facebookpixel

Building a Diverse Team and Building for the Future

CMMA Blog

Melonie Parker

Melonie Parker, Chief Diversity Officer & Director of Employee Engagement, Google

Ice Breaker: “Stand and Be Noticed”

I will read you a series of statements. If they apply to you, please stand. Observe who’s with you and who is not. There’s no judgment!

  • If you travelled more than 100 miles today.
  • If this is your first time attending a conference.
  • If you have been in your current role for less than five years.
  • If you have been to Disney World in the past five years. If you are married.
  • If you have children, including the furry kind. If you are a cat person.
  • If you one of your favorite foods is pizza. If your favorite type of music is country. If you identify as a woman.
  • If you identify as a racially or ethnically diverse person. If you identify as a Christian.

What were some of the things you noticed during this exercise?

Responses:

  • There are a less country music fans than I
  • There’s a lack of diversity
  • We have a lot of cat

Was there anything that stood out as glaring for you? Responses:

  • Surprised to see a lot of non-Christians.
  • Your questions near the end upped the tension in the
  • The atmosphere in the room shifted when we started talking about
  • For the question about identifying as a Christian, people were slower to stand up until others did and they felt

Typically, people call out the last three questions as uncomfortable.

I wanted to start the conference this way to encourage us to get comfortable about topics that we may be uncomfortable talking about. People are uncomfortable having difficult conversations. We don’t want to offend anyone, so we say nothing. Let’s extend grace to one another during this conference. MRI: Most Respectful Interpretation.

Another acronym I like: 

W.I.S.D.O.M: What I Shall do on Monday

What are the skills that you are going to be able to develop here at the conference that you can take back with you?

Media managers are continually challenged to stay abreast of trends and changes in technology at the same time that you are paying attention to your team and building a strong culture. All our employees have the same personal needs that we do.

Two aspects of Diversity

  • Representation
  • Inclusion

Representation and a culture of inclusion go hand in hand. Hard to make progress in one without the other. Goal is every employee feels respected and included as part of the team.

Who you hire largely determines your ability to succeed. I work in the heart of technology start-ups; a high percentage of them who fail do so because of people issues.

What should you be looking at when hiring a new employee?

  1. Take your

The world would have you believe that all the most talented people are already hired, but that is categorically wrong. When you look for nontraditional people and take a chance on them, the talent wars go away.

We at Google think diversity is a good thing to do. It’s critically important in order to have diversity in options and talents. It’s important not just for your team but for your organization as a whole.

What do we need to add into the group that we don’t have? What is the value the new employee needs to add?

Not so much focus on culture as it is; what does it need to be?

  1. The Search

Short and long-term options for the role. Short-term and long-term expectations for the person.

Build a profile with competencies, and desired future competencies. Write a job description:

  • Gender neutral
  • Words are important!
  • Cast a wide net

Many of us use recruiters to find candidates for us. Make sure the recruiters are focusing on the competencies needed for that job.

  1. The new hire

Once we make the hiring decision, need to make sure that person feels included as part of the team.

What community of support are you putting around the new hire?

A second component: fostering an inclusive workplace

  • Doesn’t mean just hiring more women or women of
  • Need a sense of
  • Your team may be quite homogenous, and you will have to work hard to create an inclusive

Fostering an Inclusive Workplace

  • Have your employees’ backs and make sure they know
  • It’s a gift that the employee chose your organization; they could work many other places.
  • Need to re-recruit your employees every
  • Build trust
    • Without trust they are just individuals who work for you
    • At Google, we did a two-year study on Highest performing teams had psychological security. It was okay to make a mistake.
    • When I moved from Sandia to high tech, it was a big Taking risks are part of the tech culture. There are lots of mistakes in the tech world,
    • Do a “no fail” No blame. Allows for creativity, strategic thinking, sticking your neck out without fear of getting it cut off.
  • Broaden and Build Mode
    • Trust, curiosity and confidence help broaden the mind and build a stronger, more resilient
    • What situations have been in where you felt unsafe? What did that feel like?
    • Now think about environments where you felt safe and protected? What did that feel like?
    • When I interviewed at Sandia, that was the first time I had been to New I took a wrong turn out of the airport and got into a bad neighborhood.

