Business Ideas during Corona-Virus

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Businesses worldwide are currently experiencing the worst global pandemic that happened for generations. I‘m giving ideas on business ideas to do, insights on where to look for resources and suggestions.

Outlook:

This global pandemic, the corona-virus, is impacting the economy as well as global health. Forecasts are terrible, as the outcome is not possible to forecast precisely, many people will lose loved ones, and the job market will look different compared to before. I write this blog post on what activities do during and after this pandemic.

Business Ideas:

Online shopping:

Many of you shop online. Some people might not know where to go online. An idea is the delivery of food and necessities. This trend is an excellent example of how technology and the sharing economy works. Communications tools, such as Whatsapp, can be used to set up communication services, and communicate about the need for groceries.

Online education and classes:

Another useful task which we can do is supporting the elderly, with constant communication and provide  internet classes on fitness exercises, online marketing, DYI activities for the elderly and the toddlers. As life during this pandemic become even more sedentary, many of us need to exercise and learn new skills.

Big Data and Analytics

A side from the online learning, another big trend that is happening is the amount of data that this pandemic is producing. A future skills that will be important is definitely data analysis. This was already a trend that was happening before the corona-virus, but with the increase usage of online content from users, it is useful to understand what this data will mean. To conclude, remember the value of the good neighborhood and social behavior, as one of the impacts that social distance might have is also influencing social norms.
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Outsourcing innovation management to small business, an actual smart idea:

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At first glance, outsourcing innovation management to a small business might seem risky but there are many advantages to external innovation management. By outsourcing corporate tasks like IT or accounting, the companies will be able to concentrate more on their USP and be able to act more effectively. However, a lot of the decision-makers cannot imagine having others perform core tasks for them like innovating and managing. In this article, you will get to know how outsourcing of innovation management will boost your business.• Creates the basis for sound decision making

Outsourcing innovation management doesn’t necessarily mean giving up on innovation. Instead, the decisions as to which innovations are supposed to be released in the market should lie in the hands of an external party. Otherwise, it can be difficult to internally convince with the innovation as the company will hardly support such projects.• The love for your own idea can harm the company

If the business has decision-makers with a high level of expertise, they will logically be involved with research and development while formulating their own ideas. This can put them in a tricky position as they will want to prefer their own ideas over others. It would become impossible to treat that idea objectively and evaluate it.• Ensure the USP continues to generate profits in the future

Outsourcing innovation management will ensure that your company maintains its unique selling proposition while creating relevant benefits for new customers thus generating better sales in the future. It is understandable that management would like control and full power of disposal over this area but it would be better if it could be outsourced to innovation management as they are bound to get better results.

The latest wave of businessmen never hesitates in taking tips on the internet and reading blogs to improve their day-to-day working. One of the best blogs that you can read and implement to improve your business and marketing is blogexperts.net. The blog would be an excellent motivation for those who like to innovate and come up with new ideas. They have an excellent string of informative articles that will surely help you understand and adapt to the current market.

Open Innovation VS Closed Innovation

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Today topic is a discussion between a concept in innovation that is defined as type of innovation strategy.

Nowadays, innovation discussion is clearly a critical dimension in any dynamic approach to business, as it allows businesses to achieve and defend competitive advantage.

Closed innovation, is the more classical approach to innovation, and in such, it develop patents, (intellectual property, licenses and grants) through formal means, and closed corporations.

Open Innovations is more related to the development of technology through adiacent and common techniques, such as outsourcing, competition establishing, and game theory.

Open Innovation, as defined by Dr. Henry Chesbrough in his book, is: “the use of purposive inflows and outflows of knowledge to accelerate internal innovation, and expand the markets for external use of innovation, respectively. Open Innovation is a paradigm that assumes that firms can and should use external ideas as well as internal ideas, and internal and external paths to market, as they look to advance their technology. (Chesbrough, Open Innovation, p.2).”

Here is a graph of the two distinct type of innovations as explained in his book.

Graph explaining the different type of innovation strategy.

In the past i had the privilege of working for a short time period in both type of organisations, closed ones and open ones. I wont say which organisation for reason of privacy. But they were large organisations.

In both organisations the important aspect was the development of work in which was happening. I noticed immediately that in the open innovative business communication was more open and the setting of collaboration was more direct, whereas, the type of collaboration in closed innovation was more secretive, as patents and new research and development techniques were happening.

Personally i preferred the open innovative business, which allowed to learn new skills such as Wiki development and learning Marketing first hand and people skills. Working in open innovative companies is like working for a new startup, in which capital is limited, but passion is everywhere, and there is will to improve even when there are limited resources, whereas working in closed innovative companies is challenging as resources are present, but competition drives the work.

Today topic is more of a self reflection and less of a guide, compared to previous topics.

However, I will post a second article about Edge Strategy soon, as I am reading a book about it, and will be related to Corporate Strategy.

Corporate Strategy in Biomedical Companies

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Corporate Strategies in Biomedical Companies

What are the strategies adopted in Biomedical Engineering regarding their business development and corporate strategies? This blog post discusses corporate strategy and business strategy in the field of biomedical engineering.

What Exactly Is Biomedical Engineering?

Biomedical engineering can be described as the application of engineering approaches and tools to perpetuate knowledge and solve problems in human and animal biology, medicine as well as health care.

