Angela T

Sr. Manager, External Innovation,

Angela T is a Senior Manager, at a biopharmaceutical company.

Fighting a pandemic in real-time is, as you might imagine, a tricky business—and an effort which, might be more manageable with some cooperation.

Volunteers from various organizations, have come together to donate their time and brainpower to create solutions for current and future pandemics.

The challenge for Angela?

Informing and garnering interest from a broad cross-section of the company, with varying levels of scientific expertise— on the COVID work it plans to do. After all, the more visibility around the project, the greater the chance that others would lend their expertise or resources.

The answer presented itself quickly—host an internal webinar to report on mission and objectives.

But with that solution came additional challenges.

First, the process of building the webinar involved coordinating with several very technical PhDs, so the need for clarity was paramount.

Second, a tight timeline meant that Angela had neither the resources nor a lot of hours to prepare the impressive presentation that she knew she needed to land.

And finally, all of her colleagues were volunteers—just as everyone working around the world was donating their time. So it’s not as if Angela could simply ask people to put in overtime.

So Angela turned to Outkreate.

“The project,” Angela explains, “didn’t have a dedicated project team. It’s people volunteering their time. Getting the webinar together was about me trying to help motivate and guide very busy people.

“A lot of people had a lot of great ideas,” about the webinar, Angela says. But that led to questions about what, exactly, they should share—and whether or not they’d end up overwhelming their audience.

That’s when Outkreate stepped in.

“Our internal presentations are very research-focused and data-based. So, talking to a broader audience, we were worried that we wouldn’t have the skills to achieve a more polished look and make the content more accessible to a less-scientific audience. Outkreate really helped us with that.

“There was a lot of back-and-forth over about 7 to 10 days, and Outkreate just rolled with it all. My team and I were just jumping straight into ‘Here’s the cool science that we’re doing.’ But then Outkreate suggested, ‘Wait, hold on, let’s backtrack. Let’s put it in the context of where we are with COVID. Why are people going to be interested?’ I really appreciated hearing that perspective.

“That made the storytelling a lot better and the whole package much more compelling.

“Overall it was a very smooth process,” Angela concludes. “We were able to book meetings when we needed to discuss details. I really appreciated that the Outkreate team was especially generous with their time. And the communication was always prompt.”

“And in terms of what we had envisioned, they were able to really bring to life what we wanted. And much better than what we even imagined, too.

“We got really great feedback from those that attended—it was very well received, and people appreciated the quality of our presentation.

“I would highly recommend Outkreate’s services.”

Takeaway

Pretty presentations can only get you so far. When you need to land an important message, having a strategic partner in your
corner—one who can then quickly execute on a challenging brief—is invaluable.