Recently, I've noticed a few hits to this blog from Liquida, so curiousity got the better of me and this lead to research about what it was all about.
Turned out Liquida is a nifty search engine for looking up topics on blogs eg about science, cancer, just about anything you might be interested in:
Google search can be frustrating in that it often returns old posts from several years ago before more recent information unless you use the Options button to specify the date range or a more recent period.
Liquida presents the most recent information in a more user friendly, attractive and graphical fashion than merely pages and pages of links that you see on Google and have no idea what is relevant until you click through.
What I also liked about the site is that it offers the opportunity to insert a widget on your blog based on search terms that you might be interested in, such as Cancer or HIV or Diabetes, for example:
Another useful blog search tool that I find very helpful for finding disease information, especially blogs by patients about their disease or condition is Surchur. It aggregates social information around news, blogs, videos, pictures etc like this:
I used 'Glioblastoma' at random for both searches so that you can see the similarities and differences. Surchur also has nifty social features so you can vote things up or down, if you feel so inclined.
While everyone else is getting buzzed about Buzz, I'm fascinated with new ways to find insights and intelligence from patients about their treatments and how they manage side effects. Finding that on Google these days is like wading through treacle by comparison, even with the distracting sponsored ads turned off in my profile:
A patient guide from 2005? Oh really. Clicking on the item and scrolling to the bottom tells us that it was actually written in 1999. Ouch, so much has happened since then and this is why I'm using Google less and less these days – I want more recent, more relevant and more useful information. While some of the more modern tools aren't perfect, they at least attempt to organise the data in tabs and topics by clickable links to help you sort out the chaff from the wheat.
If you want to search Google for photos, blogs, or videos you have to do a search for each one, making the whole process time consuming and frustrating. Here's what you get from a blog search on Glioblastoma (all of these tests were done within minutes of each other):
As you can see, it's all a bit heavy compared to Liquida and Surchur. Try them out for yourselves on topics that interest you and compare them to Google. If I were a patient or caregiver, I would certainly give the new search tools a try.
What new tools so you recommend for medical information search and why?
This week I attended the ePharma conference in Philadelphia and thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to catch up with Twitter buddies for some extended conversation and sharing of news and views.
One of the challenges of Twitter is that it is hard to have extended discussions around topics of interest, which Friendfeed does very well, except that hardly anyone outside of tech or science geeks is on Friendfeed. It was therefore really delightful to meet the regulars in the digital pharma space in person at the intimate gathering on Moshulu, kindly hosted by Pixels and Pills. Lot's of interesting conversations evolved and set the tone for a productive conference.
Having heard from several folks that 2009 was a quiet one for pharma digital conferences, it was a big surprise to see this one packed to the gills. Many of the attendees were from eMarketing departments, digital agencies or specialist groups.
Clearly the buzz about social media is beginning to gain momentum in Pharmaland, but there is also a sense of frustration with lack of guidelines and the conservatism of internal review committees. I couldn't help wondering if they were preaching to the converted; what would be nice is to see more brand marketers, legal and reulatory folks attend to learn more and gain comfort around what others are doing in the space.
Rather than do a review of all the sessions, as I'm sure others will do that most admirably, I going to look at a couple of concepts and trends that appealed to me.
Over the last couple of years, video has become a firm mainstay in the general public's imagination, largely as prices have come down for things like Flip cameras and with the ease of posting and sharing videos via platforms such as YouTube, Vimeo, Viddler etc virally through social media. In the opening session, Paul Ivans from the organisers, IIR, pointed out that:
"Video accounts 34% of time people are online. But for health information, people want to read it."
Do they? Or is it that the videos on health and medical information aren't yet in a digestible, easily understood level? Videos on Pharma channels get very low views, so this could be a reflection of general distrust about corporate Pharma, lack of viral marketing or disinterest in the information. Ultimately, more granular research is needed to understand patient and consumer needs before things improve.
The neat thing about video such as YouTube though, is that it is seamless on smart phones such as the iPhone or Droid. If you have a YouTube video on your site or someone shares a link to a YouTube with you on Twitter or via email, clicking the play button or link takes you straight into YouTube to see it on your screen and allow you to share it with others if you like it. More and more people are surfing the web on their smartphones, making mobile an important and rapidly growing aspect of marketing. People are social creatures, they want to share something easily with their friends or relatives.
Recently, I've noticed how many brand or comporate sites are not optimised for mobile. There's a great opportunity to improve your image right there. It's relatively easy to do and yet has a huge impact. Imagine how many doctors are searching for medical information daily on their smartphones while in a hospital? Or a patient and friend are in the hospital waiting for tests having just been told by the doctor he/she has X. One is in shock, the other starts to Google on their iPhone for basic information. We've all been there. Ivans went on to say:
"Digital marketing provides health information and support to consumers and HCPs, but Mobile unlocks the opportunity for improving outcomes."
