Today is World Diabetes Day (WDD).

So I’m still on the topic of Twitter…

And thanks to the power of Twitter and @hyblis, I found about this great set of slides on “Twitter and Microblogging for Public Health” (on Slideshare)…

PF Anderson (author of the slides) does a great job of compiling an extensive collection of real-world examples, showing how people are using Twitter (and similar microsharing apps, such as Plurk) for health-related purposes. The key topics covered include: Twitter for productivity, Twitter for discovery, Twitter in health and healthcare, Twitter in public health, and Making Twitter work for you.

On top of all that, Anderson also shows a lot great health twitterers (Twits?) and a whole lot of Twitter-related apps that complement it, such as: Twittercal, FoodFeed, SugarStats, Qwitter, and Twemes, to name a few.

What a great demonstration of Twitter’s usefulness within the health-space; especially for a tool that some might consider “just another social networking app”. As you can see, it’s much more than that. We just have to “think outside the bun”, watch and see what others are doing, and do a little self discovery along the way. Let Twitter be your sandbox — now come build some casltes (or whatever else you can think of).

The world is a-twittering these days it seems… And I admit — I’m a twaddict !

Personally, I’ve found Twitter to be indispensable, not just for coordinating, chatting, and live-tweeting at conferences, but also as a general research tool and a way to stay connected with the latest news, related links, conference/meeting updates, web resources, etc.

I’ve also been thinking a lot lately about how to apply and adapt a microsharing application like Twitter within the enterprise environment (specifically, Pharma) and how it could potentially be used as a corporate tool beyond social connectivity.

So if you’re like me and also interested in the enterprise aspect of Twitter (and similar tools), a great place to start is by reading the excellent whitepaper by Pistachio — which compares 19 enterprise Twitter-like apps — and also check out her reading list.

In addition, O’Reilly is also hosting a webcast on Thursday (NOV 13th, 2008) on:

Here are the details (you’ll need to register to attend)…

Twitter–the messaging service that lets you send instant, short updates to people around the world–is fast becoming a mainstream communication tool. Hundreds of brands and thousands of companies use it to connect with customers and co-workers, and new micro-messaging services are springing up every week to meet specific corporate needs.

Join the revolution with this webcast, which will show you how to use Twitter and other micro-messaging services at work. It will cover the the benefits and challenges of this exciting new medium, along with best practices and potential pitfalls you can avoid.

Date: Thursday, Nov. 13 at 10am PDT (18:00 GMT)
Cost: Free
Duration: Approx. 60 minutes
Meeting link: http://oreilly.com/go/businesstwitter
Questions? Please send email to webcast@oreilly.com

About Sarah Milstein
Sarah Milstein, a consultant on Web 2.0 and editorial strategies, and an MBA candidate at the Haas School of Business at UCBerkeley, was previously the Chief Publishing Evangelist for O’Reilly Media. Prior to that, Sarah was O’Reilly’s Managing Editor, Senior Editor, and Editor, leading the development of the Missing Manuals, a best-selling series of computer books for non-geeks. She’s also written for the series, co-authoring Google: The Missing Manual (1st ed 2004; 2nd ed 2006). Before joining O’Reilly in 2003, Sarah was a freelance writer and editor, and a regular contributor to The New York Times. She was also a program founder for Just Food, a local-food-and-farms non-profit, and co-founder of Two Tomatoes Records, a label that distributes and promotes the work of children’s musician Laurie Berkner.

I don’t know how I missed this one, but thanks to the Pharma 2.0 blog and someone I follow on Twitter (sorry — I don’t remember who) for alerting me to a recently published (August 2008) EXCELLENT white paper by Nielsen Online on:

“Listening to Consumers in a Highly Regulated Environment — How Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Can Leverage Consumer-Generated Media” (registration required).

Melissa Davies (Nielsen Analyst and author of the article. Nice blog, too!) does a great job providing an overview of some fundamental issues that pharma struggles with when it comes to Social Media and UGC (user generated content). Chief among those is, of course, the issue of Adverse Event (AE) reporting, which is a key focus of this paper and is nicely called out with some great information.

She also goes on to provide many examples on how and where pharma can start with social media; all of which I completely agree with and some which are very similar to the suggestions I made in my presentation on Can Pharma Make a Business Case for Social Media.

Here are some excerpts from the whitepaper…

Any pharmaceutical company considering an entry into the social media space will naturally wonder about discussion of adverse events. Are consumers sharing information online that would indicate an adverse experience? Does social media monitoring trigger the AE reporting requirement? At this writing, there is no FDA guideline or regulation that specifically covers the content of online discussion in a way that is different from reporting AE information derived from any other source.

Current FDA guidelines give four parameters for submitting information about adverse experiences: the pharmaceutical company should have knowledge of (i) an identifiable patient; (ii) an identifiable reporter; (iii) a specific drug or biologic involved in the event; and (iv) an adverse event or fatal outcome…

In a recent Nielsen analysis of 500 healthcare-related messages posted online across multiple disease categories, Nielsen’s BuzzMetrics analysts found only one message that incorporated the information needed to meet all four of the FDA’s AE reporting requirements…

Most online discussion communities discourage the use of personally identifi able information. This is especially true within healthcare communities, where personal privacy is even more carefully guarded… In the recent analysis of 500 messages, Nielsen’s BuzzMetrics analysts found that 56 messages (11%) contained identifying information that could be used to reach out to an individual to follow up on a possible AE report…

It is clear that a pharmaceutical company that aggressively monitors social media may pick up the occasional AE within patient/caregiver online discussion. Nielsen Online’s experience is that this happens very rarely, with a volume that is entirely manageable within companies’ broader AE monitoring programs.

