via wired.com
Monthly Archives: September 2009
Twenty rules of engagement in new age marketing
Recently, Read this interesting synopsis of the changing rules of engagement in the online world. I have edited a few original writs and added a few, but in essence it replicates ideas of Rich Meyer.
Twenty New rules for engaging your customers
1. Traditional mass marketing is dead.
2. Brand marketers no longer control the message.
3. Your audience is using social media whether you decide to use social or not.
4. Great marketing is not enough to ensure success.
5. Senior manager need to get middle managers more involved in formulating strategy and implementation of tactics.
6. The best marketing plans in the world mean nothing without flawless execution.
7. To get consumers to buy you product forget about features and start thinking about how you product provides solutions to their problems.
8. There is no such thing as free social media programs.
9. Social media programs need to be tied back to business objectives. Executives need to agree on a measurement criteria for social media programs.
10. Keep it simple. If you can’t clearly explain your strategy and message to your employees than you need to start over.
11. The days of free spending consumers maybe over. Today consumers are saving more and spending less. It’s all about needs rather than want.
12. Web analytics should tell you a story of how your consumers are thinking about your site and products.
13. Employers have all the power now and can lowball new hires and increase workloads on current employees. However this will eventually change and lot more people will seek to leave big companies in search of smaller companies where they can provide a lot more input and be satisfied with their work.
15. Lowering prices is not a marketing or brand strategy.
16. Markets consist of human beings, not demographic sectors.
17. Learn to see the world in the eyes of your customer or website visit.
18. Simplicity is the new currency.
19.Don’t favor credentials over passion.
20. Speed has become even more of a competitive advantage in the age of social media.
Better imaging with Optofluidics
What is Optofluidics ?
Optofluidics refers to manipulation of light using fluids, or vice-verse, on the micro to nano meter scale. Optical devices which incorporate liquids as a fundamental part of the structure can be traced at least as far back as the eighteenth century when rotating pools of mercury were proposed as a simple technique to create smooth mirrors for use in reflecting telescopes. The field of optofluidics is a “mar
riage” of nano-photonics and micro-fluidics! The introduction of liquids in the optical structure enables flexible fine-tuning and even reconfiguration of circuits such that they may perform tasks optimally in a changing environment.This allows for enhanced optical detection in lab-on-a-chip systems with a potentially strong impact on bio-technology, life-sciences, and bio-medical/health-care industries.It is used in a broad spectrum of military and civilian applications for imaging, spectroscopy, communications, sensing, and displays.
The technology has now allowed the introduction of an inexpensive and high-resolution microscope that has been engineered to fit onto a single chip (See Optofluidic microscope shrinks to fit on a chip.) The performance of the device is comparable to a 20x microscope, but in terms of size, cost and ability to mass produce, the device has significant advantages.
- The lack of optical elements in the arrangement implies that there are no aberrations to worry about.
- This is an intrinsically space-conserving method.
- The entire chip is illuminated from above; no light source needed sunlight is sufficient.
This portable and cheap device is particularly appealing for third-world applications where it could be used in the field to analyse blood samples for malaria or check water supplies for pathogens. In the future, the microscope chips could be incorporated into devices that are implanted into the human body. Pretty good.
An on-chip implementation of the optofluidic microscope.
In the set-up, a voltage of 25 V is applied across the inlet and outlet of a microfluidic channel that is 2.4 mm long, 40 µm wide and 13 µm high. The electric field draws the specimen across the aperture array in a steady stream. The array consists of 120 holes with a diameter of 0.5 µm and separation of 10.4 µm, fabricated on a 2D CMOS imaging sensor. The sensor comprises a grid lattice of 1280 x 1024 square pixels with a pixel size of 5.2 µm.
Also see – Developing optofluidic technology through the fusion of microfluidics and optics
Being a very exciting field with a plethora of potential applications, its no wonder that hundreds of high-tech companies are working to optimize the technology. Heres a list of microfluidics research groups
Better imaging with Optofluidics
What is Optofluidics ?
Optofluidics refers to manipulation of light using fluids, or vice-verse, on the micro to nano meter scale. Optical devices which incorporate liquids as a fundamental part of the structure can be traced at least as far back as the eighteenth century when rotating pools of mercury were proposed as a simple technique to create smooth mirrors for use in reflecting telescopes. The field of optofluidics is a “marriage” of nano-photonics and micro-fluidics! The introduction of liquids in the optical structure enables flexible fine-tuning and even reconfiguration of circuits such that they may perform tasks optimally in a changing environment.This allows for enhanced optical detection in lab-on-a-chip systems with a potentially strong impact on bio-technology, life-sciences, and bio-medical/health-care industries.It is used in a broad spectrum of military and civilian applications for imaging, spectroscopy, communications, sensing, and displays.
