by Jason Brandt (@jasondmg3)

1. I don’t understand any of this stuff.
2. Who has the time to really use this stuff anyway?
3. No real business can afford to have employees wasting their time on this stuff when they should be busy working.
4. It’s just a geek thing. Nobody with a life really uses this stuff.
5. It’s just a kid thing. Nobody over 20 really uses this stuff.
6. Even if this new stuff has some applications for some industries, but in healthcare, it’s just too difficult. It will never work here.
7. Even if we wanted to see if this new stuff could work here, we can’t try it yet. We have to wait for the FDA to explain exactly what we can and can’t do.
8. Even if we did try this new stuff, who would own the project? IT? Marketing? Communications? We can’t all try to share it, it’ll be a disaster.

Raise your hand if you’ve heard someone say that about social networks, smartphone apps, blogging or any other type of social digital technology over the last few years.

Now, if you’ve been in this industry over 15 years, look at that list again… and raise your hand if you heard someone say that about websites in the mid-1990s.

The more things change, eh?

As funny as it sounds, people were scared to death of websites – once they stopped scoffing at them. They’d waste employees’ time, they’d never be accessible to most consumers, they’d invite a crippling deluge of adverse event reports from the fanatics who would find them, and the FDA would shut the whole company down if you tried to say anything anyway.

The double-edged sword that breakthroughs carry (in communication technology or anything else) is that they are entirely unformed. They do not come with guidelines. They do not come with user manuals. You can’t always tell which will catch on. You can’t always tell how people will use them. You can’t always tell what next-generations they will spawn.

This is uncertainty. This is change. This is movement.  This is scary as hell.

But the thing is, it’s not. It is not uncertain, it is not movement or change. It is not new. It is the exact same argument about the exact same ideas – just with a new specific target.

Healthy skepticism is healthy. It can keep you from wasting time, money and resources. It can keep you asking questions. It can keep you thinking critically and strategically.

But unhealthy skepticism is paralyzing, debilitating, deadly. Today, you’d laugh at any company who thought having an online presence was a waste, or who wouldn’t give their desk-based staff internet access. It would be ludicrous.

So, how do you keep the balance between healthy skepticism – and asking the same fear-based questions from decades past?

Here, we get our hands dirty with new technology. We take it apart, play with it, figure out what we’d like to have it for ourselves, and start to piece it into our plans. But we don’t throw out what we’ve got that’s already working. Movies didn’t disappear after TV, and TV hasn’t disappeared because of the internet. The new pieces – the ones that last – learn how to play with the old ones, and vice versa.

How do you stop asking the same old questions?

by Jason Brandt (@jasondmg3)

Attracting visitors to your website is one thing; keeping them engaged is another. With patent expiries and a shrinking sales force on the horizon, pharmaceutical companies need to think strategically about their digital delivery strategy and optimize their most valuable asset: their website.

Social networks are an important component of the marketing mix, but it’s important to recognize that social platforms will come and go. MySpace, once king of the Internet is soon to be little more than a blip in web history. Hundreds of thousands clamored for Google+ invites and threatened to abandon their presence on other platforms. Worse, any of those companies could shut down without warning, obliterating your online presence. A website offers greater ownership and control, but it requires daily attention and strategic foresight to keep people involved.

The first challenge in creating a successful website is defining its purpose and then implementing strategies to support it. Goals should be more specific than “get people to interact.” Is your goal to educate and inform? Sell a product? Support a specialized community? Once you determine what it is you’re trying to accomplish, you can define processes to achieve your goals.

Even having clear line of sight for what you’re trying to accomplish may not be enough to draw repeat visitors, especially if you’re trying to be just another WebMD. Chris Boyer smartly observes that people are already heading there to gather clinical health information. Successful websites need to offer more – whether that’s more opportunities to interact or deliver value to your audience.

What’s holding pharmaceutical companies back?

Diagnosis #1: Failure to know your audience. If your website doesn’t immediately give visitors what they want, they’re not going to stick around, and they’re not going to come back. If breast cancer survivors are coming to your site looking for other post-treatment patients, give them what they’re looking for right on your front page.

