Pfizers miljö- och ansvarsblogg

Social Media - some trends within the pharma sector

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The pharma news letter Pharma Online organized a conference yesterday about the use of social media within the pharma sector (”Sociala medier inom läkemedelsområdet” - join the Linkedin group with the same name and/or view comments on twitter with hashtag #lmsocmed).

Over 60 participants, mostly of course from pharmeceutical companies gathered to listen to

- Hans Kullin from Eklips (the social media guru at the conference),

- Rikard Pellas from LIF, the association of the research based pharmaceutical industry in Sweden (the expert on how to apply the LIF’s ethical rules to social media),

- Elisabeth Eklund and Henrik Bengtsson from Delphi (lawyers who could explain at least what shouldn’t be done…),

- Myself, describing three different experiences Pfizer have had with social media (”can you feel my pain“, Dizza Tobak, and this blog), and

- Hanna Brodda, editor of Dinamediciner.se

As you can see, a fairly broad selection of speakers. But the conference would not have been as good if the audience would not have participated the way they did. Really good discussions!

Some reflections from my side include the very clear message that social media grows enormously fast, e.g. Facebook has over 800 million users today, only last year 100 billion pictures were uploaded on Facebook, and there were more than 1000 billion showings of videos on YouTube during 2011. It is difficult to really understand the huge possibilities and both positive and potentially negative consequences of this…

I have written blog posts on social media use before (see for instance the 2011 posts Oct 26 regarding Worldfavor, Oct 6 regarding some Pfizer experiences, Aug 24 on the use within health care, April 5 on stakeholder dialogue, and from 2010 Nov 24 also on stakeholder engagement). You know that my opinion is that Social media is not really something that dramatically changes what “we can and what we cannot do” when it comes to communication. The same rules apply to these communication channels as to the old ones. This was also clearly stated by both the lawyers from Delphi and by Rikard Pellas. The difference however is of course that everything is much faster: It reaches out to everyone, and everything once posted on the net seem to be there forever. So although the same rules apply our own culture and our internal guidelines for the use of social media have probably not been able to develop as fast as the social media platforms have. It was good to see LIF’s guiding document how the ethical rules should be understood in the social media world (see this link for details).

Potentially due to the lack of the internal guidance documents, the pharma industry have been very careful (some would say scared and slow) in starting to use social media platforms in their communications, marketing, and CSR strategies. Some companies have however slowly started to adapt to the changing media environment and I feel proud that Pfizer is one of the leaders in the industry. See for instance our Corporate Facebook page, and follow us on http://twitter.com/pfizer. And by all means, go to the Facebook page of our initiative Can You Feel My Pain, or view some of my favourite uploaded contributions from teenagers involved in the Dizza Tobak project (for instance “Love this way to die“).

So although we may feel unsecure in the new media environment, and especially how to manage issues such as reporting of adverse effects, it should be obvious for everyone that the development cannot be stopped… And if we had not understood that previosuly, I think Hanna Brodda’s presentation based on her personal experiences and experiences from running the site Dinamediciner.se made it clear. Our final and most important stakeholder, i.e. the patient, have dramatically changed his/her behaviour the last years. They are out their on the social media platforms and they discuss illnesses, medicines, individual doctors, alternative treatments etc. We may not like all those things and we may disagree on several issues, but we just have to understand that it happens and we need to manage that. And yes there are several reasons to be scared of the development, but on same time there are several positive things and great opportunties with the revolution as well!

The Swedish Innovation Strategy and Social Innovation

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Ministry for Enterprise, Energy and Communications arranged a breakfast seminar today on social innovation and entrepreneurship. The seminar is part of ongoing activities within the framework of the development of a Swedish National Innovation Strategy, which is to be presented in 2012.

Håkan Ekengren, State Secretary at the Ministry, welcomed us all and gave a brief introduction on social inovation in general and the connection to the National Innovation Strategy specifically. He stressed the importance of both social innovation and social entrepreneurship, and hoped that the introductory lectures by Eva Engquist (from Malmö University and “Mötesplatsen för Social innovation och samhällsentreprenörskap“), myself, and Lars Jannick Johansen (President and founder of “Den Sociale Kapitalfond” in Denmark), and the following work-shop should result in several good ideas and experiences to bring into the development of the Innovation Strategy.

The panelists of today

Eva Engquist gave us her insight in the whole area of social innovation and social entrepreneurship. She saw three drivers for the strong focus on social innovation presently:

1. Ongoing financial crises in US and Europe, on the same time as the societal needs and demands upon society probably never have been larger. Ageing populations, unemployment rates, increasing poverty, and environmental problems are just a number of challenges facing societies.

