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Keeping your pharmaceutical sales force educated and compliant with video-based training

August 25, 2016 Dave Paradis Business No comments

This post originally appeared on the Allego.com Blog

Disseminating timely information to teams in the field has become critical in every industry, but probably none more so than pharmaceuticals. With organizations having to adhere to drug regulators such as the The Food and Drug Administration, the World Health Organization or the UK’s Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency, corporations are tasked with developing curriculums to ensure their reps in the field are armed with the latest knowledge to be compliant. Non-compliance can cost organization billions of dollars from fines or recalls. Not to mention the fact that prospective customers can get answers as quickly as they can Google them. What value is there from a sales rep who is weeks late providing pertinent information? Rapid learning for the sales force is key.

Getting Started with Google Analytics

December 18, 2015 Dave Paradis Web

I have to be honest, I’m pretty smitten with the tools that Google makes available for free. I’m actually writing this right now using Google Docs, a free alternative to Microsoft Word, and saving it to my Google Drive account (cloud storage). Among Google’s best known tools is Google Analytics, a free web analytics application. With Google Analytics, you can measure traffic to your website and identify how users are interacting with your content. This isn’t meant to be an exhaustive review of Google Analytics, but rather a primer for marketers to understand the basics. Subsequent posts with include deeper dives into more advanced functionality.

Planning a Successful Marketing Campaign

November 1, 2015 Dave Paradis Marketing, Tip No comments

No matter the campaign type or distribution method, marketing teams must brainstorm and devise a game plan before launching. Below are five steps to make the most out of a new promotion by streamlining the planning phase.

1. Outline Objectives
What does the campaign need to achieve? A broader customer base? Repeat sales? A liquidation of overstocked inventory? A brand must first decide on their objectives before trying to accomplish them. A campaign can have multiple benchmarks and run for any length of time, but, in order to be successful, the overall goals and metrics by which they’ll be measured should be outlined from the start.

What do you do all day?

September 9, 2014 Dave Paradis Business, Life, Web No comments

Well it’s been entirely too long since I’ve posted an update here, but alas, to be busy is a blessed thing. I took a few moments at the end of my day to today to quickly make a list of items I worked on. There’s more to this list, but here’s a highlight of my Monday:

Considerations for implementing a Content Management System

October 25, 2013 Dave Paradis Business, Tip, Web No comments

Are you sure you want to use SharePoint? A CMS, or Content Management System, is an application whose purpose is to allow non-technical users to simply add, edit and manage a website.

Although a poor choice won’t turn you into dust (just perhaps your status in your company), your corporate web presence is a critical part of your business and thus your CMS is a significant business investment. Additionally, implementing a CMS solution will impact the Business side of your organization as well as the IT group and as such, a set of requirements must be developed with each of these groups in mind.

Re-Post: A Toast To The Grumpy People

June 9, 2013 Dave Paradis Life, Personal No comments

An article I wrote was published on the website “I Had Cancer.com”. Follow the link below to read the article in full.

After experiencing the roller coaster of emotions that were thrown at David’s family after his wife’s breast cancer diagnosis, he considers anger and “grumpiness” as simply a waste of time.

http://www.ihadcancer.com/h3-blog/06-09-2013/A-Toast-To-The-Grumpy-People

“I don’t think either of one you are familiar with our problems.”

May 20, 2013 Dave Paradis Social Media No comments

Mayor Vaughn: I don’t think either of one you are familiar with our problems.

Hooper: I think that I am familiar with the fact that you are going to ignore this particular problem until it swims up and BITES YOU ON THE ASS!

That exchange and the photo are of course from the film “Jaws“. This scene in particular popped into my head the other day as I was reading the news about social media causing a stir in the town of Yarmouth on Cape Cod.[more…]

For the handful of you who aren’t familiar with the the film “Jaws“, the resort island of Amity (filmed on Maratha’s Vineyard) is plagued by a great white shark attacking swimmers. The Chief of Police is aided in attempting to kill the shark by a marine biologist and a local salty sea captain. The exchange above is a scene in which after numerous attacks, Chief Brody wants to shut down the beaches prior to the Fourth of July holiday but is rebuffed by Mayor Vaughn. The mayor is primarily concerned over lost tourist dollars if there’s a panic due to the Chief’s proposal.

As with many local, state and federal law enforcement agencies the Yarmouth Police Department has embraced using social media as a means of informing the community about local happenings. These updates include posting photos to their Facebook account, Tweets regarding upcoming road races, and press releases about local crime. There’s the rub. A local businessman was quoted in the Cape Cod Times saying, “Yarmouth is a brand. They’re sending things out every day that are absolutely negative to the town’s image.” That’s a bit of hypebole right there.

I sympathize with local business leaders that are afraid that their Rockwellian image may be tarnished. I doubt though that most people today are naive enough to think that crime is altogether absent on Cape Cod however. Unfortunately there is crime everywhere (looking at you Kennebunk).

In my opinion, the Yarmouth Police is doing social media very, very well. They’re utilizing social media as a means to inform the community in an immediate fashion where they congregate. Informing the public at large about crime and danger is transparency and ought to be applauded. Perhaps if more people in the community knew of what was occurring in they’re own town, they could join forces with local law enforcement to address these issues.

What the business leaders of Yarmouth and elsewhere need to acknowledge is that social media is pervasive and only growing. Police blotters tucked away on page six of the local newspaper are thing of the past. For that matter, most local papers are online now. Businesses can themselves embrace social media to showcase the positives of their community within their own social accounts whether it be Twitter, Facebook or even FourSquare to promote their business.

