While Investor Relations is a critical component of a company’s financial trading stature, PR cannot be overlooked, as it is equally critical to influencing customer behavior. Maybe even more so, what with the fallout from the dot com era and the ensuing excitement and hype building around Internet 2.0. Perhaps that’s why IR teams have started to borrow tactics from the PR playbook as a way to increase the visibility of the stock through non-financial media channels. This new kind…

Andrew Lane 2004 Gamay I tried this the other night after attending an event hosted by 7×7 Magazine in San Francisco. I meet Andrew Dickson, winemaker of Andrew Lane Wines. It was amazing, so I tracked down a bottle for myself. I paired it with spicy sesame/chili noodles with chicken and green onions. OH MY OH MY! The AL Gamay Noir has the mouth-feel and velvety texture of a Pinot Noir, but with a more vibrant, red fruit character. It…

The art of PR should never be underestimated it should be thoroughly embraced. New companies that enter markets with well-established competitors may have great solutions and truly superior designs, but they also have an intractable problem. The competition is established, they are not, and markets always bend toward the familiar. Add to that the typically limited budget of a start-up and the barriers are high enough to predestine new companies to failure unless they have a very effective mechanism of…