What will the internet do to our privacy? Our sense of self? Our health? Here is Mark’s take on it…

http://www.youtube.com/user/vicgovhealth

Ryan Wallman is Senior Writer at WellmarkPerspexa, a business-to-business communications agency specialising in healthcare and pharmaceutical marketing.

With technological advances gathering pace all the time, it’s easy for businesses to feel the pressure to jump on the bandwagon of ‘progress’ for fear of being left behind. The pharmaceutical industry, in its role as a driver of change, is perhaps more susceptible than most to this kind of pressure. But how much of this makes strategic sense, rather than being a knee-jerk tactical reaction? How relevant is a nifty ‘app’ or an online community to a pharmaceutical brand?

One way to think about this issue is to consider the impact that digital media have had on broader society. There can be no doubt that the net, Pods, Pads and all the rest have changed things forever; for most people, life will simply never be the same. And it is generally accepted that many aspects of our everyday life – shopping, travel, business and, perhaps most of all, social connectivity – have been transformed. But what has really changed? Do we travel to different places, consume or transact differently, or associate with different people? For the most part, no. We do the same things, just with greater ease or on a grander scale.

So should we expect things to be any different in a marketing context, whether in the pharmaceutical industry or anywhere else?

In my opinion? No. No. And no.

Don’t get me wrong: some fantastic opportunities have arisen with the advent of new media. To name but a couple of examples, there are now numerous online patient communities (take a look at Dose of Digital for some examples) and it is not uncommon for pharmaceutical sales teams to be equipped with iPads and other smart technology. Indeed, such initiatives are probably the way of the future.

But the essence of pharmaceutical (or any other) marketing has not changed, and that is brand. When it comes down to it, fancy gadgets and whiz-bang applications are nothing more than vehicles for communicating your brand. If you don’t have something important to say, there’s no point broadcasting it – because if the internet has proven anything, it is that ‘content is king’.

The pharmaceutical industry is well placed to take advantage of the opportunities presented by new media, but that doesn’t mean it should blindly pursue them at the expense of established marketing principles. When it comes to brand, the medium is not the message.

Ryan Wallman is Senior Writer at WellmarkPerspexa, a business-to-business communications agency specialising in healthcare and pharmaceutical marketing.

And I, for one, think that Jacques (and his difficult-to-name colleagues) would have had a valid point. Because if we look at this subject in more detail – or, sigh, ‘deep dive’ into it – their grievances would be pretty understandable.

Imagine yourself in Jacques’ flippers. Here you were, the champion of a dangerous activity requiring great courage and skill: a feat that was once at the very frontier of human exploration. And now imagine this. A few decades after your aquatic accomplishments, some nong in a comfortable office who has never been in deeper water than that of a hotel spa during a business trip decides that the fundamental act underpinning your achievements – and indeed your entire raison d’être – would make a handy little description for the finer points of his prosaic pen-pushing and pontification.

It would rankle a little, wouldn’t it?

But that’s the reality. We are now much more likely to hear ‘deep dive’ from someone in a wool suit than a wetsuit. But what exactly does this neologistic variant mean? As far as I can tell, it simply means to look at more closely; to investigate in greater detail; or sometimes, seemingly, just to continue talking about whatever is being talked about.

Wow. What a bold new linguistic frontier. But then, maybe it’s just for people who can talk underwater.

Ryan Wallman is Senior Writer at WellmarkPerspexa, where he ‘harbours’ a deep-seated distrust of cliches.

In his book Through the Language Glass, the linguist Guy Deutscher points out that idiosyncrasies of language lead people to perceive the world in different ways. The most striking example that he gives is the notion of ‘language of space’, which is the way we describe our own spatial orientation and the objects around us. For instance, while most languages use concepts such as ‘behind’, ‘in front’, ‘left’ and ‘right’, these are not universal. Deutscher cites the example of a remote indigenous Australian tribe that uses a completely different set of spatial descriptions, based on absolute positioning (north, south etc.).

The most intriguing aspect of this observation is that people who use languages of the latter type actually have a much better sense of direction – it’s as if they have a ‘GPS system in their brain’, as Deutscher puts it. So the notion of language as simply a downstream manifestation of ourselves is probably simplistic; according to this evidence, language can impress on us as well as express of us.

For me, this raises an important question: what impact are modern linguistic trends having on the way we think?

There is no denying that the near-ubiquitous influence of the internet has changed the way that we converse – especially in writing. Broadly speaking, we communicate with each other (in one form or another) less formally, with less consideration and in less depth than we did in the time before SMS messages and Facebook and Twitter.

