A few things have happened over the past weeks that have caused me to reflect on how I ‘ended up’ where I am, in an Outliers sort of way. Also, there are some young scientists who have asked me how I made the transition into marketing, so I thought it might be good to write a post on it. In short, while my current occupation is no accident, I was incredibly fortunate to have mentors and ‘generous strangers’ along the way who guided me to where I am now, and I am very thankful to them.

By sheer dumb luck, I did my first lab rotation at Duke University with Jane Richardson, who was the first to visualize protein structures using so-called ribbon diagrams. She drew the diagrams by hand and they became the standard to help us understand protein structures. The project Dr. Richardson gave me was interesting, as was hanging out in her and her husband David’s lab, complete with comfy couches and crazy protein artwork. I learned about the internet there (1990), using FTP on their VAX to download structures from the protein data bank, and even took pictures of protein structures for a textbook on their Evans & Sutherland computers. In my spare time, I started the department happy hour and sand volleyball league, which last time I checked is still going strong (this will be important later).

In 1994, my Ph.D. work (and desire to move out West) led me to Alex McPherson’s lab at the University of California, he literally ‘wrote the book‘ on crystallizing proteins, and he was a great mentor. Here, I had the great fortune to work out the molecular structure of a plant virus. It wasn’t the sexiest project around, but the structure (to me) was spectacularly beautiful–even the crystals were stunning (luck again) and images of them became part of the marketing materials for crystallography supply company Hampton Research (started by a great entrepreneur Bob Cudney who inspired me). I began to play with great, open source visualization software such as Grasp to communicate the structure.

This love affair with virus structures continued into my postdoc at the Scripps Research Institute, where again I worked on a non-sexy but fascinating and visually interesting virus project. A great colleague, John Tate, and I played around with the then new Linux operating system and great, open source (or inexpensive) software (for a real blast from the past check out the article we wrote). We came up with some great visualizations and animations for showing virus conformational changes (if I could get the animations off of VHS easily, I’d post them…). The visualization at the top was made using Grasp and was on the cover of the Journal of Molecular Biology.

In addition, around this time (1998) I became interested in web design and designed our lab’s website, and learned about creating and manipulating images using a free program called Gimp (which I still use daily). Bench work, and using these tools to communicate my discoveries, were truly a lot of fun for me and I probably stayed in academia a bit too long, but learning the visualization and communication skills helped me in the long run.

After my postdoc I worked at a ‘genomics boom’ startup called GeneFormatics, where I started to learn more about the world of biotech and facets of the industry outside of R&D. In 2002 I joined Invitrogen, and fell in love with marketing. Here, I was lucky enough to lead an early ‘web 2.0′ project called OligoPerfect, which designs custom oligonucleotide primers and is cited in at least 55 peer-reviewed publications. I still remember asking my excellent boss (and still good friend Michael Gonzales) about the basics of marketing, and his support and guidance.

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After this, I worked at EMD Chemicals where, among other things, I helped to improve customers’ understanding of signal transduction through interactive signaling pathway maps and other resources. I made animations of protein kinases bound with inhibitors to help customers understand them. I had a great boss and mentor who I’m still good friends with, Karin Hughes. Later, while working at a small company, I took the lead in organizing a drug discovery conference, and realized the power of bringing scientists together to communicate. In my free time, I learned blogging and the power of WordPress, more great open source software.

If you know me, or have poked around this website, hopefully you’ll see how I’ve arrived ‘here.’ This post could all just be a self-aggrandizing walk down memory lane, but I think there is something to be learned. I’ve arrived at my current role, where I specialize in marketing biotechnology and connecting scientists and technologies, often through web-savvy tools, with the help of many great mentors, colleagues, and software developers I didn’t necessarily know.

I also seized opportunities, even used my hobbies, to eventually arrive at a job that I absolutely love. Arriving at your destination involves determination and following the good luck path and ignoring the bad–I’ve had my share of that as well but try not to let it shape my destiny. So in the words of my ‘Twitter friend’ Sally Church, my advice to you is JFDI, or Just…Do it, continue to seek opportunities that will move you towards your goal, and you’ll get there. Give thanks to those who’ve helped you, you can never have too much good karma. Young scientists like Sean Seaver and Michelle Gill, whom I’ve met on Twitter, will likely find their niche more quickly than I did with today’s tools, and I suggest you follow their lead and take up blogging, microblogging or any tools which help you to learn more from others.

This post is dedicated to Warren DeLano, who made a big impact on the world of protein visualization by developing PyMol, one of the great open source software programs that I’ve relied upon on my journey. I thank him wholeheartedly.

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On November 14th, Comprendia Founder Mary Canady will be presenting an overview of San Diego Biotechnology at a local symposium geared towards life science postdocs and hosted by UCSD, The Scripps Research Institute, and Burnham Institute. Dr. Canady’s career, first as a local researcher and now as a small business owner working with biotechnology companies, gives her a unique perspective on transitioning from science to business. Check out the website for more information and to register.