The technology has now allowed the introduction of an inexpensive and high-resolution microscope that has been engineered to fit onto a single chip ( See Optofluidic microscope shrinks to fit on a chip.) The performance of the device is comparable to a 20x microscope, but in terms of size, cost and ability to mass produce, the device has significant advantages.
- The lack of optical elements in the arrangement implies that there are no aberrations to worry about.
- This is an intrinsically space-conserving method.
- The entire chip is illuminated from above; sunlight is sufficient.
This portable and cheap device is particularly appealing for third-world applications where it could be used in the field to analyse blood samples for malaria or check water supplies for pathogens. In the future, the microscope chips could be incorporated into devices that are implanted into the human body. Pretty good.
An on-chip implementation of the optofluidic microscope.
In the set-up, a voltage of 25 V is applied across the inlet and outlet of a microfluidic channel that is 2.4 mm long, 40 µm wide and 13 µm high. The electric field draws the specimen across the aperture array in a steady stream. The array consists of 120 holes with a diameter of 0.5 µm and separation of 10.4 µm, fabricated on a 2D CMOS imaging sensor. The sensor comprises a grid lattice of 1280 x 1024 square pixels with a pixel size of 5.2 µm.
Also see – Developing optofluidic technology through the fusion of microfluidics and optics
Heres a list of microfluidics research groups
Digital Medicine: A truly semantic medical search engine – HealthBase
HealthBase is a new and truly semantic search engine based on NetBase’s Content Intelligence platform.When i first decided to try it out, i was not very hopeful, having spent many hours in the past analysing pathetic results from so called Smart search engines. But Boy, i was very pleasently surprised at the results !!
NetBase’s Content Intelligence technology reads every sentence inside documents, linguistically understands the content and powers breakthrough search experiences that deliver highly relevant answers and insights.
I checked the search engine semantics by searching for a simple disease ” Asthma“.
All the results shown for Treatment, Causes and complications were almost 100% accurate, though the results for Pros and Cons were very ambiguous. In fact i don’t see too much justification for that section at present.
A few reviews on NetBase have not been very complimentary. but then, i have perceived a bias in them. Of course there are many other really good medical search engines, a few of them even calling themselves semantic. But most of them are just glorified and customized search engines without any really intelligent tool involved in calculating results.
But for my money, I would go with Healthbase anyday, until someone else can show me a better semantic medical search engine.
Related articles
- HealthBase Is The Ultimate Medical Content Search Engine (techcrunch.com)
- How I Like To Calculate Dates? Wolfram|Alpha It (seroundtable.com)
A truly semantic medical search engine – HealthBase
HealthBase is a new and truly semantic search engine based on NetBase’s Content Intelligence platform.When i first decided to try it out, i was not very hopeful, having spent many hours in the past analysing pathetic results from so called Smart search engines. But Boy, i was very pleasently surprised at the results !!
NetBase’s Content Intelligence technology reads every sentence inside documents, linguistically understands the content and powers breakthrough search experiences that deliver highly relevant answers and insights.
I checked the search engine semantics by searching for a simple disease ” Asthma“.
All the results shown for Treatment, Causes and complications were almost 100% accurate, though the results for Pros and Cons were very ambiguous. In fact i don’t see too much justification for that section at present.
A few reviews on NetBase have not been very complimentary. but then, i have perceived a bias in them. Of course there are many other really good medical search engines, a few of them even calling themselves semantic. But most of them are just glorified and customized search engines without any really intelligent tool involved in calculating results.
But for my money, I would go with Healthbase anyday, until someone else can show me a better semantic medical search engine.
Best layout and design for pharma- communication
Best layout and design for pharma- communication: “
Over the years companies have adopted various tactics to get doctors to engage with their online product presentations, or e-details. Initiatives include obtaining permission from doctors to email them an e-detail, placing the e-detail on a pharmaceutical website, placing a banner on a website linking to an e-detail, and placing the e-detail on a doctor community website. The results have been varied..
There are a number of ways to e-present to doctors and choosing the best layout and design is not always easy. Making a simple bullet presentation with linear navigation (next/previous arrows) is one simple way to kill your content. But then, What actually works?
- Pharma websites have been proved rarely to attract doctors (only 2 per cent of the 2,762 doctors questioned in a Doctors.net.uk survey stated pharmaceutical-owned websites as a source).
- Banners on websites, although considered cheap, do not drive engagement and, dependent on banner location, may not allow you to know the profile of the individual clicking on your banner.
- E-detail on a doctor community website, however, offers the advantage that doctors are already utilising the site on a daily basis, and campaigns can be promoted to specific specialties.
