While Jobs offered up free bumpers or cases to iPhone 4 owners who have had issues with the phone’s antenna, the company found itself in a PR pickle for the way it responded to the crisis.

Critics have called Jobs out for his press conference performance, citing his defensive and dismissive nature. They have criticized his finger pointing at the media and his deflection tactic of asserting that other smartphones suffer from the same type of signal problems.

Here’s a link to one of literally dozens of articles that were critical of Apple’s crisis communications.

http://www.financialpost.com/news/Apple+problem/3295358/story.html

Jobs mishandling of self-dubbed Antennagate raises the question: how can a company gracefully and properly own up to a real problem, keeping both customers loyal and shareholders from hitting the panic button?

From missed earnings to failed drug trials to products recalls, when advising a client in a crisis situation, we consider these five fundamental principles.

• Have a crisis plan in place and update it regularly. While no company can predict a crisis they can be prepared in the event one arises so that key decisions can be made quickly and effectively.
• Respond to a crisis in a timely manner. Given the immediacy of social media, no company wants to be caught thumb-twiddling on communications decisions while Twitter accounts light up with company complaints.
• Don’t say too much, too quickly. While it’s imperative to respond quickly, it’s also critical to be accurate; it’s okay to say the company is working on getting more information to address the matter appropriately.
• Apologize – and be genuine. A respectful apology that takes all stakeholders into account can help repair trust and build brand reputation; an inauthentic one can make the situation worse.
• Above all, be transparent. Not being forthright can kill a company’s credibility and do long-term damage to its reputation.

For the first half of 2010, financings totaled $187.9 million, only 78% of the funds raised in the first half of 2009 and less than one third of the first half average from 2005 to 2007.

As in the first quarter, the events for the sector were largely positive.

Two new chemical entities received positive regulatory recommendations: an FDA advisory committee voted unanimously to recommend the approval of Theratechnologies’ tesamorelin (Egrifta), and a committee of the European Medicines Agency recommended approval of Cardiome’s BRINAVESS (iv vernakalant).

In the largest M&A transaction by a Canadian therapeutics company since Shire acquired BioChem Pharma almost ten years ago, the Biovail name will be replaced by Valeant after the merger of the two companies is completed. M&A activity was also prominent amongst the private companies in the Canadian sector during the second quarter, with three announcing they will be acquired:  Toronto-based VisualSonics, Montreal-based Resonant Medical and Ottawa-based Verio Therapeutics. Subsequent to the quarter, Sentinelle Medical of Toronto also announced its acquisition in early July.

For more insight on how Canada’s public healthcare companies fared in the second quarter, please check out Equicom’s Q2 2010 Canadian Healthcare Review

Looking at stats like these, it’s no wonder that more and more investor relations programs are incorporating social media strategies. It’s a great way to increase the lines of communication between a company and its various stakeholders.

Increased communication doesn’t have to mean increased risk. While the fast-paced nature of social media may seem like a more informal way to communicate with investors, disclosure rules and considerations should be taken just as seriously as any other investor communications. Companies employing social media in IR can minimize their additional risk by having their Disclosure Policies and the Employee Codes of Conduct include the use of social media to ensure that securities laws are complied with and liability is avoided.

Things to consider:

• Create a Disclosure Policy (NP 51-201 Section 6.2 – it is best practice for issuers to have a written policy) and ensure that employees are aware that, under the policy, undisclosed material information cannot be communicated directly to the market.
• For social media, include limits as to who can participate in the communication, rules related to the type of information that can be disseminated, procedures for information approval and how the media will be monitored.
• Investor information that is disclosed via social media networks should generally be restricted to material that has been previously disclosed through traditional methods of disclosure (such as press releases and Sedar filings).
• Blogs, tweets etc. should link to more fulsome disclosure as tweets do not allow for the inclusion of necessary forward looking information, risk factors etc.

For more on social media and disclosure, check out this month’s Regulatory Pulse (PDF).

It begged the question as to how many companies are already reporting on ESG practices.

According to research group Corporate Knights, the number is still relatively small. It recently reviewed the ESG practices of the companies in the S&P/TSX 60 Index, and found that only 10 out of those 60 disclosed detailed data on four factors used to rank them on corporate social responsibility: energy, carbon, water and waste. It is safe to say that the proportion of publicly-traded companies outside of this index that report on these same factors is probably even lower.