Engineering Solutions for Better Health: Corporate Strategy of Biomedical Engineering Businesses

Biomedical engineering has significantly brought forward better health care and health related research over the latter half of the past century for both human as well as animal populations. So biomedical research is expected to have an even greater impact on the future.

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Top notch health care is the bedrock of any healthy society.  Health stands at the center of a good quality of life and it drives social as well as economic development forward.

 Biomedical engineering extends significant differences in the day to day lives of several individuals, securing the safety of their food and water sources, improving their life’s quality.  This advances self-reliance; providing effective options for front-of-the-line health care professionals

Strategy 1: Tackling Major Pre-Existing Problems

  • This strategy targets those health problems that hold the highest burden on the quality of life, financial costs for recovery, mortality and morbidity.
  • Particularly cardiovascular diseases, cancer, fatal injuries, congenital musculoskeletal diseases as well as several neurological conditions.
  • Biomedical engineering research and advanced health technologies developed by many emerging biomedical companies work to improve the overall quality of life (including that of humans and animals all around the world)
  • Via their work, such biomedical companies also diversify the pre-existing knowledge based economies via technology transfer and novel start-ups which work in tandem in the bio-industry sector, leading to its expansion.
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Strategy 2: Identifying Key Priority Research Themes

Some of the major areas of concern and their subsequent solutions developed by major biomedical corporations are:

  • To identify, invent and ultimately implement technologies which will keep people healthy in the long run and minimize complexities from diseases; while at the same time predicting illness and potential injury.
  • To develop and engineer even more accurate imaging and diagnostic techniques for the early detection of disease.
  • Provide novel biomarkers for the evaluation of new therapies, while enabling personalized treatments tailor-made according to an individual patient.
  • To develop top quality, durable treatments for fatal injuries and diseases, incorporating recent advances in stem cells, target specific drugs and novel treatment devices.
  • To develop and deliver research built from emerging strengths, utilizing engineering approaches and tools to streamline patient flow throughout the health care system.

Strategy 3: Delivering Improved Life Quality Via Novel Biomedical Engineering Solutions

  • Maintaining existing standards of health while identifying, diagnosing and subsequently treating disease/injury is a complicated challenge duly addressed by advances in biomedical engineering approaches and technologies.
  • With such advances, people suffering with complex medical conditions live longer, happier and enjoy an improved quality of life.
  • Moreover, operations management and industrial engineering approaches are wholly suited towards solving problems that arise from these complex relationships.
  • Biomedical engineering eases the congestion in the pipeline involving our health care system among patients, community groups, health professionals, government bodies, insurers and industry.

Strategy 4: Integrated Approaches For Prevention Of Fatal Injuries And Diseases By Supporting Healthy Aging

Independence for a better quality of life:

  • Engineering methodologies can increase our core understanding of human as well as animal health and diseases across the entirety of their lifespan.
  • Based on this new and improved understanding, advanced integrated biomedical engineering solutions and technologies can be created for assessing health issues and increased prevention promoting independent, self-reliant living.

Key Areas For This include:

  • Early detection and monitoring technologies for improving somatic and mental health.
  • Developing personalized Disease monitors, like biosensors for real-time, quick diagnostics,
  • Creating new instruments for point-of-care testing, and technologies for assessing organ or body function;
  • Processes for preventing risks linked with acute and chronic diseases, including technologies that
  • support healthy and safe aging
  • assist with body balance control to prevent a precarious standing posture as well as gait
  • assist with navigation, maneuvering and location-tracking, and enable mobility independence for aged patients
  • Identifying and predicting the role of multi-sourced inputs (like diet and physical activity level) under normal and changed conditions (exercising, extended bed-rest etc) in various demographic population sets. This might subject-certain devices to show information on activity levels so as to prevent chronic injuries based on oxygen consumption within the body, joint movement as well as muscle activation patterns
  • Developing an integrated (multi-system) mechanism of quality aging involving musculoskeletal, cardiovascular, respiratory and nervous systems. People with chronic conditions like asthma, diabetes, mental illness or obesity could be given devices that provide immediate feedback for real-time consultation. This helps in enabling physical activity modification depending on blood levels of crucial components (such as insulin and oxygen), heart rate, as well as surrounding factors (e.g. altitude, smog, temperature).

Strategy 5: Shifting Paradigms Within the Healthcare Industry

For several individuals — healthy, sick, or injured —accurate diagnosis and early intervention could minimize their need for expensive and invasive treatment while simultaneously supporting self reliance, essential to a better quality of life.

Maintaining health and preventing diseases for already healthy people and delivering real-time diagnoses, quick monitoring and effective treatments for those people who are severely injured or who have chronic diseases.

This strategy recognizes key priority research themes that capitalize on a company’s strengths in biomedical engineering:

  • Interdisciplinary approaches towards enabling the prevention of fatal injury and disease, while promoting healthy aging
  • Advanced technologies for better diagnostics
  • Developing novel therapeutics:  Emerging research themes have also been identified, in which several companies hold great potential and expertise. 
  • Optimized and improved health care performance.

The Biomedical Engineering Economy:

Biomedical engineering is an ever-expanding sector dealing with global health innovation and healthcare product development.

