John Hancock Didn't Have These Issues

Last spring, I was hosting a life science leadership event that we put on in Malvern, PA. We tried to make it a different kind of event, one that was more about education and sharing of ideas. We even had impromptu panel discussions amongst the audience members. But one exchange highlighted a very important topic that was part interpretation, part semantics and part lightbulb moment.

The last topic of the day was on the use of SharePoint for 21CFR11 compliant document management. It was being presented by two of our SharePoint experts with one being the technical SharePoint specialist and the other being a life sciences expert. The topic of the moment was digital signature and/or electronic signature. A member of the audience pointed out that it seemed like this term was being used interchangeably when of course, they are not the same from a regulatory point of view. It resulted in a great discussion and one that highlighted yet another difference that a person's filter can create without meaning to. It can contribute to discussions (or sometimes diagreements) between IT and QA people who think they are speaking the same language but in reality the different dialects are getting in the way.

Our technical guy was referring to electronic and digital signature in roughly the same way, simply as a way to differentiate from a hard copy piece of paper. Moving toward electronic records is an important (and soon to be required) trend and there was a lot of interest in the room as to how the new version of SharePoint could accomplish that. But to the QA and life science people in the audience, electronic signature wasn't going to fly with an auditor while authenticated digital signatures were what they wanted to see. Our SharePoint expert immediately demonstrated that you can do both but that five minute exchange taught an important lesson about new meanings to common terminology in the IT world that can raise the hair on the back of a QA person if it means they fear a 2 x 4 from an FDA auditor. I doubt this is the first or only time that an IT person and a QA person saw things through a different filter.

We actually have modified that presentation to include a specific definition and distinction between electronic signature and digital signature as we always get a great mix of IT, QA and compliance people attending. This isn't a tomato/tomahto situation. It's the difference between a ripe tomato and one with a worm in it.

I did learn other great things at this leadership event (which we are repeating next month in Waltham, MA with different speakers).

*Malvern is a city near Philadelphia and Valley Forge and not just a particle size analyzer.

*Sleeping in a colonial era canopy bed is not as cool as I thought it would be when I was five.

*When you agree to film the 75 minute keynote speech, don't forget your tripod.

*When you forget your tripod and have to stand there and film him freehand, don't wear 3.5 inch heels and expect to feel your feet when you have to walk back to the front of the room to introduce the next speaker.


(C)Copyright 2009 CourtSquareGroup

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Socially Acceptable

So everyone in marketing says you have to use social media more. You know all the sites like LinkedIn, Facebook and the site that I always thought was the most narcissistic thing ever, Twitter. But using it for B2B seems a little tricky out side of LinkedIn, which is really meant for business anyway. Finding my target market in Facebook or Twitter seems like going to a masked ball. How do I know if the VP of Regulatory for a biotech is posting in the Men who like knitting group in Facebook?

Ironically, I'm involved in a pretty interesting discussion in LinkedIn as part of a professional marketing group about using Facebook and Twitter for B2B. Nobody has the definitive answer or even more than anectodal evidence of it working. Everybody says write good, interesting content. Well, that's a little motherhood and apple pie because you always want to write good and interesting content. When my time is already at a premium, do I just Twitter anything important or interesting and just hope somebody out there is searching SharePoint for FDA regulated environments or how to help with the new Massachusetts Security Law. That doesn't sound much better than writing good web content and do your best SEO. How do you rise above the noise when it seems like Twitter is ALL noise?

It's pretty funny that businesses on Facebook have fans instead of friends. You want to be my fan? Really? You haven't even heard me sing yet. I was told by a expert in this field that the Facebook search engine is fast becoming one of the most used on the web. But what's behind that data? Is it mostly being used to find old classmates and colleagues or new musical acts? How much of that is for businesses and not to sound like a broken record, but how much of that is B2B?

I'm a big fan of LinkedIn and have jumped right into some good discussions. I've learned a lot too. I hesitated the first time I had to correct a very long post about what SharePoint couldn't do for life sciences companies, because so much of it was wrong. But years of posting on message boards for fun taught me the diplomatic way of refuting something without just posting WRONG, WRONG, WRONG! (Even though I thought it....)

It's kind of funny. I even feel like taking on different personalities depending on what site I am on. On LinkedIn, I'm in my suit and Anne Klein heels. On Facebook, I'm in jeans and munching on a snack. (I'm newly addicted to Orange flavored Craisins.) On Twitter, I'm in cutoffs and flipflops. (Looks in mirror, calls Pilates instructor to make the next session a little tougher.) Is meeting a potential client in a casual way better for potential business? Or will they still tell me that budgets are tight in the first half and ask for a handful of Craisins.