Diagnosis #2: Not keeping content up-to-date. Many initial web strategies were simply to have a presence. That’s no longer enough. Today you’re expected to provide actionable information. If you’re a doctor’s office, let patients see appointment availability and offer schedule functionality. If you’re an OTC drug manufacturer, offer a coupon, pollen index or an offer people can’t get anywhere else. If you maintain a blog, make sure posts are informative, well-written and updated regularly.

Diagnosis #3: Being forgettable. If you want people to return to your website, you’re going to have to remind them that it’s there. Create an opt-in e-mail list from your site visitors and send out regular communications letting your recipients know about the latest developments, news, special offers, etc. Don’t overwhelm recipients or send them junk. If you give valuable content and they know where to find it, they’re more likely to seek it out.

Diagnosis # 4: Your site is too difficult to navigate. Make interactions easy. If the experience is frustrating, they’re going to leave. Patients and physicians come to your website for different reasons. A doctor may be interested in prescribing information whereas a consumer might want to know which local pharmacy carries the prescription they need. Provide clear navigation that gets them where they want to go. Visitors also want to know how they can get in touch with a company representative. Prominently place links to Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, email, etc.

Websites still have a strong place in the marketing mix. Customizing content based on customer type and physician requirements and gathering data to understand the effectiveness of promotional materials is critical. By understanding your audience, its expectations and delivering on them, pharma can do a better job of getting people involved in their website.

Last week, we had the pleasure of speaking with Andy Nimmo, the president of Physician’s Office Resource. POR is a media publishing company that offers a catalogue of medical devices and in-office tests, in their print magazine and on their website. On August 1^st, they launched PharmaCONNECT, a space where physicians and pharmaceutical companies can connect, in real time (or by appointment, if they so choose), as part of their larger website.

Andy explained some of the services in PharmaCONNECT as well as the thinking behind it. With their success connecting doctors to reps for the diagnostics and in-office testing companies, it seemed only natural that those same doctors would not only be comfortable connecting with pharma in the same way, but that they would embrace the chance.

The business model is simple – the pharma companies pay a one time set up fee, and a yearly maintenance fee, to set up a branded presence on the site and then they pay per doctor engagement. They are able to see exactly what they are paying for.

What we think is intriguing about PharmaCONNECT is its “open borders approach.” There is no exclusivity to pharmaceutical companies. None. Currently, the site is populated, for the most part, with vanilla data, provided by First Databank. Though they have contacted the “top 100 brands and are currently engaging with the top 20.” We were told that they expect to have 15 to 20 of the brands with their own pages and presence on the site by year’s end.

Doctors who do in-office tests tend to be higher prescribers than those who outsource their testing. And their patients have higher rates of compliance because they are able to learn more about the meds and why they ought to be taking them. As Andy said, there is a “natural synergy” there. So why not add answers from the pharma companies into the equation?

The hope of PharmaCONNECT is to offer a meaningful and measurable engagement that will not only help companies to get their message across, but offer doctors all the information they need, and answers to any questions, with a few keystrokes. And, knowing the future is mobile, the site itself is optimized for mobile – working on iOS and Android platforms. Mobile apps are about a year away, including a click to call feature for iPhone, so the doc can be connected to someone right away.

As there are fewer sales reps to cover more area, do you think that PharmaCONNECT will be the tool to fit both the pharma company and the physician’s needs?

We think it will be interesting to see if the pharma companies embrace this platform the way it seems the doctors have. What do you think?

by Sven Larsen (@zemoga)

The latest trend in employee communications is, unsurprisingly, social media. Increasingly, companies are investing in – or building their own – internal social networks, blogs and microblogs, hoping to build sheltered digital communities for their employees to interact, resulting in boosted morale and positive influence on business results.

It sounds nice, but it’s being met, in all but the most techie and/or most relaxed environments, with mixed results. At worst, it’s greeted with distaste, disbelief, and shaking of heads. It’s unfortunate, but not altogether unsurprising, when you consider the current environment.

