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Microsoft: How to Keep Dull Webcasts Out of Your Enterprise

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So you've got an in-house video system at your company. Do the employees want to watch the content?

At the recent Streaming Media West conference, Travis Petershagen, team manager for the Digital Media Services Team at Microsoft, talked about the challenge of creating compelling workplace video. He started with a brave admission.

"I have a confession to make, which is a good 50 percent of the shows we deliver are pretty painful to watch," Petershagen said. "They're pretty awful, and not from a technical perspective—that's better than it's ever been before. We're delivering HD, we've got scale, we're not buffering. Things are great. But the content is just fairly dull across the board. This session is a little bit about how we're trying to combat that."

Creating video that employees actually want to watch means moving from a meeting mentality to a broadcast mentality. It also takes more advance planning.

"We're now in a place where we try to get in even a brief conversation with the event owners and say 'What are your core objectives? What are you trying to accomplish?'" Petershagen continued. "What we've found is that the event owners don't often have clarity on what their core objectives are. They may come to the table saying, 'I do an all-hands event every quarter and we have conversations with the team,' but until you really press and get a little more information you don't have much you can work with."

Having clear objectives for a broadcast changes how the team produces it and how the video engages with the participants.

For more advice on creating interesting enterprise webcasts, watch the video below and download Petershagen's presentation.

 

Delivering Audience Centric Webcasts In The Enterprise

Successfully distributing a live event to the web is not the same thing as producing a "successful" webcast. Flawless technical execution means little if the audience is not engaged. This presentation will cover how Microsoft Production Studios provides online audiences inside Microsoft's network with engaging viewing experiences that recognize important differences between in-person and virtual attendees. From content design to production and transmission execution, this session will share practical tips for attracting and captivating online audiences within the enterprise.

Travis Petershagen, Team Manager, Digital Media Services Team - Microsoft Production Studios

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