Entries tagged as ‘Solutionpark’
The final item listed in a good communication concept is EVALUATION. Be it through assessments, survey, interviews, benchmarking etc. We want to know if we have reached our target audience, if the message arrived at the receiving end and if the money spent on the respective communication measures turned out to be a fruitful investment.
How will we know? And how can we evaluate the use of a webcast? As soon as your video is published on the Internet, be it Live or on Demand, your external streaming provider can begin logging the traffic generated, as well as the hits and clicks of the webcast watched.
Facts and figures
The good news is, you don’t have to do anything. Take a live webcast, for example. Instantaneously you can track the users on your webpage anonymously and report back what peaks, highs and lows there were during a specific time period. The tracking tools are so sophisticated, that you yourself don’t even need to install expensive software yourself. Leave it to those in charge on the technical side and they will deliver the results first hand while the event is ongoing or immediately thereafter. What more do you want?
Do statistics really tell the truth?
If you are working with an experienced and reliable streaming partner, such as Solutionpark, you can only expect top notch reporting on the facts and figures of your webcast. Every aspect is measured and recorded, tracked and identified – if you so wish. It actually is their general working procedure to observe the user’s movements on the Internet while one of their clients’ webcasts is taking place.
From a communication perspective such statistical information can only be helpful. How many people watched the webcast? At what time? For how long? All good information not simply for justifying the costs but also for explaining their necessity. Look at the cost per user: One can calculate that for an event with a live audience, for the extra cost of a webcast, up to double the number of people will watch it in the following month compared with the number of participants that attended the actual event. Imagine, double!! Most probably the extra cost for producing the webcast was a fraction of what the event cost anyway.
Feel at ease
I always found it helpful to know how many viewers had attended a live webcast session online and was always grateful for the respective evaluation and interpretation provided by Solutionpark. One thing I do want to add is that the technical support throughout the entire project is just as important as the analysis thereafter. I was definitely never left hanging throughout the whole communication-webcast process. And that was much appreciated.
Categories: corporate communication · employee relations · internal communication · marketing communication · strategic communication
Tagged: cost, evaluation, Solutionpark, streaming, video, webcast
Who wouldn’t want to benefit from using new technologies and impressing your shareholders, clients, business partners and employees with a hands-on Internet presentation? Produced in no time and cost efficiently? From a communicator’s perspective, this sounds like a gift sent from heaven.
Let me give you some technical background: Webcasts are often used for synchronizing presentations (such as Powerpoint, websites, film, 3-D objects) with multiple audio sources while encoding them into one coherent stream. They provide an all-in-one solution for broadcasting your video and slides to a broad audience via the Internet.
Let it PLAY
In addition, you have the possibility to use the web-based production software «PLAY» which is an all-in-one production software, especially developed by Solutionpark for producing webcasts, that stores any kind of graphical screen design from your PC or Mac. As the «PLAY» software is installed on a web application server, you only need a web browser and internet access to run it. For recording and broadcasting audio-visual content, a Real Helix, Quicktime Streaming, Windows Media or Flash server is needed. «PLAY» enables video and audio to be joined into a recordable presentation. (All content is generated live).
Therefore presentations can either be broadcasted ‘live’ or ‘on demand’ over the Internet and then viewed with any standard web browser such as Windows Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari or Google Chrome – for which you might need a plugin.
Streaming technologies come to life
A LiveBox is an efficient piece of hardware that combines high quality TV satellite technology with the transmission and distribution of video and slides via Internet, while using the most modern video streaming technologies. By the way, a LiveBox offers an array of advantages compared to traditional streaming transmission possibilities such as ISDN networks, video conferencing technology or complex and costly installation of video streaming infrastructure on site.
The benefit of such technologies used for producing webcasts lies in the fact that you don’t have to buy any extra soft- or hardware or any other additional technical equipment yourself. No license fees, no distribution costs, no maintenance contracts. Sounds good?!
Categories: corporate communication · internal communication · strategic communication
Tagged: ‹‹Play››, encoding, hardware, Internet, LiveBox, multi-channel, satellite, software, Solutionpark, streaming, technology, video, webcast
What about a corporate video? In communications many of us may dream of producing a corporate video, a grand project with much prestige and pomp. Though too often it’s the budget that is too tight, or so we believe and other priorities that are consuming our time. Besides, it’s ‘”only” an image tool, I’ve heard people say.
