Networking Meeting Summary

June 12 FOCM | GLSA Online Networking Event Recap

2024 Mid-year Highlights: A Successful Gathering

On June 12, the Global Life Sciences Alliance (GLSA) hosted an engaging online networking event focusing on the 2024 mid-year highlights. The event saw a robust turnout with 35 participants, blending familiar faces with new members, fostering a vibrant and dynamic discussion.

Opening Remarks and Industry Updates

Chris Matheus kicked off the event with a warm welcome, introducing new members and setting the stage with industry updates, news, and conference reviews. Participants shared their travel plans, locations, and upcoming trips, adding a personal touch to the professional gathering.

Networking and Collaborative Initiatives

The meeting adopted an open house format, encouraging participants to share their LinkedIn profiles for seamless networking. Chris also promoted the Women of Life Sciences virtual event and called for volunteers to judge the best giveaways at the upcoming DIA, led by Sheila Mahoney-Jewels (smj@lifescihub.com).

GLSA’s Mission and Conference Insights

The GLSA reiterated its mission to provide solutions for clinical trial issues. Michael Young, Brian Langin, Cameron Robinson, and Denise McNerney shared insights from the BIO conference, which boasted over 19,000 attendees. Michael also reviewed the heavily attended ASCO conference, noting a significant presence of first-time exhibitors and attendees.

Business Update and Market Analysis

Chris Matheus presented a detailed analysis of the business performance in the first half of the year. He discussed the initial surge in activity, followed by a slowdown in decision-making and funding optimism. Chris also covered the recent Federal Open Market Committee meeting, touching on global uncertainties and their potential impact on market trends, including the upcoming US presidential election and geopolitical tensions.

Advances in Drug Approvals and Precision Medicine

Recent advancements in drug approvals for NASH/fatty liver and Alzheimer’s were highlighted, with Michael Young discussing precision medicine’s role in oncology drug development. Notable Labs’ blood test and Keliomics’ ex vivo tumor models, presented at ASCO, were showcased as revolutionary innovations that could transform early-stage development.

AI and ML Applications in Clinical Trials

Chris Matheus explored the applications of AI and machine learning in clinical trials. He highlighted the potential for large-scale simulations and AI tools to predict patient enrollment and rank doctors. Despite enthusiasm, participants expressed skepticism regarding the current state of these technologies, particularly in patient enrollment and regulatory validation.

Challenges in Patient Enrollment and Hiring Trends

The discussion also addressed the challenges in patient enrollment post-COVID and hiring trends. Michael Young and Chris Matheus were optimistic about the resurgence of in-person conferences, citing high attendance at recent events. Lisamarie O’Brien highlighted the difficulties in hiring, emphasizing the need for smarter recruitment strategies and the role of AI in applicant tracking systems.

AI in Language Translation and Clinical Studies

Duncan Shaw highlighted the challenges of using AI for language translation and clinical studies, stressing the need for exactness and precision. The group echoed these sentiments, agreeing on the importance of patience and caution in evaluating AI’s potential in these areas.

AI and Budget Building Challenges

Mike O’Gorman shared concerns about AI’s capabilities in budget building, while Ira Snyder emphasized the limitations in obtaining precise budgetary details due to data quality issues.

Site Negotiations and Challenges

The slow progress in securing site contracts was discussed by Michael Young and Jane Myles, with Viljena Trask highlighting the competitive nature of oncology site selection. Eliana R. Burke shared an encounter with a highly experienced clinical trial site, and Ira Snyder emphasized the need for balanced negotiations for successful collaboration.

If you would like a copy of the slide set, please email: chris@matheusbd.com or if I did this correctly you can get it here:

https://globallifesciencesalliance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/2024-Mid-year.pdf

Looking Ahead

The next GLSA event is scheduled for July 17, with the subject yet to be determined. To stay updated on GLSA | FOCM events, sign up here. Stay tuned for more updates and we look forward to seeing you at our next event!