2. Increasing pressure from NGOs, e.g. environmental organizations

3. The Social Media revolution

Some of the areas where Eva told us Malmö Univeristy and “Mötesplatsen” are focusing are perspectives of management and organizational issues of social innovation, but also financing issues and the need for development of new business models.

In my lecture I fully agreed with Eva on the need for development of new business models in order for social innovation to become successful. I gave examples from health care and the pharmaceutical industry, of which you can read more via this links:

- “Prevention of illnesses and creation of wellbeing”

- “Social innovation and social entrepreneurship”

- “4 steps to a sustainable use of pharmaceuticals”

- “CSR - en intregrerad del av affären”

Lars Jannick Johansen described the huge potential he sees in social enterprises and social innovation. Just bear in mind that the social economy is roughly 10% of the total GNP in Europe. That is a large market… He told us that Sweden has a lot to learn from e.g. UK when it comes to “financial innovations” which would help social innovation and entrepreneurship to further develop.

We then divided up into 6 work groups and discussed e.g.:

- what social innovation actually means

- which parties are involved and which ones are not but should be involved

- experiences to be shared

- in which areas we feel that social innovation is of extra importance for Sweden

Some of the common conclusions from the discussions were

- the need for both social innovation and entrepreneurship. The innovation needs a business case in order to be successful

- collaboration between all different parties in society is crucial for success

- areas of extra importance to Sweden include the ageing population and the healthcare sector, environmental matters, youth, and integration.

It was a very good breakfast seminar and I hope this was just a start of a very interesting process!

Corporate Social Responsibility, Social Media, and Worldfavor

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CSR Sweden arranged a breakfast meeting today regarding communication of CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) in general, and the usage of social media for communication purposes specifically. I have written about social media use, especially within the pharmaceutical sector, several times here at the blog. See for instance the blog posts from Oct 6 2011, Aug 24 2010, April 5 2010, and Nov 24 2010 for details and my views.

The meeting started with an initial discussion around the table where CSR Sweden’s different member companies shared some of their experiences with social media (from the Pfizer perspective those experiences were this blog of course (www.ansvarsblogg.se), the “Can you feel my pain initiative” (on e.g. facebook and flickr), and the Dizza Tobak project). The floor was then given to Daniel Liljendahl and Andreas Brodecki from Worldfavor.com.

Andreas and Daniel presents Worldfavor

I must say that the Worldfavor platform is very interesting, and it could be a very useful tool for both a company and its different stakeholders. The idea is that companies should present their sustainability efforts on the platform and stakeholders commenting upon the information given or commenting on gaps in the information. But of course also ask direct questions to companies and being able to compare and benchmark different companies to one another.  Anyone who has used facebook would feel home. High interactivity and extremely transparent. The platform uses the requirements (the “shall sentences”) in ISO 26000 as the expected CSR performance. This of course enables direct comparisons to be made between companies, within a sector as well as between sectors.

As I said, a very interesting initiative, and it will be exciting to see if Worldfavor manages to bring companies as well as all different stakeholders to the platform. It seems to be powerful and it is free of charge, so the possibility for success should definitely be there!

And you have to like the ambition/vision presented by Daniel and Andreas:

“By the year 2020, all companies will communicate their CSR programs via Worldfavor.com, and the public will be able to influence those programs and thereby contributing to a better world”

Use of Social Media in Health Care

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I participated in the conference “Sociala Medier i sjukvården - så funkar det!” (in English: “Use of Social Media in Health Care - this is how it works!”) today in Malmö. The conference was arranged by Dagens Medicin (a news magazine in the health care sector, roughly translated into “Today’s Medicine” in Englsih) and K-Street Advisors.

A very interesting, and hot, topic. I still find it somewhat funny that I get invited as a speaker to conferences on Social Media. I often declare that “I do not know anything about Social Media actually, I am just a very happy user of these new opportunities!”. But I take it as a strong sign of the lack of experience regarding social media in the health care sector, and the opportunities for great improvements, that I am being viewed as an expert… I have written about social media usage here at the blog previously, see for instance the blog post from Nov 24 last year.

So what did we talk about today? Theo Martins and Pelle Sjöqvist, both from K-Street Advisors, started in the morning as well as closed the conference in the afternoon talking about general aspects around the use of social media.

Theo Martins, K-Street Advisors

Pelle Sjöqvist, K-Street Advisors

Topics discussed were e.g. what social media is, how it works, how to get started, the difference between social media and other types of communication channels, and how social media could cause a crises or be used to manage a crisis. Pelle gave us also examples of usage of social media in the health care sector, or usages that affects us working in the sector, that he feels are worth exploring, e.g.

