ScienceOnline 2012, the premier meeting spot for science bloggers and digital influencers, is a month away (follow on Twitter via hashtag #scio12)! Here is the word cloud from almost 1800 Twitter status updates over the past month, with the largest words indicating the most popular. (Note: #scio12 organizers’ Twitter handles were removed from the word cloud). Each word is linked to a Twitter search of the #scio12 hashtag and the term (Note: the Twitter search only extends back 8 days and thus some links will not work). In case you haven’t been following, the word ‘tattoo’ appears because there will be a group of people visiting a tattoo parlor (and some getting tattoos!) at the meeting, inspired by Carl Zimmer’s new book ‘Science Ink’. We’ll have a fun contest at #scio12 related to this subject. We’re also happy that the word ‘art’ is prominent, as we think that an appreciation of the two leads to better science communication.

We’ll be at #scio12 talking to bloggers about acquiring company sponsorships for blogs or networks, contact us if you’re on ‘either side’!

We’ve talked about the new media revolution, and how scientists are publishing more research and information online, while traditional printed publications are experiencing a downward trend. If you’ve been watching, there has been a concomitant movement to make research open access, meaning making published data free, as evidenced by the growth of journals such as the Public Library of Science. This movement is aimed at improving the progress of science by making more information available for faster discoveries. In addition, a group of researchers has taken a brilliant step towards controlling their destinies and begun to ‘crowdfund’ their research via an initiative called SciFund, soliciting funds from individuals to support their work. As researchers begin to ‘take charge’ of their future in these endeavors which are linked and perhaps similar to the Occupy Wall Street movement, life science tools providers can partner with them, benefiting all.

Let’s list a few ways that the status quo limits life science companies. Funding for life science research, which directly affects the growth of tools providers, is determined by the federal government, and distributed via the peer reviewed grant process. Researchers carry out this research aided by products from life science companies and publish results in peer-reviewed journals which delay and heavily restrict the utilization of the information. So, the government, academic infrastructure, and the peer reviewed journals severely limit revenue, product development, and communication with scientists and their use of products. We’ve learned to put up with these limitations, but what if we embraced the #scifund and #openaccess (as they are known on Twitter) movements? Some of the benefits are listed below, and we are just beginning to scratch the surface.

1. Find and engage thought leaders more easily. Who are the influencers in your field, what are they thinking about, and how can you work with them? In the past, finding them via traditional publications has been easy enough, although most of the work is 6-12 months old by the time it is accessible, and this multiplies the time they could publish any work they do with you or your products. With more researchers blogging and Tweeting about their data, or publishing it more quickly via PLOS, you can find the influencers and interact with them more quickly than before. As an added bonus, you’ll be able to use the data and figures on your own website, as PLOS information is free for commercial use.
2. More opportunities to reach a targeted market. With more researchers publishing online and in niche blogs, you’ll be able to reach very specific audiences with your message, and obtain feedback. Partnering with a blog or a blog network is an easy way to go, or you can start your own website/blog and engage there, something we’ve done with the EpiExperts Epigenetics Community.
3. Better product development. Daniel Mietchen, a science communicator who was part of the inspiration for this post, has an elegant SciFund proposal about a repository of research data in which scientists can learn from others’ work much more quickly. As a life science marketer, if you’re not drooling already, you should be. Access to targeted, real time information about what life scientists are working on is like the CRISP database on steroids! Additionally, the targeted advertising opportunities are mouth watering as well. Of course, we wouldn’t want them to feel as though their research is tainted by commercial interest, but think of the possibilities to react quickly to a researcher who has used your tools, and to feed this information back into product development.
4. More control over funding. Related to this last point, think about the potential to have an effect on which life science projects are funded. Of course, if life science companies directly support all research, the funds will soon dry up, but it is interesting to note that data from Europe show that businesses already fund more research than the public. By getting involved now with projects such as SciFund, life science companies will get great PR and also make connections with digital influencer. As this Wall Street Journal article and related book point out, scientists who are sharing will have advantages and likely be more influential than those who do not. Life science companies could use their marketing channels to promote these thought leaders not only within the industry, but to the general public. Should we envision a future whereby academic research is fueled more directly by the public and those who influence them? Perhaps not that completely, as basic research is important, but the face of research will undoubtedly change. Efforts to affect government funding should also be on the table, with tools companies supporting entities like BIO.

