facebookpixel

Enterprise Video Broadcasts Increase Culture, Engagement and Productivity

CMMA Blog

Why has video broadcasting become one of the most vital tools for any large-scale enterprise? It comes down to three key benefits that can boost how a business connects with its own employees: Culture, Engagement and Productivity.

An astounding 50% of the global workforce will be Millennials by next year (2020), according to PWC – and they have a totally different approach to learning and entertainment from previous generations.

This is a maturing generation of highly educated people who watch YouTube videos to learn how to tie a bowtie or make the perfect craft cocktail. They binge-watch TV shows on Netflix or Amazon Prime. They catch up on the latest news or sports highlights with Twitter videos. Quite simply, it is more natural for them to watch a video than to read an email.

For large enterprises, this is creating an exciting new need to develop great video content, and to encourage their own staff to use the medium to become ambassadors for their own company.

Belgium’s largest bank, KBC Group, with more than 16,000 employees in Belgium and 42,000 worldwide, massively improved the quality of their internal communications using video. They have also taken it to the next level by encouraging staff to share their own videos including presentations and training materials.

Let’s look at the three key benefits of using video extensively across the enterprise, as they relate to KBC Bank.

Culture:

• Diversity & Inclusion – KBC wanted to harness the talents of all their people and help them feel included, well-trained and up to date on management decisions.

• Transparency – it was vital for the Board to be open and honest about the direction the company was headed.

• Trust – after the 2008 crash, trust in the banking sector was at an all-time low and KBC wanted to demonstrate how they do things differently: encouraging their employees to become ambassadors was a great way to do this.

Engagement:

• Alignment – KBC was able to provide unprecedented communications initiatives both internally and externally so that all employees understood the company direction.

• Purpose – this gave a new purpose to employees, with open, honest and engaging communication across the organisation, helping management and staff understand that their role at KBC is bigger than their job.

• Retention – the video programme helped to improve retention of talented and motivated staff. KBC’s video programme helped with engagement which is proven to help with retention.

Productivity:

• User Generated Value – KBC encourages staff to make their own quality content with easily-accessible portable video equipment, enabling every employee to become an ambassador. This has resulted in a huge upsurge in bottoms-up video with a 1500% increase in video production and distribution over five years.

• Training – both HR-driven and employee-led training is more accessible to all employees, thanks to video.

• Time to Market – KBC is moving quicker in its operations, while video distribution times have dropped from two hours to just two minutes. The KBC example is just one where Kollective has worked with a large enterprise to transform their communications philosophy and methods with hands-on support and technology.

The KBC example is just one where Kollective has worked with a large enterprise to transform their communications philosophy and methods with hands-on support and technology.

The post Enterprise Video Broadcasts Increase Culture, Engagement and Productivity appeared first on Kollective Technology .

To view our Partner blog, click here

The T Word: Transparency, Trust and Microsoft Teams

CMMA Blog

As Satya Nadella prepared to take the stage last Wednesday morning at Microsoft Inspire, the tens of thousands of Microsoft partners and employees packed tightly inside the T-Mobile arena sat in anticipation of a Corenote speech from the man credited not only with the turnaround around of Microsoft’s fortunes, but with completely rebuilding company culture.

If last year’s speech focused on the importance of people-centric experiences and of measuring ourselves ‘not by technology for technology’s sake, but how we are empowering people’, this year’s keynote felt like a natural extension of that theme – addressing the importance of democratization of digital transformation, and of both corporate and individual trust.

Amidst the staggering numbers on display illustrating the rapid evolution of the digital workplace, HoloLens 2 conjuring up a hologram capable of real-time language translation, and an amusingly impressive augmented reality MineCraft demo that made Legoland look like an afternoon in the DMV; at the core of Satya’s speech, a simple line resonated more than any other:

You cannot claim trust, you have to earn it. Each day.