Of course, the wags will chirp, "there's an app for that!" but after the diagnosis, researching the disease, treatments, side effect management etc, improved patient outcomes are indeed what the ultimate goal is for everyone. The brands and companies that really start to understand and focus on this aspect of education are the ones that will do well in the long term. It won't be easy though, because it takes a) deep understanding of the disease and patient needs and b) focused strategies rather than random and haphazard tactics.
Another theme I liked at this meeting was innovation. Dennis Urbaniak from sanofi-aventis (a client company) emphasised strongly that innovation is not creativity or shiny object syndrome. That was music to my ears – how many of us have sat through agency meetings hearing about about some new idea or tactic that they thought 'very creative/innovative/cool (substitute words of your choice)' and you're deep down you're really wondering,
"Hmmm yes, but what impact will it have, how will it help doctors/patients/advocacy groups (or whatever is the target audience), how will it change outcomes? How does it fit in with our overall strategy and goals? Does it integrate well and can it scale? It might be pretty and win an award, but what if the target group doesn't find it useful? Then it's money down the drain."
Therein is the rub that Dennis was alluding to that marketers constantly wonder about: "is it relevant?" and offered 5 smart rules to live by:
Understand no matter how hard you try, you canʼt read your customerʼs minds. Donʼt pretend to.
Optimise your mix at the customer level not the brand level.
Respect channel preference and channel response, equally.
Apply predictive analytics as the foundation of your approach.
Content remains king. Channel optimization gets you in the game. Content optimization drives sustainable performance.
These ideas tally well with my own experience – broad ideas and tailored messages based on customer needs across multiple platforms always work better than isolated tactics with one set of messages on one channel, yet many marketers spend a lot of time and money trying to read customer's minds instead of gathering insights and using more intuition to make a bigger impact. They forget that what people think they want today may be very different tomorrow.
In the end, great content is king, not tools and channels. Relevance is ultimately about finding the tricky balance between expressed customer preferences and what people respond to. How does this all fit together? Urbaniak nailed it when he finished with:
"Let customers pick what they want and measure outcomes, then optimise progams accordingly."
In other words, be clear on your true intent but let the customer drive the direction. Predict, Project and Validate.
For many in Pharmaland senior management though, if they are insecure or unenlightened control freaks that might well be a very scary thought but new technologies are rapidly changing the landscape about how we communicate and interact. We can adapt and change with them or die of ignorance.
The ePharma summit is taking place this week in Philadelphia.
Today is the social media boot camp for newbies interested in getting started with social media and tomorrow the main meeting starts with some interesting speakers lined up, including sanofi-aventis’s Dennis Urbaniak and Mike Fowler from Eli Lilly.
You can follow the tweets using the #epharma hashtag on Twitter or for ease of use you can click the widget below to see the aggregated tweets in one stream. You can also catch it live or even later, if you want to get a summary and scan after the event or at the end of the day.
At a session at the American Psychoanalytic Association meeting here, Leli said he conducted his first Skype analysis with a Chinese patient in 2004.
"When I did my first Skype analysis, I had many doubts," he said. "Will the analytic process develop? Will there be language differences? Cultural differences?"
He soon began to feel that the Skype analysis was "similar to any type of analysis."
Modern technology can be used to reach and help patients around the world, not just in the doctors office. This example involved a Physicians office in New York and a patient in China for psychoanalysis, both talking on Skype via phone and video.
It's amazing what can be done these days. And then I recall that my own PCP insists on office visits and will barely even use the telephone, except in dire necessity for phoning in a prescription to the local pharmacy. SMS? Never, which is a great shame.
That said, I think it's great that Skype is a great start – imagine what could be done down the line with Cisco's Telepresence?
A lot of Pharma people often ask about the ROI or Return on Investment of new media, including social media. The reality, though, is that it's a lot more complicated than that.
Why?
Because the value of any marketing or sales channel is more than just push marketing and measuring the impact on various metrics. It's about building strong relationships in time, rather than investment in money. My friend Rory Murray calls this "return on relationships".
Think about the experienced sales reps who have been seeing the same doctors for years, have built a network of relationships and generally hate marketing stuff. They don't sell successfully from detail aids, they do well because the doctors have formed a relationship and like and trust them.
The same thing happens in marketing and managed care.
