e-Patient Connections 2009 Wrap Up (Part II

Nov 03

e-Patient Connections 2009 Wrap Up (Part II - Feedback)

e-patient, ePharma Marketing Add comments

You can read my general thoughts on the conference in Part I, here. Below I share some of the feedback and the areas for improvement.

Hot Coffee and Everybody Learned Something

Overall I’ve been delighted with the feedback. Many, many people have stated that it was the single best conference they have ever attended. In the evaluations thus far, overall satisfaction is a 4.56 on a 5 point scale. 100% of all respondents say they learned one or more things they can apply back on their job and 86% met one or more new people who will be helpful in their career.

The major things I was worrying about - WiFi, hot coffee, speakers showing up, microphones - all turned out fine. The problems noted via Twitter and in the evaluations included the room being too cold, no soda during coffee breaks and no coffee during lunch breaks, crowded 1:1 coaching sessions and a couple of obnoxious people in the audience.

Twitter Table or Trouble Table?

trouble_table The thing that received the most negative feedback was actually the Twitter tables. Many people approached me or commented in their evaluations that they found the Twitterers to be rude, unprofessional and disruptive. A few people suggested that they won’t come back if the Twitters come back. That sure surprised me, and I’m sure this feedback will surprise them. I’m not sure if there was just a cultural gap manifesting itself (bringing Baptists and Catholics together to hear a common sermon), or if indeed what some might consider to be open and honest feedback (with a little dose of fun) is actually disruptive to the in-person live forum. I personally like honest, immediate feedback and like interaction with a lively crowd - but would hate to turn off a segment of people we’re trying to actually bring into the fold.

Can’t Please Everybody

There was a variety of opinions expressed in the qualitative feedback:

Many raved about the iPod giveaway and talked about how they’ll explore mobile health apps; a few said it was an unprofessional violation of corporate gift policies
Some asked for more Q&A time for the speakers; others asked for less Q&A time
Some asked for more main stage speakers instead of the breakout SIGs; others suggested replacing ½ the speakers with an unconference format
Most applauded the applied, tactical focus of the case studies; some complained the information was too basic and we need more big ideas

What I Would Do Different

There is plenty I’d do differently:

The 1:1 coaching sessions were an experiment that I’d do again, but the spontaneous “show up and get coached” approach meant we didn’t have enough coaches for some topics and most sessions evolved into longer, small-group formats. We need to find some way for people to sign-up, stay within 5-10 minutes, and get more coaches for the hot topics.

We need to ask for more information during registration so we can accommodate things like special dietary needs, t-shirt sizes, topics of interest, etc.

The “social spark minutes” were designed as table group ice breakers but clearly didn’t work. In fact we cut them from day 2 entirely. Many people chose to sit with people they already know, and others seemed disinterested in the exercise. Just need to find other ways to facilitate new relationships, perhaps with an opt-in online social network.

Still struggling with the right “format mix.” Conferences these days run from completely self-organizing unconferences to speeches with no Q&A (think TED). We are more TED-like than unconference but perhaps we should have added an unconference format in one of the afternoons.

We gave away many thousands of dollars worth of scholarships to the event but we should have had some other charitable contribution or charitable impact as well and I should note that Joe Shields from Pfizer had encouraged this from the start

I’m going to take a couple of months to keep thinking about all this and to figure out if we can do it again in 2010, so if you have additional ideas on how to take our strong start to the next level please let me know.

Thanks to all for your participation and input.

- Kevin

Phil C.

I was one of the objectors about the twitter table, but I feel as thought I need to qualify my comments to the larger audience:

I sat near the twitter table on day 1. There was banter, but I could have moved. I was able to filter it out.

My major objection is not directed to anyone at the twitter table, but to "live tweeting" in general. Without some level of self-control, live tweeters clog the hashtag stream with nonsense that makes it valueless to people who want to search the hashtag for important information.

IF live tweeters believe they are providing a service (which I think they could) by documenting an event, two few self-imposed / self-policed guidelines would help:

*If you are retweeting a hashtagged tweet, remove the hashtag or replace it with something like #RTepatcon. It does not need to appear in the tweet stream twice, but conference organizers may need hashtagging for buzz monitoring purposes.

*Use IM, email or vocal chords to chat with live tweeters - don't clog the hashtag stream with chitchat/tomfoolery. In the very least, don't hashtag these types of content. If want to use Twitter to chat during the conference, use the features in TweetDeck, Lists, etc.

I think that Twitter is an extremely valuable channel of communication, and Live Tweeters who have a following could be providing a valuable service to their followers who cannot attend AND to folks who want a play-by-play reference.