(C)Copyright 2009 CourtSquareGroup

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Merge Left

The life sciences industry is seeing some serious consolidation in the past six months. Pfizer is buying Wyeth, Merck is buying Schering-Plough and today it was announced that Roche is buying Genentech. This makes sense for the most part as the larger pharmas are seeing their pipelines dry up as blockbuster drugs get ready to come off patent protection and there isn't much else behind it. It seems the smaller and more nimble pharmas and biotechs are better prepared for the future. But together, they may just find a better way.

Are these mergers smart business sense or more like you save me/I'll save you....we hope. It remains to be seen. Certainly those working for either company now have to do the nightly toss and turn about whether they are expendable once the companies consolidate.

The true beneficiary should be the American public as better drugs and therapies can get to market faster but when two giants merge, it may take awhile for them to get out of their own way. I've often wondered if they set up some kind of brain share to open up their laboratory notebooks and reveal what their research is showing. It's got to be a tough call during due diligence, just how wide do you open that kimono and share what could be a competition killer when the competition is the one who wants to buy you?

Court Square's Acquisition
Court Square saw all these huge acquisitions in life sciences so we decided to do one ourselves. OK, not really. It was a little more strategic than that. Besides, we can't command the headlines that a Pfizer or Merck can....not yet.

Last month, Court Square acquired the computer systems validation unit from QA Edge in the Philadelphia area. We're very excited about this expansion because it really adds depth to our very strong group and it accelerates our goal to expand down the east coast. It feels great to be able to execute a key part of our strategy.

Next stop, North Carolina. I'll volunteer to do the due diligence down there, preferably when it's pretty cold here in Massachusetts. With my luck, Keith will send me in August.


(C)Copyright 2009 CourtSquareGroup

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Quarters in the Couch

So, how many people didn’t even look at their end of year 401K statements? Unfortunately, I had to because we are in the process of applying for financial aid for my daughter as she gets ready to choose a college. The FAFSA form requires all of that information. I do believe there was a line on there wanting to know on average, how many quarters do we find in the couch cushions each year? Too bad for them, I’m not telling.

The world’s kind of turned upside down right now and companies need to make sure they are doing everything can so they get their products and services to market faster and in the most cost effective way possible. But, what is the corporate version of finding quarters in the couch?

One of the best ways is to take unnecessary cost out of your company so that you are not forced to take necessary costs out (e.g., people). A relatively simple review of business processes can reveal inefficiencies, extra steps, steps that lead to dead ends or overly bureaucratic procedures. Now this can get a little tricky when you are trying to take steps out of a regulated environment but in many cases, business process optimization can also have benefits in improved regulatory compliance by having more efficient and automated audit trails.

Best practices are usually a good place to start and developing an IT quality audit ready toolkit for your IT processes can be done best with an ITIL foundation. The focus can be in two areas, one in qualification to keep those QA types happy and the other in ongoing operations so the IT people can take off the firefighting hats. It’s repeatable, efficient and most of all, compliant. Not only does that find more of those quarters but it keeps them from falling out of your pocket in the first place. (A side note for all the women out there, have you noticed in the age of cellphones that you start to look for more pants with pockets when shopping?)

I’m going to begin writing a book this month; we just got approval from the publisher. The title will be The Pharmaceutical and Biotech Industry Guide to ITIL V3. We’ve got a great authoring team including players from some of the best names in pharma and biotech and various experts in other areas within the industry. I’ll blog more about it later. I can’t tell you how many quarters it will cost yet and because the publisher is British, it will all depend on the exchange rate and whatever financial crisis the media can scare up at the time. But we’re not writing it to so that I can become the JK Rowling of the IT/QA world. We’re writing it because we think it’s an important concept to share. Yeah, if I make a few quarters on it, the couch will be more comfortable. Just don’t tell the folks at FAFSA.

The Marketing Maven

(C)Copyright 2009

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Stratego

Remember that old board game? It's probably still available as an interactive DVD or virtual reality game now. But the reason it popped into my head was because this blog is about strategic planning. It always sounds like this rather lofty undertaking but it's very important and can be critical to a company's success, especially if it is done in a very dynamic way. Gone are the days when strategic planning documents were written up once a year in big 3 inch binders, to gather dust until the next year. The markets and industries change so fast and so elements of the strategic plan have to be flexible, even if the overall foundation of the plan need to remain firm.