ATTENDEES:

(First time attendees in bold)

Judy Woods

Jane Myles

Viljena Trask

Bill Dirkes

Tom Lo

Lauren Sherwood

Ira Snyder

Cameron Robinson

Eliana Rivera Burke

Jared Byer

Joan Chambers

Lori Leathers

Jon Carlson

Christine Martin

Hiro Matsushima

Duncan Shaw

Lauren Merante

Lisa Marie O’Brien

Michael Young

Marlyn Brookins

Dr. Syed Rooh ul Arifeen Naqvi

Irene Rivera

Julia Oxley

Yuko Terasawa

GLSA

Denise McNerney

Jim Sarene

Kelvin Izevbekhai

Rocio Rayna Reyes

Timmina Williams

Chris Matheus

May Networking Event Summary

Fifteen people attended our May event.

We opened with input from others about recent attendance at a variety of conferences. Whereas the first quarter of the year had conferences exceeding typical attendance and a buzz of activity, the 2nd quarter seemed flat, with typical attendance and the feeling of a lull in activity. As discussed in one of our events this past fall, so much uncertainty in the world causes people to be conservative and hold back in spending money and starting projects. Those factors are:
Israel – Hamas war
Ukraine – Russia war
US Inflation
US Interest rate
US Presidential election
Predictions of recession

The presentation title was: Proactive vs Reactive Cryotank Management and Will Baird, a co-founder at Boreas Monitoring was the presenter. Boreas was founded in Wilmington, NC. Chris Matheus had seen Will present at an entrepreneurship/venture funding event at the Marine Biotech Center at UNC Wilmington in 2023.

Boreas was founded by lab professionals with over 80 years of industry experience owning/operating fertility laboratories. The CryoScout system was developed while the founders managed cryotanks, identifying inherent flaws in the temperature-based monitoring systems commonly used throughout the industry. It was accelerated by two high profile tank failures in 2018 that resulted in millions of dollars in lawsuits and catastrophic loss of patient samples, destroying people’s hopes & dreams of having children. They developed and patented a weight-based monitoring system — the most reliable method of determining the evaporation rate of a cryotank. It can detect a failure up to 84 hours earlier than temperature-based methods, giving labs a data-driven solution to monitor their tanks, along with enough time to save samples from being destroyed.

As a reminder, treat these events as an “open house” – drop in when you can and leave when you need to.

The link to get notifications of our future online and live events is: https://bit.ly/3UTb8hL

As our passion is to connect people and companies we know, like and respect to other people and companies we know, like and respect we always have everyone put the link to their LinkedIn profile in the chat to allow for easy connecting and future follow up.

GLSA’s LinkedIn page can be reached here: http://www.linkedin.com/company/global-life-sciences-alliance/

A reminder that Global Life Sciences has a select network of 50 clinical research service providers and we want to be seen as a resource to you and to the industry. So when you run into an issue or have a need, give us a call. It’s what motivates us, we quickly reach out to our contacts to find the solution you’re looking for.

The next event will be on June 12, a week earlier than normal due to the DIA Annual Meeting. The focus will be on a review of the first half of the year – comparing to last year and seeing what the sense of the industry is: trends, changes, etc.

ATTENDEES:

Will Baird, Boreas Monitoring
Jeanne Schow, Bleu Sales Leadership
Michael Young, biomedwoRx
Steve Sisson, MLM Medical Lab
Allie Ash, Colorado State University
Brandon Cantwell, Clinical Project Manager
Cameron Robinson II, Mustard Seed PMO
Eliana Rivera Burke, GreenLight Clinical
Joan Chambers, Tufts
Karen Tkaczyk, Vistatec
Lakshmi Ethirajan, Smabio

GLSA
Denise McNerney
Chris Matheus
Alex Hoppe

March 2023 Networking

The March FOCM | GLSA Networking event started out with welcoming everyone and reminding attendees of the meetings guidelines:

Think of this as an open house event – drop in when you can and leave when you need to;
When we have a presenter we have them start when we have assembled a strong amount of respondents – usually 10-15 minutes after the start.
Presenters’ topics are not sales pitches – the focus is on an aspect of clinical trials; where in the process their services are used and aspects of that step.
The link to get the GLSA newsletter and notifications about future live and virtual events: http://bit.ly/3UTb8hL
We ask everyone to put their LinkedIn link into the chat to facilitate connecting and future follow up.

