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Believe it or not, I was interviewed by Karl Schmieder of Bridge 6, a digital healthcare marketing firm about the genesis of BioCrowd and why online networking is important for bioprofessionals and healthcare providers. This is a first for me and it signals that online networking for life scientists and other bioprofessionals may actually be starting to catch on. You can read the entire interview by clicking here.

While most other sites like Benchfly, Epernicus, Labspaces, ResearchGate and others cater almost exclusively to scientists, BioCrowd was created as an online networking and career development site for ALL bioprofessionals including those involved with marketing, manufacturing, publishing, writing, fun raising etc. We want prospective BioCrowd members to think of the community as a “one-stop-shopping” site for life sciences professionals who want to network, advance a career or even start  up a biotechnology company! Check us out!

Until next time...

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting (I hope to see you at BioCrowd!)

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Before the advent of social media, the only way job candidates could communicate to a hiring manager why they—rather than other applicants—were the right fit for a job was through a face-to-face interview. Conventional wisdom suggests that a skilled candidate who can also demonstrate a legitimate enthusiasm for a position is generally the applicant who wins out. However, the online world, specifically the social web, has changed all that.

Numerous studies suggest that over 70% of hiring managers screen prospective job applicants by trolling social networking sites like BioCrowd, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. While some hiring managers do this to make sure that a potential new hire hasn’t done anything untoward or unseemly, the plethora of blogs, forums, Facebook and LinkedIn profiles and Twitter feeds enable them to get to know job applicants better than ever before. In some cases, a well-crafted and carefully managed Facebook or LinkedIn profile or blog can make the difference between a new job and unemployment.

This is not to say that jobseekers are required to have Facebook or LinkedIn page or Twitter feed to get hired. But, if executed correctly, they can help. That said, there are certain cardinal rules that must be followed to not run afoul of prospective new employers. These include:

1. No swearing or use of foul language
2. Do not post party or sexually-explicit photos
3. Don’t say bad things about past employers or current co-workers
4. Keep posts and status updates to a minimum and make sure that they are posted before or after working hours
5. Avoid posting opinions about religion, sexual orientation and politics

Also, it is a good idea to Google yourself from time to time to see what the search results look like. Most employers routinely Google job applicants to acquire more information about prospective hires. As many social media gurus like to say “Google never forgets.”

Until next time...

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting!!!!!!!!

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A recent report published by the Pew Internet and American Life Project found that in the last year, social networking services have nearly doubled in popularity in Americans over the age of 50. Interesting, there were virtually no inroads among those aged 18 to 29. The spike in popularity also includes those over 65 years old who are twice as likely this year as compared with last to say that they belonged to social networking sites.

The authors of the report suggest a few reasons for the increasing popularity of social networking among seniors (aside from the observation that older people are slower overall to adopt technological innovations). 

First, social networking sites provide a rare opportunity to bridge the generational divide; for example grandparents and grandchildren can keep track of each other or share family photos on a single network like Facebook. Second, many older Americans use Facebook and even Twitter to reconnect with people from their past. Finally, social networking sites have been around for almost a decade and there are growing signs that younger folks are moving beyond social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter to the next big thing (whatever that may be).

While online networking sites may have begun to outlive their usefulness for social activities, there is trend toward the use of these sites for professional purposes including job searches and access to information. LinkedIn and BioCrowd are two good examples of this type of online professional networking sites.

FYI, I rarely visit Facebook and occasionally have time for Twitter (I turned 57 this past July). Most of my online time is spent on LinkedIn and BioCrowd looking for new contacts and access to interesting information about the life sciences industry. 

Just sayin’

Until next time...

Good Luck and Good Surfing!!!!!!!!!

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An article in today’s New York Times business section loudly proclaimed that the number of people using Facebook had topped 500 million. Further, according to the article: “The company has grown at a meteoric pace, doubling in size from a year ago and each month, more than 30 billion photographs, links to Web sites and news articles are shared through the site, and its members spend roughly 700 billion minutes there.”  