As effective as it was simple, that statement summed up the very reason that queues had formed outside the T-Mobile Arena more than two hours before the doors opened and the reason that Microsoft reaffirmed its position as the most valuable company on earth just two days later. Its importance and application was also perfectly illustrated by the first three numbers displayed behind Satya as he began his Corenote.

Trust is what forges the bond between Satya and his 100,000 employees, trust is what permeates the relationship between Microsoft and its partners’ 17 million employees, and trust is the way Microsoft will achieve Satya’s stated goal of having an impact on every one of the 7 billion people on this planet.

While these are undoubtedly grand figures with an impact on the very grandest scale, the statement resonated with me on a far more individual level.

Earlier in the week, when Gavriella Schuster stood alongside the Kollective logo during her Corenote speech, discussing the most impactful Teams integrations, and later, when Hao Tang, Senior Product Partner Manager at Microsoft presented Kollective as a Teams ‘Solution that Customers Love’ during her own session, the common factor that lead to these acknowledgements is trust. Trust between Kollective, our customers, our partners and Microsoft.

Gavriella Inspire 300x175 1

My first week at Kollective coincided with the bi-annual Customer Council ; an event at which a select number of our customers present to other existing, new and prospective customers about the difference Kollective has made on their organization.

Watching our customers take the stage to share stories and videos about the immediate and long-term impact Kollective has had on company culture was my first exposure to the ultimate example of trust realized.

Trust is not just a core component of the Kollective solution – giving our customers the confidence to host global, mission-critical live video events in the knowledge they can touch every employee regardless of location – moreover, trust is the foundation upon which every interaction at the heart of Kollective is built.

Now, more than ever, in an age of half-truths, fake news and misinformation, trust is the universal truth to every successful relationship and equally as important as the act itself, is the act of respecting its fragility and acknowledging the fact that it must, indeed, be earned each and every day.

While the most uttered, fastest-growing and exciting T-word at this year’s Microsoft Inspire was Teams, the most fundamental that has made all of that possible, is undoubtedly Trust.

The post The T Word: Transparency, Trust and Microsoft Teams appeared first on Kollective Technology .

To view our Partner blog, click here

Top Tips to Be an Authentic and Credible Speaker On Camera 

Best Practices

Let me tell you, video is never easy to do well across an entire enterprise. I know first-hand as we host a mandatory monthly All Hands Meeting at Kollective. While my event services team can share details on the planning, logistics and technology that it takes to host and deliver live or on-demand video meetings successfully, one thing that is often overlooked is preparing the speaker how to be most effective on camera.

Many businesses have their executives speak to the company about what is going on within their respective departments at their All Hands Meetings. I prefer to gather the important data from each Department lead and share it with the entire company myself. This gives me the opportunity to fully understand what is going on within all of Kollective, and also puts pressure on me to be able to clearly articulate these updates and instill confidence in our workforce. Again, video is not easy but it is powerful and for certain, it is not easy to be the one on stage that everyone is listening (or not listening) to.

Over the years, I’ve been behind the camera enough times myself to know exactly what I need in order to perform my best. Below are my top tips to be an authentic and credible speaker.

1. Know your audience

Whether you are speaking to an investor, an analyst, your customers, your employees or your in-laws, knowing your audience is massively important when preparing a public speech. Understanding what your audience is most interested in hearing, how they want to receive it, and how they may want to participate will help keep them engaged with messages that resonate, wherever they may be.

2. Own the agenda.

Delivering an effective message requires a well thought out agenda. If there are other speakers scheduled please take part in deciding who speaks, when, for how long, and in what format. If they are speaking before and/or after you, determine a creative way to tie their sessions into your overall message. Good content flow from one speaker to the next can help attendees reinforce the critical messages you are sharing and keep your audience engaged.  

And remember, while it is good to have a solid agenda, a good speaker is a nimble speaker and one who can shift gears on the fly to accommodate the needs of your audience or other time-sensitive requirements.