The aftershocks of the Great Recession are still being felt. Not every company is still shrinking, but precious few are growing. The employees who are left are missing old colleagues, afraid for their own jobs, and doing the work of several people on a daily basis. It’s doable, but it’s not easy, and it doesn’t leave a lot of room to introduce optional activities.  In this climate, any novelty that requires activity and is inessential is going to be viewed with skepticism. Strengthening employee morale and motivation is more important than ever – but it’s also harder than ever.

Furthermore, in any climate, good or bad, when a new communications vehicle is introduced, particularly one that is “pull” – requiring employees to visit a new real or online destination, rather than getting a message delivered to them – adoption will require effort.

A third problem, apart from the timing and the difficulty of getting people interested, is the functionality of many internal social vehicles. It goes without saying that they’re not as robust as Facebook or Twitter or LinkedIn; they simply can’t be, as smaller companies producing a product that is usually more restrictive. However, as logical as the limitations are, they tend to turn off well-versed social networkers who miss the features they’re used to, or to confuse social-networking novices who aren’t familiar with any social interface, let along one that’s slightly clunky or kludgy.

The combination of the adoption curve, along with the current climate, along with the sub-par functionality of many offerings, means that this may be an inopportune time to bring social media into internal communications. It’s not that it’s never going to work – but it may be that now is the wrong time.

by Briana Campbell (@MsMatchGirl)

Want to Encourage Innovation? Implement Internal Social Networks.

Innovation, a critical differentiator for pharmaceutical companies, is dependent on effective internal collaboration. A study conducted by the IBM Institute for Business Value (IBV) suggests that to optimize R&D investments and create more sustainable value, pharmaceutical companies should focus on improving internal collaboration within the organization.

With fewer products in the pipeline, less diversification, patent expiry and generic pressure, pharmaceutical companies need to focus on human capital and manage innovation effectively in order to succeed. That means reducing a top-down communication approach and fostering innovation from the bottom-up. At the same time, they also need to boost enthusiasm and creativity in the workforce and strengthen collaboration among team members.

Many pharmaceutical companies are looking to external social networks to improve communication with customers, but internal social networks can help pharmaceutical companies harness their culture, drive innovation and experience better business outcomes. A custom portal or tool like Yammer has a low cost of entry and can be used for elearning, socializing, and document sharing – giving employees a secure, searchable knowledge database and communication platform.

Why should you consider social networking for your organization?

Everybody’s doing it. Ok, that’s usually not a good enough reason for doing something, but 500 million Facebook users can’t be wrong. Social media is fun, familiar, and with employees versed in the convenience and reward of social applications, getting them to participate will require minimal training or support.

Shatter geographic or divisional boundaries. Are team members in Singapore, London, and New York City?  Working in different divisional silos? No problem! Employees can talk to colleagues in real-time and access information at lightning speed. Business happens fast; social networks help participants get the answers they need when they need them.

Change the top-down directive. Does your company have an open door policy where anyone can walk into a member of the senior management’s office and start talking? If not, social media can foster better communication and help employees get their voice heard. For example, scheduling Yammer Time on Friday afternoons, where the executive team takes questions from anyone in the company, can provide insight into what people are passionate about, what they’re working on and any concerns they may have. By talking to employees, organizations benefit from a wider range of perspectives and demonstrate they value employee contributions.

Create a culture where dissent is valued. Too much consensus isn’t a good thing, but that’s what happens when people are afraid to speak up. In authentic communities, people disagree. But in the workplace, many people hold less popular or contrarian ideas close to the vest. Social research indicates that people are less likely to communicate in groups if they are not comfortable – even more so when they have a differing opinion. Social networking increases people’s comfort level with communicating ideas, resulting in a greater sharing and collaborative exchange.

Eliminate knowledge hoarding. When information is stored in silos, nobody wins. Employees have a harder time doing their job and organizations cannot optimize the knowledge inventory in the company. Social networking provides a platform for sharing and competitive advantage. It encourages broader thinking, makes information transparent and enables people to share in decision-making.

