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Every Tuesday we send out the MedComms Networking email newsletter to subscribers. It includes brief commentary on what we're doing and planning, and highlights relevant news to encourage sharing of information, experiences and ideas and to stimulate discussion. The text and links included below, by definition, were accurate on the day of publication, but may then become outdated.
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MedComms Networking - 30 November 2021
Hi
So, a week can be a long time in MedComms.
Sitting here this morning, I'm reading ominous predictions about what will happen over the coming weeks because of the Omicron variant of COVID-19. Including inevitable suggestions that Christmas will be "cancelled". Shock! Horror! This time next week, the headlines may be very different.
Meanwhile, today, I assume some of you are wrestling with very practical, real-world problems. Will an in-person event happen or not in the new year? If you do go ahead, will enough people turn up to make it worthwhile? Do you have solutions that mean you can call it a "hybrid" event, whatever that means? Can you pivot again and go fully virtual overnight if more travel restrictions come in? And so on. (And, ahem, where's the money currently sitting?)
Last week's webinar (before the news headlines of the past few days) was Healthcare events: Revolution or evolution? and featured a heavy-weight panel of industry experts. Mark Lightowler (Founder and CEO, Phorix), Braydon McCormick (Founder and CEO, Intempio) and Andrew Winterburn (Director, 3Sixty Event Consulting) shared fascinating insights and the recording is well worth watching. My advice? Use it as the basis of your own Lunch and Learn type meeting. Gather your colleagues (online or F2F or a mixture), share some cake, stream the video and argue amongst yourselves about the implications for your own activities.
Events have been evolving for a while - making more use of those ubiquitous devices we all carry around - but revolution can be found in some of the newer tools and approaches to measuring success and understanding how we achieve behavioural change.
Nobody thinks in-person events will stop entirely. But the evidence suggests most of us will want to travel less (or be allowed to travel less) and that we will be far more selective about what meetings actually require our physical presence. Albeit, maybe following an initial period of enthusiasm to meet up again. We will think more in terms of "investing in me", so we'll ask ourselves "Why do I want to attend this meeting - what am I really getting out of it?".
Organisers need to take stock. Re-map their audience's journey and identify how to better satisfy them. Before they are lost. Medical societies and professional associations, for instance, have plenty to think about. In many cases, those annual congresses were critical to survival.
MedComms is becoming a very different business. Tomorrow, we'll reflect on how the account management/medical writing paradigm was the cornerstone of medcomms for many years, but evolution in technology, storytelling and an increasingly sophisticated audience has changed this. Instead, today's environment requires an integrated, multi-disciplinary approach to cut through the noise, change behaviour, build mental availability for a brand, and advance health outcomes. Connecting multiple capabilities has never been so important. So, how are agencies managing this today? Again, everyone's welcome.
And next week, we'll have our annual Meet the Publishers event. Please join us.
There's lots more coming.
Stay well, everyone.
Cheers
Peter Llewellyn
Managing Director, NetworkPharma Ltd
Follow me on Twitter @NetworkPharma
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