Pharma Web 2.0 – I Had a Dream

As I walked down the corridor away from the Chairman’s office I was elated, challenged and bursting with thoughts.

“Global Head of Web 2.0 Initiatives” he had announced. The title sounded great but then I would have no real budget to make it happen.

“Make it happen – put us on the map – I want us to use this technology to give us a big leap forward in the marketplace” he had pronounced with enthusiasm.

But my first thoughts were – “What is your motivation here?” – “What do you really want”?

Was this just another PR exercise to boost our share price or to get more column inches to massage his ego?

Did he really understand what this would mean? What it would require? What the implications would be for the rest of the organisation?

‘Oh park your cynicism” I reprimanded myself “Chairman, don’t think like that?”

As a top twenty Pharmaco and truly global – I realised that this new challenge was going to be no small undertaking.

I was aware that Blog’s like Thinking Pharma had been ranting that Pharma was missing a great opportunity with Web 2.0; that technology companies like Cisco had been proposing to our innovations people that their ‘Physician to Pharma Expert Gateway’ was a great place to start with 2.0 and that various parts of our organisation had been dabbling.

But what to do?

I was rapidly climbing the ladder in the Pharma industry so I needed to ensure that this was both an opportunity for the organisation and myself.

I was a strategist and an implementer. A make things happen sort of person.

But I would need to make sure that I moved carefully. The fiefdoms in countries, particularly the US; the Brands, who just did what they chose but had the ‘dosh’; the specialists in marketing, sales, medical affairs, etc they all had to be embraced.

The politics, reporting structures, would a hub and spoke strategy be the answer?

Then of course there was IT and its twin sister Legal – bringing them into the fold in the past I had learned was like the ‘kiss of death’ in terms of having anything happening quickly if ever at all.

They all have their own cultures from arrogant omnipotent dynasties to real team players.

Some were real techno-savvy outfits others were ‘tick-the-box’ luddites.

How was I going to ‘join the dots’ and create real impact and results?

Did I need a ‘Grand Design,’ a universal vision, would this help break-down the functional barriers?

I knew from past experience that I had to start with good strategy.

Strategy that was simple, comprehensible and logical. It had to be strategy that would provide a firm platform for buy-in.

I also needed to get a quick picture of the lay-of-the-land. Who did I need to bring with me? Who were the stakeholders? Whose toes did I need to avoid stepping upon?

Who were the movers, the blockers, where were the budgets, who would be the vanguard advocates – so many questions?

Did I need external help? The agencies from what I had seen knew less about 2.0 than I did. And as for the management consulting firms, with their boys charging their masters rates, they knew even less from what I had seen.

Did I need an Advisory Board, made up of internal stakeholders and external experts – now there was an idea?

Then, what tactics to use? Do it ourselves or use externals, some of whom did seem to understand the issues.

What was I going to call my initiative? Was it in fact going to be my initiative or was I going to be smart and play the puppet-master and just facilitate buy-in and then action?

And Action There Had To Be. Action that produced Outcomes that equalled Results!

Then, just perhaps, I could sit back and watch the dominoes cascade as my plan succeeded.

I was, I decided going to ignore my doubts about the Chairman’s motives of broadsheet glory, the headlines in the Wall St Journal and the Times, and ensure that the strategy and the process at arriving at it were not going to be so big that nothing ever happened.

We were going to develop the Thoughtware and Orgware (Damn those Thinking Pharma People for getting into my head) efficiently and effectively and have Web 2.0 really impact the marketplace and our organisation.

Just at that moment I had an epiphany. My second Web 2.0 epiphany.

This one was much like the first.

I should draw upon the essence of Web 2.0 – the ingredients that make it such a facilitator of marketplace and organisational paradigm change.

The principles of the initiative I was going to facilitate needed to draw upon the shift in communication, the releasing of control, the understanding and meeting of need, etc, etc.

That had to be my starting place.

If I was going to create a “new level” for the organisation and the marketplace and Web2.0 was to be my battleground I had to ‘Walk the Talk’ and utilise Web 2.0 to get there.

Then I fell down the stairs at the end of the Chairman’s corridor and woke-up!

But was it a Dream?

As reality dawned I realised the dream was reality and that I had the DNA - the way forward was clear.

(Tomorrow’s Post: Patients)