and are looking to generate sales, make sure your shopping cart isn’t a maze. Upon landing on your product page, your visitors should be able to purchase your product without navigating through 20 pages of your website or through paragraphs of ‘spammy’ content.” When it comes to calls to action, he adds, simplicity can go a long way.

Source: Business 2 Community

Intellectual Property Marketing Advisor,
Vol. 4, No. 10, October 2011

• De-risking university IP helps optimize chances for commercialization. Bryan Ritchie, who recently took the reins of the Technology Commercialization Office at the University of Utah, plans to follow the same road map that led to his success at Michigan State: adding value to new ideas to the point where firms and partners can successfully take new products to the market.
• ‘Umbrella’ organization brings one-stop shopping to U of Maryland. In an effort to accelerate the pace of innovation and tech transfer, with the goal of ultimately getting more of its research to market, the University of Maryland has created a new Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, which Maryland President Wallace D. Loh described in a speech at his inauguration as a “one-stop concierge service.”
• Venture fund, faculty education boosting U of Vermont start-ups. The fact that the University of Vermont (UVM) has spun out a growing number of new companies in the last several years is no accident; it is the result of both the creation of a gap fund to help start-ups develop, and a culture change that encourages disclosures and entrepreneurship among faculty members.
• Marketing expert cites four keys to create positive awareness. Whether you’re looking to license a technology, promote a start-up or brand your office, your ultimate goal is to try to create positive awareness.
• New AUTM portal to provide broad access to university IP. If things work out as planned, by the end of the year industry licensors interested in learning about available university IP will be able to access innovations from a wide range of institutions through a single source — the Global Technology Portal currently under development by AUTM.
• Israeli commercialization alliance combines two ‘firsts’ for partners. A recent commercialization cooperation agreement between Yissum Technology Transfer Company of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Shaare Zedek Medical Center, also located in Jerusalem, represents a combination of “firsts” for the two partners.

“We have many points of entry, and we have many assets,” notes Brian Darmody, associate vice president for research and economic development. For example, he notes, technology commercialization is part of the division of research; The Maryland Technology Enterprise Institute (Mtech), which offers programs, courses, workshops and competitions to help aspiring entrepreneurs learn how to bring their ideas to market, is part of the College of Engineering, and the “Pitch Dingman” program, also aimed at would-be entrepreneurs, is part of the business school.

“We’re seeking opportunities for partnerships with private companies or selling our assets, such as IP, or even human capital, such as graduates,” Darmody explains. “This initiative is to pool these programs together organizationally and to provide a kind of one-stop shop both on what I call the seeking and the selling sides.”

To illustrate, he notes that knowledge sharing among different disciplines has grown in importance, and it would help to more efficiently array the resources of a university as technologies are converging — for example, on the medical side and in engineering. “There used to be bright lines between biotech and the physical sciences, but those lines are indeed blurring,” says Darmody. “We used to have colleges of chemical and life sciences and computer math and physical sciences. Following a merger, we now have a college of computer math and natural sciences. On the academic side you could say this is an analog of what we’re doing with this new center.” A detailed article on the effort to bring IP-related services under one roof appears in the October 2011 issue of Intellectual Property Marketing Advisor. For subscription information, CLICK HERE.

SIPO will recommend the top ten prize winners to take part in the Geneva International Invention Show in 2012, and sponsor them by providing free round-trip plane tickets and a booth for each invention at the show. “Chinese universities should play a bigger role in invention and innovation,” Xu says.

The number of Chinese patents was only equal to 27.5% of that produced in the U.S., he adds, noting also that no Chinese university was listed in the world’s top 50 universities holding the most international patents.

Source: Xinhua News Agency

The Prosecution of Professor Roth and Its Aftermath, an audiobriefing scheduled for November 15, will address these issues and provide much-needed guidance. Our expert panel includes the lead DOJ prosecutor in the case, an export control expert and former assistant attorney general, and a leading university compliance officer. They will provide detailed guidance to ensure your export compliance program prevents the mistakes that landed Dr. Roth in court and now prison. For complete program and faculty details, or to register, CLICK HERE.