I see enormous potential for life science companies to use social media to engage their customers and grow their business. Sometimes when I talk about it, however, the concepts can come across as being somewhat foreign. Some people wonder how tools like Twitter can help them to grow their business, and are perplexed by the jargon and ’special world’ that social media marketers seem to live in.

However, social media can be seen as an extension of tools life science companies have been using for years, such as newsletters, posters, and guides. Realizing that social media is really a natural progression of these resources helps to better understand how to create new tools and how to fit them in with your traditional marketing strategies and tactics.

Social media is about stepping beyond your product line and offering customers with resources that apply more generally to their daily ‘pains’ or interests, and allowing them to interact with you and other customers in the process. These resources could be blogs, forums, or groups set up with customers in mind, you can see examples on our compilation of life science companies using social media. While many of these companies are just getting started, check out the Promega or the 23andMe blog for good examples.

While these new tools are more interactive, taking advantage of ‘web 2.0′ principles, many of the ideas are similar to educational materials life science companies have been putting out for years. Calbiochem, now EMD Chemicals, has long provided signal transduction pathway diagrams and reviews to help researchers understand complex phenomena such as apoptosis and angiogenesis, and was also famous for its detergent guide (a favorite of mine). Invitrogen/Life Technologies (past & present!) have distributed several different newsletters over the years, one dating back to 1978!

What’s the take home message? Sell social media to your management as an extension of your existing tools with the added benefit that web 2.0 tools will help you broaden your customer base while collecting more metrics, often in real time.

How do you get started? Use existing content and themes to bootstrap a social media program. If you’ve stopped putting this useful material on the web because you’re putting it in newsletters or fancy flash animations, put it back into your web content as it will help customers who are seeking the information you’re providing to find you (and improve search engine optimization or SEO). Social media is a tool to help you engage your customers more, but realize that it is a natural extension of what you’re already doing. Employ those closest to the customer, such as customer service and sales, to help you devise a plan. Integrate social media with your existing marketing plans–you might even say that you should marry the two…

Yes, there will be some adjustments you’ll need to make when thinking about using new media. You’ll need to think about policies and strategies to chart a course for success. Need help? Comprendia is the only company with extensive social media experience specific to life science, let us help you develop a social media charter so you can hit the ground running with the tools you already have in hand.

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A common theme, and something that is very satisfying with our work, is that through our actions we show biotech and life science companies how they can use tools such as social media to grow as we have. About six months ago at a San Diego Biotechnology Network event, we gave out CDs with a few of our Biotechnology Marketing 101 presentations. Cynthia Davenport, Ph.D., Founder of TigerTox Pharmaceutical Toxicology Services, received one, and actually looked at them and gave us a call (very cool when things work as intended!).

After meeting with Cynthia, we decided that the best way to get started was with a BioStartup™ Marketing Kit, providing her with a logo, branding, and website in one package. We started by gathering TigerTox’s needs through our online Creative Briefs, a process we utilize to assess high-level objectives, tactical details, and to tease out aspects important for positioning companies and products. The Creative Brief process is a mainstay of traditional marketing, and we have made it more accessible to our clients through our online forms and have also tailored them for new tools such as social media.

We received Cynthia’s Creative Briefs and started with her logo. The process went quickly because she knew what she liked (and didn’t!) and we refined the logo in a few rounds. Communication and setting expectations are key in the process. The TigerTox logo is simple, expressive of her company’s name, versatile, and is part of a larger branding of the company as a whole. What we love about the Creative Brief process is that we can always look to it for guidance and keep on track to be sure objectives are met.

Next, we developed a website and ‘ToxInsights’ blog for TigerTox. We leveraged WordPress, great software which provides a framework for professional, dynamic, and easily administered websites (even high-powered blogs like Johnson & Johnson’s JNJBTW use it). We utilized our programming and design skills to created a branded site which is highly customized, allowing for integration with Twitter, RSS feeds, and search engine optimization (SEO).

We also provided in-depth technical and social media training to TigerTox, allowing Cynthia and her associates to hit the ground running–they’ve already got several blog posts done. We even helped TigerTox to easily find resources to help with blogging and Twitter through a customized RSS feed. Our background in life science as well as social media helps us to anticipate our clients’ needs, as we’ve used the tools firsthand to reach scientists. We also help companies develop a Social Media Charter™ to guide you and ensure that objectives are met, you can learn more on our Social Media Capabilities page.

To summarize, we GREATLY enjoyed working with TigerTox and we love the fact that they looked to us for inspiration. We hope that you’ll in turn be inspired by them to develop your business or products, as they truly ‘get it’ and have a great product for drug development. We plan to give more examples and resources at the upcoming Bootstrapping Biotech event with the San Diego Biotechnology Network October 29th. Not in town? We’re videotaping it and will provide links afterward. Also, contact us for a free consultation, perhaps the best way to become inspired!

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If you’ve been following our Biotechnology Marketing 101 blog, you likely know that we are ‘in the know’ about social media. We’ve used it to grow our own company and the San Diego Biotechnology Network, and we’ll be featuring our work with other companies soon. Check out our Social Media Capabilities page to learn more and to get started!

