There are many intuitive advantages to enabling a Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) culture inside your organization – increased productivity, lowered costs, and improved employee acceptance. While these benefits are appealing, there are many serious challenges associated with deploying a secure BYOD environment, including loss of control, potential loss of data, and lack of consistent policy enforcement. The challenges associated with BYOD can force an organization to rigorously evaluate its security posture and infrastructure. Organizations have to consider their response to each of the following challenges:

Loss of Control

Many employees have found that mobile devices often do not deliver the same strict policy enforcement
capabilities as desktop devices. This policy gap enables many employees to use their mobile devices to
access applications and content that is denied by standard corporate policy, such as video streaming. With
mobile devices offering an easy way to bypass the limits normally imposed on them, users are putting a strain on the corporate network and exposing it to additional risk of compromise.

Increase Potential for Data Loss

With devices operating outside the confines of the traditional enterprise, the potential for data
loss increases significantly. The threats to mobile users include the risk of malware infection, inadvertent or malicious sharing of critical business data or the devices being lost or stolen. Additionally, rogue wireless networks exist in the public with the sole purpose of stealing unprotected data.

Inconsistent Security Policies Across Devices

Another challenge for organizations looking to secure mobile devices is the inconsistency of policies across different devices. For every device manufacturer and version of the mobile operating system, there is likely going to be differences in what policies can be applied.

Microsoft Yammer, Jive, Salesforce Chatter, IBM Connections, Newsgator, and Socialcast, are all solutions playing in this new market.

Like Facebook all of these platforms allow users to upload and share video. Most however are simple file uploads, much like an attachment, the original source video file remains in it’s original format and this will become a major headache for IT departments and Communication departments, as complaints from employees come pouring in because they can’t play the file on their device or because the video streaming experience is less than optimal. For example, if an employee uploads and shares a Windows Media Video file (.wmv) it will play on windows desktops, but not on Macs (without downloading and installing windows media player which Mac users are loathe to do), nor will it work on Android or iOS devices. It’s the wild west and will quickly become unmanageable.

Jive and Newsgator have taken the step of adding a video app to their platforms. Jive has licensed a solution from a company called Twistage which was recently purchased, but not by Jive. Newsgator has technology built by enterprise video software vendor Kontiki, it’s sort of a Kontiki lite.

So, great, problem solved right? Not so fast. Even if your enterprise social platform offers a video app, they are still lacking a great deal of necessary capabilities that various stake holders in your organization will quickly run up against. The Jive Video Module can only stream Flash video at 500K. It doesn’t support true Adaptive Bit Rate HTTP Streaming, so video quality is not great, and some viewers will still suffer from dreaded buffering. It also means that the videos are not compatible with Android and iOS devices.  Also these apps are not true media solutions that have the kind of asset management and analytics that the media pros in the corporate communications and marketing departments require. So this will mean that while employees might be able to easily upload and share video with each other, your enterprise social platform will quickly become a silo of those kinds of video assets, while internal media production teams, internal and employee communication, and corporate communication, HR and training stakeholders are forced to use a separate platforms to meet their requirements for asset management, analytics, live video streaming, webcasting and training. They will also be forced to upload videos for employee communications into separate platforms, and multiple times, making their workflows more time consuming and complicated.

These silos also create headaches for IT, since they will be tasked with finding a way to integrate the different solutions, and will have to deal with video assets being scattered all over the enterprise. Here’s a scenario to illustrate what I’m talking about;

I recently worked with a Global Fortune 500 company that had a variety of solutions on their intranet which had some kind of video uploading functionality. SharePoint, IBM Connections, and their enterprise learning solution Mindflash. In addition they had a media production team that was creating videos for executive and employee communications, marketing, and live video events like CEO Town-halls  They had video silos all over the place. Videos were being uploaded by employees in different places, and the communications department was having to upload videos into multiple solutions. Live video events were being hosted on a totally separate platform. There was no one place where all of this could be managed. All different types of video file formats were being used, and video compatibility was a major problem with thousands of videos in a half a dozen different formats. There was no way for employees to easily search for and find relevant video content, or to play it on different devices, and they had no way of gathering analytics from all of these different solutions into a single, sensible view of video usage and engagement.

