Digital Signposts: SharePoint Sparks Visual Communications
Jun 24, 2013 10:44 AM,
By Vern Freedlander, Vice President, Production, X2O Media
Integrators should take note of several key trends currently shaking up the enterprise, which are dramatically enhancing opportunities for visual communication. First, the growth of telecommuting is making it increasingly difficult to get a decentralized staff focused on common goals and information. Second, there is a significant amount of video-savvy Generation Y and Millennial talent entering the workforce and demanding communications solutions that resonate with them. Third, the escalation of BYOD (bring your own device) scenarios across businesses means the desktop is no longer the only relevant screen. All of these trends point towards a centrally managed communications solution that fully incorporates video, realtime data, and interactivity that can be distributed to any device.
By taking advantage of content that is already housed within corporate repositories, such as Microsoft SharePoint, and by using the HTML5 standard, communications professionals can deliver visually impactful channels of content that are highly targeted and can be viewed on any device. Organizations can pull content directly from SharePoint and broadcast event calendars, project team tasks, learning and development information, and dashboard data as dynamic TV-like channels on any screen.
In many corporations, SharePoint holds videos, PowerPointpresentations, documents, lists, calendars, spreadsheets, and other vital information. The pain points, however, are two-fold: a user has to laboriously search for the information he or she needs, and the content is typically presented in an uninspiring format. When SharePoint meets an enterprise TV visual communications solution, both issues are resolved simultaneously. Timely content is managed and distributed by communications staff exactly when required, and that content is visualized to give it an engaging and dynamic appearance with a strong sense of clarity.
The results are significant, with content that may have previously been overlooked, or the significance was misunderstood, transformed into something meaningful and relevant. For communications managers who have long suffered with an audience bogged down in clutter, they have the new-found ability to prioritize content, similar to a news lineup, and get better results from a more engaged and receptive audience across the entire enterprise.
Vern Freedlander is vice president of production services for Montréal-based X2O Media, a full-service provider of technology, network management and content services for professional digital signage applications. With more than 20 years of broadcast television experience as a producer, director and executive, Freedlander oversees all of X2O Media’s content initiatives. He can be reached at [email protected].