ALSO COMING SOON:

• Friday, October 28: Effectively Use Patent Landscaping to Plot Your IP Commercialization Action Plan
• Thursday, November 15th: Exit Planning for University Start-Ups
• Tuesday, November 29: Reap the Benefits of a Strong Post-License Monitoring System

• Help your readers help each other: “Every community has those in need and those with a little extra, so match them up,” advises Amanda Gagnon, education marketing associate at AWeber Communications. “Create a blog post asking your blog readers in need to share their stories. Ask those with extra resources to respond.”
• Let those around you be your inspiration: “While it’s important to make an effort to regularly blog on a consistent basis, don’t create an entry if you are truly uninspired,” cautions Emily Belden of totalebag.com. “My rule of thumb is that if I’m not compelled to write my post, I stand in a line at Starbucks, flip on a random TV channel, or ride the bus for a while. You’ll be surprised what you overhear and how much of it can be the foundation for a really interesting piece.”
• Don’t be popular: Determine what the popular topics are and don’t write about them, says “Creative Renegade” Nick Armstrong (IamNickArmstrong.com). “Find the absurdity in the topic (it’s everywhere and abundant) and tackle it from the perspective of presenting the absurdity,” he advises. “For example, right now everyone’s talking about corporate jobs (and needing one). I tackled the topic in a short presentation which was videotaped; I then used that as a post on my blog. My message was that we want to do meaningful work — but it’s up to us to make sure that we do the right kind of meaningful work.”
• Constrain yourself: “Put specific constraints on yourself as a writer,” advises Bon Crowder of Math is Not a Four Letter Word. “One way is to create content in exactly 50 words — no more and no less.” Crowder has started a “50 Word Friday” routine on his blog in which he writes a story, dialogue or editorial in exactly 50 words. “It’s a fun challenge, and readers know that on Fridays they’re going to get super concise ideas to think about for the weekend,” he shares.
• Build reader loyalty with presentations: When Sharon Hurley Hall of GetPaidtoWriteOnline.com looked around for a new way to present her writing services, she didn’t know it would spark one of her site’s most unique posts. “I felt that my presentation needed some pizzazz, so I created some slides and imported them into Slideshare to create the slideshow that I built my post around,” she says. “I then wrote a short post, with the presentation as its centerpiece, explaining briefly how I’d come to create the presentation and asking for feedback. What I learned from the process is that slides are a great way to deliver a visual message and make a good halfway house between text and video.”
• Teach shamelessly: “One of my favorite ways to keep fit is to hula-hoop,” shares Joan Jacobsen of BabyBoomerWay.com. “I had previously posted a hula-hoop video on my website; however it really didn’t teach or captivate the audience. So I downloaded a How to Hoop rap song from Hoop Smiles and used that as my background music while I demonstrated to my readers the correct method in which to waist hoop. I received rave reviews from my followers.”
• Chart it out: “When I first started blogging, I was in search of a creative way to post without any fancy design or video-production knowledge,” recalls T. Shakirah Dawud of Deliberate Ink. “I created a table/grid-style blog post for fun, about a humorous topic I had in mind. Since I was new to the blogosphere with only a small following at the time, I wasn’t able to get many eyes on it, but the responses I did get were delighted by its creativity.”
• Change up your style: “Try writing in a different style than you normally would in your blog,” suggests Rod Salm of DeathAtYourDoor.com. “As an example, you could write the blog as if you were replying to a letter or as if you were being interviewed in a question and answer style.”
• Imitate the masters: “One of the best tactics that I’ve used in my writing over the years (online and offline) has been writing ‘imitation pieces’ of famous passages that resonate with my audience,” says Jeremy Gregg of JeremyGregg.com. “Not only do they tap into an automatic fan base, but they allow for some strong imagery and powerful metaphors that might not otherwise be possible.”
• Make it a game: Tea Silvestre, aka the “Word Chef,” says there’s no better way to engage your readers than by asking them to participate in a game. Depending on your topic, she says, you could make either one of these work for you:
• Create a play-by-post. “This is typically done in gaming and/or fiction writing communities, but it could be adapted to the B2B world with just a little tweaking,” says Silvestre.
• Hold a virtual treasure hunt where you have people hunt for the answers on your website, or other websites. “Great prizes make wonderful incentives and can get you more exposure via social media,” she says.