So what’s the solution? The problems associated with the proliferation of video in the enterprise due to the consumerization of workplace technologies, the growing adoption of video as a predominate medium for communications and training, and the growing trends of BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) can only be comprehensively addressed by a true Enterprise Video Platform, or Enterprise “YouTube” solution which makes it easy for employees to upload and share video, transcodes any video file format into a standard streaming format which will work accross all browsers and devices without apps or plugins, has the robust asset management, analytics, live video streaming and security functionality that IT, Communications and Media departments require, and can integrate with intranet solutions like SharePoint, Yammer, Learning Management Systems, Enterprise Content Management solutions, and Enterprise Search Appliances.

Anyone can send out a newsletter or email, but video captures people’s attention. How many dozens of newsletters go unread? How many memos get skimmed, but don’t receive the attention they might require? LOTS! You can communicate the same thing in a video that a memo or newsletter might explain. Detail company policies, feature your latest product or service, maybe even highlight the work of an individual or group. The difference is people will watch and pay attention to the video.

Communication from the Executive Suite

If you’re part of a small organization, chances are you’ve met the CEO. On the other hand if you work at a medium or large company, there’s a good chance you don’t know what the CEO looks like much less had an opportunity to interact with them. Putting company leaders out front in videos allows them to speak directly to team members. They are no longer the impersonal name behind a title. They become a real person others can relate to, which then empowers managers to energize the company culture.

Departmental Visibility

A lot of companies work in silos. One department separated from the other, people don’t know one another and certainly none of them can tell you what the other is doing. Video can change that. It allows team members to provide an inside look at what they’re working on. You can write about a new product or service all you want, but hearing from someone who’s working on that project and seeing them at work takes it to a whole new level.

Video is More Compelling

Using video allows a business to tell great stories. The medium incorporates images, sounds and words to create a rich platform for people to “experience” information. On paper, what’s happening around the company is simply a laundry list of activities. Put that same information into the hands of a skilled video storyteller, and it becomes a narrative that engages the audience. By incorporating information into a compelling story you capture the audience’s attention and make them more receptive to your message.

Video is More Engaging

Storytelling also helps viewers retain the information, and after watching something they really enjoy they share it with other people. A company newsletter might garner mild interest. Videos will have people talking about them in the halls. They also have a cumulative effect. The more quality videos you produce, the more viewers look forward to them. They can even become a morale booster. Team member success stories are a pat on the back they’ll really feel.

 
The top two departments involved in video collaboration represent traditional stakeholders in video collaboration. IT typically represents an operational overlay for many video efforts, such as setting up group meetings and training programs. In the executive suite, video collaboration technologies have long been used to connect remote leaders tasked with key strategic decisions. However, the value proposition of video has always been difficult to quantify for collaborative situations where the end result could not be directly correlated to a top-line or bottom line business goal. Although learning and development endeavors are better tracked through Learning Management Systems (LMS) that provide metrics, these efforts can also be seen as additional overlays when they are not explicitly associated with a functional business role.

However, as video has become used more often as a line-of-business tool, it has been utilized in a number of revenue-based activities and operational use cases that are well tracked in the organization. The direct and immersive capabilities associated with video collaboration have proven useful in Business-to-Business (B2B) sales and marketing opportunities where product demonstrations and close personal relationships are important prerequisites to closing deals. Improved talent acquisition has allowed organizations to identify and acquire strategic and rare skill sets that can be used to improve the business. Advances in product and service development within the organization can bring new products to market more quickly, which is increasingly important in markets that require greater innovation or evolution.

Taken from “The ROI of Video Collaboration” © 2011 Aberdeen Group

 
Employee engagement is “a measurable degree of an employee’s positive or negative emotional attachment to their job, colleagues and organization that profoundly influences their willingness to learn and perform at work.”