In GLSA news: it was announced that co-founder, Denise McNerney had moved from Virginia to Florida. She is enjoying pointing out the weather to those north of where she now lives. I gotta say, she’s enjoying it a bit too much. https://globallifesciencesalliance.com/

Cass Hui – founder of Heal Mary was then introduced to the attendees. She shared her story of how she came from the tech industry into the clinical research industry. Her mom first and then two sisters all had breast cancer. Cass encountered frustrations in finding clinical trials for them to consider and decided to apply her experience and skills to making this easier for others. Rather than becoming a patient recruitment company, she provides her service in the software as a service (Saas) model. Multiple patient advocacy and disease foundations are using her platform to inform people about clinical trials. https://healmaryapp.com/search

Cass utilized the kahoot.it platform to poll/question the attendees about clinical trial recruitment information. This was a fun way to get people thinking about the topic and led to a lively question and answer session.

After the Q&A, we broke into separate breakout rooms for people to introduce themselves, their companies and their needs to the others in the room.

The April event will feature Joseph Cheng with PiVOT CRO on the demographics, clinical research experience and capabilities of the Philippines.

Attendees:
Cassandra Hui; Heal Mary and evening presenter
Stacey Richardson; Parexel
Mike O’Gorman; Life Science Marketplace
Dave Gibboni, Beigene
Amy Lee; Kaiser Permanente
Loretta Cipkus Dupray; Global Clinical Connections
Peter Payne; Consultant
Matthew Plaud, Consultant
Nancy Zeleniak; Advocate Health
Joseph Cheng; PiVOT
Jean-Pascal Rugiero; SVM Pharma
Rodan Zadeh; Consultant
Kim New, ClinChoice
Duncan Shaw; DTS Language Services
Maria Frane; Corlexia
Gabrielle DeBoer; Consultant
Arti Bhosale, Sieve Health

GLSA Attendees:
Holly Cliffe
Sally Haller
Hannah Lloyd
Jordan Brown
Joe Buser
Timmina Williams
Megan Hoffman
Charity Dube
Chris Matheus
Denise McNerney
Ori Geshury
Liz Mirra
Alex Hoppe
Shiquita Hinton
Whitney Davis

A couple snapshots from the event are below:

November Networking Summary

Participants at the The GLSA | FOCM Networking event that took place on November 16, 2022 were treated to a presentation from Chuck Bon with Biostudy Solutions. Chuck is a recognized industry expert in the area of pharmacokinetics and biostatistics. Chuck has served on FDA Expert and Blue Ribbon panels on Topical Corticosteroids and Population and Individual Bioequivalence. Biostudy Solutions has expertise in trial design of Phase 1 PK Bioequivalence (BE) studies as well as Therapeutic Equivalence Trials. The company specializes in the analysis of PK studies, bioequivalence studies and results from alternative in-vitro testing.

A discussion about the therapeutic equivalence of generic drugs to the original branded product took place. There is a tolerance range of bioavailability when comparing to the standard. The bioequivalence range for the Test-to-Reference ratio in both PK and clinical endpoint trials is 80% to 125%.

There was discussion over the ongoing mergers and acquisitions among small CROs to lift themselves into the mid-size CRO ranks.

Let’s continue to reinforce our collective goal to improve patients’ lives across the globe. If you would like to present on an educational life sciences topic and spur our discussions, please leave a comment below and I’ll reach out as soon as possible.

