Entries tagged as ‘intranet’
Which communication professional doesn’t dread that early morning phone call on the way to work from the company CEO saying “we need to prepare some communication on a major announcement to be made today.” Ufffhhhhh. Run to the office and scramble to get the facts together. Try to keep the big picture in mind, the consequences, the impact and and and. Set priorities, make a plan, allocate resources, quick, think about what external partners need to get involved and need to be informed ASAP. Be aware of any legal issues, the stock exchange has its rulings too, forgotten. Crisis communication is always a hot topic and until you have done it, you don’t really know what it feels like. Keep your act together.
Being prepared for the worst
I can not tell you how glad I was to be able to pull my webcast binder from the shelf, look up Solutionpark’s phone number and flip to the scenario that said ‘webcast video and slides on demand.’ Months before I had listed all contacts and processes, described the steps of the ‘To Does’ and drafted template E-mails for just such occasions. The mailing groups had been saved in my Inbox and the only thing that needed to be added was the time and date.
From my own experience, I didn’t mind the excitement, the time constraints and the communication tasks, although every company crisis is emotionally challenging. My job was mostly on the internal communication side and we took great care in informing our employees as soon and as transparent as possible. It’s worse to say nothing than to say “I can’t give you more information at this point in time.”
Absorbing the news
That afternoon our CEO would stand up in front of all (local) staff and explain the situation in the best possible and most understandable way. Following a Q&A session, the employees piled out of the auditorium and went back to their desks, attempting to digest the news they had just heard.
Of course we webcast the information session, no question, as I felt it was too important not to share with staff in the local offices around the world. They have a right to know and learn about what’s going on now, just as much as those in the ‘ivory tower.’ And as always, we published the link an hour after the event on the intranet. No matter the event, this had simply become a routine.
Despite a crisis situation within your organization, communication thereof can be manageable, and the more experience you have using effective communication tools, the better.
Categories: corporate communication · internal communication · shareholder communication · strategic communication
Tagged: CEO, crisis communication, external partner, internal communication, intranet, on demand, video, webcast
On a typical day, when a publicly-traded company published their quarterly financial results, it all begins at 7 am with sending out the official press release and financial results presentation to the media, analysts and investors as well as publishing it all on the company website. An E-mail is sent out to all employees informing on the news while the internal communication specialist and internal services people get the auditorium ready for the upcoming employee information event.
Pulling it all together
The IT person responsible for helping with the webcast and the two streaming engineers from Solutionpark arrive and set up 2-3 cameras, hook up laptops and lay the necessary cables. I check the lighting and the sound (microphones) and upload the employee presentation onto the laptop next to the speaker’s desk. By 8 am staff piles into the auditorium – once again filled to the very last seat – and eagerly awaits the Executives Team’s explanations of the quarterly financial results. The session will be recorded including the slides and Q&A and is published on the intranet an hour following the staff event as a Video on Demand.
By 9 o’clock the Executive Team moves on to the boardroom where the investor call will be held shortly. The scripts are ready and so are the head of investor relations and the streaming engineers who will ensure that the slides are synchronized with the speeches from the CEO and CFO. This investor call will be broadcast live, i.e for everyone to see who logs on (and registers) on the company website. While the live webcast is in full swing in the boardroom, the auditorium is once again remodeled and set up for the onsite press conference.
Moving forward through the day
I remember the poor guys from the internal services department well who had to lug hundreds of chairs, shove around tables and prepare the information booth for the awaited financial analysts and business journalists. As employees, we were not allowed to participate in the press conferences, though we’d sneak through the hallway and try to get a glimpse of who had come. Are there photographers present? Has a journalist from a prestigious financial paper arrived? Have the analysts dressed in their sleek designer outfits again?
By noon, the show is over, the employee webcast published on the intranet, the investor webcast marked for download on the Internet, journalists’ and analysts’ questions answered. Oh well, just a typical day at the office.
Categories: corporate communication · employee relations · internal communication · investor relations · strategic communication
Tagged: broadcast live, camera, internal communication specialist, Internet, intranet, investor call, microphone, press conference, press release, quarterly results, results presentation, Solutionpark, streaming engineer, Video-on-Demand, webcast
I have been working in communication departments for many years for demanding bosses and evenmore demanding CEOs. The orders are passed down the line and we tend to, at least sometimes, pass on those tasks to outside parties. Some communications people may say: “You just do it, I don’t want to have anything to do with it. And, it’s not allowed to cost too much.” Or “I want to know this and that and every detail. And why is it this way and why that way and why why why…..” That is not how it is going to work. You got to learn a little bit about webcasts and trust in the experts. Don’t forget, it’s about team work and collaboration. The goal is to have things run smoothly and look good. So how can you make it happen?