Source: The Word Chef

1. Ensure the core reason to form your mobile strategy is your customers and not technology, says Campbell. “Understand how your customers consume media and their appreciation of technology,” he advises.
2. It is essential to understand how your customers currently consume media, learning from direct research and your own site statistics, notes Campbell — not simply relying on general Internet figures.
3. Understanding the mobile screen’s “real estate” available will help avoid overcrowding and poor performance, Campbell says. “Also, be clever about how to give users access to your content, and use the devices’ built-in connectivity and features to your advantage while designing.” 
4. Within your organization, appoint a number of interested and engaged staff to form a team to “future gaze” and meet once a quarter to review ideas and mobile marketing initiatives, suggests Campbell.

Source: The Drum

Fully updated for 2011, the guide features abstracts of the most recent court cases dealing with lost profits damages, and provides the latest analysis including a summary of applicable rules of civil procedures and evidence, as well as details on what courts have deemed as acceptable evidence for lost profit claims. You’ll also learn what the courts have rejected and details explaining the reasons for the rejections. The 2011 edition also features new material including an in-depth look at case law relating to reasonable certainty and motions to exclude experts in lost profits damages cases, both by issue and by jurisdiction. For complete details and to order, CLICK HERE.

• Prepare a bank of posts. “I’m a huge fan of preparing a bank of tweets or Facebook posts,” says Strong. “Think about the types of messages you want to send out during this busy time of the year, when you want to send them, and how you want to send them.  Don’t forget #hashtags for tweets and tagging for Facebook messages too.”
• Festivize logos. “A great suggestion from Blue Glass is to prepare holiday logos,” Strong shares. “At the company I work for, we’ve done this in the past for Halloween, Christmas, and even Valentine’s Day.”
• Add social sharing. “Add social sharing buttons to product pages if you don’t already have them and on thank you pages so users can share what they just bought,” Strong advises. “Offer posting options onto a user’s Facebook page with discounts for their friends and family, or suggest users tweet the latest coupon for your site.”
• Start writing great content to share. Simply updating a status message or tweeting a link to your site won’t do much for your efforts, warns Strong. “Try posting great content on your site and share on social media to engage with users before, during and after the holidays,” she suggests. “Video, images, infographics, or just blog posts are all great content ideas.”
• Get charitable. “If you haven’t already thought about a charity your company will donate to you should do it now,” says Strong. “Add a social spin to your actions and live tweet during volunteering events, match dollar for dollar donations on Facebook, create a contest, or get your fans/followers to vote on a charity.”
• Tie all your marketing efforts together with social media. “Have a printed brochure? Make darn sure that your Facebook and Twitter information is on there,” says Strong. “Putting out a press release? Add a link to Facebook and Twitter.”
• Ask for user-generated content. “Asking your fans or followers for video, photos, or reviews is something your brand should do already,” says Strong. “Around the holiday season ask users to upload photos of their recent purchases, video of them testing out their recent purchases, photos of friends/family opening their gift, etc.”
• Wrap up your social media calendar with a bow. Using a social media editorial calendar can help keep your efforts organized and focused, says Strong. “Set up your calendar to include days and times to message, themes to keep consistent throughout the month, cross promotion messaging, and those involved in setting up and executing the messaging,” she suggests.
•  Exclusive content. “Offering an exclusive deal for Facebook or Twitter fans or exclusive content only able to be viewed by fans is something that some brands have found to work well – no matter the time of year,” says Strong.

