A few short weeks ago, TeamPeople hosted a webinar entitled, “Immersive Media, Are You Ready?”.  With AR, VR and video 360’ being all the rage, we took a deep dive into what it takes to produce compelling content and if these technologies will become essential to a brand’s success. We posed these questions to our panelists, Raven Petuchowski, Renee Beck and Loreta Tarozaite, three trail-blazing women leading technology teams from all sides of the country.

To ensure that everyone started with the same level of understanding, we began our webinar by first defining the difference between immersion and engagement. Engagement takes place when a story or marketing message provokes some sort of action amongst the audience. Immersion takes place when the audience forgets it’s even an audience at all. Immersion blurs the lines between story and marketing or storyteller and audience.

Covering everything from personal experiences to advice and lessons learned, our panelists delivered valuable content. To view the webinar and slide presentation, click here .

Here’s what we found:

Content is King No Matter What Technology Is Used

Immersive experiences present endless opportunities, but is it right for your brand? Loreta emphasized that these new technologies should be used to our advantage to tell the story.  Forcing your brand’s story into the latest and greatest technology platform, doesn’t automatically create great content.  You need to choose the technology that brings your story to life. It may be VR, AR or Video 360, but it also may be a video, creatively designed infographic or other strategically-designed method. When deciding on the best tool or platform, choose what makes sense from a content and consumer perspective rather than just because ‘it’s the coolest new tech’.

Is the Risk Worth the Reward?

Tapping into immersive media can be an expensive undertaking. With technology investments, productions costs and distribution methods, the costs can be high. Plus, you need to find the individuals with the right skill-sets to create the high-quality content. Despite the hesitation of many big-named corporations, a Deloitte study reports more than 150 companies, in multiple industries including 52 of the Fortune 500, are testing or have deployed AR or VR solutions.  For some industries, such as education, the path to “reward” is much less foggy and uncertain.  As Renee pointed out, education has a longstanding history of being a very passive.  AR and VR has the ability to radically change the way we learn. Experiencing something first-hand, can create a learning experience far more effective than listening to a lecture or reading a textbook.

Getting Buy-In

After being highlighted by our panelists and discussed in our audience Q&A session, getting buy in from top decision-makers is a common obstacle. Our panelists agreed that building something from scratch and creating a demo for your senior leaders is a game-changer. They recommended partnering with a company or person that really does it well and can help showcase the value it can bring to your mission.  A well-developed demo will do wonders to your pitch. Seeing is believing, after all. The same goes for selling it externally.  In order to have mass adoption, you need to put it in the audience’s hands.

The Consensus

Collective immersive content experiences are estimated to become a 140 billion-dollar business by 2020 .  In many ways, our panelists agree that it will be imperative to leverage these new technologies to stay competitive in the future.  Whether its AR or VR, the answer remains to be seen, but what it comes down to is the experience.  Gone are days of static webpages and a quantity over quality approach. To succeed, you need to be disruptive and experiential.

Is your team looking to tap into immersive media, but need help getting started? We’re here to help! With our database of highly-skilled talent, we’ve created and implemented immersive experiences for our clients across the nation and abroad. Send us an email, we would love to hear about your ideas!

Meet the Panelists

Raven Petuchowski

Executive Producer for TeamPeople @Allstate

For the past nine years, Raven has led TeamPeople @ Allstate’s multimedia team to coordinate, produce and manage a wide range of interactive media projects. She’s the executive producer of a diverse team of more than 100 professionals creating high-end interactive audio and video projects and global events.

Renee Beck

Director, Video & Technical Operations @2U

Renee is a passionate media executive with 20 years of comprehensive experience in all facets of content creation. With previous experience leading teams at National Geographic, TV One, The World Bank and today, 2U, she’s worked her way up through various industries.

Loreta Tarozaite

Sr. Video Producer @Western Digital

First stepping foot in the cable industry as a news anchor and reporter in her home country, Lithuania, she entered the industry in a very non-conventional way. With 18 years of experience, Loreta has worked in various producing, directing, editing, and content generation capacities for companies including SanDisk and Western Digital.

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InfoComm 2018 , North America’s leading audiovisual (AV) convention and exhibition, was held earlier this summer in Las Vegas, Nevada, and TeamPeople was there to take it all in.

