Videoconferencing explainer

Communication gap in key technology upgrade addressed overnight by a single resource, with zero budget

OBJECTIVES

Re-introduce internally, and build excitement for, an industry-first platform for democratized innovation and “citizen [software] development,” intended to help solve business problems faced internally and by the firm’s clients. These often involved automation of manual and error-prone processes.
Follow the launch with a series of compelling internal announcements, written as “news items or interviews, where possible,” to draw attention to several solutions developed internally and intended for commercialization and/or to enable delivery of client work.

CONSTRAINTS

The work inherited a hard deadline of one week prior to the upgrade’s release date, to give employees an opportunity to receive and view it before the software changes took effect.
Due to more pressing corporate communications priorities, Global Technology (the client) was asked to handle the communication need independently.
No budget or headcount from Global Technology were allocated to assist.

APPROACH

Upon learning that the upgrade (initially unplanned) would be deployed, I created a short (1-paragraph) item for inclusion in Global Technology’s section of the intranet homepage news feed and a PowerPoint-based on-screen graphic to be used on digital signage throughout U.S. corporate locations. We met the content deadline for these by less than an hour.
I was tasked with scripting, narrating and producing a screencast to an appropriate level of quality for a global intranet. This meant it needed to appear more polished than a typical helpdesk walkthrough video (which were uncommon at the time).
Following completion of the video, the intranet news feed item was edited to include it, and I developed an all-employee broadcast email. Both included a linked still-frame from the video with a “Play” button graphic overlay, which launched the video when clicked.

RESULTS

Working alone, I prepared, narrated, edited and produced the final video file in a portion of a working day and evening to meet the next day’s content deadline.

Anecdotally, the team handling helpdesk calls related to videoconferencing upgrades indicated that the call volume had been lower than expected thanks to the quick-turnaround communication effort. The process to create these impromptu rollout communications (email, signage, narrated screencast) was documented and provided to Corporate Communications with the intention of repeating it, should similar situations occur in the future.