Episode 57: Tips for Effective Communication in Biotech with Key Opinion Leader Carolyn Scofield

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Serving the entire Gulf South, but recorded in the heart of New Orleans. Hello, and welcome back to Bio from the Bayou. I'm Dr. Eileen Hamm, the Executive in Residence at Tulane University School of Medicine.

And I'm James Zanewicz, the Chief Strategy Officer at Tulane Medicine. And today we're also joined by our amazing Assistant Director of Marketing Communications, Carolyn Schofield. Hey, Carolyn.

Hey, it's great to be here.

Carolyn's used to the mic, so I'm not worried about her.

Well, there is that. And no pressure for Ian, our producer, that is also his boss.

Extra pressure for today's podcast. And today's podcast is on— speaking of today's podcast— on marketing and communications and how that can impact companies' science and business development, something Carolyn and I are super passionate about. And we feel fairly uniquely qualified to offer some advice, having been to a few expert conferences in the last 3 months.

And honestly, let's talk about our office structure in general. It seems like a weird structure to have BD and comms in the same office, but it makes perfect sense when you think about it. Total sense. So what gave you that idea to even combine that?

The idea was there was no one doing comms and the pandemic happened and Carolyn and Ian both came on as contractors to help me and then I made them love me and now they both work here full-time.

Yeah.

So it was circumstance.

Yeah.

Like literally we didn't have the function and we needed it desperately during COVID And I knew of Carolyn 'cause she had worked with our uptown team and I knew of Ian because his dad is one of our scientists and somehow we pulled them both together. And I guess Ian didn't know he's also gonna be on this podcast today.

Yeah, yeah, apparently.

But Carolyn, I mean, you could talk about it a bit. What is the value you see, because you're seeing it from the outside. And I think your eyes have opened to what comms means in biotech and pharma and those kinds of areas.

I think it's important to have somebody who tells the story of what goes on and the work that's being done here, whether it's telling the story of the scientists that are involved in this and the researchers, also telling the story of the impact when it comes to people who are experiencing the results of whatever's being developed, whether it's a technology, whether it's a new medicine, something like that. It's really important to have that person who's helping tell the story.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, and you guys have been going to some really cool conferences recently, so I'd love to hear more about that because I've gotten a couple of screenshots of things that you have seen there that you thought—

Oh yeah.

Yeah, I mean, 'cause you've gotten a lot of information from those conferences, so I'd love to hear about what you guys have been doing.

They're the Fierce Pharma PR and Comms Conferences. We went to the West Coast and the East Coast, both very different. Carolyn and I hit separate tracks on the East Coast, so we can each talk a bit about that. The West Coast was much more academic startup-y In a way, is startup a word?

It is now. Yeah.

And then the East Coast, Carolyn, do you want to talk about that and how it was a little different?

Yeah, there were a lot of people from big companies there at the Fierce Pharma East, and we got to hear how they manage communicators across the world, which was kind of great to hear in a way, even though we're managing people just in a small area. But I think what we learned there, you could also scale up or scale down. And so one of the things that really stood out to me that I wrote in all caps was Great leaders communicate and great communicators lead.

Yeah.

And a lot of the talk at both conferences was how when you're at every step of the process in developing something, communicators need to be in the room and they need to be driving leadership. They can help steer the conversation, figure out what audiences you're trying to reach. You also have to have communicators there for any time that there's a crisis or something.

Absolutely.

Speaking of your audiences, sometimes you have Dr. Elaine Hamm and sometimes you have her mom, Carol Hamm. What are, what are tactics you take to approach those people differently? Elaine's favorite thing. She's like, no, Carol Hamm don't care. She's tuning out now.

Yeah, exactly.

She motivates people.

But shout out to my mom who's going to be listening to this. And she tells me like, I did not understand it, you know, and that's a big piece of it. Like, I might understand it, but that doesn't mean that Carol Hamm will understand it.

And I think it's important to know the different audiences and also know how they want to get the information, whether it's knowing the different social media channels different audiences use, or I was trying to figure this out myself because I just heard about this in an Ask Me Anything from Biotech Today, that apparently there's a scientific website that will actually, as you go onto it, ask what your science level is and you input it and then it will give you the information based on that.

Yeah.

And really, it's some AI tool. So I mean, I tried to find—

Which we'll be adopting in the office now, I'm sure.

But I do think you could also use AI. I sometimes use ChatGPT to take something. If I get the abstract from an NIH study or something, I'll throw it into ChatGPT and say, can you write this?

Can you please dumb it down for me?

For a more, you know, general audience.

Absolutely.

And so that's a way you can translate things.

No, absolutely. I think one of the biggest issues in science that we face as scientists is that, I mean, they call it the ivory tower for a reason, right? Like, of just being up and far away from people. And we've seen it in the pandemic, obviously, where there's a lot of mistrust of science. And a lot of that has to do with the fact that a lot of scientists don't communicate, they don't communicate well, and they're not getting the information out in a way that people are able to understand it and receive it and not have a misperception of it.