The Place To Be For Pro-AV

Despite daytime temperatures reaching a high of 101 degrees, AVIXA , the Audiovisual and Integrated Experience Association (formerly InfoComm International), reports a staggering 43,000 registrants. When factoring in 964 exhibitors spanning 550,000 square feet of exhibits, demo rooms, and special events space, AVIXA is proclaiming this the biggest InfoComm ever.

The event kicked off with a record-setting TIDE conference, drawing its largest crowd to date. Jason McGraw, Senior Vice President of Expositions for AVIXA, explained that the TIDE conference challenges AV professionals to “…. consider ways of applying human-centered design to AV solutions.” New programs such as Design Thinking for AV and Integrated Life Day were well received by the attendees and had participants collaborating in ways they’d never imagined.

Never Stop Learning

In a sea of new technology and innovation, the true value of InfoComm is not just in its products, but in its passion for learning and education.  Inspired by AVIXA’s new motto, “Together, we can change the way people experience the world”, InfoComm attendees were digging in to learn what they love and empower the industry.

Among our TeamPeople representatives were technology managers, audiovisual technicians, integration technicians, design engineers and others, representing many of our clients as well as our corporate headquarters. Three TeamPeople employees became CTS -certified on their first attempt at the very challenging exam. Others attended classes and seminars ranging from audio, video and unified communications to emerging trends, live events and technology management. As expected, classes dealing with the AV/IT merger were at the top of everyone’s list.

The Future of AV Starts With A Packed Booth

The exhibition itself is a collection of sights and sounds that would give the Vegas strip a run for its money. Arena-sized video walls could be seen everywhere you looked. Only a few short years ago there were a notable few, super-impressive, video wall manufacturers and almost everyone else struggling to compete for attention. Fast forward to the present and the challenge was to find a large format video display that didn’t impress its audience. Sony Corporation seemed to have won the attention battle this year with a stunning large format videowall that featured breathtaking content, detail, and color reproduction that had attendees shoulder-to-shoulder within the booth. Live audio continues to demand interest at the show with most manufacturers innovating in the direction of more compact, cost efficient designs. “Dante Spoken Here” signs were omnipresent throughout the exhibit hall as every manufacturer wanted it to be known that they, too, could deliver uncompressed, multi-channel, low-latency digital audio over a standard ethernet network.

Manufacturers are continuing to innovate in the direction of simpler and faster integration products that installers will love. Parts that are accessible and easy to swap, accessories that are interchangeable and snap in place, as well as product interoperability were all welcome advances for our industry. It’s difficult to pick a standout technology among so many innovators, but a few companies were displaying “holographic” images – seemingly floating in air – that demanded everyone’s attention. These large, 3D, multicolored, moving images seemed straight out of sci-fi and had dozens of attendees jockeying for the best position to video the strange, new, technology. Most attendees expect to see this technology make appearances in select settings in the coming year.

At TeamPeople, we believe in investing in our employees. Through training, certification, accreditation and exposure to emerging technologies and industry events, we ensure that our technicians, engineers, installers, and designers are consistently developing and evolving as technology professionals.

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“Everyone should go to CES, at least once” is often heard throughout the 2.7 million sq. feet of the Consumer Electronic Show, held annually in Las Vegas, NV. The Consumer Electronic Show (CES) is the largest conference for consumer electronics products in the United States. Drawing over 180,000 creative and technical leaders from companies around the world, many people believe that not going to CES is the equivalent to starting the year off as slow as Las Vegas’s McCarran airport’s security line on a Sunday morning.

If you are able to push past the awe of being at the center of technology and innovation, the real question is, is it worth it?  Having been to CES for the past few years, I’m here to share my insights to help you make the right decision for you and your company.

Set your goals

If your New Year’s resolution is to increase your industry knowledge, dive into the session schedule and exhibitor list. Highlight the biggest trends, sessions and booths that would be beneficial to explore and align with your business goals. With an open mind, you might find the right combination of sessions and products that could collectively drive change to move your business forward.

If your goal is building relationships with new and prospective clients, reach out and see if they will be attending. If asking directly isn’t an option, check out their social media accounts. If the list is long enough, CES could provide a unique opportunity to start, or continue the conversation, and move them forward through the pipeline. By planning early and booking meetings in advance, you can help build out your CES schedule and increase the ROI before the event even starts. Plus, you will be better prepared for a successful meeting.

