Enterprise Speakers Wanted: Tools And Best Practices For The Enterprise Streaming Media Department

Jeff Hanley is moderating the "Tools And Best Practices For The Enterprise Streaming Media Department" panel at Streaming Media West this year and is currently selecting speakers. If you come from an enterprise company and would like to sit on a round table panel and talk about the video market in the enterprise vertical, please let me know and I will put you in touch with Jeff.

We are not accepting any vendor speakers for this session but do welcome any vendor who may have an enterprise customer that they want to get on the panel. I define enterprise as a Fortune 500 company. In the past such enterprise speakers have included Accenture, Bank Of America, MasterCard, Wachovia, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Lehman, Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, Microsoft, Target, Vanguard Group, JPMorganChase, Verizon, General Mills and many others.

Thursday, November 8, 2007
11:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. B302 (Panel Session)

Tools And Best Practices For The Enterprise Streaming Media Department
This session will bring together four frontline streaming media professionals to discuss their favorite toolsets and techniques for producing enterprise communications and training content. The emphasis will be on in-house production with "off-the-shelf" tools and apps, rather than turnkey or outsourced solutions. Premiere or Final Cut Pro? Camtasia or Captivate? Flash or Silverlight? Or all of the above? What works and what should be avoided? All this and more will be covered in this enterprise-focused session.

Looking For Bloggers To Write About Online Video

Ok, so I'll put my money where my mouth is so to speak. If you are interested in doing a blog about some facet of the online video industry, we'll setup the blog for you, drive traffic to it, promote it on StreamingMedia.com AND sell sponsorships and ads on the blog and split the revenue with you. All you have to do is blog, which is enough work by itself. I'll even blog with you on your site to start.

We can get you the traffic if you can provide the content. While I am open to all ideas, in particular I want to start blogs on enterprise video, mobile video, webcasting and P2P video. I own domains already like p2pvideoblog.com, enterprisevideoblog.com, webcastingblog.com etc... and you can use one of them if you so choose.

So that's about as easy as I can make it. You'll get a login to TypePad and can just blog, we'll do all the rest. If you are serious about it, please contact me.

Unique Challenges To Enterprise Video Communications

For the dinner event that I am moderating tonight, talking to video in the enterprise and hosted by Ignite Technologies, what questions or topics do you think we should discuss? While I am not creating a huge list of points as I want to keep the topic open and free-flowing, here are the few I am interested in discussing:

• how is the enterprise market learning from what is taking place with video outside of the enterprise industry?
• what are the biggest headaches you face when it comes to implementing the entire ecosystem that makes up enterprise video?
• how much convincing of management is still needed when it comes to getting budget to buy and deploy enterprise video products and services and what are some of the best ways you prove internally the value that video provides?
• how do you evaluate products and services in the market and what factors do you use to decide what solutions you purchase?

Are there any questions that you would add to the list or any topics you'd like me to bring up so that you can hear the attendees take on the subject?

Cisco To Buy WebEx For 3.2 Billion Dollars: Will Video Now Be Added?

Cisco announced today that they have agreed to acquire WebEx Communications for 3.2 billion dollars. While we have all used the WebEx platform many times, personally, I was never impressed with it and I think the value Cisco paid is completely overpriced. For starters, WebEx did $380 million dollars in revenue last year so Cisco is valuing WebEx at almost nine times revenue. This from a product that barely even supports any video functionality but is suppose to be thought of as the tool for on demand collaboration.

Cisco said they were acquiring WebEx because "...companies are looking for rich communications tools to help them work more effectively and efficiently." No argument there, but does a tool set that includes almost no option for live video and very limited functionality for linking to on demand videos classify as a real "rich communication" tool? I guess to some people it does, but I'd classify a system that focuses on video, like a Tandberg system real rich communication before I would WebEx. I know, Tandberg tends to be more of a point-to-point system as opposed to the WebEx platform but even the WebEx solution is operated across their private network. So the two are very similar in many ways, except one makes video a core component of their offering.

With the acquisition, I'd like to see Cisco add a lot of video functionality to the WebEx product line for real collaboration in live and on demand presentations and increase the size of the audience that can come to a WebEx, which currently is very limited. If they can do that, I think Cisco can be very successful with this application in the small and medium sized business market.

Are there any features or functionality in the current WebEx system that you think are missing?

Former VP of Broadcast & Streaming Media for JPMorganChase For Hire

If you are looking to hire someone who has hands-on experience with the entire webcasting work-flow process, Nico Mclane is someone you should talk to. Until last week, Nico was the VP of Broadcast and Streaming Media for JPMorganChase. Over the past seven years at JPMorganChase, she helped build, deploy and manage their internal webcasting solution including the hardware, software, distribution, A/V production, web developers etc...saving the company an estimated $3M is communication costs in 2006.

I have known Nico for many years and would vouch for her experience in the webcasting market. If you are looking for someone with her expertise, contact her directly.

If you are looking for a new position, have taken a new job or are a company that has a job opening, let me know. In many cases I will highlight it here on the blog - free of charge.