Source: Nielsen Online Healthcare Whitepaper (2008)

After the discussion on regulatory concerns and AE reporting, Davies goes on to present some great suggestions for “The Benefits of Listening” and some great ideas for “Getting Started”. Here are some of the subject headers for those ideas…

Listen to the Conversation

• Head online to a discussion board and start reading
• Conduct an online search on the brand
• Visit Wikipedia and see what information has been posted about the brand
• Check for consumer-created videos about the brand

Facilitate the Conversation

• Go where the audience is
• Provide materials that will help patients better understand their condition and its treatment
• Share condition information or how-to’s for treatment
• Incorporate the voices of actual patients through personal stories on the brand site
• Allow and encourage patients to link to these resources from other sites

Join the Conversation

• Consider starting a blog
• Appoint someone from the brand team to take an active role in online discussion

As you can see, many of these concepts/ideas are similar to what I presented in my slides as well, which is really great, since it shows that we are in agreement and share the same vision for where Pharma needs to head with Social Media.

Well, this one is definitely getting filed as a MUST READ. Great article, Melissa Davies!!! Looking forward to seeing more Social Media in Pharma articles.

It took me a while to clean up the slides, not so much in terms of the actual content, but more on the visuals, numbers, and attributions. Here’s a list of the major changes from the original presentation:

• Edited images that were blur and/or would not display on PC
• Replaced images that were NOT covered by a Creative Commons license
• Removed embedded videos
• Added some details to MS Academy Mobile case in place of video
• Added resource links and contact details at end of presentation

As you can see, none of the changes significantly affected the main content that was presented, so it’s pretty much the same deck with a few minor adjustments for “public release”. The sections/topics I cover in this presentation are still the following:

1. What is Social Media?
2. What are the main hurdles?
3. Why is it important?
4. Where does it fit in?
5. How do I get started?
6. What strategies can we use?
7. How about regulatory concerns?
8. What about ROI?
9. Final Thoughts

Over the next few weeks, I hope to cover each of the sections in more detail via this blog, so do keep a look out. In the mean time, feel free to send an email or tweet (@shwen) with any questions or leave me a comment about them. Would love to hear your feedback!

Also, if you attended the Digital Pharma conference and/or are thinking about attending Digital Pharma 2009, please send me your thoughts, ideas, feedback on what value and opportunities you would like to experience at this conference. Since I am chairing it next year, I hope to really bring the voice of the participants into the development of the conference program!

NOTE: I have decided to cover the presentaiton under a Creative Commons Attribution and Share Alike license.

According to the Pharma 2.0 Blog, “Bristol-Myers Squibb provided unrestricted funding to facilitate the launch of a new site for women with advanced breast cancer“.

The Advanced Breast Cancer Community launched in early September offering both an information gateway and social network for the advanced/metastatic breast cancer community…
As one user commented, “Early on in my diagnosis I perused many Internet sites that just left me more confused, scared and depressed than I already was. So I gave up looking. Until something brought me to this site just yesterday. What a great place. I can tell already that this is the place where I want to hang out.”

The site was built by Inspire which “…builds and manages online communities in which thousands of patients, family members and caregivers support and communicate with one another in safe, secure, privacy- protected environments“.

Most Inspire communities are built for free and operate under the auspices of some of the most respected nonprofit health organizations in the US. Our nonprofit partners include such distinguished organizations as the ALS Association, Arthritis Foundation, Lung Cancer Alliance, National Organization of Rare Disorders, and the National Osteoporosis Foundation, among others.

I think it’s a really good sign that pharmaceutical companies are starting to recognize the value and importance that online communities and other social media efforts can have in supporting patients, caregivers, and even healthcare professionals.

In fact, this isn’t first unrestricted grant that I’ve heard of from a pharma company to a non-profit social media initiative. Just a few weeks ago at the Digital Pharma conference, I was speaking with Matt Zachary — Founder and CEO of I’m Too Young For This (i2y) — who told me that Novartis Oncology had provided an unrestricted grant to them for their on and off -line initiatives that support young adults affected by cancer. Looks like they also got support from MGI Pharma, GSK, Schering-Plough and a bunch other non-pharma related organizations (including Heineken!!!).

Here’s a list of various i2y programs that tries to help “…empower young adults affected by cancer by ending isolation, improving quality of life and providing meaningful survivorship“:

• young adult organizations
• scholarships and financial aid
• online forums and chat rooms
• excursions and retreats
• web2.0 social networks
• young adult blogosphere
• coping literature
• books, mags, films and media
• advocacy tools
• cancer creative

Considering that the i2y slogan and campaign is “Stupid Cancer”, you would think that traditionalists would exclude them from funding or even a consideration just by the mere fact that it’s not titled something more “professional” or that many of their efforts are based in social media. So I’m really glad to see that neither the social media aspect nor the slogan has turned off support for this truly important network — well done to the funding bodies for not letting these issues get in the way of initiatives that really work and really support a good cause!