Author: Tegan Valeny

Transformation in Content & Media

Posted on by Tegan Valeny

With so many social and technological changes happening around the world, transformation is a key skill for any content and media company that wants to stay relevant. On Episode 32 of The Content & Media Matters Podcast we spoke with Chris Pulis, the Chief Technology Officer at Globecast, who has a huge amount of experience when it comes to leading transformation projects. Read on for his insights into the process. 

How do you know when to kick off a transformation project?

You have to be in tune with the business. I came into those early projects as someone who saw it as ‘this is something that management has made a decision about’, and I just became part of the overall plan. Later in life, as I ran businesses, I could see that there were changes happening in the business and identify which of those are different areas of the business needed to be addressed. 

I realised that if we want to stay relevant, we have to move off of antennas, because satellites are moving into terrestrial networks like the cloud. We need to start making investments and changes so that we’re not behind. To me, one of the worst things in the world is hearing about changes for the first time from a customer. Our goal is to make sure that we’re ready for that and that we’re bringing these solutions to the customers before they even know what they are. 

But, transformation efforts are difficult. Change drives anxiety, and everybody reacts a little differently to it. Some people have an easier time with it, but it bothers some people a lot. You need to be understanding of that and have a plan that keeps empathy in mind and that also includes education or training. Your plan has to enable everybody to be successful at doing this new thing. As a management team, you will be a support group for this change that’s coming. At the end of the day, it’s about people, and enabling an environment or culture that understands that it’s not going to be easy for everybody.

How do you make sure that teams and individuals are engaged in these transformation projects?

I think it’s important to be very transparent with people. In the entertainment industry, some people have a philosophy of ‘Knowledge is power, and I’m going to keep this knowledge, and I’m not going to share any of it’. I actually subscribe to the opposite philosophy, which says that the importance of power is to share it. By that I mean making sure that everybody understands what the plan is, what the goals are, and if for some reason something’s not clear, then creating an opportunity to come together and clearly define what that is. If everybody knows how things are going to evolve, there will be less anxiety. 

I use town hall meetings on a frequent basis to make sure everybody understands the plan. I take pictures of everything and I share them all the time. I want everybody to feel like they have an understanding of the process. There shouldn’t be any surprises about an ongoing transformation. 

How do you measure success within transformations?

It is a challenge. When you go into a transformation project, you need to put together a plan that says what we are supporting for the business, what we are enabling from an addressable market standpoint, and what new revenue streams we are enabling as a result of this transformation. Sometimes it’s strictly an efficiency play, because you’re moving from a technology that doesn’t scale to a technology that’s significantly scalable with a low incremental cost. You’ve got to sit down and look at the business plan. You can’t just say, ‘We have a new technology and we’re going to adopt it’, you have to think, ‘How is this AI going to enhance our customer experience?’ Figure out the business plan first before you implement the transformational exercise to make that change. 

To hear more about leading transformations, tune into Episode 32 of The Content & Media Matters Podcast here.

We sit down regularly with some of the biggest names in our industry, we dedicate our podcast to the stories of leaders in the technologies industries that bring us closer together. Follow the link here to see some of our latest episodes and don’t forget to subscribe.     

Generative AI’s Impact on the Content & Media Industry

Posted on by Tegan Valeny

As AI continues to develop, so does its impact on the content and media industry. To help us understand the impact this phenomenon will have on the future of work in our industry, we invited Micky Edwards, the VP of Business Development EMEA & APAC at TAG Video Systems, to speak to us on The Content & Media Matters Podcast. Read on for his insights on AI. 

What is generative AI, and how does it differ from other types of AI?

Generative AI is an artificial intelligence that can react to things in real time as they are going on. Artificial intelligence has been around for quite some time, but it’s all been pre-programmed, so it was looking at and understanding things that were already known. Generative AI is the next step up, and it’s looking at how it can bring that information together to start making different things. The fact that it can start to do contextual things like understand the context of what’s going on, and then produce some text is incredible. 

What is the impact of AI on jobs and the future of work? 

A lot of people are worried that generative AI will take jobs away, but I think it’ll allow people to go and do something different. I think it will positively impact the future of work, because it may allow people to have a better sort of work-home balance as well as do some of these more repetitive tasks that you have within the industry. These tasks that would take somebody many hours to do can now be handled by generative AI while they go and do something else, giving them more free time as well. 

