Organizing Your Content, Marie Kondo-Style

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I’ll confess that several closets in my house are not exactly what you’d call “well organized.” In fact, you could say they are, from time to time, downright messy.  As a result, one day when I wanted to wear my favorite blue sweater, I had to go on a virtual safari through the bedroom closet to find it. Eventually I did, but it took a lot of extra time and a lot of unwelcomed effort. I was left with a determination to get my things logically organized, and keep them that way.

For inspiration, and help, I turned to the famous home organizer Marie Kondo.  Ms. Kondo, who’s written 4 books on organizing that have sold millions of copies around the world, is a practitioner of her own KonMari organizing method.  This approach consists of gathering items together, categorizing and labeling them, discarding the unused and the “un-loved,”  and  finding a designated, accessible place to store items that doesn’t change and is more or less permanent.

Armed with KonMari, I made significant progress in organizing my closets and I’m doing a pretty good job of keeping them organized. This experience got me thinking about my clients and their massive “closets” filled with unorganized, obsolete, and hard to access content. Surely, they needed organizing help too, and I knew that I could be their Marie Kondo when it came to getting their data houses in order. 

The services I offer are essentially equivalent to what Marie Kondo offers to home dwellers. I’m an expert at examining clinical content, recognizing what’s current or obsolete, categorizing and labeling it, getting it componentized and organized, and, finally, finding a logical place to archive it for easy access when needed.

Like Marie, I perform these functions using a logical methodology.  First, I open and read through all of the client’s existing documents.  I look for patterns in these documents. What content is repeatedly highlighted?  What content gets often repeated in their documents? What content constitutes the core of information that they often draw upon?  I also review their past content selection, looking for additional patterns and repetitions.

Once I’ve got the lay of the land,  I recommend what content should be kept and what can be safely jettisoned. Then I suggest logical ways of organizing the content. In the finishing phase, I label each “content bucket” and give it a name, so that it can be positively identified in unambiguous terms. Now when the client needs their archived content, they know where to find it quickly and easily.  AI and computer-driven searches could be also greatly facilitated by this organized data structuring.

The results, as I’ve seen, can be dramatic.  It’s like trading in your messy closet crammed full of old clothes you never wear anymore into a neat and organized closet with just the clothes you wear, all neatly boxed, labeled, and organized for easy access.  My clients have told me how much better things are for them now that their content is curated, organized, and easily accessible. And any time saved in creating new clinical documents can translate into shorter approval cycles for much needed new drugs and therapies.

Data organizing, like home organizing, is a bit of a science and an art, and it all starts by acknowledging the need and to get organized and stay organized. When your company is facing that challenge, please think of Watchglass Consulting as your professional organizer. We work fast, we work clean, and we leave you wondering how you ever managed without us.

Fast Tracking Into The Future

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Recently, I read an interesting account about the rise of the railroad in America in the early 19th century.  What started as a technical demonstration soon made the leap to commercial use in the 1830s, when the first networks of trains and tracks began transporting goods and, soon afterwards, paying passengers.  Suddenly there was a much faster, much more efficient way to move cargo and people across a big, expanding country. Commerce blossomed, new businesses prospered, and people could travel and communicate like never before. It would seem that everyone would welcome the railroad with open arms.   

But, interestingly, that wasn’t the case, at least initially.  People complained about the noise and the smoke of steam locomotives, and the land that was dissected and consumed by tracks and train yards. Owners of horse-drawn transport systems felt threatened by an ungainly iron horse that seemed destined to rob them of their livelihoods. There were even some clergy who pondered from their pulpits whether humans “were ever meant to travel so fast” while members of the medical community questioned if speeds exceeding 20 mph were bad for the health. 

Of course, in time, all these issues fell by the wayside as railroads became the dominant form of land transportation, only to be supplanted by the automobile toward the end of the 19th century.  Not everyone was happy at first, but in time the advantages crushed all opposition, and America, like other countries, became a nation that relied on the rails. 

As I thought about this story, I couldn’t help but notice the similarities between the birth of the railroad and the current rise of structured content in clinical documentation. 

Railroads were the new thing 200 years ago.  Smart people of the time understood that. They weren’t afraid of change and, in fact, they embraced it and worked with it.  Structured content is the emerging face of the industry I work in, and I believe it will prove just as revolutionary in its own way as the railroad did in its time.

There’s also tremendous value in the standardization inherent to structured content because it supports growth through order. Railroad systems that adopted their own track gauges soon found themselves left out of a greater worldwide system that settled on and used a standardized gauge. In a similar way, there’s much to gained from the standardization of format and style that comes with structured content.  

For these reasons and more, we should embrace structured content. It will enhance our workflows and increase our productivity and efficiency.  Structured content is the logical outcome of the evolution of information technologies that will enable us to do greater things.  All that’s needed is open-mindedness and a willingness to explore new frontiers.

In essence, railroads and structured content are both “platforms:” one conveying objects and people from one point to another and the other conveying information from one source to another.  Here at Watchglass Consulting, we’re excited to be riding this new methodology “train” and we can hardly wait to see where it takes us. 

Structured content represents the fast track into the future of clinical documentation, and your organization is cordially invited to join us on what promises to be an exciting journey.

My Bottom Line:  Better Health for Patients

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It seems that everyone and everything these days has a “bottom line” describing a desired result or reason for being.   Businesses talk all day about their bottom lines, as do politicians, athletes, and just about anyone involved with any kind of goal, activity,  or mission.  The more I heard about “bottom lines” the more it got me thinking: “What’s my bottom line, and why does it matter to me?”

As the owner of a private consultancy, my bottom line could be based on how much I can grow company revenues and clientele over a given time frame.  As a medical writer, my bottom line could be writing flawless documents that help my clients advance their research and products to win regulatory approval.  There are many ways of gauging success and setting goals, any of which could constitute a bottom line. But for me,  I found my bottom line in the most basic reason for doing what I’m doing: helping patients attain better health.

Even though we don’t work at the point of care as clinicians, my company is nonetheless a vital part of the vast scientific and human workflow that brings new and better medicines and therapies to people in need.  Without research there would be no new medicines, and without accurate documentation there would be no regulatory approval, and hence, no new pharmaceuticals brought to market.  I’m really in this line of work because I ultimately want to help people get better and restore their health.  It really doesn’t get any more basic, or profound, than that.

My bottom line is the big reason why I’m so excited about the rise of structured content in the world of medical and clinical documentation.  Here’s a stunning application of AI and other advanced technologies that makes a huge difference in the workflow that delivers trial results to regulatory bodies.

Structured content frees the medical writer from the tedium of drafting the boilerplate content that must be included in all clinical reports and documents.  Time spent researching and cross-referencing sources is also minimized because a well-curated structured content library can find and present such information in a fraction of the time compared with traditional methods.

All of this means that documents are written and populated with pertinent information a lot faster than before, allowing regulators and review bodies to get on with their work a lot sooner too. New, fully vetted and approved medicines would reach patients much quicker than before, and that’s good for everyone: researchers, medical writers, pharmaceutical companies, and, above all, patients.

I’m excited about and proud of the work we’re doing with structured content authoring, and already we’re establishing Watchglass Consulting as a prime source for pharma companies wishing to benefit from the advantages of this technology.

Telling stories that can change the world

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Drug development has a more important place in this world than ever before, especially during the COVID pandemic. Now,  with the exciting news that several vaccines of proven efficacy may soon be released, we can start to see the light at the end of a long, dark tunnel.

There are many pieces to the enormous puzzle of developing a new drug or vaccine and bringing it successfully to market, and there must be a competent entity to put that puzzle together and tell the story, delineate the timeline, and document the results in precise, professional terms.

Watchglass Consulting is proud to play that role.  We’re the storytellers connecting clinicians and researchers with peers, regulatory agencies. and patients. Without the accurate reports and information that we collect and generate for our clients, each participant might not see the whole picture – just their part of the entire puzzle – and what they do see might not be complete. As a result, the clinical research process can bog down from inaccuracies, regulatory compliance issues, and an overall lack of communication. Patients in dire need of new treatments and therapies are the ultimate victims of such delays.

I founded Watchglass Consulting because I felt that I was especially qualified to be a pharma and medical storyteller.  I had a strong life sciences background with a degree in biology from Cornell University and a doctorate in pharmacy from the University of Washington,  so I understood the science and the processes of pharmacological research. I was also a born communicator whose first love was journalism.  Indeed,  as a young girl growing up in the New York City area, I often dreamed about someday being a writer for The New Yorker or The New York Times.  Later on, after several years of clinical practice, I discovered the field of medical writing, and I realized that I’d found my niche at last, one combining my two career passions of science and journalism.

Watchglass Consulting is essentially a one-woman operation (me), but I’m fortunate to have an outstanding principal consultant in Dr. Jon Ruckle, MD and some of our trusted colleagues.  We bring decades of experience to the table and are recognized experts in various areas of clinical development, with expert industry knowledge and familiarity. This makes for a formidable and highly qualified team.

I like that we’re a small shop because it allows us to be nimble, flexible, and able to provide a higher level of personalized service than a client might experience with a large agency.  Every client is extremely important to us and we take a personal stake in the outcome of their research and their product’s development. Our work is custom tailored to best suit the needs of our clientele, and that customization far exceeds anything found in the pre-designed packages offered by our larger competitors.

We live in perilous but also exciting times, with pharma research being one of our brightest beacon of hope. For biopharma and biotech firms everywhere, we’re ready to help you tell your story, and tell it with integrity, professionalism, and accountability. Please give us a call today and let’s talk.