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As AVI-SPL and Whitlock Merge, the Customer Remains the Focus

AV Everywhere

In recent weeks, the offices of AVI-SPL have been buzzing with activity — much like the buzz that was generated when it was first announced that AVI-SPL and Whitlock would merge into one digital workplace services provider. The number one and number three companies on the SCN Top 50 of systems integrators were joining forces. And as you might expect, the news reports focused on the economics: the value and size of the new corporate giant, 

Much of the activity, particularly at AVI-SPL’s Tampa headquarters, has been focused on ways to bring the companies’ operations together while providing the same high levels of service that clients of AVI-SPL and Whitlock have come to expect. In a letter to customers, AVI-SPL’s EVP of Global Sales and Marketing Dale Bottcher did more than reassure them about the dedication and support they expect will be there. He let them know that the services and solutions they’ve come to rely on were going to get even better. He emphasized the need to pair collaboration spaces with the support services that lead to the best possible experience for end users and IT operations.

Actions are backing up his words. The constant flow of meetings and training sessions among AVI-SPL and Whitlock reveals the commitment to maintain and build upon the excellence that have made both companies so valuable to their clients around the world.

Bottcher’s letter expresses the practical value the merger will have not just for current customers, but those who are seeking a partner for their digital workplace transformation: the ability to quickly reach their collaboration and business goals. Research has shown that the number of video-enabled meeting spaces in the business world continues to grow — and for good reason.  Organizations that value video collaboration are able to optimize their investment in office space while offering the flexibility to work from anywhere and tap into the knowledge of teams working together. And because of these benefits, companies are positioned to attract and keep the talent that drives their growth.

If you’re seeking a partner for improving or building from scratch a workplace collaboration experience that benefits the entire company, I encourage you to let AVI-SPL know your challenges. I also encourage you to review AVI-SPL’s thought leadership on workplace collaboration. A great starting point is our 2019 Concept Catalog, which offers advice on how to build a digital workplace committee to ensure your workplace solutions align with business goals and the necessary user experience.

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Brightcove’s response to COVID-19

Brightcove

COVID-19 has quickly swept through our socio-economic footprint and impacted individuals, families, communities, and businesses around the world. Our thoughts are with those who have been affected by the virus. Our team has spent a great deal of time preparing for the weeks and months ahead with a laser focus on our customers, partners, and employees.

We know the critical role that Brightcove video plays every day in organizations, from communication to employees, to the delivery of critical news to customers around the globe, and everything in between. We have taken several measures to ensure that the COVID-19 crisis does not impact the experience with Brightcove’s platform or services. Below are the ways in which we have taken action and these will continue to evolve as required. 

Safety of Employees
Our number one priority is the health and safety of our employees around the globe. To that measure, we have:

  • Abided by guidelines/travel restrictions: All of our global offices are adhering to guidelines and best practices from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and other global health organizations.
  • Ability to work from remote locations: Many teams at Brightcove have worked remotely from all corners of the globe, for over a decade. This practice has enabled us to provide you with world-class service even in a time of social distancing.
  • Next Steps: A cross-functional team within Brightcove is closely monitoring all aspects of the pandemic and will take prudent, agile, and swift action necessary to ensure the safety of our employees and the continuity of service. We are committed to doing our part to minimize the spread of COVID-19 while ensuring service continuity for you.

Continuity of Service:
We are committed to ensuring that our technology continues to support the needs of your organization.  We will continue to focus on:

  • Infrastructure: All Brightcove products are built upon a highly reliable commercial cloud infrastructure and delivered through a variety of content delivery networks (CDNs). 
  • Flexibility:  As with any best-in-class SaaS organization, we are able to perform all systems monitoring and product development remotely.  
  • Global Presence: Our R&D and Support teams are globally dispersed and able to provide you with around the clock access. Though geographically dispersed, we are one global, highly coordinated team, dedicated to supporting your business needs.

As always, if you have any questions or concerns, please reach out to our global Technical Support team via our Support Portal: https://supportportal.brightcove.com

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How to Manage a Crisis with Video Communication

CMMA Blog

Whether or not you have a formal crisis communications plan in place, communicating with your workforce during difficult times is necessary to keep your team, customers, and business moving forward. With dispersed and remote workforces, video is a very successful form of communication that can help curb panic and instill confidence that things will get better.