Test, check, test, check…
Set realistic expectations, allow yourself enough time for the preparation and testing phase. Take the lead in organizing the location and briefing the speakers. It helps to clarify the logistical details in advance, to make sure you have things in place before you get started. Once the camera is rolling it’s much harder to fix something that isn’t already working.
From my experience I can tell you that it is invaluable to be well organized, have your scripts, presentations, Q&As etc. ready, to stay calm and let the streaming engineers and web TV producers do their job! Do a sound and light check, make sure the air condition is working if you expect a large crowd and try to make your speakers as comfortable as possible. Accompany them to the start of the webcast and reassure them of the benefits of its use and cost effectiveness.
Tracking your viewers’ behavior
Following the production of a webcast and its publication on the respective Internet page, you will have the opportunity to get instant feedback from users e.g. via e-mail and get hard facts in the form of statistics from the respective Internet page usage. This way you get a track record immediately. I’d have so many people call or e-mail me on the latest video stream and they’d tell me right away if for some reason something wasn’t working.
The good news is that you can rely on an external partner like Solutionpark who takes care of and looks after the entire technical side. I produced many many webcasts and videos for the intra- and Internet over years for a variety of internal and external audiences and scenarios, even in crisis situations. Every time the video was completed and uploaded in time for all to watch. We also did a lot live streaming and as far as I can remember there were no major glitches that the viewers would have noticed. On that note I can only say: it’s worth it, giving it a try.
Categories: corporate communication · internal communication · investor relations · strategic communication
Tagged: audience, camera, communication, crisis situation, engineer, Internet, intranet, live streaming, presentation, script, Solutionpark, statistics, streaming, testing, video stream, web TV producer, webcast
When one of your communication goals is to deliver accurate, fast and timely information to a specific target audience, who wouldn’t want a tool that makes reaching such an objective relatively easy. And why not try to actually bundle some of the communication activities using new media technologies, distributing relevant information via Inter- and intranet and interacting with your target audiences in a quick and uncomplicated way. So, point your communication strategy into a new direction, incorporate and adapt your communication plans, making your activities more user-friendly and ultimately more successful. That is the way I ultimately did it.
Finding a focused communication strategy approach
I found that focusing my communication activities and defining a more targeted approach really helped me get the message across in a clear, direct and understandable way. For example, the CEO and Executive Team would deliver their speeches to employees live in the auditorium at a convenient time in the morning, i.e. European time in this case, while we’d record them and have it on the intranet one hour following the event including Q&A. As a result, the US could watch the session as soon as they got to work in the morning and Asia saw the presentations before they left the office in the evening. That was great. Nobody felt left out. The way we used the webcasts had a strategic focus too because one of the most important communication principles was to inform employees first, fast and straight forward – always.
Setting priorities
As a communication professional I know what it’s like struggling for attention and budget as well as the Executives’ time to get involved in communication activities. Therefore you need to drive for an effective approach with new technologies that makes them easy to use widely and distribute your communication message to a broad audience quickly: E-mail, intranet, Internet with all its reader-/viewer-friendly news-oriented features available at their fingertips.
Make it a strategic priority to get your target audiences hooked on these new channels of information distribution. You won’t regret it!
Categories: corporate communication · employee relations · event communication · internal communication · strategic communication
Tagged: audience, CEO, channel, communication, communication plan, Communication principles, E-mail, Executive Team, Internet, intranet, new media, news-oriented, strategy, technology
First of all I would like to set the stage for introducing a piece of sophisticated technology to you. As a great fan and believer of streaming products, I want to start by explaining some basics and getting a couple facts and possible misconceptions straight. To tell you the truth, I was pretty confused at the beginning myself. So here we go.
What is a webcast?
A webcast is a video and/or presentation that is produced and published on the Internet using so-called streaming technology. The webcast is either done ‘live’ or ‘on demand.’ Webcasting is a type of “broadcasting” over the Internet. It can be shown on an Inter-, intra or extranet. Webcasts use streaming technology to publish content on an Internet page and distribute it to many listeners and/or viewers simultaneously. There are many possibilities for using webcasts as I learned working with Solutionpark over the years.
How are webcasts used?