Yeah, and scientists, I think, all deep in their hearts really want to become key opinion leaders where people trust them, see them as experts, and come to them. And I think a huge part of becoming a key opinion leader is knowing how to communicate at various levels, and something that Carolyn works a lot with our scientists, our physicians, all the people on. And thankfully, her background in being a health reporter, you know, she had to go do this and figure out how to translate it. So despite not having a science degree, she's really great at translating science and medicine, which I think is super cool, and creating KOLs. And I know a big part of that Carolyn's the one who taught me this, so I'm gonna ask her about it, is LinkedIn and how LinkedIn is becoming the destination for healthcare and science now. And Carolyn, what are some of the tools and tricks and tips you have for that?

As you mentioned, at a couple of conferences I've been to, LinkedIn is one of the best places for people to reach their network and to broaden their network as well. And I've heard time and time again, and I think we've all seen it, that people are more likely to trust their friends and trust their voices Versus following specifically a brand or something.

Absolutely.

And so it's important to be out there posting on places like LinkedIn. We have doctors, we have researchers to be posting what they're doing. And then they can also share the company post for us, share the Tulane School of Medicine post, but then add their thoughts to it as a key opinion leader might do, or if they had a certain role in the study or whatever the story is about, to share that as well.

Yeah.

And I think something else we heard was the interesting statistics on if you share from, say, Tulane Medicine versus from Dr. Hedwynn Brooks. When Hedwynn Brooks shares it, people are more likely to engage or share it, something like a factor of 300 to 400% more often. When you look at the numbers, it was crazy.

Yeah, I think that company saw more engagement when it was their employee sharing something.

That makes sense. There's a face to it, right?

Yeah.

And it wasn't just the doctors and the people at the highest level, it was all of their employees sharing it. So anybody that's working on staff to share, this is a really cool thing my office did.

Yeah.

And getting people to share things. And one thing we also learned at the Fierce Pharma East conference that I thought was really interesting, one of the companies we heard from actually gives a newsletter out. And it's a social guide, essentially, to everybody at the organization to let them know Hey, here are things we'd love for you to share on your personal socials. Here are the hashtags we're using for it. Please go and share this. And so that way people have the tools to know how to be an influencer.

Yeah. And giving that to them right away. I remember working at this company, and I was going to have to get approval to post anything on Twitter. And I was like, well, I'm not going to do it. I don't have time, you know. And social media moves quickly too. And so having that toolset, you know, of Here's our voice, here's our brand, here's our hashtags, go. You know, that's, that's helpful.

Yeah, and I think it's all part of building that communication strategy overall. And so what are some of the tools that we should use to do that? I mean, obviously I love Jasper.ai. It's an incredible tool. Like, we were fortunate to find them, and their ability to help craft marketing campaigns and SEO and stuff is just amazing. But that's just a piece of a strategy. It's not a strategy, it's a tool. What are some of the things you do, Carolyn, when you're crafting a comprehensive strategy for the School of Medicine? Because it's very similar to a company doing Mm-hmm. How do you approach that?

I think one thing is having a pretty strong brand guide and guidelines of just specifically for graphics, designs, any kind of thing like that, having a good guide that says, hey, here are these things. I think the more resources you give people, the more they're going to stay within the, I guess, what's the sandbox?

Is that the right word?

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, it's a good one. Yeah.

Give them toys to play with and they'll play with them.

Right. Yeah.

And so give them the tools that they need so they won't go off brand and go like way out somewhere else. And so I think having a strong brand guide, maybe even having some templates for posts, things like that, as far as communication, to make it easy for people to help.

That allows them the ability to communicate on a regular basis, to be more simple and concise, more confident too.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I think a lot of people don't realize how— you'll see people post on their, their own Facebook or something all the time, and then when it comes to trying to figure out how to do that in a work setting or on the work brand, they're stuck. Yeah. And I think people don't realize you can also sort of be a person on the work brand or share the work brand on your personal, and then that way people will see what you're doing and take interest in it.

Yeah. I never really understood brand until I opened— I mean, I'd been part of companies, you know, before then, but I opened a wine bar and we paid for a branding campaign and it was the most helpful In terms of the pandemic and dealing with a crisis, we went back to our brand document because it could really help us point to like, who are we? What do we stand for? And if you know that, it makes communication so much easier. And if you're making decisions in a crisis, you go by your brand and what do you stand for? And that's so helpful. It's a touchstone.

That's why we love our, the future of medicine is here. It drives everything we do. Like, we are the future of healthcare. We are the future of medicine. And we use that to build relationships, to network, which LinkedIn is a great tool, but What are some other ways we can communicate and do that? What are things you both have done? As they stare at each other blankly going, how come you asked us that? Because you're both very smart.

