Employee and Customer Expectations Meet Enterprise Video Possibilities

Improving engagement levels and the reach of internal communications is a prime business case for the expansion of mobile for the enterprise. The following findings are evidence of the growth in video based on advances in technology and the evolution of customer expectations:

• Comscore, indicates that the average American Internet user now watches more than 20 hours of streaming video per month on devices ranging from iPhones to PCs.
• According to Gartner’s MarketScope for Video Content Management and Delivery, by 2016, large companies will stream more than 16 hours of video per worker, per month.*
• EDTECH Magazine reports, the “Bring Your Own Device” (BYOD) movement brings along significant benefits, among which is increased end-user engagement due to their familiarity with their own devices.

This changing media landscape is shaping employees’ expectations when it comes to communication from their employers. Combining BYOD, streaming enterprise video technology, and comprehensive viewer metrics,  there is a strong business case for the implementation of comprehensive video solution for enterprise proprietary information easily accessible from mobile devices – including phones and tablets.

Making Sense out of the Myriad of Options

The possibilities for enterprise video are evolving at a rapid pace. If your enterprise is considering mobile video solutions, be sure to consider the following:

Network Performance and Security:  As the number of device types connected to a network expands, it becomes more difficult for IT administrators to ensure network security, performance and video playback across devices. The video solution should offer intelligent routing capabilities utilizing a content delivery network (CDN) or existing network infrastructure. In addition, a solution should integrate your existing corporate directory service, making it easier to control which users have access to video content.  Finally, the video service should understand the complexity of a corporate network – sometimes mobile devices are “on net” via internal, secure Wi-Fi.  Sometimes, VPNs may be used.  And sometimes, devices may be accessing the video from the 3G/4G network.  All of these scenarios have to be fully secure.

Content Optimization for a Variety of Devices:  All devices are not created equal. Their screens have different aspect ratios; they run using different operating systems and are only compatible with certain file types. A comprehensive solution for the enterprise should offer transcoding capabilities, permitting video viewership on any device.

Integrated Social Features and Audience Metrics:  The ability to like videos, comment on videos and embed them as well as the ability for employees to create their own content is essential to take advantage of the increased engagement generated by a diverse array of mobile devices. A comprehensive solution should include approval workflows to prevent objectionable content and a dashboard compiling audience metrics.

It’s important for any organization to stay focused on its core business functions. That’s why many businesses look to a service provider to take care of the heavy that centralizes and simplifies corporate communications. At the same time, this type of solution delivers the benefits of increased engagement and larger audiences afforded by mobile devices.

Is your business doing everything it can with mobility and video? What plans or approaches are you considering to enhance enterprise communications using video

I lit in to my spiel about how the world cannot go round without sales people and the many talents needed to be an effective salesperson. I emphasized math and correct spelling while visions of some of the best sales people I have ever known, who are hopeless at both, danced in my head.

Maybe it was the shiny black device, but hands went up almost immediately. “Is this a 4G?”, “Is this device LTE compatible?”, and then, “Does your company really have the fastest 4G LTE?”  I was stunned. I field these kinds of questions all the time during business hours, but answering 8 year olds demanded a little additional consideration, and, frankly, I was a little off kilter. How did these kids know so much about digital mobile signaling?

It had to be the advertising.

Rewind to a conversation with one of our corporate advertisers a week before. He was scolding me for using acronyms when I spoke to him and asked me to just lay out my ideas for him in simple English. He continued by saying that our industry relies too heavily in highly technical acronyms and that we should all start to do our part to simplify the messages. His wanted to do that in our advertising.

But, I am not sure if we will be able to put Pandora back inthe box.

When third graders are peppering you with questions about LTE, there are no simple answers and an artistic campaign like the ’painted hands’ that AT&T used a few years back may be a wide stretch for these kids whose diet has been a steady ingestion of technical specifications.  Nevertheless, for those familiar with the Pandora story, thankfully ‘despair’ never got out of the box. We were left with ’hope’ despite all the swirling acronyms and reiterated  technical claims about network speeds and coverage.

Sure it is important for consumers to know what technology they are buying, but consumers need to also consider other factors For example,  customer satisfaction measured by  old-fashioned service. Or  the innovation a company is bringing to the marketplace, measured by new devices with interesting new features The public usually gives a lot of breathing room to companies who are innovating or providing an extra layer of service even if they do not get it perfect the first time around. Just ask Apple.

