Archive for April, 2010

With BlackBerry now well and truly launched in the United States, I’m happy to say that publishers in three other countries have acquired rights: Britain, India and China.

Aurum in Britain will be the next to bring the book out with a pub date of May 1 followed by Hachette India and China Machine Press.

Among my fourteen books over twenty-five years, this is the first to be published in so many countries beyond Canada. I’m honored these publishers think the story is of such wide interest.

Gordon Sharwood’s departure from the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce was in keeping with the principles of the man. In August 1969, Sharwood was reading the newspaper at breakfast when he saw an item saying Russell Harrison was being transferred from Quebec to run the bank on a day-to-day basis.

Until then, that had been Sharwood’s role and he had done it well. Earlier that year, CIBC passed the Royal to become Canada’s largest bank. Such success was insufficient for Neil McKinnon, the autocratic chairman and CEO of CIBC, who toyed with potential successors among his senior executives for years.

Sharwood telephoned his wife Sandy, who was at their summer cottage. “Take the train home,” he said, “I’m going to resign.” McKinnon refused to even see Sharwood. His relayed explanation was suitably peremptory. “I didn’t consult the people Sharwood was brought in over.”

McKinnon was finally thrown out of office by the board of directors in 1973 and the bank went through a healing process and a series of new leaders. Yet ten years later, when I interviewed him for “The Moneyspinners,” Sharwood told me, “The Commerce is still run by McKinnon’s ghost.”

Sharwood launched a merchant bank, took a particular interest in entrepreneurs, and was an optimist in a world dominated by the dour. “There’s no reason why entrepreneurs can’t go out and raise money,” he told me in 1995 for my book about startups, “The Last Best Hope.” He was on major boards such as Canadian Pacific Transport and Dover Industries but his best work was with organizations such as the Canadian Association of Family Enterprise helping smaller firms where so many jobs are created.

Gordon Sharwood may not have led a bank, but his was a life well led. Banking’s loss was the entrepreneur’s gain.

As part of the U.S. book launch I signed several dozen books with personal inscriptions for mailing to American political and business leaders, top journalists as well as mavens in several other arenas.

Recipients include Barack Obama, Oprah Winfrey and Larry King. Among authors, journalists and commentators are Malcolm Gladwell, Graydon Carter, Walter S. Mossberg and Jim Cramer. Business leaders include Bill Gates and Andy Grove.

In so doing, we took a page out of RIM’s early strategy: give away the product to “seed” the market among those who matter. Malcolm Gladwell explained the phenomenon in his book, The Tipping Point.

Will mailrooms and staff actually pass along the book to President Obama or Ms. Winfrey? Who knows? Mighty trees from little acorns grow.

Key Porter, my publisher, has this month launched sales of BlackBerry: The Inside Story of Research in Motion in the United States. In the past my books have only been available through such U.S. websites as Amazon.com and the like. This is the first book I’ve written that’s actually on the shelves at major U.S. airports, Borders, Barnes & Noble as well as numerous independents. Of course, there is also availability through Amazon.com and other sites such as Alibris and Abebooks that began as used book sites but now offer new books as well.

So anyone can go into the Borders on Park Avenue in New York, K Street in Washington, D.C., or on the Tamiami Trail in Naples, Florida and walk out with a copy.

Or try Barnes & Noble on West Colorado Blvd, in Pasadena, California, Tysons Corner Mall in McLean, Virginia, or Boston’s Prudential Center. I’ve shopped in all those stores at one time or another, never thinking one day I’d have a title there, too.

Breaking into the U.S. market is as exciting as it is daunting. I am well aware that I’m up against tens of thousands of other new books fighting for shelf space and reader interest, but at least I’m there. For the BlackBerry itself, the U.S. is RIM’s biggest market. More than one million U.S. government employees own a BlackBerry plus there are millions more subscribers among businesspeople and consumers. If only one per cent of that total bought a book, I’d have a best seller. Wish me luck.

When my first book, “The Moneyspinners,” came out 25 years ago, my publisher, Doug Gibson, offered some savvy advice. Never go into a bookstore looking for your book, he said. It might not be there. And if you do go in, he said, don’t ask any of the sales staff about it. They’ll say they’ve never heard of it. Over the years, my books have done well, and I have pretty much followed his guidance.

Until today. I happened to be walking past Indigo’s Bay and Bloor location in the Manulife Centre. I thought, I’ll just take a peek at how the book is being displayed. Funny, it wasn’t in the New Non-Fiction section just inside the door where a best-seller should be. Nor was it anywhere obvious in the business section, so I asked a sales associate, “Where’s BlackBerry?”

“I’m sorry, we don’t have any,” he said. At which point, he recognized me as the author and added, “And that’s good news.” I thought, “Oh yeah?” Turned out that four days earlier the store had 70 copies and they’d all sold. Store employees can’t do anything on their own until the number of copies hits zero, which it did on Monday.

“I micromanage my stock,” said Guy. “Yesterday we called nearby stores and rounded up more copies on an emergency basis. They’re on the way.”

Turns out I was in good company. With the success of the latest book by Michael Lewis, “The Big Short,” sales of his first book, “Liar’s Poker,” have taken off again. The store only had three copies left of that earlier work.

Guy called me 90 minutes later to say that 13 copies of “BlackBerry” had arrived and more were coming. As a result, it’s safe to go back into the store again. But I won’t. Now I have two reasons to stay away: Doug Gibson’s counsel and Guy’s professionalism.

Of all the technological innovations of recent vintage, none has been more vibrant than blogs and social media. One of the attendees at my recent talk at the Rotman School arrived bearing her BlackBerry Bold 9700. Michelle Chau took notes using the Evernote application as well as several photos with the 9700’s camera.

You can find her report on CrackBerry.com complete with photos of me, the book and the inscription page. The self-described “PR gal/Librarian by day, and CrackBerry addict by night” has done an excellent job summarizing the main points of my talk. You can also follow her exploits on her Twitter page at http://twitter.com/mishiechau

Michelle’s report has been picked up or referenced by more than a dozen other blogs meaning that an untold number of people have seen it. There was a time when word of mouth sold books. These days, word is spreading in newfound ways.

Research In Motion has become the Rodney Dangerfield of the stock market: “It can’t get no respect.” Coming out of a global recession, the financial results announced yesterday looked strong. Year-over-year, revenue was up 35 per cent to $15 billion, the subscriber account base grew 65 per cent to 41 million, smartphone shipments grew more than 40 per cent to 37 million, and earnings per share were up 30 per cent to $4.31.

Analysts, however, were expecting better. As soon as the numbers became available after the market closed, share price began falling in after-hours trading. By early evening, share price on the NASDAQ was down $3.42 or 4.6 per cent. By noon today, the price seemed to have settled in around $71 on the TSX, down 6 per cent from yesterday’s close.

All this despite the fact that BlackBerry is the number one selling smartphone brand in the world’s biggest market, the United States. Nor has RIM been resting on its laurels in North America. International customers now make up half of total sales for the first time.

What’s the explanation? Is there a deficiency because RIM is a Canadian company and Apple gets all the buzz? Are short-sellers aiming at the market leader, hoping to make a killing? Is RIM’s future behind it?

The answer is none of the above.

Whenever I start researching a book on a company, I always buy shares in that company for my RRSP. I did so with RIM and I remain a shareholder. But as for what will happen next, I defer to J. P. Morgan, no slouch as an investor. When asked the direction of the stock market, Morgan replied: “It will fluctuate.”