Every wellness retreat has the same design flaw. You spend some days in the mountains, breathing properly for the first time in a year, having the kind of conversation with yourself that you never have at home or in the office.
You leave lighter. You’re floating. And then on the way home, someone cuts you up on the junction and…you utter f***ing p****!!! And… all of it is gone.
Pharmageddon has the same flaw. We’ve built two days that pharma actually looks forward to, with an absence of vendor decks, exhibitors or press-releases-dressed-up-as-keynotes. People leave with real ideas and, for once, the energy to act on them.
Then the day after happens. Flights, inbox backlog, screaming kids, screaming bosses. By the time your colleagues are asking you how Pharmageddon went, you’re no longer the same person. You’re now tired, you have 400 unread emails, you’re being asked questions by procurement about ROI, and you can’t convey that floaty feeling without sounding like a weirdo. “I guess you had to be there,” you say apologetically.
It has taken me a while to sort this. To be honest, I too was in that nice bubble where the outside world doesn’t matter. I could hear “Pharmageddon is too aspirational” as a compliment rather than a negative.
Now I’m finally willing to grasp the nettle. Welcome to Day Three.
Day Three isn’t actually the third day of the event.
The event is still Day One and Two. But Day Three is the first morning you’re back at your desk, and the morning those wellness retreats conveniently forget to design for.
What we need is a re-entry phase. A way of carrying what you learned, reinserting back into normal life before normal life erases it.
Day Three is us being willing to build the frameworks for post-event impact, something that that turns your experience into finance-director-compatible language. And templates for pitching the two or three ideas worth fighting for (before someone talks you out of them).
This isn’t a bolt-on to turn the spirit of Pharmageddon into something more serious. It’s a direct answer to a criticism you’ve made directly to us. You said the ROI was invisible. Day Three is where we make it visible where it matters – back home afterwards.
More detail coming soon. But if there’s something you think we should include, let us know.
