IBM Business Analytics and Optimization Roadshow

On Tuesday I attended the IBM Business Analytics & Optimization Roadshow in Conshohocken presented by Micro Strategies.

Opening the event was Dr. Martin Fleming, Chief Economist and Vice President, Business Performance Services.

He spoke about transformation in a global economy and identified five periods in our history and how each has three distinct phases: install, crisis, and maturity. The periods were marked by the Industrial Revolution, Steam and Rail, Steel and Electric, Oil and Automobile, and Information and Telecommunications.

He further noted that the credit crisis was the crisis for the Information period and once we move out of the crisis we will see the space mature.

Dr. Fleming then addressed various global regions stating that Asian economies are on a path to stronger growth, while the Euro zone has had six straight quarters of contraction going into 7th with 50% plus youth unemployment.

For the US, he noted that the debt levels are coming down, consumers continue to spend despite the tax increase, but business remains more conservative.

He concluded by saying we fixed the short and medium finance issues, and we are now poised to take advantage of connecting digital with physical in moving ahead the economy.

We are also seeing as the economy recovers, the replacement of old infrastructure with new infrastructure that incorporates sensors and technology unlike the old. During the Q & A he explained that this integration is what will make the world a “smarter planet”.

This tie-in made sense, but I wish he would have noted it from the beginning.

Scott Sampson, Director, Information Management, then presented, “Harness the Power of Big Data”.

He began by noting that information management is software and then explained  ”Smarter Planet” as being IBM’s strategy/approach to business.

He stated that we are living in a world where empowered consumers have great expectations. It is a hyper-connected world. We are seeing increased complexity, the emergence of big data analytics, and everyone is being forced to do more with less.

An IBM CEO study indicated that technology was 6th most concerning issue in 2004, but rose to the top spot in the latest survey from 2012.

He also stated that data rates will grow 40% year to year, while operational expenses are getting squeezed, and capital has remained steady.

Sampson then delved into the questions, “What is big data?” and “How do I deal with this in an economical manner and gain insight?”

“Trying to do everything in one solution doesn’t work well”, he said using the example of a houseboat being neither a great house or boat.

An MIT study shows organizations that see analytics as a competitive advantage is growing rapidly.

There are four core types of data: transactional and application data; machine data; social data; and enterprise content.

Why is big data tough?

1. There are low numbers of data scientists,
2. Complexity of solutions (economy of getting it done)
3. Big data underpinned by data integration

Must have a solid business case to engage a big data project.

How does IBM look at data:

• Volume, amount OD data and users
• Velocity, data in motion
• Variety, structured, unstructured, text, multimedia
• Veracity, data in doubt, is data credible

Big data platform

• Open source leveraged and extended
• Integrate back end data
• Platform has to grow
• Industry standards emerging

Don’t think of a big data platform as a single product, but instead a set of capabilities

Analytics is mostly reactive (looking back) 80% vs. predictive 20% (looking forward). Most don’t begin looking forward until they have mastered looking back.

Scott Parker, WW Business Solutions Consultant, presented “Binoculars into Big Data”.

IBM purchased the search engine Vivisimo in 2012 and renamed it Infosphere Data Explorer. Early on I had used Vivisimo very regularly and really liked the way it grouped search results, so hearing it was a part of IBM’s solutions intrigued me.

Parker noted that there were typically three main discussions when engaging a Big Data project: Business discussion, Technical discussion, and another Business discussion where goal is to quantify a solution.

Getting started is all about visibility, you want to see what you have, to gain insight.

He went on to identify 5 key use cases:

• Big data exploration
• Enhanced 360 view
• Security/intelligence extension
• Operations analysis
• Data warehouse augmentation

He emphasized the need to take a phased approach. You want to start by first understanding your data and then leverage it.

Infosphere Data Explorer indexes data like the search engine it is. Security, scalability and relevancy are key attributes of the product.

You also have to consider navigation and discovery, what you have and how you get to it.