According to a recent article in the Globe and Mail, given the ability of ESG risks to impact  an investment’s potential return - think BP for example - some portfolio managers are now urging companies to adopt ESG reporting standards. They argue investors would be better able to analyze potential risks associated with an investment.

In that sense, ESG reporting is fundamentally no different from other disclosure; it provides analysts and investors alike with information material to their decision-making. By going the extra mile to be clear, concise and forthright about their ESG practices, companies could potentially garner greater love from the street, build credibility and generate all important trust.

A report prepared by the Hennick Centre for Business and Law at York University and by Jantzi-Sustainalytics for the OSC calls for regulators to encourage companies to report more information about their social practices. At the same time, it shuns the need to adopt new rules forcing higher disclosure standards saying leadership and guidance is more appropriate at this stage.

One issue is that there’s no clear consensus about what social reporting factors are most relevant.  Another is that existing rules require that only that material information must be disclosed.

The report goes as far to conclude that regulators like the OSC should encourage companies to be more open; to disclose whether they even have social policies and to evaluate their effectiveness.

The adoption of more formal rules surrounding corporate social responsibility would result in heightened transparency. At the same time, it could place additional reporting burdens on small cap companies.

For now, the status quo remains. However, as investors rally for increased disclosure in all areas of business, this is one aspect that companies may want to keep a close eye on. Even in the absence of formal requirements, taking a proactive stance with this type of communication can be beneficial, boosting credibility and providing additional means to build shareholder trust.

Quebec business magnate Karl Peladeau is looking to shake things up with plans to launch a 24-hour cable channel modeled on the conservative U.S. network Fox News. Some are already dubbing it “Fox News North.”

The new venture would be headed up by former senior aide to Prime Minster Stephen Harper, Kory Teneycke.

It’s not like this would be the first 24-hour news offerings in Canada. CBC News network and CTV News Channel have been offering around the clock coverage for years now.

However, any new entrant into the market is good news for the media relations trade. Traditional journalism is an industry that’s been stymied by low growth and cutbacks in recent years. And that’s made it more and more difficult to find reporters and outlets to cover Canadian business stories, particularly for small cap companies.

Take the Globe and Mail for example. Veteran reporter Len Zehr covered a wealth of small biotech stories for Canada’s flagship paper, but since he left nearly two  years ago, there’s been thin coverage of the sector. Without a dedicated beat reporter, that situation is unlikely to change.

Of course, there’s no guarantee of greater coverage for small cap companies with the introduction of this new station. It’s expected to be a mix of talk shows and hard-driving news. There’s been no word of any dedicated business programming. Still, with fierce competition to grab market share and endless slots to fill, we’re encouraged here by this potential addition to the Canadian scene.

Yet, every day, reporters are inundated with pleas to provide media coverage based on pitches that simply aren’t considered newsworthy.

Take a small cap company’s quarterly earnings report for example.

More often than not, pitches based on earnings alone fail to generate interest on behalf of the reporter. Why? While the earnings may be important for the company itself, they are simply not considered newsworthy by the reporter in the context of the broader market.

Of course, well-known large-cap companies almost automatically receive earnings coverage. But for a relatively unknown small-cap, unless financial results show a marked departure from previous reports that reveal a potential new trend or can help contextualize future performance, they are likely to go unreported on.

And since reporters want to write stories they believe will attract the most attention, earnings that fail to sway stock price or boost average volume are also less likely to tweak their interest.

One reason, according to a seasoned reporter I speak with regularly, is the need to provide forward-looking insight. By virtue, earnings reports are backward looking; an in-depth snapshot of the company’s past financial performance that simply doesn’t fulfill this mandate.

Another is that once an earnings report is broadly disseminated, there is very little opportunity for a reporter to provide unique or proprietary perspective. Given the growing pressure on reporters to write exclusive stories, or scoops, most bypass earnings reports and focus instead of finding singular stories that help set their publication apart.

That means a standard earnings report pitch highlighting year-over-year performance is unlikely to generate media interest.