This is hardly an original observation. Indeed, the debate about technology’s influence on language is almost clichéd, with the most common argument being that a shift towards abbreviated, functional communication is little more than a cosmetic change: an example of language’s ongoing evolution.

But if language really can change the way we think, then should we not be a touch concerned about this move towards linguistic laxity? No doubt there are great advantages in being able to express ourselves prolifically and widely – but there is a downside too. If what we say fundamentally changes who we are, then maybe striving for high standards really does matter.

Fatuous communication may be a sign of our times, but is it good for us?

Ryan Wallman is Senior Writer at WellmarkPerspexa, where he strives to maintain high standards of communication (sometimes to the point of pedantry).

Now, sure, there are situations in which the bogusness resides with the author rather than with the word itself, but either way that red squiggly line serves as a warning. ‘Wrong way’, it says. ‘Go Back’. And finally, exasperatedly, ‘Do I need to spell this out?’

‘Embeddedness’ is a red-squiggly-line word. My version of Microsoft Word takes exception to ‘embeddedness’; I’m telling you, it is underlining the word’s dubiousness as we speak.

My personal view? Microsoft Word has a point. I’m not too sure about ‘embeddedness’. I have my doubts about its bona fides. To be frank, it seems like a word that might have stolen its way into the lexicon under cover of darkness, with the help of a dodgy passport and a comically obvious false moustache. Perhaps it passed itself off as ‘embedded’ and smuggled the last few letters in by hiding them in the lining of its suitcase? The point is: I just don’t believe it. It’s a noun-event, if you ask me.

And yet ‘embeddedness’ is, er, embedded – at least in certain circles. According to Wikipedia, it refers to ‘the degree to which individuals or firms are enmeshed in a social network’. Meanwhile, ‘job embeddedness’ apparently describes ‘all the factors enmeshing employees in their jobs’. (Think John Travolta in any straight-to-DVD movie.)

So embeddedness is really all about enmeshment, it seems. And while I am not questioning the credentials of the word ‘enmeshment’, I must admit that I half-expected it to generate a red squiggly line.

Ryan Wallman is embedded at WellmarkPerspexa as a Senior Writer where he works to un-enmesh red squiggly lines from his communications to achieve clarity of brand and message.

Today, as ever, businesses ignore the needs of customers at their peril. Indeed, without a ‘market orientation’, marketing activities potentially become little more than exercises in hubris: ‘I will provide what I want my customer to have’, rather than ‘I will provide what my customer wants’.

You will notice that there is a parallel here with the kind of thinking that, until recently, was de rigueur in the medical establishment. Paternalism, it’s called – a tendency for doctors to act on the assumption that they know best and thus to largely ignore the wishes of their patients. The comparison is apt in more ways than one; this approach to ‘service’, if you will, just doesn’t suit a modern audience.

But hang on, you may be thinking, surely doctors do know best most of the time? They didn’t go through all those years of training simply to ask their patients what they think, right? And for that matter, shouldn’t businesses know their products or services better than anyone else? Is it really to anyone’s advantage if providers, broadly speaking, are merely sycophants to their patrons?

These questions, though valid, seem almost facetious in the current ‘consumer’ milieu. The fact is that most people these days do not respond to didactic service. Whereas once – a generation ago, even – people were more than happy to take a doctor’s or company’s pronouncements as final, modern consumers are far less acquiescent.

And this means that the focus has necessarily shifted from one-way communication to genuine conversations. Just as doctors now routinely make decisions in collaboration with their patients, progressive businesses recognise the importance of dialogue, and even use the phrase ‘conversation management’. Suffice it to say that you wouldn’t have heard that from Henry Ford, who famously quipped that ‘a customer can have a car in any colour that he wants so long as it is black’.

So that’s the end of the story, it seems. Or is it?

How much credence should a business really give to the every whim of consumers who are, almost inevitably, a diverse group? When should a business take customer feedback with a grain of salt and focus on what it does well? And, as Ford might have asked, how many colour choices do customers really need anyway?

Ryan Wallman is Senior Writer at WellmarkPerspexa, a business-to-business communications agency that gets its customer focus right.

Though the psychology of personality is complex and well beyond the scope of this discussion, the essential reason for behavioural change’s being difficult is not the stuff of dense theory. Put simply (if a little simplistically), you and I are creatures of habit. We resist change, especially when it’s externally imposed.