- Vårdguiden on Facebook

- Säkraresex.se by SLL (Stockholm County Council)

- Luskartan by Kronans Droghandel

- Flashback.org (where a lot of very strange, scary, and probably false discussions also about the health care sector can be found)

- Mayo Clinic

- Patients-like-me

I would of course also add More-than-medication and Can-You-Feel-My-Pain, but more on that later…

Presentations on use of social media ”from inside the health care sector” were given by

- Sara Natt och Dag who have met several patients telling about their diseases in the blogosphere in her profession as counselor. Very often these blogs are very open and honest. She has written several books about the phenomenon as such, and about the people she has met.

- Anna Jerdén, head of communication, Sörmland County Coucil, on their use of social media “for defence purposes” during a media crisis.

- Jens Larsson, General Counsel at the Uppsala County Council, about the legal issues around social media use, especially if you are a governmental official. My conclusion from his presentation would be that it is still a tricky area, still a lot of unanswered questions. But a guiding principle is of course that “use your common sense”. All the old privacy rules etc do of course apply also in these new communication channels!

- Mats Reimer, pediatrician from Mölnlycke, shared his experiences from being one of our most famous “blog doctors” in Sweden. Follow his blog on the webpage of Dagens Medicin.

Mats Reimer, pediatrician

- And then finally me talking about this blog (Ansvarsblogg.se), about the Dizza Tobak platform, and the Can-You-Feel-My-Pain initiative.

I talk about social media

As you probably understand I do not think social media is something “completely new and different”. To me it is just a new communication tool. Much faster and more powerful than anything we have seen before, but still something where a lot of our old rules and strategies still apply. You have to know what you want to do, you have to understand your target group, you need to carefully plan your launch of a new site or platform, you have to do a risk assessment before launch etc. etc. Just remember that everything goes faster and that you will not have full control of how things develop and evolve on the Internet… But the opportunities are so great that those risks are worth taking.

I used Dizza Tobak as an example of the possibilities to share information and experiences, or in this case uploaded anti-tobacco contributions, with the entire world in a rapid and almost for free. If you have followed me on the blog previously you know that Dizza Tobak is a project that we run together with SAMBA and A Non Smoking Generation with the purpose of eliminating tobacco usage. Some of my favourite contributions this year are:

- Love this way to die?

- Svart sot och död

- Kriget mot tobak

and of course still the Flash Mob at the Central Station last year protesting to the fact that 18 people die from tobacco each and every day in Sweden…

I also presented the Can-You-Feel-My-Pain (CYFMP) initiative where we in collaboration with, among others, Patient Advocacy Groups from all over Europe have utilized a number of different social media platforms in order to raise public awareness of chronic pain. Take part of the initiative through the following links:

- CYFMP on Facebook

- CYFMP on Twitter

- CYFMP on Flickr

- CYFMP on Twibbon

A good conference with interesting discussions on a hot topic. I am sure the use of social media in health care (and elsewhere of course) will explode for the simple reason that the opportunities are so great. But just remember that there are risks of course - but in my opinion those risks are definitely manageable.

Opportunities...

Risks...

Yet another Dizza Tobak Award

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Yet another Dizza Tobak award was delivered today. Humfryskolan Klass 7, in Malmö, was today’s winner. And it is kind of fun, because Humfryskolan has been one of the winners in all three Dizza Tobak contest, from 2009 until today. This year they really took the idea about influencing kids early in kids’ lifes seriously. They went out to kindergartens and played live theater with clear messages about “stay away from tobacco”. See some of their performances on their uploaded contribution. It is great fun! Humfryskolan Klass 7 both won a “peoples choice award” and the jury award for “best idea”.

I also definitely recommend that you follow the links below to the Swedish public service television web page and e.g. listen to pupils in the class telling us about their work, you will hear a girl from the class read their version of “little red riding hood”, and you will meet Anders Lönegård from SAMBA talking about Dizza Tobak and Humfryskolans excellent idea:

http://svt.se/2.33782/1.2441773/rokluvan_istallet_for_rodluvan?lid=puff_2441773&lpos=rubrik

http://svtplay.se/v/2441960/malmoklass_vann_antitobakstavling

http://svtplay.se/v/2441997/snovit_och_de_sju_tobaksdvargarna

http://svtplay.se/v/2442000/se_filmen_om_rokluvan_darth_vader_med_strupcancer_och_flera_andra

http://svtplay.se/v/2441991/elever_om_vinsten_i_tavlingen_dizza_tobak

http://svtplay.se/v/2442022/jag_har_blivit_uppringd_av_tobaksindustrin

http://svtplay.se/v/2442031/inspirerades_av_roliga_youtubeklipp

For the record: Dizza Tobak is a youth tobacco prevention project sponsored by Pfizer Foundation and Pfizer AB. Dizza Toabk is run by SAMBA in collaboration with e.g. A Non Smoking Generation. You can see all up-loaded contributions, from schoools all around Sweden, via this link.