Tech & The District

I’ve always believed that one of the reasons we don’t do more as a society in terms of international charitable donations is because we feel it’s too difficult or would take too much time.  Following the recent devastation in Haiti, I noticed First Lady Michelle Obama on TV urging Americans to text a message to the American Red Cross and donate $10.

I was surprised by how easy it was. I quickly and easily typed in Haiti, sent and 22 seconds later, had easily donated to the cause.   I was even more surprised to find how many texting addresses actually existed where we could donate money. It has now become the most popular way to donate. Over 2.5 million Americans donated $10 to the Red Cross using this method.

One issue operators are battling with is the distribution of the funds. Since operators cannot provide the money until consumers (such as myself, for example) pay their cell phone bills the money doesn’t go anywhere. Mobile operators are taking necessary precautions though shortening lag time since there is such a dire need for the money now.

I believe this to be a starting point in a long line of technological advances that will make donating easier, no matter what the cause.   As we’ve seen recently with new mobile devices being introduced to the market, expect more functionality to showcase American generosity. While we hope the devastation in Haiti will not be mirrored anywhere else ever again, it’s nice to know we can make a difference instantly with mobile technology.

As the need for relief in Haiti will continue over the coming weeks and months, our clients at the Center for International Disaster Information (CIDI) remind you that donating cash is best.

Maryland Democratic congressional party members and Gov. Martin O’Malley announced this week a plan for Maryland to be chosen for thousands of cyber security jobs funded by the federal government.

More than 24,000 jobs could potentially come to Maryland as the proposed home for a U.S. Cyber Command. The state is already home to the National Security Agency and other defense and intelligence installations; however, California still holds a renowned reputation as the tech capital of the U.S.

Vying to be the “Silicon Valley of cyber security” is just the latest in a string of company announcements and moves from West to East, reflecting Washington’s rising influence in technology and innovation. Last week at CES, Washington Post’s Cecilia Kang reported on the impact Washington guests such as FCC’s Chairman Julius Genachowski had at the show, and on the tech industry in general.

Other moves include Northrup Grumman’s headquarters from Los Angeles to the D.C. area by spring 2010, and in 2009, companies such as Google, McAfee, Intel and Blackboard all saw an increase to their Washington staff.

The show may be titled Consumer Electronics Show, but this year has brought new light to just how far the consumer electronics industry is reaching.

Everyone from Ford to the U.S. Government, to sports commentator James Brown is in attendance with unveilings ranging from new 3-D TVs to mobile sonograms. Here are some of my favorite attendees and announcements, with perhaps some bias towards Qualcomm since we work with the company:

-Since the Recovery Act made the U.S. Government the biggest spender last year, it was only appropriate for CTO Aneesh Chopra to make a celebrity appearance at the show to discuss spectrum and the future of wireless broadband.

-Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs was joined by several guests during his keynote today to talk about the future of FLO TV on iPhones, the future of health care on mobile devices and much more.

-Having just seen Avatar 3-D and looking forward to Shrek 3-D, I was excited to see a lot of movement on 3-D TVs at the show. Hopefully the price point will go down as quickly as flat screens did.

-Although I’m not completely sold on having Twitter in my car, I would love to have Pandora, which Ford says is in the works, along with other in-car apps.

-Of course there was the typical news on new devices… this year’s big question will be if Google’s NexusOne can challenge the iPhone, and perhaps if developers will ever run out of new apps.

In the thick of the action and always with a smile on her face, Kim Hart fills the 3,000-mile void between the innovative minds of Silicon Valley and the policy makers on Capitol Hill with her blog, “Hillicon Valley,” for The Hill newspaper. As we see more tech companies building their presence in D.C., her blog is quickly becoming a must-read. Check out her recent interview with FCC Commissioner Baker on C-SPAN here and click below to hear her thoughts on technology and the Hill as part of our Tech in 5 video series.

A guest post by Steven Immergut, Senior Vice President & Director, Health Information Technology for H&K

A couple of weeks ago the FDA convened a much-anticipated Part 15 Public Hearing on the promotion of drugs and devices over the Internet and via social media.  The last time the Agency met on this topic was 1996. Over the course of two jam-packed days, representatives from advertising & PR agencies, consumer groups, health-related Websites, pharmaceutical companies, trade associations and Internet search engines gave more than 70 presentations of 15 minutes each. With the overwhelming majority of speakers coming from the private sector, the lack of patient and professional groups participating was notable (and pointed out by Diana Zuckerman, president of the National Research Center for Women & Families). PhRMA and AdvaMed presented their takes, as did a small handful of pharma companies (Eli Lilly, Sanofi-Aventis, J&J and Pfizer).