If you are in need of more information of BioStudy Solutions, please click below:

https://biostudysolutions.globallifesciencesalliance.com/

Attendees (first time attendees in bold):

Dan Weddle, Senior Strategic Alliance Director, AltaSciences
Jill Curtis, Director of Project Management, Worldwide Clinical Trials
Duncan Shaw, President, DTS Translation Services
Ashley Clark, Regulatory Affairs Consultant
Ryan McCarthy, Government Markets Manager, Velocity BioGroup
David Holland, Senior Director of Business Development, cMed Clinical
Jim Lyon; Professor of Clinical Research; UNC – Wilmington
Nancy Zeleniak, Enterprise Strategic Partnerships and Participant Engagement, Atrium Health
Judy Carmody, Founder, Carmody Quality Solutions
Michael Young, Founder & Principal, biomedwoRx
Josh Lang, Associate Director, Business Development, Asymchem Group
Loretta Cipkus Dubray, Founder, Global Clinical Connections
Ravi Luthra, Clinical Research Coordinator
Mike O’Gorman, Founder, Life Science Marketplace

GLSA:
Joe Buser
Hannah Lloyd
Denise McNerney
Sally Haller
Chris Matheus
Megan Hoffman
Charity Dube
Timmina Williams

A few screenshots are below:

September Networking Event Summary

The GLSA | FOCM Networking Event on Wednesday, September 21, 2022 at 5:00 PM EST was a fascinating presentation by Patrick McCarthy and Steve Galen of Validcare about a disruptive approach to the conduct of clinical trials. Recent advances in technology and learning to do things remotely due to COVID-19 helps make this possible. Not only is it possible, it is being done and Validcare is at the forefront.

https://validcare.globallifesciencesalliance.com/

The current clinical trial paradigm is broken. Decentralized clinical trials are proving not to be the solution. They’re merely a bolt-on expense that helps with patient access and engagement. DCTs do not reduce costs nor delays caused by inefficient data management, staffing and software systems. Validcare’s Digital 1st CRO Experience succeeds where DCTs do not. Finally we have the ability to fix the CRO Model and put an end to low-ball proposals to win the project followed by significant change orders shortly after study start-up.

Validcare’s platform puts the entire study in one cloud environment. This has been built by experienced industry insiders who knew that to fix the CRO model it had to be re-engineered from the outside. The platform has been designed on these principles:

Transparency
High performance
Low maintenance
Turn-key

As such it provides for predictable financial performance allowing for a fixed price for study conduct.

To nobody’s surprise, we couldn’t stay away from discussing the Fall conference schedule and who was intended to go to which events. It looks like a full return to in-person events with DPharm, SCDM, OCT New England, CNS Summit, MAGI West, CTS East Coast, etc.

Andrew Mulchinski stated that Symbio hasn’t fully adapted to DCT yet, sparking the post-quarantine observations of many regarding the transition to decentralized and hybrid studies.

Let’s continue to reinforce our collective goal to improve patients’ lives across the globe. If you would like to present on an educational life sciences topic and spur our event discussions, please leave a comment below and I’ll reach out as soon as possible.

Attendees (first time attendees in bold):

Julia Love, CEO, Love Contracts
Candy Dupree, National Sales Director, AdamsBridge Global
Himanshu Desai, Global Head PV QA, Novartis
Mike O’Gorman, CEO Life Science Marketplace
Mindy Bertram, Owner, CMB Consultants
Andrew Mulchinski, Business Development, Symbio Research
Wayne Whittingham, Vice President, Regulatory, Cardio Pharma
Duncan Shaw, CEO, DTS Language Services
Katherine Cloninger, Senior Director, Brand Marketing, Parexel
Ravi Luthra, Clinical Research Coordinator

GLSA:
Chris Matheus
Joe Buser
Holly Cliffe
Denise McNerney
Sally Haller
Hannah Lloyd-Clark

A few screenshots are below:

August Networking Summary

Buying and Selling with Great Technology!