Understanding the audience
Doctors.net recently conducted a survey to investigate the best way to engage doctors with an e-detail. A total of 94 members of the community were surveyed, 32 of whom were GPs and 62 were in specialist care (across a number of different specialities). Of the 62 from specialist care, 43 were consultant/specialist registrar level. The study combined facilitated face-to-face research and non-facilitated online methodology to determine the optimal design structure for an e-detail based on doctor feedback and the speed with which doctors find information.
In the online study, 84 doctors were shown wireframe templates of potential e-detail layouts (template 1 contained three key messages; template 2 offered menu navigation and prioritised key messages; template 3 provided menu navigation, and template 4 was a linear ‘click through’). Participants were asked for their preferred layout based on certain criteria such as ease of use, design, and simplicity. The content was presented as data only and did not involve webcasts (or other rich media). The doctors were invited to indicate their favourite and their second-favourite template based on how they would most like to receive information online. Responses were submitted through an online form and results were collated.
Of the 84 doctors, 62 chose template 3: menu option as their most, or second most, preferred layout, making this the clear winner. With two points awarded for a first choice and one point for a second choice, the final rating was template 3: menu navigation in first place with 90 points, followed by template 2: menu navigation and prioritised key messages with 69 points, template 1: three key messages with 47 points and finally template 4: linear ‘click through’ with 45 points.Doctors stated that they felt template 3 was clearly laid out and that the left hand navigation showed exactly where to go to get the required information. It was also seen to demonstrate good use of space and the top buttons were popular. In addition they felt that the headings were obvious and the fact that they could choose where to go, among other things, was appreciated.
Below is a sample of template 3 – Menu navigation
Template 3: menu navigation prove to be the most popular choice in the online study, it also proved to be the most efficient format for finding information quickly, with the tasks being performed more than twice as quickly as with templates 2 and 4. Based on their speed, they also got to the information they wanted the quickest using template 3.
Template 4: the linear ‘click through’ model was the least popular with doctors in both studies.
Recommendation to companies wishing to engage with their target doctors using email / epresentations in 2009 would be to use the Left menu navigation approach.
Related articles
- Elements of A Good Website… by Guest Blogger, Angela Kambarian (hilarytopper.com)
Hospitals as Lean machines !
Lean means creating more value for customers with less resources. Starting with Toyota in Japan, Lean methodologies are being increasingly stressed upon all industries, and health care is there too, with a few important caveats.In the current international scenario, All healthcare institutes are following some, if not most, strategies to improve quality and streamline its activities without wasting resources. The percieved value of care and cost is ingrained in a lot of minds, and its difficult to convince people that healthcare quality can be maintained without overspending and overstaffing.
Healthcare services are complex processes which involve diverse professional skills, varying patient needs with cutting edge technologies. Variation and Non-value added activities are inherent on the process. Lean can assist healthcare providers in reducing costs, improving service levels and increasing value but must do so without compromising quality of care, compliance, brand, patient safety, or conformance
Interviewed by Modern Healthcare reporter Jean DerGurahian, Delnor ommunity Hospital, Geneva, Ill., executives discuss Lean methodologies that they say have helped the facility find cost savings, improve processes and increase satisfaction. Tom Wright, president and CEO, and Jim Kearns, chief information officer, say that organizational changes like Lean will become crucial to hospitals as they face continuously shrinking reimbursements and an unclear path to healthcare reform.
The Iowa Healthcare Collaborative brings health care services closer to the people, urging them to take charge of their treatment. The Iowa Healthcare Collaborative (IHC) is a provider-led and patient-focused nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting a culture of continuous improvement in health care. Also check The Institute for health care improvement on IHI website
Here are also a few articles by Lean management consultancy, VIP Group.
So lets stand up and take charge.
P&G as models for Public Health and Social Marketers
What Public Health and Social Marketers Can Learn From P&G: “
While many people in social marketing and public health often look to companies such as Apple, Coca-Cola, McDonald’s and Nike as models for successful consumer marketing to aspire to, P&G stands out among the best and most innovative. What is most attractive to me about P&G is that they have 10 different business areas, ranging from baby care to home care, with 43 brands of over a half billion USD each. If you are in the public health business – not just the obesity, physical activity, breast cancer, HIV prevention or tobacco control business – then the way P&G creates and manages a portfolio of brands, not a unitary one, is where you should go to school.
Here are a few nuggets quoted from their annual report – the core strengths to win:
1. No company in the world has invested more in consumer and market research than P&G. We interact with more than five million consumers each year in nearly 60 countries around the world. We conduct over 15,000 research studies every year. We invest more than $350 million a year in consumer understanding. This results in insights that tell us where the innovation opportunities are and how to serve and communicate with consumers.