FDA positioned the Hearing as the beginning of a thorough process that will help them arrive at guidelines for industry.  Loads of data were presented about the Internet and social media use for health information. Not much was surprising, though the numbers are indeed staggering.  And there was a good deal of discussion about the need and challenge to regulate content, including adverse event reporting and balancing risk/benefit information.  Following are a few of the major themes that emerged:

• Health information on the Internet continues to explode - and more so now than ever with booming social media utilization. The difference now from years past seems to be a universal consensus to embrace it and make efforts toward transparency and quality of information.
• There’s agreement on the need for a filtering system to distinguish sources that are reliable from those that are not credible, or even irresponsible.
• Historically, lack of clear regulatory guidance has stymied real engagement from the pharmaceutical industry when it comes to discussion of products on the Web. The hot-button is how to handle commentary on third-party sites and what is an acceptable level of accountability for both industry and regulators?
• Active health information consumers actually want the industry to engage more online — only 1 out of 5 is opposed, according to McCann Health.
• Because of the uniqueness of the medium, requirements for “fair balance” between benefit and risk should be modified for the Web, particularly for space-limiting applications like search results, microblogs, etc. The defining of reasonable and realistic will be major issues for debate on the go forward.
• When it comes to social media, FDA guidelines on promotion by industry must ensure absolute transparency, must preserve social media norms and must be flexible for change over time.
• Things to watch out for include the use of FDA logos to validate content, FDA-sanctioned links for adverse event reporting, and enhanced the user-friendliness of the current MedWatch program (not to mention campaigns to increase its awareness and usage in among professionals and consumers).
• Finally, the discussion will eventually come down to resources. How will FDA secure the kind of resources necessary to do its monitoring and reviewing? Will pharma dedicate the resources necessary to effectively comply with the coming guidance?

Internet traffic among patients/caregivers and physicians is increasing so rapidly that the data crunchers indicated they have a hard time keeping up. A couple of data points that did stand out were:

• There were 4.6 billion keyword searches (111 million being unique searches) on health terms during the last 3 months of 2007 (numbers from Google).
• 75% of physicians are online daily (according to WebMD and others) and 60% have smart phones.

The tone on Day 1 was set with PhRMA presenting its written testimony, which proposes that the FDA approve a standard universal warning: “All drugs have risks.  Click here for more information from the manufacturer” - for use “in places throughout the Web where there is not enough room for complete disclosure of all warnings, indications, and contraindications.”  Such a warning would, PhRMA contends, allow companies to take advantage of sponsored links, make full use of Twitter, etc. as promotion vehicles, while also providing easy access to safety information.  PhRMA suggests that the warning incorporate the FDA’s logo, arguing that this could mitigate against “the dangers posed by illegal Internet drug sellers.”

Among the other interesting issues FDA may address is companies’ responsibility for Web content they do not control.  For example, Google’s introduction of Sidewiki, which allows anyone visiting a pharmaceutical company’s website to leave a comment, has brought this issue to the forefront, raising, for example, the prospect of doctors discussing a product’s off-label uses on the manufacturer’s site. If you haven’t seen Sidewiki yet, you can download it easily here: http://www.google.com/sidewiki/intl/en/index.html.

There was universal agreement on the need for some kind of regulation on branded advertising but just what that compliance should look like is up for discussion.  Yahoo suggested display advertising that features scrolling safety info, available in its entirety via a click through (which by some definitions is technically two-clicks away).  Google offered up samples of search ads using non-branded, branded and even suggested standardization language for black-box search sponsored ads. News came out this week that Bayer’s Yaz is piloting a paid search format similar to that proposed by Google for products carrying black-box warnings.

While many of the speakers supported PhRMA’s concept for an ‘FDA seal of approval’ for Web sites, an FDA panelist asked, “How do we decide who gets it and what process do we go through?” That’s a point up for discussion, everyone agreed. The FDA also got suggestions to venture further in social media as an agency, prompting one panelist to note that the “FDA is on Facebook.”  The speaker replied, “Yes, but no one can FRIEND you!”

Several data presentations demonstrated that user-generated content does affect treatment decisions. But there’s “bad” user-generated content out there, and some responsibility still lies with the user - both consumers and health professionals. There will be ongoing debate on what to do about such content if pharma has no editorial control over the site. The common answer is that industry should not be responsible for it if they don’t control it. It will be interesting to see where the future guidelines net out regarding third-party sites that pharma companies sponsor. For some of these sites, companies provide content but don’t necessarily have day-to-day ownership. 