Of course, that doesn’t mean it’s not worth reaching out to reporters around earnings time. For one thing, it keeps the company on their radar and helps set expectations around future milestones that may be worthy of coverage.

And, some small caps do receive earnings coverage. So what’s the key to increasing the likelihood of pick-up? A customized story pitch that is unlikely to be covered by competing outlets.

Does this latest earnings report put the company on the verge of a comeback when others in the industry are falling by the wayside? Highlight what they’re doing differently, and how this ties into their superior performance. Or does a change in its business signal a pending impact on a related industry, such as the company’s suppliers? Bring it to the reporters’ attention and support your claim with facts and figures.

It is angles like these that are more likely to be considered newsworthy with respect to an earnings report and generate attention; the angles that set a company apart from its competitors, tie into current trends and portend new ones.

With last month marking the tenth anniversary of the peak of the Nasdaq Composite Index – and the Index still trading more than 50% off those levels – tech stocks have arguably spent a full decade wandering in the proverbial desert.  For those of us who devote efforts to getting investors interested in technology ideas, at times it has seemed like the wandering might well continue for the full Biblical period of 40 years.  But as Paradigm points out, for the first time in over a decade, the Nasdaq has begun to outperform the broader S&P 500 Index.

In a recent analysis of 130 Canadian small-cap tech stocks, M Partners calculated that these stocks, as a group, outperformed the S&P/TSX Composite Index by 42% in the past year.  And yet, on a price/earnings multiple basis, they are trading at a 32% discount to the Index.  Of the 130 stocks, 96 showed positive returns in the past 12 months, including 35 that returned 100% or greater.  As M Partners summarizes, picking a winner has been “like finding a needle in a needle store.”

A few weeks ago, I attended the RBC Capital Markets Growth Technology & Communications Conference.  In its synopsis of the 11 companies that presented, RBC concluded that they are poised for growth after successfully managing costs over the past two years and maintaining solid balance sheets.

A good indicator of market sentiment will be the success of new financings.  The IPO window has effectively been closed for this sector since late 2007, and a number of tech companies have been waiting patiently for their opportunity.  Our conversations with investment bankers indicate that there are a number of deals that could launch this spring.  But it’s no slam dunk, with one planned IPO having been postponed last week.  It will be very interesting to see how upcoming offerings fare.

The events for the sector were largely positive, with a good mixture of regulatory and licensing news. The results of the three U.S. FDA regulatory decisions expected in Q1 were mixed: a product approval for Labopharm, a Complete Response letter with issues for IntelGenx (approval was not expected) and a delay for Theratechnologies, which had its FDA advisory committee meeting rescheduled to May 27.

Veterans of this sector remember the irrational exuberance and herd mentality of the biotech boom of 1999-2001. It has been ten years since the NASDAQ biotech index reached its all-time high on March 7, 2000, followed three days later by the NASDAQ composite index. In our next review, we will look back at this phenomenon, including the performance of the Canadian biotech IPO class of 1999-2001.

Download the full report here.

These public companies raised a total of approximately $654 million from equity and convertible debt financings despite a difficult financial environment in 2009, excluding large financings by Biovail and SXC Health Solutions. The healthcare environment has been particularly brutal for the pharmaceutical companies with FDA tightening safety requirements, legislators attacking them over pricing and marketing, and a patent cliff for their biggest products in clear sight. For the smaller companies, this created an opportunity for increased partnering and acquisition activity, which many Canadian companies are pursuing and some completed in 2009.

The average share price return in 2009 for a group of 32 larger Canadian healthcare companies was +100%, easily outperforming the TSX Composite Index, but investors’ perception of the sector may not match this performance. Good events outnumbered the bad events, but product failures make headlines whereas good data can get ignored.

The sector needs to catch the attention of investors in 2010 and their attention will be captured by positive events. Companies with revenues and earnings need to show continued growth in their quarterly results. Ongoing partnership discussions need to be turned into a couple partnerships with major pharmaceutical companies and large upfront payments, or turned into acquisitions. The sector could also use a little luck in 2010 - a few positive clinical and regulatory events early in the year would help attract the attention of risk-tolerant investors.

Read the full report here: http://bit.ly/7ieuu2