2. P&G is the innovation leader in our industry. Virtually all the organic sales growth we’ve delivered in the past nine years has come from new brands and new or improved product innovation. We continually strengthen our innovation capability and pipeline by investing two times more, on average, than our major competitors. In addition, we multiply our internal innovation capability with a global network of innovation partners outside
P&G. More than half of all product innovation coming from P&G today includes at least one major component from an external partner.
P&G. More than half of all product innovation coming from P&G today includes at least one major component from an external partner.
3. P&G is the brand-building leader of our industry. We’ve built the strongest portfolio of brands in the industry with 23 billion-dollar brands and 20 half-billion-dollar brands. These 43 brands account for 85% of
sales and more than 90% of profit. Twelve of the billion-dollar brands are the #1 global market share leaders of their categories. The majority of the balance are #2.
sales and more than 90% of profit. Twelve of the billion-dollar brands are the #1 global market share leaders of their categories. The majority of the balance are #2.
4. We’ve established industry-leading go-to-market capabilities. P&G is consistently ranked by leading retailers in industry surveys as a preferred supplier and as the industry leader in a wide range of capabilities including clearest company strategy, brands most important to retailers, strong business fundamentals and innovative marketing programs.
5. Over the decades, we have also established significant scale advantages as a total company and in individual categories, countries and retail channels. P&G’s scale advantage is driven as much by knowledge sharing, common systems and processes, and best practices as it is by size and scope.
6. P&G has earned a reputation as one of the world’s best companies for leaders. We work hard at leadership development because, as a build-from-within company, our future success is entirely dependent on the ongoing strength of our talent pipeline.
Put another way:
Public health agencies should invest significant proportions of their resources in
(1) talking with and understanding their audiences (rather than a few focus groups here and there),
(2) innovating in public health programs (rather than recreating wheels or sitting still waiting for
evidence bases to develop),
evidence bases to develop),
(3) creating and sustaining strong public health program brands (not their corporate image),
(4) being the go-to partner for public health retailers or intermediaries (not someone to avoid because of bureaucracy and painful ‘processes’),
(5) having in place common systems for getting things done across disease and behavioral risk areas
(6) developing leaders ratherthan rewarding the status quo.
To sum it all up, as the new CEO Bob McDonald phrases it:
I believe it comes down to one simple and remarkably constant
factor: the clarity and constancy of P&G’s Purpose. Since the Company was
founded, we’ve been in the business of providing daily essentials that improve
the quality of people’s lives. We help people care for their babies, pets and
homes. We make everyday chores easier to do. We help people look and feel
better. We’ve stayed true to the inspiring Purpose of touching and improving
people’s lives in meaningful ways.
Improved E.M.Rs to support Health Rights for All.
- Image via Wikipedia
Heres more evidence of how good use of Health care I.T can lower health care costs, and bring health care services closer to all, without discrimination. This study quantifies the enormous savings that can be generated by a simple introduction of one more option within Electronic Medical records to choose the lowest cost generic amongst a list of pre-selected generics ( to ensure quality).
” Electronic prescribing (e-prescribing) systems that allow doctors to select lower cost or generic medications could save $845,000 per 100,000 patients per year and possibly more system-wide, according to findings from a new study. Complete use among physicians of e-prescribing system with formulary decision support could reduce prescription drug spending by up to $3.9 million per 100,000 patients per year, according to the researchers”
Doctors using e-prescribing with formulary decision support, which accounted for more than 200,000 filled prescriptions in the study, increased their use of generic prescriptions by 3.3 percent. These changes were above and beyond the increased use of generics that occurred among all doctors and the already high rate of generic drug use in Massachusetts. Based on average costs for private insurers, study authors estimate that the use of e-prescribing could save $845,000 per 100,000 patients per year and generate even higher savings with greater use.
Researchers found that the doctors who wrote electronic prescriptions were slightly younger and more likely to be female than those who did not. In addition, internists, pediatricians, and family physicians made up nearly three-fourths of those who used e-prescribing. Of the 17.4 million prescriptions filled over the course of the study, about 212,000 were prescribed electronically. This study was funded in part by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) (HS15175).”
More use of I.T in health care will have a cascading effect on Health Rights for all as it increases affordability, efficiency, quality and information accessibility of health services. And these are few of the basic requirements of Health Rights for All.
Related articles
- E-prescribing leads to more, cheaper generic Rx fills
- Costs don’t just mean financial – EMRs and patient lives
- Brand-name drugs no better than generics
- Resistance To Use Of Generic Medications By Physicians ‘Discouraging,’ Editorial States
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](https://i0.wp.com/img.zemanta.com/reblog_c.png)
Digital Medicine 
