The early map makers around the Mediterranean were very interested in trade.
They didn’t represent their world by drawing a continuous line around the coast. Instead the delineated a sequence of holes (Ports) representing places where they could maximise exchange.
This “map” from 1351 illustrated what was important to its users.
They put the ‘dots’ on the map.
Later explorers…..
Later explorers and colonists made maps that reflected their interest in occupying territory.
The coast became a continuous line defining the land they hoped to colonise. This is the map that Captain Cook made of New Zealand.
They joined up the ‘dots’.
Explorers & Taxonomists
In his book, The Road to Botany Bay, an exploration of landscape and history, Paul Carter draws a distinction between Explorers and Taxonomists.
Explorers approach a new land as something new and beyond their current experience. They are open to discovery and the possibility of the new.
Taxonomists try to incorporate what they find into their existing world view.
They endeavour to explain the new in the term of what has existed before.
Examples abound: The Horseless Carriage, The Wireless, The Near East, The Far East, The Automatic Gearbox.
Now there’s a new territory to explore. It’s called Social Media and mapping its dimensions is proving very difficult for many people.
They see some of the ‘dots’ but find it hard to join them up in a coherent business sense.
The Social Media Landscape
What’s your image of the Social Media Landscape?
Maybe you think it’s a world where we are all hooked up to computers and spend all day in front of a screen.
Well, it has taken the volunteers who created Wikipaedia 100 million hours so far to put it together.
That may seem like a lot of work, but Dave Evans reminds us that 100 million hours is how long the American public spends watching television advertisements every weekend.
Of those 100 million hours Pharma paid for $4.2bn in Direct to Consumer (DTC) advertising in 2005 with and average, year-on-year increase since 1997 of 19.6%. {The year FDA regulation was relaxed}
Resulting in an average increase in spending, over the period, of 296.4%.
For the same period promotion to Physicians was $7.2bn in 2005, with a year-on-year increase of 9% and an average increase over the period of 86%.
The equivalent figures for R&D make an interesting comparison. $31.4bn in 2005, 9.3% increase year-on-year, with an average increase for the period of 103.3%
Where does the value lie?
Reports suggest that the conversion rate from such advertising is less than effective.
http://www.physorg.com/news139571647.html
Further research suggests that the advertising R&D balance in the 2005 figures is far from the truth these days with advertising far out-stripping R&D.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080105140107.htm
Time for New Thoughtware
Where is the drive for efficiency and effectiveness?
Has the use of the internet, particularly in recent years in the use of Web 2.0, commensurately escalated?
And how much use is Pharma making of the new territory of Social Media to raise awareness, contact, understand, segment, influence, its customers?
Where was the picking or the low-hanging-fruit in the areas of clinical trials and compliance?
Are these not clear areas where Social Media has a role to play?
Whilst the growth in DTC and physician marketing may have reached a plateau it seems reasonable to suggest that this has not been as a result of the engagement of Internet and Social Media strategies.
The Taxonomy of Pharma World appears to be making it very difficult for the Industry to become Explorers in the New World of Social Media.
Is this not something of a paradox, given the outstanding explorations achieved by Pharma’s Research and Development divisions?
Has Pharma mapped its ‘Ports’ where exchange can be maximised in the Social Media Landscape? Has it really identified the ‘dots’?
Has Pharma an agenda of ‘Colonising’ areas of rich and fertile Social Media territory?
Has Pharma joined the ‘dots’ and created a map of the new communications landscape?
As Pharma well knows, the spoils of ‘Exploration’ can be bountiful to the claimants.
Just ask the Spanish, the English or Pfizer.
Should the natives of Social Media be concerned?
[Tomorrow’s Blog: Pharma - Who’s Fooling Who?]
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