If so, you are not alone.

According to a recent survey conducted by the Economist Intelligence Unit, today’s employees spend over 25% of their workday searching for information. And as video becomes more and more central to the day-to-day operations of Queensland Government, it’s likely that a significant chunk of that 25% is being spent searching through video content. Unless you are a professional researcher, that’s A LOT of time to spend just finding the information and content you need to do your actual job.

How can we reduce that time? The short answer: make sure that your video library is easily searchable.

Having a world-class video management platform like Queensland Government TV (powered by Mediasite®) is wonderful – but a platform is only one part of a successful overall video strategy. The next step is making sure that the content stored in your platform is searchable, accessible and easy to navigate.

Good thing Queensland Government TV customers enjoy premier access to AI-powered video transformation tools.

Automated Speech Recognition Maximizes the Value of Searchable Metadata

When QLDGovTV captions are enabled, our platform applies detailed, time-stamped automatic speech recognition (ASR) data to videos, making it possible to search for specific content within individual video files.

Remember that dark, disorganized storage room? Applying metadata to the videos in your QLDGovTV library is like turning on the lights and adding detailed, accurate labels to every box and drawer in the room. The best part: the entire process is automated by AI, so you won’t have to spend a single hour of your workday on it.

Searchability benefits all of your video stakeholders – from your stakeholders and content owners to IT support staff and the organization as a whole.

Applying advanced metadata from QLDGovTV to your video library will:

• Allow your audience to instantly find the content they’re most interested in
• Improve your operational efficiency by automating time-consuming tasks like tagging and indexing
• Enable you to quickly identify, extract, and re-deploy your most valuable archival content

So don’t waste any more time manually skipping through video files to find the content you’re looking for. Make your video library searchable today with advanced metadata from QLDGovTV.

Reach out to your Account Manager today and begin leveraging video metadata through captions provided by QLDGovTV.

But…

Just because hybrid events have entered the mainstream doesn’t mean they’ve come equipped with the same level of high-quality, engaging content found in a traditional in-person event, and that’s especially true when an event needs to be planned or adjusted to virtual on short notice. Organizing a hybrid event on a tight schedule can be an enormous challenge – even for event pros – which makes choosing the right team a critical component of the planning process.

That’s where the team at QLDGovTV steps in. With over 15 years of experience capturing, managing, and broadcasting video content for Queensland Government events, conferences, and on-demand distribution channels, we’re used to planning and delivering easily accessible, high-quality video content on the fly.

Our team manages hundreds of streaming events in an average year, earning us the trust of a variety of Departments including DPC, TMR, Dept of Education, Dept of Health and more. We pioneered engaging, on-demand and live video long before most of the world had ever heard of a “hybrid event” and we know the ins, outs and challenges of planning and executing a successful event from start to finish.

To help kickstart your next hybrid event planning session (especially if you’re working on a tight timeline), take a look at the following strategies and tips from battle-tested members of the team at Queensland Government TV.

1. Get everyone in the same room right away.

When you’re orchestrating something as complex as a large-scale hybrid conference or event on a short timeline, there is no time for mixed signals or other miscommunications. This is why it’s important to gather all of the relevant stakeholders for an initial meeting to establish clear expectations and ownership of key deliverables.

Along the same lines, it’s always a good idea for event planners to involve us as early as possible. Meeting planners have a lot on their plate and are rightly focused on the live event, the physical space or facility, the attendees, travel logistics, etc. But there are major benefits to treating the video or hybrid elements of your event as a forethought rather than an afterthought. Getting our team on board early will save time, money, and stress – and it will expand the universe of realistic deliverables.

2. Establish realistic expectations.

Once you have everyone in the same room, it’s important to be realistic and set the bar in the right place.

Some less experienced teams will claim they can deliver everything an event organizer wants, no matter the timeline. The reality is they probably can’t, and a good event organizer will appreciate a blunt assessment of what is realistic and what is not so that they can manage expectations on their side (with leadership teams, presenters, planning partners, etc.).

You can think in terms of “trade-offs” or in terms of “quantity vs. quality” or in terms of “must haves vs. nice to haves”. Our team has found that “Tell me what success looks like” is often an effective way to begin the discussion.

But whatever language you use, it’s important to structure the discussion so that everyone is focused on the highest-level goals of the event, which usually include (1) the quality and accessibility of the content and (2) the level of audience engagement with that content.

3. Identify hard deadlines and develop a schedule accordingly.

Some aspects of an event can be accomplished on an accelerated timeline, but there are also logistical elements that involve fixed deadlines.

For instance, if our team needs to ship equipment to the event location, there are time-based variables that cannot be controlled or altered – equipment availability, packing and shipping lead time, receiving logistics, setup procedures, etc. If the team needs to source local technicians for additional on-site support, there is (or should be) a process for identifying the right partner and booking services – and that process can be difficult to expedite.

On a tight schedule, one of the best ways to structure a hybrid event plan is to identify hard deadlines first – and build the rest of the preparation schedule around them.

4. Be flexible and understand that you are in the people business, NOT the tech business.

In the hybrid events business, it’s no longer feasible to be technology or platform-specific. Our team will be prepared to work with any platform and/or will offer our own. Our clients typically don’t remember the video platform or other technological infrastructure from a hybrid event; but they remember the people, the content, and feedback from the audience.

This is another reason why it’s important to establish a “straight shooter” reputation when it comes to setting expectations. Event planners we work with tell us we’re realistic and delivered what they promised, compared to others who promised them the world but fell short when it came time to deliver.

We hope these strategies and insights can help inform your next hybrid event planning session. If you have questions or need additional guidance, reach out to us at info@qldgovtv.com.au. We’ve been doing this for years and we can help make sure you have the tools and resources you need to create a high-quality, interactive event on even the tightest of timelines.