3. Be the talent

While I don’t require a green room or a bowl of green M&Ms, I know what I need to be successful when speaking on camera. I need the room chilled (preferably to 65 degrees or below), I prefer to stand, I want a lavalier mic, I want to control the slides with a clicker, I want remote participants to mute up unless they are speaking, and I want the slides to be on-brand. Your event team is there to support you so please take advantage of their expertise. Providing clear communication about the things that are important for you to measure performance helps everyone perform better. Need a visible timer or a confidence monitor? Just ask, just be sure to provide your AV and logistics people enough time to deliver.  

4. Go unscripted.

For All Hands Meetings, you are most likely speaking to an internal audience. You are their leader and they need to trust you. Speaking to your team is about connecting and speaking from the heart, not from bullet points or a script. Sure, use your PowerPoint slides as a visual cue to keep you on track, but never read from them.  

Going unscripted too stressful? Remember that performance anxiety is completely normal and even highly-skilled public speakers feel stress prior to going on stage. Channel that nervous energy into excitement and keep in mind that passion, not confidence, is what we remember about a speaker. Be humble, genuine, and when appropriate, be emotional. Most importantly, be yourself. If you are addressing the same audience multiple times, like our monthly All Hands Meetings, your audience will get to know your style and they will count on it. While my goal is to always be honest and professional, the team at Kollective can rely on me to be candid and to reference at least one sports metaphor per session.

5. Commit to getting better

Being a strong on-camera communicator is part of a modern executive’s job. It is vitally important and no matter how many times you have done this, there is always room for improvement. Ask for real feedback from your team and take it to heart. Go back and watch your recorded on-demand meeting and notice your body language – confidence flows from good posture. Study your language patterns and how you connect with both the people in the room and those joining virtually. It is never easy to watch yourself on camera, but I guarantee you will find room for improvement; I always do.

6. Put in the work

While it is implied from the five tips above, the most important tip for executives to be more effective on camera (and in every part of their jobs and lives, quite frankly) is to prepare, prepare, prepare. Marinate in the materials you are presenting a few days before your event to let them sink in. Take the time to understand what each message really means to you, to your investors, and most importantly, to your workforce. 

7. Have fun

People can tell if you are not having fun. Don’t be so robotic, loosen up, make eye contact and smile.

At Kollective, I host our All Hands Meetings to bring our global company together. We meet monthly to celebrate successes, align on priorities, and maintain transparency. As the CEO, I also like to use this time to remind folks of the larger purpose of our company and how each of us are contributing.  

Do you host regular All Hands or Town Hall Meetings with your staff? I’d love to hear your tips for success. 

Thanks and good luck and good communicating.

Read Kollective’s Case Studies

Linked In Case Study

Ciena

As enterprises become more global and embrace digital transformation, the distribution of software patches and continuous Windows 10 updates has become a significant challenge.

Learn More

2000px NXP Semiconductors Logo.svg

NXP Semiconductors

From microcontrollers and processors to sensors, analog ICs and connectivity, our technologies are fueling innovation in automotive, consumer, industrial and networking.

Learn More

Schneider Electric 500

Schneider Electric Case Study

Since 2015, Schneider Electric has produced an annual Leadership Forum event, a live video experience broadcast worldwide and designed to communicate company strategy directly to all employees.

Learn More

View All Case Studies

RECENT BLOG POSTS


Improve Enterprise Video Communication With These 5 Steps

Improve Enterprise Video Communication With These 5 Steps

Using video broadcasts can significantly improve communication across large enterprises, but it is difficult to get right. There are so many pitfalls, particularly as most companies don’t see video production as a core competency. The challenge for them now is that in…

read more


The T Word: Transparency, Trust and Microsoft Teams

The T Word: Transparency, Trust and Microsoft Teams

As Satya Nadella prepared to take the stage last Wednesday morning at Microsoft Inspire, the tens of thousands of Microsoft partners and employees packed tightly inside the T-Mobile arena sat in anticipation of a Corenote speech from the man credited not only with the…

read more

The post Top Tips to Be an Authentic and Credible Speaker On Camera  appeared first on Kollective Technology .