The GLSA | FOCM Networking Event on Wednesday, August 17th, 2022 at 5:00 PM EST was expectedly light in attendance with many of our friends and colleagues taking a well-earned break during these summer months.

Our guest speaker, Michael O’Gorman, CEO of Life Science Marketplace, treated us to a demonstration on how to use his innovative pricing tool for Sponsors and Vendors to connect and access more information, providing a more competitive bidding experience and allowing vendors to highlight their strengths and set themselves apart from the majority.

Our own Chris Matheus and Denise McNerney were attending a live event that GLSA and FOCM Networking were co-hosting with ProTrials Research in Raleigh, NC at the AC Hotel Level 7 Rooftop Bar and thus did not join our virtual meeting.

For those who missed the event and would like to learn how to buy and sell with Michael’s platform, please feel free to watch the video:

Insert video link here:

For more information or to schedule a more in-depth demonstration please contact “>Hannah Lloyd or fill out this form and we will be happy to assist you.

Let’s continue to reinforce our collective goal to improve patients’ lives across the globe. If you would like to present briefly on an educational life sciences topic and spur our event discussions, please leave a comment below and I’ll reach out as soon as possible. Our next event is scheduled for September 21 and CoolChain has been invited to discuss how how to ship and maintain temperature controlled shipments with eco-friendly reusable cold chain shipping containers.

Attendees included people from these organizations:

biomedWorx, Life Science Marketplace, Cmed Clinical Services, Curebase, EmVenio as well as several GLSA staff.

Photos of the event:

April Networking Event Summary

On April 20, the GLSA and FOCM held their monthly online networking event. We always start the meeting with a featured presenter spending 10 – 15 minutes presenting information about themselves and a clinical research topic of relevance to them or to the industry.

This event featured Amy Baxter, MD; CEO and Founder of Pain Care Labs. PCL’s NIH-funded pain relief device is an ingenious intervention to reduce needle pain and fear. https://paincarelabs.com/

Amy presented information on research results showing the incidence of needle fear among Americans. Research shows that 25% of Americans are adverse to needles. This is playing a role in the slower than desired vaccination rates against COVID-19.

Needle fear has increased dramatically since 1995 when it was reported that 10% of adults and 25% of children feared needles. Prior to 1980, children’s last vaccination was at age 2, except for DPT boosters every 10 years. Since 1980, children receive booster injections between the ages of 4 and 6, when fears form. A study in 2012 from Canada shows 63% of people born after 2012 have needle phobia.

Pain Care Labs has developed Buzzy for the management of needle phobia. This combines the distraction of cold with deep vibration which blocks the pain signal. Managing needle phobia is important for increasing vaccination rates among people of all ages. It can also play a role in clinical research if a clinical trial is a vaccine trial or a protocol requiring multiple needle-sticks, Such trials may have higher drop-out rates or decline to enroll due to the subjects’ fear.

After the presentation, there were questions, answers and discussions. We then allowed newer participants the opportunity to tell us about their history in the industry and ask how the group can be of help. Additionally, after the event Heather Hollick shared observations about what makes the GLSA online networking events work so well is:

Starting with initial casual conversation
Having a 15-20 minute learning session
Breaking into groups of 2-4 people several times so all can meet each other and share what they’re working on
Ending with closing remarks, comments and observations.
Online networking requires light moderation, because we’re missing body language for our cue as to who is to speak next.

Amy provided a good suggestion that we start these with a general ice breaker, a question or topic each can respond to. We’ll begin implementing that for our July event. The July and August events will be light-hearted and casual, imagine sipping a cocktail on a beachside outdoor deck with friends. In September, we’ll return to focused topics/presentations after the general ice breaker and before break out networking.

