Sherif Morgan

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Archives for May 2007

Today Matters

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Do you think today matters?

In his couple-years old book Today Matters, John Maxwell (one of my favorite leadership authors) firmly demonstrates that an individual’s daily agenda and activities almost always determine his or her success.

If you retrospectively analyze your progress over the last month, the last 6 months, or even the last year… have you accomplished every thing you sought out to accomplish?

Did your agenda and activities today reflect a small step, task, or goal that would get you closer to where you want to end up a year or so from now?

If not, then it is time to pause, reflect, and analyze your daily schedule.

Of course, everyone has off days, so do not agonize over an unproductive day here and there.

Last Committee Meeting

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Last Thursday (May 24th) I had a PhD committee meeting. It went great. I got awesome suggestions and critiques from my committee members… however, these meetings can be visually depicted by the following comic.

phd020507s1.gif

The only difference is that a committee meeting has 5 fire-hydrant hoses instead of just one.

Lesson from Starbucks

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From a business standpoint, there is a lot that can be learned from the Seattle-based chain. One of these great lessons is how this company grew despite the fact that they have not spent much on advertising. They rely on their brand awareness, which is associated with high quality coffee drinks, a higher quality customer service and experience, and, as a consequence, customer loyalty.

Personally, I have never been helped by a “grumpy” Starbucks barista. Have you? On the flip side, I have consistently heard that Starbucks is an awesome company to work for, because it treats employees well, values them highly, and treats them like partners instead of just disposable employees.

Beyond a doubt, the way Starbucks treats its employees leads to happy employees and a positive customer service experience. As Mark Henricks concludes his forward to the February 2007 issue of Entrepreneur, “effort made to create happy and motivated employees creates happy and loyal customers.”

Reporting Science News

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As a scientist, sometimes I cringe when I read reports in the mainstream media about scientific discoveries. Since the news reporter has to make it to-the-point and catchy, a lot of the science is lost… this, oftentimes, leads to inaccurate reporting. For example, what would you think if you read this headline:

“A New Drug Kills Cancer Cells”

Well, the headline suggests that a cancer cure has been found. Sounds Great, Right? The problem is that the message the reader takes from the headline is probably very different from the actual discovery, because the headline neglects at least two hugely important questions:

a) Which Cancer cells?

There a ton of different types of cancer… even within a type of cancer, let’s say colon cancer, there are many different reasons why colon cancer occur, and based on the stage and genetics of a tumor and the individual, drug A could work beautifully for patient 1 yet does absolutely nothing for patient 2.

b) How are the studies performed?

In labs around the world, every day scientists use compounds to kill cancer cells that grow on plastic dishes. This does not mean that these compounds are effective cancer therapies. At this point, these compounds are about 10 years of animal and clinical studies before they enter the marketplace.

Even the news stories, which provide more details, lack a certain level of depth that would capture the whole picture, which is probably necessary since the average person would not understand/not care about all the important technical details.

It is a double-edge sword, really. People would like to see the progress that the biomedical science field produces, but in order to communicate these stories to the average person, the result sometimes is the wrong or misleading message.

Can Grad Students Be Impact Players?

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When I first started grad school, I was somewhat intimidated by professors, who are well-established and successful scientists in their fields. I read their publications, learned from them quite a bit. For a good reason, I felt a huge chasm between their tremendous knowledge and experiences and me, as a budding scientist.

As I progressed in my research, and the idea of publishing an article in a peer-reviewed journal emerged, I began to think…

My journal article will present my research to the whole scientific community, which includes other professors and scientists across the U.S. and the world. They will read my paper and some will use it as a building block for their research or knowledge.

Wow.

While as a graduate student, I have much to learn, I no longer have to be a bystander or an observer in science, I can be an “impact player”.

Being An Impact Player

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It is quite an amazing feeling when you come up with a novel idea, then you realize that a successful established company is pursuing the same idea. While it may sound discouraging or you may feel “scooped”, I think it is very rewarding when you feel that you came up with the same idea… or that the idea you generated is of the same caliber as an idea generated by successful industry leaders.

Which makes me think… there are two kinds of people: innocent bystanders/observers and there are impact players. Impact players do things, come up with ideas, start new ventures that others (bystanders/observers) read about. Generally speaking, entrepreneurs are impact players, because they try to capitalize on (their) existing knowledge to develop a new context, market, product, or service.

Are you an impact player? Do you act like one?

Competition Is Good!

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I am almost done with my third year of my PhD program. Even though I am done with my courses, I decided to take a class titled “Entrepreneurship For Scientists”, which is a seminar style where every week a speaker (entrepreneur, CEO, or industry leader) comes in to present. As part of the class, we had to work in groups of 4 throughout the semester and write a business plan for a company that revolves around a science-based innovation.

My group decided to design a genetic test that would identify an individual’s risk of developing heart disease. We worked hard throughout the semester to research the validity of the science, but mainly focusing on the market research, the technologies we would use, and how the process would work. According to our conservative projections, in year 5, we would be generating a profit of $25M.

We gave a 15 minute talk on Wednesday (May 2nd) to an audience of business leaders, VCs, and angels. It was very well received. Even though it was an academic exercise, our group is toying with the idea of launching.

Anyway, the day after our presentation (Thursday, May 3rd), Brian Williams in the NBC Nightly News reports that scientists have discovered a DNA mutation that can predispose individuals of a higher risk of heart attacks. In addition, there was an article published in MSNBC.com, which indicates that a company are pursuing developing a test that identifies people risk of heart disease.

While at first, I thought that we got “scooped” – I began to think back to our presentation, particularly the part where we mentioned that we welcome competition. Since this is a huge market, another company that would be raising awareness for our market is definitely a good thing. It can be of particular benefit if the competition is well-established, because the smaller company can piggy-back on the wave of marketing and raised awareness that the established company generates. On the other hand, it may become detrimental, since the established company can outdo the smaller company at everything they try to excel. There is a fine and strategic line that needs to be planned to capitalize on the efforts done by the established company, without arousing their “threat sensors”.

Our goal, if we launch, then is to excel and beat our competition by either the quality of our test and process, cost, or a combination, so we would gain a larger market share. Indeed, the price we set for our kit is much lower than our competition, and our test is more scientifically robust.

Now, the $25 million question is… Should We Launch?