The whole process that we’re going through at the moment is learning about AI’s limits and how it will help us to look at our work-life balance. It may be that you’ll end up doing more job sharing, where you’re doing part of a job, but the other part of the job is being done by a machine, which means that somebody else can come in and do something else, while that’s going on. I’m not totally convinced that it’s a bad thing. 

AI is also expanding the knowledge of what’s achievable with programming and operations, across not just our industry, but multiple industries. There’s always going to be a requirement for some things, like having a person stand behind a camera, and they have robotics and AI controlling it, but actually, a skilled operator can still get those shots that a computer system just can’t process. So yes, AI will come in and make things different, but I’m not sure it’ll be a bad difference. There will definitely be some upsides to not having humans do the repetitive jobs within the industry.

How do you see generative AI being used in the industry as a whole?

I think where we’ll see AI really coming to the forefront is in a new generation of FAST channels. So these are free to air, without subscription, ad-supported television. Broadcasters want to reach out to produce these as cheaply as possible because the only revenue they’re getting is through ad insertion. So, we can see a point where generative AI will have access to the content, and there’ll be some rules that it has to follow, but it’ll be able to take that content and be able to produce these FAST channels, and then self-manage them. It’s already doing ad selections and things like that, depending on the content type and by looking at the people that are watching it and being able to select the correct ads for them. That will help some of the broadcasters who are perhaps struggling a little bit to make any money out of FAST channels. I see that it as definitely a positive for them to be able to use generative AI to help do that. 

To hear more from Micky, tune into Episode 31 of The Content & Media Matters Podcast here. 

We sit down regularly with some of the biggest names in our industry, we dedicate our podcast to the stories of leaders in the technologies industries that bring us closer together. Follow the link here to see some of our latest episodes and don’t forget to subscribe.     

Improving EDI in Telco

Posted on by Tegan Valeny

The telco industry is making progress towards positive diversity and inclusion, particularly in improving gender equality. On Episode 18 of The Connectivity Matters Podcast we spoke with Anna Deppi, the Senior Manager and Co-Chair of the Italian Women’s Leadership Community at Red Hat, about her experiences as a woman in the field. She also shared her advice for companies and other women who are navigating the changing landscape of EDI in the industry. 

Have there been any challenges that you’ve encountered as a woman in telco, and how did you overcome them? 

I have found myself being the only female at the table or in the room at times. Sometimes you have to decide which battles to pick because you can’t win everything. You need to have your strategies in place. There were situations where I had to speak up, but you can do it in a gentle way. Understanding why things are said that way or what makes you uncomfortable is important. I’d advise everyone to ask ‘why?’. Sometimes you hear it wrong because we live in a very globalised world and we all use English in different ways, so sometimes things are not clear. Step up and speak up as well. 

Also, educate yourself. I noticed that by educating myself and listening to other points of view that I didn’t agree with, I opened up my world. I also think the person on the other side is often feeling the same way. Be yourself. I talk a lot about authenticity because you need to learn how you want to do things. Picking some of those strategies and battles was a bit of a shift, but it made me feel at ease around these tables most of the time. 

Have you got any advice for how organisations can make their company cultures more inclusive to improve retention? 

What I’ve seen around me is that mentoring and sponsorship are very important. You might have a tendency to keep your thoughts to yourself, but you need to talk to others from time to time, particularly with someone who’s been there before. Mentoring also helped me see things and do things in a different way. I do suggest building a very strong mentorship programme because it’s such a good support for people who are very shy and who don’t know how to approach people. Having a schedule and regular meetings does help build a rapport, and people get more out of it. 

You also really need to start talking about equal pay. In some countries it’s mandatory, but you have to have this conversation because it’s very important to maintain people’s motivation and work-life balance, because the problem the telco industry already has is a lack of skills, so we can’t afford to lose talented people. Sometimes people need to step away to recharge their batteries and be more creative. Creativity is super important in everything that we do, and breaking out of your routine can really help with that. 

What one piece of advice would you give to someone who’s entered the industry and is struggling with diversity and inclusion?

Go and talk to schools because there’s so much that this industry can give to young people and vice versa. Like I said, education is so important because it helps you understand yourself and other people better while raising awareness of why things are happening. That’s very important in an industry that is changing so fast because we need to change fast as well to be part of that change. 

