Identifying influencers: First, we reviewed literature, both academic (e.g., Valente  and Granovetter) and popular (e.g., Malcolm Gladwell and Geoffrey Moore), related to word-of-mouth and diffusion programmes. This helped confirmed the hypothesis that there are different types of influencers and restricting to KOLs was limiting. Next, we collected a set of “hard facts” or easily observable characteristics about physicians, e.g., online activity profile, publications, etc. However, we felt relying on these hard facts was insufficient, and we needed to understand the soft factors behind influence.  Therefore, we observed the videos of all the Next, we collected a set of “hard facts” or easily observable characteristics about physicians, e.g., online activity profile, publications, etc. We selected the common set of physicians who were perceived as influencers, profiled them, and developed “seven signs” that were softer variables (e.g., did they see themselves as a champion for patients, were they pragmatic about side-effect management). We then developed a questionnaire that our client could use to identify influencers.

 

Designing the workshop to bring the patient experience to life and facilitate conversations about it:  The next step was to create a highly immersive workshop in which gynaecologists could understand better how women experienced the condition whilst they were at home.  The venue was designed to facilitate this experience, e.g., the rooms had wall paper with reflections captured from women’s diaries, iPads were set up with conversations between women and gynaecologists, the dressing table had a host of products that the women from our ethnography used. The workshop comprised immersion sessions, presentations by speakers, moderated discussions, and brainstorming sessions. We ran a pilot of this workshop in Germany before it was launched in Italy.