Below, we have outlined seven benefits of live video communications during uncertain times:

1. Body language and tone matter

More than 90% of human communication occurs through body language. When you can see the person as they speak, you gain a better understanding of how they are feeling. Facial expressions communicate a deeper level of emotion and create a connection that has a significant impact on the delivery of your message. When you can hear the tone of their voice and see their facial expressions, it’s easier to understand the importance of the message being presented and it helps build trust, credibility and integrity that other forms of communication simply don’t offer.

2. Video builds relationships

The quality of your relationship helps you survive the ups and downs that inevitably occur in difficult times. Live video enables you to create a connection, which in turn, boosts the success and strength of your relationships. Using email, audio, or slide shows doesn’t provide the opportunity to build camaraderie with your audience. Face-to-face conversations are always most effective, but in this day and age, that simply doesn’t scale. Live video offers all the same attributes, providing the greatest form of persuasion, engagement, and leadership. Whether it be energizing the culture or navigating challenging times, live video gives you the ability leverage emotion and create a bond between you and your audience.

3. Demonstrate that you value your people

When you get in front of the camera and speak authentically, you show your audiences that you care about them. During a time of crisis or change, having senior leadership take the time to present to them what is known, what is being done, that this will end, and what to do in the meantime will help your workforce understand that you value them. Distributing live video updates will help inform them and help them feel connected and valued within the organization.

4. Create greater efficiency with effectiveness

Scale and efficiency are very important in both large and small organizations, but effectiveness is the true measure of success. If we only focused on efficiency, then why is email so ineffective? How many emails have you received this week that fell flat, lacked true emotion and made no connection? How many emails did you ignore completely? Live video if done in an authentic and transparent way, captures and holds people’s attention. It gives you an authentic and authoritative voice that demonstrates a commitment to your words.

5. Develop unity and alignment

High-functioning, successful organizations have a strong sense of unity and commitment within their teams. Live video is more effective at delivering a message with context and in a convincing manner. When your workforce believes in the vision and understands their role in achieving that vision, you have the ability to achieve employee buy-in and support, even with those employees located around the globe. This unity helps create organizational alignment for greater velocity and success in achieving your goals.

6. Create a common voice and values

We’ve all had it happen… There’s nothing worse than talking to five different people at a company and hearing them explain five different value propositions. You would think they worked at different companies. Achieving a common voice and set of values across a global organization is difficult, but necessary. Listening and watching a sincere leader share their voice and company values can help employees understand and take to heart these messages. Live video allows your leadership to deliver the context. It helps create a memorable narrative and connects concepts together creating a consistent voice and set of values across the company.

7. Create a sense of urgency

Live video has a unique quality of being real and in the moment.  It grabs your attention and creates the unconscious feeling that if you look away, you risk missing something.  It’s raw and captivating for an audience.  Urgency is a powerful emotion that can rally organizations, creating the unity and motivation to take action.

In challenging times such as crisis or change management, the way you communicate is as important as what you communicate. Live video offers many of the benefits and effectiveness of face-to-face communication, while still achieving the scale required. For a limited time, Kollective is offering a free enterprise video strategy consultation with one of our experts. Get started doing video today with help from our experts. Learn more and sign up today: EVS Consultation.

 

The post How to Manage a Crisis with Video Communication appeared first on Kollective Technology.

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Suddenly Remote Due to Coronavirus: 6 Ways to Help Staff and Students Adjust

AVI-SPL

The rush to control the spread of the novel coronavirus, known as COVID-19, is on. Canceled events and self-quarantines are the norm. Companies and schools are acting too by sending workers and students home to meet remotely. It’s likely organizations like yours already utilize video meetings. However, if most of your teams and students are suddenly remote every day due to coronavirus, virtual meetings are playing their largest role ever in achieving your business goals.

Keep in mind some team members and students will be new to working or studying from home. Before you send your teams, students, and teachers into the virtual meeting world, and help fight the spread of COVID-19, follow these steps to help people stay engaged and productive during video meetings.

6 ways to help staff and students adjust to working remotely

1. Grant access

Make sure employees and students have remote access to all networks, software, and files they need to do their work or teach and attend classes. Since you’ll have a spike in video conferencing usage, contact your IT department to review your meeting software licenses and available bandwidth. You don’t want to send everyone home, then realize 1,000 people must share 200 software licenses.