No compromises on a lighter version of “the corporate film”
Thanks to modern technology, oh how I love those words, communication specialists have other options and easier ways of producing a company video. That’s exactly what it is, a video, prepared for the Internet, in high resolution, high quality, and with the look and feel of a corporate film. It’s true value added for your organization and when placed strategically on your Internet entry page, it is automatically broadcast to a large audience, draws attention to your website and grabs hold of your viewers. And all this at an affordable price.
If you are thinking of implementing a web TV project or creating a web TV magazine consider the following budgetary items when asking an external provider such as Solutionpark for a cost proposal:
- Project management – any professional external provider will take the lead for the external side and set up a time plan, milestones and deliverables.
- Handling – this cost item includes administrative work, bookings, organization, location scouting etc. I can only say: leave it to the pros, they know what they are doing.
- Resources and equipment: cameraman and camera, sound/audio technician, lighting – this obviously includes the specialists such as cameraman, videographer, web TV producer, sound technician as well as the respective equipment. Do you have a corporate sound, tune, melody? Every part is important in order to make your corporate video a memorable experience to watch and listen. Assuming a “standard/stationary” situation, the sound/audio technician also does the lighting and the cameraman is concentrated on the subject(s) and content of the video.
- Postproduction – following the recording, the material is cut to the requested time span and any voice over, soundtrack and/or subtitles are added. The better the raw material, the easier it is to get good imagery and a nice flow of the video afterwards.
A corporate video should be harmonious and inviting. Don’t overload it. Less is often more. Keep it simple and slick. Don’t confuse your audience with too many different messages. Web producers, e.g. from Solutionpark can develop a storyboard, write a script, research locations and recommend the most suitable procedure for shooting a company video. Don’t be surprised if the outcome is overwhelmingly positive.
Categories: corporate communication · event communication · marketing communication · shareholder communication
Tagged: camera, company image, film, Internet, Solutionpark, video, web TV
As a communication professional we are often confronted with trying to interpret a proposal that has landed on our desks from one of our external providers. Ok we asked for one, but now it’s our job to check and see if what is being offered is what we really need and wanted in the first place. Does the price tag meet our expectations or is it way over budget?
We tend to be a bit skeptical, but if you want high quality, reliability and efficiency, it’s definitely worth paying an appropriate price.
Looking at a typical proposal
Assuming you are doing a “standard” webcast for video and slides on demand, for the Internet, this is what a proposal (from Solutionpark) looks like:
- Briefing, planning and coordination – every external provider needs time to be briefed and set up a plan for the implementation of a webcast.
- Set-up, installation, technical check at the event location – depending on where you are holding the event, interview, roundtable, training session, and depending on the number of participants, guests, people, speakers attending, the technical set-up and respective checks will take the appropriate time. Rather be sure everything is working properly in advance in order to avoid any mishaps, if possible. You will feel calmer and so will your external provider.
- Cameraman and streaming engineer – these are the specialists behind the camera, in charge of directing, at the mixing desk and the computer making sure that the video and slides match. In addition this item includes encoding the video and sending the link for the Internet.
- Software and hardware: usage of PLAY software, license and PLAY server utilization, LiveBox, streaming equipment, multiple encoder, backup, converter, slide control, cameras, tripods, hosting, delivery and distribution via Akamai network (content delivery network) – these are the basis for a high-quality webcast and I wouldn’t want to go with anything less.
- Back-up of the video – for your records you might want to have a DVD.
- Transport of equipment and expenses – your event might take place nearby, but the equipment needs to be lugged to the location no matter what.
- Phone service helpline – in case you need a special helpline during the event itself, this is a useful option to consider.
All I can say is, good luck and hope you are successful and happy with your next webcast.
Categories: corporate communication · internal communication · investor relations
Tagged: Akamai, cameraman, external provider, proposal, Solutionpark, streaming, streaming engineer, video, webcast
When we launched our new corporate values, I, a communication professional working for an international reinsurance company, was told that four new core values had been defined and were now to be communicated to the entire staff. “Come up with an internal communication concept. Make a plan. Show us some ideas for implementation,” I was instructed. So I went to work following a structured communication approach and presented my internal communication concept to the Executive Team. The actual launch included a pop-up window with a brief video which would appear on the day we launched the new corporate values to the entire staff (worldwide) by appearing on everyone’s screen first thing in the morning when they turned on their computers. I must say that our IT department was not amused; at all. In the end I managed to convince them of the one-off action and positive (communication) impact this would have.
