You would have thought those first days of Covid lockdowns would have been a great time for me to try to catch up on my backlog of posts. But no, here I am during a snow storm warning in Wilmington, NC doing some catchup.
So, Mike Jones sent me this picture in June of 2014, so it had to be at a DIA Annual Convention. This is of dear friend and former co-worker at ICON Clinical Research, Robin Tuck receiving her FOCM membership card. The sheer joy on her face says it all doesn’t it? Clearly this was before I’d been taught how to edit photos by FOCM member Michelle Jacobson. She literally changed reality in front of my face by lightening and changing the contrast of a back lit photo. FOCM will provide 1 year free FOCM membership ($20 dollar value) to the first person who contacts me who will then be sent this photo, lighten it up and return it to me. Upon receipt of improved photo, the membership will be issued.
As I hope is clear from previous posts, networking is essential to improving your ability to make an employment change. Getting referred into a company or an endorsement via an employee submitting your resume, gets your resume a second look. Put yourself in the shoes of the recruiter reviewing resumes.
The information below was submitted to me by Dick Winokur, who I have known for 11 years. We met when he was working for the pharmaceutical company Sanofi-Aventis (now Sanofi). When I first started FOCM Networking and launched the web site he shared some information with me that he relied up on in his career.
WHAT SMART RESUME REVIEWERS LOOK FOR
They keep the job criteria firmly in mind–look for “buzz-words.”
They look for a stated job objective.
They look for the “can-do” candidate.
They read between the lines for the “will do” candidate.
They search for consistent career advancement.
They look for job results versus activities.
They notice how the resume appears.
ASK YOURSELF: IF I HAD TO LOOK THROUGH 200 RESUMES IN THREE HOURS, WHAT WOULD I LOOK FOR?
On December 15, the Global Life Sciences Alliance along with FOCM Networking held its monthly online drug and medical device development industry networking event. This was our year-end event and we didn’t have a speaker, topic or theme.
We kept everyone in one room and went around the room asking people to answer a variety of questions. We asked for each person to share what positive or memorable thing happened in 2021 and what they were looking forward to happening in 2022.
A representative answer was that while some had caught COVID and it was a bad illness, no one had anyone in their families get severely ill or pass away from it. The outlook for 2022 was felt to be somewhat tentative with the global rise of infections due to the Omicron variant. It was noted that the annual January JP Morgan conference will be virtual again due to the rise in cases. (Occurring today, December 22, Pfizer’s oral dose anti-viral pill to treat COVID was approved.)
Michael Young shared that 2021 found him becoming a grandfather with the birth of grandson Oliver Kiesing Miller (pictures below attendee listing). Michael’s hopes for 2022 include completing the first draft of a book he’s writing on “Branding”. He also echoed the feelings of many of us – having the opportunity to see clients, customers and friends in person and a return to in-person conferences. (I think this is the equivalent of a blood transfusion for extroverts).
Ires Alliston shared that she is hosting a Female Expert Coaches Summit May 9 – 11 in Daytona Beach, FL. More information is available here: (https://femceosummit.com/).