If I may misinterpret Marshall McLuhan and turn him over in his grave: with Social Media channels, the medium is not always the message... the message is the message. Clog the message with stuff we don't care about and your message isn't even the message anymore.

Meredith Gould

As someone who used to do a lot of conference planning, I want to chime in to say that often the negative comments are more valuable than the nicey nice ones. In this instance, ones about the so-called "Trouble Table," provide valuable information about culture, sub-culture and disconnects within and between.

Practically speaking, this might have been avoided by keeping the Twitter stream off the big screen and available to those actually on Twitter. There may be other ways to accommodate this valuable real-time communication in all its rough and tumble glory without having other professionals threatening to boycott.

On my list of things to do: ponder faster so I can get a post up about what might (or might not) constitute a new form of journalism. These comments should give you a sense of what I'm thinking.

Steve Woodruff

Kevin,
Thanks for this summary and for passing on the honest feedback re: Twitter tables.
I've been to many conferences in the past year, where Twittering has becoming increasingly the norm. By and large, it has not been disruptive at all - in fact, a real benefit for those who cannot physically attend. But the "social" aspect of social media can be unexpectedly lively depending on the chemistry of the people involved, and the mix at ePatCon was a bit...combustible.
I can fully understand the input of those who felt that some of the interactions were disruptive; I agree, and feel a level of responsibility and regret that a bad impression was created. As someone who has sought to bring social media practice into pharma events, I think we all (with finger pointing toward self) need to be more careful to retain a high degree of professionalism while striving for engagement, immediacy, and healthy informality during the non-social segments of these events.
We're trying new things, learning, and making mistakes. I'll view those evaluations as the equivalent of Warning Letters. Message received, and will be seeking to encourage better guidelines and guardrails...

Trisha Torrey

As someone who did not attend, but followed the Twitterstream: I noted the 'trouble table" was first mentioned within minutes of the start of the conference - and it was self-proclaimed, as near as I could tell.

To Phil's point above -- It was difficult to follow the hashtag because so MUCH was being tweeted. Early on, most of it was about how cold the room was! I have to think the myriad complaints helped warm up the room - it certainly indicated somebody needed to do something about it -- and that had nothing to do with the topics being discussed. So even that twitter conversation was important.

It seems like the use of Twitter at conferences will even itself out. Worse case, those who think it's overdone just tune it out.

But best case, using twitter and following the stream is the equivalent to the pearl in the oyster We need to learn to deal, because in the end, there's plenty of value.

Christiane Truelove

Kevin,

It's been interesting to hear the feedback about Twitter; being one of the more prolific Tweeters at the conference, but not at the Twitter table, I look at Twitter as a journalism tool, to pack as much news as I can into 140-character bursts. My goal was to Tweet pertinent quotes and information to my followers who were not at the conference. To people at the conference, I can understand how the big Twitter screen was a distraction, and Phil's points about keeping side conversations hashtag-free and a new way to re-Tweet were good ones.

Twitter itself being a new means of communication, people are still learning what to do with it. In every iteration of journalism, there's a learning curve; reporters during the Civil War had to learn how to use the constraints of the telegraph to report their stories, and the rowdy young men who worked for the hundreds of newspapers in New York City during the 1840s had to learn how to report the news, not be the news.

With Twitter, you have non-journalists learning what it's like to be journalists. And we're each a "private" news channel. In time, folks will distinguish what should be put out on there for the masses, and what should be for strictly private consumption.

Phil Baumann

Twitter Table or Trouble Table? Both.

I was part of the so-called Trouble Table. I believe those of us at this table were the ones who actually coined the phrase "Trouble Table" as a matter of fact. Why? Because we care about humanly documenting important events that are part of a larger, on-going discussion about how best the Pharmaceutical and other healthcare-related industries can thrive in an radically upending 21st Century.

We also want the world to know about these events so that patients who are suffering and longing for connection to remarkable health care and support get the message. I know as a registered nurse who took an oath of allegiance to patient health how important the online world is in the health care of people around the world.

I can't argue with much of what Phil C stated above. However, what we need to keep in mind is that the Social Web has no Central Governance: meaning you can try your hardest to establish rules about whether or not to retweet a hashtag or tweet small-talk or whether or not to use emoticons or colorful metaphors, but the very nature of the Web is as ever-evolving, decentralized and entangling super-organism.

The way to address "trouble tables" isn't in banning or shaming or attempting to control them. That's like pounding your fist at a fast-moving current. No, the world has changed forever and will continue to change at an accelerating rate: it's swim or sink. So conferences will need to plan for live-tweeting, encourage it and set the tone for how best to dovetail tweets with the rest of the experience - not just at the conference but in the other online extensions of the conference. This is an paramount responsibility of conference organizers.

