Dragon Systems Campaign

Managed and drove a full scale global communications campaign for consumer, vertical and corporate markets for this speech recognition leader. Some of the company’s Large Language Models (LLMs) ultimately became the models that are used in SIRI and other industry products and services.

A successful worldwide launch of Dragon NaturallySpeaking, the world’s first continuous speech recognition product, led to a Software Marketing Excellence Award for Best Marketing Strategy and countless other awards worldwide. It also resulted in Dragon’s move to the 7th largest software publisher in the U.S.

Press coverage increased by over 380% in the first year of its launch, which was instrumental in Dragon’s aggressive move into the retail space against major competitor IBM. Experience on-the-ground also resulted in managing two delayed IPOs, and an acquisition to Lernout & Hauspie, which was acquired by ScanSoft, now Nuance.

In addition to a global media effort on an ongoing basis after launch, hiring international agencies to handle foreign language launches and working with strategic partners, such as Corel and others, a vertical market strategy was put into place to drive sales for Dragon’s corporate solutions.

Created a PR and marketing strategy for their VAR Channel, user groups, and the following verticals: legal, medical/healthcare, government (including a collaboration with DARPA), disabilities and education. Dragon received acclaim from worldwide TV and radio stations as well as the top business magazines in England, France, Japan, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, Spain, Italy, Scotland and Belgium and more.

Selected Media Exposure

• ABC News
• BBC
• Forbes
• WIRED
• Scientific American
• USA Today
• CBS News
• Newsweek
• Washington Post
• FAST Company
• Boston Globe
• InfoWeek
• Fortune
• Popular Science
• CBS Radio
• Popular Mechanics
• PC Magazine
• PC World
• Wall Street Journal
• NBC News
• Reader’s Digest
• Reuters
• Los Angeles Times
• Nightly Business Report
• US News
• Financial Times
• CNET
• The Vancouver Sun
• Good Housekeeping
• Gartner, Forrester, etc.
• TIME
• Nikkei
• People Magazine
• Chicago Tribune
• Associated Press

FutureMed Campaign / Singularity University

FutureMed was a division of Singularity University, led by Peter Diamandis and Ray Kurzweil, focused on new medicine, healthcare, wellness, technology, and innovation.

We handled outreach for potential partners, such as Wireless Healthcare Alliance, Biocom.org, SoCal Biotech, Naval Medical Research Center, Medical Broadcasting Company, TEDMed, Oracle Healthcare, Electronic Medical Data Systems, B-Line Medical, Medical Economics, MDx Medical, American Medical Group Association and others, as well as outreach to medical press, including American Medical News, Medical Post, Medical Marketing & Media and healthcare editors at all the major TV outlets and newspapers.

Renee helped to identify VC prospects and networking events to keep momentum going following the main event. She also helped drive sales for their annual conference and managed social media before, during and after the launch.

Since we crafted viral marketing programs and digital media outreach strategies as well, this campaign was not a traditional communications campaign. Before, during and after, the work was a combination of partnerships, sales, media, social media and viral marketing as well as identity crafting (messaging, positioning and reputation management).

Selected Media Management & Coverage

• CNET
• San Francisco Chronicle
• Forbes
• The Doctor Channel
• The Economist
• BusinessWeek
• MEDGadget
• Scientific American
• Healthcare Blog
• NaturalNews Network
• Engadget
• WIRED
• @2HealthGuru Blogger
• Popular Science
• All Things Digital
• MIT Tech Review
• Marketwatch
• TechChronicles
• Ubergizmo
• TechCrunch
• TechTalk
• VentureBeat
• Yahoo Tech
• Expressing Scientific Insight

Willow Garage Campaign

Willow Garage was a famous robotics research lab and tech incubator in Menlo Park that had several significant achievements, including leading modern personal robotics. Breakthroughs included the Robot Operating System (ROS), which developed an open-source software framework that became the global standard tool for robotics research; the PR2 Robot, which was a high-end, two-armed mobile robot sold to research labs worldwide to test complex autonomous tasks; and OpenCV and TurtleBot which supported the creation and growth of OpenCV (computer vision library) and the low-cost TurtleBot educational platform.

The Willow Garage campaign was specifically to educate the market about PR2 and its value as a prospect for both assisting vertical market business (manufacturing, education, medicine/healthcare, education and others), and to demonstrate the ROI. Renee managed the entire PR2 launch, including a high profile party that included not only press, but politicians, mayors, TEDsters, celebrities, venture capitalists, entrepreneurs, open source gurus, visionaries and high profile CEOs.

We identified the script writers for the event and managed the process (Mike Markman and Peter Hirshberg, formerly of Apple) and secured 60 press, bloggers, influencers and photographers to attend on-site. We closed four TV camera crews for the launch as well as additional crews for follow up coverage. Excluding social media, Renee single handedly landed 330+ media and blog articles from around the world. YouTube coverage alone was nearly 900,000 views, which included Robin Williams.