Day 2 centered on potential directions regarding adverse event and safety information. Here are a few of the ideas discussed:

• Prohibit Pharma from promotion on anything other than product Web sites.
• Radical simplification - lots of words isn’t necessarily better.
• Flexibility on due diligence, including reasonable timeframes for reporting.
• Monitoring of all mentions (apparently this IS possible - but is also debated).
• Establish an FDA Task Force and Director of Social Media.
• Allow pharma to post to Wikipedia (many are not allowed now) and include a link to official site and MedWatch.
• Establish an “RxRisk” icon linked to a standard site (product.risk.com) and couple it with a massive education campaign.

The whole meeting came to a close with a presentation by Pfizer’s Senior Vice President & Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Freda Lewis-Hall and her colleague from Worldwide Market Analytics. They cited research on preferences and behaviors around different treatments of safety info on branded sites. Three conclusions: (1) There is interest; people want the information; (2)They want it in simple presentation and a familiar flow; (3) It’s a personal experience - not everyone navigates the same way. PFE will be doing a larger follow up study of some 6,400 patients suffering from high cholesterol and arthritis. They also cited physician data generated via its relationship with Sermo, or “the online doctors lounge.”  This research revealed that doctors are not interested in canned content; they want real-time interactions with medical/science people who can answer their questions in an unbiased manner. And they want to share this info via peer to peer exchange - 24/7 and real time. Ultimately, they want to be in control.

Timing on new guidelines is a bit of a wild card but the general consensus seems to be it won’t be until the first half of 2011 before we see something finalized. The archived Webcast is still available online for viewing and anyone who wishes to comment on the presentations or other internet-specific promotion issues may do so through February 28, 2010.

(Hill & Knowlton works with Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer in the U.S.)

Buffalo Sabres goalie Ryan Miller. Bet he doesn't let much sensitive personal information get by him.

Last week, a catalog of NHL gear arrived in my mailbox.  On the cover was a photo of a Buffalo Sabres jersey, customized with my last name, “Truskey,” embroidered on the back.  That’s interesting, I thought.  I’d never purchased anything from this catalog before.  How did they know I’m a Sabres fan?  The same thing happened at my local grocery store, when coupons showed up on the back of the receipt for items that I buy frequently.  That’s when I started to feel like someone was watching me…and it wasn’t the Geico stack of money.

More now than ever, much of our personal data is up for grabs by marketers willing to pay for it.  We have membership cards for grocery stores, convenience stores and department stores that track our purchases.  We have smart cards and EZ-Pass devices that record which subway turnstile we go through and when, and which exit we take on the Interstate.  Marketers are good at creating profiles of who we are - whether we like it or not.

A House hearing was held yesterday to explore this very topic.  It was a fascinating discussion. While companies like Wal-Mart (who was represented on the panel) take steps to ensure customers understand which privacy regulations are in place, other companies aren’t so straightforward.  A small business representative was also on the panel, and asked that any legislation enacted not be the same for all businesses; Wal-Mart doesn’t have to work to attract customers, but small business do, she argued, and they find this type of data collected on consumers to be very helpful in generating new customers.  And from a consumer perspective - some like targeted advertisements, some don’t.  The trick will be to find a solution that doesn’t restrict business growth, but protects consumers while not cutting off services they appreciate.

The conversation will continue in December when the Federal Trade Commission will hold a roundtable to discuss data-collection practices with representatives of the ad, media and technology industries and consumer groups.  As for me … I’m still deciding which number to get on the back of my jersey.

[The Chief Privacy Officer of Kantar Group, a WPP company and sister company of Hill & Knowlton, testified at the Hearing.]

With the recent sale of BusinessWeek to Bloomberg, reports are estimating that 25 percent of BusinessWeek’s staff will be cut. So far, we have heard news that the following talented reporters will no longer be working for the pub, but expect this list to reach around 100 by month’s end:
• Washington, D.C. based Steve Wildstrom, writer/editor, personal tech, and guest on our Tech in 5 video series
• New York/New Jersey based Steve Baker, senior writer
• New York based Damian Joseph, innovation/design writer
• New York based Shirley Brady, community editor

While the rising tide of mergers, aquisitions and the general downsizing of the print industry makes staff cuts an all-too-true reality, we were hoping the talented staff at BusinessWeek would not be so severely impacted.