As of 2013, Forbes placed biomedical engineering at the top of their list of “most valuable majors’ university programs. Medical technologies and devices are a US $140-180 billion per year industry which continues to grow at an annual rate of 10 per cent.

Internationally, the biomedical devices market is priced at US $327.7 billion. The United States ranks first globally with a share of more than a third of the entire market.

Only very recently, the U.S. government signed a $354 million four-year contract with a pharmaceutical company called Phlow Corp. to maximize American production of medications which might help treat Covid-19 and plug probable supply chain shortages. The contract could have an extension for the next 10 years to $812 million, according to a report by the New York Times.

“There are not a lot of people wanting to bring back generic medicine manufacturing to the United States that has been lost to India and China over decades,” Edwards-CEO and cofounder of Phlow Corp.- told the Times, “You need someone like the federal government saying this is too important for us not to focus on.”

The Overall Financial Impact of the Biomedical Engineering Industry:

Although biomedical engineering solutions and technologies help maintain and improve life quality for people of all age groups, but it most prominently benefits senior people (aged 65+) —perhaps the most rapidly-growing age group in the whole world.

Considering the most recent data figures released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics in U.S.A, private-sector jobs in the biomedical industry in U.S.A as of 2009 stood at 1,219,200. Compartmentalizing this overarching statistic into its major components, it was deduced that:

  • 283,700 people were employed in the biopharmaceutical industry.
  • 409,200 jobs existed in the field of medical devices (including diagnostics).
  • 526,300 people worked in fields related to R&D, labs and testing.
  • Output and wages stemmed directly from the biomedical sector and comprised of nearly $96billion out of the total $213.2 billion.
  • In the U.S. the average job paid $78,600 in the biomedical industry, which was 70% greater than the national average.
  • If the trickle-down effects of the biomedical industry are also taken into consideration, the biomedical industry is responsible for about 5.3 million jobs, or 4% of non-agricultural jobs in the U.S.
  • One job in the biomedical industry supplied for 3.3 jobs in other sectors.
  • The medical equipments and supplies manufacturing sector gave jobs to nearly 20% of all biomedical employees.
  • Other 20% biomedical engineers worked in scientific research and the development services.
  • Biomedical engineering graduates are readily employed in the healthcare industry, research facilities of pharmaceutical, medical and educational institutions, for teaching, as well as in government regulatory agencies.

Open and Closed Innovation Management

Closed vs. Open Innovation Management in Biomedical Engineering

Open Innovation has been growing in popularity worldwide. However, it has been a prevalent phenomenon in the USA (which started some 15-20 years back). But much before open innovation was accepted, closed innovation had been the norm.

Let us probe this further in the context of Biomedical Engineering:

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What really is closed innovation?

In context of workflow within the closed innovation paradigm, the process which leads towards innovation is wholly controlled from top to bottom; all intellectual property is created internally and securely maintained within the company boundaries until the product under consideration is released into the market.

The Origin of Closed Innovation in Biomedical Engineering

Basic Premise: Lack of involvement by both governments and universities

One of the primary reasons that helped closed management of innovation at the turn of the 20th century is an absence of involvement by both governments and universities into commercial and industrial applications of scientific research.

The absolute lack of involvement encouraged companies to create their own Research & Development (R&D) department for perfectly controlling brand new product development procedure.

The era between the end of World War II and the mid 1980s can be very well called the “Golden Age of closed innovation R&D”. Several R&D departments of private biomedical companies were at the cutting edge of novel scientific research. Additionally, interference in internal R&D was seen as a strong obstruction by sneaky competitors, as large outside investments needed to be done to keep the company going.

Closed innovation carries a vertical integration (including manufacturing and sale services): the company has only itself to count on, especially considering critical engineering technologies. This is the time when “Not Invented Here” started surfacing: every bit of engineering technology from outside was viewed with suspicion and deemed unreliable.

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Tensions within Research and Development

Because objectives and priorities of people working for the R&D departments are not the same, there exists a latent tension within Research and Development itself.

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  • Research

Research follows the same concept as exploration, that of discovering a new border (probing the particular “why’s?” of a situation) which cannot be immediately anticipated or predicted. Biomedical engineers working in research do not appreciate constraints of time. Research is simply structured as a cost area: the objective here is to keep the budget under control.

  • Development

Development is associated with action, (the implementation of “how?” of a particular unfurling situation). Development is dependant on Research outcomes as its primary input. Development is spearheaded by engineers who solve problems under immense pressure with time and budget limitations. Unlike Research, Development departments are made as a profit generation center.

  • The Interconnection as a solution

To improve relations between Research and Development departments within a particular company and to untangle the knots between them, many companies set up a buffer zone that deals with the two. The buffer’s role is to store technology which emerges from the Research department until the Development department is ready to work with it.

During the post war age, many biomedical discoveries were “stored on the shelf” for several years.

In the closed innovation system, companies could invest in R&D by capturing a critical share of the market value of their technologies. In order to retain this share, it was imperative that talented people remained in the company and intellectual property was confidentially secured.

However, in numerous commercial sectors, several factors erode confidentiality, thus putting closed innovation systems at substantial risk. Companies that did not adapt to the downfall of closed innovation suffered great losses (e.g. Xerox).

