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How Web 2.0 technologies can help orchestrate people, processes, and content to achieve strategic success.

How Web 2.0 technologies can help orchestrate people, processes, and content to achieve strategic success.

The world of work is changing. Disruptive forces are at play in business and are compelling life sciences organizations to rethink traditional content communication and the way we define an information worker. We must address these disruptive forces in order to compete globally, increase product pipeline, and speed time-to-market and protect the corporate memory resident in employees and applications.

In this, the second of a two-part series of articles on social media in the life sciences, Therese Harris, Program Manager for Life Sciences at Open Text, explores how life sciences organizations can adapt the innovations of Web 2.0 to meet organizational objectives. (To read the first article in this series, Social Media in Life Sciences Part I: Creating a Social Workplace, click here.)

Social marketplaces

Life sciences organizations are recognizing that they need to innovate to thrive. But disruptive forces are at play, and business and government are under pressure to reduce costs and freeze or reduce workforces while delivering the same quality of product or service. Technology can facilitate this new productivity imperative. Delivery of the social workplace and social marketplace while meeting social compliance objectives is the end goal of an Enterprise 2.0 strategy.

Social marketplaces are developed to gain trust from consumers, practitioners and partners. As online relationships bloom into a new phase of online interactivity, consumers and practitioners will share information, seek feedback and create content pertinent to the business cycle.

Consumer engagement and proactive peer-to-peer support and recommendations; development and solidification of communication and recommendation channels; ability to spot and react to new opportunities for markets and prospecting; and community engagement with your brand to build loyalty and consumer commitment ... these are the fundamental values the social marketplace delivers to business. A social marketplace can help:

Optimize customer service - Engagement and cultivation of new opportunities are top priorities for life sciences organizations adopting the social marketplace. Focus groups, self-service sites, peer-to-peer discussion groups, online rich media catalogues, test-drive centers, feedback management systems ... this is the new language of customer service.

Enable channels and partnership networks - The social marketplace holds trusted relationships together. Efficiencies and expert sources emerge, reducing duplication of efforts, re-invention of content and minimizing of inaccurate or incomplete information. Social supply chains emerge as organizations adopt rich Web- and mobile-based communities to communicate shared content, set mutual objectives and adopt common customer service obligations.

Spot opportunities in unexpected places - Be willing to extend the social marketplace to where interested and informed people congregate. Understand the online landscape of personal and professional networking sites, social media communication tools and involvement in association or industry discussion rooms. The social marketplaceeven as it moves into the less moderated open Websucceeds only when authenticity underpins the development of this extended trusted network.

Cultivate brand engagement and loyalty - Customers who invest time, money and their staff resources with your company expect to be viewed as stakeholders in key decisions. One-way push of marketing or technical content to customers and prospects no longer resonates. The socially networked world requires interactive engagementcustomer reviews, recommendations, feedback and consultation on product and service delivery.

Social Compliance - Social compliance is a proactive perspective on mitigating risk. The life sciences enterprise that embarks on a strategy to bloom with the social workplace and social marketplace must understand both rewards and risks. Finding the right balance for your business will mean success, and social compliance permits a layer of control and audit to the safely transparent enterprise.

Beyond the reactive compliance compelled by legislation, regulation and e-discovery rules, proactive social compliance allows the enterprise to monitor outward-facing communication to ensure appropriate use and disclosure practices are respected. Providing the assurance and comfort to corporate legal and management that a more open culture will not compromise consistency of message, brand, vision or leak proprietary information, personal data or inappropriate language this is the protective layer social compliance brings to the social workplace and social marketplace.

The most valuable information within any organization often resides in the minds of its knowledge workers. This intellectual asset has remained relatively untapped because there has not been an effective way for organizations to capture this knowledgebase, allow it to grow and share it company-wide. Social media moves the conversation from the water cooler directly to your secure corporate network, creating a historical knowledgebase of ideas, opinions, experiences and content that can be easily accessed by anyone with permissions at any time. Employees no longer have to rely on email, conference calls or private meetings in employee lounges to share ideas and stay informed. This is a new era of collaboration, of community-based environments where great minds meet, share, network and experience the power of collective knowledge.

Click here to read Social media in life sciences part I: Creating a social workplace

About the author

Therese Harris, program manager for Life Sciences at Open Text, is responsible for vertical market applications, key industry partnerships, and marketing specific to Life Sciences. She has more than 15 years experience in the enterprise software industry with special focuses on collaboration, communication and compliance solutions.  Therese has spent the past six years in the Enterprise Content Management market and has written and lectured on the application of ECM in vertical markets such as Life Sciences, Financial Services, and Government.