B2B:Selling Brains
We developed a new business practice here for Strategic Consulting. (I always wondered why business units are also called practices. Don't you want someone who doesn't need any practice?) It's kind of hard to figure out how to market strategic consulting. Basically, it is selling brain power, from my business to yours.

B2B marketing can be tricky. In fact, I submitted a paper to the upcoming Marketing Summit about the unique challenges when trying to rebrand a B2B services company. I feel that every marketing conference gips those of us in the B2B services space. Sure, you get to hear from bigwigs at the brand name B2C product companies but I sit there and listen more as a consumer and not a fellow marketer hoping for sage advice. (I like marketeer instead of marketer, don't you? It's a lot like muskateer, without the plummage.)

Sometimes, the B2B folks will make an appearance but usually they are product focused, often from one of the big name software companies. You know the ones, my marketing budget is a rounding error for theirs. So, I thought it was high time somebody spoke for the B2B service providers. The ones that often make business run. We fill in the gaps that a business can't provide for themselves because they lack the skill set or because it doesn't make financial sense for them to keep that skill set on full time. Yay us!

It's easier to market B2B services when you specialize in certain industries, the way Court Square specializes in life sciences. Get all those experts in a room together and it's like a college class reunion. I sit there like I am invisible (if I were invisible, then I could just watch you in your (conference)room. Every time I hear that song on the radio, I yell WERE If I were invisible. Oh well, I guess pop music doesn't have to be grammatically correct.

Sometimes having all the experts in the room can be like dodging bullets. Everyone is trying to show off how much they know. One day I'm expecting to hear "My mother knows more about molecules than yours."

When we decided to expand our offerings to include strategic consulting, we met as the senior most people in the company and I asked around the room, "What do you know?" I was pleasantly surprised to see all the bases covered; Business Planning,Technology, Finance, Competitive Analysis, Product Management, Project Management. A couple of weirdos like me with both a chemistry and business background but the rest of the room was just filled with smart people. Smart people who can help other smart people.

So, I'm back to marketing brains again. Smart brains advising other smart brains, who just need help with one big area of transition. Where's Mr Spock when you need him?

The Marketing Maven

(C)Copyright 2009

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Juggling for a living

There’s a line from a song on one of my favorite albums that goes like this:

Has anybody else but me ever felt this way before?
Like the world’s spinning much too fast and you’re falling through the floor.
Struck by lightning, it’s so frightening when the morning feels like war.
Unbreakable (don’t you wish you were) Unbreakable?

My paper covered desk sure does look like war.

This is a crazy time of year. Just when you’ve unpacked from the spring shows and your summer vacation, it’s call for papers time for next year’s shows. There’s Interphex and IQPC’s infrastructure in pharmaceuticals and Drug Information Association’s annual show and BIO 2009 and Project World and Bio-IT World and DisneyWorld…..Ok, strike the last one unless Peter Pan volunteers for some biotech clinical trial to show why he never grew up.

This one wants a short abstract, that one wants a short and long abstract and three learning objectives, this one wants money NOW before you can even begin abstract thinking. I really hate the ones who are so anal about their 156.5 word count that their online submission stops you at 156.9 words. Pretty soon, they will give you so little space; you’ll need to grab a teenager to help you.

U R Submtng a drg 4 resrch and IMO U need awdit

But it’s all worth it because not only do our people do a great job speaking but we meet very interesting people who further the discussions on different topics in pharma and biotechs.

I must confess that I do get annoyed when they treat vendor submissions as if we’ve all got a Scarlet V on our shirts. We’ve run into the no vendors rule, we’ve run into the vendors can speak but you must cough up the first year’s tuition at a public college first. That has never seemed fair to me, we’re not a huge company. My budget is probably a rounding error of the budget of the mega consulting companies yet I feel we’ve got just as much to say.

Another way around that is to hold events of our own. So right now, I’m working with both Cisco and Microsoft to hold two events within three weeks of each other. (Yeah, I’m kind of regretting that little move.) The Cisco one will be fun, it’s interactive discussion “How safe is safe enough?” No, it’s not talking about the fact that my broker put 5% of my holdings in AIG and Bank of America. It’s talking about internal and external vulnerabilities of your network. That one is local so I wonder if I can just hang a sign outside of my fifth floor office window. I’m a budget hawk, ya know.

The Microsoft one is actually an intersection of our SharePoint and Life Sciences. There’s been a lot of interest in just how to make a document management system compliant with 21CFR11. We’ll kick that around at this event. Microsoft is letting us use their Waltham, MA offices. The good news is that it is closer to a lot of the life sciences companies out in Eastern MA. The bad news is I will probably have to get up at 4:30 in the morning to get there on time. So, if you join us, please don’t comment on the bags under my eyes. I did find a nice image to represent electronic document collaboration for the presentation. It’s these two mice; don’t they look like they want to work together? It’s like a mice romantic comedy. Actually, I just liked it because it matched our logo colors.

