Nerds on TV -- the right way -- IBM Watson and Jeopardy

As a computer scientist, trained in artificial intelligence myself, I am delighted to see the development of the IBM Watson parallel computer competing on evening TV Jeopardy! episodes. See this Google search for the plethora of results on the Jeopardy shows.


Heck, as a parent, I love it that my kids are running to me with how awesome the smart computer is doing on their favorite quiz show!

See this great PBS News Hour video to find out more about Watson, Jeopardy,and the artificial intelligence background.

When are computers really "intelligent?" People have been pondering this for at least 100 years. Alan Turing developed a "Turing test" of the computer responding to a person's questions and having the answers be undecipherable from that of another human being. Then in the 1980's came the chess playing machines. First with algorithms, then with brute force statistics, and finally Deep Blue beating grand master chess champions by the turn of the century.

But now having smart computers compete on glitzy evening game shows and educating the world about parallel intelligence of computers? Love it.


See a great write-up by James Taylor on the Smart Data Collective community as to what the IBM Watson episodes mean to Decision Management and Analytics. In essence, computers can now make decisions on the fly leveraging large databases, and continually get smarter in our results.
This is after all what people do in decision making.

Think about that the next time you are creating your marketing and sales analytics systems. Rapid feedback loops, shorter decision cycles,and continual optimization.

Tablets - An ever more crowded market

There is a near explosion of the number of electonics manufacturers delivering tablets to market. This Wall St Journal article and table points out how the market for tablet hardware is getting ever more crowded.

What does this mean for pharmaceuticals and healthcare. We have spoken about sales forces delivering messages on tablets, and there will be more options. Lenovo is present for multiple pharma companies. Screen size is an important factor when showing sales visual aids and KOL videos to a physician. But ultimately the winner of the sales presentation race may be based on software adptation -- the SFA contact managment systems, as well as the presentation software, and the feedback loop systems. Which platform allows for the development of these sales force utilizities with continual enhancements and intelligence?

From a consumer standpoint, patients are acquiring tablets like IPads and health related apps are incrasingly coming to market.

From a physician practice managmenet standpoint, if electronic medical records and billing systems can become tablet compatible, then we may have convergence. Patients and doctors can share "apps" and clinical results as their health dialogues become more quantitative and more meaningful.

These developments will be rapid over the next several years.

Closed Loop Promotion - Overview, Audience, and Challenges

Last week, my colleague Jackie Sanders from The CementBloc and I sponsored and presented a CBI webinar on pharmaceutical closed loop professional promotion
Click here to access the full presentation slides and video.

We were delighted at seeing 96 registrants across a wide range of disciplines, pharmaceutical manufacturers, drugstore chains, pharmacy benefit managers, agencies, technology vendors, and consultants. This audience truly illustrated how widespread the interest is, and how the professional promotional landscape has been changing.

The key components were straightforward to explain:
- promotional planning, personal and non-personal
- tablet based selling
- digital website portal
- tracking behaviors and the feedback loop
- segmented messaging

However, the hottest topic for questions and comments was the various challenges to overcome: organizational alignment, investment required, coordination between personal and nonpersonal promotion. Yet all of these are solvable, and a phased approach over two years or more is critical.

Feedback Loop in Pharmaceutical Sales

Increasing numbers of pharmaceutical companies are investing in tablet PCs for their sales forces. The motivations are multiple, including regulatory as described in a recent Wall St Journal article.

See this link from MedAdNews by Steven Niles on the Feedback Loop enabled by electronic sales tablets. The by-line is somewhat ambitious: "New technology is making closed-loop marketing more effective and creating a stronger connection between sales and marketing through real-time feedback from physicians."

However, an incremental phased approach should be taken to develop a feedback loop. Think about what types of information can be shared with sales representatives without distracting them.

Plan quarter by quarter as to what can be achieved. Feedback may be partly manual at the start. Develop a measurement plan, and continually optimize and improve each quarter.