To view our Partner blog, click here

Successful Enterprise Live Video in APAC

CMMA Blog

A couple months ago I was fortunate enough to be able to travel to Asia to work on a couple customer events. Asia, and Japan in particular, have always been at the top of my bucket list. Kollective has offices in the region, and as our technology is able to deliver video and software updates throughout APAC, even to the most remote offices, we are actively going after new business in that market.

One of our customers, who happens to be one of the “Big Four” accounting organizations and the largest professional services network in the world had requested a POC (Proof of Concept) from Kollective . We often do POCs with new customers to prove that our cloud-based, network aware, universal edge delivery platform can distribute critical content to all endpoints, regardless of how the network is configured. While this customer’s North American team had many live events under their belt, their APAC counterparts had no true experience running events. They didn’t know where to start, they had little knowledge of how to pull off a big event, and on top of that, this was a new market they were trying to communicate with.

Enter the Kollective Enterprise Video Strategy Team

The customer wanted to host two separate events, on back to back days, in Tokyo, Japan. The Kollective Enterprise Video Strategy (EVS) Team received notification roughly 60 days before the scheduled events. Our team provides real-time support for livestream events from start to finish. We also offer remote or on-site support during the event, and help you assess everything necessary to produce a successful live event.

Our team was immediately brought into meetings with the customer and the Kollective APAC team, to understand what their objectives were for the event, and what was expected in terms of production quality. Meetings were held several times a week, and then daily as the event got closer.

Setting realistic event expectations

The most difficult thing with this project was getting consensus on what was expected. Having never done an event before, the client could only reference what they had seen done in other markets, or events that they had participated in elsewhere. After seeing several examples of what they liked and didn’t like, we were able to level set with them on cost, and put together a realistic expectation of how we should tackle this project.

The idea was to have something simple, in terms of production; but not so simple that you lose interest by the audience. We were limited in size and scope of the event space, which was a training/conference room located in the customer’s office. We all agreed that the primary objective here was not to create a Game of Thrones set, but more of a simple three-camera shoot with a simple backdrop. The goal was to make sure the technology worked, the executive team looked good, and we stayed within a reasonable budget. Once terms were agreed upon, then the real planning started.

Calling on trusted strategic integration partners

Part of the reason Kollective has an EVS team, is simply our knowledge library. We have been there, we have done that, and we have a good idea of how to organize and pull off large scale enterprise events. Having never been to Tokyo, or seen the space, we knew going in we would need some help from a third party vendor with boots on the ground. We quickly made the call to one of our trusted integration partners World Television (WTV). We shared what our customer’s expectations and budget were. To our luck, WTV had just opened an office nearby, and their team was ready and able to assist. We laid out the production elements that were needed, the timelines and dates, and they had a contract to us within a matter of days. WTV quickly sent a producer to do a site visit and meet with the customer.

Show ready in Japan

After daily meetings between Kollective, the customer, and WTV, everyone was feeling comfortable and ready for the big show.

I landed in Tokyo on a Saturday. I had a day to soak up the culture, food, and drink, courtesy of my 2 Japanese counterparts who showed me around. We loaded in, setup and tested for the events on Monday. Both of the events on Tuesday and Wednesday went off without a hitch, providing proof that the technology did indeed work. The crew was top notch, and was directed by an English producer who lived in Tokyo and understood the language and culture, which deemed to be extremely helpful.

After the event, the CEO of the company came up to the team all huddled at the tech table, asking when they could do their next live streaming event. The feedback from the field was immediate, and impactful.