Toward the end of the event, two things occurred after some had dropped off:
Dan Weddle sang and played his guitar
Michael Young arrived and showed pictures of his adorable 1st grandson
Please join us next month on January 19
ATTENDEES (bolded names were first time attendees):
Kevin Boos, Rho
Brian Horan, SupplyRx
Wessam Sonbol, Delve Health
Michael W. Young, biomedwoRx: Life Sciences Consulting
Ires Alliston, Business Coach, Consulting & Marketing
Chris Bergey, Humphries Insurance Agency
Nadia Bracken, Medidata
Dan Weddle, AltaSciences
Mike O’Gorman, Life Science Marketplace
Patrick Champoux, SkillPad
Maria Frane, Simbec-Orion
Sara Tylosky, Farmacon Brennan Munley, Rho
Chris Matheus, Global Life Sciences Alliance & FOCM
Denise McNerney, Global Life Sciences Alliance
Joe Buser, Global Life Sciences Alliance
Zulma Varela, Global Life Sciences Alliance
Sally Haller, Global Life Sciences Alliance
Photo Collection
Esteemed Industry ProfessionalsRevered Industry ProfessionalsHeralded clinical research industry professionalsDan Weddle performing an original songDenise, Zulma and Michael concluding the meetingOliver Kiesing Miller, grandson of Michael YoungOliver Kiesing Miller, grandson of Michael Young
So one member of FOCM, Jack Minster, a member in good standing shared with me the fun he has at Halloween in his home town. Here is what he shared with me:
I know all the kids in my neighborhood. However, strangers from other areas bring their kids to my neighborhood on a mission to collect as much candy as they can. I am not kidding. It’s a racket for these people. So I make these little grubbers earn it. I lure them in with real pumpkin jack-o-lanterns I carved, and interesting “scary” decorations. But then I activate a remote control device and a very disturbing very loud animatronic ghoul pops up out of the liriope leaves (from laying to standing). It’s shrieking with eyes blinking. Kids scream staring at it. But the noise from this sets off a sound-activated giant animatronic spider which leaps out immediately after, directly behind them making loud “scree” noises. By now the kids are totally freaked. Then by the door, rising up out of the ground come more, sound-activated even scarier ghouls saying “Welcome to our graveyard, join us…”
Groups of kids run away screaming, they just bolt, whole herds of them running back down my lawn lacking the courage to follow through and knock. Last year a group of tween girls made it through the gauntlet of horror, knocked, and I overheard one say, “I will have nightmares from this for the rest of my life.”
One of the things I thoroughly enjoy about networking is meeting such interesting, fascinating people with different perspectives. This helps us understand and appreciate those differences and helps us re-consider our approach to certain things.
On November 17, the Global Life Sciences Alliance along with FOCM Networking held its monthly online drug and medical device development industry networking event.
Whereas last month we had a featured speaker – Heather Hollick on LinkedIn best practices; this time we just had general discussion and greeting of one another. While there were still a manageable number, I introduced each person and how I know them. There was also discussion and general agreement that when Merck and Pfizer get their oral dose antiviral medicines approved (whether emergency authorization or full approval); the COVID-19 pandemic will become very manageable and the world can return to our new normal; forever impacted but less restricted. (added since the 11/17 meeting – the identification of the Omicron variant may put a slow down on the return; however, early information indicates that while it’s easily transmissible, the symptoms are different and mild, such that as of Nov 30 in South Africa hospital where the doctor found the Omicron variant, no hospitalizations are attributed to it. And now just today, an FDA Advisory panel recommended approval for Merck’s anti-viral pill to treat COVID-19 and reduce hospitalizations.)
We then moved to the evening’s agenda. We had three rooms for people to go to depending on their interests. The three discussion topics were:
Clinical Trial Recruitment and Retention
Innovation and Technology
Networking
Heather Hollick chaired the Networking room. One discussion centered around how sales/business development people use it and consultant/subject matter experts use it to best fill their connection needs. Interestingly, several participants shared that they control their LinkedIn outreach and purposefully limit their contacts to a more easily managed subset (~1000) to maximize the depth of relationships. Several other participants use a more liberal approach and have grown their networks to over 10,000 contacts who then serve as “private wikis” allowing rapid access to large groups of professionals with multi-various experiences.
Please join us next month on December 15 and if you have a Christmas sweater – wear it!