In fact, not only will conferences have to enable the channels for live-tweeting, speakers as these conferences will have to adapt and embrace live-tweeting too. In addition to the skills involved in presenting live material, speakers will now have to be keenly aware that what they say will be dispersed via Twitter around the world. Furthermore, speakers will need to learn a new speaking skill: Tweeting while speaking. Yes, that may not be fair or easy but it is how this Century is evolving.

One of the lessons traditional enterprises and industries (such as Pharma) will have to learn is letting-go. Control is a critical skill in the research, production and distribution of pharmaceuticals and biomedical devices. And traditional marketers in those industries enjoyed the benefits of controllable mass, unilateral broadcast media. But Pharma marketers are going to have to learn which aspects of 20th Century marketing to retain and which to unlearn.

No industry survived without its trouble-makers. No leader accomplished anything by not causing trouble. As a general rule, people don't like trouble-makers. That's OK. Because trouble-makers will continue to do what they do because they're relentlessly passionate about changing the world for the better. Yes, they care about what people think of them but they care even more about helping others - including the people who find them disruptive or crude. (There are worse things in life than a temperamental tweeter.)

Kevin, you produced a remarkable conference. It sounds like you've learned much and we all hope that you continue to bring together the safety patrol and the trouble-makers, the marketers and the researchers, the epatients and the doctors.

One final thought to note: Nice people disappoint. Good people disturb.

Love it or hate it, the New Industrial Revolution will be tweeted. And we might not like what we read. But we'll live.

@PhilBaumann

For the curious, below is a searchable database of the Trouble Table.

http://friendfeed.com/search?q=%23epatcon+from%...

Phil C.

Phil B.,
I agree wholeheartedly... the strength of any user-generated platform is that (for the most part) users create their own standards and etiquette. Taking that open platform away and imposing rules will just cause the masses to migrate away from your channel.

I suppose the short form of my rant above is this: I see great value in being able to mine the information provided by live tweeting. Hashtags should make this easier, but the data mining becomes more difficult when more irrelevant or repetitive data is introduced.

I tweeted with hashtags during the conference and, in retrospect, I'm in bit of a glass house: http://ow.ly/yX4i

Sally

As one of the people trying to follow the meeting remotely while working remotely via the hashtag, I have to say that the real nuggets were sadly hard to follow. Why? Too much whining about the room temp, lack of coffee or soda and people posting silly inconsequential pics of candy and cola, hardly relevant topics for the conference hashtag. It changed my impression of some people as silly and immature rather than polite, respectful and professional. People forget that the world may be watching, so if you choose to be snarky or silly we will often judge on that basis.

These comments are not directed at Phil or Steve, both of whom I respect immensely, but some of frattish bantering from others at the event, while funny to them, really didn't belong under the hashtag and sadly showed a lack of leadership and respect for others. Sorry, but after following many conferences, this one got completely out of control at times.

In the end, following #epatcon was pointless remotely, so I just followed the excellent commentary of Christiane and Eileen O'Brien, both of whom tweeted really helpful commentary. Nice job, ladies!

Kathleen Rose

I learned about Twitter in Toronto at the Medicine 2.0 conference, when I looked up at the feed (didn't know it was called that at the time) and noticed that all of the notes I was busily scratching down were appearing on the screen. I opened my laptop and jumped on Twitter and started mimicking the pros. This enabled me (generally a lurker and observer) to actually become a participant in a major conference and to preserve important information related to people and ideas in motion.

I for one was thrilled to see the feed live and in person during ePatient Connections.

During the conference, I met someone who was scratching down notes on paper; she had not graduated to tweeting during the conference, but the buzz piqued her interest, and she said she was looking forward to learning more about Twitter and trying to incorporate it into her work.

I was sitting one table away from the "troublemakers" who neither disturbed or disrupted my enjoyment of the awesome speakers. I'm sure some of those folks (or others like them) are responsible for helping to draw me out to participate.

Doesn't hurt that the messages and messengers were awesome too!!

Manuel Sanchez

I disagree with the bad comments about the twitters and the guidelines that have to be used to “live twit” and event, or the idea to have “Baptists and Catholics together to hear a common sermon”.

I believe that the freedom of twitters and the self interpretation of any issue or event is really what makes twitter so popular.

If you had the chance of being there, it was like having a 3 way circus, between the speaker, live audience and twitter audience, the whole experience is quite exponential, because you keep what the speakers is trying to say, what you really understand, what other people say out loud, what people thinks on the matter and how people tries to communicate it in a “simple 140” way. And like in a circus you keep what was more enlightened and has more value to you.

I really enjoy the whole experience.

@masr74