What can you do now? Comprendia serves as a liaison between life science companies and the thought leaders of these revolutions. We’d be happy to work with you to find ways you can find opportunities for synergies, contact us. One of the ways we facilitate communication is through our life science chat on Twitter, through the #ls_chat hashtag, @ls_chat Twitter account, and wiki. We’re having a special #ls_chat Wednesday November 16th at 10 a.m. PT to discuss SciFund, and we’ll have their founder Jai Ranganathan (@jranganathan) to answer questions as well, see the ones we’ve come up with so far and feel free to add. Follow along using the Tweetchat room and use the #ls_chat hashtag in your Tweets to ask or answer questions. See summaries of our previous chats as well.

To share this post easily, cut and paste: Occupy Life Science? How Researchers Are Challenging the Status Quo And Why Companies Should Help http://bit.ly/u58tK1

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It’s time to start life science marketing planning for the next year, and we’d like to help you get the most out of your budget with this guide. We’ll assume that the Mayans are wrong and that the world won’t end, at least not before Q4. We’ve updated our life science event planning calendar which has 2012 conference and relevant due dates to help you get abstracts and other items in on time, especially if you add the google calendar to yours so you’ll get reminders. In addition, we’ve added the official Twitter hashtag for each event (where available) so you can track them (see our guide to life science hashtags to learn more).

Life Science Event Listings

Below is our list of life science media kits and editorial calendars. Marketers use them to plan their tactical schedules, see our life science marketing plan series for more details. We’d hoped to find more of the 2012 versions of these schedules, but several are from 2011. We’ll try to update them as they become available, try poking around the websites and contacting the publications yourself to find them.

Our 2011 survey of life science marketers indicated an increase in spending on social media, we’ll repeat the survey for 2012 soon. What are your thoughts on the trends for spending and success in 2012?

Life Science Media Kits, Editorial Calendars & Contacts

To share this post easily, cut and paste: 2012 Life Science Marketing Planning Guide: Events, Media Kits & Contacts http://bit.ly/oVQ8e7

One of the most exciting aspects of our work is developing new ways for our clients to engage their customers. We’ve recently had great success helping our client Emerald BioStructures create a new drug discovery webinar series which has increased their visibility and generated high quality leads. We’d like to share some of the key elements for success we’ve found for life science webinars.

1. Think ‘howto,’ not capabilities. Your company has a lot of know-how that can be shared without exposing proprietary information. Your goal for a webinar series is to position your company as an expert on a topic, and your viewers can either choose to work with you or to DIY the project. Either way, you will have formed a relationship with them as the ‘go to’ company on the topic, and the DIYers might change their minds later. You can start with an existing capabilities presentation, but change it significantly to point out the tips and tricks you used to make projects successful. Think about a presentation that YOU would take time out of your busy day to watch. If you’re having trouble deciding what to cover, look at your web analytics and see what resources are most popular, a tactic we’ve covered earlier.
2. Practice presentation Zen. We’ve all been in life science presentations that are boring, have illegible slides, or go on too long. This simply won’t fly for a webinar, when viewers can easily tune out or leave if the presentation isn’t good. Less is more with regards to slide content, don’t go below font 20 on slides and include only one or two images per slide. Allot 2 minutes for each slide (trust me!), and use the comments section for your personal notes, rather than relying heavily on the text of the slide. Timing is important, we normally do two ‘dress rehearsals’ of webinars beforehand.
3. Use the force. Social media force, that is. Even small companies can get attention for their webinars by building a network on Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. and then using it for promotion. It’s a self-serving promotion, which we caution against, but consider that the webinar itself has utility for others, especially if you follow #1 for the theme. Use the SEO (search engine optimization) force too–fill your title with important keywords (the web/Google analytics helps here too). Currently, Emerald’s upcoming webinar is on the first page on Google for the search term ‘GPCR webinar.’
4. Listen before, during, and after. Hopefully you’ve chosen the right topics for your webinar series, and have a good network which has gotten you plenty of signups. When registering, ask what participants would like from the webinar. Solicit questions during the presentation (normally via chat, because microphones will be off for a big group) and answer them at the end. You’ll want someone besides the speaker to do this, as it’s just too much for one person. After the webinar, follow up with questions about how the webinar was perceived–this also gives you an ‘excuse’ to follow up on leads.
5. Record & repurpose. These days many apps allow you to record a webinar directly, and we like GoToWebinar because of this feature (note that it only works on PCs currently, although we saw this recent post for recording GoToMeetings with Macs). You want to get as much mileage out of your webinars as possible, for example sending potential clients to recordings to showcase your expertise. Be sure to collect leads via a simple form to watch the recorded webinars, and follow up with them. During your dress rehearsals, practice recording and converting the files for web use so that there won’t be any surprises (and we sometimes set up 2 computers/methods of recording to be safe).
6. Use the apps we’ve found useful. We’ve tried several paid for and free apps for webinars, here are our favorites (note that we are a PC shop–feel free to leave recommendations for Mac programs below):
   • GoToMeeting/Webinar. This software allows you to host a webinar easily and record it. See this detail about converting recordings to be used elsewhere. Note also that GoToWebinar (15+attendees) does not show your full attendee list to the audience, as we’ve seen some do, and GoToMeeting does as well.

