There are several conferences to which many members of the technology transfer industry attend. They include LES Annual Meeting, JP Morgan Healthcare, BIO International Convention, AUTM Annual Meeting, as well as several others. Which conferences are attended vary across offices, but one of the largest, most used functions of these conferences is the partnering meeting.
Partnering meetings allow face-to-face conversations between members of different organizations that have mutual interests. Some call it “speed dating”—each meeting is scheduled for approximately 30 minutes and they may run back-to-back throughout the day (with little or no breaks for the adventurous). For some it’s tiring, others exhilarating, but it’s always a great way to make connections.
Most conferences utilize an online system to schedule meetings. The systems have improved over the years, some allowing full customization of individual and organizational profiles, uploading of documents and videos, and contacting individuals in other organizations. Partnering systems are highly convenient because they allow individuals to lay out a schedule and confirm topics of discussion before arriving at the conference. It is important to ensure the people you are contacting are appropriate for your areas of interest and will make for a productive conversation.
There can be as many approaches to the partnering meeting as there are individuals in attendance. From the technology transfer office’s perspective, some people may want a general overview of research and technologies available in their areas of interest, while others may want to talk about one specific research project or technology. The meeting can be an opportunity to squeeze every drop of industry knowledge, feedback, and intelligence about our technologies. Feedback can only make our opportunities and technologies better. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with meeting to introduce yourself or catch up with someone. All of these are important in building and maintaining healthy relationships.
As important as the meeting is, the follow-up is as important. Since most conferences’ partnering systems remain accessible after the conference, it is a convenient resource to double check information regarding companies and individuals who attended the conference. Like with most meetings, even if there are no specific action items, it is good to follow-up to thank the people with whom you met for their time.
“It’s always nice to hear from someone, ‘we’ve been in touch with this person’ or ‘we’ve been working with that person, so we wanted to meet with you,’” says Panya Taysavang, Licensing Associate in the Office of Technology Transfer at Emory University. “I like to tell the people I meet that we have a good pipeline of technologies which is supported by over 200 disclosures a year. They are likely to find something of interest. A lot of comments are, ‘that’s a good way to describe it,’ because it is similar to the drug discovery pipeline of many companies.”