Learning

CES is a massive show with 15 conference tracks on a variety of topics all jam-packed with the latest insights. From immersive technologies and robotics, to autonomous vehicles and smart home gadgetry, the range of topics is extensive.  Additionally, CES has hundreds of speakers representing companies on a global scale, both large and small, from across virtually all industries. Check out the speaker list and see who might align with your target accounts. If you end up attending, sit in the front of their session and see if you can strike up a conversation before or after the session. It can be tough to stop busy executives, but the forum for sharing information and ideas is what CES is all about so many are very receptive.

Trending

The CES show floor will have over 4,000 exhibitors showing off the most cutting-edge technology and innovation. If you’re there to take it all in, you will come away with a personal, visceral reference for what the future might hold.  Taking in each exhibit’s size, location and attendee engagement can give you a first-hand glimpse at the emerging trends and might even give you a leg up on your competition.

Networking

Like all conferences, CES provides unique networking opportunities both built into the event schedule and just in the sheer volume of attendees. The number of brands that are present at CES increase dramatically year after year and the representative ranges from C-suite executives to the talented teams of designers and technicians. Whether you’re standing in line for a keynote or exploring the show floor, you never know who you will run in to.  It might just be your next big client.

Cost

Once you’ve carefully and strategically considered all the reasons why you should go, you need to weigh in the cost of attending.  On top of your conference pass, there will be travel expenses, hotel rooms, and meals which add up pretty quickly, especially in Las Vegas. Hotel rooms and flights tend to double and triple their normal booking rates, so book early! And don’t forget to include extra spend for “wining and dining” your prospective clients.

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Today’s freelancers are here to stay. Increasingly, today’s most talented editors and graphic artists are only available through freelance hiring.

The Scope of the Freelance Market

A recent 2020 report by Edelman Intelligence – found that 59 million Americans are doing freelance work. That is almost 36% of the American workforce! There is a new type of worker now and it is lead by freelancers. Allan Savory, the famous ecologist and co-founder of the Savory Institute said, “If you dig deep and keep peeling the onion, artists and freelancers are the leaders in society – the people who start new ideas. Even with the slow recovery in the nation’s unemployment rate, freelancers have managed to prosper. In fact, they are changing the very nature of the economy.” Where once employers drove the hiring process, today, freelancers are independently selling their talents in the marketplace. To meet these changes in the workforce, companies have had to rapidly shift the way they hire top talent. Companies are not hiring freelancers as much as freelancers, particularly the most talented ones, are hiring the company.

Entrepreneur and Management Consultant, Michael Parrish DuDell said it best on why freelancers are so critical to companies today, “If I can get great freelancers and have access to them from anywhere, why wouldn’t I work with freelancers?” This shift towards freelancers is forcing the market to diversify itself and mandating companies to adapt quickly or they will fall behind in terms of their talent acquisition. We now see more and more prospective employees thinking less about long-term employment stability and more about jobs on a project basis and about jobs in terms of satisfaction and personal career development.

Having a wide range of companies to choose from, freelancers are now able to select contract opportunities according to what best represents their skills, interests, and goals.

what to know when engaging with freelancers:

1. Freelancers are inherently independent

Companies will need to know how to inspire and motivate this workforce without lurking over their shoulder.

2. Freelancers are good negotiators

Companies will need to know how to negotiate with highly talented individuals who know their market value.

3. Freelancers are technologically savvy

Today’s freelancers are highly connected to the world and companies will need a reliable communications infrastructure in order to contact their freelance employees, whether it be by e-mail, phone, Skype, or even Periscope.

Getting Ahead of the Game

Not transitioning into the new workforce model can become a major setback for a company. Increasingly, today’s most talented editors and graphic artists are only available through freelance hiring .  Yet, many companies still resist hiring freelancers, often out of fear that they will have less control over their workforce.

Recent years have set a precedent for how companies should react to the new freelancing trend. Companies with their sights set on past workforce hiring procedures will miss out on significant talent acquisition opportunities.  An article from The Guardian said companies tend to fail because “today’s leaders have never had to transform their business model – tomorrow’s leaders will.” By 2020, nearly 40 percent of our workforce will be freelance workers. It’s a long road, but companies need to prepare for this transition or they will risk losing their most talented workers.

What do you think? Interested in giving top-notch media and AV freelancers  a try? We can guide you through this process! Get in touch with us today for more information.

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