While these statistics are mind boggling and represent an incredible business opportunity for any company, life sciences companies including most major pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies have largely shunned Facebook. In a post earlier this week on EyeonFDA, its author, Mark Senak rightly noted that:

 “When social media began to ebb from a media pathway for individuals to connect, to one where institutions and industry began to employ social media as a means of communicating with their constituencies Facebook has become an extremely important referral source - a driver of traffic - to Web pages.” Despite this, “the pharmaceutical industry, as a highly regulated industry, has lagged behind other sectors.”

The reasons for pharma’s reluctance to use social media to engage stakeholders are numerous. The most common ones offered include the lack of regulations guiding the use of social media and its possible effects on adverse event reporting for approved medicines. However, the lack of regulatory guidance and consequences for adverse event reporting didn’t prevent life sciences companies from building branded product websites, sponsoring patient communities or investing in social networks for physicians. Therefore, it is unlikely that the lack of regulatory guidance and fears of overwhelming adverse event reporting aren’t responsible for pharma’s reluctance to embrace social media. I suspect that the real reasons may have more to do with increasing transparency surrounding clinical testing, drug approvals and drug pricing and reimbursement. But, I digress....

Interestingly, despite the lack of regulatory guidance and concerns over adverse event reporting, some pharmaceutical companies have chosen to boldly go where no other life sciences companies have gone before on Facebook.  According to Mark, the following companies have created corporate or disease/cause-related fan pages on Facebook:

1. Labs Are Vital sponsored by Abbott Laboratories
2. AstraZeneca US Community Connections
3. AstraZenecaCareers
4. Bayer Karriere
5. Bayer Sustainability
6. Johnson & Johnson Network
7. Nursing Notes by Johnson & Johnson
8. Pfizer

While the number of person who are fans of these pages are minute (as compared with the total number of Facebook users) they likely represent highly committed and focused groups of user—any pharmaceutical marketer’s dream! Although Facebook still subscribes to the notion that “bigger is better, niche networking and social media sites are growing in popularity. This is because these sites may give marketers and advertisers a “bigger bang for their buck” as compared with larger, more unfocused and disparate user communities. In other words, penetration and uptake rates are likely to greater in focused niche populations as compared with the general population at large.

I have long contended that social media tools can be used for other than promotional purposes in the life sciences industry. To that end, the use of social media for clinical trial patient recruitment and retention is rapidly expanding and there are signs that pharmaceutical companies have finally recognized the power of social media for recruiting purposes e.g. AstraZenecaCareers .  

I have no doubt that the life science industry will eventually recognize the utility power of social media. It is no longer a question of “if” but rather ‘when” for social media and the life sciences industry?

Until next time...

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting!!!!!!!! 

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By now, most of you have heard at some point or another that networking is critical when it come to trying to land a job. Unfortunately, networking is not an inherited genetic trait and it takes a fair amount of skill (some say art) to develop and excel at it! To make matters worse, most scientists are told and frequently reminded that networking for career advancement is equivalent to shameless self promotion and that “good scientists” generally refrain from doing it. Consequently, most scientists are not good at networking and in some cases shamefully inept.

The advent of social networking sites like BioCrowd, Facebook and others provides an opportunity for scientists to overcome their fear or guilt about networking. More importantly it provides a “safe haven” for scientists who want to avoid the anxiety and pressures of face-to-face networking at live events. While online networking may be a surrogate or substitute for the real thing, if leveraged correctly, it can be used to find and land a job or advance a career. 

Surprisingly, the use of social networking by life scientists lags behind that of the general public. After all, many life scientists pride themselves as being on the cutting edge or part of the vanguard pushing new technologies that can be used to “push back the frontiers of science.” Nevertheless, social media and online networking sites have become routine parts of most job searches and both are used by employers and prospective employees alike. To that end, I crafted a Powerpoint presentations that describes the “dos and don’ts” of social media for job searches and career advancement. 

Until next time…

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting

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I have previously written several posts on the reluctance of life scientists to use social media and online social networking sites. While I realize that scientists may be somewhat socially challenged, the almost universal disdain for social media is puzzling and troubling to me. More importantly, the reluctance of life scientists to embrace social media flies in the face of some revealing new statistics on social media use by the American lay public.

