QDIS Blog

Just wanted to let folks know that I haven’t been posting as much as I would like recently. Not only has the news been kind of slow, but I also recently badly sprained an ankle playing softball. I’ve been on crutches for a couple of weeks and am just now literally, back on my feet (although I do have to wear a brace on the ankle and things are still tender). The posts continued for a while since I usually try to work several days ahead and then automatically post one or two articles each day. Hopefully I’m now back to a normal schedule.

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Just wanted to let folks know that they no longer have to register before being able to add comments. Hopefully this change will make it easier for folks to post comments. Note that comments are moderated.

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Just wanted to see if anyone out there who reads this would have any interest in a podcast of pharmaceutical news? I am toying with the idea of starting a second podcast (I already do the Searching the Internet podcast about finding information on the web) and am trying to gage interest. I was thinking about a once a week format covering headlines for both large pharma and small biotechs including new approvals, development news, and the FDA. I may also give my opinion on certain topics of current interest to the industry.

As a consultant in the pharmaceutical, biotech, and fine chemicals industries, I already keep up to date on these sorts of issues anyway so I though others might find it useful. However, before I commit to this, I’d like to know what others think. If this is something people would find useful, please drop me an email using the link below in this post and let me know that you are interested. If you have any comments or suggestions for what you would like to see in such a podcast, please send them to me.

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I wanted to let folks know that I have posted for download on my website an Excel file that has the 1H and 13C chemical shifts of most common laboratory solvents. I made this for my own use, but thought others might find it useful.

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Just wanted to let folks know I have a large list of chemistry and pharmaceutical trade publications available on the Internet listed on my site. If anyone knows of ones I’ve missed, let me know and I’ll add them.

Chemistry and Pharmaceutical Trade Publications

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Just a quick update; after blogging about TagClouds on Friday, it seems they are undergoing major changes. Until now, it had been run on a single server as a weekend project. It has now grown beyond that and they have a sponsor and are moving the service to new servers. I’ve temporarily taken down the TagClouds until the service is back up and running. Sorry for that. Hopefully they’ll be back soon.

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Just wanted to let folks know I’ve created some TagClouds of web feeds (RSS feeds) relate to chemistry and posted them. Each TagCloud has a list of the feeds it looks through to generate the keywords. The size of the word is in relation to how many times it occurs. Clicking on any of these words will give you other items in that set of feeds containing that term. Then you can click on a given entry and that item. If you want, you can use the “Y! Search Related Terms ” button to see related results from a Y!Q search. This doesn’t work so well for the chemistry articles but works great for the news and blog TagClouds.

I’ve set up TagCloud for the following:

• American Chemical Society (ACS) organic journals
• Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) organic journals
• all ACS journals
• all RSC journals
• pharmaceutical news
• interesting science blogs that I read

Let me know what you think.

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Closing Keynote Address: Clues for Creating Customer Loyalty: A Systematic Approach to Doing More with Your Existing Clients
by John Jantsch of Jantsch Communications [ducttapemarketing.com]

John Jantsch gave a great talk about marketing in a way that worked for the AIIP audience.

The first thing he said was “Nothing in your business will change until you take action.” He talked about a lot of marketing ideas in terms that were new to me and in a way that didn’t come across as hard selling.

Although the talk was on customer loyalty John discussed other topics before getting to customer loyalty. He talked about defining your ideal client, identifying the right problem or need to address, and the need to develop a strategy before worrying about tactics. He discussed developing a marketing kit, and a system for lead generation based on advertising, referrals, and public relations as well as a “lead conversion system” involving discovery, presentations, and transactions. Finally, he talked about customer loyalty tool several ways to continually communicate with your clients. This included “drip communication”; at least once a month letting the client know something of interest to them and several other options for communicating with your clietns.