   • Camtasia. It took us awhile to buy this video editing application, because we thought the free ones would fit the bill, but we think it’s worth it. You can also use it to record screencasts with or without Powerpoint.
   • Any Video Converter (free), Expression Encoder (free). There is some coding that comes with the GoToMeeting recordings which sometimes causes problems, and running them through one of these programs seems to fix it. Also, @GlennDCitrix is helpful on this matter if you reply to him on Twitter, and here’s another blog post from him for more GoToMeeting recording tips.
   • Audacity (free). If there are problems with your audio that you can’t fix in other software, try this program. Of course, you may be able to obviate this step by purchasing a high quality headset for the webinar presenter. We suggest one that connects to your computer via USB as sometimes we’ve seen delays with those that connect to the audio part.

A life science webinar series will give your company exposure and generate leads. The tools available these days allow companies of any size to produce them. Of course, you’ll need support from management and you’ll likely want R&D staff to present them or be involved. Everyone will benefit from learning how to communicate your company’s offerings clearly and concisely, and the recordings may also help others at your company understand them better.

Our advice? Just do it!

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Comprendia’s mission is to improve communication in the life science industry, and a big part of this is opening up more of a dialog between companies and researchers. We think social media is a perfect venue for discussions, and are co-founding a biweekly life science chat on Twitter. Life scientists and company representatives can openly discuss issues important for advancing research through a better understanding of the challenges faced by each.

Many life science companies have a presence on Twitter, but we see them mostly as being in broadcast mode, simply tweeting about products and promotions and not engaging with scientists. We were approached by one life scientist on twitter who wanted us to connect them with a company as their efforts to engage with them regarding a large equipment purchase had not been fruitful. With an email, we were able to connect them, but the process would have been much easier if the company had been available and responsive on Twitter.

Life scientists have questions directly relating to existing products as well as ideas for new ones. Companies want to hear this information and ask questions about their performance and perception. A Twitter chat will bring the two sides together in an informal and trackable way, accepting discussion topics from all interested. We can also use the chat to help life scientists through the personal challenges many face during their PhD or postdoc, as most of us on the company side have been through similar struggles.

Angela Alexander (@thecancergeek) is one of our favorite life scientists. She’s a postdoc at the MD Anderson Cancer Center, and she had the idea for the chat while we were talking on Twitter about our recent post about life science hashtags. This underlines another benefit to interacting with life scientists–they’re brilliant and creative! She is our co-founder and we’ll both be moderating the chats. She’s already thought of many discussion topics already.

The chat will take place alternating Wednesdays at 4 p.m. PT beginning September 14th, using the hashtag #ls_chat and led by the @ls_chat Twitter account. Following the lead of Andrew Spong’s fantastic post on how to start a tweet chat, we’ve also started a life science chat wiki. To participate, visit the wiki and sign the guestbook and submit and/or vote on discussion topics. Check out the calendar, then log into Twitter at the designated time, follow @ls_chat and the #ls_chat hashtag (a search column in Tweetdeck or Hootsuite works well) and join the discussion. We’ll provide summaries of the discussions afterward. Also, like our Facebook page for announcements and summaries. As always, contact us if you have a question or suggestion, and you can email the ls_chat team directly too.