According to a recent survey by Forrester Research, “half of online adults now belong to social networks like, Facebook and Linked In, a 46 percent growth rate year-over-year.” More importantly, almost a quarter of Americans are content creators who write blogs, upload video or audio or post articles online.” Interestingly, the growth of social media is being driven by adults 35 and older. The survey found that four of five adults of all ages use social media including blogs, social networks and review sites. Finally, most adults visit social networking sites, in way or another at least monthly.

Many scientists who I have talked with (mostly graduate students and postdoctoral fellows) primarily use social media to stay in touch with friends or “hook up” with others after laboratory hours are over. And, other scientists—mostly laboratory heads and principal investigators—view social media as a colossal waste of time. Unfortunately, the scientists who underutilize or shun social media don’t understand its hidden potential to advance scientific research and perhaps more importantly to interact with the lay public to demystify “science.”  In my experience social media has been a powerful way to disseminate information and quickly reach large numbers of people. Isn’t this what science is really about?    

Until next time....

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting!!!!!!!!!!!!

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At the recent Social Communication and Healthcare conference I was invited to run a roundtable discussion entitled “How to Build a Social Networking Site for Bioprofessionals.” The discussions were well attended, primarily by employees several pharmaceutical companies and vendors who sell scientific equipment and reagents. Several bloggers and medical communications professionals also attended.

While microblogging platforms like Twitter are slowly supplanting traditional networking sites as the social medium of choice, themed online communities like BioCrowd--hich was exclusively designed for bioprofessionals ranging from scientists to venture capitalists—are still useful for jobseekers and people who are interested in a “richer” networking experience. For those of you who are interested in social networking sites, I wrote a brief synopsis of the two roundtable discussions that I conducted.

Please feel free to contact me with any additional thoughts, ideas or comments you may have about the piece.

 Until next time...

 Good Luck and Good Networking!

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While life sciences companies are still reluctant to take the “social media plunge,” many other companies (with active social media programs) frequently hire employees known as social media managers who oversee and run their social networks.  This is because successful social media websites require daily attention and are extremely time consuming and labor intensive. In general, employees who are hired for these jobs have strong backgrounds in social media and technology but frequently possess little expertise in the industry that they are working in. Because social media is so new, many hiring managers believe that the social media and technology skills of these managers are more important than an understanding of the industry that they work in. However, while this practice may be acceptable in other industries, it won’t be the case for the social media managers who oversee pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical devices and diagnostics social media websites. These managers will likely be required to have a firm understanding of current rules and regulations guiding drug development and marketing and advertising of approved life sciences products. This will be necessary if the drug makers who hire these managers want to steer clear of regulatory scrutiny by the US Food and Drug Administration and other regulatory agencies.

Based on my experiences as an industrial scientist and more recently as a social media manager, a person with a PhD degree with at least one course in regulatory affairs, good oral and written communication skills and an interest in social media ought to be an ideal candidate for these positions. To that end, those of you who may be interested in this newly, emerging career path option ought to begin training as soon as possible—these jobs will be in high demand at life sciences companies, medical communications agencies and conference organizers in the next year or so!

Until next time....

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting!!!!!!!!!!!!

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When Rupert Murdoch, the owner of New Corporation (Fox News), bought MySpace for $580 million in 2005 it was viewed by many as one of his savviest acquisitions ever. At that time, MySpace was arguably the most successful social networking site on the Web and its financial future was extremely bright. Shortly after the acquisition, a young, upstart college social networking site called Facebook began operations without much fanfare. Back in 2005, MySpace had 14 million monthly users and Facebook was still raising capital. Now, MySpace has 126 million users whereas Facebook’s user base has grown to over 200 million. Facebook continues to expand while MySpace’s growth appears to be stagnant. This led to the dismissal last week of one of MySpace’s co-founders and the appointment of a former Facebook executive as CEO.

Since 2005, MySpace has generated about $1.6 billion in revenues and earned 200 million last year alone. However, it is important to note that a major portion of its operating capital comes from $900 million that Google guarantees every year. That agreement comes up for renewal next year and the likelihood of Google agreeing to the original terms is questionable. This is probably why Murdoch is shaking things up at MySpace. While it is likely that Google will attempt to renegotiate the terms of the original agreement, I seriously doubt that it will severe all financial ties with MySpace. That would be a bad business decision and Google doesn’t make many of those!

