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MER Conference™ Case Study: Rapid Pivot to Digital Event

What do you do when you are on track for over 300 people registering to attend, 10 sponsors setup to exhibit, nearly 100 speakers committed to present… and 6 weeks before the event you learn all of these people now can’t leave their homes?

For the MER Conference, the solution was to quickly pivot to a digital experience; one that could engage audiences remotely while placing them in front of experts and thought leaders. This case study outlines their transitional story, of shifting the conference, in just 6 weeks, to the new format. In the end, the team executed a seamless digital event experience and achieved an increase in year over year registrations by about 45%. Here’s how they did it.


Live Stream Conferences: Digital Events and Hybrid Event Models

Live Stream Conferences: Digital Events and Hybrid Event Models

Have you transitioned an in-person conference or event recently to an all-digital experience? Before COVID-19, many businesses focused on in-person opportunities to drive engagement. But once event cancellations started happening rapidly due to the need to social distance and related restrictions, businesses across virtually all industries were forced to take a very close look at how they could quickly pivot their efforts to digital.  

This blog outlines some key insights from the last few months of activity in creating digital events. It details how IBM Watson Media has been able to help many clients with these efforts to live stream conferences, including our own IBM Think Digital event, providing considerations for your own virtual conference. 


Permalinks: Creating Vanity URLs for Videos

Permalinks: Creating Vanity URLs for Videos

Looking to customize your video URLs? Want to setup a static link that can be updated with new videos without having to notify others or replace embed codes?

This article walks through creating vanity URLs for videos through a new permalink feature for IBM Video Streaming. When setup, a custom ending for the URL is created, featuring the name of the content or any other desired name. In addition, content creators and organizations can use this feature to swap videos tied to a permalink. This will automatically swap the video content featured across embed codes and shared links that use that permalink.


Digital Hub Logistics Hamburg Case Study

Digital Hub Logistics Hamburg Case Study

Pivoting in-person events to digital experiences in three weeks time

COVID-19 caused companies to pivot toward new digital solutions to do business.  These practices are ones that must stand up to remote working and restrictions on travel and lockdown facilities.

What do you do, though, when your organization focuses on community and building a strong network of companies through in-person events?

For Digital Hub Logistics Hamburg, they innovated by adopting a digital strategy through technology from IBM. This was done with an eye on speed: quickly being able to introduce video streaming to their community to keep them engaged from earlier events while reaping success through greatly expanding their reach.


WebVTT Captioning & Subtitle Support

WebVTT Captioning & Subtitle Support

Looking to add closed captions or subtitles to your video content? Need WebVTT captioning support?

While closed captions can be associated with aiding the deaf and those hard of hearing, their benefit goes beyond this for video creators. In this article, learn about captions, why you should be investing in them and how viewing habits are changing in a way that increases their use. Also learn about the WebVTT format for subtitles and caption, how to create them and convert other subtitle formats to them as well. This is topped off with discussing how to add captions to your videos on IBM’s video streaming and enterprise video platform.


Convert Video Speech to Text with Watson

Convert Video Speech to Text with Watson

Closed captions have grown to be an important part of the video experience. While they assist deaf and hard of hearing people in enjoying video content, a study in the UK discovered that 80% of closed caption use was from those with no hearing issues. Not only that, but Facebook found out that adding captions to a video increased view times on their network by 12%. These reasons, along with regulations such as the Americans with Disabilities Act and rules from the FCC, have realized the need to caption video assets. However, caption generation can be time consuming, taking 5-10 times the length of the video asset, or costly if you are paying someone else to create them.

A solution is automatic speech recognition from machine learning. This the ability to identify words and phrases in spoken language and convert them to text. The process offers content owners a way to quickly and cost effectively provide captions for their videos. To address this, IBM introduced the ability to convert video speech to text through IBM Watson. This was added to IBM’s video streaming solutions in late 2017 for VODs (video on-demand). It has recently been expanded to recognize additional languages.

Integrated live captioning for enterprises is also available, although differs in several ways from the VOD feature talked about here.


Benefits of Live Streaming Webex Meetings to Large Audiences

Looking to stream to a large audience but want to use a familiar program? Are you looking to have event presenters use Webex from home? Have you exceeded your limit on the number of people who can connect to your Webex session?

Through an integration between IBM and Cisco, Webex Meetings or Events can be used to reliably live stream to massive audiences. This includes a host of benefits, from ease-of-use to AI-driven features, and is currently part of an extended free access trial due to the current global crisis.


IBM Watson Media Integration for FileNet

IBM Watson Media Integration for FileNet

Explore the video content in your FileNet ECM (Enterprise Content Management) solution in new ways through this integration with IBM Watson Media. Introduced with version 5.5.4 of FileNet, enterprises can now leverage comprehensive video processes that unlock additional functionality. This includes the ability to stream videos from FileNet, accessing video content faster and with more flexibility. End users also benefit from AI-driven processes, generating automatic closed captions and powering deep video search features. This technology can be used to get the right content in front of the right viewer across a wide range of use cases, from watching your CEO’s virtual town hall to re-watching footage before sending a maintenance truck or approving an insurance claim.

If you are already a FileNet user and interested in testing out this integration, sign up for a free trial to start leveraging this technology. Note that this special trial has to be started before June 30th and you must be a current FileNet customer to take advantage of this.


Manage Video Platform User Permissions

Manage Video Platform User Permissions

Looking to manage video platform user permissions?

Managing video content is become an increasingly collaborative experience. Furthermore, enterprises are adopting larger video strategies as well. In fact, 51% of enterprises estimated their streaming budgets at $100,000 or more going into 2020. Naturally this increase in budget for video will produce more content, creating an environment where companies need to be more agile in managing assets. Especially as companies are looking to use video both internally, to employees and stakeholders, and externally, for prospects or entertainment purposes.

To address this, IBM released an administrator controlled permission system for organizations back in 2018. These features were recently expanded, offering more granular control. As a result, organization administrators can manage video platform user permissions, empowering them to oversee admins and managers for accounts and channels from a dashboard. This enables quick team management for video assets, fostering easier collaboration toward video goals.


Integrated Live Closed Captioning for Enterprises

Integrated Live Closed Captioning for Enterprises

62% of employees use closed captions for work related video content, for a number of reasons other than hearing accessibility. In fact, only 5% of employees cite a hearing impairment as a reason to use captions. Additional reasons include convenience, watching videos with low or no volume, or non-native speakers needing assistance to understand the language spoken in the video.

Additionally, employees are 80% more likely to watch a video to completion when it is closed captioned. As a result, there is real value behind captioning video content and a driver for organizations looking to increase viewer engagement.

To address this, IBM is offering integrated live closed captioning for enterprises by combining IBM’s video streaming solutions with IBM Watson Captioning Live. Hosted entirely on the IBM Cloud, the integrated closed captioning software solution eliminates the need for hardware on location and makes it easy for businesses to quickly set up. It is security-rich and offers teams full ownership and control over their video content and metadata, as well as any internal usage metrics and training data. In addition, Watson Captioning Live offers secure, scalable, AI-driven live captions to any live stream. The solution, which currently captions for English language content, can be easily trained to recognize industry- and company-specific terminology and seamlessly integrates accurate live captions to live streaming content, connecting employees across the globe through engaging and accessible workplace video.