From Peter Hopper, VP, Account Services, Palio

Just awhile ago, L2, a self-described think tank focused on marketing innovation, announced the L2 Digital IQ Index for pharmaceutical brands – its first ever, digital-prowess rankings for our industry.

And more recently we saw Wired take a strong stance on challenging the developers of the world to take notice and pursue open alternatives to social media phenom – and dominating – Facebook, and a groundswell of support gathered quickly. This call-to-action was followed by a NY Times profile of four New York University students who raised $115,000 via “crowdsourced” funding in an eye-blink, 10 times their initial goal, to tackle the decentralized, privacy-sensitive social networking need challenged by Wired.

In June is Untethered 2010: Profitable Media in the Tablet Era, a day-long conference in NYC focused broadly on the near-horizon implications for every consumer, including healthcare consumers, by the new tablet devices. Thank you, iPad.

This is news ripped from the tech headlines, and there are a thousand other examples of digital prophets commanding our attention, interpreting and predicting this brave new world. And that’s the point. Thousands of voices and points of view, a twist on the medium is the message. New digital venues. New analytics. New strategies. New applications. New hardware. New software. New integration schemes. A big, brand new band wagon, every day. Do this, no, do that; try this, no, that was yesterday.

How do you make sense of it all? Well, there’s an app for that. Not really.

Mind boggling

With this brave new world, and the clarity we have come to rely upon of how the pharma digital space is going to be regulated, there comes a cacophony of daily best practices. How quickly we jump on a bandwagon, how flexible we are in our implementations, how we balance these new realities – how smart we are in paying attention to this ever-changing landscape – are the things that will build success. It is indeed mind boggling. The pace and volume of new alternatives requires developing a dedicated set of resources intimate with your business and business goals. It requires being practical in your assessment of the daily shifting digital space. It demands a realistic mindset:  a balanced approach of truly integrated initiatives will produce a better yield. It is not always about being the early adopter, just the smart one.

Remember as a kid, playing on the teeter-totter with a friend, hanging high in the air when your friend decides to bail out and you went crashing to the ground? It’s all about balance.