Create AND Curate

(This post is a follow-on to: “Now What?” and “What are we Waiting For?”  in which I explore ways to measurably increase employee productivity through the use of iPads and/or iPhones).

The iPad began life as a very effective media player or media consumption and presentation device. It is quite effective at playing music, interactive presentations, videos and retrieving email. This has led to its widespread adoption in mobile workforce communities (think sales forces) and has caused an explosion of creative development in the application and platform spaces – Prolifiq is one of these platform providers.

However, one of the questions we are often asked by customers looking at our platform for the first time is: “How are we ever going to be able to produce enough content to make this worthwhile?”

The simple answer is: Create and Curate.

Knowledge workers need to be knowledgeable – knowledgeable about their own company and products, their competition and their industries in general. Corporations spend a ton of money creating content for consumption by their own employees. The problem is they either: 1) publish it to a “portal” site hidden behind a VPN (virtual private network) connection that is cumbersome and unwieldy for remote employees, or 2) they “blast” it out to their employees via email, further burdening an already crowded communication channel. And, once delivered via email, it is really, really difficult to control what happens to this content (as evidenced by how many “confidential” internal memos end up in the hands of the press).

If one steps back and examines their organization, one realizes there is more than ample content to publish to mobile devices, and this content can be aggregated, syndicated, and controlled using appropriate standard operating procedures (SOPs), including approving who gets to see what. BusinessWeek has a great perspective on this.

Additionally, employees have the need to know what is going on around them. One way they do this is by surfing the web. Is it any wonder these activities have made Google larger than the entire US newspaper industry?

I repeat my question from my last entry: “What are we waiting for?” These converging trends represent a unique opportunity to repurpose created content, curate publicly available content, and then filter, manage and publish this content to appropriate employees. And, most importantly, know what content is being consumed by whom, when and what they are doing with it.

This can turn unproductive wait time into “knowledge-time” and you will likely never hear “nobody ever told me that.” And, that is a good, good thing.

Now What?

I am back from three weeks of customer meetings and trade show presentations/exhibitions. The Life Sciences industry breaks down into two distinct camps:

1)      Those who have iPads

2)      Those who will have iPads.

What’s most interesting – for Apple’s competitors – is the question no longer appears to be “should we deploy iPads?” but rather “when we deploy iPads what will we have them do?” This is indicative of the “iPhoria” I’ve witnessed.

In the case of companies who have deployed iPads (these are first-mover companies, often referred to as “innovators” on the product adoption curve), there are some common themes:

1)      They have often deployed a single use-case application that most often is not integrated with back-end databases or legacy applications

2)      Administrators state it is “too early” to report success or failure (from a purely analytical/quantitative perspective)

3)      There seems to be no limit to requests for additional capabilities

4)      Much to the chagrin of marketers, IT is getting involved.

As with any product adoption, the innovators have made it easier for the “fast followers” to adopt as there are learnings that help guide the way. But, as this unfolds, the competitive advantage the innovators realized is rapidly dissipating – they will no longer be the “only kids on the block” with iPads deployed in the field.

This begs the question: “Now what?”

Stay tuned; we have some thoughts and observations on the subject.

Office on the iPad? Part 2

Following up on my post yesterday, our Director of Technology, Jeff Farnsworth, weighs in on the Office on the iPad debate:

I understand the strategy of embracing the iPad ecosystem, and that may very well be what Microsoft is doing (as they’ve already released OneNote on it last year).  My gut still screams “conflict of interest” to take away a no-brainer buying differentiator from the upcoming Windows 8 slates.  But, on the other hand, that may be selling short what will ultimately be a key driver of why people will buy the new Windows.

So, my prediction? I’m going with the notion that IF a version of Office comes out for the iPad, it will be a slightly feature-diminished version of Office, similar to the current Office for Mac.  Microsoft can reap the rewards of iPad market penetration, while still banking that people will “know” – that to really get work done – they’ll want to wait for “the real” Office running on Windows 8; which will operate on the classic desktop as well as new Touch (Metro) experiences.

Case in point: they’ve released an Xbox Live app on the iPad, seemingly in conflict with one of the key differentiators of their Windows phone.  But looking closer, it’s just a shadow of the full breadth of functionality available on the Windows phone.  If they start releasing Xbox Live titles on iOS, that would be a bigger shift.

Case in point two: This isn’t that different than what Amazon is doing with the Kindle – which provides full-featured Kindle reading clients for every device/platform imaginable – while still selling their own hardware.

In the end, it’s the services they’re after.

The SOPA Debate

There’s an old adage that “a good security system only keeps honest people honest.” The current technological hot topic is SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act, also know as H.R. 3261). This is a very well intentioned bill designed to protect the monetary value of intellectual property and is ultimately a long-delayed reaction to the disruptive forces of Napster and other media sharing technologies.

Amidst the discussion about defending threatened business models (the recorded music industry, the motion picture industry, etc.), what appears to be lost is that killing Napster did not create “respect” for the intellectual property of the recorded music industry, nor did it reverse the declining fortunes of an obsolete business model.

What is most alarming to me is the ongoing regulatory encroachment which threatens the underlying fabric of the Internet. The transformative power of the Internet is without precedent – and this happened BECAUSE of the absence of regulations. More heavily regulated industries (automobiles, banking, insurance, telecommunications, real estate, etc.) have succumbed to economic pressures because they were unable and/or unwilling to evolve in spite of the protections regulatory oversight provided.

Yes, intellectual property ownership is being abused and ignored and illicit profits are being made; however, it is by a minority of netizens, and it is unjust to penalize the many because of the acts of the few. Regardless of the outcome of the debate, and any subsequent legislation that may or may not emerge as a result, this is a very slippery slope and the unintended consequences may in fact be dire to the entire online economy.

SOPA is a bill that should never be released from committee and should never see the light of day.

Billions and Billions Part II

I am not channeling Carl Sagan; I am keeping a running total of the fines imposed on the Life Sciences industry for Good Promotional Practices violations, and specifically for off-label, or unapproved use-case, marketing. (See my earlier post for the 2010 wrap-up.)

4Q2011 is not shaping up to be such a great quarter for LS companies:

1) Genentech settles for $20 Million,

2) Abbott settles for $1.5 Billion,

3) GSK settles for $3.1 Billion,

4) Merck settles for $950 Million.

Billions and billions of dollars. $5.52 Billion, to be exact. Right from the bottom line. Perhaps one of the reasons the majority of pharma stocks are in the doldrums?

Virtually all of these settlements were completely avoidable had there been a “culture of intent” promulgated from the top, supported by comprehensive Good Promotional Practices institutionalized throughout the companies.

For an industry that is completely focused on “wellness”, one would think they would learn from the old adage that “…an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”