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Producing eMeetings
Washington, DC - The future of the meetings business is rapidly moving into the domain of You Tube with many major corporations developing online interactive marketing and product feedback using the power of online video. This brings into play a whole new set of skills, not associated with the Call Center philosophy of today's pharmaceutical marketers. Clues to the future can be gleaned from News Releases from major pharmaceutical companies over the last few weeks. The focus of their marketing is China and India, with America put on the Back Burner waiting for the fallout from the November election. The new direction needs Meeting Producers capable of guiding the top Doctors through the skills to speak to an audience that may number in the hundreds of thousands. Winging it before a dozen or less Doctors chomping down on plastic Chicken doesn't work any more. The driving force is that Doctors have plenty of everything, except Time. Time is required to travel to meeting venues and sit around eating budget food, and waiting for what may end up as a lack luster presentation. The digital meetings have the benefit of being available 24/7 in as many languages as you see fit to include on the server. The end product will be available for the marketplace, and the most effective presentation will be received as a Blockbuster Commercial is received today. The lackluster ones will find their way to the electronic cutting room floor. The need therefore is to "produce" meetings, not just offer a data entry function in a call center. How the present players meet the new challenge remains to be seen, for the major pharmaceutical companies are already quietly beta testing their networks. The change will be rapid and will be some time this year. The creation of these new networks will free the Drug Reps to sell as opposed to planning, seeking venues and running time wasting meetings. The cost of maintaining 80,000 time wasting reps, burning up Gasoline has not been lost on the Regulators. This concept is not new, I created the Global network for the US Government back in the 1980's. What is new today is that we can pipe the meeting to an iPod, or to the desks of physicians, laboratories, and clinics around the world. This by the way is a lot more advanced than the teleconferences being staged today. The opinion in Washington, DC is that the future of the present meeting model is around 18 months. Be prepared.
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By Alan Simpson