It’s so easy to get sidetracked when you come up with a new idea – you just want to talk about it, mock it up, brainstorm. The problem with the new idea – it doesn’t pay the bills – not yet anyway.

Had a great conversation with my friend Hugh Park Jedwill, CEO of Mobile Anthem – we were discussing mobile marketing and social marketing in healthcare/pharma and he shared this story with me that really got me thinking: Three blind men are put into a room with an elephant and are asked to identify the object in the room. The first man touches the trunk and says “oh, it’s a snake” – the second man touches an ear and says “oh, it’s a leaf” – the third man touches a trunk and says, “no, it’s a tree”. The moral: everyone “sees” what is closest to them and in many cases it is “what they know.” Few folks in pharma are looking at social media and mobile media from a holistic standpoint – they are focusing on what they know or feel comfortable with, thereby missing the big picture

I’ve been blogging, tweeting, pinging (updates all my business social media outlets at once) for a while now. Most of the time when I am sending something “out there” I think about the message and the relevance and then I blast away. Somehow, not really thinking much of the potential thousands of recipients as individuals with opinions and (gulp) feelings

In early May, we attended the Social Communications & Healthcare: Case Studies and Roundtables. There, we saw some great presentations on the use of social media by the AstraZeneca, The Centers for Disease Control, Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer, among others

I got a real education in customer service from a teeny little breakfast joint in Mystic, CT called “ Kitchen Little “. I had read about it on Yelp when I was planning our family trip to Mystic.

The 1st quarter of the year was so full of drama – I tell my children all the time to “save the drama for your mama” – but wait, that doesn’t work, that’s me (I digress…)

My father used to tell me about incivility in marriage – when you stop being nice to each other that is when your marriage goes downhill. Over the past few years, I’ve noticed a lot of incivility creeping into business, and I certainly think the “marriage” between clients and vendors has been going downhill.

It is a LOT harder to land a project these days. Once you have gone through the RFI, the RFP, the on-site pitch, the “deep dives” into the nether worlds of your offering – then the audits, the discussions, the follow up teleconferences, the endless questions – all done with a bright cheery smile and a “it’s no problem!” attitude.

Main Entry: un·der·dog Pronunciation: ˈən-dər-ˌdȯg Function: noun Date: 1859 1 : a loser or predicted loser in a struggle or contest

I had an amazing experience last Friday at the CBI “Next Generation Rx Sampling Strategies” conference.