At the interview, a group took me out to lunch. The team was scared by a leader who managed by fear. I decided this team needs me; they need someone who understands what they’ve been through.

  • I had to immediately put into a place a new leadership In order for the team to trust those new leaders, they needed to know they were vulnerable.

Google is often in the news. We are unpopular in a bi-partisan way. We are in a complex environment; can’t rely on old patterns. We have to be really good at understanding what’s in front of us and responding appropriately. What patterns are emerging, and how do we solve for them. Opposing views can both be true!

Humor increases solution thinking and creativity. When the workplace feels challenging but not threatening.

In addition to hiring the best people, we also have to take care of the talent entrusted to us. We need systemic approaches that hold up over time.

Development, Progression

  • If we don’t focus on these, our employees will either leave or
  • Do you understand the talent gaps in your team? Do you know what motivates each individual? Do they know how what they are working on contributes to the entire organization? Do you regularly give them feedback, mentoring, encouragement?
  • A critical part of building diverse teams is giving Companies with diverse teams perform better, but constructive feedback is essential.
  • Implicit bias can creep into Inherent bias and prejudices we are not even aware of. How do we prevent this from happening?
    • Who do you give the most helpful feedback to? Those who are the most like you? Research shows the diverse employees often don’t get the feedback they
    • Protective Failure to give feedback for fear of being sexist or racist. Feedback gets watered down. They don’t know what to do differently.
    • White men get more specific feedback on what it takes to get to the next
    • Only 14% of women are satisfied with the feedback they get on the
    • It can be really uncomfortable to give feedback to those different from
    • The real reason is you don’t have an authentic relationship with that You have not had the courage to jump in and develop that relationship.
    • I have a team of retention case People who get referred to us have one foot out the door. We’ve been able to retain over 70% of them. Universally, they do not understand what’s expected of them and how they are doing against those expectations. Have not received specific, actionable feedback.
    • We incorporate what we’ve learned into our leadership

Retention 

  • Attrition correlates with People don’t leave companies; they leave managers.
  • Are we aware of the privilege we have and are we lending that privilege to
  • Be aware of who’s in and who’s out and how we can make that person can be It won’t be forgotten! You will have made a major impact on that person.
  • Mentoring and providing sponsors
    • Regularly talk about talent and skills of our employees to others in the organization to encourage mentoring

And the Emmy Award for Early Development of Data Management Software goes to…

CMMA Blog

Wow.  Thank you so much.  I didn’t even prepare a speech.

OK.

First, I’d like to thank the NATIONAL ACADEMY OF TELEVISION ARTS & SCIENCES for this recognition.  And of course our thousands of customers in this industry.  So many of our customers have created Emmy-award winning content that has enriched our lives, and for Quantum to be recognized with a Technology and Engineering Emmy award is a tremendous honor.

I’d like to thank our engineers.  Their innovations in data management (or “HSM”) software, going back to the early 2000s, have enabled our customers in media to produce content more efficiently, and preserve their content digitally for decades.  By making media workflows more efficient and more automated, our customers in broadcast and post-production have been able to focus on better collaboration, creating better content, and distributing that content to a larger audience.

I’d like to thank our partners – both our channel partners and our technology partners.  Without them, this wouldn’t have been possible.

And notably, Quantum is unique amongst the other recipients of this Technology and Engineering Emmy in that we are the ONLY VENDOR that has integrated our data management functions with all of the leading Media Asset Management providers.  Not only have we developed a sophisticated policy engine, but we expose those policies via API so third-party applications like MAMS, PAMS, DAMS can leverage the HSM capabilities we have.

I just spoke with a large broadcaster this week, and one of the reasons they chose Quantum is because:  “We can use our MAM to drive the StorNext policy engine, to move content between production, nearline, and archive tiers.”

This award is also particularly timely because later this year we will announcing another fundamental advance in data management technology, new capabilities that will help our media customers manage the content challenges of the next decade.