Engaged employees are distinguished by an enhanced concern for the future of the company, principally demonstrated by the employee’s willingness to expend discretionary effort. They characteristically have a strong emotional attachment to the company that employs them, which translates into tangible positive business outcomes, such as higher retention rates, productivity and reduced absenteeism. Engagement can be broken down into four categories: Emotional Attachment, Involvement, Commitment, and Productivity.

Emotional Attachment

88% of highly engaged employees believe they can “positively impact the quality of their organization’s products”, versus 38% of disengaged employees. 68% of highly engaged employees believe they can “positively impact costs in their job or unit” versus 19% of the disengaged. And there is ample empirical data to support a correlation between an employee’s belief about their ability to positively contribute to a company and their subsequent performance.

Involvement

In a 2000 study of 15 steel mills, 17 apparel manufacturers, and 10 electronic instrument and imaging equipment producers, researchers found that plants utilizing high-involvement practices showed superior performance and inspired greater trust, organizational commitment and intrinsic enjoyment of the work. In a 2005 study of sales teams, “low-engagement” teams produced a difference in “performance-related costs of low- versus high-engagement teams totaling $2,104,823.3.”

During two studies of employees in the life insurance industry (3,570 employees in 49 organizations and 4,828 employees in 92 organizations), researchers found that when employees felt they had the power to make decisions, sufficient knowledge and information to work effectively, and rewards for high performance, high-involvement management practices were positively associated with employee morale, employee retention, and firm financial performance.

Commitment

Employees with the highest level of commitment perform 20% better and are 87% less likely to leave the organization.

At the beverage company Molson Coors, engaged employees were five times less likely than non-engaged employees to have a safety incident and seven times less likely to have a lost-time safety incident. The net cost for safety incidents was $63 for an engaged employee versus $392 for a non-engaged employee. Strengthened employee engagement at Molson Coors resulted in a savings of $1,721,760 in safety costs in 2002. And in two studies (2000 and 2002), The global consulting firm Watson Wyatt Worldwide found that high-commitment organizations (ones with loyal and dedicated employees) out-performed those with low commitment by 47% and by 200%, respectively.

Productivity

In addition to the studies cited in the previous section, in the management consulting firm Hay Group’s study of professional service firms, they found that offices with engaged employees were up to 43% more productive.

 
When video EGC is created and distributed in real-time, town hall meetings and other events, become vehicles for knowledge sharing, expertise building, and are effectively transformed into an immersive virtual culture which builds teams across borders. Insiders continuously report that employees are more engaged through peer and manager EGC than executive produced content . The intangible benefits of video EGC include a deeper consideration of the nature and value of the individual employee’s work, an increased sense of the value of their work, and a clearer understanding of how their work can benefit others and enable them to be more productive, effective, and derive more satisfaction from their work, thereby creating a sense of shared community and common goals across divisions, branches, and teams. The result is a more engaged corps of employees.

 
In real terms, employee engagement corresponds to higher retention, improved customer service, individual performance, unit productivity, and enterprise-level financial performance, as these case studies amply demonstrate, yet currently only 31% of employees are actively engaged in their jobs, according to Blessing White’s Employee Engagement Report (2011) . To create engagement means creating situations in which employees choose to work in the best interests of the company, because of an innate desire to do so. And there are specific drivers that can enable a company to encourage those conditions:

• Effective internal employee communications
• Clarity of job expectations
• Regular feedback and dialogue with superiors
• Quality of working relationships with peers, superiors, and subordinates
• Perception of the ethos and values of the organization
• Perception of job importance
• Career advancement/improvement opportunities

Each of the outlined drivers can be built into a company’s culture in extremely cost-effective ways, the most exciting being that of employee generated content (EGC).

According to Wikipedia, “an engaged employee is one who is fully involved in, and enthusiastic about, his or her work, and thus will act in a way that furthers their organization’s interest.” According to Scarlett Surveys, 31% of employees are disengaged and 4% of those 31% are hostile.

So what is the purpose of employee engagement? When employees are engaged they are emotionally attached to the vision of the organization. They believe in what they do, the organization’s vision and the direction the organization is going. Employees who are engaged put their heart and soul into their job and have the energy and excitement to give more than is required of the job. Engaged employees are committed and loyal to the organization.