Here is a brief summary:

• think of your ideal client
• have a strategy outlining what makes you unique
• have materials that educate
• use the lead generation trio
• use a lead conversion system
• develop customer loyalty tools

General session IV: The Case Study of the Contented Client

Preston Smith of Business Information Services LLC

Preston talked about how he got started and how his direction has changed. originally wanted to design databases for politicians and business; clients were hard to get and the work was low dollar value. lots of competition and many programmer. Now does a lot of GIS demographic studies for schools.

Will Hann of Freepint and Willco

1. feedback: need to request feedback and then either do it or tell them why you aren’t going to do it
2. integration: vertical integration or supply chain integration
3. shakeout: there will be things you don’t want to do. avoid time consuming tasks; those that take a lot of effort without a big return. if it causes confusion, then separate it out
4. focus: sometimes difficult to focus after a shakeout. important to have the right business plan and the right people.

Debbie Schwarz of Library Associates

Started her business because she was bored and now specializes in recruiting and placement of information professionals.
A phone call from a law firm in SF changed her outlook and she has branched out into other industries. She shared her experiences; some don’t want to share information. There are those for whom everything is a rush or emergency. Malcontents are those who never seem to be pleased or you just can’t win over . Good clients become friends or mentors and are agreat source of referrals. Communicate with your clients and don’t take things personally. It’s about business and not about you as a person.

The conference was very informative and it was good to see folks i know and had met at past conferences. Hopefully my posts have piqued your interest and you will join us at the conference next year in Minneapolis, MN.

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Roger Summit award address: Why Women Absolutely, Positively, Must (Re)Claim their Place in Computing
Pamela McCorduck

Pamela talked about the lack of women in computer science and gave some numbers. Women are generally underrepresented in sciences except for biology and she emphasized that computing is important and not just an enabling technology, but allowing you to create your own worlds.

She also talked about how diversity is important to solving problems and creating growth and briefly covered roles women have played in computing historically. The number of women in computer science peaked in 80’s and has fallen ever since. She mentioned that this situation is likely cultural.

I’m probably not the best person to comment on this since I am a white male. I thought it was a missed opportunity in that the male members of this particular audience would have been very receptive to helping change the situation from within. I think if there had been some concrete suggestions as to what males could do to help facilitate the needed changes, they would have been willing to try and improve the situation. Instead it seemed to be a call to arms for women to make these changes happen.

General Session 3 Case Study on CI Tom Waters of DOD (contract) Counterintelligence Officer

Tom talked about competitive intelligence and how info pros can tap into that market. he mentioned that competitive intelligence is used even if its not called that and that market research and keeping track of what others are doing is indeed competitive intelligence. The following were some of the sources of information he mentioned:

Regulatory filings (EPA, fire marshals, etc.): lots of competitive info including information regarding foreign companies operating within the US.

FOIA: Japanese carmaker studied a US navy fighter braking system, which they then copied and applied in the automative industry. This is now a case study in many business schools.

Consumer Product Safety Commission investigation; test results are available. A paint business can find out about their competitors formula.

OSHA inspection records and hazardous materials permits are good sources.

The main focus was on Freedom of Information Act and what all can be found via that avenue. He talked about what kinds of information was available and the information that would not be available. He also mentioned that every agency was different in terms of how quickly they supplied the information and their cost was free up to 2 hours of time or 100 pages; beyond that there would be charges but they were low (figure of ~$50 was given). He also said to succinctly state what information you needed; just saying give me everything isn’t enough. The FBI has great information and it is very detailed but given their backlog, it could take years before you received the information (although they must at least tell you they must respond within 10 days even if its just to tell you it’s now in their cue). Also, he stated companies will hire an independent contractor to do this type of of work since the person requesting the information is public record. This way, their competitors can’t tell who is asking for the information and since the contractor and client would have a non-disclosure agreement .

It was a very interesting and though provoking presentation.

Concurrent Session Technology Track

In the afternoon there were two concurrent sessions; one was a technology track and the other was business. Since I was giving a presentation in the technology track session, I attended it, so I can’t comment on the talks in the business sessions.

