In our first Biotechnology Marketing 101 presentation, we discussed using the principles of marketing to help further your career. In our latest presentation, Biotechnology Marketing 101: Your Company (PDF), you’ll learn how promote your small or large company using tactics that all marketers use to promote any ‘product,’ be it a physical product, service, or organization. Learn about every day steps you can take to ensure that your company is positioned for success. The presentation includes strategies to make the most of your budget. Tips for everything from choosing a logo to leveraging PR is included here, and please contact us if you’d like to schedule a free, personalized Biotechnology Marketing 101 presentation and consultation with Comprendia.

The San Diego Biotechnology Network is a next generation organization dedicated to helping people connect better than ever before. What makes it different? Well, for starters, members can interact easily both online and face to face, making your connections more powerful and easy to maintain than ever before. You can leverage this group in many ways, and the fact that it has 1000+ members (and growing fast) means that you have a lot of power!

1. You can contact anyone else in the LinkedIn group directly through LinkedIn. We’ve been careful to allow only Biotech professionals in the greater San Diego area. Let’s say you want to contact someone at a particular company. To find someone who works there within the group, use the LinkedIn advanced search, fill in the company, and select the SDBN from the ‘Groups’ selection on the right. You can even offer to meet someone you’d like to connect with (either in the group or out) at the next event, or list a specific request to the discussion board (e.g. ‘looking to meet others with Stem Cell startup ideas’).
2. Attend the events. There is no substitute for meeting people face to face. Benefits? Grow your network literally overnight. Collect business cards and ask people to connect. There is no better way to find out what is going on in San Diego Biotech. Our April event is a great place to start, Regulus Therapeutics will be our featured company, and will talk about microRNA therapeutics.
3. Consider contributing more to group discussions on LinkedIn. See an interesting news item? Post it! Have a question about San Diego Biotech, or Biotech in general? Post it! Just be careful to not be too self-serving, people can be put off.
4. Volunteer. Want to meet nearly everyone at an event? Volunteer to work the registration table. There’s no better way to connect and become recognizable to those at the event. We’ll even give you free admission and you’ll be free to mingle after the ‘rush.’
5. Tell us how to make it better. We have many ideas to make the SDBN the most engaging and empowering group possible, and input from you helps a lot! Some of the ideas we’ve thought of are charity events, focus groups, more workshops, and entrepreneur/VC challenges. We’re going to send out a poll soon, but why wait? Tell us on our contact form or leave a comment below.
6. Visit the SDBN site often to catch up on news, jobs, and events. We’ve created feeds and resources specific to San Diego Biotech:
   1. News: http://sdbn.org/news
   2. Jobs: http://sdbn.org/jobs
   3. Company Directory: http://sdbn.org/directory
   4. Calendar: http://sdbn.org/calendar
7. Invite others to join the group! The bigger the SDBN gets, the more we all benefit. Just send them to http://sdbn.org/signup or to the LinkedIn Group at http://tinyurl.com/sdbiotech

In summary, we hope that you continue to explore and find ways to help us make this group as useful as possible. One thing to keep in mind for social media in general, is to behave online as you would in person. Nobody likes a person that spends the whole time talking about themselves in person, and the same goes online. You’ll get a lot more out of the SDBN if you contribute to it–this could be ‘paying it forward’ with introductions for people, leaving helpful posts and comments, or volunteering. In May, we’ll be presenting a workshop on Social Media for Scientists, including tips and pointers for using it for your career, your science, and your company. Stay tuned and let us know how we can help!

Pictures from our March 18th SDBN event featuring Milo Shapiro from IMPROVentures are now posted on Flickr. The photos showcase our new venue, Tango Del Rey, which was a big hit! We had around 100 in attendance, and Milo went through a series of fun games aimed at helping us break the ice and take more chances in talking to people we don’t know. There was a clear change in the atmosphere after his session, people were interacting much more, and I hope we can keep this momentum going at our future events. We’re going to bring Milo back in a few months for another session, so he can pick up where he left off–feel free to leave any comments on what you’d like to see. We plan to poll you about your ideas soon. Also, be sure to sign up for the April 30th event which will feature Regulus Therapeutics, a very exciting local company developing microRNA therapeutics. It will be at Tango Del Rey, and we can hold 200 people there, so get the word out! The more people who attend, the more you’ll be able to network with.

SDBN’s April event will feature Regulus Therapeutics, an exciting new company focused on the development and commercialization of microRNA therapeutics. SDBN events are the only place you can learn about the hottest scientific research in San Diego, and also have plenty of time to network with 100+ biotechnology professionals.

For more information about Regulus Therapeutics, see their fact sheet. Dr. Bal Bhat, Ph.D., Senior Director, Medicinal Chemistry, will give a 15 minute presentation on Therapeutic Targeting of microRNAs.

Event Details
Who: Biotechnology professionals in the greater San Diego area
What: San Diego Biotechnology Network April Event Featuring Regulus Therapeutics
When: Thursday, April 30th, 5:30-9:00 p.m.
Where: Tango Del Rey, 3567 Del Rey Street, San Diego 92109
Cost: $20, including appetizers ($15 for Academics)
For more information about the event: http://sdbn.org/april, registration and confirmation required.
Contact: http://sdbn.org/contact

We’ve gotten people from a lot of great companies signed up for our event this Wednesday March 18th, see below for a partial list. Sign up soon so that you will be able to make connections with them (the list below is just under 50, we’ll surely surpass that with the last minute additions):

SIGN UP BY NOON MONDAY. ONSITE REGISTRATION WILL BE $30 ($20 FOR ACADEMICS).