Here are some tips on how to foster employee engagement:

• Have a well defined vision that all employees buy into. Organizational leadership is responsible for communicating the vision and keeping it in front of the employees. Employees should be able to recite the vision statement and why the organization does what it does.
•  Good communication within the organization can be one of the most important things an organization can do to foster employee engagement. Employees spend one third of their life in their job and have an interest in what is going on within the organization. They desire to know how the organization is doing financially, how corporate objectives are being accomplished and how what they do contributes to achieving corporate objectives.
•  Employees need to feel like they do meaningful work and that what they do makes a difference.
• Employees want the opportunity to develop and grow professionally. Provide employees opportunities to develop and grow in their job and within the organization.
• Create a strong team environment. Strong employee engagement is dependent on how well employees get along, interact with each other and participate in a team environment.
•  Create a culture of trust. Employees need to trust each other as well as their leadership. Employees are constantly watching leadership to see how their decisions affect the strategic direction of the organization and if their behaviors reflect what they say.

LOS ANGELES – March 6, 2013 – MediaPlatform, Inc., the enterprise video software company, today announced that it now gives users the ability to upload video content from iPhone®, iPad® and Android phones and tablets. This capability makes MediaPlatform the first online video platform for the enterprise to offer employees and partners the option to add existing or new video pieces to their enterprise video portal via mobile device or tablet.

MediaPlatform has been at the forefront of enterprise mobility and an industry leader in mobile workforce enablement since becoming the first company to deliver live webcasts on Apple iPad® using HTTP live streaming (HLS) in 2011. MediaPlatform focuses on helping medium and large enterprises enhance corporate communications by providing a fully-customizable online video solution for streaming live and on-demand content for corporate communications, training and marketing.

According to Gartner, in 2012 33% of business intelligence functionality was accessed by smartphones and tablets. With 1.2 billion workers worldwide now carrying mobile devices, enabling the mobile workforce has become a key concern at the leading global enterprises. In addition to giving employees the ability to consume streaming video on any device in any location with its SmartPath delivery, MediaPlatform mobile uploading fosters greater employee engagement, connectivity and collaboration by allowing employee generated content (EGC). The MediaPlatform enterprise mobile video solution works with all browsers and does not require apps or downloads.

“With the addition of uploads from mobile browsers, MediaPlatform users can now enjoy the full experience on mobile devices,” said Denis Khoo, Chief Technology Officer at MediaPlatform. “Mobile support is a high priority for the enterprise, and at MediaPlatform we plan on continuing to rapidly innovate on this front.”

MediaPlatform mobile upload is a perfect tool for:

• Manufacturing companies holding product meetings with teams scattered across multiple locations.
• Multinational conglomerates who want to enhance corporate communications by giving employees the tools to create and share video.
• Enterprises who wish to augment their marketing activities by allowing video uploads from conferences and trade shows.

To learn more about the MediaPlatform enterprise mobile video solution, visit: http://www.mediaplatform.com/site/mobile/.

About MediaPlatform
MediaPlatform, Inc. is the best-in-class online video platform for the enterprise and live streaming solution for global organizations and media producers. MediaPlatform clients include Charles Schwab, Dow Chemical, FICO, General Mills and Motorola Mobility. MediaPlatform software enables high-impact presentations for lead generation, corporate communications and training.

Training for example, used to be done in-person or with the aid of VHS or DVD recordings.  However, the production costs were high, and the physical tape or DVD had to actually be delivered to the viewer’s location.  By contrast, tools such as on-demand webcasting and online video portals now allow trainees to view video content from their own laptop, desktop, or even mobile devices.

Employees can now collaborate on projects from remote locations with much greater ease and efficiency through the use of video conferencing and webcasting tools.  With this all in mind, we thought it would be a fun exercise to develop an infographic highlighting the evolution of business video in the enterprise.

Feel free to add your comments or your questions below, and note the embed code provided below if you’d like to feature this graphic on your own website or blog.

To add this infographic to your blog or website, please use the following code listed below: