We had all been reading, the French couple and I, on the three-hour flight back to Boston from Fort Lauderdale. She sat in the window seat with a newspaper, he read from a Kindle, and I fidgeted in the aisle seat, slogging through a slim but dense volume on ancient history. (The problem with being a writer is that you don’t read books; you read sentences, and it slows things down considerably.)
As we began our descent, the flight attendant came by and asked the gentleman to turn off his Kindle. When he didn’t hear her, she leaned over and gently but firmly told him to power down.
“Hmph,” he muttered as she walked away and he snapped his Kindle closed. “Lot of rules.”
“I know,” I sympathized. “I should turn mine off, too.” And with that I made a show of snapping my book shut, and we all laughed.
The fact that the book as Gutenberg gave it to us was once an innovation is captured brilliantly and hilariously in “Medieval helpdesk,” a widely viewed 2007 sketch from Norwegian television. It’s exactly where I got the idea – and a play for a cheap laugh – that the paper-bound book can be viewed as a printed version of the Kindle or Nook that stays on when the flight crew orders you to power down all electronic devices. You don’t have to recharge a book. It turns on and off in a millisecond. You can navigate to any page instantly. And you can keep reading when the Kindle goes dark.
It seems to me that keeping that kind of fresh perspective on what constitutes invention is essential in the medical device industry, but we sometimes lose our perspective and our way. We get caught up in French sizes and radiopacity and myriad other specifications, all very worthy points of distinction depending on the device and the patient. But what’s the bigger picture? What’s unique about not just your device but also your company? Why choose you?
Here’s help: You can reexamine how you view innovation and every other aspect of medical device manufacturing at the upcoming AdvaMed2012 conference in Boston, Oct. 1-3. It’ll be three days of industry leaders discussing and debating topics such as medical device development, regulatory updates, global harmonization and demonstration of economic value. We from KHJ will be there at Booth 306. Stop by and enter for your chance to win a Bang & Olufsen BeoSound 8 digital sound system from Denmark, a $1,000 value. We don’t speak Norwegian or Danish, but we do know French, and we do speak device. We’ll be talking up The New Rules of Medical Device Marketing . So come and rekindle. We’re all in for a rocking good time.
This is the Brand and Beyond™ blog, a new resource for the medical device industry. Brand and Beyond™ is sponsored by KHJ, headquartered in Boston, MA. KHJ is a strategic brand activation firm that is passionate about helping people see and realize what’s possible for themselves and the world around them.
