A Contrast Between Conferences – Venue Versus Environment

By Rob Wright, Chief Editor, Life Science Leader
Follow Me On Twitter @RfwrightLSL

By  Rob Wright

I recently attended two conferences in the same week — The Emerson Global Users Exchange in Nashville and the 2011 AAPS Annual Meeting and Exposition in Washington, DC. Since I attended these two shows back-to-back, the contrast between the shows was clearly evident. AAPS serves merely as a venue for the possibility of networking, while the Emerson Exchange creates and executes a networking environment. Here are some of my observations from both events.

Emerging Market Importance Evident
At AAPS I had the opportunity to meet with nearly 50 vendors, walk the exhibition floor, and stroll through the poster area. Most of the posters were produced by academic institutions, and I noted that most of the students were from emerging market countries. Interestingly, I did not see one person wearing an exhibitor badge perusing the poster area, despite the fact that to view the posters, you had to walk through the exhibit floor first. That’s too bad, because there was a lot to learn — for anyone — in the poster area. For example, I went to one booth where two of my former pharmaceutical colleagues were working. They informed me that the pendulum of outsourcing to emerging markets is now swinging back to the United States. That was surprising to me since what I had observed in the poster area was to the contrary. Furthermore, maybe they missed the recent Novartis announcement about cutting 2,000 jobs — 1,100 in Switzerland and 900 in the United States — and the company’s intent to create some 700 new jobs in India and China. Yes, the United States remains an important market, but emerging market countries are figuring out the regulatory and discovery challenges — and to believe otherwise is naïve.

Do Customers Know Their Vendors?
At AAPS I had a good conversation with George Scott, Ph.D., VP of bioanalytical services with PharmaNet, a CRO; and Oskar Gold, VP international business development and corporate marketing with Vetter, a CMO. They shared some of the trends and challenges they are witnessing, and both see continued growth of outsourcing and strategic partnering. All of the vendors I met with explained how they are striving to better understand their customers’ businesses. However, Gold and Scott noted that their customers, pharmaceutical and biotech companies, could be working harder to understand their side of the business. This is what the Emerson Exchange is all about.

Emerson Executes on Creating A Networking Environment
Emerson (NYSE: EMR) — a $21 billion global manufacturing and technology company — created the Emerson Global User Exchange (EGUE) to better understand and engage its customers. However, EGUE also facilitates the process of giving the vendor’s customers a greater understanding of Emerson. For example, Steve Sonnenberg, EVP and business leader for Emerson Process Management, discussed witnessing the testing of a 14-inch ball valve built for Westinghouse. This particular valve is for nuclear power plant cooling. Sonnenberg conveyed to the 2,800 end users in attendance that if Westinghouse is going to trust them with this critical part, Emerson has to thoroughly understand their customer’s needs.

EGUE has a board of directors for EGUE, the majority of which are customer employees who work to develop content and speakers of interest for customers. Further, Emerson wants to create an environment for networking and the motivation to do so. At this year’s conference they facilitated this by first having Thom Singer (www.thomsinger.com), author and expert in social networking, conduct a presentation on why it is important to take advantage of the networking opportunity offered by the event. This was followed by Mark Scharenbroich, an Emmy Award winner, speaker, and recent author of “Nice Bike” (www.nicebike.com). Afterwards, I had lunch with Scott Larson, an employee of Novaspect. He told me he could not remember laughing and crying so much during one presentation. I learned a lot about Scott over lunch, as I did from all the people I met there. Hey Emerson … networking mission accomplished.