To hear more from Anna, tune into Episode 18 of The Connectivity Matters Podcast here. 

We sit down regularly with some of the biggest names in our industry, we dedicate our podcast to the stories of leaders in the technologies industries that bring us closer together. Follow the link here to see some of our latest episodes and don’t forget to subscribe.     

Elevating Women in the Telco Industry 

Posted on by Tegan Valeny

The telco industry is full of opportunity, but is it full of diversity? On Episode 3 of the Women In Telco miniseries on The Connectivity Matters Podcast we were joined by Maria Lema, one of the Co-Founders at Weaver Labs, to talk about her experiences of working and leading in the connectivity industry. Read on for her perspectives. 

What have you experienced as a woman in the telco industry?

I think the telco industry is male dominated, but it’s not sexist. I’ve never experienced the issues some women have with being a successful professional in this industry or getting my voice heard or people not taking me seriously. This industry values knowledge and skills. So, if you know your stuff, people are gonna listen to you, regardless of your gender, age or other characteristics. There are a lot of imbalances in terms of age in the telco industry, which is something I would like to highlight. I think that telecoms is an industry that is very eager to have more diversity and more women and more young people. 

I have met loads of inspirational women in this industry in leadership positions from early on. I’ve always seen myself growing into a leadership role in the industry, because I have always seen female leaders in the industry. I’ve also had extremely good male mentors who have put me in positions that allowed me to grow, develop and challenge myself, and I’m thankful for that because it’s taken me to the place where I am now. If you don’t have anyone that really challenges you and takes you out of your comfort zone, it’s impossible to grow. Nothing good happens in your comfort zone. 

Telco is still male-dominated. What needs to happen for that to change? 

There are a few things that need to change. The first is that telecoms needs to become attractive to the younger generations. For that to happen, we need to start doing things that are attractive. We’ll attract more young people with startups and innovation and actually breaking the status quo. That rebel approach was brought into the software industry 20 years ago, and we can certainly leverage some of those learnings. 

We also need to show that there is a diversity of skills needed in this industry. Why do we only talk about engineers? We can attract marketing professionals, designers, and all sorts of people from different disciplines into the telecoms industry. We don’t need to focus on the techies. The other element is to incentivise women to get into engineering, because it’s actually quite rewarding. That goes back to school and younger education. 

I think the telecoms industry is taking a great approach by putting more women in leadership. BT just announced that they’re going to have a female CEO, which I think is another great step in the right direction, because it’s bringing diversity into the leadership teams. That trickles down to everyone everywhere in your organisation. However, we need to stop tagging people as ‘female CEO’, ‘female founder’ – it’s a job, and they need to be treated exactly the same as any other person would be treated. 

The other thing that I think it’s quite important to tackle if we actually want to evolve as an industry, is the fact that female-founded startups only attract 2% of the funding in our industry. I was saying that the telecoms industry is male dominated but it’s not a sexist industry, but the finance industry is male dominated and it’s very sexist. If we want to incentivize women in leadership and innovation, we obviously need to fund them. Without money, there’s no nowhere we can go.

Do you think there are any tech advancements or trends that will empower women to get into the industry? 

Software is a catalyst of innovation for telecoms, and it is going to continue to impact this space, because it isolates complexity of the network. With AI there’s so much going on now. We can bring developers from the AI community to do something with all the data that we gather in our networks. They can help us organise our data and enable intelligence. 

DevOps professionals could come and help us organise better infrastructures too. Opening up to the developer community would bring more skills and diversity to the industry, and it would bring monetization opportunities. Every industry that has engaged with the developer community through API’s has created a business model out of it. So we could expand our innovation landscape through them. 

To learn more about women in the tech industry, tune into the Women In Tech miniseries on The Connectivity Matters Podcast here. 

We sit down regularly with some of the biggest names in our industry, we dedicate our podcast to the stories of leaders in the technologies industries that bring us closer together. Follow the link here to see some of our latest episodes and don’t forget to subscribe.     