Our development of HSM began nearly 20 years ago, in early 2000. It was a cold winter day, and our engineering team…there’s the music.  OK, I’m getting the hook I’ve got to wrap this up.

Quantum’s StorNext ®, which combines a high-speed file system with data management software, incorporates HSM technology and has been widely adopted by the media and entertainment industry to address the growing problem of sharing, preserving, and analyzing massive volumes of unstructured data.

See you at NAB!

To view our Partner blog, click here

End of Life for Windows 7 – The 7 Stages of Grief

CMMA Blog

Mourners around the globe are gathering to pay their respects to Microsoft’s most successful operating system, Windows 7, as it was laid to rest this month.

Grief Stage #1 – Denial

As with many losses, there are certainly a large number of people and businesses who choose to remain in the first stage of grief – denial. In this particular case, denial is not a river in Egypt or a good place to be. Those businesses who don’t address this loss and begin their migration to Windows 10 soon, leave themselves vulnerable to hackers, ransomware and cyber-attacks. Any one of those things could bring down a large, global company or at the very least cause major financial losses, loss of crucial company information and deeply damage a company’s reputation both internally and externally. I am confident that if you surveyed 400 million IT professionals, none of them would respond that they want any of that to happen to their company.

Grief Stage #2 – Pain &Guilt

The loss of included Windows 7 updates and security patches is hard to swallow and the idea of updating all dispersed endpoints within your enterprise to Windows 10 is painful. With this pain, you may have feelings of guilt for not acting sooner or preparing for this loss. However, the sooner you act, the sooner you will be able to move forward to the next phase. Start your migration as soon as you can!

Grief Stage #3 – Frustration, Anger & Bargaining

In the case of losing our faithful OS of ten years, frustration, anger and bargaining is a natural stage in the grieving process. Having to migrate your entire company to a new operating system is a huge undertaking. This frustration and fear of the unknown can lead to anger and bargaining. Some IT professionals will cope by questioning and proposing alternatives to this reality that Windows 7 is dead. Is there any painless way around this? Why can’t they just stick with Windows 7? Why can’t we just avoid/delay the update? What’s the worst that can happen?

Grief Stage #4 – Depression & Loneliness

Once you realize that your executives and board don’t want to find out what the worst thing that can happen, Stage 3 quickly evolves into depression and loneliness. Hackers, ransomware and cyber-attacks are absolutely worth avoiding. But how can you accomplish this massive move to a new operating system singlehandedly? It may feel hopeless and you may feel alone in trying to solve this feat. But I would bet, if your company suffers financial or other critical losses that are directly related to not migrating sooner, your depression and loneliness will mutate into something much more intense.

Grief Stage #5 – The Upward Turn

Life becomes a bit calmer and more organized once you realize there are options to help you deal with this change. Your symptoms of depression can start to lift when you realize ‘Yes, I can solve this.’

Grief Stage #6 – Reconstruction & Working Through

This is the stage where you realize you must get on with life and find an operating system that is supported and secure. You had a good run with Windows 7, but it’s time to move on. In this reconstructing stage, understanding what solutions are out there and evaluating them will serve you well.

Grief Stage #7 – Acceptance & Hope

Once you have moved on, you are ready to deal with the reality of the situation. Windows 7 is dead and is not coming back. If you are one of the 53% of companies still on W7 , you need to get your endpoints on Windows 10, as soon as possible. With a hopeful mindset, you are able to clearly evaluate your options: Do you want to take the risk and ignore these warnings by staying on Windows 7 with no support? Do you want to pay for Microsoft extended support for Windows 7? That seems like a lot of money and doesn’t help your organization transform into a modern workplace. Or, do you want to migrate to Windows 10?

Moving On to Windows 10

Whether you are in stage 1 or stage 7 of your grieving, we recommend fining your migration quickly and cost-effectively. You don’t need to invest in new hardware or infrastructure if you choose to solve it with software.