Finally, I keep forgetting to tell you all about the interesting marketing ploy that another company tried to play on us. Our CEO (the one who actually has authoring rights to this blog too…hint, hint) got a letter from a website company. His executive admin saw it while opening his mail and brought it to me. The letter basically trashed my brand new website and said it wasn’t helping the business but of course, this company (I’ll be charitable and not say their name) could fix it. Well, it was Friday afternoon and I was tired and feeling…shall we say, Unbreakable. I called the author. I told him that our website in fact had gotten great reviews and even a new client within 48 hours of launch that paid for the whole project. He stammered and stuttered and said the letter really wasn’t that bad because in fact, he never even looked at my website. It was a form letter. I said “so basically, you sent these letters to CEOs all over the country, which probably resulted in a certain percent of our fellow marketing peers getting trashed and you don’t even look at the websites?” I was incredulous and he had nothing more to say.

It was a very good way to start the weekend.

The Marketing Maven

Copyright© 2008 Court Square Group All Rights Reserved

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There's No Business Like Show Business

Tradeshows….Just the thought of them starts an ache in my back. Sometimes I find them a necessary evil and other times a crapshoot. It’s always strange to do a new show for the first time because you don’t know what to expect from a traffic perspective, especially if they switch locations every year. And in the competition for booth spiffs, stunts and attractions, someone is always raising the ante.

Interphex
We always do Interphex every year and this year was no exception. Well, the exception was that it was in Philadelphia instead of New York. Nobody ever said why, I think somebody didn’t book the Javits in time and they got bumped by the car show. At the end of Interphex, I wish I had gone to see the cars instead. It was nice to unveil the new brand and the new tradeshow graphic which actually has a giant sandbox on it.

The show had been morphing from an older manufacturing and packaging show to something trying to be more modern. Interphex normally has the main show on the first floor and the med device in the basement. This time, med device was the main floor and Interphex was one level up. Confused yet? To make it worse, the Pharma-IT section was in another zip code. They had a new section called Outsourcing but do you think they let us buy a booth there for the same price? .. Nooo. They put Pharma-IT with the Pharma-Automation section (distinguished by the ever popular different color carpeting) because of course a company that offers consulting services in IT, QA and Regulatory has everything in common with the booth next door showing off their pill counting machine. Last year (which I blogged about) we were across from people selling plastic tubs. Yes, I’m sure you can see the connection right away If so, please let me know what it is because I’m still scratching my head on that one. But Mr. Pill Counter and his noisy machine were very complimentary about our logo and tradeshow booth graphic so I can’t be mad at him, since we were both stuck out there in no man’s land.

The best booth stunt was an organ grinder with a live monkey. I'd like to know how he got beyond all the regulations to do that one! For many years we’ve had a celebrity impersonator in the booth while at the same time, Keith Parent and members of our life sciences team were giving interviews in the press room. So they get to play grownup while I get to waggle a camera at people to come take their picture with Elvis, Marilyn or Cher. This year, we decided to rent a big screen TV and play Wii sports with people. Let’s face it; I’m really just trying to get you into my booth so that we can talk about how Court Square can help you. Partly because I need to show an ROI on this show but mostly because I really think we can help.

This year, I got tennis elbow for the same privilege. One woman, claiming tennis stardom in her college years, was so aggressive with her backhand; she practically knocked over my booth. I was waiting for her to go change into a little white dress with terry cloth wrist bands and recruit a passerby to be the line judge. I would have thrown the game if it meant a hot lead for our sales team. Yes, I can swallow my pride for the sake of a project implementing document management or doing a quality audit. Just keep that between us, though. I wouldn't want to give my sales colleagues any idea.

The traffic in the Philadelphia Interphex was much slower. The food was non existent so you had to walk across the street to the very interesting Reading Terminal Market. I would love to see this place on a normal day because when the Interphex lunch traffic poured in there, it was 90 minutes to get your cheesesteak. For me, there were two good things about Interphex Philadelphia. First was the ease to walk back to your hotel instead of trying to hail a NYC cab at shift change. That takes either a miracle or a lot of money to pay the guy in the Town Car. The second was convincing a coworker to take a train ride up to NY to see Monty Python’s Spamalot for my birthday and then take the train back, all in the same night. We got back to the hotel at 1 AM. Of course if Interphex had been in NYC, I could have had sleep on my birthday to go with the laughter. That would have been verra, verra nice. (That’s a Python joke not a typo.)