Webcasts are typically used for investor relations presentations to the financial community, for the transmission of annual general meetings to shareholders and the public, for recording employee events and presentations for the intranet, for broadcasting medical conferences and offering further education to doctors and scientists. These are just a couple of examples.
Who (typically) organizes the webcasts?
Mostly, investor relations and corporate communications responsibles are assigned the task of planning and organizing webcasts. Event managers, media relations people, internal communications specialists or other communication professionals might also be in charge of producing a webcast.
Why is it an indispensible communications tool? 
Once you start working with webcasts, you won’t want to go back to some of the traditional, time- and cost consuming communications tools. The preparation and production is quick, the feedback is immediate. You are flexible and fast. It’s independent of time and location, can be watched by audiences around the globe where and whenever they want to: the perfect tool for businesses on the move. I love it. And who doesn’t like moving pictures these days?!
Categories: corporate communication · employee relations · event communication · internal communication
Tagged: annual general meeting, audience, broadcast, communication, conference, corporate communications, employee event, event manager, extranet, internal communications, Internet, intranet, investor relations, listeners, live, media relations, on demand, presentation, public, shareholder, Solutionpark, streaming, technology, video, viewers, webcast
Let me introduce myself: I am a communication and PR professional with more than 10 years of experience in the field. As a half Swiss, half American I have worked in corporate communication departments of international companies listed on the stock exchange and based in Zurich, Switzerland. In my work I was always involved in and fascinated by new media projects, i.e. Inter- and intranet and more. A couple of jobs allowed me to develop and implement a whole series of web-based communication tools throughout a period of multiple years. Now the time has come to take it all one step further and write my own communications blog with a focus on a particular aspect of new media technologies: streaming and video on the Internet.
Driven by internal communication
Why did I do it? While working in internal communication at an international company based in Zurich, I was confronted with the evaluation and integration of various internal communications tools: employee events, internal newsletters, internal announcements, message from the CEO, news articles on the intranet, staff presentations, communicating quarterly financial results, business strategies, high-level personnel changes, corporate values, vision and mission etc. A number of tools were time-consuming and ineffective and simply too costly. Through the use of webcasts I was able to bundle those channels into one and cover various types of communication with a single medium. No more printed internal newsletter, no more complicated written personnel announcements, no more separate CEO message or sending around video tapes by post across the ocean. By publishing webcasts visibly on the intranet, for example, distribution was already done and the exposure and attention automatically much greater.
Sharing insights and connecting with other communication professionals
Why am I writing a blog? I want to share my experiences in setting up, planning and producing webcasts and videos for the web with a wide audience. So many people keep asking me ‘how did you do it?’, ‘what did you do exactly?’, ‘what were your experiences?’, that it would really be a shame to let these insights go to waste. Plus it is something I couldn’t live without anymore for my communications work since I have become a huge fan of video on the Internet used for all sorts of communication activities. Believe me, if you’re not using this technology by now, you are missing out on something.
It is important to me to post my insights to a worldwide audience and connect with others who want to learn or already feel passionate about this topic. Therefore I am writing this blog in English in order to reach as many of you as possible. Although, please feel free to post any of your comments in German, French, Spanish or your mother tongue and I will do my best to answer you.
Leading through the process
What can you expect from this blog? I want to tell you about my experiences in communication with streaming technology and show you the possibilities and benefits of video on the Internet for internal and external communication. I’ll introduce some of the many solutions and products I applied for different types of communication including change management and crisis communication. Step by step I’ll take you through the process of preparing, getting started, producing your own webcast with the help of an external streaming provider such as Solutionpark and evaluating the results, in addition to giving you the arguments you need to convince your top management of this ingenious communication tool. Any questions?
Come join me on this journey through the wonder worlds of new technology.
Categories: corporate communication · employee relations · event communication · internal communication · investor relations · marketing communication · shareholder communication
Tagged: business strategies, change management, channel, communication, corporate communication, corporate values, crisis communication, employee event, exposure, internal announcement, internal newsletter, Internet, intranet, message from the CEO, mission, new media, PR, Solutionpark, staff presentation, streaming, technology, video on the Internet, vision, webcasts
I can not tell you how glad I was to be able to pull my webcast binder from the shelf, look up Solutionpark’s phone number and flip to the scenario that said ‘webcast video and slides on demand.’ Months before I had listed all contacts and processes, described the steps of the ‘To Does’ and drafted template E-mails for just such occasions. The mailing groups had been saved in my Inbox and the only thing that needed to be added was the time and date.