Some examples of data types within the enterprise you can connect to:

• Relational data
• File systems
• Content management
• Email
• PLM
• Supply chain
• ERP
• RSS feeds
• Cloud
• Custom sources

The solution also has social features to allow users to like, tag, and share. While this may not on the surface seem important, consider the massive task of meta-tagging all of your corporate data and content. Now consider each time any employee interacts with a piece of content, image asset, data, etc., they can add context and assign value, which will be indexed and used in future search results.

The 360 view is basically a CRM giving info about customer interactions.

The search function is fed by text relationships and meta data to increase relevancy.

It’s about getting the right info in front of end user regardless of where your data and content is stored, instead of trying to move all of your data and content into one centralized location in order to then search it.

The solutions can act as an Intranet or customer portal because of the use of  rights management.

How do you pull all this data together? You have to be ubiquitous, because your end users don’t want to be logging in and out of different systems, so the single portal needs connectors to all of the different sources.

A pre-configured Connector library includes SAP, Share Point, email, and many other enterprise standards.

A users portal, or dashboard, knows the user by role/position, so it is configured based on that, plus it knows your activity history, so it also leverages that to put the most relevant analytics and content front and center.

Identify challenges and get insights into hands of people who can make them actionable (sales, service, marketing).

Discover and navigate then analyze and visualize.

Sahil Kedar, Technical Consultant, presented, “Find the Future in Hidden Data”.

Kedar began by noting that analytics provides $10.66 return on each dollar spent.

75 years ago it was easy to know your customer, think corner market, hyper-local, face-to-face interactions on a regular and consistent basis.

Today you have to determine which customers are likely to leave or cost you money?

He spoke of the need to examine customers networks and connections to determine related customers, because you want to ensure everyone in network remains a customer and hopefully an advocate of your product/service/company.

Location based data is next big thing, he stated, and then noted it has been the next big thing for several years, so he is really hoping it happens soon.

He then addressed the custom IBM PureData Platform and provided a more technical explanation of how the box works.

My last note from his presentation was the fact that data is not disposable, it may not yield result today, but it could tomorrow. We have the storage capacity, processing speeds, and search capabilities to handle large volumes of data, so there is no need to discard any of it.

Conclusion

While this was clearly an opportunity for IBM to showcase their solutions around Big Data and Analytics, there are many providers out there.

Having said that, I am very interested in learning more about the InfoSphere Data Explorer and how we might be able to leverage it within our company.

My next step is to reach out to internal stakeholders and begin having discussions around painpoints and unmet needs. With that we can begin to see how these solutions could be employed and then clearly, do we have resource,  budget, and approval, to implement.

Managing a Global Online Presence by Lionbridge

On Monday I watched a webinar sponsored by Lionbridge titled, “Managing a Global Online Presence.”

The moderator, Kathleen Bernstein, Marketing Services, Lionbridge Life Sciences, is a business acquaintance, from my days with HMC Council and MMA and hers as founding partner and president of Seidler Bernstein, a healthcare marketing communications firm focused on medical device and diagnostic markets.

Joining Kathleen, were Kristina Isakovich, Founder and CEO of Strategic Choices and Ray Goforth, Global Digital Strategy Manager, St. Jude Medical.

Isakovich opened by discussing the fact that medical device is growing at nearly twice the rate of pharma and that the US market is declining as an overall percentage of revenues. Taken together, you’d better be able to market to non-US markets.

She sited a study that addressed the challenges faced by medical device companies related to online marketing and six were consistent for the industry: infrastructure, localization, content management, ROI, legal, and Social/Mobile/SEO.

She then spoke to each (in summary, my words):

Infrastructure: acquisition and legacy issues left many companies with multiple sites in the same language. I know for my company we had 3 US sites with different URL’s, plus one in Canada, Brazil, and Latin America all hosted separately.

Localization: degree of localization is left to the local business. For me, I’ve seen that the US marketing team is best resource equipped and as a result we make English language content available to the other markets, but they have to decide which content works for them and have it translated. Often their resources are very limited, so even with the US materials, they can’t be as robust as they want to be in their marketing.