I’m glad Interphex doesn’t normally move around and for 2009, I expressed my dismay to the show people about the bad location (OK, I whined) and so we have a booth in the outsourcing section next year. All you CROs and CMOs better look out, I will probably bring back another impersonator. I know where all the super secret service elevators are in the Javits too. The best thing about Philadelphia is that we did have some good interviews; look for an article on auditing in one of the major journals next month.

BIO International-San Diego
Last year the big BIO show was in Boston so I drove out there and met up with Keith Parent (who promised me a blog about all his world travels recently). This show is so different from others in that it is very international and more economic development focused. Not to mention after 4 PM, it’s like a giant frat party with each country trying to outdo the other in terms of food and various liquid refreshments.

We decided to join the Massachusetts pavilion this year in a booth. I was unable to make the trip so two of our sales team went out with Keith. Unfortunately, they ran into weather and flight delay problems and it took almost 36 hours to get out there. The mini booth made it before they did; I told them they should have just checked themselves as luggage. The show is not one where a lot of business is done in the traditional sense; it really is one where you get a great feel for what is going to happen in the industry over the next couple of years. It is also a great way to interact with other regions around the world. BIO is one of those “seen and be seen” type of events. This makes it a great show but it also makes it difficult to attract booth traffic without some real flash. I look forward to attending the next one in Atlanta. I’m still thinking about the flash. Any ideas?

DIA Annual-Boston
Last year the annual meeting of the Drug Information Association was in Atlanta and Keith chaired a session with a few customers on Good Systems Practice. I remember that he called me from the show and said it was an excellent event and that we should be at the next one. The good news is that it was in Boston, which is 90 minutes down the Mass Pike from our headquarters and even closer from our eastern Mass office. The better news is that he got invited back to chair a session again. The bad news is it was starting just 36 hours after BIO ended on the opposite coast so I had to send our mini booth to San Diego and keep the big booth for Boston.

To make matters worse, I had booked my family’s vacation over the Christmas holiday without looking at my work calendar and ended up overlapping DIA. Not that I didn’t enjoy getting a good sunburn while snorkeling off of a catamaran in Cozumel, but I really wanted to attend this event.

Since we had never exhibited at this conference, I added a few extra things for the sales guys to have in their arsenal. Some Red Sox tickets, some foldable flying Frisbees with our new logo and I sent along our Wii to play. Everyone wants toys at this show, I guess those clinical types like to play after trying to rid the world of horrible diseases during the day. Most shows never use up much collateral (data sheets and whatnot) but this one did. Although I often wonder where that collateral ends up. I'm sure after I hand you an expensive data sheet,you’ll get tired of carrying it and throw out on your way to the parking lot or when you pack up that suitcase to go home. It's Ok to admit it, I do the same thing.

We had some great conversations and it gave us the opportunity to announce our new clinical and regulatory services as well as our involvement as a member of the Clinical Research Consortium of Massachusetts. The CRCM is a group of four companies working with other countries to help them set up clinical trials centers of excellence. First up is Italy. Now I really regret not learning Italian from my maternal grandmother but she wanted to learn English instead. C'est la vie. (See, I told you I never learned Italian.)

So the bottom line and the answer to my pondering many paragraphs ago (for those of you still awake) is that some tradeshows are necessary evils and some are very worthwhile. Interphex has fallen in between those two, we’ve met some great new customers there and you can’t beat the exposure to editors. But they treat IT like an after thought. Thankfully, since we are more than an IT company, we get to play in the outsourcing sandbox next year. In pure, explain it to our Comptroller spreadsheet ROI-ese, BIO isn’t worth the booth rental but you don’t really attend BIO to make a sale. You attend BIO to get the pulse of the industry and meet extremely interesting people. DIA is a great show for education and for doing business but remember to bring toys. I usually don’t like toys at a show because people take them without even saying hello or buying you dinner and a movie, it’s like a drive-by. But at DIA, they wanted to know what we were about too. It probably helped that one of our account guys apparently was a carnival barker in a previous life.

My one request for all you show/conference managers. Please standardize! Even with a running spreadsheet, my intern had a hard time of keeping track of- this show package has carpet but this one doesn’t. These two have tables but the third doesn’t even say. Do we want a skirt on the table? Do we want a skirt on the sales guys? HEY! I think I just found the flash for BIO 2009.



The Marketing Maven

Copyright© 2008 Court Square Group All Rights Reserved

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