Source: Search Engine Watch

• Let people know how to engage: Not everyone knows how to leave a comment on a blog, how to subscribe, or what actions they’re supposed to take to become part of your community, and it’s your job to tell them, notes Barone. “Have a tutorial for how to leave a comment; let them know how they can respond directly to other users; have a comment policy on your site,” she suggests.
• Promote your members: Tell people about your members’ businesses, Barone suggests. Offer a LinkedIn recommendation. “By lifting up the people in your community, you show them how valued they are and that you see them,” she explains.
• Seed your blog conversation: “Call in your blogging buddies and have them take different viewpoints in the comments section of your blog and have them debate your post passionately with comments,” Barone advises. “Sure, maybe it will start out a little manipulated, but the real people will see the action and join in.”
• Go out and find new readers: “Go to other blogs and discussion forums where people are talking about your industry, scout out the most active/respected commenters, and introduce yourself,” Barone suggests. “Do not spam or market to them, but say hello, let them know you’ve noticed their contributions, and thank them for [sharing their knowledge]. Without ever asking them to, these people will do their homework to check you out and will stumble onto your blog. If they like what they’re seeing, they may join in.”
• Recruit new readers: Barone suggests offering an incentive for people to check out your blog. “Do not offer money or a new television, but maybe invite them to be a beta tester for your new product or act as a site moderator,” she suggests.
• Offer rewards for participation: “You may have noticed that some blogs give users ‘points’ for leaving comments or participating in the conversation,” Barone observes. “If you’re going to do this, try not to reward people simply for quantity or you’ll wind up with people contributing nothing by low-quality content.”
• Create posts designed for community action: In addition to addressing your product/service and the problem it solves, you should also create content specifically geared toward getting interaction, says Barone. This could include posing a question for the community to answer, running a ‘Caption this photo’ contest, conducting a survey, or having a giveaway.
• Reach people offline: “Hold a meet, have an in-story party, tweet you’ll be at ‘X’ restaurant at 9 p.m. and ask people to join you,” Barone suggests. “Get people away from their computers and talking in real life and they’ll be far stronger connections.”
• Eliminate bullying: “Fostering an environment that has too much ‘insider baseball’ and doesn’t do an adequate job making new people feel welcome will stifle your community’s growth,” warns Barone. “Don’t be afraid to reprimand members when necessary.”
• Have swag: “Give people stickers and T-shirts with your blog URL when they make a purchase or send out stickers to your most active on-site community members,” suggests Barone.

Source: Small Business Trends

ALSO COMING SOON:

• Friday, October 28: Effectively Use Patent Landscaping to Plot Your IP Commercialization Action Plan
• Tuesday, November 29: Reap the Benefits of a Strong Post-License Monitoring System

• keep your marketing and promotional activities simple;
• focus your strategies;
• tell your story; and
• recognize the importance of speed

“So often organizations make this process far too complicated — especially in the academic environment,” notes Keyes. “For some reason, there has to be a 50-page plan, and that gets to be expensive and convoluted.” It’s very important, she continues, to not re-create the wheel and to instead focus on what works. “Every business plan template is the same,” Keyes asserts. “People assume when you talk about planning you need to bring in an outside consultant and that everyone else across departments has to buy in, and that leads to a big budget; I advise that people simplify.”

To help clients do that, says Keyes, she has created the following template focusing on what she calls “core pieces”:

1. Goal
2. SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) analysis
3. Target audience
4. Strategies
5. Action plan
6. Budget and milestones
7. Measurement and evaluation

“I’m a big proponent of not having things take a lot of time,” says Keyes. “Do what you can do quickly — what’s right at your fingertips — so you can get results soon as possible. In this economic environment that’s very important; you do not to want wait a couple of years to get results, but rather to get quick and fast hits to demonstrate this is working.” Another benefit of doing things quickly, she adds, is that you may find something that’s not working. “You can turn that around and say ‘we did a pilot test,’ and not have wasted a lot of time and resources,” says Keyes. A detailed article on Keyes’ approach appears in the October 2011 issue of Intellectual Property Marketing Advisor. For subscription information, CLICK HERE.