Content management: typically created in English and then local determines what gets translated, therefore English sites have better content. This is very similar to the above comment in my experience.

ROI: digital is getting more money and an ever increasing cut of marketing money, but performance is not being checked locally. Key takeaway, the better you measure and show positive results, the more dollars you will be able to get allocated.

Legal: rules vary by company and by country, which impacts local. And, legal will say no until marketing can demonstrate no additional risk to the company for doing it. Again, from my experience I’ve seen this to very much be the case.

Social, Mobile, and SEO: all the conversations you want to have online are already taking place between customer and service/sales. For me, this combo was a bit of a stretch as they are distinct entities. You could argue that SEO is boosted by an active social program and that social is often accessed by consumers via mobile, but still a stretch from my perspective to group these.

She continued that every company in the medical device sector is making an effort to improve online in each of the six areas outlined, and that no one has it figured out, but when someone does, industry will move very fast and device will catch up to other industries.

Goforth emphasized measuring across all geographies and to ensure consistency in local regions through branding.

She spoke to her online strategy which placed an emphasis on translation, search engine marketing, KPI based reporting to measure engagement, optimizing sites for mobile, and having robust metrics to understand user navigation and top content. I absolutely agree with all of those areas of emphasis.

Goforth then noted that in the future they are looking at social, apps, and optimized reporting that includes ROI.

Bernstein ended the program addressing the question “how can you move forward?” She answered her own question by noting the need to align objectives and dollars. She also stated that you have to invest in what matters most.

She also reminded everyone that expectations are set by consumer websites, not other device sites. Take the time to understand how customers respond to your site, fix pain points and show that you are being responsive, this will significantly improve the customer experience.

Finally, she acknowledged that medical device is way behind consumer, so don’t strive to be where the others are, you need to leapfrog ahead.

For me, I thought it was a good webinar that mostly validated the initiatives and direction we’ve chosen to take.

EXL Digital Marketing for Medical Devices – What I Forgot to Say!

I noted at the beginning of my presentation, that I was going to intentionally violate all presentation tips I’d learned, because I was attempting to consolidate the last year and a half of my professional life into a 25 minute presentation (posts on that coming soon).

Well, I went over-time, because I went off-script, and after returning home from San Diego, I realized that I had failed to include something I feel is hugely critical – benchmarking.

I talked about analytics and universal KPI’s, but I completely failed to plan to discuss benchmarking.

For all the effort you put into a new site, you still need to demonstrate that it is an improvement. To accomplish this, you need to benchmark.

I am using two sets of data to benchmark, the first is our exit survey. The exit survey is basic by design as it is intended to quickly capture overall impression, top task, whether or not the task was accomplished, and if not why.

Obviously, we want the user to have a good experience. We also want to know what the user came to the site to do (as opposed to what we wanted him/her to do). We get this information by adding an exit survey to the site. These are opt-in and the intent is to ask permission prior to use to avoid having only very negative or positive results based on the session experience.

We will simply compare the satisfaction rate along with the top tasks percentage to both measure the success of the new site and to modify it.

The second set of data is what I’ve captured over the past two years from Google Analytics. We begin with all unique visitors, then filter out non-US and traffic from our own networks. The next sort removes anyone whose visit included pages regarding repair or reprocessing as these are deemed to be existing customers.

We then want to see those pre-sale site users who are engaged in the site copy. We measure this by looking at those who returned to the site within 90 days, visit 3 or more pages, and spend more than 3 minutes on the site. The next segment is those who visited a contact us page and finally those who submit a form (as we can’t currently determine how many users make a call to sales or service).

Since one of the goals of our site was to prepare the prospect for the conversation with sales, we can now sort traffic by pre-sale vs. post-sale and determine where in the funnel the site users are at.

We are also interested in where the site traffic is coming from. Were they specifically looking for Olympus or an Olympus product? Or were they looking for some type of device or product and found Olympus.