To share this post easily cut and paste: Introducing The Life Science Twitter Chat: Improving Communication Between Researchers and Companies http://bit.ly/qtEap6

I’ll admit I was skeptical of Google+, the new social network from the search engine giant, because I knew Google had given up their previous attempts with their products Wave and Buzz, which were in a similar vein. However, it soon became apparent that Google+ was different in many ways, from the offerings to the way everyone was talking about it. What promise does it hold for life science? I think that there are many features of Google+ which researchers and companies will find useful, and that it may become very popular. Here are the reasons:

1. Threaded discussions. Social media savvy life scientists really like Friendfeed, which allows for users to comment on posted items in targeted groups, resulting in relevant discussions which can be followed by all in the group. Currently, this is difficult with applications like Twitter. Friendfeed was bought by Facebook 2 years ago, and ever since then, the community has been worried about changes or the disappearance of the application. While Facebook has threaded discussion features, some life scientists dislike aspects of it and have eschewed it for various reasons, some of which are described below. The fact that Google+ has threaded conversations is big for life scientists, as they’ve used specialized mailing lists for decades and forums for years, both which offer this feature.
2. It’s not your grandmother’s social media. I think Google+ was designed for the slightly more technical crowd–to me it seems Google built it based on what their employees would want. Users arrange contacts into ‘circles’ and share items with the circles. However, contacts don’t see the items unless they in turn add the user to their circle. It’s a bit like following on Twitter, with an added filter that each user chooses what to share with whom. It’s a bit more complicated than the ‘binary’ friending in Facebook–you’re either friends with someone or not. I think this concept may be beyond what many Facebook users will want to think about and manage, something that Robert Scoble outlined in a recent post. Now, while we’ve seen several groups of life scientists who aren’t eager to put precious brain power into figuring out social media, we think that the potential value of individuals and organizations sharing targeted information, which they can filter accordingly, could very well lure them to Google+.
3. It’s in the cloud, stupid. I didn’t fully realize it at first, but this presentation pointed out to me the very broad implications of Google+ for web users. Google is likely aiming to move users “into the cloud,” in other words, towards using the company’s applications as a centralized resource for online and computer activities. Think about everything that Google owns: web search, email, documents, locations, calendars etc. Having a social network with easy access to just document sharing is HUGE for life scientists, think of the opportunities to facilitate collaboration! To begin with, Google spreadsheets listing scientists and communicators on Google+ have been circulating. Currently, sharing is not super easy, but you can imagine that Google is planning ahead, starting with a black taskbar that now appears at the top of your browser when you’re logged into any Google product (and a red message notification lures you back into Google+ when you have a message).
4. Hangouts are cool. A useful feature of Google+ is what they’ve termed a ‘hangout’ where you can videoconference with up to 15 people at once. Of course, most of us have used Skype, Google Chat, and screen sharing applications like GoToMeeting (which we at Comprendia love) to facilitate our work communication. Google+ takes this to the next level by making it easy to have multiple people on a video call, check out this recorded health care hangout. We held a hangout this week to discuss uses for Google+ for life scientists and companies to communicate, and some great suggestions came up, including technical support (“show me your gel and tell me what you did”), journal clubs, and focus groups. Making informal discussions more available opens up channels between life scientists and companies. We plan to hold periodic hangouts to discuss the topic and invite life scientists and companies to join, add us on Google+ to be notified.
5. The buzz. As I mentioned, I was skeptical at first, but quickly found that people were talking about Google+ and joining at an incredibly fast rate. I have added many life scientists to my circles and have already started to get to know them better than I could on Twitter or Facebook, since real names are required and photos are easy to access. The fact that we are already using so many Google products means that it has a great chance of succeeding. The name, Google+, ties into another ‘sticky’ aspect of the application for users and businesses alike–users can now “+1″ items on the web (like this blog post, see above) and thus suggest it to colleagues (similar to a Facebook “like”). If you’ve got your business hat on, this is HUGE for tracking your customers’ interests. Google+ is using many of the ideas that made Facebook and Twitter popular, but their pervasive presence and their stellar reputation bode well for their success. I’ve heard several life scientists complain about two of Facebook’s opposing issues: lack of privacy for individuals and inaccessibility of information outside of the application. It seems they can’t win! For now Google seems to have struck a balance that works.

As a business, how should you plan? Currently, Google+ is not accepting business accounts, but you can get a feeling for what it might look like here. It’s exciting (for me) to think about the possibilities of integration with Google Analytics. As with other forms of social media, one of the best ways to get involved is to set up a personal account and test it out. Currently, in my personal account, I have circles for Comprendia and the San Diego Biotechnology Network, and am treating each of these as ‘temporary’ business pages, you may want to do the same. Add people to your circles now, provide good content and hopefully they’ll add you, and you can announce your business page when it launches. Contact us if you’d like an invitation, and as always we’ll share our experiences and advice here, and will include the latest information in our training and workshops.