Now Open Innovation largely rules the roost.

Open Innovation Utilized Medical Technology To Save Lives

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Top Biomedical engineering experts throughout the world now routinely share knowledge about novel medical technology, in an attempt to make life-saving breakthroughs even more widely available. More importantly, they ensure that copyrights, patents, and other legal constraints don’t obstruct that knowledge from reaching people who need it most.

Open Licenses Provide Life-Saving Technology in a Crisis

The lack of availability of ventilators has developed as a limitation in combating the Corona

virus, encouraging researchers to devise alternative options to the pre-existing machines in use, priced at $30,000 each. Spearheading this new wave of technology advancement are experts at

Universities like Rice and MIT , thus proving that open innovation isn’t just the responsibility of DIY hobbyists, but the world’s top biomedical engineering talent.

Biomedical teams are working tirelessly to adapt medical-grade supplies as well as hospitals to function as emergency substitute for ventilators in the absence of better equipments. (Other low-cost ventilator machines have already been developed by medical teams from Stanford, but would still need a year to increase manufacturing.)

When a crisis heightens the pre-existing flaws, innovators with a conscience can lead the way forward to save lives. A cursory read throughout MIT’s project resource page displays the perils and complexity of the project: the device should be both safe and useful, must not be false in its functionality, and must be accurate in measuring as well as presenting accurate data for doctors to be able to diagnose correctly. Apart from publishing its designs, the team is also publishing the detailed requirements that clinicians forwarded to them after testing the device. The team has published data on the device’s use on pigs.

This level of collaboration is achieved by open licensing, for example:  Creative Commons and free or “libre” software licenses, which offer easy sharing as well as modification of source material. Furthermore, sharing tech doesn’t necessarily translate to a dip in quality. On the other hand, scientists very well know that the only way to understand any problem and devise solutions is via open collaboration. No one should hold the absolute power to copyright or patent knowledge about combating a disease or building a life-saving device. Decisions about adjusting medical equipments in the field should be made public by medical and engineering professionals, not the attorney who helped patent it.

Some Companies Pledge To Not Enforce Their IP Rights

Old copyrights and patents that have no relation to COVID-19 can still affect COVID-19 research even today. In a paper about Labrador Diagnostics, it was revealed that Labrador’s entire portfolio of patents was copied from Theranos, the dubious blood testing company which had shut down in 2018. Labrador didn’t have a functioning product and Theranos’ technology involving its patents was suspicious at the very least. However, those patents still damaged possible lifesaving work. This is why it’s important that governments intervene to limit the damage caused by patent abusers and effectively combat the Corona Virus. Recently, lawmakers in Chile, Canada, Germany, Ecuador, and Israel took several steps to separate emerging COVID-19 research from patent abuse by introducing compulsory licenses.

Some companies have done their part to ensure that their intellectual property doesn’t interfere against COVID-19 research either. The Open COVID Pledge is one such example.  An IP owner can decide to not sue another company or organization for utilizing their research for COVID-19. Technology greats such as Unified Patents and Intel were the first two to sign this pledge. While the Open COVID Pledge is still a very narrow commitment as compared to persistent open licenses, but it is still an indication given by companies that they won’t obstruct the fight against this emerging pandemic.

Recently, lobbyists in support of patent owners have claimed that the current laws are not sufficient as far as protection of patents to fight COVID-19 is concerned. They even argue in defense for a bill which has been sponsored by Senator Ben Sasse (R-NE) that would add a further ten years to a patent’s term for medical devices and pharmaceuticals. It’s strange to consider the fact that the medical experts at the forefront of the fight against CoV are holding their creativity back until they obtain extra patent protections. This proposal also insults the reality that the public at large is already paying for a significant part of medical research in the USA—including research for inexpensive ventilators.

Therefore, it’s in the best interests of the public to have such technologies shared widely, not stopped by copyright and patent restrictions. This is what Open Innovation systems fight against.

Biomedical Engineering Innovative Projects

Biomedical Engineering Projects nowadays range in various products. All of them are innovative projects. Digital tattoos, mind-reading exoskeletons, RFID implants for recreational activities, 3D printed drugs: new and amazing innovations are developing in healthcare and medicine almost every day, all thanks to Biomedical Engineering!

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We shortlisted some of the most interesting ideas and technology developments that hold the potential for opening doors into a breath-taking future.

Here is a comprehensively curated list of some spectacular biomedical innovations, including augmented reality, tissue engineering and artificial intelligence:

  1. Multi-faceted reality generates new methods for medical education

Virtual, augmented, as well as mixed realities are technologies that are presenting new experiences for human senses. While the difference among these technologies may seem negligible initially, their use and application in healthcare is extremely different.

AR allows users to witness the actual world via digital information being projected onto the environment nearby. On the other hand, VR shuts away everything else entirely and brings about a different simulation to the user, while mixed reality involves an interaction with the nearby world while simultaneously projecting information into it. 

A case in point: Microsoft HoloLens offers radical educational novelty for medical students by projecting the entire full-size anatomy of the human body through the device. Students are able to view all the organs, bones or veins in complete clarity in 3D format.

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With constant technological improvements underway, future medical professionals will have better access to the human anatomical representation in all its vividness for surgical analysis or educational purposes.

