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4 Industry view Business Technology November 2011 an independent report from lyonsdown, distributed with the daily telegraph Seeing is believing It’s as easy as making a phone call – that’s why companies are jumping on the video calling bandwagon in their droves The business landscape has changed as organisations of all types are embracing new ways of working and communicating, both internally and with customers and suppliers. New platforms such as social media, instant messaging and video services enable better collaboration and encourage greater productivity. People still place a lot of importance in actually seeing peers and associates to discuss business matters but in today’s business environment travel is not always environmentally or financially viable. A recent survey by Cable&Wireless Worldwide found that 87 per cent of Britons claim faceto-face contact, either via videoconferencing or by being in the same room, is more likely to lead to a business decision. The survey also looked at people’s focus and attention span during phone calls, telephone conference calls and videoconference calls, finding that in the UK 42 per cent of businesspeople admit to having checked or written emails during an audio conference call, while 35 per cent have doodled and 3 per cent have even fallen asleep – all quite hard to do on a video call. Dominic Jones, director of product and marketing at Cable&Wireless Worldwide, says: “More than ever, the need for new ways of working is critical. Businesses need to collaborate in real time across the globe and to do so need to make use of interactive technologies. Video services provide a range of options, from full telepresence suites that offer a lifesize ‘same room’ experience, to meeting room units, desktop solutions and now handheld devices. The possibilities of these technologies are endless.” Cable&Wireless Worldwide’s Video Services have been designed to revolutionise videoconferencing by offering a reliable, high quality and simple-to-use service that is a genuine permanent alternative to face-to-face meetings. It estimates that the use of managed videoconferencing saves customers at least 25 per cent on their travel costs. The number of videoconferencing units being deployed to customers has increased by 34 per cent over the past 12 months. Internally, Cable&Wireless Worldwide uses videoconferencing extensively, clocking up more than 1.2m minutes across the business in 2010. Cable&Wireless Worldwide is also a founding member of the Open Visual Communications Consortium (OVCC), which opens up videoconferencing usage The number of videoconferencing units being deployed to customers has increased by 34 per cent over the last 12 months across networks enabling assured quality conversations across the globe. This adds further value to organisations as they embrace videoconferencing because they can move from using it in their own company to facilitating face-to-face discussions with their customers, partners, suppliers and so on. It will make video calling as simple as making a telephone call. www.cw.com/video-services Driving forward new technologies Germany’s motorway operator is reaping the rewards of investing in digital signage for its service stations, but what are the benefits German drivers who take a break from the autobahn have had a new audiovisual experience since the summer. Tank & Rast, Germany’s premier operator of motorway service areas, has installed more than 3,000 digital signage displays at 360 locations throughout the country, creating the largest digital signage network in Germany at motorway service areas, and the largest anywhere on Europe’s road system. “Tank & Rast used to display conventional printed advertisements, but the company wanted to switch to digital to increase its advertising revenues,” says Marius Marschall, group managing partner at Intelligent Service Solutions (ISS), the specialist AV company that planned and installed the system and will manage it for the next three years. “Tank & Rast expects to make a much greater return from selling advertising space on digital signage than it did from conventional poster sites,” he adds. The eye-catching displays are located in entrance halls and retail and catering areas, enabling digital advertising to be targeted where it will be most effective. Content creation and distribution is done by Tank & Rast’s advertising agency. All the content is scheduled from a single control centre by ISS. Each screen can have a unique playlist of adverts that are carefully tailored to suit its location and the time of day. “By timeslicing the adverts, Tank & Rast is effectively multiplying the space available,” says Marschall. A study by Germany’s Centre for Consumer Research has already demonstrated the effectiveness of the digital adverts. Tank & Rast is now considering installing more screens in the restaurant areas to display menus that change at different times of day, and even photo frame-sized units in the toilets. The initial rollout consisted of 3,200 42, 32 and 22-inch high resolution LCD displays. All the 42 and 32-inch models, almost 1,600 in total, were supplied by ISS’s vendor of choice, Philips Public Signage. “We’re responsible for the entire system for the next three years and are contracted to provide more than 99 per cent up-time, so we have to rely heavily on our partners,” says Marschall. “That means we need a fully professional product and professional after-sales support, so there are only a few companies we’re prepared to partner with.” The technical specification of the Philips monitors met Tank & Rast’s exacting Eye-catching: digital signage displays are used to target consumers requirements, including being bright enough to compete with the high lighting levels inside a motorway service area. Availability was a major issue, and not all the monitor vendors ISS considered could have supplied the large quantities required. Philips’ pricing was also very competitive, and the low energy consumption of its displays means that the lifetime cost of ownership – as well as related carbon emissions – will be below average. Finally, what impressed ISS was the sheer professionalism of the people from Philips. “We had confidence that they’d be as helpful after the sale as they were before,” says Marschall. “I’m more than happy that we did the deal with Philips, and in future I would definitely prefer Philips over other display vendors.” www.philips.com/publicsignagesolutions www.intelligent-services.eu
