The DHC Spring 2013 Workshop

On Monday the DHC hosted it’s Spring 2013 workshop. This event combined a group brainstorming session with the launch of the DHC and Klick Health report: Social Media Landscape: Pharmaceutical and Device Best in Class.

Crowdsourcing Social Guiding Principles for Pharma and Device

The brainstorming session was split into three themes and the participants were asked to come up with solutions to some of the industry’s thorniest issues. Not surprisingly we found that there was little consensus on the level of engagement required and the answers are neither simple nor obvious. The three groups were:

• Roles and responsibilities of Pharma on social channels
• How to leverage technology when dealing with social
• Culture and organizational change for companies regarding social

Social Media Landscape: Best in Class Pharma and Device

This session was a teaser of the new report published by the DHC and Klick Health and explained how we did the analysis and came up with our results. The main points about the report can be summarized as:

• There is a clear need for an industry-wide conversation
• Enough examples now exist that we can review them for best practices
• Tip of the hat to Dose of Digital for their social wiki
• An updated and maintained list is better placed with the DHC who has the independence and authority to hold it
• The document is intended to be a conversation starter for the industry

We provided insight into how the channels were analyzed and graded and invited feedback on this process. We don’t expect everyone to agree with our analyses, and we welcome healthy debate about them. The project started with 3,500 sites across three channels: Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter and we pared it down to just the most relevant properties.

This document, and the underlying database, are planned to be maintained and updated quarterly so they can be a consistent resource for the industry as it learns how to deal with these new channels.

Panel Discussion: Social Media Insights Roundtable

This roundtable had three senior execs from different perspectives on social media in Pharma:

• Tina Sampath from Gilead from the inside of a Pharma company
• David Blair of Google looking at the issues as a platform vendor
• Jay Goldman of Klick Health with the view from a digital agency

The full workshop was well attended and engaged the audience. With Google represented on the panel there was a lot of focus on YouTube as a delivery channel. The main themes from that discussion netted out as:

• Change on these channels is constant, Pharma has to be prepared for that
• It’s important for Pharma to be in the channel so that there is an “official” counterpoint to the sometimes offside user generated content

Get your own copy of the Landscape report and then let us know what you think at @digitalhealthco and @klickhealth.