Blogs and Twitter are working hard to keep up with any updates and below are a couple good resources to check:
Media Bistro: Bloomberg Looks To Cut BusinessWeek Staffers
BusinessWeek’s Business Exchange: Layoffs Hit BusinessWeek Following Bloomberg Sale (RaceTalkBlog.com)

The Economist recently published a special report about the impact of telecommunications in emerging markets, a topic that has fascinated me since I visited East Africa in 2006. It had been about five years since I’d been to a developing country and the main thing I noticed was how prevalent mobile phones had become.  Traveling in the countryside between Nairobi and Arusha, I came across a site commonly seen in developing countries: three women washing their clothes in a stream. The difference was that here, one of them was talking on a mobile phone.  When we got to the border crossing between Kenya and Tanzania, hawkers were selling the usual wares of food, drinks and cigarettes but the best selling items were SIM cards and call minutes.  In itself this was remarkable.  I used to keep a list of factoids pinned to my fridge that included a statistic that 75 percent of the world’s population had never made a phone call. Today there are four billion mobile phone subscribers, according to the International Telecommunications Union. Some estimate that mobile phone penetration will reach 100 percent in countries like Kenya and Tanzania by 2013.

The impact mobile phone penetration has had on developing countries has been so remarkable that many commentators have called it revolutionary, likening it to roads and railroads.  Because access to the Internet is very limited in these countries, we are seeing phones and other mobile devices used for applications that go well beyond voice calls. As The Economist notes, one of the most promising areas is mobile banking.  A friend of mine who works in the Central African Republic recently told me that teachers working in remote parts of the country where civil unrest, banditry and lack of infrastructure make the transportation of money difficult,  are already being paid via their cell phones.

Earlier this month, the New York Times ran an article illustrating how mobile phones have revolutionized scientists’ ability to track banana disease and to educate farmers on how to protect their plantations in Uganda. Companies like Qualcomm through their Wireless Reach initiative, are working with partners around the world to develop projects that use wireless technology to empower underserved communities.  One of the projects provided fishermen in Tamil Nadu, India, with a mobile phone application called Fisher Friend which allows them to access crucial information such as weather conditions, where they can and can’t fish, and market prices.  At the remote Kusai Wasi Health Clinic in Peru, mobile technology helps volunteer surgeons who fly in once a year from the U.S. prepare and follow-up with their patients remotely to deliver better care and reduce the risk of post-operation complications.

To this I’d like to add another interesting, perhaps somewhat counter intuitive, development: mobile applications that were originally created for emerging markets are informing applications that are relevant in developed countries.  An article in Fast Company earlier this year called it “trickle-up innovation.”  One area where we will see more examples of this is in mobile healthcare.  A number of companies, NGOs and foundations are putting together innovative projects in this field, including some that use text messaging to remind people to take their medication and provide other basic healthcare information. On October 29 – 30, the Foundation for the National Health Institute is organizing an event called the mHealth Summit to bring together thought-leaders from around the world to exchange ideas, novel approaches and research findings about the role that mobile technology can play in promoting public health and reaching underserved communities. I’m hoping to hear about more ground-breaking applications from there.

Note:  Qualcomm is a client of Hill & Knowlton

If you are attending a major hearing on the Hill or a prominent tech event in D.C., you may spot the debonair Andrew Noyes. A journalist with more than a decade of experience, he currently covers intellectual property policy, litigation, privacy, civil liberties and Internet governance issues as a staff writer for National Journal’s CongressDaily. He is also the author of Tech Daily Dose, a companion blog for the publication that takes readers inside the corridors of the Capitol, providing access to the conversations, strategies, and alliances that drive congressional action. Hear Andrew’s thoughts on what it’s like working on the Hill and more in this installment of Tech in 5.

I’m sure, like me, many of you have experienced the “Metro Cell Struggle.”  Unless your carrier is Verizon, many of you have experienced the frustration of total blackouts when riding through Metro’s underground tunnels.  However the Washington Post reported this morning that as of midnight tonight, 20 Metro stations, nearly half of the underground locations, will be fully equipped with cell phone service meaning riders who use Sprint-Nextel, T-Mobile or AT&T devices will be able to communicate at various stops, most notably Metro Center and other busy locations.

This initial rollout means you’ll be able to get reception on the platforms at these stations but will lose it once you step on the train and proceed down the track to the next station.  The hope is that by next fall, the remaining 27 stations will provide this service and that all stations will be “on-line” by 2012, both on platforms and in tunnels.

This is a great deal for Metro riders who, like me, have experienced underground delays and no way of communicating with people street level. On more than one occasion, I’ve been underground during a delay on the Orange line and have tried to send an email only to recognize the new found frustration of no service.

This is also a great deal for Metro. According to the Post report, the contract with the three carriers will generate at least $25 million of revenue over the next 15 years and $52 million over the next 25.  Maybe this will be enough to spare us a fare hike in the near future.

For a complete map of new locations, please click here. What other areas of cell phone outage should be improved?