Tomorrow morning (6am flight for some reason), I’m off to the annual SXSW conference in Austin. For those who read this blog and work in healthcare and always have, you might not even know what the conference is. You should. It’s become the premier digital technology, media, and marketing conference in the world over the past few years. While there are film and music tracks to the conference, the biggest part is now the interactive track. So, if you have anything with digital technology (including using a computer), you might look into this conference. CNN actually had a nice article today about why SXSW matters. And for the first time this year, there’s actually a dedicated group of health-related sessions.

That’s one of the reasons I’m going. I’m interested in a few of the health-related sessions, but I’m not going to solely focus my time there. I’ve heard a lot of it already. Instead, I’m going for two big reasons. First, I’m speaking there (that’s slide number 1 at the top of this post). More on that in a minute. Second, I’m always on the lookout for what other industries are doing and what’s up and coming and trying to figure out how pharma and healthcare companies can leverage it. It’s usually years before healthcare companies adopt things that are old hat in other companies. This is especially true when it comes to digital technology and marketing. Looking at what other pharma companies are doing in digital in hopes of learning something will teach you one thing:

Nothing.

I won’t debate the reasons why this is the case (there are quite a lot of them actually). One that I won’t accept is that it’s a highly regulated industry. That’s not a reason to not pay attention to the latest digital technology. Sure, that doesn’t mean to run out and do every new thing that comes along. Some are appropriate and some are not. But what’s the regulatory issue with using HTML5? What’s the legal challenge with mobile applications? Nothing. There is no issue with the technology, but rather how you apply it. If you don’t know what the technology is or how it works, you’ll never understand where the issues are and where they are not. More importantly, you’ll miss a lot of opportunities to provide value to your customers in new and better ways.

Anyways….

Off the soapbox for a minute and let me sum up. Check out this conference and find out what’s new out there (and how to better use that which already exists). If you don’t understand it or understand the application of something, ask someone. If you don’t have a someone, ask me.

Onto the second reason why I’m attending. I’m speaking at SXSW on a topic I’ve called “Your Computer Is the Next Wonder Drug.” Read more about it here. The one sentence summary of my talk goes like this:

In the future, digital technologies, and not blockbuster drugs, will  prevent, treat, and cure the diseases that kill us.

That’s right. Read it again.

My talk is all about how we can better leverage digital technologies (most of which exist today already) to dramatically improve our health. Developing a new drug is a gamble. The FDA approved only 21 new drugs last year. The amount spent on R&D by pharma companies last year?

$60 billion.

Something’s not working.

If you’re a pharma company, what I’m sharing in my talk should make you a little nervous, but it’s not the end of pharma companies. We still need their treatments, but we need to use them better and find new ways to use them. Digital technology can help with that. What this all means for pharma companies is that they may have to start thinking more like a services company and less like a manufacturer. IBM used to sell computers. They don’t anymore. They make all (almost) of their money from services because they weren’t making money selling computers. That day is coming for pharma companies and none of them have started in the direction of IBM, so it’s wide open.

Don’t believe me? Come and check out my presentation or check back here afterwards to hear (and maybe see) it. You can follow any live tweeting from my session via the hashtag #hcinno (as in “healthcare innovation”). It’s 9:30am on Sunday, March 13 at the Hilton Garden Inn Rio room (if you’re coming person). If you’re a reader and attend the session, please come and say hello afterwards.

If you’re interested in following the goings on of the rest of the conference, a number of my colleagues from Possible Worldwide and I will be attending and live blogging about everything we see and hear. There might be a few things to blush at, but we’ll keep it safe for work. Keep up with it all here: http://possiblesxsw.posterous.com.

Looking forward to seeing everyone down in Austin.

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