We accomplish this not by looking at organic traffic, but instead looking at direct traffic plus those from organic who used branded terms such as Olympus or product names. These users were Seeking. The Found traffic were those searching a generic product term, such as bronchoscope and came to the Olympus site.

We also look at Referrals (those who arrived via links from other sites and Campaign traffic, users we drove to the site. By doing this we have four main groups of site visitors and can assess our SEO vs. Campaign vs. Brand Awareness and allocate dollars and resources accordingly.

Finally, while I can’t compare, I will definitely report on the volume of calls originating from a site visit to repair, service, and sales. For repair and service, we will work with them to determine how we can better help users self-service (and thereby not need to call) and for sales we will report on sales and opportunity.

Demonstrating the value of your new website is critical to ensuring it is regularly maintained and a great way to make the site both Urgent and Important to everyone else in the business!

EXL Digital Marketing for Medical Devices – the Sessions, part II

Day two’s first presentation was “Branded Digital Content: Leveraging Webinars to Drive Customer Traffic to Your Microsite” by Anne Bonelli, Gambro Inc.

Bonelli presented with Lisa (missed her last name) of Ubiquity in a Q &A interview style.

Noted the role of research is to drive decisions that help find new ways to identify and reach the decision-maker.

They created a microsite because the product was used in a complex therapy and they needed nephrologists to understand the therapy in order for them to use the device. The goal of the microsite was purely to raise awareness and they understood that the competition could benefit from it.

Webinars became the key to the site, but they found that the media plan was a significant challenge, because they were reliant on scheduling time with doctors and they work in a very fluid environment.

Noted that video length is a real challenge. The original videos were twenty minutes, but based on data, they are trying to bring it down to five and they are considering interview format as opposed to a single talking head.

Since it is a global site, the question of where it was most being accessed was asked and the answer was US and Asia as biggest users of the site, with China showing a particular craving for education.

Day 2, Panel Session featuring Bradley Klos, Philips Healthcare, Thomas Panchak, Johnson & Johnson, and Cita Walsh, formerly of DJO Global, “Effectively Navigating Social Media in a Regulated Environment.”

Again, I didn’t note comments chronologically, but by presenter so I’ll summarize what I found of interest from each.

Klos stated that until the Phillips purchase of his company, his experience was mostly start-up and he found the shift to enterprise to be very different. When conducting social you have to consider who is the campaign for? In his case it was the physician. Given this, you have to look at the mediums and know your audience to be certain you are focused on the right sites.

Panchak spoke about how they managed the social campaign and explained that they developed a special team within customer service specific to social media. They also are sure to provide the service team and legal with their media calendar so they know what is going to be distributed, when, giving them time to prepare and know when to ramp up monitoring.

Some of Panchak’s additional advice came in the way of questions, what can each tool do to move the customer through the funner and what can each channel do best. He also encouraged everyone to have a plan and develop an annual calendar.

Walsh addressed FDA and the fact that we have draft guidance from them with the final to be delivered in 2014. She encouraged using common sense and to follow processes that already exist.

She provided some sources of examples of campaigns in healthcare, many of which were pharma focused from doseofdigital.com.

Following the morning networking and refreshment break, Jeff Gaus, Prolifiq Software presented and while I didn’t jot the title down, I think there was a disconnect between the agenda title and presentation, one of which was “Applefication: How the iPhone, iPad, and App Store Affect the Enterprise” when I recall his slides being more along “Appification”.

At any rate, he spoke to the direction of digital and it being very app based. He talked about the core essence of apps being single function, coupled with easy navigation, cost, and compliance.

The pre-lunch presentation was by Gail McDaniel, Cook Medical, “The Web Ecosystem: Developing Digital Content to Nurture Your Push/Pull Marketing Strategy.”

McDaniel began explaining that her comments were directed at a new site that is four years in the making, but not yet launched. She talked about online being an eco-system that requires nurturing similar to a garden.

She also addressed the critical need to have a content strategy and to challenge yourself to find ways to repurpose the web content you[ve already created.

My case study, “How to Introduce Your Digital Strategy by Alinging the Enterprise Around a New Website”,  was presented after lunch and I’ll expand on that in future posts.