NOT the old company video
The next step in terms of the pop-up video was ‘how the hell can we produce such a thing?’, a video that wasn’t too big for every user to watch on their own PC. Great communication idea, yep. I called Steve from Solutionpark because I didn’t know who else to ask and also because I figured that he must know how to do it, of course within a reasonable budget and timeframe.
Halleluia, thank you Steve, our external streaming provider could send us a team consisting of a cameraman and a sound technician and would format the video for PC use. Immediately I started writing a script and committing the necessary resources. After very little rehearsal I must say, our CEO and designated participants explained the new corporate values and their signification as well as what they meant to them on tape. The statements were recorded one after the other and we went from one floor to the next for the various takes.
Ready in no time
In only half a day, the planed scenes where on tape and the raw material ready to be cut. When I sat down with the multimedia producer from Solutionpark, we assembled the new 2.5-minute corporate values video within a record two hours. It’s really amazing how fast this can be done.
Categories: corporate communication · employee relations · internal communication · marketing communication · strategic communication
Tagged: communication concept, corporate values, multimedia producer, Solutionpark, streaming, video
Want to communicate your business strategy to the lines of business responsibles, market leaders and those in charge of support functions? Taking either a top-down or bottom-up approach, it often falls to the communicators to spread the news. This can be comfortable or uncomfortable, depending on the content of 1-to-3-to-5-year plans to be presented and discussed.
Combining strategy and communication
At the yearly gathering of all lines of business heads, local office representatives and chiefs of support functions, everyone wants to be heard and seen. Trying to juggle everybody’s priorities and demands as a communication professional isn’t always easy. “Yes, your strategic input is valuable too.” “We should formulate some specific communication measures.” “But how will we communicate that to your clients? I’ll be glad to help pull some ideas together and write up a communication plan, you know,” I’d hear myself say.
No loose ends – wrapping up the day’s content
To keep track of all that is communicated on such a highly intense and fully packed day, we decided to record the presentation sessions as webcasts and send a link to all participants thereafter. This way, they could review the discussions leading up to the decisions taken and recap the day’s content. What was my role as a communication professional? I made sure that the internal technical set-up was ready, the recording was handled by Solutionpark and the link sent to participants the following day.
From a communication perspective I like to structure content, categorize it and create user-friendly download sections in my webcasts. This way, the viewer can easily navigate through the various subjects, especially if there are a number of different aspects or speakers involved. Explaining your company’s strategy, the ‘Whys and Why Nots’ is a valuable experience, and I find, an emotional topic that deserves to be documented on video.
Categories: corporate communication · internal communication · shareholder communication · strategic communication
Tagged: briefing, communication professional, corporate identity, corporate philosophy, corporate values, external providers, self-perception, Solutionpark, strategy, video, webcast
I want to do a video, sure, cool thing, but what and who and where and how? And what for, for heaven sakes? As a communication professional I have been taught to think in structured, linear processes, in concepts and with project management as a guiding principle of my doings. On a side note: It’s not as creative as one might imagine. So, simply follow the basic steps of analysis and definition, implementation and evaluation. Super. By the way, I still believe in that method. So I’ve learned to ask the right questions, coach my counterparts and advise them on what I believe to be a valuable and successful communication path. 
Here are the three most important criteria for producing a webcast:
- We want to reach a broad audience that goes beyond our immediate target audience
- We want people to be able to view the webcast independent of geographic location and time zone
- We want to use a video for bringing our communication messages across
Reaching out to a broader audience
Even though you have a specific target audience in mind, you automatically reach a much broader group of people including potential clients, interested investors and future employees that might be surfing your website. Exposure is imminent when placed on the landing page of your company website. You never know who will be attracted to your CEO’s video message, your product line responsibles’ statement, your market managers’ proposition or your business experts’ insights. Therefore it’s wise to draft your message carefully, take the time to prepare your script, select an appropriate location for the shooting and get your webmaster or web content editor on board early on. It’s important to place your video on a site that is easily accessible and quick to find – not buried in a corner of your website.
Giving your company a face on your website
Let your speaker do some media/camera training, with our without a teleprompter and discuss your expectations with your external provider – video, multimedia or web TV producer and streaming engineer. Your communication agency or Solutionpark can help you scout the location, draft the story board, write the script and organize the props. Be it as part of a full fledged integrated communications campaign or a single communication activity, it’s so easy to have so much exposure with only one small video.
