Gaining exponential support for digital
Jinfo Blog

5th October 2010

By Joanna Ptolomey

Item

Difficult decisions about how your organisation does business and engages with all their stakeholders are...well difficult to make. Engaging and implementing in the digital world is one such decision faced by many organisations and indeed industrial sectors – especially if you work in a highly regulated sector such as pharmaceutical and healthcare. I pondered this question in my last post before the DigiPharm conference (http://digbig.com/5bcndx) and was looking forward to getting to the nub of what is means to ‘becoming digitally engaged’. In this first posting from DigiPharm (http://digbig.com/5bcnea) I report on the trends in preparing your business for the digital engagement. But the examples are as relevant whatever your business area. In an industry or organisation there are usually 2 camps – people who ‘get social media’ and people who don’t. And you can understand why – for many they are relatively untested media for which they have yet to see valuable outcomes. For some there is fear. Many professionals are now in a world for which they were not trained – the rapid rate of technological advancement and innovation, and the rate at which information comes to us and has to be managed. Stakeholders also have real concerns about what it means for them, their departments and budgets. So how do you sell the benefits of digital engagement and go about changing the culture of your organisation or indeed industry? Kai Gait, commerce manager from GlaxoSmithKline, believes that changing culture is ‘not rocket science but just plain common sense’. Rather than forcing opinions on others there is a real need to understand colleagues and stakeholders, and why they make the decisions that they do. One of the overriding themes at DigiPharm was to work on an exponential build-up of support to make digital engagement and implementation decisions within your organisation. I want to reference Gait's drivers of influence and cultivating change – his thoughts will help anyone clarify their ideas in whatever organisation they work in. Gait’s experience at Glaxo reveals that internal relationships are paramount to cultivate change – be helpful to colleagues, be present and contribute, be social and engage (not pushy), talk about your desire to help others (share the love) and pay it forward. Influencing colleagues is also a key driver – create experiences they may want to share, make the commitment public, show how others (their equivalents) have done it, get an equivalent to ask them to try, bring in external experts who have and make these exclusive opportunities be the vehicle to showcase how changes can benefit all. Mark Prince, a digital engagement specialist, considered another three areas that influence and gain support. Firstly is training and education – he is never surprised ‘how little people know, so go back to social media basics’. Secondly, be responsible for content and remember who you are trying to attract to your online spaces. Thirdly, don’t go digital for digital's sake and combine online and offline strategies where appropriate. It is apparent from DigiPharm that the pharmaceutical sector varys greatly in current levels of digital engagement and implementation. I imagine that reflects the mood in many other industry sectors. Gaining support and understanding the organisation that you operate in is key to success. You will also need to be proactive in training and education around digital technology and engagement.

« Blog