ATTENDEES (bolded names were first time attendees, I think):
Heather Hollick, Rizers, LLC; Author of “Helpful, A guide to life, careers and the art of networking”
Mike Burrows, Burrows Life Science Associates, LLC
Lacey Clements, IMA Clinical Research
Kevin Boos, Rho Valerie Roussin-Paradis, SkillPad Edwin Gershom, Noble Life Sciences
Wessam Sonbol, Delve Health
Michael W. Young, biomedwoRx: Life Sciences Consulting Nicole Yoon, Mediaiplus Ires Alliston, Business Coach, Consulting & Marketing
Lindsey Summers, Green Key Resources
Chris Matheus, Global Life Sciences Alliance & FOCM
Denise McNerney, Global Life Sciences Alliance
Joe Buser, Global Life Sciences Alliance
Brandon Huffman, Global Life Sciences Allianc
Holly Cliffe, Global Life Sciences Alliance
Zulma Varela, Global Life Sciences Alliance
Sally Haller, Global Life Sciences Alliance
November 17 2021 Networking EventNovember Event Flyer
The CNS Summit, a year-round community with an annual in-person Summit was held at the Encore Resort Boston Harbor. It was very well-attended with over nine hundred registered. There was a feeling of pent-up need for networking and reconnecting. It is quite apparent that participants at this meeting are enthusiastic to be attending in person. The joy and happiness of seeing friends, colleagues (past and current) and being able to freely move about and make new connections was palpable. There is such a willingness to hear about what each other is up to, has learned and is doing different since the last time we gathered in person.
Rapid antigen testing was conducted rapidly for Covid-19, and a negative test result (within about 15 minutes) indicated by a wristband provided, allowing access to the Summit. The testing was provided by CNS Summit in partnership with Care Access. The process went off flawlessly, a great testament to the Care Access and CNS Summit staff involved.
There were many exhibitors, patrons and sponsors. To see which companies participated, I recommend you go to the website: https://cnssummit.org/
Digital Biomarkers, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Big Data, Patient Diversity, Real World Data were among many Spotlight topics. As an example, Sharecare and UCB presented real-world data on patients with Myasthenia Gravis. The insights learned, the new endpoints discovered and the capabilities of the smartphone in such trials was impressive.
Below is the expanding list of companies that define themselves as DCT clinical trial service providers. Go to https://www.dtra.org/ Decentralized Trials & Research Alliance to fully appreciate the expansion of companies and organizations in and/or getting into the decentralized research segment of our industry.
Curebase
Circuit Clinical
Medable
Science 37
TrialBee
Thread
CaptureProof
Care Access
Clinical Ink
DataCubed Health
Medocity
Medidata
ShareCare (SmartOmix)
Science 37
SiteRx
If you are interested in the CNS Summit community and the opportunity for interacting within it year round, you can apply at the organization website, which is listed above in paragraph 3.
And on a sad note, Medidata co-founder, Glenn DeVries who attended and presented at the conference passed away November 11 in a private plane crash in New Jersey.
Maybe the title of this should be “the pace of change”. Recently while starting a company with people much younger than me, I felt like I had missed several years of involvement in the world.
With the accelerating pace of technological change, many of us find ourselves behind in keeping up with new software, programs, and technological processes implemented in the workplace.
A critical part of adapting to the digital advancements is learning and training. Implementing various types of training systems, such as written instructions and live video training to accommodate different work styles and preferences may be helpful.
In order to be effective, we need to identify the technological changes that will enable us to attain the goals of our future projects and avoid those that could jeopardize their completion.
How can we adapt to the rapid, sometimes unpredictable digital advancements? How do we prepare ourselves for the new technology processes? How do you know if you indirectly resist the changes and how can you solve that?
The Uncertainty about future or current technologies might have nothing to do with the technology itself, but instead with how we respond to the changes.
I don’t know if kids still read Washington Irving’s story of Rip Van Winkle. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rip_Van_Winkle It’s about a man who fell asleep and woke up 20 years later and it was hard to accept all that had changed. Well, lately, I feel like I’ve been asleep for 10 years and have completely missed some of the digital advances and even the more mundane.
Let’s address the mundane one first, so tonight I stop in at Staples because I’m all out of “business” envelopes – you know the type, the long envelope that if you wanted to mail an 8.5 x 11 inch letter to someone, you’d fold it in thirds-ish and put it in this envelope. So I confidently stride to the aisle labeled Envelopes and begin looking for business envelopes. No such thing to be found. They had boxes of an envelope with the wording Number 10. So I look at the dimensions and it seems that they would work. At check out, to confirm I was buying what I needed, I ask the two 20-30 year olds – one was a manager – at check out, “are these envelopes the same as what I know as “business envelopes”? They, of course, had never heard that term. So I explained that I was looking for what I know as business envelopes, they said, well, yeah it looks like that would fit as this is 9 and a half inches wide.