The closing case study was “Becton Dickinson’s Strategy to Developing a Global Customer-Facing Platform” by James Walker.

I have to admit after having just presented I really focused in on listening to Walker’s presentation and didn’t take as many notes. Having said that the platform was a diabetes patient site. Walker made the critical point that they were making needles, but were able to deliver something people needed.

The case was specific to the Canadian market.

From here on out, thanks to @drumbeat for refreshing my memory!

What they understood was that the diabetes care network was huge, much larger than the actual number of diabetics.

Utilized a pilot program using Abobe Connect for virtual sales calls as the research indicated that eye contact and face to face interaction was significant, but it didn’t have to be an in-person interaction.

Thanks to all who made presentations, while my notes were based on what is currently of interest to me, there was a lot of good information and even in only  a few days back at the office I’ve referenced several presentations to co-workers.

EXL Digital Marketing for Medical Devices – the Sessions

Having completed the post on the first key to success – the attendees, I wanted to follow-up with one or two on the sessions.

You can view the official agenda here.

I heard good things about the pre-sessions on Monday, but did not attend, so I won’t be able to comment on them.

Day 1, Program Introduction, Asher Cameron, Infuse Medical provided a good overview of digital marketing and its impact on Medical Device Marketing.

Day 1, Jeremy Curtis, Zimmer Dental, presented the opening keynote, “Effectively and Efficiently Combining Multiple Marketing Strategies in a Digital Format”.

Curtis addressed his top responsibilities as People Management, Provide Vision and Growth, Generate Revenue Today, and Build and Protect the Brand. He then spoke to how digital can be used to meet each responsibility.

Day 1, Panel Session, Philip Freed, MAQUET, Michael Lamberson, Johnson & Johnson, Scott Klein, Medtronic, Michael Farrington, Carefusion, “Creating Interconnected Multi-Channel Digital Marketing Campaign to Aid Sales Force Efforts.”

In this session, as the other panels, I made notes per presenter, not necessarily in sequential order.

Freed made a strong statement, as he did later in his presentation, that his customer is 100% the sales force. He does not believe that he should be marketing to the sales team’s customer, but to the sales team itself. In support of this he noted that the tools he develops and marketing is for his customer (sales) not the end user.

Lamberson spoke to the value of feedback loops, that sales force automation when done, must be done right. He advocated not to allow technology to distract sales, but instead support it, and he spoke about the need to develop e-details around patient personas, because HCP’s think in these terms.

Klein, noted that as you engage digital outreach, email is the natural first channel, typically in the form of a blast and that you need to evolve to the emarketing campaign. He also addressed the importance of content management when it comes to the iPad.

Farrington addressed the need to focus on fundamentals in digital, they do not change from traditional marketing, personas, content strategy, and KOL/influencers are critical. He mentioned some new tools being used to help identify influencers. Noted you must align sales and marketing as to the expectation of the output from the tools you are implementing.

Following the first break, Bill Drummy, Heartbeat West, presented, “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad Mobile World.” (Drummy also live Tweeted the majority of the event,    @drumbeat).

Drummy’s session was all about thinking big, not incrementally. While most of us in industry need to ensure our digital foundation is solid, we can’t lose sight of what is happening in digital and Drummy did a great job of speaking to it.

He not only spoke to thinking big, but he addressed the quantified self and quantified offspring. He noted the day’s announcement that Jawbone acquired Bodymedia and the significance of this acquisition along with some other recent ones.

He delved into apps, specifically ones that help us understand ourselves better (quantified), become mindful of ourselves, and change our behavior as a result.

Drummy spoke about the app as medical device and what that could mean to business as we know it.

Day 1, Kathi Mishek, 3M Healthcare, presented, “Leveraging Global Market Access Using Digital Technology.”  Mishek spoke more to healthcare than medical device and her message was focused on the fact that mobile allows messaging to by-pass infrastructure deficiencies in 3rd world countries. Some of the successful strategies she addressed included conducting a summit, where they brought people in, made it an online event for those unable to attend, and had translated content available to repuprose the event.

