Today at Icarus we are totally swamped with urgent project deadlines, but I just wanted to take a moment out over coffee and reflect on January as being the big month of hope for many in Pharma land.

We all come back rested from an extended break full of new intentions, plans for the year and the overwhelming sense that whatever happened last year is a distant memory and now this is our time.

Time for what?

Time to make things happen, time to get things back on track, time to really sit down and flesh out the strategic/tactical/business plan and move the market/product development/drug.

I'm curious about this phenomenom and recognise it in myself from my old days too.

The thing is, it doesn't happen like that at all.  Events occur, we get overwhelmed and 'things' over take those early ideals.  The relentless train catches everybody during the year at some point unless you learn to slow it down.  If you don't watch out, you arrive at December only to find that yet another year has run away from you.  Sound familiar?

One year I discovered a fundamental truth: when you stop focusing on promoting something and start listening and educating, things slow down and become more focused, more authentic and real.

Seth Godin's pithy comment from Sept 11, 2009 sums this up very well:

"Teaching people not only impacts the market, it changes the world.  Teaching about connection and community and science, a little bit at a time, can heal our world in the long run. It doesn't happen as fast as we might like, but it works.  Emergencies fade, and in the long run our teaching lasts."

The challenge is putting education, not promotion, first and foremost in your thinking.