Our founder Mary Canady realized a lifelong dream today. She was able to combine her love of the 80’s with her love of science in a single Xconomy post, check it out! Seriously, though, the BIL:PIL event represents a ’sea change’ in how important issues such as health care will be more accessible our input as scientists and patients, and I highly suggest attending it.

I’ve recently come to appreciate the true power of RSS, or really simple syndication. RSS feeds are a way for websites to easily communicate their updated information. Because the information is standardized, it can be picked up by other applications which aggregate the information, such as Google Reader (GR, see summaries here and here for help getting started).

So what? You can set up some really cool automated tools to keep up on just about anything on the internet, including topics relevant to science and biotech business. You can keep tabs on the latest work in your field by setting up RSS feeds for pubmed searches. You can also follow blogs and news by searching for ‘RSS’ or looking for the orange symbol on any website, and subscribe. If you’re like me, you’ll actually feel a bit excited when you find a great blog or website, and find that you can add them to GR.

There are also clever ways to feed customized information into and out of GR. You can set up Google Alerts for updates any topic on the web, and feed it directly into GR (choose ‘deliver to feed). This is great if you work at a company and want to keep tabs on your competitors and their products, or even on your own company. You will know almost instantly when updates are made to a very wide variety of websites (you will be surprised how thoroughly the alerts ’search’ for information), and GR stores all of the information for your future reference. I have even heard of people feeding all of their email into GR!

GR also has clever ways to send information out, which can be handy if you have colleagues or clients that want updates without using GR. You can put feeds into a folder and send the results into a publicly viewable page. You can go one step further and set up email updates via Feedburner, if you really want to make it easy (we used this trick for our ‘Instant Social Media for Scientists‘ email updates).

So, are you ready to wow your colleagues and coworkers by knowing the latest and greatest, as it happens? This post was partly inspired by a San Diego scientist who told me he was doing just that–impressing his boss with his knowledge of cutting edge research through GR. Additionally, using RSS information can help you to become a ‘channel‘ of information for posting items to social media applications such as twitter. Check it out, and start by subscribing to the Comprendia RSS feed!

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If you’ve been following along with the Biotechnology Marketing 101 blog series, you know that we provide guidance for life science and biotech companies to start and grow. We’re taking this from virtual to IRL (in real life ;) at our October 29th Bootstrapping Biotech event with the San Diego Biotechnology Network. We’ve lined up some excellent speakers who will cover everything from getting funded to strategic and tactical marketing and social media for your company or products. We’ve had a lot of interest so far, even outside of San Diego, and really think that a lot of great, synergistic connections will be made at the event. Even if you don’t work at a small company, we think you’ll be able to learn and meet those who can help you make the most out of your marketing budget. As always, we’re open to feedback as to what you’d like to see–leave a comment here or on the SDBN site.

While vacationing, visiting family in coastal New Jersey (nicer than it sounds), I spent some time on the beach. A plane with a trailing banner flew by, advertising a product I still don’t remember. Ever the marketer, and never being the type who likes to zone out for hours on the beach, I started to think about this flavor of ‘broadcast’ advertising.

The problems are multi-fold: 1. I didn’t have any clue what the product was 2. I had no idea how to follow up to learn more 3. Even if I did have a ‘burning desire’ to find out, I certainly forgot the name of the product by the time I got to the internet (ignore the fact that I had my blackberry and could have looked it up).

What’s interesting is that this company probably paid $1-3K for this promotion (maybe more, as I learned that flying a plane with a banner is quite an art). What did they get in return? I’m sure they don’t even know–hard to determine a return on investment (ROI) on a media has no way of tracking. Instead, I think they should have hired college students to visit 4-5 beaches, and hand out free samples and chat the beachgoers up. Now THAT I would have remembered, and they also would have gotten feedback on peoples’ reactions to the product.

Relevance to life sciences? If you’re like me, you ‘cut your teeth’ on this type of ‘broadcast’ advertising, mostly print Ads (although it would be cool to rent a plane). Even some online banner Ads and e-mail blasts can be forms of broadcast advertising (banner blindness is a well-known phenomenon where users learn to ignore such information). You got used to putting your message ‘out there’ without expecting many metrics and feedback. Now, however, there are myriad ways to promote your products in an engaging manner AND to get metrics that can be used to determine ROI and the next tactical (or even strategic) steps.

Examples? Set up Google Adwords, targeting those who are looking for your product, and learn what people are searching for. Start a blog or forum on your website, forming an interactive community that cares about your products and tells you want their needs are. Make sure your newsletter is about customer needs, and not just a listing of your products. These are just some ideas–by being resourceful, and ruthless about ROI, you’ll surely come up with more.

Should you abandon broadcast advertising? No, it has a place in your tactical marketing plan, reinforcing your brand. But, it is easy to fall into the ’same old, same old’ and to rely on it too heavily. Contact us for a free consultation to learn how to get started engaging more and broadcasting less.

Voice of San Diego’s summary of Biocom’s Sept. 23rd ‘Social Media 2.0′ panel, featuring insight and quotes from Comprendia founder Mary Canady. Discusses the Biotechnology industry’s limited use of social media.

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