Advice for Anyone Struggling With Diversity & Inclusion

Posted on by Tegan Valeny

During the Women In Telco miniseries on The Connectivity Matters Podcast we’ve been shining a light on a variety of diversity issues. On Episode 2 of the miniseries we were joined by Tinuade Oguntuyi, the Head of Networks and Solutions at ICSL, to talk about diversity in the sector. With a fantastic career behind her, Tinuade now spends her time mentoring women in the workplace, particularly those who are starting their careers in tech, and volunteering for social impact and enterprise groups, where she delivers practical programmes that help bridge classroom and workplace inequalities. Here’s her advice for anyone struggling with diversity and inclusion issues in the workplace: 

“As a woman in tech or stem, you need to do 10x better than your counterparts. Once somebody said that a woman needs to be 2x better than a man to even go as far. If you truly want to be outstanding, that means you need to do 10x the amount of work to be seen as competent. Beyond that, in my personal experience, don’t get distracted by other people’s noise, because you will do yourself a disservice. If you do that, then you’re not able to pursue your dream. It would be better to just go for it. 

Any woman, any girl, even if you’re transitioning, if you’re early in your career, just go for it. Don’t run the risk of not doing something because you were scared or put off. Go on platforms where you can connect or network with people. Find people that will give you some resources. You can learn, you can have it all – maybe not at the same time, but you can. 

Take things easy on yourself. You don’t beat yourself too much. You don’t second guess yourself. Just go out and do your best, and you’ll get there. You’ll make an indelible mark in the space of telecoms.”*

To hear more from Tinuade, tune into Episode 14 of The Connectivity Matters Podcast. 

*Quote has been edited for length and clarity 

We sit down regularly with some of the biggest names in our industry, we dedicate our podcast to the stories of leaders in the technologies industries that bring us closer together. Follow the link here to see some of our latest episodes and don’t forget to subscribe.     

Gender Discrimination in the Connectivity Industry

Posted on by Tegan Valeny

During a special miniseries on The Connectivity Matters Podcast we’re putting a spotlight on diversity and women in the industry. In the first episode of the Women In Telco miniseries we were joined by Kelly Lazuka, the CEO at FULLERTON. She started her career at SAC Wireless as a product manager, before quickly making her way into senior roles. She’s also a mum of five alongside her incredible work of supporting more women into leadership roles. She joined us to talk about the discrimination that women face in the connectivity industry, as well as advice for other women who are facing it now. Read on to learn from her insights. 

“I think a lot of people have experienced the same things I have, and one of those things was being very qualified for a promotion or a different role within the company, or even just wanting to learn that role, and being sidelined for various reasons, like ‘you’re not ready’, or ‘there’s somebody who’s more qualified’, when you know what you’ve been bringing to the table, so that probably is not true. That has happened to me a couple of times, and it’s unfortunate. 

Another thing that I’m sure a lot of your female listeners will attest to is that sometimes you’re in positions where you know other people’s salaries and see the discrepancy with your own. While we do keep that mostly confidential, it still plays with your mind. You still know what you do, what your title is, what you know, how hard you work, the contributions that you make, and somebody else makes substantially more than you, just because they’re of a different gender. I don’t think that gap ever goes away entirely. I think it’s getting better, but those are things that each one of us will come up against at some point in our lives. 

I’m no different. I’ve had some really great experiences in my career path, but there’s also been some challenges and roadblocks. What I try to tell my female leaders here at Fullerton is that we can sit around all day and list out the roadblocks that women face, or we can focus on how you can overcome them. How do you advocate for yourself? What’s a good argument? What are the skills that you really need? I encourage all women to figure out a way to be a good negotiator, whether that’s by taking a class or getting a mentor, but you need to be a good negotiator, not just for your work, but for yourself. Negotiating is an art, and if women who are committed to growing their career paths can master that art, they’re halfway there already.”

To hear more from Kelly, tune into Episode 13 of The Connectivity Matters Podcast. 

We sit down regularly with some of the biggest names in our industry, we dedicate our podcast to the stories of leaders in the technologies industries that bring us closer together. Follow the link here to see some of our latest episodes and don’t forget to subscribe.     

Inside Media Supply Chains

Posted on by Tegan Valeny

The Content and Media industry is a diverse and developing space. On Episode 18 of The Content & Media Matters Podcast we spoke to Taylor Riese, Vice President of Strategic Sales for Signiant. With an impressive career at prominent companies such as Verizon Media, Taylor has a wealth of insights into the Content and Media industry. We spoke to him about the development of supply chains within the sector. 