Mark Goldstein gave a talk on gadgets and technology and how computing has changed with a focus on networks primarily. Then I gave a talk on what’s new with RSS in the past year with a focus on what podcasting is how it can be useful to information professionals. Once I’m back in the office later this week I’ll post it to the website along with a link in a post here.

The afternoon was open and we gathered that evening for a cruise in Biscayne Bay and watched the night lights of the skyline.

It was a great second full day of the conference.
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Following were the 2006 Association of Independent Information Professionals award winners.

Myra T. Grenier award: Amy Rose
Gale Group award: Julie Mellon
Roger Summit scholarship award: Marge King
Sue Rugge award: Cindy Shamel
Presidents award: Will Hann

I did not attend the first timers gathering but heard there were about 25 people attending a conference for the first time.

Keynote Speech: Alice Norsworthy, Sr VP of Marketing for Royal Caribbean Int.

Alice talked about what she as a high volume purchaser of information expects from her provider. She went through a typical day and covered what information she need and this included demographic info, media trends and future options, current trends for future product development, competitive activity, fact gathering for a speech.

She then went on to outline the opportunities for Information professionals from her perspective and talked about how to get the business and then how to keep the business. She mentioned there is less of a need for descriptive reports and more of a need for prescriptive reports; less of a need for reactive reports and more of a need for proactive recommendations.

Some of the things Alice looks for in her information provider is to identification of trends and established standards; gather ideas, develop hypothesis or assumptions, determine alternatives, provide a deeper expertise on a topic, and qualitative project management.

In terms of getting the business her primary ways she identify people she works with is though recommendation of friends, personal experience, professional associations., conference attendees, internet search, and articles.

She suggested info pros identify their uniqueness and make sure we know our audience as well as build a network and credibility. The following is a list of what she valued from a researcher: knowledge of her business, responsiveness, listens and seeks to understand, simple clear answers in proper context, complete info, data “testing”, and integrity.

How to keep the business: Alice mentioned several criteria she uses to decide wether to continue to use a certain researcher. These included the information quality and quantity, adherence to standards, confidentiality, and value-added response-insight.

As an executive, she has to make bold and sometimes irreversible decisions based on limited info and possibly inaccurate forecasts. therefore there is a great need to identify hypothesis vs facts as well as have rigorous data evaluation. She also values the researcher keeping their objectivity and reliability and anticipate executive needs.

Finally, she talked about delivering the goods by fulling understanding objectives and deliverables, acknowledge the expertise of the person or company that hirer you,. She felt that secure and written communication was vital to success, as well as being on time and budget and respecting confidentiality. She likes to see clear and objective information in context and in a useful format. She also states how important it is to be available for follow-up and to report progress and problems in a timely manner.

General Session 1 Eric Seeger (Sr Consultant with Altman Weil, Inc.) and Garn Anderson (head of Energizer’s Global Business Intelligence/Competitive intelligence)

Why, when and how decision makers decide to use our services. This general session was interesting but had audio microphones problems that distracted from the presentation. One of the topics discussed was error and omissions insurance. and from their perspective working within larger companies, they stated they would not work with an independent information professional unless they had E&O insurance. Much of the talk was repetitive of what Alice had stated earlier (another good reason to be the first speaker of the day).

The talk boiled down to it being very important to build and establish a relationship of trust and honesty.

General Session 2 Vendors under the Microscope

I didn’t take many notes during this part since I had already talked to. They updated what was new and some was repeated from the training sessions on Thursday. The vendors were 10K Wizard, Dialog, Lexis-nexis, Factiva, and Skyminder.

The remainder of the day was included an ice cream asocial and open exhibits to talk one on one with the vendors as well as a “Tips on the Terrace” an informal evening of drinks and desserts and sharing around tables with each table having a facilitator and topic. It was great to be able to share ideas and in my case, educate people on what RSS is and how it might be useful to them.

I’m looking forward to tomorrow and will recap those events soon.

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