Another strategy was conducting a traditional emarketing campaign for a new product, but doing it in a way that local countries could customize specific for their audience.

The third she addressed was a campaign in South America, which utilized an online game with a chance to win a trip.

When asked (by me) how she measured success, she noted the use of measuring engagement, micro-conversions, and considering if users were moving through the sales cycle.

Day 1, post lunch panel, featuring Jon Hyman, MD, and Line Berg Ostergaard, Zimmer, “Supporting Patients Through Digital Channels to Educate, Build Satisfaction and Loyalty.”

Hyman noted that if industry wants to reach out to patients they need to partner with the medical community otherwise there will be so many splintered patient sites they will confuse or not be found by the patients they intend to serve.

Ostergaard emphasized that her feedback from physicians is that they want tools they can provide to help patients.

Day 1, Asher Cameron, Infuse Medical, “The Next Generation of Mobile Application Development.”

Cameron opened with a very simple, yet important statement for all of us to keep in mind: the end user, not the maker, determines if an app is a good one.

He also noted that an app isn’t always the way to go, you need to focus first on the objective and then determine the best way to meet it.

He walked through the various types of apps to consider and gave a brief overview of the back-end options available in today’s app world.

Day 1, Philip Freed, MAQUET Medical Systems, “Enhancing Digital ROI Through Your Overall Marketing Strategy.”

Freed opened by summarizing the state of the industry including on-going layoffs by many companies coupled with changes known and unknown mandated by government.

He re-emphasized his panel point that the customer is sales, and sales only.

Freed explained how he and his team interacted with sales, how they formed a group of sales people who they regularly addressed needs with, and the fact that when surveyed, the sales force spent 60% of their time on internal processes (expenses, training, etc.) and 20% of their time with an actual customer. From that fact they began work on creating tools to reduce internal process time.

He noted he is not yet a fan of social for the device market and also that clinicians love QR codes.

I had a chance to speak with Freed during the reception and was able to get his opinion on a few items from his presentation, but didn’t get to ask about the QR codes. My experience has not seen much use of these, so I was wondering if this was his experience or research he came across.

Day 1, Scott Klein, Medtronic, “Advancing Digital Strategies for New Product Launches.”

Klein made the final presentation on day 1 and spoke to the goal of an all-digital launch, what it means, and if it is possible.

His key points were made in two questions that everyone should ask themself, 1) What can you visually demonstrate, and 2) does digital add more value?

He walked through his own attempt at an all-digital and noted they did need some print collateral, because sales was so historically oriented to the leave-behind that they did create a postcard, which referenced online presence.

They also created a game based app for sales, pre-launch, as a way to play on their competitive nature and learn the product.

Klein’s session ended day 1. You can learn what others took to be key takeaways by reviewing twitter at #digdevices

EXL Digital Marketing for Medical Devices – the Attendees

This week I participated in EXL’s Digital Marketing for Medical Devices in San Diego. This was the second year for the event and overall I had a great experience and wanted to make a few posts explaining.

Prior to working for Olympus, I spent nearly 10 years in association management working with pharmaceutical marketers. One key aspect was conducting programs, events, and conferences. Given that, I have a great appreciation for what it takes to hold a successful event.

One of the keys is very hard to control, the attendees. I’d guestimate there were between 100 and 125 people in attendance on the two main days of the conference (I did not attend the pre-session on Monday, but heard very good things about it).

The attendees at this event were very open and approachable. I didn’t get the sense that there were any cliques of previously connected people being unapproachable, and I didn’t see people standing alone in isolation trying to find a place to fit in, everyone was very open and engaging.

While I didn’t meet everyone at the event, I felt like I met a good number of them.

The audience was a mix of those from medical device companies (majority of attendees, probably around 70%) as well as service providers, some of whom were also exhibiting. One exhibiting company I’ve done business with and another I’ve had meetings and demoed their product.