Follow up event partnerships Renee managed included TEDx, Stanford University, XPrize, YouTube, Google IO, OSCON, Web 2.0 Summit, Google Zeitgeist and MIT.

Selected Media Coverage

• New York Times
• WIRED
• Forbes
• Bloomberg
• MIT Tech Review
• IEEE Spectrum
• Boston Globe
• Financial Times
• CNET
• CBS Interactive
• KGO-TV
• French News Agency
• KALW Radio
• LeMonde
• KRON TV
• Mercury News
• Scientific American
• Ubergizmo
• Popular Science
• SF Chronicle
• National Geographic
• Associated Press
• New Scientist
• PBS
• The Economist
• NBC News
• NIKKEI
• ROBOT Magazine
• Robotics Trends
• The Guardian
• Singularity Hub
• Reuters
• The Gadget Show UK
• Engadget
• Fortune
• BusinessWeek
• Discovery Channel
• TIME
• Washington Post

HapiLabs Campaign

We created a three-tiered marketing, branding and communications program, that included a global crowdfunding campaign. We handled their newsletter and all blog content, including video. We also drove all media and influencer activities leading up to the launch, and approximately for another year. We managed review units for all influencers, press and analysts as well as for early adopters, trained executives for media interviews and Renee personally acted as the direct spokesperson for the company for WSJ TV, Good Morning America, CNN, ABC News and countless others.

Helped sales and new business team target partners for B2B program to follow the B2C launch, identified appropriate advisory board members in the U.S., led the social media campaign before and after the launch, crafted four viral marketing programs to run for a year following the launch, including sponsoring a couple of TED events. We set up a community evangelism program targeting vertical markets and key influencers. We also garnered awards and managed demos for them on-site in France, England, Ireland and North America, while handling partners, analysts, influencers and press.

Selected Media Exposure

• Good Morning America
• Wall Street Journal
• WSJ TV
• New York Times
• CNN
• The Today Show
• CBS This Morning
• USA Today
• World News Tonight
• Elvis Duran Show
• Discovery Channel
• Steve Harvey Show
• CBS News Los Angeles
• The Doctors
• Fast Company
• Tokyo TV
• ABC World News Tonight
• LeMonde
• Los Angeles Times
• NPR
• BBC
• Fox & Friends
• KTLA-TV
• The Guardian
• Business Week
• Matthew Bronson Show
• WFLA TV
• USA Today TV
• Huffington Post
• IEEE Spectrum TV
• Consumer Reports
• NBC National News
• Good Day Sacramento
• NBC News Philadelphia
• CNET
• Paris TV

Spock Campaign

We created a tease campaign followed by a viral campaign that included traditional media, tapping into controversy at the time around privacy on the web and the importance of vertical search beyond Google at a time when trust was in question and monopolizing the industry was an integral conversation on industry panels and in the press.

We worked with Spock on a three-tier campaign that focused on vertical search, advertisers and privacy. By developing an integrated social media and viral communications program that educated the market about vertical search, we were able to kick start relationships with key industry influencers early on. Our strategy included advertisers who want to reach people in specific niche categories.

The campaign included an executive media push, positioning Spock executives as thought leaders on privacy and how it impacts business and society as a whole. We hit broadcast TV and business media on and offline.

Because Spock’s search engine focused entirely on people, privacy and security alarm bells rang early on. Instead of playing to or avoiding media and consumer fear, we educated people how to start managing their online reputations. We successfully managed a controversial article with Time Magazine and negative online chatter over Internet safety, particularly as it pertained to children.

In addition to a strategy that focused on thought leadership and attracting potential advertisers, our goal was to get more users to the site. Prior to its initial launch, we did a teaser campaign and secured on-stage demos at high profile industry shows as well as a two-tiered founder narrative program.

We created a program for vertical market industries around events and holidays such as entertainment, politics, sports and celebrities. Part of the strategy was not just to generate buzz about the site but solicit help from users to enhance content on the site and encourage others to participate. This included online games, widgets and contests to engage users and spiral user growth. It was so successful that PR Week wrote about the success of the communications and marketing strategy and campaign.

Selected Media Exposure

• Wall Street Journal
• Forbes
• WIRED
• USA Today
• NBC News
• Newsweek
• Boston Globe
• InfoWeek
• LifeHacker
• Time Magazine
• CNET
• Der Spiegel
• PC Magazine
• PC World
• Los Angeles Times
• Nightly Business Report
• SFChronicle
• VentureBeat
• MSNBC
• News 2
• The Guardian
• Financial Times
• Business Week
• TechCrunch
• GigaOm
• Media Post
• Die Welt
• Mashable