Mixed reality education is already deemed better than textbook education by almost all of its patrons. Some universities already plan to incorporate it in their revised curriculum. In 2019, Case Western opened its health education campus in association with the Cleveland Clinic, where human anatomy was taught via virtual reality instead of cadavers.

  • Brain-computer interfaces as remedial technology to help the paralyzed

Recent research has lent immense support to the area of brain-computer interfaces (BCI). Dr. Christof Koch of the Allen Institute for Brain Science and Dr. Gary Marcus of New York University and revealed to The Medical Futurist about novel brain implants are the equivalent of yesteryears’ laser eye surgery.

Although the field still requires significant advancement in the coming years, the possibilities are limitless! Consider a retinal chip lending perfect eyesight-even in the dark! From cochlear implants correcting deafness to memory chips bestowing the memory power of a computer, biomedical innovations bring sci-fi to life.

  • Neuro-prosthetics In Use:

Although light-years away in terms of mass-commercialization,  neuro-prosthetics have already been introduced into the market. You can now search and purchase retinal as well as cochlear implants– the former was already approved by the FDA way back in 2013. There are also implants for Parkinson’s patients which send electrical pulses into the brain, to revive damaged neural pathways affecting motor control. Expensive and rare brain implants exist as therapeutic remedies for people paralyzed with neural damage after an accident/physical shock. A chip inserted at an appropriate spot inside the brain reads and translates electrical signals to regenerate motility and communication. A middle-aged paralyzed man, Thibault, made headlines for being able to move all his limbs with the aid of a ‘mind-reading’ exoskeleton. We hope for more such stories to emerge in the near future.

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  • Recreational Cyborgs

Numerous famous examples of cyborgs already exist, now it’s only a matter of time to see such marvelous beings walk free not only within sci-fi movies, but all around us. The ‘cyborg-fascination’ will soon start a new contingent of enthusiasts who will be willing to implant devices within their bodies to attain novel experiences.

Advances in biomedical engineering will not merely repair and restore bodily defects like impaired hearing or eyesight but will also generate superhuman abilities. In the coming years, you can get ready for artificial intelligence enabled hearing aids, earbuds that help you become multilingual, or RFID chips which already solve your linguistic hurdles.

While a patient using pacemakers or implanted defibrillators can already be categorized as a cyborg, coming years will witness increased cases for implantation requests of certain devices even from those devoid of any medical conditions.

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  • Dinosaur shaped 3D printed drugs for Kids

While the idea might seem absurd at the outset, consider the fact that 3D printing in itself was an unimaginable concept some time back. Yet, biomedical engineering advances have made it possible to 3D print chocolates, guns, even houses! It’s only the next logical step in the natural progression of things biomedical engineering makes possible.

The FDA approved a drug called “Spritam” (manufactured using 3D printers) in August, 2015. The powdered drug is printed layer by layer which helps it to dissolve faster than regular pills. If reports from the Daily Mail are to be believed, then scientists are already planning to lend 3D printed drugs some odd shapes; such as those of octopuses or dinosaurs, so as to make them more appealing for children. Professor Simon Gaisford and Professor Abdul Basit, saw immense potential in 3D printing in the pharmaceutical industry; which is what encouraged them to come up with FabRx in 2014. They predicted that they shall be able to commercialize 3D printed drugs for kids in the next 5-10 years. 

  • Gamification in health insurance: a real game changer

As of November 2017,  United Healthcare and Qualcomm announced that they would incorporate Garmin and Samsung wear-ables as a part of their national wellness program. It allows eligible participants to earn more than $1,000 every year by walking up to a certain limit. This is a beneficial association among wearable manufacturers, health insurance companies, and the principle of gamification. Gamification means using fun incentives, which could slightly nudge or encourage people towards adopting a certain behavior – such as a healthy lifestyle as far as health insurance companies are concerned.

However, the question is whether there must be a limit to such gamification processes. Will patients’ private data be at risk? Will mass surveillance become the new norm? How will the relationship between employees, employers and health insurance companies be affected? As an increasing number of corporations provide health insurance packages equipped with gamified tracking options to their employees, such ethical questions will have to be answered.

  • Biomedically engineered food to plug food shortages

Will you be ever open towards a cup of synthetic tea? How about a bite of some lab-grown meat? Can you down a glass of artificial milk? Will vitamins and nutrients substitute a meal in a protein-shake?

Sci-fi movies like Star Trek, the Matrix, or The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy gave us a glimpse of life with artificial food. However, the possibility of eating synthetic food might’ve already arrived, ensuring a constant supply of nutritious food for millions of humans who might otherwise go hungry due to famine and general food shortage.

Researchers at the Cultured Beef Project extract muscle cells from a cow’s shoulder, grow them into a culture on a nutrient mix, and regenerate muscle tissue from layers of that culture. Thus, one gets whole meat from just a few cells!

In another example, the Netherlands-based company, Mosa Meat in 2013, introduced their first synthetic meat hamburger in London. They ensure to make artificial beef commercialized within the next 3-4 years.

Another company based in San Francisco, called “JUST Inc.”, (known better as the controversial food enterprise: “Hampton Creek“), is developing synthetic chorizo, cultured foie gras, and artificial nugget. Its researchers are simultaneously developing cultured meat, and they expect to introduce it soon.