How do you think Google+ could be used to improve communication between life scientists and the companies that serve them?

To share this post cut and paste: 5 Reasons Why Google+ Could Be a Game Changer for Life Science #googleplus http://bit.ly/ls_gplus

These days there are many ways that a life science company can reach out to researchers, which is great. You likely don’t just have one list of contacts in your CRM, you’ve got employees using LinkedIn, Twitter, etc. With this added flexibility comes new questions regarding how to make contact that is welcomed. We like to use the golden rule, in other words, do unto others as you’d have done to you. Here are some examples of what we consider to be breaking the golden rule, illustrating why it is a simple and effective guideline for many different situations.

1. Unsolicited newsletter opt in. I was recently signed up for a newsletter simply because I’d exchanged an email with someone that had nothing to do with their products. I hear this complaint often from colleagues, that they’ve been signed up for newsletters and resent the sender. Your newsletter recipients should request to be signed up, or you should match their interests closely and monitor unsubscribes closely. Don’t assume a contact is a lead, and remember a newsletter is a regular publication which carries more weight than just sending an email.
2. No ‘unsubscribe’ on mass emails. Related to the last point, you should ALWAYS include an unsubscribe option for all email blasts. Modern CRM software and other tools make it easy to send mass emails, but failing to include the option to unsubscribe can cause resentment towards your brand. In addition, without the option to unsubscribe, your leads may mark your emails as spam, meaning you could be blacklisted and that they will no longer receive your messages.
3. Automated direct messages (DMs) from Twitter. This is one of my personal pet peeves and I can assure you that we NEVER do this and advise our clients against it. Some applications send a DM automatically when you follow an account, and experienced users (i.e., those you want to engage) get very irritated by them. Depending on the user’s settings, it can arrive as a text message, and minimally an email. On Twitter, you may be following 1,000 or more accounts–can you imagine if all of them texted or emailed you regularly? (Note: We’ll cover etiquette in our March 10th Twitter Workshop.)
4. Lack of respect for communities. I think the above Twitter transgression occurs with new users because they don’t understand the etiquette of the community. I see similar missteps with those who join one of our LinkedIn groups and immediately post 3 self-serving items. I guess the golden rule assumes that you can ‘stand in the shoes’ of the other person, but as a newbie it’s difficult. In short, don’t rush into a new application and make assumptions about contacting people. Take your time or find an aficionado who can help you.
5. Too frequent communication. A possible issue with having so many ways to communicate with people is that you could barrage someone with the same message too many times. With broadcast advertising (e.g., print Ads), it was considered a good thing to get your message in front of a potential customer multiple times, with personal communication the rules are different. When planning, determine the maximum number of times a person may see your message in, say, a week’s time. Consider how you’d feel if you received the same message from a company with the same frequency. Also, always remember that your targets may not hold the same affection for your brand as you do, so do the comparison with a company you’re not overly fond of. I like to use the car dealership I bought my car from 6 years ago that still sends me monthly mailers (a personal gripe). Look for tools which will help you marry contact information between applications, for example this Constant Contact plugin for Salesforce .
6. Mixing personal and company connections. We’ve covered this before, but from my personal experience the problem seems to be getting worse so I’m bringing it up again. Building a network is a fantastic way to find and engage prospective leads, but you should be very careful to not assume that your personal contacts don’t feel as though they’ll be automatically entered into your company’s CRM. An example that illustrates this concept well involves LinkedIn contact information. Should you upload your LinkedIn contacts into your company CRM? As a general rule, I’d say no. However, we do manual updates when we see, for example, that emails are bouncing and we know it’s because the person has moved jobs. Usually this means we know the situation fairly well and have followed the above rules as well, so that the person can opt out if needed. You should also think about your personal brand when making these decisions–if your company abuses the contact information now or at a later date, the damage to your reputation could be irreversible.

We hope these examples will help you understand a simple way to determine how your company’s communications will be perceived, so that you can make them as effective as possible. Also, feel free to ask our advice if you’re unsure about a campaign you’re planning, we’re always available for a free consultation.

Personally, have you been irritated by communication missteps, and how do you think could they be avoided by life science companies?

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