Using a Software-Defined Enterprise Content Delivery Network (SD ECDN), businesses can exponentially decrease the bandwidth load on their network, without replacing or updating their hardware infrastructure – all within a matter of days. So, wipe away your tears, stop delaying the inevitable and begin the move. With Kollective for ConfigMgr , your business can maximize the speed of software distribution, streamline your Windows 10 migration and future proof against ever-increasing system updates.

Solving it with software will get you there faster and more easily than any other option and before you know it, all the pain and anger and sadness and fear surrounding the move to a new operating system will be behind you.

The post End of Life for Windows 7 – The 7 Stages of Grief appeared first on Kollective Technology .

To view our Partner blog, click here

2020 Vision: A look at what’s ahead in media… and a look back at 2019’s predictions

CMMA Blog

This is a great time of year if you’re an analyst… it’s time for industry predictions!

So, for someone who follows the industry — like me — there are lots of questions to answer about just what the heck is going on. And, of course, predictions for the coming year need to be made. The problem is that, usually, forecasts and predictions are made by looking back at what happened during the past year. That’s seldom an accurate guide. I mean, just think about the pay-TV industry when cord-cutting started to accelerate. Looking back really wasn’t very helpful, right?

So, I’ve gathered my notes from all the meetings and conferences I’ve attended in 2019, the research we’ve done for the Global Video Index (download the latest Index here ) and, of course, my best resource, the Magic 8 Ball.

A quick look back at 2019 predictions

First, here’s a look back at my predictions for 2019. (A DING!, obviously, is a win. A DOINK!, the same as when a kicked football hits the uprights… a loss):

  • The Justice Department swings and misses in its “re-effort” to disrupt the AT&T/Time Warner deal. DING! Done deal. AT&T now has a Super Max, er, HBO Max, that it’ll be trying to figure out a strategy for the rest of this year and beyond. A pricier subscription than Netflix? Please.

  • Nexstar succeeds where Sinclair failed and gets the nod to acquire a bevy of Tribune Media stations. DING! A strategy that proves if at first, you don’t succeed, change partners.

  • Hulu do-si-dos and changes partners. DING! Disney makes a huge content move to add control of Hulu to its empire.

  • Amazon breaks up the Google/Facebook digital advertising duopoly. DOINK(ish)!
    Google and little brother Facebook controlled 58% of U.S. digital ad spend in 2018. Amazon? Just 4%.

    My prediction called for double digits by the end of this year. eMarketer says 8.8.%.

  • Artificial Intelligence grows up. Huh? REPLAY IS LOOKING AT THIS. Honestly, it’s too hard to call… because AI’s adoption is too hard to measure. BUT, AI certainly upped its game in the media industry, playing a larger part in content recommendation, ad and content personalization, and even playing a bigger role in production and editing of content. 

  • The “polycloud” becomes a thing. PUSH. REPLAY BOOTH. Another one of those artful-dodge predictions on my part. How do you measure something like that? Actually, you can Google it. Last year there were 22,451 results for “polycloud.” This year, 28,100. I can’t tell you for sure that 2019 was the year that media began looking to use multiple cloud services concurrently, but it has become a more common term.

    Still, with the increasing importance of AI, being willing to use multiple cloud services is simply realizing that Microsoft, for example, may be better than Amazon at some things and that Google has its own special offerings in, say, machine learning. All three offer similar core services, but each has its own special talents.

  • OTT services are not even close to the saturation point. DING! The news media loves to talk about SVOD saturation or how OTT choices have become exhausting. Consumers continue to sign up. But, pundits in this industry have this bizarre predilection to compare OTT services to traditional TV. That’s patently wrong.
    OTT is not traditional TV!

    Nor are we playing in a Texas Hold ‘Em contest, where the winner takes all and everyone else retires to their dens to watch the single-channel (Netflix?) that has become the center of the Internet TV universe.
    Another one of my (sneak) predictions for 2020 and beyond? There will be a handful of Big SVOD Services like there are a handful of Big TV Networks. They will have the biggest share of viewers, make the most money, take home the most awards and get the biggest headlines. But, there will always be a market that supports niche players (even some services that have outgrown niche status). They will have subscribers, make money and produce dynamite content.

