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Need Streaming? Will Travel – Nick’s Notes From The Road

CMMA Blog

Over the course of my career in streaming events, I have seen a lot. I have done webcasts in some of the smallest offices, on factory floors, as well as some of the biggest convention centers and hotel ballrooms in the world. I have even conducted a live stream outside, on top of a mountain – and let’s just say, lighting was a small issue. I have done live webcasts with a single executive using a webcam and from some of the most elaborate corporate shows that would give the Grammy awards a run for their money.

No matter the size, production quality or location of each event, I enjoy seeing the pieces and people come together to pull off successful live events. For larger events, event teams are often a combination of different groups, so, you can never be certain if everyone is pulling their own weight. Knowing that, I have to pay attention to each detail, trust those I work with and ask questions as they arise.

Most recently, I had the good fortune to be part of an onsite team in a small French city near the base of the Alps, called Grenoble. The customer is a heavy user of our services, and we assist them every year for their showcase event, in which the leadership team participates in a TV-show type webcast that is broadcast company wide. The event itself is probably one of the biggest, and most well-run productions I have ever been a part of.

The production team consists of 87 people! The main team is based in North America with a local support team in Europe; including camera operators, producers, directors, lighting, electrical, sound, and more. There were 13 cameras as part of the onsite team, as well as four remote locations across the globe. The production truck that was used as the main hub for the event, is well-known for working high-profile Formula One races, as well as the Korean Winter Olympics. 

Needless to say, the atmosphere was buzzing with activity during the days leading up to the event. They do the show from one of their larger offices, but it is quickly transformed into multiple TV-quality type sets, that would make Good Morning America foam at the mouth. My co-worker and I usually arrive 2 days before the event to test and to make any configuration changes to the Kollective application that the client might want. Our video streaming strategy team works closely with the encoding team, that runs and monitors roughly 14 encoders for the event. With the customer being a global giant, they provide streams with captioning, streams with other languages, as well as backup streams for each of these streams. That’s a lot of streams!

I’ll say it once and I’ll say it again, no matter the size of the production or audience, you can never test enough. After all the rehearsals, and testing, and more testing to test the testing, we are finally set. During the event, my colleagues and I monitored the streams coming off the encoders, the application itself and we kept an eye on Kollective IQ (our enterprise-ready analytics dashboard) to make sure no major issues were happening. We were able to provide real-time insights to the corporate communications managers with the numbers they really cared about – how many people were on! 

The event itself went extremely smoothly and no major issues were reported. The customer reported roughly 13 thousand connections to the stream, with 88 thousand total participants who viewed via watching parties. For an executive team to be able to share their critical updates via broadcast-quality live video to this many globally-dispersed employees is a massive achievement. I can only imagine how they will level up for next year’s event. 

The adrenaline is always pumping for events like this.  If you have a great team, good content, the right technology and you do proper testing (and more testing), you will always be in a better position for success. After this huge event in a faraway, majestic city, with extraordinarily high-end production, I should totally expect my next call to be supporting a live webcast in some three-person conference room in the middle of nowhere. Bring it on, it’s what I live for.

Nick Vella

Nick Vella

Event Services Manager

“Nick’s Notes From The Road” is a blog series dedicated to the live event producers, the movers and shakers, the people who just won’t take no WiFi for an answer. In this series we address all things good and bad that might come up during a live event and some tools and tricks for success.

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To view our Partner blog, click here

Why Do We Do Video?

CMMA Blog

Delivering video securely and to scale across the enterprise is a challenging task. There are countless new security and privacy risks to be conscious of, as well as ever-evolving technologies and systems to keep up to date with. In an industry where we are faced with ageing equipment and infrastructures on a regular basis, we must find new and exciting ways to reach varied audiences with the most up-to-date and engaging content. So why do we ‘do’ video?  

Adapting To New Communication Styles

Across the globe, working environments are going through seismic changes. To put this into perspective, by 2020, 54% of the global workforce will be millennials. In India, half of the population is now under 25 – this has huge implications for the future of work.

As these new, young workers enter the working world, they’ll be bringing new attitudes and preferences with them, which will change the working world for the rest of us. 

One of the key changes that these millennials bring is an alternative view of communication and a different way of prioritizing their attention. In a work environment, this may mean that they won’t sit down and read a 40-page document, but they might just watch a 4-minute video. In order to keep up with this shifting landscape, businesses have to embrace these differences and provide the tools needed to maximize productivity – regardless of how staff choose to work and consume information.

%

By the year 2020 54% of the global workforce will be millennials.

%

In India, half of the population is now under the age of 25.

Video Consumption Is On The Rise

According to a report from Interact and Harris , which polled 1,000 US workers, lack of communication is one of the most complained about office issues. This included everything from not giving clear directions to not knowing the names of fellow workers. 

With communication and collaboration being so integral to the modern workplace, it’s clear that businesses need to improve internal comms to ensure employees remain happy and engaged. In order to do this, more and more companies are picking up video as a modern, engaging way of communicating and connecting with their staff.

And it’s not just the younger members of the team who appreciate this form of communication. According to a report by HighQ 55% of people watch videos online every day. A related report by tubular insights  also found that mobile video usage is on the rise across the board, predicting that 80% of the world’s internet traffic will be video by 2021.

%

Percentage of people watch videos online every day.

According to a report by HighQ .

With this surge in video adoption on the horizon, it’s clear that video will form an important part of the future of work, but it’s not just a case of moving content from one place to another. 

Successful Video Delivery Starts With Security

In order to do video properly, we need to overcome several issues, with security at the forefront. With GDPR, privacy is paramount; if you’re not ready it’s game over. Dealing with confidential material on a daily basis, we take this very seriously. Luckily, we are proud to say that we have never been hacked. In fact, one of our big channel partners in Europe, BT, challenged an ethical hacking squad to break into Kollective within 60 days and the team just could not do it.

But it’s not just security issues that businesses need to consider when planning their video strategy. When it comes to live video streaming at events, CEOs and IT teams will both tell you that nobody can truly understand what delivering a live event securely and at scale means – until you’ve experienced it for yourself. 

Register For An Event And See For Yourself

If you attended Kollective’s North America Customer Council event this year, you will already know that we’ve put together a small, but strong team to help make the process of navigating these issues and managing these types of events easier than ever. From now on, these experienced individuals will be on hand to help you before, during and after the adoption process, offering support on building engagement via video, team building ideas and strategy for live events. This dedicated team can also give advice on live event support and video best practices, so that your organization can focus on what really matters to grow and thrive. Keep communications at the heart of your business to future-proof your company.

Learn More About Our Enterprise Video Solutions

Kollective seamlessly delivers your live streaming content to the edge of your network.

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The post Why Do We Do Video? appeared first on Kollective Technology .

To view our Partner blog, click here