20110726 Marketing Call

These are the minutes of the 2011-07-26 Marketing conference call

Attendees: Martin Entwisthle, Gora Datta, John Ritter, Grant Wood, Andrea (HQ), Erin Fitzsimmons, Rene Spronk

1. Strategic marketing plan
   • Review of this version, with comments by Rene: [1]
2. Rene introduces his review by stating that the document is a good starting point, it does however lack the answers to a couple of essential questions (mainly related to stakeholder categories, and products). The current document is also US-oriented, which is natural given the historic focus of HL7 International and the location of its staff.
   • Rene raises the issue of how we wish to position this marketing document. If we assume that HL7 International wishes to do marketing in all individual countries the marketing plan abviously will have a different structure than if we state that it is a general framework which can be used/localized at the country level in order to do marketing within an individual country.
     • Grant: strategic to work with country organizations. It should be a general template or plan, allow for customization by affiliate. Martin: agree.
3. Rene mentions a couple of examples where we should rephrase some of the US-orientation of the document. For example, in the competitors section ASTM is listed as the prime example, whereas this is only a competitor in the US. Another one is a comment on the current ARRA funding and its impact on US healthcare. These type of statements will need to be generalized; statements about the US (or any other particular country) can still be included as examples.
   • Martin: or have 1 appendix per country with specific details. John: well, we could create a profiled approach "If in your country the main driver for standards use/adoption is academic in nature, use X marketing approach", or "If in your country a government organization is the main driver towards adoption, use an Y marketing approach".
4. Rene: my main issue is with the strategic and classic marketing questions: stakeholder categories and products. Without a proper analysis of those two things, how can one even start on a communications approach?
   • Stakeholders:
     • Andrea: current list bof stakeholders is based on a long/painful process joint with a marketing firm a couple of years ago
     • Rene: for example, I'm missing the category "organizations/groups that choose to go to HL7 to create a standard" (e.g. EHRA for EHR-S FM, or the clinical genomics vendors for the v3 CG standard).
     • Medical associations?
     • Rene: or: consultancy companies [not a software product vendor]
     • John: patient/citizen is missing as a stakeholder
   • Products:
     • Rene: the problem is that we don't have a well defined product list. Well, we have one which is defined by technology oriented experts, which describes all the 1000 nails and screws in our product catalog. We need to have such a catalog, but we need a higher level product categorization / branding strategy.
     • Andrea: current product list is based on expetiences at HIMSS: those products that seem to generate the most interest.
     • Rene suggests that we use a questionnaire in San Diego (just like we did back in 2005) to ask a question akin to "Imagine you were to ask the manager in charge of the IT department of your provider organization, or the product manager in charge of product development in your vendor organization - "what products does HL7 have in its portfolio ?"". Phrased as an open question (no predefined answers), it gives us some sort of indication as to what products should be on our list. There'll be some products that won't be mentioned, but the questionnaire, just like the experiences at HIMSS, serve as a starter list.
5. Grant: for the next call, and Chuck intents to join us, I see the following 3 agenda issue:
   1. With a long list of projects that could be done, what does the HL7 leadership and Board think the Marketing committee should focus on?
   2. How should the work go forward on the product briefs? How should the Marketing committee work with other groups on this effort?
   3. How should the marketing plan be written to work with the International affiliates to engage them in their local marketing efforts?
6. (added after the meeting took place, and as such not part of the formal minutes)
   • See the TSC minutes (from today, it took place in parallel with our marketing conf. call) at [2], agenda item #5, heading "Product List Categorization, at TSC Tracker # 1985".
   • They're discussing what the top-level products/categories should be - in order to determine how the products should be listed on the website.