Thus, as Biomedical Engineering expands with leaps and bounds, we can expect more exciting innovations in the field in times to come.

This article is a follow up of the previous Biomedical Engineering Fun Facts article.

Fascinating facts about Biomedical Engineering

Digital Marketing Terms That You Should Know

If you are new to the world of digital marketing, then you must be already aware of the complicated jargon that the industry seems to be full of. It can get a bit too overwhelming to wrap your head around terms like SEO sprinkled casually everywhere. To help you catch up, we at https://blogexperts.net have compiled phrases and terms that are commonly used in the digital marketing industry.

Crowdsourcing

Crowdsourcing refers to the practice of channelizing group wisdom towards achieving a common goal. It is best exemplified while solving complicated problems innovatively.

Though crowdsourcing has existed in some form or another through generations, the practice actually rose to prominence along with the rise of e-commerce, social media interactions, and the overall smartphone culture. With this increased connectivity people have managed to generate awareness and funds for common business interests.

To crowdsource effectively, compartmentalizing the overall goal into workable actionable tasks is paramount. Workers then take on these micro-tasks individually to streamline the entire process.

Tasks are distributed according to every individual’s skills and experience. A business might seek the help of a digital space — which may be called a crowdsourcing or micro-labor platform– where each of the workers works on their assigned tasks individually.

Even more complex projects need workers with certain specialized skills, where the businesses might need a highly specialized platform which is industry-specific. If a business specializes in collecting customers’ data, they may utilize either social media platforms or consumer-facing platforms for crowdsourcing all information from its customers.

Digital Marketing

Digital marketing can be defined as the use of various digital strategies and channels for connecting with customers where they are most likely to be found online. From the very website that customers might visit to the business’s online branding platforms-such as- email marketing, digital advertising, online brochures etc — there’s an entire range of strategies which can fall under “digital marketing.”

Well versed digital marketers understand how each digital marketing campaign tacitly buttresses their overall goals. And depending on those very goals, marketers can partly support a greater campaign either via free or paid mediums.

Freemium

It is a technique wherein a business might offer a free baseline product. This gives the customer the option to check out the advanced version of the product for a higher price.

Freemium basically works by offering a basic product to attract a potential customer, who will be later offered a premium service or product charged for a higher fee. This way sales can be obviated to mean extra pushy. Freemium paves the path for more effective crowdsourcing, which becomes important especially for software programs being tested for any bugs. Since the product or service used more at people’s ends, detecting design flaws becomes easier.

Keyword

Keyword is either a single word or a combination of words that people search with online to locate a particular subject. Keywords are also strategically placed within a body of text in online content. Blog posts and pages with a keyword focus are called “SEO optimized”.

Landing Page

Any page online that generates traffic from a source other than the pages on your website (which explains the term “landing”) is called a landing page. A landing page is copy, images, or a form. A landing page is generally used to gently nudge visitors to purchase a product or perhaps sign up for receiving content offers. Landing pages can be either long or short, and the content depends on the action your visitors are persuaded to take.

Lead Generation

Lead generation refers to the process of creating new leads. Online lead generation is brought about by exchanging valuable information to website visitors with their respective contact information.

Lead Nurturing

Most visitors are unlikely to make a purchase even after being converted into a lead. Lead nurturing then begins with gradually persuading your initial leads with irresistible information about your product or service until they cannot resist making a purchase. By showing that you care for your leads and their well being, you convince them how your industry is well suited to their needs.

Link Building

Link building involves strengthening the number of outside sites redirecting to yours (a phenomenon called “backlinking”). This process basically involves creating high-quality interesting and engaging content which others can’t hold back from sharing.

Marketing Qualified Lead (MQLs)

Marketing qualified leads are tactical prospects which have shown some interest in your business by engaging in any manner with your content online. They might also have provided contact information that turns them into a prospective lead.

Middle Of The Funnel aka MOFU

MOFU or “Middle Of The Funnel” is the term given to the consideration stage of a buyer’s decision-making journey. A MOFU lead is someone who has moved from awareness of the product/service to deep consideration and wants to receive further information about your business’s product and/or service. A pre-made offer is provided to the lead who might demand more information- further addressing any pushback.

Native Advertising

This can be defined as those advertisements which are primarily content-driven and featured along with other, non-paid content on most platforms. BuzzFeed-sponsored posts are the most prominent example of this.

Page Performance

Page performance considers these- CTA conversion rate, page SEO, contacts acquired and website traffic.

Page Rank

Your Page Rank is an indicator of your site/page’s popularity and trustworthiness as determined by Google’s algorithm. Websites are ranked from 0 to 10, with 0 implying poor search engine results (not good) and 10 referring high search frequency (most of such sites are owned by either Google, Apple, or Adobe).

Pay Per Click (PPC)

PPC involves channelizing traffic to your webpage or website by making payments to a third party publisher every time someone clicks your ad. Google Ads is perhaps the most prominent example of this. It allows you to book for top ranking spaces on Google’s search results’ pages “for every click”.

