Wake up and smell the 21st century

by Barrie Zwicker

WE'RE EXCITED to launch, with this edition, sources SELECT RESOURCES (see pages tabbed SE-LECT RESOURCES), welcome ISDN Wire Service as inaugural sponsor of the new feature, and announce the appointment of Dean Tudor (see next page) as Informatics Consultant.

These really mark the expansion of sources into new territories of usefulness to media workers-and other information-seekers outside their ranks who are developing the habit of purchasing and turning to sources.

Despite the recession sources continues to grow, becoming an even richer database of human contacts accessible through a wide-ranging keyword index.

This reference work will also be, increasingly, a source of information about other databases, especially of human contacts.

The launch of SSR is the most tangible evidence in this edition. With this edition we welcome to the listing section Macromedia, Canada's largest database provider.

Micromedia joins databases such as Globe Information Services
(formerly Infoglnbe) and QL Systems which have found a home in sources.

Every organization listed in sources possesses expertise. Some maintain impressive databases of experts and some of these are cross-indexed. Our intention is to make these even more easily and explicitly accessible through sources.

sources will, additionally becomc a source of information about how to "seek smarter," how to navigate the emerging world of overlapping data-bases provided in varying formats.

An initiative such as this is more work than it perhaps appears. It would not have been possible without a team effort. Research co-ordinator Kate Kaufman canvassed various possibilities and dug, dug. dug. She also worked with staffer Stacey Cohen on the reviews side. Ad manager Philomena Stevanovic kept abreast and ran with the ball as Managing Editor Brandi Dickman handled overall co-ordination, art selection and design. Others contributed as well, leading up to the partnership with ISDN.

We couldn't be more delighted to welcome the innovative ISDN Wire Service as the exclusive sponsor of sources SELECT RESOURCES.

ISDN (Information Service Dissemination Network Limited) is Canada's fastest-growing news dissemination bureau. It distributes information on behalf of its client companies and other organizations to the news media across Canada.

ISDN's distribution reaches thousands of outlets, including community newspapers, radio and TV stations and trade publications as well as, obviously, the large metropolitan media outlets, networks and groups.

It represents the leading edge of Canadian information providers to the
brokerage community as well as the media, operating Canada's largest fax-based information transmission service, able to relay to 1,000 locations simultaneously.

We much enjoyed our visit to the bustling headquarters of this seven-year-old company run by the husband-and-wife team of Patric and Tylaine Nicholls. We wondered about the missing "k," too. The innovative Patric has adopted a similar spelling to the name of his innovative great grandfather. The Hon. Frederic Nicholls (1856-1921). Born in England and educated in Germany. Frederic arrived in Toronto in 1874 an eager and ambitious 18-year-old and an early convert to electric energy.

He purchased the rights to Thomas Edison's patents in Canada and in 1889" organized the Toronto Incandescent Electric Light Company (TIELC, to compete with the existing Toronto Electric Light Company (TELC). Eventually Frederic's firm became the Canadian General Electric Company with him its first president. He was elected president of the National Electric Light Association of America. Eventually Frederic was named a Senator.

Frederic was a pioneer in one industry in his day. Patric and Ty are leaders in electronic fax technology today.

ISDN merits being better known and will be. Its fitting sponsorship of SSR will help.

For their part Patric and Tylaine are genuinely supportive of what we're try-ing to do with SSR. They listened intently to our description of the first edition of SSR and to our plans for expanding and improving it.

ISDN's public relations firm is BenchMark Communications of North York, operated by the energetic Stan Didzbalis, in the 1970s a student of your disobedient servant in the Ryerson journalism program. When Stan learned about the pending launch of SSR, he recommended sponsorship of it to Patric and Tylaine. Typically, they quickly grasped our direction, saw the fit and ordered work to begin. 

We want to make clear that ISDN's sponsorship dollars make sources SELECT RESOURCES available to you, just as Canon Canada Inc. makes possible Embassy Row. And just as the sponsors of Parliamentary Names & Numbers are instrumental in providing that popular feature.

ISDN, by the way, has recently attracted substantial investments from Innovation Ontario Corporation and the Horatio Enterprise Fund Limited. "These investors are confident that ISDN has a winning combination of technology and services to continue to grow and increase market share," said Bill Moore, ISDN's chairman (and former president of IBM Canada Ltd.).

And grow it has. ISDN has gone from three per cent to 20 per cent share of its market in three years. It has hired ten new people this year and opened new offices in Montreal and Calgary. ISDN has also developed a new generation of fax technology to better serve its customers.

Still pondering how it's possible to fax to 1,000 locations simultaneously? We were curious, too. It's accomplished by high-speed, high-volume facsimile servers containing multiple banks of multi-line fax boards. When the servers are activated they execute multiple dials to remote receivers, then transmit to each simultaneously. That's the root. Branches include database management software products enabling customers to manage complex combina-tions of mailing lists. A little past our WIN-fax Lite.

Published in Sources, Summer 1993

Sources
     sources@sources.ca
        Tel:
Copyright © Sources, All rights reserved.