Yarmouth is beautiful and as a Massachusetts native, when I think of Yarmouth, the first thing that comes to mind is Salt Water Taffy and the Bass River. So, kudos the Yarmouth PD. I’ll make sure to check out your Tweets before our next trip down to the Cape.

Staying “in the know” with applications your kids are using

April 24, 2013 Dave Paradis Parenting, Social Media No comments

It used to be that keeping your children safe online meant monitoring their use on the home PC. Standard ways of doing that included keeping the family computer in a common area, restricting visits to certain websites via tools such as NetNanny and so on. Fast forward to present day and its now more of a rarity to see a child without some sort of digital device in their possession: a smartphone, iPod, tablet, laptop.[more…]

With children having these devices with them constantly, it’s important for parents to be knowledgeable about what the popular applications kids are using. Now that Mom, Dad, Grandma and Grandpa are on Facebook, tech savvy children have adopted new applications to communicate on where their parents haven’t yet adopted. I use the image here of The Fresh Prince from “Parent’s Just Don’t Understand” for some humor. I know full well how difficult it can be to keep on top of what your kids are doing without being overbearing. A good friend of mine recently said, “It’s up to us as parents to help shape our children, but then we have to trust what we’ve done in letting them flourish”. While I don’t think it’s a good practice to stalk your kids online, I’d say it’s best to be knowledgeable about what they’re doing and who they’re communicating with, so that we can be parents who DO understand. At least a little bit better.

While not an exhaustive list, here are four of the most popular apps Tweens and Teens are using today.

Some things to note about these applications:

You don’t need to have a cellphone to use these applications.
All of these can be used with either a smartphone (iPhone, Android) or another device like an iPod, iPad, or other tablet devices.
In order to open an account with these apps, all you need is an email address.
There is no cost to purchase or use these applications.

Snapchat

www.snapchat.com

Photo messaging service
Users can take photos, videos and add text and drawings and send to friends
Users set a time limit for how long recipients can view images (up to 10 seconds). After time limit, image is deleted from recipient’s device.
No stated age restriction

Snapchat goes garnered a lot of press in it’s short lifetime due the controversy about the tool. The controversy is around the fact that this app is known as a sexting app what with it’s ability to have images auto-deleted within seconds of the recipient opening the file. However, there’s nothing to stop the recipient from performing a screen capture of the received image, thus creating a permanent copy.

Instagram

www.instagram.com

Photo-sharing/social network service
Users apply various filters to photos
Ability to share images via Facebook and Twitter or on Instagram
Accounts have followers who can comment on images
Terms of service states users must be 13 years old to use this application
There is the ability to make “Private” accounts where you can restrict who follows your account.
Instagram was purchased by Facebook in 2012

Twitter

www.twitter.com

Microblogging/Social networking service
Users send and read text based “tweets” of up to 140 characters.
Accounts have followers where you read other’s Tweets
There is the ability to make “Private” accounts where you can restrict who follows your account.
No stated age restriction

As I mentioned above, with Facebook becoming a tool that various generations within a family have adopted, while tens may have a perfunctory Facebook account, Twitter is a place they can speak freely. Twitter also has the ability to DM or Direct Message between users… essentially private messaging. Unless the account is set to Private, a user’s Tweets are visible to the world. A common practice for teens to obscure their identity on Twitter other than to their friends is to use a modified name using alternative characters such as “MIK3” for “MIKE”.

Kik

www.kik.com

An instant messaging service
Users can send texts, photos, voice messages
No stated age restriction

Connected Seniors: Enabling smartphone adoption

April 12, 2013 Dave Paradis Life, Seniors No comments

The senior population in America is growing quickly. By the year 2050, the number of Americans age 65 and older is projected to more than double from about 40 million today to 88.5 million. While 7 in 10 seniors own a cell phone, only about 12% of those devices are smartphones. Small text, complexity of use and price are all factors at the low adoption rate of smartphones by seniors.

A start-up by the name of Silverline Mobile is looking to address these issues with their endeavor. Silverline Mobile’s approach is two-fold: first, they’re developing a set of applications that are intuitive for seniors large formatting and visual cues; secondly, they’ve developed a program where they’re getting refurbished, lower cost devices into the hands of seniors.

Statistics from Administration on Aging and Pew Internet.

One in (of) a million!

April 3, 2013 Dave Paradis Entertainment, Life No comments

No more creepy cable guys either.

Ad Age reported today that last year more than 1 million people canceled their cable service in favor of online options. I’m happy to say that I am one of those 1 million people and couldn’t be happier about it.[more…] We found ourselves paying roughly $100/month for a service that we used spartanly. When it was used, it typically revolved around a handful of channels… in our home: Disney, Nickelodeon, Discovery and FX.

On top of it, we were using Netflix streaming. With the advent of Summer, we went ahead and cut the cord. We supplemented Netflix with Amazon Instant Video. We’re now paying a fraction of what we were. Of course, there are drawbacks such as sporting events, but even that tide is turning: this year we watched SuperBowl XLVII streaming online.

The Wall Street Journal ran an article in late February about rumblings of more “a la carte” packages versus the large bundles forced on consumers today by the cable titans. The article quoted an anonymous cable executive stating that as Internet video delivery improves, it’ll force a change in the the pay-tv industry. I think we’re there already.