Well, doing things like this. I mean, understanding the social media channels and the different audiences you're trying to reach is important because what I would post on LinkedIn is not what I would post on X or Twitter. And then podcasts are another great way. You have to really think about who your audience is and how they consume media. That's a big piece. And it's easy to forget to do that too. So you have the way that you like to communicate. I like LinkedIn. But I know that a lot of scientists are on Twitter. You have to really constantly think about that.

And Sherilyn has like a billion followers on Twitter or something. I don't know.

She's a great storyteller.

I'm horrible at Twitter, X, whatever.

I feel like I'm just desperately clinging to the what used to be such a great app and wishing the greatness would come back. But yeah, yeah, I think understanding where your audience is, but also being across different levels. We do storytelling here at the School of Medicine. We'll post on social. We also have stories on the website. We try to get those in various newsletters that we send out once a week and other newsletters across campus, and sometimes they even become news pitches and have the local media talk about it. So it's knowing the avenues and getting people the places they need to be. And one thing we heard that I didn't even think about, and I can't remember if it was at East or West this year, talked about understanding for key opinion leaders, understanding their technique and their expertise and what they were the best at.

So making it authentic, right? Yeah, right.

So if you had a great person who was great at speaking in small sound bites, you want to have that person featured on the news. But if you have a person that gets nervous in front of a microphone, maybe that person can actually shine at conferences.

Yeah.

And become a speaker at those kind of things. And I thought that was really interesting about determining who the right fit is and where they fit.

Absolutely. I hated doing posters as a scientist because you have to stand there for 4 hours and just like hope that somebody comes and talks to you. But I loved giving And so I stopped trying to push the ball up the hill of like doing a poster and I started doing talks more because it was what I was better at.

So, well, and I think, you know, one of my favorite things that came out of this, and we talked about storytelling, but we learned about story making at our last conference and the fact that you can always tell a story, but when you start to make the story and figure out where your brand is and, and what your channels are and what your strategy is, you can actually craft and make the story as opposed to waiting for it and just telling it. and move your business in a direction with communication. Because as Carolyn said, great leaders communicate and great communicators lead. And without that, you don't get anywhere.

Talk more about that, the storymaking. I don't think I've ever heard that piece of it, you specifically.

I know, but it was interesting. So this is something that we're looking at doing, but they basically said you can wait for stories and try and tell them, or you can craft the story you want to be told. It has to be authentic to you, but it's like, how do you get there? And it's more active than passive.

That's hard.

And it was fascinating. It requires some great intentionality. Yeah. And a lot of these companies are using AI to help them with that, of course, which was crazy and cool.

Yeah.

I don't know if you had thoughts on that too, because you were there as well.

Yeah.

And I've heard this at several conferences. It's kind of deciding from the beginning what the goals are, what are the messages you want to get out there, and then finding the stories that relate to those messages. And so everything relates back to the overall message you're trying to achieve. But you're also working and looking and also maybe connecting the dots to like, What, what separate pieces do I have that all kind of weave into each other and can all make an interesting story?

That's interesting.

I think we're gonna have to have Carolyn back to do some more of these, and I know our producer is probably getting close to cutting us off, so I wanna, I wanna wrap us up a little bit. But yeah, I do think this has been really interesting because for any scientist, any physician, or any startup company or other company who's thinking of this, they often leave communications until way down the road. And everything we're hearing is like, day one, think about your brand, think about who you are, start crafting stories. It's never too early to embrace communication, which is one of the reasons we're gonna have a panel on communication at Bio on the Bayou this year, because it is so important and it's not something startups are ever taught, are they, Elaine?

No, absolutely not. There's a great book that I've read and I'll put it in the show notes about just how not to talk like a scientist. And it's important, so.

And we're actually starting a great program on that too, Elaine, that our School of Science and Engineering and our School of Medicine are collaborating on to teach They teach graduate students in science how to communicate effectively, and that's great. We'll have links to all this kind of stuff in our show notes. Our producer Ian's probably going to kill us because there are so many links for this one because there's so much amazing stuff.

I know, I'm very sorry, but there's so much to talk about when it comes to communication.

But job security, as long as you make your boss feel and sound good. Edit, edit, edit, Ian. Any last thoughts you two have?

None here except that this is an ongoing conversation because it's, it's a really, really important one as it relates to science.

I would say always be on the lookout to hire a former journalist because we are the experts in communications.

Good plug, but not Carolyn. No, Carolyn's great. You can steal her. I'll just cry. If you want to make me cry, hire Carolyn. If not, hire someone else.

But I think it's important to take communications seriously when it comes to your company, when it comes to your science. Mission statements aren't throwaways. They're your guiding—

1,000%.

Yeah.

All right. Thanks, you guys.

This was super fun. Yay.

Thanks for joining us for Bio from the Bayou, and we hope you'll join us again To never miss the latest updates in biotech, hit the subscribe button now. We'll catch you on our next episode of Bio from the Bayou.