Now to the digital world – so a client of ours texts us to say he’ll be texting us an image that we’re to take a picture of and save for later use in demo’ing his product at a conference. Those simple 6 words: “take a picture of and save”. So that I know what I’m to do I reply with: “just to confirm – by take a picture of and save – do you mean that I’m to use my iPhone and when I see the image I’m to do that iphone thing where I push a button on the side of the phone and at the same time push the round home button such that it takes a screen shot and then once that’s done I click on the screen shot and select “save to pictures”? He replied, “yes”. So you see what’s happening here? 59 words of explanation are needed for me to understand, interpret and act on his 6 words.
You should pray for my colleagues, this type of thing happens nearly weekly. Quite simple really isn’t it: “take a picture and save it.” *%$”(#*%4”@$(*$*(#@$*(@#)
One of the things I thoroughly enjoy about networking is meeting such interesting people with different perspectives. This helps us understand and appreciate those differences and helps us re-consider our approach to certain things.
On October 20, the Global Life Sciences Alliance along with FOCM Networking held its monthly pharmaceutical/biotech/clinical research/medical device/drug development industry online networking event (that’s a sentence-full). I know I wrote that in last month’s minutes too, so I promise to acronymize/shorten/bitly it next month, maybe to Pharma/Bio/CRO/Med & DrugDev or PBCMD? Is there a broader term one of you readers can suggest?
While people were arriving into the Zoom room, the first arrivers greeted each other and got their headsets, earphones, etc ready and connected. We started with the acknowledgement that October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. The advances in cancer therapies over the past dozen years or so is truly remarkable. With genotyping advances, new drugs are designed/created that work very well. This allows testing to be done prior to drug administration and know ahead of time that certain patients will respond well. So instead of having to enroll 300 cancer patients in a study to get enough with the defect in order to show statistical significance, the study can be done with fewer patients and to show significance and speed up the time to FDA approval.
We then moved to our featured speaker, Heather Hollick, a friend of mine for several years and the author of “Helpful, A Guide to Life, Careers and the Art of Networking”. Heather focused the discussion on best practices for using LinkedIn. It is an invaluable tool for networking. There are 8 ways that LinkedIn is beneficial.
LinkedIn is how you present yourself to the industry. At a minimum it is your online resume.
Enhances introductions – you know so much more about who you’re being introduced to.
Refreshes your memory on who a person is, where you know them from and how long you’ve been connected.
It helps you prepare for meetings – review who will be in the meeting and find items of commonality.
Find companies that are hiring
Provides links to other websites aiding in your research
Keep track of who is in your network.
Engage in groups and discussions with others that you share interest with.
I like to include how I met people, as a demonstration of the power and benefits of networking. I was connected to Heather via Tanyss Mason. I admit I’m having a difficult time remembering how Tanyss and I first became connections. Heather was in the midst of writing the book when we first met over the phone. When the book was released and Heather was in the RTP, NC area at a book premier and signing event we got to meet in person. Heather co-presented at the 2021 DIA Annual meeting (virtual) with me on a Networking workshop. We’ll collaborate again on this session for the DIA 2022 meeting being held in Chicago.
We typically go into several breakout sessions of 3-4 attendees for about 12 minutes each but this time, there was so much good discussion about LinkedIn and maintaining, nurturing and freshening one’s network that we showed our flexibility and kept rolling with the topic of interest.
Please join us next month on November 17.
ATTENDEES (bolded names were first time attendees, I think):
Heather Hollick, Rizers, LLC; Author of “Helpful, A guide to life, careers and the art of networking”
Mike Burrows, Burrows Life Science Associates, LLC Lacey Clements, IMA Clinical Research
Nadia Bracken, Medidata Christine Narro, Medical Device Co.
