Thursday, January 31, 2008

Speaker Spotlight: Three Questions with Martin Young, Vice President, Corporate Development, Phase Forward


Martin Young, Vice President, Corporate Development, Phase Forward

What are some of the most exciting developments or trends in the life sciences sector?

The pharmaceutical industry has not yet widely adopted technological innovation to assist in its clinical development activities, and specifically the running of clinical trials. Many of these trials are still paper-based. The opportunity to help these companies adopt a technology that dramatically optimizes the way they do business is very exciting. And of course because we’re talking about the pharmaceutical industry, we’re not just talking about increasing business efficiency – we’re talking about getting safe, effective drugs to the patients who need them as expeditiously but responsibly as possible. It’s exciting being part of a company that is leading this change.

What changes do you believe would draw more businesses to New England?

As one who has spent a number of years living in the Bahamas, bringing that climate to New England should help! Kidding aside, New England already offers a deep, rich pool of highly skilled professionals. But we can always be doing more to increase that pool. The larger the pool of talent, the more businesses will choose to settle here to take advantage of that talent. So anything that helps make the region attractive to skilled professionals and entrepreneurs will help. This could include trying to achieve a more reasonable cost of living and business-friendly tax laws. Certainly too events like “Power, Drugs and Money” play an important role in highlighting the attractiveness of our region to entrepreneurs, and enticing them to locate their businesses here.

In what way is your company reflective of the larger New England economy?

Phase Forward represents the coming together of two markets in which New England has established itself as highly successful: enterprise software and biopharma. Thanks to companies like Lotus – where Phase Forward’s CEO Bob Weiler was a senior executive – New England is known as a hotbed of enterprise software innovation. On the biopharma side, individual companies like Genzyme, Millenium and Biogen Idec, and the region’s healthcare services generally have created a strong biopharma sector. By providing innovative enterprise software to help life sciences companies bring products to market more quickly, Phase Forward embodies the best of both of these New England industry success stories.

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Speaker Spotlight: Three Questions with Mark Bonchek, CEO, SoundBoard Media


Today, we kick off a series of blog posts with individuals who will be speaking at "Power, Drugs and Money." We asked speakers to pick three questions from our list. We hope you'll find the results to be informative.

Mark Bonchek, CEO, SoundBoard Media

What is the single most important piece of professional advice you've received?

The best piece of professional advice I ever received was from my father. He led a successful heart surgery practice for many years, and he always said the secret to getting things done was following Harry Truman's observation, "It's amazing what you can accomplish when you do not care who gets the credit." Surgeons, after all, are not known for their small egos. Many times in my own career I've had to choose between taking the credit and achieving a bigger goal, and I've come to learn the wisdom of my father's words. The accomplishment is ultimately more rewarding than the credit.

Why did you select New England as the headquarters for your business?

Our business is about creatively capturing, packaging and distributing business insight around the world. There is no more educated or intellectually curious region in the world than New England. The educational systems and resources in New England are unmatched anywhere. New Englanders value substance over surface and distinguish the real from the superficial. For a company like ours built on ideas with impact and trustful relationships, there is no better place to base our operations than New England.

What are your plans for going global?

We recently formed SoundBoard Media from the merger of Truman Company, a U.S.-based business that served global companies, and Fifty Lessons, a U.K-based company with a small presence in the U.S. as well as clients and partners in Europe, Asia and Latin America. The merger therefore gave us a global footprint and a more international perspective. The integration has been helped considerably by the move of Fifty Lessons' headquarters to Boston. Our next steps in going global are to expand our distribution network in emerging markets, particularly China and India. Managers and executives in these countries have a keen interest in insight about leadership, management and talent and we are well placed to respond.

Monday, January 28, 2008

Mass High Tech: Join the Innovation Conversation


In this week’s issue of Mass High Tech, I’ve devoted my monthly column to the thinking behind “Power, Drugs and Money,” which will explore innovation in clean energy technology, life sciences and financial services. Some excerpts:

The selection of those three industries is conscious, and critical: They represent the past, present and future greatness of New England innovation. We have arguably been a world-class financial market for decades. More recently, we have evolved into a leading center of life sciences and biotechnology research and development. And the future bodes well for New England to have a substantial role in clean energy and environmental technologies.

But the conversation is not only about innovation in these three industries, but across them as well: New structures to finance energy projects. The changing face and economics of global clinical trials. Monetizing the carbon value chain. Biotechnology's impact on future fuel sources. Microentrepreneurship and new global lending models. Finding new ways to pay for health care delivery. The list goes on...

The vision is to create an environment for our community to gather, to have the conversation en masse and to work together to make 2008 the year when talk turns to action -- action focused on moving New England toward global greatness.

Wednesday, January 9, 2008

Dr. John Kao, Innovation Nation Author, to Kick Off Summit

Just prior to the holidays, we issued our first press release on Dr. John Kao’s selection as the opening keynote speaker for “Power, Drugs and Money.” Dr. Kao, a leading authority on innovation, organizational transformation and digital media, will kick off the event with a presentation on the challenges America faces in recapturing its innovation edge. He is the author of the bestseller, Innovation Nation: How America is Losing Its Innovation Edge, Why it Matters, and What We Can Do to Get It Back.

Dr. Kao commented for the release: “I’ve taught entrepreneurship and innovation in Cambridge for more than a decade, and look forward to sharing my insights on how we can jump-start innovation in the nation and region. New England has long been a hotbed of innovation, and this conference will serve as a springboard for constructive discussions about capitalizing on the creativity here.”

We’re really excited to have Dr. Kao join us. And as an added incentive for you to sign up early, the first 200 conference attendees will get a free copy of Innovation Nation when they check in at the conference! So get registered here.

See you there.