  • Disney D2C OTT launch lands with a yawn. MAJOR DOINK!
    I can’t even begin to defend this. I was wrong to the tune of 10 million sign-ups on Day One.
    But, does Disney+ have legs? Can iT thrive? Rumors now have Disney+ at 24 million. That is pretty thrive-y. But is the catalog deep enough to maintain that? Um, yes (another one of those firm mini-2020 predictions), simply because Disney will launch madly in 2020 and, like Netflix, have global access that supports it for a long time.

  • Sports – big and small – find a welcoming home online. DING!
    No brainer, like betting on Ohio State to win the Big Ten. And we’re just seeing the tip of the iceberg. We saw more MLB, EPL soccer, NBA, NFL, IPL cricket etc. streaming than ever before. And, it’s just the beginning as pay-TV’s last pillar begins to erode more rapidly.

My 2020 Vision

Let’s just jump into 2020 predictions, shall we? (Ed. Note: Like Nostradamus, Jim is prone to vague statements… we’ll do our best to help him focus.)

  • Quibi, the multi-billion dollar short-form video baby headed up by Jeffrey Katzenberg and scheduled to launch April 6… Mobile-only, targeting younger viewers, and with a bevy of influencers and big-name content experts already on board. A shoo-in, right? Nope. Short-form content is great. But we’ve seen — in the quarterly Video Index — a higher percentage of short-form video starts on computers than on mobile devices. That’s especially true as more longer-form premium content becomes available on high-res smartphones. There’s also the question of how, exactly, does Quibi justify its expected $5/mo. subscription price for short-form content? And, how does it anticipate consumers engaging long-term? Magic 8 Ball says: Outlook not so good.

Let’s get a bevy of Netflix prediction:

  • Netflix continues to increase its content spend (estimated to exceed $15 billion, which is higher than the GDP of about 80 countries in 2019), as it continues to increase its subscriber rolls. Despite growing revenues, will Netflix raise prices in 2020? Magic 8 Ball says: Count on it.

  • One quick fix, of course, and one of the most popular topics of content at industry events is the potential increase in revenues Netflix would have if it introduced advertising in some way. So, with that in mind, will Netflix add advertising to its service (Alternative: Will it add an ad-supported tier?): Magic 8 Ball says: Very Doubtful.

  • Disney+. Apple TV+. HBO Max. Peacock. Those are just a few of the new services that have appeared, or that are about to appear, on the streaming screen. What impact will they have? How big a piece of the market will they take?  Is (insert service name here) a Netflix killer? Is there a Netflix killer on the horizon?: Magic 8 Ball says: My reply is “No.”

  • Will Netflix get involved in broadcasting sports/bid on sports rights/introduce live news shows? Magic 8 Ball says: Don’t count on it.
    (Bonus answer) What Netflix will do is produce more international content, move more aggressively into international markets and leverage its new “mobile-only” service in emerging markets.

Moving on from Netflix…

2020 will be a banner year for sports online. That’s not a prediction, it’s simply an observation.

The 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics are the biggest global event coming down the pike and it’s obvious that it will be streamed to a massive extent around the globe. Amazon this quarter launched a short slate of games from the English Premier League that it paid a boatload of cash for. How that plays out will have a big impact on whether the e-tailer manages to score a big deal with that other football league, the NFL. But, let’s assume it goes well enough… will Amazon Prime Video win a major streaming rights deal for the NFL? Magic 8 Ball says: It is certain. 

Some quick and easy ones I don’t need the 8 Ball for…

  • Consumers will reach a saturation point with OTT services. Nope.
    See 2019 predictions above.

  • Consumers will look to an evolved pay-TV industry (ha!) to help them simplify channel aggregation… in other words, consumers will go back to the bundle (in some form) for convenience. Um, snowball’s chance in hell.
    Let me explain why I think this is one of the three major fallacies about the media industries that just won’t die.

  • Will cord cutting slow down? Not likely. The U.S. will lose about 10% of its subscribers in  2020. But that’s OK, because pay-TV operators don’t want to be pay-TV operators anymore anyway. They want to be “connectivity companies,” (seriously, almost all of them said that during earnings calls this year). The margin on Internet services is significantly more than that for pay-TV… and the future is significantly brighter.