an independent report from lyonsdown, distributed with the daily telegraph November 2011 Business Technology Audio visual communications 5 The magic of engagement When it comes to presentation, corporate presenters have a lot to learn from the likes of Derren Brown if they want to keep their audience on the edge of their seats By Sue Tabbitt Fans of illusionist Derren Brown might rightly wonder at the stark contrast between his enthralling stage-based ‘experiences’ and the dreary business presentations they are forced to sit through in their working lives. It exposes another great gulf between the consumer and the corporate world. In the latter, people have lost the art of getting their message across. Of course, Brown is the consummate showman – a performer who combines magic, suggestion, psychology, audience misdirection and pure spectacle to apparently predict and control human behaviour. Those attending his shows hang on his every word – fully engaged, ready to believe anything. Corporate presenters could learn a thing or two from him. While it’s unfair to compare a professional showman with the average company executive, it’s puzzling that so many organisations with sizeable marketing budgets are so unimaginative and one-dimensional when presenting ideas and products. At a technology level, all of the tools exist now to enable companies and their front-line representatives to perform at their best – drawing audiences in to their business presentations, exhibition stands, seminars, webinars and sales pitches with pizzazz. Yet most don’t. For all that is possible, the average business presenter resorts time and again to a two-dimensional PowerPoint slide-deck. “Most business presentations are safe – bullet point after bullet point, graph after graph,” says Andy Harrington, a professional public speaking guru. “In practice, they are dry, technical and boring.” Someone who broke the mould was the late Steve Jobs. Not only did he live and breathe technology, he also knew how to use it to connect with an audience. “The main thing that singled him out was his overriding passion for his message,” Harrington notes. “Without that, how will you ever get anyone to buy into what you’re saying” Jobs, Apple’s staunchest evangelist, had such a conviction about everything he did that he was able to change people’s beliefs. “The technologies he used around that were very stimulating.” Crucially, Jobs led the story, rather than being prompted by what was on a screen. The technological show behind him merely backed up what he was saying. “Most people click, read, deliver,” Harrington says. “They have their backs to the audience most of the time, and will tell the audience what they’re going to bore them with, bore them, then sum up by telling them how they did it.” Harrington delivers a lot of his messages via the internet and swears by ScreenFlow, a software package for the Mac. “It lets you deliver video and slides and move seamlessly between the two,” he says. “It’s a great way of getting a message to a wider audience without having to be there in person.” But whatever technology a company draws on, it should be a supporting tool rather than a crutch the presenter relies on. “You can do a wonderful AV-driven presentation and still fail to win the pitch,” warns Paul Boross, also known as The Pitch Doctor. Boross, who has appeared on TV talking about the use of psychology in business, bills himself as the business world’s Derren Brown. He has amassed similar credentials in neuro-linguistic programming, a particular strain of psychology Boross: it’s all about the audience that involves influencing people’s minds subliminally through the use of carefully chosen language, a technique he draws on when coaching business presenters. The trick is to then extend this influence with strategically chosen visual and audio aids. Boross’s book, The Pitching Bible, which sets out a series of “secrets” – Derren Brownstyle tips on winning over an audience. Those who inherently draw on such techniques include the former American vice president Al Gore, he says. Boross got to see him giving a keynote at the Edinburgh TV festival. “He had the audience in the palm of his hand.” Secret one is “It’s all about them” (“them” being the target audience). “Whether you’re presenting from a stage or in a one-to-one situation, you shouldn’t be focusing on what you’re going to say next. You should be able to read the audience and determine what they want at that moment,” he says. The problem with most presentations is that they’re just not adaptable enough. The speaker is working to a script and sequence of slides, from which he or she is unable to deviate. “In future, people who present most effectively using technology will be those who can feel the room and react dynamically to any change in the mood,” says Boross. Derren Brown also uses very precise language to steer the audience’s train of thought, something business executives could learn from. When one of Boross’s clients wanted to get across the message to its customers that everything they did was “all about them”, which it communicated on multiple different levels throughout a pitch, he helped cement the deal by slipping the driver £50 to play McFly’s chart hit All About You as the prospect left the meeting. “They won the business,” he adds. Having follow-through ideas like this is half the battle as businesses try to raise their presentation performance, but then the question returns to whether the typical senior executive has what it takes creatively. “I’d love to see a huge change in the way companies approach presenting,” says Dale Smith, co-founder of the Article 10 Group of marketing and communications agencies. Given the colossal amounts big businesses invest in their brands, it’s astonishing how little goes into delivering the supporting content, he says. “You’ve got companies selling £10m solutions using A4 paper and slides. It’s 2011, for goodness sake.” To Smith’s mind, this means outsourcing more of the bells and whistles to external service providers such as Article 10. That carries a risk that business presenters become too removed from their own stories, though. A better approach may be for organisations to recruit more widely when boosting their marketing and sales teams, making sure they seek out people who are trained in the latest techniques and are capable of keeping content fresh and exciting. “The new generation of sales teams and executives is much more technology savvy and is pushing more for advanced tools and collateral,” Smith concludes. “This is certainly true at Microsoft, where Article 10 is doing a lot of work. They’re moving away from being a very corporate, grey-faced establishment to something much more engaging and cool. It’s nice to be a part of that.” Funny that – that the very company that brought us PowerPoint is only now realising presentation technology’s broader potential. How to win the audience • Don’t turn your back while speaking • Think outside the box – keep content fresh and exciting • Be passionate about getting your message across • Be adaptable – react to the mood in the room • Use key words and language to steer train of thought
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