INXPO: To Keep People Connected, Have Them Touch Their Keyboards
[Note: This sponsored interview was recorded at Streaming Media West 2013.]
INXPO has become a leader in webcasting, and during a red carpet interview at the recent Streaming Media West conference in Huntington Beach, California, company CEO Malcolm Lotzof explained how to keep viewers paying attention. Interactivity, INXPO has found, is key.
"We have a motto…which is, make sure that the attendee, or the participant, actually touches their keyboard once every two minutes," Lotzof said. "It's so easy today to be watching a video and then your email comes through,…your phone rings, somebody comes into your office, if you're at home your kids want to talk to you. It's so easy to get interrupted and taken away from the presentation that our job is to make sure that people are touching their keyboard. Thereby, they're not losing connection with the presentation."
Some people are happy to appear on camera and some would prefer a phone call. Conquering that fear of the camera lens is party of INXPO's role.
"One of the challenges is that people are not comfortable on camera," Lotzof noted. "Our job is to help people get more comfortable on camera. And also, people are not comfortable, 100 percent of the time, going live. So they don't necessarily know…is the sound going? Is the video going? So I believe that those two things are going to…fall away as the younger generation comes up."
To view the full INXPO interview, watch the video below.
Eric Schumacher-Rasmussen: Hi. I'm here at Streaming Media West in Huntington Beach, California with Malcolm Lotzof, who is the CEO of INXPO. And INXPO is a company that produces a product and a service that's very near and dear to us at Streaming Media. Webcasting has always been sort of the heart and soul of what we've covered at Streaming Media. And so it's been exciting to see companies like INXPO come up and make a little more noise over the last year. So for those of our audience who don't know INXPO, tell us a little bit about INXPO and what you're showing here at Streaming Media.
Malcolm Lotzof: Sure. Thanks, Eric. I appreciate the opportunity to do that. INXPO is primarily in the online event and online or virtual environment space. So what we do is we create online events for people that can't attend physical events. Those events could be anything from a virtual trade show to a virtual town hall, learning events, anything that really requires a lot of impact. So, I mean, that's really the core of any kind of physical event or online event. It's really the start time and end time and cramming in a program that creates, kind of, a high profile event. So we do that online. And at the core of that is our webcasting technology. And we have been doing that for quite a number of years. Our webcasting is very interactive. And we'll talk a little bit more about that. And then, at the same time, because we have this webcasting and these online events that happen on a sporadic basis, a lot of our clients have asked us to make that available for them throughout the year. So in our online environment, we tend to have more of virtual programs. So a program that would continue over a period of time, like a town hall that happens maybe once a month. Like learning that happens on a regular basis. So those are the two core products that we're selling today.
Eric Schumacher-Rasmussen: All right. So how does INXPO distinguish itself from other similar platforms in the market?
Malcolm Lotzof: I think there's really three different ways that we differentiate ourselves. The first one is, I would call, the destination. So a lot of webcasts today or streaming media today, you'll get a URL that you'll then-- you know, you'll get in your email. You'll click on the URL and you'll go off to the destination. Or you'll go off and you'll actually watch the webcast. When the webcast is done, it's pretty much over. And if you wanted to go back, it's not that easy. You'd have to go find out if they put it on a website, for example, and so on. With INXPO, we create a destination that's available all the time. So whether that destination's, as I said, an online event, whether that destination is a 365-day environment, it's out there. So when we do a webcast, immediately after the webcast it automatically goes on-demand. So now think about the person who might've not seen that webcast. They can come back. They know where their destination is. They come back. And not only can they see the webcast, but now they can go browse and see what other videos were taken, what other webcasts happen. They can search on them, find something that was liked or has had a lot of discussion about. And then get involved in those webcasts. So that's kind of one of the primary differentiators. Another differentiator is the interactivity. So we have the video as the core. We have slides that can be combined with the video. We then have group chat. We then have polls. And a lot of other vendors do that, as well. But I think what INXPO does really well is teach people how to use those interactive components to be better presenters. So we have a motto, for example, which is, make sure that the attendee, or the participant, actually touches their keyboard once every two minutes. So, you know, it's so easy today to be watching a video and then your email comes through, or a webcast. Your email comes through. Your phone rings. Somebody comes into your office. If you're at home, your kids want to talk to you or something. So it's so easy to get interrupted and taken away from the presentation that our job is to make sure that people are touching their keyboard. Thereby, they're not losing connection with the presentation. And that could get done in a number of different ways; through a poll, through Q and A, through a group chat room. And, in fact, it doesn't have to actually be about the presentation. It doesn't even have to be about the content. You ask people where they're from. If they type in, "I'm from Tokyo," "I'm from Johannesburg," "I'm from London," "I'm from San Francisco," you connected with them. You got them in touch. If you asked them what they ate for dinner last, you asked them what shoes they're wearing, it doesn't really matter, as long as you're getting them to touch-- to type on the keyboard and connect. And then, obviously, you want to ask questions about specific subjects. And we have certain ways of incorporating games and trivia and all kinds of things into these webcasts. So that's kind of the second biggest difference, I think, that we offer different to our traditional competition.
Eric Schumacher-Rasmussen: Okay. Let's get a little more specific here. Can you give us some examples of INXPO in action? Some use cases.
Malcolm Lotzof: Sure. So on the event side, a great example for us is we do Cisco's global sales event. 20,000 people from, you know, 80 something countries around the world. And we've been doing that for them for five years. It's a five-day event, probably, the premier virtual event or online event in the world today. And it's been, at some points, 100 percent virtual. Other points where we're grouping large groups together that are around the world, but just a tremendous overall successful event. That's one example. On the corporate communication side, or the environment side, we have organizations like The Gap. We have McDonald's. We have P and G and Autodesk. That are using our technology to communicate, for example, with their employees on a more regular basis. So they would have leadership meetings, where they're updating their organizations on a regular basis, as to what's going on, allowing employees to connect, very secure environments. Where you've got, you know, maybe just directors and above coming to this session. You've got everybody in the company coming to another kind of session, but a lot of communication that can happen. And a good example, by the way, is-- you know, I don't like to talk about the content that gets discussed at our clients, obviously. But, you know, we hold a once-a-month coffee talk town hall meeting with our company. We have employees across the world. And, you know, I traditionally start off that meeting. And I'll turn around and say, "So, here are the five rumors I know about that are going on in the company today. And let me tell you these three are not true. And these two are-- this is the real facts behind them." And then, when we're done with that I, kind of, know that the whole company, at least, is onboard on the same page for 24 hours, maybe 48 hours, until the next set come along. But the message behind that is being able to communicate with many, many people, all at the same time, getting everybody on the same page behind the company and allowing them to move forward.
Eric Schumacher-Rasmussen: Right. So where do you see the online video industry in general, and webcasting in particular, headed in the next few years?
Malcolm Lotzof: There are two components to that question. One is technology and one is strategy. So I think on the technology side, you know, we continuously get better quality video. I think we get continuously better quality bandwidth. So on the technology side, I see the video becoming much more adopted throughout the world. And that's just going to happen. That's a force of nature. It's just going to happen as the technology gets better. The second one is more of a cultural issue. So right now, one of the challenges is that people are not comfortable on camera. Not everybody's comfortable on camera, as you are. So our job is to help people get more comfortable on camera. And also, people are not comfortable, 100 percent of the time, going live. So they don't necessarily know what-- you know, is the sound going? Is the video going? So I believe that those two things are going to just-- you know, the cultural side of it is going to fall away, as the younger generation comes up, more comfortable with the technologies than they are today. And at the end of the day, there is nothing more powerful than live video. You know, we hear, "A picture paints a thousand words," but a video paints a thousand pictures.
Eric Schumacher-Rasmussen: Right.
Malcolm Lotzof: And so live video, even though things can go wrong, it doesn't really matter because people remember. They remember those things that go wrong. You know, if I fell off my chair now, everybody would say, "Hey, remember that presentation where the guy fell off his chair?" Well, they'll remember the presentation and that's what we're really looking for them to do.
Eric Schumacher-Rasmussen: Right. Right. Great insights. Thank you so much, Malcolm. I've been speaking with Malcolm Lotzof, the CEO of INXPO. If you want to find out more about INXPO, visit www.INXPO.com. Signing off here, from Streaming Media West at Huntington Beach. Thanks again, Malcolm.
Malcolm Lotzof: Thank you. Thanks, Eric.
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