Internal collaboration should be a priority for pharmaceutical companies striving to remain competitive. You may think you don’t want to require employees to have to check yet another social network, but while you’re not doing it, one of your competitors is already tapping into the power of its people by providing an environment that encourages new ideas, drives change, and strengthens the company from inside out.

by Krissy Goelz (@krisgoelz)

Anyone familiar with Discovery Channel’s hit show “Mythbusters” will know co-host Adam Savage’s catchphrase, “Failure is always an option.” As he explains, “It’s not just a joke, it’s actually the cornerstone of our approach to the scientific method. [...] Any result is a result.”

Science is used to the idea of “failure” not being a bad thing, but rather, simply a potential outcome of research. One of the first things you learn in science class is that an experiment that discovers the opposite of what you expected is not a failed experiment. As long as the experiment was conducted properly, the result – whether expected or unexpected – is the evidence of a successful completion.

However, most corporate executives do not see a failure with quite the same blase equanimity. They tend to look at it with a little more horror – and a lot more focus on what it has taken out of the annual budget. In the corporate world, failure tends to have a direct correlation with brakes being applied to a career trajectory. And when science is done – as it often is – within the bounds of a for-profit institution like a pharmaceutical company, those financial business realities tend to bleed over into the lofty ambitions of science. In some ways, it can be useful when scientists start thinking like businesspeople. But when it comes to experimentation, it can seriously limit their thinking and exploration. If you need to win all your bets, you’re going to make very safe ones.

A recent article in Pharmalot noted that Phase II clinical-trial failure rates are rising, with only about 18 percent of Phase II trials meeting their endpoints. The article itself is proof that failure, in pharma R&D at least, is no longer an option. Drug trials exist to prove the worth of their compounds – and “worth” is meant literally.

The mindset behind this way of thinking is obviously sensible and sound in many ways. However…

1. Is it possible for the industry to find a way to bring back more of the scientific openness to failure – and with it, the possibility of an increased number of great new discoveries?
2. A second, slightly more wishful question is, can we bring that scientific willingness to risk and experiment from R&D over to pharma marketing?

The fastest way to encourage innovation and risk is to take away the possibility of negative repercussions – to make failure okay. We need to create more opportunities – whether time-limited special events, geographic gatherings, online groups, or new ways of doing business altogether – that allow us all to fail forward.

By Dan Bobear (@dbobear)

Looking around the business landscape just a year or two ago, economic uncertainty lingered in the air. There was hesitancy as far as the eye can see. Whether the issue was hiring, funding a new initiative, putting money into product development or any one of countless other issues, the feeling from Wall Street to Main Street was something along the lines of let’s wait and see how this shakes out. These days, the outlook is much more positive, but as history has taught us, it will be another handful of years before we’re due for another economic crisis.

Companies cannot afford to stand still. Yes, waiting things out can be the right strategy – but make sure your team, department, division and even your whole business reach that decision through a thoughtful process, not a reflexive freeze. How can you maintain momentum even amid uncertainty? One way is by taking a rigorous approach to strategy.

Two steps are at the core of a vigorous strategy-development process, whether you’re trying to launch a new team initiative or a billion-dollar drug:

Rationally assess the level of uncertainty you’re dealing with. In 20/20 Foresight: Crafting Strategy in an Uncertain World, author Hugh Courtney notes that managers can approach uncertainty systematically. He lays out a four-part framework to help managers determine the level of uncertainty surrounding strategic decisions: In level one, there is a clear, single view of the future; in level two, a limited set of possible future outcomes, one of which will occur; in level three, a range of possible future outcomes; and in level four, a limitless range of possible future outcomes.

The bottom line: Risk and uncertainty always exist – even in a strong economic climate. What changes is our perception of those risks. For level one to three, conduct some bottom-up analysis to figure out market drivers, do some market research and uncover competitive intelligence prior to crafting a strategy. For level four, the increased ambiguity requires working backward from potential strategies to what you would have to believe about the future for those strategies to succeed. The classic example would be biotech – early-stage biotech investments have always faced level four uncertainty, because you’re playing with therapies with an ultimate commercial viability that is unknown.

If you’re developing a strategy, make sure your process works. In a world of perfect feedback, this wouldn’t even be an issue – you’d develop a strategy, execute it, and the results would tell you whether or not your planning process worked. Unfortunately, habit and inertia can be our constant companions, and sometimes that means processes that may have worked years ago continue to live on in conference rooms and thick memos, long after they’ve stopped being effective.