So, no matter where you are in the world or what your experience is with streaming live or on-demand video events, we’ve got you covered! The Kollective EVS team has executed thousands of events all around the world. Our deep experience provides support in planning, strategy (including bringing in integration partners when needed), execution, and delivery of your successful events.

Whitepaper: You Only Have One Second Chance

6 Real World Fixes For a Failed Video Event

Download NOW

Enterprise Video Strategy Event Checklist

Not sure how to get started with your enterprise video program? The Kollective EVS team has put together this handy checklist.

ACCESS NOW

Related Blog Posts

The post Successful Enterprise Live Video in APAC appeared first on Kollective Technology .

To view our Partner blog, click here

Live Enterprise Video Brings Out The Passion In Your Workforce

CMMA Blog

As the Enterprise Video Strategy Manager for Kollective in EMEA, I help our customers reach video success. I get the opportunity to engage with all the people involved in producing live events; whether they are speakers, owners, part of in-house production or hired EMEA third parties. What I find most of my customer’s internal stakeholders have in common is passion, and purpose. Passion for what they do every day – regardless of how comfortable or familiar they are with the task at hand.

Stakeholder Passion

One fairly recent example best illustrates this passion across the board. I was onsite in the UK for one of our global customers, who was preparing to stream their first event to all employees outside of the US. More crucially, their CEO and several other C-suite members were present and speaking in the event, as well. My involvement touched on several layers of stakeholders. I dealt with speakers, IT, and the Comms team.

Out of the entire team, the presenters (or talent, as we call them) impressed me the most. You might think the talent were impressive through their sheer presence, knowledge, rank or other. But I’m not referring to the executives in this case, as rocking as they might have been.

Language Barriers Lifted with Video

For the rest of the story to make sense, I’ll give you a little more context. This event was the last stage and award ceremony for a regional internal contest organized by this customer. Tens of teams from across the region had submitted their projects and invested months of their lives in this competition, all with the purpose of improving internal processes and ultimately generating savings for the company. That day, the final four teams left in the race would present on stage in front of their CEO, then he would decide the regional winners. Winners would then go into the global final later in the year. It’s also worth saying that all four teams were plant-based employees, three out of four teams were non-native English speakers, all would have to present live, in English, to their CEO and the world, as all their colleagues from across the world were invited to watch the live final.

Day of, after several coaching sessions and rehearsals, the show started, they all presented their year-long work, and they did a great job and received rounds of applause from their colleagues in the live audience. I’m pretty sure the remote attendees were really impressed as well.

Now here’s the kicker: a few of the talent did not speak a word of English. And yet they managed to present and make themselves understood perfectly! How do you reckon they did it? I had a genuine jaw-drop moment when I was told: they had written the sounds they should be pronouncing in their native language, then learned the text by heart!! Wait, what?!

Passion Making the Impossible Possible

The amount of dedication, passion, drive and even spark of genius going into this single task must have been unbelievable! For me personally, it was a perfect example of how sometimes the impossible IS possible. To overcome barriers by thinking outside the box. To not give up the chance to success just because at a first glance there’s no straight line to it.

Trade and Passion Combined

The other element contributing to the event’s success – but this time from a production perspective, was the main IT resource onsite. An internal IT support superhero by day (his trade), a proper film and theatre producer and director in his spare time (his passion), this particular individual was the perfect layer between my work and the production crew handling the event.

In addition to covering his official responsibility of infra and end-user support monitoring during the event, he also provided valuable, crucial and efficient cues and directions to the graphics handling resource on the set. I could not have asked for a better combination of skill, personality, passion for video and purpose translated into action. It was one of the most unexpected and loveliest surprises to date and definitely a skill set combo I hope to encounter again.

I learned from this multi-skilled individual that sometimes it’s ok to wear two hats and that if you can, you absolutely should! This combo of trade and passion made the difference between a decent-enough, bare minimum event and a great event. It is a fantastic reminder to look outside of your day to day role and use your personal interest and craft to bring added value into your formal work. Or just as well accept a challenge, don’t be afraid to try your hand at new things – you might surprise yourself and discover a new passion along the way!