Remember those KOL's? The brand that builds solid and strong relationships with the academic experts has more influence than the one that doesn't. Doctors often buy on emotion, not logic. Those who have good channel relationships in appropriate managed care areas do considerably better than those who don't, as Lilly found out to it's cost with Effient recently.
If you put all of those aspects together, you can see that a launch success or failure is almost predicted from the start.
So how can social media help?
Well, think of it as a way of strengthening your online reputation; if you push stuff out there but don't engage, what does that tell customers and consumers about you? Ultimately, that approach will weaken your image. However, if you appear engaged, authentic, helpful and sincere then inevitably, people will have a more favourable impression. This is why I like the way some Pharma Twitter accounts such as Roche and Boehringer interact with people. They answer questions, provide information and generally do a nice job of being cheerful and responsive without being pushy.
With others, though, it's like getting blood out of a stone. They don't seem to listen or interact and constantly push out stuff in a semi advertorial fashion; it's all about them, not the consumers or listeners. Of course, that approach has influenced my opinion of the company and its products more negatively.
Rory recently posted a short presentation, which I highly recommend. Take a quick look at what he has to say:
Over the last few weeks I've received a bunch of emails from frustrated Pharmers in sales, marketing, PR and even R&D, all wanting to engage and interact with patients while providing better and more accurate information for the general public on a variety of topics.
In each case, these were intelligent people who had got the hang of social media themselves from personal experience and saw the unlimited possibilities it offers.
What was also common is that the organisations involved were all leery of doing anything non-traditional or out of their comfort zone simply because it might not be impossible that some risk might happen, the FDA doesn't have any guidelines and they don't want that responsibility on their shoulders. Who knows what may happen yada yada…?
Granted we live in a highly regulated environment in Pharmaland, but we accept risk in clinical development, why not marketing?
Social media is disruption technology, it makes people uncomfortable. Just as extreme sports don't appeal to everyone, social media is viewed by many as 'extreme marketing'. If your organisation or team is not prepared to deal with a certain amount of chaos, it's probably not ready to handle it.
One trick I've learned for getting things done: don't call it social media and don't focus on the tools – think about the objectives and outcomes you want to achieve; the tools are just a means to an end, not the end in themselves.
The other thing that caught my imagination this week was Apple's iPad launch. This looks like a slick and useful tool for mobile on the road presentations and sharing of data, information, videos, all sorts of things. Who wants to lug around a heavy laptop plus an iPod, a kindle, and whatever other paraphernalia is necessary for a road trip?
Now, imagine those same Pharma people with an iPad on the road. It would allow you to catch up on the scourge of emails, write and edit presentations in iWork, share a short video or clinical synopsis with a doctor, discuss scientific data over coffee easily. Share news, medical or article links on Twitter, search for medical information, develop a team Mind Map around a particular idea, check your territory and team sales, use augmented reality to check a hospital to find the doctor, coffee shop, notes on the account, all with a few simple clicks etc etc.
This is the future of technology, right here, right now.
The intersection of technological changes, social media and digital interaction is changing faster than Pharma can even keep up with it, let alone get started. Tools like the iPad and social media will eventually mesh and a new way of communicating will eventually emerge. Who really needs a printed and out of date detail aid when you can discuss a clinical paper right there on the screen?
Nothing will change until the old guard retire or move on.
In their place is an army of young, dynamic and digitally savvy generation bursting with ideas, enthusiasm and a deep seated desire to do things differently and make change happen.
It's a funny old world: who would have thought that the President's State of the Union address and Apple's iPad announcement would have got me thinking about the chaos that social media causes in Pharma?
One of my Twitter buddies, Dr Bertalan Mesko (@Berci) has built a superb collection of RSS aggregators, catchily called PeRSSonalized Medicine, on his Webicina site around different medical topics a broad range of topics including diabetes, depression, cancer, psoriasis, nephrology etc. He graduated from medical school last year (while running ScienceRoll and Webicina!) and is now a qualified doctor with a strong interest in genetics as well as research in psoriasis and rheumatoid arthritis.
Here's the full list you can choose from:
More recently, he extended this excellent theme and launched his Pharma resource as you can see at the bottom of the above checklist. Here's the Pharma site in more detail:
As you can see from the screen shot above, it includes medical journals, blogs, news and web 2.0 tools shared via various Pharma bloggers on Twitter; all the content is efficiently organised alphabetically.
Of course, I was delighted to see this humble little blog included, but do check Berci's excellent resource out because it's well worth looking at. You can also follow him on Twitter for more regular updates. The site is free, just sign up and away you go.
Overall: It is a well executed and nicely curated medical site for physicians and patients alike – great job, Berci!
