How One Company Used a Prototype Launch to Create a Media Frenzy—and What You Can Learn From Its Example
// By Lisa Ellis //
Everyone who works in public relations or marketing knows how difficult it can be to get good media coverage for a product or event. So when Philips, a leading technology company that creates innovative products and solutions in health tech, decided to try to generate publicity for a proof-of-concept solution (in layman’s terms, a proof of concept is a demonstration that a concept/idea is feasible or has the potential to be used in a real-world setting), the communication team had no idea what to expect, says Kathy O’Reilly, Senior Press Officer at Philips.
Kathy O’Reilly
The idea they wanted to demonstrate was how doctors could use Google Glass during surgery to monitor a patient’s vital signs and reactions without ever having to take their eyes away from the procedure to obtain this vital information. The Philips proof of concept connected Google Glass to Philips IntelliVue Solutions to demonstrate the idea of seamlessly transferring patient vital signs into Google Glass, potentially providing physicians with hands-free access to critical clinical information. This was a logical application in the clinical setting of this type of wearable technology, which displays patient monitoring data right in the glasses, thereby enabling users to access data hands-free.
Finding the Story in the Concept
“We were interested in demonstrating a proof of concept to show how wearables could be applied in a clinical setting with real time patient data in order to help improve patient outcomes,” O’Reilly says, adding that using Google Glass in clinical settings was a very hot topic with media, and Philips wanted to bring the concept to reporters first. They began tackling this challenge in late summer of 2013 with the help of Accenture, a management consulting technology firm, and before their eyes, things dramatically began to take off.