Attendees (bolded names indicate first time attendees):
Amy Baxter, MD; Pain Care Labs
Nicole O’Brien; Pain Care Labs
Peter Payne; Consultant
David Rodrin; IMA Clinical Research
Daniel Paszterko; Myonex
Ari Cofini; VeriSIM Life
Neil Banerjee; QMS Integrity
Nancy Zeleniak; Atrium Health
Mike Minor; IMA Clinical Research
Brittany Barber, Syneos Health
Nicole Aubrey; Aubrey Cole Consulting
Maria Frane, Simbec-Orion
Ravipal Luthra, University of Miami, Miller School of Medicine
Heather Hollick, Rizers LLC; Author of “Helpful, A guide to life, careers and the art of networking”
Mike O’Gorman, Life Science Marketplace
Edwin Gershom, Noble Life Sciences
Hannah Lloyd, Global Life Sciences Alliance
Denise McNerney, Global Life Sciences Alliance
Joe Buser, Global Life Sciences Alliance
Zulma Varela, Global Life Sciences Alliance
Sally Haller, Global Life Sciences Alliance

Screenshots from the event:

Amy Baxter, MD; CEO and Founder of Pain Care Labs

Screen shot of Attendees with Teddy in the middle square

March Networking Event Digest

On March 16, the GLSA and FOCM held their monthly online networking event. We start the meeting with a featured presenter spending 10 – 15 minutes presenting information about themselves and a clinical research topic of relevance to them.

This event featured Wessam Sonbol, founder of Delve Health. Wessam has been in the clinical research industry for 23 years. Many of these years have been in leadership and founding roles in the technology and product development sectors to facilitate trials. He founded Delve Health in 2018. Delve Health provides innovative decentralized clinical trial solutions to improve clinical trial conduct for patients, caregivers, doctors and pharma/device. Offerings include ePRO/eCOA, eConsent, study tasks, wearables and biosensor integration, EMR data collection and Real-world evidence capabilities.

After the presentation, there were questions, answers and discussions. We then allowed newer participants the opportunity to tell us about their history in the industry and the group can be of help.

Attendees (bolded names indicate first time attendees):
Wessam Sonbol, Delve Health
Andrew Mulchinski, Symbio Research
Ravipal Luthra, University of Miami, Miller School of Medicine
Heather Hollick, Rizers LLC; Author of “Helpful, A guide to life, careers and the art of networking”
Michael Young, biomedwoRx: Life Sciences Consulting
Mike O’Gorman, Life Science Marketplace
Edwin Gershom, Noble Life Sciences
Taylor Biche, Global Life Sciences Alliance
Holly Cliffe, Global Life Sciences Alliance
Todd Neilson, Global Life Sciences Alliance
Hannah Lloyd, Global Life Sciences Alliance
Denise McNerney, Global Life Sciences Alliance
Joe Buser, Global Life Sciences Alliance
Zulma Varela, Global Life Sciences Alliance
Sally Haller, Global Life Sciences Alliance

https://globallifesciencesalliance.com/

Please join us on April 20 where the featured presenter will be Amy Baxter, MD; CEO and Founder of Pain Care Labs. PCL’s NIH-funded pain relief device is an ingenious intervention to reduce needle pain and fear – improving patient participation in clinical trials.

Selected screen shots appear below:

Screenshot with GLSA Mascot Teddy in lower left corner

CNS Summit Conference 2021

The CNS Summit, a year-round community with an annual in-person Summit was held at the Encore Resort Boston Harbor. It was very well-attended with over nine hundred registered. There was a feeling of pent-up need for networking and reconnecting. It is quite apparent that participants at this meeting are enthusiastic to be attending in person. The joy and happiness of seeing friends, colleagues (past and current) and being able to freely move about and make new connections was palpable. There is such a willingness to hear about what each other is up to, has learned and is doing different since the last time we gathered in person.

Rapid antigen testing was conducted rapidly for Covid-19, and a negative test result (within about 15 minutes) indicated by a wristband provided, allowing access to the Summit. The testing was provided by CNS Summit in partnership with Care Access. The process went off flawlessly, a great testament to the Care Access and CNS Summit staff involved.