Other channels which use PPC include:

  • Paid ads on Facebook: Users usually pay for customizing a video post, an image, or slideshow presentation, which Facebook might display on the newsfeeds of those people who might be inclined to your business.
  • Twitter Ads campaigns: Here, users pay for strategically placing a series of profile badges or posts into the news feeds of a very specific audience, all of whom might be interested in your business as reflected by their online activity.
  • Sponsored Messages on LinkedIn: Users can directly pay to send messages towards specific LinkedIn users based on their industry, preferences and background.

Persona (aka Ideal Buyer)

In terms of marketing, a persona is commonly defined as the perfect representation of your ideal buyer. An ideal buyer or perfect persona is someone who showcases all the traits for persuasion, hopes, goals, wishes, dreams, demographics, and professional careers.

Sales Qualified Lead (SQL)

A sales qualified lead is in fact, a marketing qualified lead that has been approved by the entire sales team and warrants a sales team member to reach out. An SQL is someone who is on the threshold of being sold to and is most likely to purchase the company’s product or service.

SEO (or Search Engine Optimization)

Search engine optimizing for a website or webpage means adjusting the off-page as well as the on-page SEO parameters so as to increase the page’s rank in Google’s search results.

This is the process wherein you optimize your online content/website to get a better “rank” search engine results pages, thus increasing the flow of organically grown (or freely generated) traffic that your pages receive. The platforms that usually benefit from SEO include webpages/websites, blogposts, and infotainment.

Smarketing

Smarketing involves combining sales and marketing so as to work towards the shared interest of growing business revenue. 

Sales Funnel

The sales funnel refers to each step that a potential customer/client has to make in order to become your absolute client/customer.

Let us consider a real brick-and-mortar sales funnel for example. The people at the top of the metaphorical sales funnel simply decide to walk past your store. Some of them might decide to take a look inside, which is the next step of the funnel.

A person inside your store might merely glance at the products on display. If they make an effort to physically browse through the products, then they perform the next step. Some of them might select a product to actually purchase it. That’s the final step. Purchasing and checking out implies reaching the bottom part of the funnel.

This same pattern repeats itself for online businesses involving digital marketing as well. Your sales funnel could exist as:

Sponsored Content

It is more like soliciting the expertise of a third party business to create content for your business’ promotion.

A prominent example of this is influencer marketing. Here, a brand sponsors an influencer from a particular field relevant to its industry. The influencer is then required to publish somehow related to the business on their personal social media profile.

To know more about such digital marketing terms, click on: https://blogexperts.net/

Digital Marketing Keyword Facts

Nowadays is important to have a keyword strategy when writing new content, as such, a tool like google keyword planner helps in establishing what are the main keywords that you want to cover.

As such keywords, the strategy is twofold, either go for long keywords (3 or more words), or short keywords (1 or 2 words), which are more marketed, but is more difficult to obtain audience.

These strategies, help in defining the niche that the blog covers. For example, when writing an article about sports car, is good to specify also the type of car, and the engine. By having more keywords when writing an article, is possible to be found more easily by search engine, such as Google or Bing.

Whenever I write an article, I tend to look for keywords that are mostly used, so that I can target my audience with specificity and detail.

This strategy is used by many bloggers, and help in defining what to write, and gives some ideas on what to write.

Long Keywords are helpful as when writing, deviating from the topic and going off topic becomes more difficult.

Using Short Keywords, is more competitive and more difficult, as the search engine spawn many results, and usually the attention span of the user of the search engine, is focused on the first 3 results, or Search Engine Results Pages (SERP).

The use of long keywords, is also suggestable when creating ads campaigns, as it allows to avoid to spend too much budget on digital marketing campaigns.

Not that Digital Marketing Campaigns are not important, but the problem rely in the cost of such campaigns.

Industry networking in Various Industry

Nowadays, there are many exhibitions that show the development of Technology and Industry worldwide. One of these exhibition is the InterAirport Show of Munich, which was happening from the 8th of October till the 11th of October.

This year was full of innovations and companies which were promoting their innovation, as a strategy is very attractive to be in fairs, and one such as the InterAirport, where I was invited to explore the various things happening.

Strategy wise, a Fair is an old Marketing technique, and presence or attendence of such can bring new Businesses and Insights, such as what are the new technologies present on the market, and what are the current trends.

It allows for companies to demostrate their capabilities and their key success factors (KSF).

An example is ADB SafeGate, a company which was advertising their skills and capabilities as leader in the Airport Industry.

Moreover it allows for new business to negotiate and form new alliances for international trade.

Such Business is for example AFM Group, which was present on the Fair to network with new businesses to form new partnership for the Middle East market.

Networking is an important skill as it allows for companies to expand their contacts and their capabilities to attract new customers, check what the competitors are doing and allow for new insights on Technology and Innovations. More people you see and the more your network expands, allowing to cover more territory than before, and allowing to reach certain markets that before were difficult to cover.

Moreover networking is important in Strategy as it allows to be knowledgeable about the happenings in the industry, events run fast, and many things happens, so is important to have an agenda and a plan on where to go and who to visit, as they can be hectic and people tend to become busy with new visitors.

Events such as fairs, are an excellent tool to perform analysis, on the post events fact. For example, is important to remember the 3C of marketing, Customer, Competitors and Costs, and via events is possible to obtain such information in informal way.

