I’ll never forget where I was on May 21, 2007. What’s the significance, you might ask? Well, I was just about seven months into my first healthcare public relations job when the news broke. The New England Journal of Medicine published results of an analysis of data from over 40 clinical trials that found a [...]
Last week, the Wall Street Journal ran an article entitled “Drug Reps Soften Their Sales Pitches.” In it, Jonathan D. Rockoff reports that several drug companies (including GlaxoSmithKline, Merck& Co and Eli Lily & Co) told sales reps to stop “detailing” doctors with aggressive, tightly-scripted sales pitches and instead provide information that doctors really want [...]
The idea for this post struck me as I was reading the back of a frozen fish sticks bag. I’m sure it sounds odd, but so was the fact that the messaging stuck with me. I was first drawn in by the description – that they add only 35% breading vs. 50% of most national [...]
Fun, for me, is: Holding my 6 year old upside down until he giggles Watching the Golden Globes instead of the Giants this weekend Sneaking a good piece of fiction into my business travel Sometimes work is not fun. There are lots of good reasons for that. Budgets grow smaller, project scopes change and turnover [...]
SlideShare is the flickr of PowerPoint presentations (or as we sometimes dread to call them – decks). Similar to the popular photo sharing site, SlideShare allows users to publish presentations they’ve created, while viewers can download the presentations, embed them in blog posts or web sites, or share them with social networks. In case you [...]
The average tenure of a PR professional at an agency — title and company size depending – is short. That frequent change often disrupts clients, but that change also begets opportunity for a fresh perspective on what could be fusty account work. Cue the new guy. That’s you. The objective: prove your value proposition to [...]
“What’s the name of the dog?” When I first started as a newspaper reporter more than two decades ago (has it really been that long?), this was the question cub reporters were often asked. As long as the story referenced a dog, that is. If it mentioned a child, a horse, a cat, then the [...]
In late November, our healthcare group – BlissHealth – hosted a panel discussion on personalized medicine with speakers from industry, clinical practice and finance. The discussion coalesced around four key themes: Small is the New “Big.” Pharmaceutical companies can shrink the market by 95 percent and still produce positive returns, due to higher margins [...]
The idea of “local” has been on my mind a lot lately. Businesses and communities that serve local needs seem to be popping up everywhere. From the recent IPO of local review site Yelp, to Google pursuing local search marketing, and more and more restaurants and grocery stores promoting local food – local is making [...]
I like to think of myself as a “planner.” Not for the super-long term, but I’m well organized enough to make sure I leave for vacation without forgetting anything important…My Christmas cards went out relatively early… I’ve been more nervous lately, however, in how my family plans for its financial future. Both my husband and [...]