What are your thoughts on why media supply chains have become more complex, and what does that mean for the industry?

The real question is should they have become more complex? We’ve been standardising supply chains, workflows, etc, but in the process we’ve accidentally made things unnecessarily complex. The art of the possible has been explored very well within the media industry. A lot of the time that leads to complex solutions rolling out – with good intentions, of course – which are not always suited to the industry as it is. That complexity creates diminishing returns and precludes you from doing other things. We have a lot of exciting technology at our fingertips, and sometimes it’s hard not to give it a try.

How do you see AI being used when it comes to the content exchange?

AI does such a good job of cataloguing what your content is, transcribing it and telling you what content sits where that you don’t even have to go in and watch the video. There are tons of other potential use cases where AI will be used to decipher or guesstimate what content will be useful for viewers in other regions or languages. In terms of content exchange, AI is going to be helpful for facilitating intercompany movement. We can go into meetings saying ‘We’ve indexed our entire back catalogue, and we’ve got this stuff that we think can be useful to your viewers’ and moving things that way. The same thing goes for the creation of new content, because AI can help you better understand your audience.

Data analytics and metadata are key talking points at the moment. What role do you think they will play when it comes to the media supply chain?

AI is analysing that metadata now. We’re constantly doing things to make metadata capture easier. It’s incredibly important. Having best practices in place for capturing and recording the metadata and making sure it gets put in the right places at the right times is essential. We’re almost forcing that behaviour to make things easier. Having that data will make things easier in 10-15 years, but it also makes things easier in the interim. It saves time and headaches. The more you can do on that side, the easier it is to establish what you have, know where it is and understand what to do with it.

To learn more about the content and media industry’s supply chains, tune into The Content & Media Matters Podcast here. 

We sit down regularly with some of the biggest names in our industry, we dedicate our podcast to the stories of leaders in the technologies industries that bring us closer together. Follow the link here to see some of our latest episodes and don’t forget to subscribe.     

The Importance of Diverse Teams

Posted on by Tegan Valeny

Diversity is one of our core topics on The Content & Media Matters Podcast. On Episode 17 we were delighted to discuss it with Mark Billinge, who is a Technology & Operations Consultant with a background in the video and media industry. With nearly 30 years in the sector, Mark has a wealth of insights when it comes to how the industry has progressed in terms of diversity, which we explored on the podcast and here. 

How have you seen diversity and inclusion addressed over the course of your career, and why is it important for companies to get it right? 

In the Middle East we had huge diversity in our team. That was one of the things that really made it so fun and exciting, because the team was made up of people from different cultures and ethnicities all around the world. It was a really rich mix. Having many different voices, opinions and backgrounds in a team is a good thing, because different points of view give you a better understanding of a subject, so you can do better work. Having that diverse team helped us deliver. 

Is there anything you would still like to see change around diversity and inclusion?

I think a lot of progress has been made over the last few years, but there are still areas for improvement. One topic that’s been in the news for the last few weeks is the cost of childcare. It raises the question, how do you support young families and young mothers get back into work? There’s obviously an economic side to it, but it’d be great to see companies look at how they can support people with their childcare. That could mean offering daycare in the workplace or making it easier for mums to return to work after a career break. My wife took a long break after having the children, and she’d now like to get back into work. She’s finding it harder than we expected to get back in after an extended break. Companies need to consider people who have had extended breaks and the value they can bring. 

To learn more about diversity in the Content & Media industry, tune into The Content & Media Matters Podcast here. 

We sit down regularly with some of the biggest names in our industry, we dedicate our podcast to the stories of leaders in the technologies industries that bring us closer together. Follow the link here to see some of our latest episodes and don’t forget to subscribe.     

How AI is Changing Live Streaming 

Posted on by Tegan Valeny

Since the release of Chat GPT 3, there has been a surge of interest in what AI can do. On Episode 16 of The Content & Media Matters Podcast we spoke to Ingo Hofacker, the CEO at movingimage, about how he sees this technology improving our industry. Here’s his take on how data, analytics and AI play a part in live streaming video solutions. 

