I'll be interviewing Steve tomorrow at 5:00 p.m.. If anyone wants to comment on the questions, please do so by 3:00 p.m.
Questions
1. Blogs have clearly had a huge impact on numerous industries, including technology (Microsoft, Macromedia) and food (McDonald's). Do you think blogging has affected the healthcare industry in the same way ? If not, why?
2. In your mind, what are the benefits of blogging for:
• Patients
• Healthcare Providers
• Pharmaceutical Industry
• Government
3. Why do you think the US pharmaceutical industry has been so slow to embrace blogging?
4. Suw Charman wrote a great case study last year on a “Dark Blog” a European pharmaceutical company launched to improve internal communications, collaboration and productivity. Given the results of this case study, do you think blogs could help improve patient care, policymaking and other healthcare-related activities in the same way?
5. Are there any healthcare bloggers you are aware of that have influenced the activities of pharmaceutical companies or other players in the healthcare field?
6. Why do you think healthcare marketers should care about blogging?
7. Do you have any general comments on healthcare blogging?
Fard, here are some additional questions that you can ask:
* Are there any parallels that you see in other regulated industries? For example, you know that the Pharma industry is regulated by the FDA about what they can and can not say about "on label" versus "off label" use of products. Can you think of other heavily regulated industries like pharma but are not as far behind on blogging?
* Are bloggers in other industries changing the way companies work? Is the echo chamber that is so common in the blogosphere really making a dent in marketing messages and the way companies do business? Can this be extened to pharma?
* When you the growth of blogs in a particular industry or about a particular product do you see that as a positive for the industry/product or negative? Meaning, if most people start blogging about a product does that mean the product is generally superior or inferior? Do people find blogs are a good way to complain about a company that doesn't otherwise listen to the community?
I've given some tough questions which are long -- you can split them up into separate, smaller, questions as appropriate. Let me know if you need more.
-Shahid: Whew! These are tough questions. I'll break some of them up and choose a few to try and ask. Steve and I only have 30 minutes so I'll try to pack the questions in! :)
Posted by: Shahid N. Shah | March 1, 2006 3:34 PM | Permalink to Comment