Scenario 1: “What ever you do don’t involve our IT department” one Pharma executive sage commented to me “we won’t get anything done for the next three to four years”
Scenario 2: With a particular major Pharma 2.0 initiative in mind, in which the big Pharma clients are showing considerable interest, we have been amazed how long it takes for Pharma to assemble all their relevant stakeholders to meet and progress the project.
Scenario 3: My first day in charge of the digital division of a very large European direct marketing agency I was asked to attend a brain-storm for a significant new client – forty people turned-up to the meeting.
The results - Costly Non-Events.
Have we reached the stage in Pharma marketing where too many cooks don’t spoil the broth – no one cooks anything?
I am reminded of a concept in economics dubbed the ‘veil of finance’ – where the means of finance obscured the fundamentals to a point where poor decisions were made because no one could see the essential principles
Have we reached the stage in Pharma’s engagement with Digital Media where we should be talking about ‘the shroud of Orgware.’
No, not a new religious or horror movie – but the obscuring by organisational structures and cultures of the fundamental benefits of significant new initiatives by the nature of the very of organisations that would benefit from them?
Perhaps, many minds do not always make light work.
Does Digital Media represent the opportunity for an Orgware Paradigm Shift?
Defining a New Opportunity
Exposure to many types of organisations and industries over the past few years we have been struck by the type of thinking that goes along with:
“Yes we know how to do this – we have done it many times before”
Expertise becomes a by line for ‘more of the same’.
Differentiation disappears and commoditisation is it’s all too ready replacement.
Innovative thinking is viewed as too costly – the model, the engine or the framework is too quickly grasped, not because of expediency, but because of a blind ‘this is the only way to do things’ type of Thoughtware.
Structures within organisations, whether they are the Pharma client or a supporting agency, also limit innovative thinking.
It’s like two teams lining up for a matinee performance of the game they played yesterday.
The result is always the same – it’s pre-defined – pre-ordained – it’s Ground-Hog Pharma.
The result in Pharma marketing is that mediocrity rules! ‘Brochureware’ web sites abound. Experimentation with Digital Media doesn’t happen.
New Rail Road Tracks
Is it possible for Pharma to see a big new picture?
Is it possible for Pharma to realise that Web 2.0, and the Web 3.0 brewing in the background, represent opportunities to redefine Pharma Orgware.
These catalyst technologies are not about shifting to a different railroad track or swapping rail for road.
They are fundamentally different. We are in the world of personal matter transfer. Captain Kirk and the Star Ship Enterprise are conceptually here.
“Beam me up Pharma” is the new transportation possibility.
The only problem is that Pharma won’t get access to the new technology as long as they and their agents continue along the pre-defined paths of rail and road transport.
Isn’t it time to create a new communications vehicle that embraces a new Orgware and liberates Thoughtware.
Where to Start
“Boldly go where no Pharmaco has ever gone before” – Captain Kirk would have said.
Realise that across all of the digital applications that underpin internal and external Pharma communication there are a number of key principles.
Re-think and re-structure around them.
The business world is changing. The world of divisions, departments and sections are, as the words suggest, divisive.
Pharma, conceptualise a new Orgware or risk being left on the wrong side of the tracks.
And then - “Energise”.
(Tomorrow’s Post: The Thinking Behind Interactive Thoughtware & Pharma Digital Marketing)
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