By Sven Larsen(@zemoga)

“All things are ready, if our minds be so.” – Henry V, Shakespeare

There are a lot of bloggers weighing in with their predictions for 2010 this week. People are proclaiming the coming 12 months as “The Year Social Media Grows Up”, “The Year Traditional and Digital Agencies Converge”, “The Year of MObile” and many, many, more.

We think the honest truth is that things are moving so fast, no one can accurately predict 12 weeks out (let alone 12 months). Just take a look at January 2010. If the rumors are true, Google will launch a new phone (the Nexus One) on January 5th, Apple will launch it’s long awaited tablet computer later in the month, and CES will unveil a whole host of other tech launches. And this is just the start of a stunning year that promises everything from Google’s Chrome OS to Microsoft’s entry in to cloud computing to even more radical changes in how we consume media (did you know e-book sales have passed traditional books sales in volume on Amazon?).

The traditional twelve month planning cycle may be as outdated as the traditional school day or the traditional office.

So how do we prepare for what’s to come?

While predictions may be tough, it’s not that hard to remain clued in on all the new advances that are coming (this blog is one of many tools designed to help you do that). Are you using an RSS reader or other aggregator to monitor developments not just in your field but in other areas as well? Are you looking at sites like the TED conferences or the Big Think to see what super smart people are thinking about next? Are you putting yourself out there in your community via conferences and social networks so that you can exchange ideas with the thought leaders in your field?

Most importantly, are you open to and willing to embrace change? That remains the $64,000 question. Right now American and global business is full of the rusting hulks of giant organizations that thought they could fight the shifting tides of the global economy (today it’s GM but tomorrow it could be the New York Times). Is your company doing everything it can to foster innovation? Is it it doing everything it can to empower you to be proactive and ride the wave of creativity and connectivity  that is transforming business worldwide? And if your company isn’t doing this, should you be working somewhere else that does embrace that philosophy?

Here’s our prediction for 2010 – it will be a year of massive changes. Aren’t they all?

photo by Dougww (http://doug.aqueo.us/)

By Sven Larsen

With all the *ahem* “spirited debate” surrounding healthcare reform it’s clear that there is one part of Obama’s plan that everyone agrees with. Medical records need to be digitized in order to save money, improve communications between care facilities, and improve patient access.

Perhaps both sides are so ready to agree because the task is so daunting that it may take years to accomplish.

Apart from the obvious security concerns there are several other obstacles to digital conversion. One of the biggest is something library scientists call “maintaining the integrity of the metadata”. In plain English that means making sure that all of the information in a profile or history is correct. Ever log in to an online profile or read an article about yourself and found some errors? That’s bad metadata. It’s a concern when your online reputation is at stake. But it’s critical when it’s your medical treatment that can be impacted by bad information.

So the question becomes, who should be responsible for maintaining that data?

The most obvious choice is the patient. But is this really a realistic expectation? Think about all the online profiles you may have created for yourself (Facebook, Linked In, MySpace, etc.). How many of those do you keep updated? This also assumes that you have regular access to a computer, something that is a major issue for many of the most frequent users of our healthcare system, particularly seniors and the poor. And, of course, the patient would have to be trusted to accurately capture all the information provided by healthcare providers. Can you imagine the liability issues this would create?

But if patients can’t be trusted then the burden falls on healthcare providers. Not so bad, right?  Aren’t HCP’s already responsible for maintaining accurate patient records? This is just a change in the method of capturing this information, right? But what if a nurse is trained on the healthcare equivalent of Windows and then switches to a hospital that uses the healthcare equivalent of a Mac OS. This could cost institutions a fortune in staff training (in addition to the costs of installing these systems in the first place). If your company has ever implemented a new enterprise application like SAP or Oracle, then you know the kind of pain I’m talking about. In addition to user facility there could be issues with hardware compatibility, applications sharing data in a common file format and more. And how often would underfunded institutions upgrade their systems? I think back to a presentation I saw from the guys running New York State’s government website where they showed us the 20 year old computers Albany was using to run their sites. I could easily picture the same scenario at public hospitals in inner cities.

Perhaps the ideal scenario would be a third party provider providing a web based solution? Putting aside security concerns, they would be able to create a business around compiling patient databases, tracking their medical histories and ensuring that all the information on file was correct. Come to think of it, there are a bunch of businesses that do this already. They’re called Health Insurance Companies.

Maybe this whole reform thing won’t be such a bad deal for them after all?

By DJ Edgerton

Yes, your sales force is shrinking. It has been for a while now. It’s a scary idea – with fewer interactions with doctors, you worry, how can you succeed?

We have some thoughts. We’ll give you the short version first.

Simply. Smarter, not harder. Leaner, not bigger. And optimistically.

You’re probably rolling your eyes and thinking that’s a little trite. So let us explain.

Think about what you have going for you. Remember that you are no longer forced to deal with a sales force who can only check their messages after a long day on the road, who feel mostly disconnected from their leadership, both geographically and technologically, and whose connection to results feels intangible and not immediate. Remember also that you are no longer dealing with a sales force and a target list who are both trained to deal in costly kickbacks but who can now focus on the data.

Phrases like “sales force automation” and “customer relationship management” have been embedded in your brain for decades, but when was the last time you stopped and looked at everything in your organization from scratch? You’re probably using at least one set of outdated processes. (Probably a lot more than one, if you’re honest.)

Start with sales training. Think about the sales calls themselves. Consider team-building and deciling and in-field training and POA meetings. Look at every step and question everything, from scheduling to sessions to follow-up materials. See each action as if for the first time. Don’t assume you have to continue doing things the way they’ve been done. What can you do faster, smarter, cheaper – and most important, more effectively? Here are a few questions to kick-start your process:

* Med-school students have iPhone apps to choose from to help them learn. Why not your sales force?
* What are you storing on servers and making people download that could be done faster and cheaper with cloud computing?
* Does it make sense to hire a tech-savvy person to help you figure out what you need and tweak an existing product to your needs?
* Who are the youngest and newest people to your organization? Can you get them in a room for a brainstorm and let them go?

Most important of all:

* Can you remember that your sales force and your target list are not those things?

They are people. People who want to learn, connect, and go home to their kids at night and feel like they did something good that day.

* How are you enabling your sales representatives to have those experiences, and how are you enabling them to help their physicians have that experience?