Categories: corporate communication · employee relations · internal communication · marketing communication
Tagged: CEO, Solutionpark, streaming engineer, target audience, teleprompter, video, web TV producer, webcast, webmaster
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 always think that size does matter, especially when a company appears to be larger than it actually is, and just because you can list 23 subsidiaries on 5 continents, for e.g.. Anyway, as a communication professional I feel strongly about selecting the right external providers for your internal and external communication activities. Not the biggest, fanciest with the most luxurious, but someone that understands my communication needs, be it for a simple recording of a statement from the CEO to organizing the entire communication of a live broadcast of an extraordinary annual general meeting which is viewed by hundreds of people across the globe.
Bringing the world together
Truly I’d start with a small communication project, see how it goes and see how you like it. Do a video on demand, as you are less under pressure in case the speakers mess up or the weather is bad (if you are doing the shooting outside) or some technical emergency pops up. Over the years I did a lot of testing with different scenarios, and depending on the bandwidth, employees in a small office would gather in front of one screen to watch the video. They’d tell me many times that they enjoyed coming together and through the video felt more closely connected to the headquarter thousands of miles away.
Creating a big bang
Compared with traditional communication (print) tools, and don’t get me wrong, I have had great experiences working with ad agencies and producing plenty of print material, the cost of webcasts on average is often lower and the impact so much greater. Assume you are using a webcast for a message from the CEO, an update on the business strategy and your are introducing a new Executive Team member, that is three in one right there. Don’t have to bother writing individual pieces including a speech, a presentation, an internal announcement etc. No need trying to copy all different user groups into the ‘To:’ field of your E-mail. As soon as you have the video up on the Internet a broad audience can view it as much and as long as they want. And, you can even track the traffic.
Categories: corporate communication · employee relations · internal communication · strategic communication
Tagged: bandwidth, broadcast, communication, external provider, Internet, message from the CEO, proposal, recording, Solutionpark, webcast
When you are working with external providers I find it most helpful to get to know them personally. It makes life much easier in the long run. At the beginning I invested a couple hours to travel across town with one of the company’s IT professional in tow, to get to know the streaming guys at Solutionpark. This was a number of years ago. And they were not as I expected. No weird IT geeks sitting in a corner glued to their PC screens. They welcomed us with open arms and couldn’t wait to show us around. 
The place was full of interesting equipment they had built into mobile trolleys themselves as they explained how they’d go on location and record, encode and stream a company’s investor presentation, press conference or other live event onto the web. So how would this work for us? Basically we wanted to replace the old way of recording a staff event on VHS cassettes (!) which would be copied manually and then sent by mail to the various offices around the world. How endlessly tedious and time-consuming!
The technical side of it all
The good thing was that our streaming provider has their own encoding center where all the equipment is permanently installed on site. This means that they are always ready with many encoders and backup devices available, a redundant and reliable Internet upstream, optimized connectivity to Akamai (a Content Distribution Network) for live streaming and access to any European satellite for live webcasts. All recordings are done in broadcast quality. This set-up has proven to be flexible, reliable and cost-efficient and a number of times I’d call to say we’re having an event on short notice. They bring everything, i.e. usually two people, a streaming engineer and a web TV producer, and the full equipment. All I had to do is get the speakers and audience organized and off we went. Following the recording, I’d receive a link which we then placed on the respective company webpage. That’s it.
Before you get started, here are some things you should clarify in advance:
- When and where do you want to record your video?
- At what time do you want to publish your video and to whom?
- How big will the video file be?
- How long do you intend to record?
- How time-critical is your event?
- Will the webcast be done live or on demand?
- Does your organization have a strong enough pipeline and bandwidth for uploading and playing videos?
- How many people will be watching simultaneously?
- Can you bypass your firewall, proxy and are there IT security issues with your local IT department?
- Do you have electrical power and a phone line available onsite?
Once you have checked out the technicalities, you are set to go. Your external partner can surely help you in finding out some of the points. These usually just have to be ticked off the first time you webcast an event. Assuming you will conduct your future events in the same location, the set up will already have been established. From then on, you can lean back and enjoy the event.
Categories: corporate communication · event communication · investor relations · marketing communication
Tagged: bandwidth, broadcast, camera, electrical power, encode, engineer, equipment, external provider, Internet, investor presentation, IT security, live, live event, on demand, press conference, record, Solutionpark, staff event, stream, streaming, video, web, web TV producer, webcsast