While many social networking pundits attribute Facebook’s ongoing success to its connectivity rather than its content, I still contend that “content is king” and social networking sites built around user-generated content are great investment opportunities. After all, status updates, pithy wall comments and photo tagging tend to “get old” quickly after a few months.

While the possible loss of Google’s annual cash infusion will hurt MySpace, I don’t think that MySpace is on its “deathbed” yet and rumors of its demise are premature. The social networking universe is vast and niche networks—not large unfocused ones—will ultimately prosper because of targeted advertising and other business opportunities. That said, I believe there will always be a place for MySpace in the social networking world.

Until next time...

Good Luck and Good Networking!!!!!!!!!! 

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I was reading Karen Ventii’s Science to Life blog today and she “turned me on” to a couple of new web-based tools that I think might be useful to people who work in the biosciences. I added Karen’s recommendations to a list that I was building and decided that it had reached enough of a critical mass to share it with you.

The first of these new tools is called graduatejunction.com, a research community primarily aimed at graduate students and postdoctoral fellows. According to its founders—a team of UK graduate students at Durham and Oxford universities—the intent of graduatejunction.com is build a community of graduate students and postdoctoral fellows so that members can stay abreast of research activities within in the community and to connect with other community members who share common research interests. Not a bad idea, considering that many graduate students and postdocs frequently operate in intentional mentor-induced research vacuums.

The second is called labmeeting.com. It is a novel, web-based tool that helps researchers organize (and search) personal PDF collections, share laboratory protocols, Powerpoint presentations and other scientific data with their lab mates. The software was created by graduate students at Stanford University and it aims to organize laboratory research so that it can be conducted more efficiently and at a faster pace (time is money after all). I think that this concept has legs and might be a big winner downstream (although security will be of paramount importance).

Another new tool that warrants praise is biomedexperts.com that was created by Collexis, Inc. In my opinion, biomedexperts.com is the “mother of all” publication search tools and literature management systems. Billed as the first literature-based social network, it allows users to quickly perform personalized literature searches (based on authorship and research interests) and then identify potential collaborators or competitors who have published in the same research areas. Unfortunately, while biomedexperts.com is a “monster” web-based, literature search application, the communication and interactivity between community members is extremely limited and almost non-existent.

Finally, for those of you who are tired of using PubMed’s arcane Boolean search algorithm to find relevant publications, you might consider trying a new free search engine (semanticmedline.com) that allows users to search MEDLINE using phrases or “conventional sentences." Cognition Technologies, creator of the site, says its “semantic natural language processing technology "incorporates word and phrase knowledge to comprehend the meaning and nuances of the English language." Although early reviews suggest that semanticmedline.com might not powerful enough for doing comprehensive science literature searches, it may be useful in situations when you are working on a time-sensitive project or you need to quickly find an article for this afternoon’s journal club meeting (that you failed  to enter into your blackberry or iPhone).

Check them out—they are all pretty cool (for scientists anyway-not that there is anything wrong with that)!

Until next time

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting!!!!!!!!

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Kevin’s selections this month contains a wide variety of sites ranging from an Australian museum guide, to wildlife parks in Tasmania and online information-sharing and management capabilities.  If leeches are your thing check out this site and if you are a dragonfly aficionado this site will do the trick. An interesting site called the Fallacy Files provides insight into fallacies or so-called mistakes in reasoning.

As a sometimes medical writer, the site that piqued my interest was www.connotea.org— an online reference and information sharing-service.  The site provides you with easy and ready access to references, data and other information stored in your account on the site.  Kevin really likes this site and says “Connotea scores big time with this valuable tool for scientists.”  Check it out….

Until next time….

Good Luck and Good Web Surfing

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The web is filled with wonderful and interesting sites that are useful to many scientists.  Unfortunately, most of us don't have the time to surf around the web to find them!  Luckily, Kevin Ahern has the time (or more likely has found the time) to do what most of us can't. To that end, I created a new category on BioJobBlog called Around the Web to post the results of Kevin's hard and much appreciated work.

Each month, I will provide a link to Kevin's "Best of the Web" report that he creates for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology News and provide my own commentary on the sites that he showcased that I found most useful or interesting.

Until next time....

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting!!!!!!!!!!!

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