The recent recession has made some strategies obsolete and revealed weaknesses in others. This requires organizations to examine decisions and trade-offs they put off in boom years. How can organizations know if their strategy will be effective? The January 2011 McKinsey Quarterly outlines 10 tests to help executives assess the strength of their strategies. In the same report, a survey of 2,135 global executives indicates that few strategies pass more than three of the tests. One recommendation:  Don’t be afraid to kick the tires and test your strategy. This enables executives to identify gaps in thinking, open their minds to new ways to use strategy to create value as well as improve the strategy-development process itself.

Uncertainty isn’t new in business and, despite the sometimes overwhelming drumbeat of negative economic news, great products and strong markets can still mean a home run. But to find those products and markets through anything other than blind luck requires solid strategies – even if the decision coming out of that process is, for now, to wait and see.

We’ve spent the last couple of years talking about how we, as healthcare marketers, can make a difference by utilizing, and encouraging the use of (OK, maybe pushing for a little), social media in healthcare. And when it began, BDI’s Social Communications and Health Roundtables were one of the first conferences that truly addressed the topic. Fast-forward three years and the conversation has become seemingly mainstream.

So what’s left to talk about?

So much! That the conversation is reaching a broader audience just means that we have to work harder and innovate more to keep the lead in this space.

Here’s a sampling of some of the issues they’ll be addressing:

·  What are innovative examples that demonstrate how healthcare brands, including big pharmas, execute social strategies despite a heavily regulated environment and the lack of guidance from the FDA?

·  What are the best case studies that show how leading healthcare brands engage and educate consumers online?

·  Why are corporate social responsibility initiatives a huge opportunity for healthcare brands to embrace social media?

And some of the amazing people they’ve got on deck:

Keynote Case Study:

Ray Kerins, Vice President / Worldwide Communications, Pfizer Inc.

Case Studies presented by:

Matt Cabrey, Senior Director, Corporate Communications, Shire Pharmaceuticals

Lance Hill, CEO, Within3

Andrea Martin, Manager, Brand Public Relations, Martek, now a division of DSM Nutritional Products

Anthony Martkin, Public Relations Manager, Martek, now a division of DSM Nutritional Products

Brian Mulligan, Assistant Vice President of Public Relations, North Shore – LIJ Health System

Event details:

Date: Wednesday, July 13^th

Time: 8:00 AM – 1:00 PM

Location: The Graduate Center of The City University of NY
365 Fifth Avenue(at 34th Street) Conference Level C
New York, New York 10016

Pixels and Pills is, once again, proud to be a sponsor of BDI’s Social Communications & Healthcare: Case Studies and Roundtables, being held July 13^th in New York City. For additional information, including registration, please click here to visit the event website. Pixels and Pills readers can use the discount code P&P to receive a discounted rate of $175.

Hotel Sponsor: The Roger Smith Hotel is the official hotel of BDI’s events. Use promo code BDI for 10% off rate by clicking here.

Sponsors:
PR Newswire; Pfizer; Within3; BlogTalkRadio; Journal of Communication in Healthcare; International Association of Business Communicators- New York; Mashable; New York Enterprise Report ; New York University School of Continuing and Professional Studies; New York American Marketing Association; Pixels and Pills; PR News; Social Media Club; Social Media Today

For sponsorship/speaking opportunities, including pricing, please click here or contact Jennifer Brous at jbrous@bdionline.com or 212-765-8358.

We’ll see you there!

By DJ Edgerton (@wiltonbound)

Whoa, that’s like…so meta, dude.

A 5-minute walk on any college campus will reveal that “meta” has become the 21st-century version of “groovy.” It’s a word used to describe content that talks about itself – like writing a song about writing a song. That’s deep.

Of course, being self-referential isn’t always a good thing. It can be a lazy path to take; it’s often a lot easier to keep backing out and talking about theory and the state of things, rather than getting practical and detailed.

For better or worse, we’re seeing a lot of people getting meta, lately, in a few different ways.

