So little old Trovus, really not much more than two men and a virtual dog, well why not we are very 2.0 you know, turned up at the UK head quarters of a client today for a 2 hour strategy session.  Grand title really for what was a group of impressive pharma employees wrestling with a serious problem. 

This is a leading global drugs company, sorry Pharmaceutical company, and the people round the table have the responsibility of bring a well known drug that hundreds of thousands of us use regularly, me included it turns out, to market. 

So here is the scene.  Us, them ranging from brand managers to strategy to legal to communications and the largest table, in truth, I have ever seen and we are all there to talk about one thing...can the web help them sell more prescription drugs?

Something struck me as I thought about the meeting on the way home.

It felt like hard work, not only from our side , but probably more significantly from theirs.  This was the fourth or fifth time that we had sat down with them, each time talking about what potential we could see in the web.  This meeting we started from the beginning again because there were new faces in the crowd, but we where not there two convince them that the web offered an opportunity.   We were there to give them a focus to discuss what they can do with the internet - and this threw into perspective a very interesting juxter position of emotions. 

Everyone in the room to various degrees has been infected with the hype that surrounds the web and each carried in various degrees a belief or at worst a hope that the web was a silver bullet to answering their business challenges.  Contrast this to the corporate line held by the in-house lawyer that basically ran along the lines of compliance led conservatism and it made me think of the Adam Boulton comment the other day - have we got this web thing a bit out of perspective? After all incredible as it is, it is only an electronic library with the sum of human knowledge on it and that everyone can talk through.....so it got is limitation, right?

Is the web right for every business? Have people heard the hype and imbued the web with mystical qualities that are unlocked by those Magicians who claim to know the inner secrets?  More importantly has web become such a powerful force that love it or hate it, no one ultimately can resist its lure?

How many times have I heard people ask the questions - but what is the ROI?  This is such a fair question to ask and yet in it lies the cry of a person frustrated by their lack of a clear perspective on what the web can and can not do.  Is the question not - what is the ROI, but how should I measure the ROI for a web based proposition? Afterall many of us say to ourselves consciously or not, I don't get YouTube, but that is worth a stack, so can my business get just a bit of that magic?

The ROI is tied up not in superficial arguments about money.  That must come in to the debate but only after the company has asked itself core questions:

DO WE BELIEVE THAT CONNECTIVITY THROUGH THE WEB IS A BUSINESS ENABLER?

DO WE WANT TO BE ON IT OR NOT?

IF WE ON IT, THEN WHY, WHO ARE WE DOING IT FOR, WHAT IS IN IT FOR THEM, WHY WILL THE COME?

If you can answer these positively, then the ROI debate reduces in scale....

If you can't answer these positively, then don't go near the web at all.  You will begrudge every penny spent and you will waste ever penny committed.

Trouble is, the people round the corner will have a go....

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