When I arrived for registration and breakfast on Day 1, I quickly found myself engaged in conversation and immediately got a good feel for the people. My first conversation was with colleagues from Becton Dickinson and NuBlue over bagels and coffee. We got to talking about the agenda, the challenges of the enterprise, and a little Drupal as NuBlue was using it as well. The hour flew by and we were ready for the opening session.

I’ll address content in follow-up posts, but I will say that a few people were live tweeting throughout using #digdevices. From past experience, I know I do a better job taking notes (I use Evernote) and blogging post-event, as I typically miss key points when I live tweet.

I did keep the twitter stream open on my tablet and followed people who were live tweeting so I could immediately connect with them. @drumbeat, @Cita_Walsh, @jimmyw8 all kept active and each also presented during the conference, so good people in my book to connect with.

At lunch I met several people including one whose company appeared to be well-suited to be considered for an upcoming project, so we plan to have a deeper discovery call next week with some additional team members.

At the end of day 1 there was a networking reception. Again, I had an opportunity to meet with more people, including a few of the speakers who had made comments I was interesting in learning more about. One of those was from Medtronic and another from MAQUET. Both gentlemen were very open and engaging in their conversations and not guarded in any way, I felt I got their genuine opinions and insights, as they got mine.

Following the reception, I didn’t connect with anyone from the conference, but headed to the Field for some Irish Pub food. I enjoyed Shephard’s Pie, cheese chips and a Guiness, and as it turned out, the person next to me was from suburban Philadelphia and attending another conference on the affordable care act, so more good conversation to go with good food in a great atmosphere.

On day two, things picked up where they left off. When I arrived for registration, I already felt like I had a good familiarity with several people I had spoken to the day before. At the first break I took a moment to introduce myself to Simon Curtis the senior program director for the event. I had spoken on the phone with Simon several times, but we hadn’t met before.

We had a good conversation about the event and planned to meet prior to the start of my case study during lunch.

Post lunch, final day, a few people left early, but the audience was still a good size. The final two sessions were case studies, one by me followed by one by James Walker from Becton Dickinson. 

At the close I had a chance to speak with a few people who had questions or follow-up from my presentation, and when getting my bag I ran into James and Bill Drummy and enjoyed a brief conversation with them.

Around the conference I was also able to connect with more than a half-dozen fellow attendees via LinkedIn.

The people at this event were great and while some conferences can feel over-whelming, I liked the size of this group. It could probably grow to up to 200 to 250, but more than that would probably change the level of intimacy. At this event people were very engaged during sessions, able to ask questions throughout, and there weren’t too many people wanting to ask a question who couldn’t due to time limitations.

Audience size and engagement both very good.

The next post or two will feature the content.

Carry-on Fail with United

Yesterday I embarked on a frankly horrendous return trip from a great conference event in San Diego presented by EXL titled Digital Marketing Medical Device West. I presented a case study, listened to another and the event closed 3:00 p.m. PST.

At 5:00 p.m. PST I took a cab from Hard Rock Cafe to the airport. My first flight was from San Diego to San Francisco. It was announced that the flight was full and as it was a small plane, all carry-on bags that were upright would need to be tagged, leave them at the end of the ramp, and pick them up there when the flight was over. No problem.

Then my next flight was from San Francisco to Newark. On this flight it was requested that individuals with rolling bags check them. I was sitting in row 7D, first row behind first class. I was one of the earliest groups to board and therefore was certain I’d be able to stow both bags. Since the airline made the request, however, I complied and checked my bag. I was told it would be available at baggage claim, which I thought was a bit odd since I was taking a United shuttle from Newark to Allentown.

I took my bag check claim and settled in for the overnight flight.

When we arrived, there was no bag on the ramp. I went to my next gate, inquired about my bag and was told it would be on the shuttle. I asked if she was certain because the person mentioned bag claim and I didn’t know where the shuttle picked us up, should I check baggage claim? Again, no it will be on the shuttle.

