Blogging with a mission
You’re young, energetic, ambitious and you have diabetes. The diagnosis of diabetes is a hammer blow and many at that time may fear it will mean the end of chasing their dreams. A group of diabetes bloggers want to inspire all those affected by diabetes by sharing their dreams and achievements and show that is possible to achieve personal ambitious goals despite the daily struggle and frustration to live with diabetes.
During the weekend of March 5th and 6th, 2016, Roche Diabetes Care Germany organised its second annual Diabetes #social media dialogue in the idyllic Schloss Hohenkammer in Bavaria and invited around 25 of the most active German bloggers in the diabetes community to this blogger’s event. Bente explains on her blog what such a blogger’s event mainly is about: the mutual exchange of information. Companies use these events to provide a sneak preview of their new or future products and the bloggers provide their critical opinion and suggestions for improvement. All novelties are of course shared instantaneously with blog readers and the blogger’s followers on other social media platforms such as twitter and instagram. That Roche is organizing blogger events is not a surprise because they consider the interaction of patients on social media platforms an integral part of (future) personalised diabetes management, one of the company goals to tailor therapy to the patient’s needs.
On the first day of the event Roche presented the launch of their own social media platform for patients with diabetes, followed by a workshop on how to shoot professional videos for your blog by using just an iPhone and a standard video editing app. The workshop was a success, but unfortunately I did not join the bloggers not until the second day of the event so that you’ll have to do without a video for this blog entry!
I joined the event not because Roche must have been so convinced by my blog writing skills, but because I was asked to present the data of a clinical trial Profil had participated in with a new implantable CGM system, which is currently pending CE-certification. Some bloggers already found out about the primary results of this clinical trial when they attended the ATTD conference earlier this year in Milan, but for many this was a first introduction to the system and its performance. Eager to hear more about this new 90-day CGM sensor that is placed under the skin, everyone took out their laptops and phones (notepad and pens are no longer required in this digital era) to document my presentation and discussions. And boy, did we have discussions! At a scientific conference I would be glad to receive at least one question from the audience; these girls and guys turned the morning into a very lively Q&A-session with tiny bits of presenting in between. Their enthusiasm was warming and their engagement inspiring – no wonder their blog entries are so well-loved! So please, brush up on your German if needed and take a minute to read Sarah’s, Saskia’s and Lisa’s impressions of the event.