There are two parts to these solutions. Initially it was more related to analytical AI’s potential for understanding how someone’s posture looks when they’re setting up the camera. The AI was able to provide feedback on ‘Is that a good posture? Is that underpinning your message at a medical level? Is it contradictory to your advice on wellness?’ 

I’m a big believer in this generative AI. I think it’s premature, but I certainly believe that in five years time we will see the applications of it for video. I think we’ll be able to take a boring text, and say, ‘Can you please make a fancy video out of this, with an avatar that looks like me?’ and that will be doable. 

I spoke to an artist last weekend, a sculptor actually, and he admitted that he didn’t see how generative AI could be a competitor to him. I do believe that there are programs out there who can write poems that very few people – if any – can really distinguish from a poem that comes from an actual writer. AI doesn’t have arms yet, so the sculptor might be a little safer, but there are other challenges for creatives. 

AI has capabilities that can be used for a lot of tasks, which from a business perspective makes a lot of sense. We have to keep an eye on it as it evolves. We are not currently running POCs on it, because the generation of videos that it’s currently creating don’t quite match the market, but they’re not far out. They’re not in the distant future.

We’ve got so many exciting things that AI is working on right now, and so are we. We’re preparing ourselves for that next round.

To learn more about how video streaming is changing, tune into Episode 16 of The Content & Media Matters Podcast here. 

We sit down regularly with some of the biggest names in our industry, we dedicate our podcast to the stories of leaders in the technologies industries that bring us closer together. Follow the link here to see some of our latest episodes and don’t forget to subscribe.     

The Growth of Global Commerce in the Content & Media Industry 

Posted on by Tegan Valeny

Content is a rapidly expanding industry, with huge numbers of platforms and creators all vying for exposure. With vast amounts of money to be made, it’s no surprise that it’s such a popular industry. 

On The Content & Media Matters Podcast we were joined by Simon Miller, who until recently was the MD at Gracenote International Metadata for Product Sales. Simon is an energetic Newcastle United fan, who was previously the Global Director of Sports Specialisation for Grace Knight, CEO of Betfair TV, Head of International and Online Marketing for Ladbrokes e-gaming and the Commercial Executive Producer at Bloomberg TV Africa. 

With such an extensive career in the entertainment industry, we were keen to hear his perspectives on the growing global commerce that’s coming from the Content & Media industry. Here are his predictions for the coming years: 

In the betting industry – which is, in some ways, the ultimate example of commerce emerging from the back of content – if you can’t see it, you can’t bet on it. We relied on content to run our business. That’s why it’s essential to provide excellent video services to the major betting platforms, because it’s those videos that people can bet on. That video can be football, horse racing, table tennis… It can be all sorts of things, but the point is to get the videos in front of people who are interested in placing a bet. That’s an industry that’s often at the leading edge of commercialising content, and it will continue to be there. 

As the demand for profitability is becoming more and more prevalent, advertising and e-commerce becomes increasingly relevant. The industry has long considered this, and in some ways it’s not a new idea. Selling what Jennifer and friends were wearing after a piece of content was released is almost a cliche in the industry that goes back well over 20 years. 

When it comes to valuing the industry, there are a few things to consider. Look at what’s happening in China, where the e-commerce industry that’s been created off the back of content is worth in excess of $400 billion, compared to the US equivalent only being $40 billion. Now, some of that difference can be explained by some basic building block differences between the way the media and those two markets work. I’m not suggesting that you always compare like for like, but nevertheless, I think it’s a clue that many companies are looking at how they can replicate some of the e-commerce giants in China. 

Technology is always evolving the ability to push messages at people. Those messages can be information, they can enhance the viewer’s experience or they could be e-commerce messages. As more and more people watch video on small individual devices, which are naturally far more interactive, e-commerce can grow off the back of that content. What’s going to happen is that e-commerce platforms will learn the difference between different types of video format and the different needs that those videos fulfil, and understand that e-commerce is only relevant in some of those. I think that growth is going to happen, but not everywhere. The technology will enable it and grow it in really specific areas. 

To learn more about the growth of e-commerce off the back of content, tune into The Content & Media Matters Podcast here. 

We sit down regularly with some of the biggest names in our industry, we dedicate our podcast to the stories of leaders in the technologies industries that bring us closer together. Follow the link here to see some of our latest episodes and don’t forget to subscribe.