Pictures from our February 17th Event are now posted on Flickr. We had 100+ Biotechnology professionals, representing more than 50 companies, and it seemed that everyone had a great time. Nanosyn presented a short presentation on their capabilities, and it was well received. Here are some of the comments we heard:

“It’s a whole roomful of scientists…and they’re all talking to each other!”
“It was refreshing to talk science at a networking event!”
“I want to thank you–I got a job offer that resulted from one of your events.”
“Can you post a list of the companies attending at the reception desk?” (will do!)

The only criticism may be that the Rock Bottom venue may be too small for us. You may know that we’re hosting our March event in a new location that we’re very excited about, Tango Del Rey, a Spanish-themed venue off of the 5 at Balboa. Here, we can accommodate more of you, and the result will be that you’ll connect with more people at our events, which is what we’re all about! Our March event will also feature a special session that will help you to improve your face-to-face networking skills, led by Milo Shapiro of IMPROVentures. Sign up today!

Have you ever wanted to sit down and chat with a Nobel Laureate? Did you know that red wine not only goes well with steak, but also has anti-aging properties? Have you ever wanted to uncover the mysteries of baseball’s knuckleball? These and other intriguing questions will be answered at the Inaugural San Diego Science Festival (SDSF), the biggest celebration of science the West Coast has ever seen!

The Festival will descend on San Diego with events throughout the county in March and April 2009 with something for everyone, from the smallest child to even the most established scientist. The first of its kind on the West Coast, the San Diego Science Festival promises to be the ultimate multi-cultural, multi-generational, multi-disciplinary celebration of science.

Inspired by international science festivals that draw crowds in the hundreds of thousands, the goal of the San Diego Science Festival is to increase community awareness of science and inspire our nation’s youth to consider science-related careers. At the same time, the science festival will unite our community and showcase the amazing science and innovation taking place throughout San Diego.

Still curious…? Want to participate, host an event, compete in a contest, volunteer, earn community service hours or help sponsor the event?

Learn more at http://www.sdsciencefestival.org/ –we have some of the events listed here as well.

You may know that we started the San Diego Biotechnology Network to facilitate communication in the local industry. We feel that a big part of this is helping scientists network, and we’ve come up with a creative way to help you improve your skills. We’re teaming up with IMPROVentures, a local company dedicated to helping individuals and businesses utilize principles used in improvisational acting and comedy to communicate and build teams. Milo Shapiro, founder of IMPROVentures, will give a special, interactive session to the group which will help you learn how to improve your networking skills. Check out the flyer for more details.

We’ve also chosen to have the event at Tango Del Rey, a great new one-of-a-kind Spanish-themed venue off of the 5 at Balboa. You’ll feel like you’ve been transported to another place and time in this luxurious dance hall, and you’ll also get to network and mingle with your San Diego Biotechnology colleagues, as well as enjoy appetizers and drinks from the bar. (Don’t worry, we won’t ask you to dance together ;)

We’re also looking for a sponsor for the event, contact us for more information. This is a highly affordable way to reach a large number of San Diego Biotechnology professionals, not only at the event, but through the marketing we will do beforehand and the media coverage of the event afterward.


Event Details (RSVP Required)
Who: Biotechnology professionals in the greater San Diego area
What: San Diego Biotechnology Network Special Event: IMPROVing Your Networking Skills
When: Wednesday, March 18th, 5:30-9:00 p.m.
Where: Tango Del Rey, 3567 Del Rey Street
Cost: $25, which includes appetizers, 1 drink ticket, and networking session
For more information about the event: http://sdbn.org, registration and confirmation required. Contact: Mary Canady, mcanady@comprendia.com

Registration Form

We’ve reached our limit for the venue for our event tonight, but we’ve found that some space opens up throughout the night, so we’ll allow on-site registrations starting at 7:00 p.m., and the fee will be $15.

Thanks!

Mary

Here is a partial list of the companies that will be represented at our Feb. 17th SDBN Event–please register by noon tomorrow. We are still deciding if/how to take onsite registrations (depends on the total–we have space restrictions at this venue).

Acadia Pharmaceuticals
Aerotek Scientific, LLC
Agilent
Althea Technologies
Amylin
Anaphore Inc.
BioBlocks
BioFocusDPI
Bio-Quant
Burnham Institute
Canopus Bioscience
Celgene
Ceregene
ChemBridge Corp.
City of Hope
Diverse Diagnostics
eBiochemica
Favrille, Inc.
Genalyte
GenWay Biotech
Gilson
Hollis-Eden Pharmaceuticals
IBM
iDiverse, Inc.
Inovio Biomedical Corporation
ISTA Pharmaceuticals
Medistem
Millipore Corp.
Nanosyn
Orasun
Pacira Pharmaceuticals
Pfizer Inc
Pharmatek
Salk Institute
San Diego State University - College of Sciences
Sangart
SanRx Pharmaceuticals
ScienCell
Senomyx
SNBL USA
SourceSolution, Inc.
Summit Drug Development
The Scripps Research Institute
TigerTox
UC-Irvine
UNIV OF CALIFORNIA-SAN DIEGO
Verenium Corp.
Vical Inc.

Want more details about these companies? Many are listed on our San Diego Biotechnology Company Directory: http://sdbn.org/directory