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Speaking into the Ether: Challenges of the Virtual Pharma Workplace

20170419
On-Demand Webinar
YouTube video

In today’s global pharma workplace, virtual interactions are sometimes more common than live exchanges. We frequently use technology like WebEx or telephone to communicate with others. This presents problems and challenges not seen with face-to-face interactions, where there is visible feedback between the senders and receivers.

Since you can’t see (and sometimes can’t hear) your audience, you can’t read their facial expressions or body language during your presentation, and you can’t see them taking out their phones to play Candy Crush! How do you make your presentation engaging to combat multitasking?  How do you gauge if the audience understands what you’re saying?  How do you know they are not bored? How do you know they found your joke funny?

What kind of technology tools can facilitate connection with your audience?  What do you do when the technology fails?

What are some cultural issues that make presentations to a global group challenging? How should you change your style, language, or content to meet the needs of diverse audiences? In particular, how can modelers more effectively communicate results to non-modelers?

How do you efficiently deal with Q&A and feedback? Is it better to stop periodically to ask for questions or take them all at the end? What if there are NO questions- what does that mean?

In this webinar (a virtual presentation!), Drs. Peter Bonate and Stacey Tannenbaum will discuss these topics and other difficulties of speaking into the ether, and offer practical solutions that you can use to strengthen your collaboration in the virtual workplace.

About Our Speakers

Peter Bonate has more than 20 years industrial experience and is the Executive Director of Pharmacokinetics, Modeling, and Simulation at Astellas. He is a fellow of the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists and American College of Clinical Pharmacology. In 2015 he was the recipient of the AAPS Research Achievement Award in Clinical Pharmacology. A recognized expert in modeling and simulation, his books are used in classrooms around world and he is a frequent speaker at webinars and conferences. His most recent book, Be a Model Communicator, discusses the problems and challenges of presentation modeling and simulation results to a non-technical audience.

Stacey Tannenbaum has almost 15 years of industrial experience and is a Director of Pharmacokinetics, Modeling, and Simulation at Astellas Pharma. She has had significant impact on the global Pharmacometrics community by co-founding the International Society of Pharmacometrics (ISoP)  and the local NJ-based networking group Modeling and Simulation Applications in Clinical Pharmacotherapy (MoSAiC). Stacey also co-founded the American Conference on Pharmacometrics (ACoP), and is the Chair of the Executive Committee for the 2020 World Conference on Pharmacometrics (WCoP). She serves as a Member-at-Large for the AAPS Executive Council.

In today’s global pharma workplace, virtual interactions are sometimes more common than live exchanges. We frequently use technology like WebEx or telephone to communicate with others. This presents problems and challenges not seen with face-to-face interactions, where there is visible feedback between the senders and receivers.

Since you can’t see (and sometimes can’t hear) your audience, you can’t read their facial expressions or body language during your presentation, and you can’t see them taking out their phones to play Candy Crush! How do you make your presentation engaging to combat multitasking? How do you gauge if the audience understands what you’re saying? How do you know they are not bored? How do you know they found your joke funny?

What kind of technology tools can facilitate connection with your audience? What do you do when the technology fails?

What are some cultural issues that make presentations to a global group challenging? How should you change your style, language, or content to meet the needs of diverse audiences? In particular, how can modelers more effectively communicate results to non-modelers?

How do you efficiently deal with Q&A and feedback? Is it better to stop periodically to ask for questions or take them all at the end? What if there are NO questions- what does that mean?

In this webinar (a virtual presentation!), Drs. Peter Bonate and Stacey Tannenbaum discussed these topics and other difficulties of speaking into the ether, and offered practical solutions that you can use to strengthen your collaboration in the virtual workplace.