Two hours later when the shuttle was ready to board I asked the driver if I could look at the bags in the back to see if mine was with them. He said he didn’t have them, he would pick them up after we boarded and I couldn’t get off the shuttle and check, you needed a hard card. I asked which side of the shuttle would afford me a view of the bags he was bringing, he said the left and I sat there.

When we drove to the baggage area he got four bags, none of which were mine. He noted that there were already some bags on the shuttle (so why couldn’t I see those?).

When we arrived in Allentown he unloaded the bags and mine was not there.

I went inside to file a claim, was asked to provide my tag, which I did, and was told she needed to get her manager.

Another person had three bags missing, but apparently had missed a flight, so slightly different situation.

The manager asked me for the claim ticket and I said I gave it to the woman who called him. A few minutes later I see them looking under keyboards, in papers, the garbage in the area she was working. They lost my claim ticket.

Using my boarding pass, they accessed whatever they needed to access and created my claim for lost luggage. I got an email confirming this on the spot at 11:34 a.m.

At 2:20 p.m. I called the number in the email and was informed that they were looking for the luggage.

What’s the big deal? I have my electric razor, toothbrush, cologne, dress shoes, belt, tie, dress pants and blazer I used to present my case study. I had the gifts I bought my girls from my trip to San Diego. Plus, it is a brand new bag I got at the holiday’s from my mother-in-law, and I really like it.

After going through security in San Diego, I had moved the electronics I wouldn’t need on the plane to this bag in order to lighten the load in my backpack, this included the audio recorder used to record my presentation, the remote and laser pointer I brought just in case, several charger cords, and my company laptop.

Why would I do this? I had no intention of this bag being handled by anyone other than me. They were with me the entire time, up until United required and then requested they be stowed.

My frustration is that United doesn’t appear to have a consistent approach. I don’t mind the bag being taken off the ramp into storage and put back on the ramp. I have an issue with it being mixed in with checked baggage and inserted into a logistics system it wasn’t intended to be a part of.

I also have a problem with the employees finding reasons why we couldn’t check on the baggage when there was time and opportunity to do so, simply because it was easier to do nothing and have me complain to a person in Allentown than themselves.

Finally, I’m a bit concerned that they haven’t made any progress locating it in three hours.

I’ll keep you posted on how this goes, but so far, it is a big fail in my eyes for United.

[Update: I Tweeted this post, and United replied asking if I filed a claim]

[Update: I called again at 4:53 and got the stock message that they were trying to locate my bag, I hit 0 until I got a customer service representative. She was able to tell me that the bag was found and was being transported from Newark to Allentown. She knew it was scheduled to arrive in Allentown at 9:35 p.m., but did not know when I would receive it.]

[Update: United tweeted second time asking if we had agreed on a delivery as I mentioned it was apparently found based on call with operator, I replied that no one from United has contact me and that I have now taken Friday off of work hoping to get the bag with my laptop.]

[Update: Despite the email saying United would be in touch with me daily, no one from United except Twitter account has contacted me as of 9:00 am Friday morning]

[Update: Called at 9:15 a.m. Friday, message says they are searching for my bag and will contact me when they have an update.]

[Update: Since I have an appointment two minutes from the airport this morning, I decided to speak to an agent. Last night, the bag was supposed to have been delivered from Newark to Allentown at 9:35 p.m. The agent said there was no confirmation that the bag has arrived in Allentown it's last known whereabouts were New Jersey. I asked for a phone number at Allentown and was told I could not have one. I explained that I will be near the airport and would be happy to pick it up. He said he couldn't do that and that once they know where my bag is located they will update me.]

[Update: Decided to drive to ABE and inquire about my bag, if it left Newark and was heading to ABE, hard to believe it didn't get there even if United had no record of it. I arrived and yes my bag was there. I was told the tag didn't have enough information for them to enter into the system and they apologized for breaking my luggage tag inside of which was my name, email, and cell number. No they never bothered to contact me.]

[Update: When I turned my computer on I found the screen was damaged. There is a line running top to bottom, two-thirds of the way across my screen. Lovely. Per United's Twitter team I'll be filing another complaint, but I'm not expecting much.]