Lewis Kelly, Gunvatta
Chris Bergey, Humphries Insurance Agency
Michael O’Gorman, Life Science Marketplace
Patrick McCarthy, ValidCare Joe Dustin, Transcelerate Biopharma
Janie St. Pierre, Accellacare Ellen Bedenko, IQVia
Patrick Champoux, SkillPad
Andrew Mulchinski, Symbio Research
Chris Matheus, Global Life Sciences Alliance & FOCM
Denise McNerney, Global Life Sciences Alliance
Joe Buser, Global Life Sciences Alliance
Daryl Oberg, Global Life Sciences Alliance
Brandon Huffman, Global Life Sciences Alliance
Holly Cliffe, Global Life Sciences Alliance
Zulma Varela, Global Life Sciences Alliance
Sally Haller, Global Life Sciences Alliance
I am excited to announce that, Alicia Kelley Schifano, the first graduate of the FOCM College of Entrepreneurism is hitting the big time!! Alicia will be a contestant on a new TV show airing Thursday, October 14th on the USA Network. The show is America’s Big Deal. It was created by Joy Mangano (from the movie Joy) and it will be hosted by Scott Evans from Access Hollywood! It will be a bit like Shark Tank but live and “shoppable” so people can buy the products in real time while watching the show. Alicia will be on the first episode, competing for a retail deal for the Mr. Big Curling Irons! Here is a link to the video promo: https://youtu.be/t3xJYFU8ugc
Please tune in at 9pm, October 14th and watch Alicia shine! And check out the product being offered at a $20 discount at the above link. For any of the FOCM members with long hair, this curling iron is a must in your beauty supplies inventory. https://www.mrbigcurlingirons.com/
I have known Alicia for more than 10 years, having been introduced to her via TommiLynn Baker. At our first meeting we talked for hours. Alicia is energizing to be around; so much energy, passion and enthusiasm.
When I do presentations and/or workshops on networking it’s been pointed out to me that some of the best “aha” moments or learnings that people take away come from the stories that I share. So, the plan is for me to write up these stories in the hopes that they’re helpful or illustrative.
I use fictitious names when I have not asked for or not been given permission to use real names, yet the stories are real.
During the financial crisis of 2008, an acquaintance of mine (I’ll refer to him as John) worked in IT and became laid off. I do not know for certain (no personality test was given) that John’s personality leans toward introversion, but I’d bet $100 that he is. He’d been unemployed for close to 10 months and was complaining about having applied to hundreds of openings, getting rejection letters, hearing nothing or getting some interviews but no job offers. After many interviews and never getting the job, he explained that he was being interviewed by people 10-20 years younger than him that had no where near his experience and talents. Over time he was becoming embittered.
I asked for his resume and said I had connections in several of the local companies in my industry and would be happy to send his resume in to them. His response was something like this: oh the networking approach, well I think that’s cheating. In an idealized world, I see the point, and it would be nice if everyone were unbiasedly judged/evaluated on their resume. But we’ve all seen good and bad resumes, which is one way in which recruiters judge/evaluate candidates. Recruiters and hiring managers use a variety of criteria to evaluate candidates: resume content and layout, experience, personality, references, etc.
Networking is most definitely not cheating; it’s a requirement. I explained to John that networking isn’t cheating – I do not get him the job because I sent his resume to someone I know. Me, sending his resume to someone I know just gets his resume lifted out of the pile and gets it a second or maybe third look. Now the resume carries a reference, an additional factor giving it more credence. Chris Matheus or whoever sent the resume to their friend serves as a background check. Getting the resume lifted out of the pile does not get John the job – it gives him a better shot at getting an interview. He still has to “get” the job, still has to interview (without the embittered chip on his shoulder) and interview well.
Building a network of contacts is a key element in managing your career. It needs to be nurtured, maintained and expanded. Remember networking is a reciprocal endeavor, you must be helpful to those in your network if you are going to ask for their help.
