MaRS

The media interview: Sweating already?

The media interview. Does it make you queasy just thinking about it?

Making time and making a point appears easy —  if you’re, say, Mayor David Miller, although he’s faced his share of tough questions. But what about the rest of us who don’t face cameras daily?

For busy entrepreneurs the prospect of an interview with a journalist — while potentially valuable in the marketplace of buzz — can be met with equal proportions anticipation and dread. The good news is it doesn’t have to be that way.

Watch PR 101 for entrepreneurs

The right media coverage can be a boon for any company and even more so for a start-up.  Just ask the London, Ontario-based voice-over company Voices.com who was recently mentioned in the New York Times article “The Do-It-Yourself Economy”  by Thomas Friedman (author of many influential books such as “The World is Flat”).  Friedman wrote about how the recession is encouraging companies to increasingly shop around the online marketplace for cheaper, faster and more convenient services and gave examples of companies like Voices.com who are profiting from this trend.

The coverage landed the company several large new accounts as well as thousands of new users. Website registration and sales increased by 53 per cent after the article ran.

The future's so bright...

Last week, we held the inaugural MaRS Future of Medicine conference here at the MaRS Centre in Toronto. This major partnering event attracted over 170 attendees including representatives from Agfa Healthcare, AstraZeneca, Baxter, Bayer, Cellular Dynamics, GE Healthcare, GlaxoSmithKline, iPS Academia Japan, Merck, Roche and Sanofi Pasteur.

Why did so many industry delegates make the trip to Toronto? Perhaps to witness first-hand the incredible innovations that Ontario groups have been making in stem cell science and oncology – the main themes of the event.