Core Nation Rants

I would like to engage you in a little theater of the mind. Let us imagine that an anonymous donor has bequeathed $10 billion for research into 1 of 3 therapeutic areas. Moreover, this donor orders that the entire grant goes to the disease state that receives the most votes from a nationwide Internet poll. The 3 candidate illnesses are: Obesity Addiction Lung cancer Without ever conducting this poll, I am reasonably certain that the results would be overwhelmingly ...

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Author: Ken Kramer, PhD

Ironically, good communication is not always the strongest suit of those working in the communications industry. Communication is where all trust and relationships begin both in your personal as well as in your professional life. So how is it that “experts” in communication can sometimes be poor communicators? I believe the biggest reason is the inability to listen, which is paramount in our customer relations and service-oriented business. It sounds simple and logical enough, but ...

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Author: Devon Malecki, MD

I am currently reading the book Switch by the Heath brothers. I think it is a brilliant account of what drives us all to make decisions big and small. I am so thankful to the boys for providing an easy and clear explanation for what I have been ranting about with clients for years: everyone makes decisions based on emotions that are somehow steered by logic. Another important point the Heath brothers make ...

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Author: Ken Ribotsky

How often do we underestimate the power of social norms? Let’s face it, just like many animals, humans learn by imitating the behaviors they observe, and they continue this learning process through adulthood. Modeling, if you will, is widely accepted, even by us corporate types. Modeling is one of the pillars of sales training. By watching and imitating others, we learn to act in ways that make us effective at activities such as sales, surgery, ...

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Author: Ken Ribotsky

When I hear public uproar over the price of prescription drugs, my initial urge is to defend the pharmaceutical companies. The average R&D cost for a new molecular entity (NME) to get from bench to bedside is over $800 million* (cue the Dr. Evil music). It does not help that the FDA charges almost $2 million just to submit a new drug application (NDA) for review. Drug discovery is a pricey business and ...

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Author: Ken Kramer, PhD

I’m in the habit of scanning the news throughout the day and bookmarking articles that I don’t have time to read at that moment. Unfortunately, this leads to a bookmarks folder brimming with articles that I may never get to (516 and counting, if you must know). But the long Memorial Day weekend allowed me to make a dent, and I thought I’d share a few of the highlights: NPR recently reported ...

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Author: Jennifer Philburn

Whether it’s for a potential new client or an existing one, we, as an industry, often try to achieve their business objectives with a laundry list of our products and solutions, or our “capabilities.” We have all seen it and most of us (including me) are guilty of doing this from time to time. Then we leave it up to the client to determine whether or not our solutions and functional capabilities line up with ...

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Author: Devon Malecki, MD

So many have written on this topic. I recently read (and highly recommend) a book titled the same, as well as an article in Forbes about the lack of story in PR.  I have to say this is true. We continue to forget that there needs to be a story behind our products, services and brands. In fact, without a story, you do not have a brand. But why do we continue to ...

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Author: Ken Ribotsky

In advertising, we’re all aware that change is constant. We do our best to take notice and move forward. I’ve recently noticed a change in how agencies attempt to leverage their skills and even expand upon their core competencies—without legitimate leverage or the ability to expand. Agencies used to tout their expertise in specific areas like advertising, promotions, medical education and public relations. Nowadays, agencies identify themselves as being communications experts—implying that they have expertise throughout ...

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Author: Jin Li Frick

Imagine that you woke up one morning, turned on your local news and heard the following uttered from the newsreader: “a cure for cancer has been found.” Quickly, you turn up the volume only to hear that the news gets even better. This cure works on all known cancers and only requires that the patient take a single pill, just once. Sounds pretty simple: take your medicine and you regain control of your life. However, no ...

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Author: Ken Kramer, PhD