First of all, media are getting meta now more than ever. Consider last year’s “The Social Network”. Could anyone 10 years ago have predicted that a movie would win three Oscars with a compelling story – about the development of a website? A film about a website? But entertainment media are so central to our lives that their stories are, indeed, compelling.

Second, and even more specifically, social media are getting meta. You’ll see conversations on Facebook about Twitter – conversations on Twitter about Foursquare – and what are aggregators like Friendfeed for if not to talk about other social media? That’s part of what can make social media so hard to “get” for an outsider. It can be overwhelmingly self-referential, like one big inside joke.

And here in our corner of the world, pharma have always been totally meta. We try to take our drug-development process and relate it to every business process there is. Double-blind trials don’t work for everything, though; conversely, the efficient models of capitalism aren’t always conducive to science.

So in the end, is this self-referential tendency a good thing, a bad thing, or just the way of the world? Well, certainly it’s a good thing to be self-aware. We’ve got to know what we’re doing and how we’re doing it – where we’re succeeding, where we’re failing, where we’re breaking ground, what our reputation is.

But I think that we need to be watchful of the tendency, especially here, where we’re at the convergence of social media and pharma. When you go to all the industry conferences, as we try to do here at Pixels & Pills, you can definitely see the “meta” raise its head. We’ve done great things, but we have to keep doing them – we can’t just talk about them.

Let’s try to step further forward this year, cracking open some new ideas. Let’s see if we can give ourselves a brand new batch of case studies to talk about at next year’s conferences: amazing new ideas that we brought out to see the light of day. Maybe they’ll succeed and maybe we’ll learn from them; either way, we’ll have something new to get meta over.

By Krissy Goelz (@krisgoelz)

It’s the 41st annual Earth Day today. The holiday started small, with a Wisconsin teaching day declared in 1970, but today, it’s celebrated in almost every country on the planet.

(Hey, isn’t it great to have at least one holiday that hasn’t been co-opted by Hallmark? Oh, wait….)

We’re used to hearing about school projects and neighborhood cleanups, and even about big industries being pushed to be carbon-neutral and working on alternative fuels… but what about pharma specifically? What can our industry be doing to be proud of on Earth Day?

Medication Disposal

One of the biggest problems in pharma, vis-a-vis the environment, is the proper disposal of medication. When patients get rid of their extra medication, a few things go wrong. First, they should probably be finishing it, and run the risk of antibiotic resistance if they don’t complete their course of therapy. Second, if they throw their medication out, it can be pilfered by addicts or accidentally taken by curious children or animals. Third, if they flush their medication, it enters the water supply full strength, and we end up with hormones, steroids, antibiotics and more – in our water, in our crops, in our animals, in our food, and in us.

There’s a PhRMA-supported National Prescription Drug Take-Back Day that’s working to help minimize this issue, and it’s happening next week. Today, Earth Day, is a great time to remind your co-workers, your local media and the world that you, as a company, support this initiative.

Sustainability

Check out this TED talk by Jason Clay of the World Wildlife Fund and learn about what other major corporations, outside of pharma, are doing – everything from chocolate companies sequencing genomes to carbon being bought by juice manufacturers.

As he says, these companies are doing it not to be nice, but because it’s become a pre-competitive issue. It used to be a point of differentiation in terms of marketing, and not much else. Now, they’re realizing that they want to be in business in the future, and that therefore, they want their ingredients and supplies to still be available to them in 20 years. Sustainability is no longer a pleasant altruism: it’s a business necessity.

If it’s a necessity for anyone, it’s pharma. 25% of pharmaceutical drugs are derived from rainforest ingredients. We need these places to stick around, folks.

1. GlaxoSmithKline has pledged to be carbon-neutral by 2050 – and plans to save $161 million by 2020 in the process of getting there.
2. For the last 20 years, Merck has had an agreement with a Costa Rican NGO to fund land preservation in exchange for samples of new potential clinical-development compounds.
3. For more good things that pharma companies are doing for our environment, check out this link.

We’re doing great things – but we have to make it more of a focus. Let’s spend this Earth Day remembering that, and figuring out how.