WHITEPAPER: ENTERPRISE VIDEO BUYERS GUIDE

Inspired by the passion of these enterprise video champions and want to prepare for video within your organization? Educate yourself on the Enterprise Video landscape. 

Learn More

Whitepaper: You Only Have One Second Chance

6 Real World Fixes For a Failed Video Event

Download NOW

8 Ways to Boost Trust and Transparency in Your Organization

When employees and customers trust their leaders, a company is better able to weather crises and excels.

Download Now

Related Blog Posts

The post Live Enterprise Video Brings Out The Passion In Your Workforce appeared first on Kollective Technology .

To view our Partner blog, click here

When it comes to your video strategy, what does “good” look like?

CMMA Blog

When I was a Kollective customer at one of the largest banks in America, I developed an Online Video Team to manage on Demand publishing and live event streaming. Today, that team is an integral part of the planning and execution of hundreds live video events. These events range from CEO and senior leader all hands to team member learning and development. Regardless of the topic or size, there is a tremendous amount of strategy, planning and resources that go into each successful production. But what happens after the event? Sure, you can hand over a viewership report to your business stakeholder, but she might ask you: “Is that GOOD??”

Just last month, Kollective released our latest enterprise-ready analytics tool, Kollective IQ. As always, we deliver in-the-moment views of viewership metrics and a full complement of network and bandwidth analytics. Now, with IQ, you can take that information and create custom dashboards for your “at a glance” metrics convenience.

Our IT friends love the views of network performance and bandwidth behavior. Kollective IQ’s ability to drill down deeper and see individual details will thrill them, and this information is very useful on the business side too. Let’s start with viewer metrics.

#1 KPI – Unique Viewers

This number identifies the “reach” – the number of individuals who watched the content, be it live or on-demand. a With SAML/Active Directory integration you can use this one metric to find out common characteristics of the viewing population; including “which lines of business were most interested in the content?”, “where are the most viewers located?”, or “does a particular business segment watch this type of content?”

Screen Shot 2019 02 07 at 3.08.13 PM

#2 KPI – Average View Duration

This is a quick and easy way to tell if the content was engaging. It’s measured in minutes, not a percentage, so it is easy to match up to the length of the event. You can drill into this data to see if there’s a common drop off time that you can compare to the content and see what was happening at that time. Q&A is sometimes a drop off point, especially if the program is running long.

In the example below, the content was thirteen and a half minutes long. From the graph, you can see that most people watched the whole program.

Screen Shot 2019 02 07 at 2.59.29 PM

Another metric that matters to the business side is: are the bosses watching?  You can use the User Name field and do a quick crosscheck against Employee ID numbers or log in IDs to see who’s there.

#3 KPI – Buffering Report

Screen Shot 2019 02 07 at 2.35.36 PMFor me, the most useful technical metric during a live event is the buffering report. If there is buffering in a specific location you can pull out user data and connect with them, informing them that you are aware of the problem and remind them they can watch on-demand after the live event. And, a quick call to your Help Desk lead with this information will make you a hero.

Managing executive expectations and defining what “good” looks from a data-driven approach can help you communicate the success of your enterprise video events and pave the way for future improvements. I’ve covered just a few of the new features of our analytics dashboard. There’s so much more to dive into with Kollective IQ; live event metrics give you updates as viewers join and exit the event along with real time network monitoring. VoD metrics give you a picture of viewership over time and the all-powerful peering efficiency of the content delivery.

take your events to the next level

Learn more about how Kollective IQ can easily provide you with the metrics that matter for your business and how easy it is to customize video viewing and performance metrics for your stakeholders. 

Schedule a demo

Related Blog Posts

The post When it comes to your video strategy, what does “good” look like? appeared first on Kollective Technology .

To view our Partner blog, click here