One more quick prediction about a soon-to-be-born streaming service…

NBCUniversal rolls out Peacock to yawns and the same lack of consumer adoption of TV Everywhere (which was one of the fastest-ever technology rollouts for pay-TV and one of the slowest technology adoptions). Peacock will have to pull off a major league Phoenix-rising-from-the-ashes if it hopes to make a dent in the market. Its go-to-market strategy is flawed.

Some final thoughts

  • Connected TVs will make it easier for brands to target — and finally reach — consumers.
    But it won’t be with conventional ads. As I’ve been saying for the past several years, the new video audience that is Millennials — and even more so the Gen Edge viewers who are following — won’t sit through the same fatty ads that have clogged TV arteries for decades. Brands will develop new, interactive ads aimed at interactive connected TVs, more intelligent — and featured — product placement that scores well with viewers and puts the content back where it should be… at the top of the heap. Let’s face it, even with the Super Bowl, where the media has made shooting stars of commercials, content, the game is what it’s all about. 

  • Consolidation & M&A: AT&T and Time Warner along with Viacom and CBS were the headlines that defined the major M&E M&A during the past 24 months, and we won’t see anything else that big in 2020. But, the time is ripe for consolidation among some smaller content producers.
    And, there are the FAANG companies that still may have a taste for new meat in the next 12 months, especially on the international front.

  • No list of predictions for 2020 (or 2021, 2022, 2023 etc.) would be complete without a nod to next-gen wireless. 5G has the potential to drive major evolution in the streaming industry, but it will begin slowly this year and accelerate for the next five as more smartphones come to market and the networks builds out. 5G will make AR commonplace and give VR the potential to make an impact on content consumption, especially sports. 

And finally…

  • 2020 will see the emergence of one clear video measurement tool that will make it easy for brands to see where their money is best spent. Just kidding.

Stay tuned.

Jim O’Neill is Principal Analyst at Brightcove. You can follow him on Twitter @JimONeillMedia and on LinkedIn

To view our Partner blog, click here

How Small Collaboration Spaces Deliver Big Results at Work

AV in Meeting Spaces

Sometimes you just need a quick get-together to organize a plan of attack. At other times, you’ll want to gather a few people to work on a project. Or you may need to consult right now with colleagues who are at another location.

What solves the challenges in each of these scenarios? The value of having a small collaboration space where core members of a team can share ideas, work on documents in real time, and connect with colleagues and clients at remote locations. In “Small Spaces, Big Outcomes ,” find out why small spaces like huddle rooms have become popular and will continue to be an essential part of the workplace. This guide also explores other benefits of small collaboration spaces, including:

  • Better use of your real estate (large meeting spaces are rarely used to capacity).
  • Attracting and keeping the employees that drive your business success.
  • Efficient use of technology. Equipping a series of small spaces with unified communications technology leads to better collaboration than experienced in large conference rooms.

Technology for Your Small Collaboration Spaces

This guide includes a look at specific Poly technology solutions and their benefits to your workplace collaboration efforts. You’ll get concise explanations of the benefits and features of:

  • Polycom Studio
  • Polycom + HP SRS Bundle
  • CCX Business Media Phones for Microsoft Teams
  • Polycom Trio

You’ll also learn about the advantages you can gain when integrating Polycom room solutions with Alexa for Business.

If you have any questions about what you’ve read, or you’d like to read more content that will help you make an informed decision about improving your workplace with collaboration and AV solutions, we’re here to help. Visit the  AVI-SPL Resources page for more content (you can narrow your results by focusing on technology type, the content format, and vendor partner). 

You can also connect with AVI-SPL via web form by going to the AVI-SPL contact page . Prefer talking to someone? Reach out to AVI-SPL at 866-708-5034.

Get your copy of “Small Spaces, Big Outcomes: Trade Office Spaces for Engaging Collaboration Environments”  >

To view our Partner blog, click here