Which probably leads you to think, quite sensibly, that a belief in being able to change another person is fundamentally misguided. You would not be alone in this regard. For the most part, mainstream psychological literature still considers personality (and, by extension, its attendant behaviour) to be more or less fixed from young adulthood onwards.

So if that’s the case at the individual level, what about changing entire communities or societies? Logic dictates that it must be near impossible – surely?

Certainly, it’s not everyone’s bag. An agent of social change must offer more than just determination, or conviction, or altruism. To change the way a group of people think – which is, at least to some degree, a determinant of how they behave – requires a truly remarkable message. One that generates insight. One that forces people to question the status quo.

Eco-design consultants, Ecoinnovators, are trying to do exactly that with The Secret Life of Things project, a series of short, animated videos exploring the hidden environmental impacts of everyday things. Their first animated video, Life Psychl-ollogy, is featured below.

What we refer to in marketing speak as ‘cut-through’ or ‘a tipping point’ is what psychotherapists call a ‘breakthrough’: a rapid change in mindset after a period of resistance. Unfortunately, as psychotherapists will attest, these are exceptionally rare events. It may take years, even decades, of therapy before an insight of this magnitude is achieved. Sometimes it never happens at all.

So is this kind of change really possible on a macro scale? That is, does it represent profound insights and lasting behavioural shifts? Will the YouTube clip shown above result in real behaviour change? Do people like Al Gore have a rare gift for guiding whole sections of society towards a new way of thinking and doing? Or is their popularity just a passing fad that will lapse at the first sign of self-interest and human fallibility?

Are those who pursue social change a force for good – or just unrealistic zealots?

Ryan Wallman is Senior Writer at WellmarkPerspexa, a strategic communications and design agency that believes in the power of social marketing.

Because if we’re honest, most of us would probably admit that people with an entrepreneurial bent can actually be a bit on the anti-social side. Simon Cowell, for example, or that America’s Cup guy … you know, the one who rorted a whole state and then claimed illness at his court appearances … meh, I forget who he was now. (If he could get away with it, so can I.)

But what if – and you might want to sit down for this – what if people with an unusual degree of initiative and ambition and creativity were to apply those traits in the pursuit of something other than the almighty dollar? (Notwithstanding that most dollars are not exactly ‘almighty’ right now … more ‘formerly-almighty-but-now-a-bit-soft-around-the-middle-and-considering-retirement’ kind of dollars. Whatever. I figure you get the gist.)

Well, now, that would indeed be quite something – the kind of something that has the potential to change everything. And, let’s face it, most people just don’t have the wherewithal to carry through with a something that big. Hell, most people these days don’t have the wherewithal to carry through with a half-hour TV program.

And yet these big somethings are happening. What’s more, they are happening because of big somebodies. As the Ashoka Institute (a global association of social entrepreneurs), puts it:

Identifying and solving large-scale social problems requires a social entrepreneur because only the entrepreneur has the committed vision and inexhaustible determination to persist until they have transformed an entire system.

So it’s the old adage: when the going gets tough, call an entrepreneur. Or something.

Ryan Wallman is Senior Writer at WellmarkPerspexa, where he is always working towards something big.

So you may well scoff at this figment of my childish imagination (and apparent illiteracy), but the true meaning of ‘bioprospector’ is not much less far-fetched. To give you some idea, a Wired article once referred to bioprospectors as ‘the Indiana Joneses of the 21st century’. How’s that for a word-picture? Makes my ‘bionic weirdo’ interpretation seem a bit weak, frankly. Who would have thought?

So who are these swashbucklers, exactly: these fearless adventurers full of rugged charm and devil-may-care attitude? Well, I don’t want you swooning to the point of distraction before I finish my piece, so I’ll warn you now to brace yourself for this description … bioprospectors are commercially minded scientists who target the biosphere in a ‘methodical search for novel pharmaceutical and other products from plants and micro-organisms’ (as Wiktionary so seductively puts it).

Pretty sexy stuff, huh? Take that, you Indiana Jones fans. How often do you hear him referred to as ‘methodical’? And when was the last time he sought out a micro-organism? (No, wait, there was Calista Flockhart.)

My point is: entrepreneurialism comes in many guises. Just as ‘cutting-edge cool’ is now the province of the geekocracy, it appears that even the ‘maverick explorer’ stereotype is undergoing a 21st-century reinvention. So pack your bags, Indi; looks like we have finally seen your last crusade.

Ryan Wallman is Senior Writer at WellmarkPerspexa by day and entrepreneur-cum-rugged-explorer by night (or something like that).