BenZipkin.com

Take a look at a recent post I made to Cambridge BioMarketing’s company blog on the benefits of going digital with medical publications.

So why go digital? Here are a few clear benefits:
Faster to Publish and Distribute – The traditional printing process is much more time consuming than electronic publishing. eBooks may also offer quicker lead time to publication and distribution due to much improved ease-of-edit. eBooks can be emailed or transmitted wireless.

Vastly Increased Interactivity – eBooks can be embedded with multimedia, linked to references, and developed with a truly interactive user experience. Readers will be able to interact with content not possible with flat print pieces.

Cost Benefit – Easier to publish and distribute. No more printing costs.

Digital Book Readers are Evolving – With nearly 75% of healthcare professionals using some sort of smarthphone or PDA, it’s clear that the user base is ready and willing to embrace eBooks as the format of choice. And digital book readers are only getting more advanced (and going down in cost).

Read the whole post here…

This amazing demo of a interactive, 3-D magazine spread designed for iPad shows some of the real promise of the platform.

Read about the development approach and how the interactions, photography, and text were all composited.

VIV Mag Interactive Feature Spread – iPad Demo from Alexx Henry on Vimeo.

Posted via web from bzipkin’s posterous

I’m one of the lucky 300 who’ll be attending in person at the FDA’s public hearing on social media. The meeting represents an unprecedented step by the FDA to provide the digital pharma community with an opportunity to offer insights about how medical information and marketing is delivered through online channels.

The agenda and speaker list was released this morning. Many of the likely suspects will be in attendance, and the speaking roster includes representatives from big (and small) pharma (surprised not to see more!), healthcare marketing agencies, consultants, and technology companies. It will be interesting to see how the meeting unfolds.

My wishlist:

• I hope the agency folks keep the pitches and business development to a minimum (and I’m an agency guy). This meeting provides an opportunity to communicate about issues that may have long-term implications on our businesses. Let’s hope it doesn’t turn into an agency pitch/bitch.
• Focus on the future, and don’t try to fix the past (or present). Yes — we need to look at the current state of social media, but most of us believe we’re at the onset of the revolution; let’s talk about what’s coming down the pike and prepare–not focus on current roadblocks.
• Meaningful discussion about search marketing, with feasible outcomes. The FDA’s unexpected crack-down on pharmaceutical search ads last Spring sent a collective shutter down the spines of pharmaceutical companies and agencies alike. Healthcare is one the top online spenders and search marketing has become a critical component in any campaign. When will the FDA offer meaningful and substantial guidelines?
• Let’s talk personalized medicine. How will this emerging area be addressed by the FDA?

More to come…

Note: all the information on the event has been gathered in one place by @Skypen over here.

Posted via web from bzipkin’s posterous

Check out this demo of new HCI paradigm that could have legs. Scrub forward to about 4mins to see the demo in practice.

via informationisbeautiful.net

Posted via web from bzipkin’s posterous

District 9 is a fantastic science fiction movie set in an alternative future where a group of alien refugees have settled in South Africa. Unlike most alien invasion films, the aliens in District 9 are treated as outcasts, put into concentration camps, and experimented on by corporations hoping to mine their weapons technology for financial gain.

Science and technology play a big part in the film, and while scientists and corporations are clearly the antagonists, the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) has launched an interesting blog that focuses on the real-life science behind film. District9facts.com offers some loose blog posts, answers questions about the film, and attempts to connect the science of D-9 to the promise of the biotechnology industry.

BIO also maintains a similar site with the same focus for the Eleventh Hour TV show: eleventhhourfacts.com.

Even though scientists and corporations are usually cast as “the baddies” in science fiction movies, it’s interesting to see biotech industry groups leveraging their popularity to promise the promise of science. The EleventhHourFacts.com site provides a scientific fact guide for every episode—providing real-life information on topics ranging from cloning to biosafety to fashion-induced violence.

The biotech and pharmaceutical industries face a number of complex public relations problems. While very few industries hold as much promise for our future, general public fear, perceived corporate greed, and the nefarious nature of new science lead to them being portrayed as bad guys (in movies and in real-life). I think it’s interesting and smart for industry groups to look to Hollywood as a new platform to get the real messages out there in an engaging and light-hearted way.

Current research indicates that nearly 70% of physicians use a PDA or smartphone.

Check out this quick presentation on mobile applications developed by the team at RDVO:

Johnson & Johnson’s ‘BlackBag’ iPhone tool for physicians has been downloaded nearly 24,000 times since launching two months ago. That seems like a remarkable number, but it’s not too surprising when recent research indicates that 64% of physicians are using some sort of SmartPhone to stay connected.

BlackBag provides healthcare professionals with customizable news streams and access to articles organized around practice types. The information appears to be unbranded. Video content and podcasts are readily accessible through the application.

Healthcare communications professionals struggle with tactics and strategies to communicate with the medical community. Could smartphones and PDAs be the brave new world?

Click here to download BlackBag from iTunes.

Nice article from softwareadvice.com. The ”iTablet”maybe be the ultimate device for EMRs.