I hope you can relate. With a classroom full of kids all up to speed on the virtues of things like ’4G’ and ‘LTE’ the very creative fiber of our country is at stake.  I wonder how the conversation would have been different if the advertising messages were different. What kind of wonderful and creative new technologies could these kids be dreaming about and carrying in their heads as they grow up to be the next lab technician, salesman, or…fireman?

So what have you heard out there — particularly from kids?  What technical terms are you hearing from them that surprised you?

These innovations in technology allow all of us to materially change the way we do business. If this flight had WiFi available, I could check email, surf the web, or even watch a movie while in flight. (In-Stat numbers show that at the end of 2010, about 2000 commercial aircraft offered in-flight WiFi, almost triple the number that offered it at the end of 2009). Having this kind of access moves the productivity and entertainment bars dramatically toward true ubiquitous access. Though I don’t actively hear it, WiFi connectivity, in theory as well as practice, makes it possible to participate in web-based meetings, document sharing, and even voice calls—all on a smartphone. Not that you’d want your fellow airplane passengers conducting his or her meeting while flying (time to get out your noise-canceling headphones), but these capabilities mean you could do a lot more than you’re currently doing.

Being a bit of a space exploration nut, I can foresee manned flights to an asteroid or to the moon where astronauts use handheld devices to conduct their research and stay in touch with earth that are equipped with more computing power than the laptop-sized computers that run the space craft itself.

It boggles the mind….From 30,000 feet

These days, we have “phones” so we can tweet from the depths of the Grand Canyon, see photos of our neighbor’s best friend’s long forgotten kindergarten classmate’s dog Rufus—and do both things at the same time. I don’t have anything against Rufus (he is cute, by the way), I’m just overwhelmed by the availability of information at our fingertips. It used to take days to get a photo developed and then take another several days in the mail before we could share photos. These days, it takes seconds.

What is really disturbing is that it takes seconds to see Rufus’ face, but it takes my chiropractor the better part of a month to obtain X-rays from a hospital ER after I’d slipped and fallen on the ice and injured my wrist.

Bringing Health Care to the Digital Era

How do we change this? How do we manage a health care system that’s filled with paperwork, filing cabinets, storage centers, archival depots? How do we gather all that data, sift through the information and convert it to knowledge that we can benefit from? How are we going to make sure it’s secure? Did I mention we should make it mobile?

As we transition away from paper records and towards electronic records, hospital administrators and clinicians see firsthand the benefits of data access and capture at the point of care (POC). As a result, health care delivery is becoming increasingly more mobile. Because of the need to increase the quality and efficiency of care while decreasing the cost of care delivery, mobility is seen as a key enabler of POC solutions. Health care professionals routinely and increasingly use mobile devices to access and review patient records and test results, enter diagnosis such as CPT or ISC -10 Codes and update billing information during patient visits. They can also consult drug formularies and other reference material, as well as synchronize information with their organizations’ centralized systems—all without the need for wired network connections to place orders to pharmacies, labs etc.

Emergence of Mobile-Optimized Health Care Devices

It won’t be long before you’ll monitor your weight, blood pressure, pulse and other vitals on at-home devices that send data to doctors, in real time, via your smartphone. If there is a notable change in vital signs or other information, a notice that an office visit is required or personalized directions based on your unique data will be sent to you, also via smartphone. There may even be instructions to report to the nearest ER.

Physicians and patients are in the process of learning how to migrate to this new digital and mobile medical world. If you look closely at the incipient changes digital technology has made already in health care, it is clear, given the rapid state of development of new devices and communications systems, where medicine is headed. Steered correctly, technology could cure a great deal of our health care woes and subsequently lower costs.

Understanding the Risks

These benefits are appealing and impressive from both health care delivery and back-office business perspectives. The proliferation of a wide variety of mobile device types at the point of care, however, makes management teams in many health care organizations nervous. I can understand why: they’re ultimately responsible for the proper, accurate and confidential collection and protection of a broad range of data.

Technology and health care industry experts acknowledge thatthe move to digital health is unnerving to people concerned about privacy, the cyber theft of records, and the loss of human contact with health care providers. Many of us, including people who use watches to tell time, have a hard time wrapping our minds around this transformation.

The Future

That said, the “one gadget that replaces it all” phenomenon is here to stay. The same technology that transmits Rufus’ face across the country in mere seconds is the same technology that has the potential to help patients and doctors access records more quickly and safely and does not add mountains of paper to landfills.

With this blog, I’d like to start a dialogue about health care and EMR (electronic medical records), about health care and mobility, about health care and security in the digital age.

I welcome your thoughts on these and other topics affecting the health care industry.