Global companies should encourage staff to utilize cloud video connections vs. dial-in options to limit international calling charges. Even toll-free lines can have hidden call charges. It’s helpful to offer backup call-in options in case of slow home internet connections or local outages too. However, encourage staff to call in only when online connections are not available to control phone charges. Another tip is to encourage remote participants to turn off their camera feed to save bandwidth while benefiting from the online audio conferencing service. 

2. Offer online training

It’s likely your staff is already meeting online. If virtual meetings are not the norm, though, users may not be aware of all collaboration software features. Offer live and recorded video training to ensure everyone knows how to utilize the tools available to them. Show users how to schedule and start video meetings, record sessions, share files, chat, make online calls, and start impromptu meetings.

3. Have extra tech support available

Since tech support calls may increase with more people suddenly working online, get your tech support team involved early. Have your IT team review common tech challenges, so they are ready to help video conferencing attendees connect quickly. Consider creating a dedicated support team to help run your newly-minted virtual offices and classrooms.

Don’t forget to send tech support contact information to your virtual team members, so they know who to call for help. Also, since support staff will likely work remotely too, make sure they can still access employee laptops via remote control when needed.

4. Provide quality headsets for video meetings

It’s essential for meeting participants to see and hear everyone in the video conference and be seen and heard. Most laptops include cameras suitable for video calls. For audio, external devices often improve the remote meeting experience. Provide quality headsets with microphones to ensure all attendees can collaborate and share ideas during meetings.

Note that your staff and students may have to contend with noise and distractions. Children and pets may be at home, and traffic noise can seep through windows. Consider noise-canceling headphones to help tune out background noises and ensure everyone stays focused on the meeting.

5. Share Video Conferencing Best Practices

Share video meeting best practices with inexperienced users. It won’t hurt to give veteran remote workers a refresher too.  Top ideas to share include:

  • Choose a dedicated, quiet well-lit area with as little noise and distractions as possible
    • Avoid sitting in front of a window with bright light behind you
  • Dress like you would on a typical workday
  • Join the call a few minutes early and greet your coworkers, say goodbye when leaving the meeting too
  • Mute your microphone when you’re not speaking during meetings to limit noise
  • Turn your camera on for face-to-face communication
  • Check your surroundings that the camera will display
    • Clear the breakfast dishes from the table and remove anything hanging on chairs, etc., move any personal photos or other items you don’t want to be seen during the meeting
  • Share any documents you’re discussing via screen sharing
  • Stay focused and avoid multi-tasking during the meeting
  • Record the session and share the recording with meeting attendees
  • Make sure family and friends know you’re “at work” to prevent interruptions
  • Manage unexpected distractions as quickly as possible

6. Check in regularly

Encourage supervisors and teachers to ramp up online communications and feedback via chat and one-on-one video meetings. They should check in often to see how teachers, staff, and students are doing in the virtual world.

Reactions to work from home schedules can vary. Some people may love to skip the commute; others may feel lonely compared to coming into the office every day. Regular communication can help remote workers, and students feel connected to the rest of the group.

In addition to addressing current health concerns, work from home options provide flexibility, and can reduce stress. You may find the students and staff are more efficient and engaged while working away from the office. When your organization returns to normal working conditions once the spread of COVID-19 is under control, track your virtual meeting results. If you see happier employees and students, along with increased productivity, consider offering permanent options to work and study remotely a few days a week.

Get expert video conferencing help

Our teams at AVI-SPL are here to help. While the coronavirus outbreak has created a sudden exponential reliance on video meetings, helping teams connect online through video conferencing has been our core mission for years. If you need assistance launching or upgrading your digital workplace collaboration tools, contact us now or find your local AVI-SPL office.

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Webinar Recording: Choosing the Best Displays for Your Business Environment

AV Everywhere

Today’s display choices range from simple projection systems to the perceived complicated solutions such as Direct View LED (dvLED) and all things in between.  Download the recording for this AVI-SPL and LG webinar to learn how to choose the right digital displays your project/environment. 
 
Mitch Rosenberg, LG senior account manager, gives an overview of dvLED and also covers:
  • Comparing ultra narrow bezel LCD to Direct View LED
  • dvLED components
  • Benefits of using dvLED solutions
  • Creative uses of LG Direct View LED digital signage

In this short clip from the webinar, Rosenberg compares the ultra narrow bezel LCD to Direct View LED:


Get the recording for “Choosing the Best Displays for Your Business Environment” >

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