Moreover is possible to compare the innovations with those of competition, so to see who is more advanced in the field.

Uplift Your Brand Value With an Innovative Digital Marketing Video Strategy

Today, every business is using content marketing to stand out in the marketplace. But, an enormous rise in the content driven strategies of brands has also led to a sea of content and blog articles that is losing its actual shine. So, how is that you make your brand standout and take its marketing strategy to the next level?

The answer is simple. At the time when written content, or for that matter display ads are also losing their impact on prospects, it is digital video marketing that can save your day!

It is estimated that by the year 2021, the traffic from video marketing will be responsible for more than 80% of the entire consumer traffic on the internet. So, here are the main reasons and benefits why you need to start thinking about incorporating video marketing in your business strategy:

  • Increase Conversions by Providing Valuable & Informative Video Content

One of the main reasons you must start investing in digital video marketing for your business is that it makes it so simple and easy for your clients to understand the features of your products and services. A high quality and engaging promotional video forces your potential customer to stay on your website, which ultimately increases the likelihood of conversions for your brand. Another reason that makes video marketing a great idea for your business is that helps deconstruct a complex idea associated with your services, without making it any less amusing for your customer.

  • Grow your Audience

It is high time that you embrace video marketing as an important strategy for your business, as it will help you grow and expand your audience to the next level. A highly creative and engaging marketing video has the full potential of going viral and defining your brand name like never before.

  • Improve SEO

Adding a good quality and informative video to your post can also help improve your ranking on search engines and help you find new users who would be interested in your products. This way, you get an opportunity to strategize your video content with the right keywords and improve your SEO on different online platforms.

While, there is no doubt about the fact that video marketing is the best innovative digital strategy for your business at the present, it is equally important for you to make sure that the video that you have created for your brand marketing is of the highest visual and audio standards.

Chatbots innovative business solutions

Has this ever happened to you that when you’ve called the customer services, you get a chatbot and you just feel like demanding an agent or representative because you wanted to speak to a human?

Humans interact with chatbots all the time and they are made to believe that chatbots provide the best solutions but in reality, chatbots are only adequate for simple questions.

Companies are working on the latest business innovation strategy where chatbots actually understood what you were asking instead of directly answering the saved input. Different companies have different business models but almost all established ones have too big of an audience that they have to implement chatbots for customer support. This new technology for chatbots will prove to be an excellent business strategy and innovation as it will lead to better and more precise results.

If your chatbots understand what is being asked, they will be able to anticipate obstacles similar to how customer service agents do after a lot of interactions. So how can companies enable the chatbot systems to have such conversations? Merely adding more pairs of question-answer to the system will never help you accomplish that. Instead, you will need to implement an innovation strategic framework which enables the system to reach about the domain constraints and tasks involved.

If you want to successfully apply this strategic innovation management and want it to be successful, you will have to know the task at hand and the constraints involved. You should anticipate all the possible scenarios and problem that might arise. The challenging part would be to represent this kind of task-related knowledge with enough relevant information and granularity to anticipate the obstacles and remedies without actually overdoing it.

Capturing fine distinctions which involve the minute details can lead the system astray as it wouldn’t be able to take any actions on those. You should want to provide support just enough inference such that it can go past the stilted limitations of the scripted bots that are usually used these days. It will help the clients have conversations with the system and get an actual answer to problems instead of simply get answers to FAQs. This is how the companies will scale beyond the incremental and unmaintainable current approach. This is the groundwork being laid with the advanced AI research at labs to find the pathway which leads to interactions which are truly smart.

Innovative Ways to Expand your Skillset & Improve your Job Potential

In this competitive work environment that you live in, moving your career forward is entirely up to you. You need to be proactive and keep on refining your skillset to inculcate unique innovation strategy frameworks if you want to advance and thrive.

But how can one stay up-to-date and come up with business innovation strategies to always remain competitive? The best way to do that would be to embrace the concept of upskilling. This basically means you have to build on the existing skillsets of yours and practice self-directed learning. It will help you learn the most in-demand skills and give you a better arsenal of services you can provide. Here are some of the ways you can use upskilling to your advantage and come up with

  • Take advantage of online learning

If you have the ambition and persistence to learn new and innovative skills, you can easily find the needed resources online. You can look for decent learning platforms online as there are thousands of course on every imaginable skill available. If you have a boss who is expert at strategic innovation management, you can talk to them about the upcoming trends and the scope of different innovative courses. 

  • Certify your way as you climb up the corporate ladder

It isn’t necessary that you must have a degree for climbing up the corporate ladder but you do need to have certifications. For technology networks such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), getting certified will be a great way of proving your skills and that you are a serious candidate for the bigger positions.

  • Learn the trending in-demand skills

Skills often come and go in the workplace because with changes in technology, the needed skills will also change. These days, skills come and go in a few years or even months. This might seem overwhelming but learning the in-demand skills can make a huge difference to your career. No matter which business models your company follow but there are always opportunities that arise for those who are up-to-date with the trending skills.

  • Align with peers who are headed to the top

The coworkers in the office, executives of the company, or the network of people you deal with can all be seen as resources to help you learn and grow your job potential. Try to cultivate a network of highly motivated and skilled people that are interested in building their skills and coming up with a unique business strategy and innovation for every problem.