There were many exhibitors, patrons and sponsors. To see which companies participated, I recommend you go to the website: https://cnssummit.org/

Digital Biomarkers, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Big Data, Patient Diversity, Real World Data were among many Spotlight topics. As an example, Sharecare and UCB presented real-world data on patients with Myasthenia Gravis. The insights learned, the new endpoints discovered and the capabilities of the smartphone in such trials was impressive.

Below is the expanding list of companies that define themselves as DCT clinical trial service providers. Go to https://www.dtra.org/ Decentralized Trials & Research Alliance to fully appreciate the expansion of companies and organizations in and/or getting into the decentralized research segment of our industry.

Curebase	Circuit Clinical
Medable	Science 37
TrialBee	Thread
CaptureProof	Care Access
Clinical Ink	DataCubed Health
Medocity	Medidata
ShareCare (SmartOmix)	Science 37
	SiteRx

If you are interested in the CNS Summit community and the opportunity for interacting within it year round, you can apply at the organization website, which is listed above in paragraph 3.

And on a sad note, Medidata co-founder, Glenn DeVries who attended and presented at the conference passed away November 11 in a private plane crash in New Jersey.

Technology changes so quickly

Maybe the title of this should be “the pace of change”. Recently while starting a company with people much younger than me, I felt like I had missed several years of involvement in the world.

With the accelerating pace of technological change, many of us find ourselves behind in keeping up with new software, programs, and technological processes implemented in the workplace.

A critical part of adapting to the digital advancements is learning and training. Implementing various types of training systems, such as written instructions and live video training to accommodate different work styles and preferences may be helpful.
In order to be effective, we need to identify the technological changes that will enable us to attain the goals of our future projects and avoid those that could jeopardize their completion.

How can we adapt to the rapid, sometimes unpredictable digital advancements? How do we prepare ourselves for the new technology processes? How do you know if you indirectly resist the changes and how can you solve that?

The Uncertainty about future or current technologies might have nothing to do with the technology itself, but instead with how we respond to the changes.

I don’t know if kids still read Washington Irving’s story of Rip Van Winkle. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rip_Van_Winkle It’s about a man who fell asleep and woke up 20 years later and it was hard to accept all that had changed. Well, lately, I feel like I’ve been asleep for 10 years and have completely missed some of the digital advances and even the more mundane.

Let’s address the mundane one first, so tonight I stop in at Staples because I’m all out of “business” envelopes – you know the type, the long envelope that if you wanted to mail an 8.5 x 11 inch letter to someone, you’d fold it in thirds-ish and put it in this envelope. So I confidently stride to the aisle labeled Envelopes and begin looking for business envelopes. No such thing to be found. They had boxes of an envelope with the wording Number 10. So I look at the dimensions and it seems that they would work. At check out, to confirm I was buying what I needed, I ask the two 20-30 year olds – one was a manager – at check out, “are these envelopes the same as what I know as “business envelopes”? They, of course, had never heard that term. So I explained that I was looking for what I know as business envelopes, they said, well, yeah it looks like that would fit as this is 9 and a half inches wide.

Now to the digital world – so a client of ours texts us to say he’ll be texting us an image that we’re to take a picture of and save for later use in demo’ing his product at a conference. Those simple 6 words: “take a picture of and save”. So that I know what I’m to do I reply with: “just to confirm – by take a picture of and save – do you mean that I’m to use my iPhone and when I see the image I’m to do that iphone thing where I push a button on the side of the phone and at the same time push the round home button such that it takes a screen shot and then once that’s done I click on the screen shot and select “save to pictures”? He replied, “yes”. So you see what’s happening here? 59 words of explanation are needed for me to understand, interpret and act on his 6 words.

You should pray for my colleagues, this type of thing happens nearly weekly. You should pray for my colleagues, this type of thing happens nearly weekly. Quite simple really isn’t it: “take a picture and save it.” *%$”(#*%4”@$(*$*(#@$*(@#)