{Disclosure: This website, Pharma Strategy Blog, is included in the Pharma site I just reviewed and I am therefore undoubtedly biased in reviewing PeRRSonalised Pharma, but please do check it out and see for yourselves what can be achieved with medical information and web 2.0 tools. If more pharma sponsored sites had half a much independently curated and unbiased information, they would probably do very well.}
One of the most noticeable changes at the American Society of Hematology meeting this weekend was the impact of banning chotchkes and giveaways for health care professionals in the US:
Traffic in the exhibition hall was noticeably slow, except for a couple of booths
The booths were much smaller
Pharma companies provided more medical information staff and fewer sales reps
With the lack of credit and high cost of the booths, several small biotechs were also noticeably absent
Of course, when you needed a pen to jot something urgent down, none was to be found. I tried switching to the notepad on the iPhone to record a name and phone number and managed to drop the call twice. Oops.
Talking to several oncologist and hematologists in the exhibit hall about the topic was interesting. Getting pounced on by desperate or bored reps trying to promote something is never pleasant. They don't want to collect tonnes of paper based clinical trial and medical information when a flash key is smaller and easier to manage/access later. Of course, several Pharma companies defensive response was that legal had taken a draconian position of ultra conservatism and declared flash keys chotchkes and therefore not allowed under any circumstances.
Several of the booths had interesting interactive tools for browsing clinical trials or their pipeline for useful information. The problem was, you could only see it on the screen, no printouts or downloadable files of any kind, rendering the fancy program pretty but totally useless and impractical.
Here's some ideas they could have considered:
Mini CD's or flash keys with relevant medical or clinical trials information on them for later use.
Interactive tools for case based management enquiries, which allow the doctors to sign up and ask an expert peer for advice on patients via email, video or phone later.
Ditto, but have materials available in label that the sales reps can deliver offline post meeting.
Ditto, but information based on ongoing company clinical trials with a visit from the MLSO. This would encourage more trial participation in US or EU co-operative studies.
Incorporating social media programs that foster engagement and dialogue between peers to improve patient outcomes.
Sign up to have specific medical information enquiries about data presented at the meeting answered via SMS or email with a protected link to relevant clinical information from the medical affairs department.
Create useful and interesting medical iPhone and Droid apps such the excellent BlackBag news one that J&J did (but wasn't in evidence at the ASH meeting) so doctors can play with a demo at the booth and request an email with a link to the app for later downloading and use.
The ideas are endless, if applied creatively.
What was marketing thinking just creating loads of glossy paper based brochures no one wanted to carry home or destroy the forests? Or all those ads on light boxes pushing the name of your product?
Instead, Pharma seems slow to change from old media (print) and push marketing (DTC, ads) to more useful interactive PDA apps or digital tools, yet the vast majority of doctors were walking around with PDA's and using them constantly. A wasted opportunity to interact and build deeper relationships with your most important customers in many ways.
Maybe it's time for the industry to run syndicated surveys at a neutral booth to learn what health care professionals attending their annual meeting actually want or need? They can then tailor future programs to what the customers want.
For me, I'm mourning the loss of flash keys, the single most useful giveaway I can get hold of yet can never get enough of.
By using language- and pattern-analyzing software to search and distill the cascade of words on social networking sites, researchers may be able to identify trends and signals, such as repeated mentions of a certain drug in connection with a particular side effect or treatment success. “Listening” to thousands of patients as they discuss treatments, side effects and experiences with their diseases might even help scientists come up with hypotheses worthy of study. “There’s a tremendous amount that goes on in a patient’s daily life,” says Frank Moss, director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab, an emerging-technologies research group that helped create one disease-related networking site, and a founder of the cancer drug company Infinity Pharmaceuticals. “They’re trying off-label drugs, different diets, different exercise, different lifestyles. That information isn’t easily available to clinicians, but the cure to the disease may lie within it.”
This is an excerpt from the Massachusetts General Hospital quarterly magazine, Protomag, which you can also read online, via the link above.
The article isn't just about data mining, but also about how patients can connect and converse about their disease through forums as well as the dangers of social media sites that are unchecked by authorities (viz the FDA).
The 'deep web' as Gilles Frydman described it in the comments to the recent post on this blog about the FDA, social media and patients, has both advantages and disadvantages. One the one hand, it is a great resource for people needing advice from others with the same condition and on the other, it can be a fertile ground for misinformation and unscientific data with no substance or rigour.
Many of you will know that I'm fascinated by text and data mining – once a scientist, always a scientist! Everyone seems to have been checking out their tweet cloud's based on their Twitter stream so I thought I would check mine out too.
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