Over the past 3 months I have been heavily involved in building an internal Video Platform with some valuable social network add-ons. It has been a fantastic experience with its fair share of challenges. Managing the project scope has been the most time-consuming. There was no shortage of innovative ideas. With YouTube being the highest standard of Video Sharing Site to benchmark against, users expect alot even from a low cost custom built solution. Anyway, its always nice to have a solid role model. There was such a long shopping list of rich functionality we could have added but in reality this would have seriously delayed the launch until Christimas. As it is we will launch with some cool features this Summer and then package the other requirements for a Phase II and III for later releases. So what bells and whistles will it have to offer when launched? So far: RSS feed, Embed (HTML Code to Other Sites), Email Link to Friends, Video of the Week, Feedback to Contributor, Upload a Video, Download a Video, Add Channels Dynamically, FAQ, Tag with Keywords, Rate The Video, Search, Select by Most Recent, Select by Channel, and Select Alphabetically. Finally, what is the relevance to Training? Well, we have setup a Training Channel so anyone can upload their training videos for all associates to view or download. So what potential enhancements could future releases include? Perhaps Language Interfaces, Add a Comment, Mobile Access, Your Personal Subscribed Channels, Video Blogs, Share on Other Social Networks, etc. This I feel is a terrific example of social networking at its very best.
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Launching a Video Platform
Over the past 3 months I have been heavily involved in building an internal Video Platform with some valuable social network add-ons. It has been a fantastic experience with its fair share of challenges. Managing the project scope has been the most time-consuming. There was no shortage of innovative ideas. With YouTube being the highest standard of Video Sharing Site to benchmark against, users expect alot even from a low cost custom built solution. Anyway, its always nice to have a solid role model. There was such a long shopping list of rich functionality we could have added but in reality this would have seriously delayed the launch until Christimas. As it is we will launch with some cool features this Summer and then package the other requirements for a Phase II and III for later releases. So what bells and whistles will it have to offer when launched? So far: RSS feed, Embed (HTML Code to Other Sites), Email Link to Friends, Video of the Week, Feedback to Contributor, Upload a Video, Download a Video, Add Channels Dynamically, FAQ, Tag with Keywords, Rate The Video, Search, Select by Most Recent, Select by Channel, and Select Alphabetically. Finally, what is the relevance to Training? Well, we have setup a Training Channel so anyone can upload their training videos for all associates to view or download. So what potential enhancements could future releases include? Perhaps Language Interfaces, Add a Comment, Mobile Access, Your Personal Subscribed Channels, Video Blogs, Share on Other Social Networks, etc. This I feel is a terrific example of social networking at its very best.
Virtual Campus Pilot
Our training department are about to run an experimental Online Campus pilot using a virtual event platform. It has a lot of rich out-of-the-box functionality that I feel will make the experience truely interactive and interesting enough for learners to browse the content and enrich their training. Why did we select such an unusual environment? We wanted to identify a cost-effective but captivating platform that could be setup quickly, easily maintained and needed almost zero development work. Sounds almost impossible, right? Well, with a bit of creative researching we found a number of ready-made virtual world platforms that offered most of what we wanted. When I say virtual world I don't mean a true 3D world like Second Life, but you can get 2D worlds that maybe are not as immersive but provide enough of a walk-about and feeling of depth experience using some clever Flash programming to do the job. Once we launch and get some learnings, I will publish them to this blog. To whet your appetite, here are some features that swayed the decision to use the platform: Chat, On-Demand Video, User Profiles, Save and Download to your personal space, Synchronized PowerPoint and Video, Live Q&A, View Who is Online, Excellent Reports, Mini-Sites or Booths within the central Site, Registration Screens, User Management, Mail Notifications, Ability to Customization with Colors and Images. Just some of the items that were ticked off to meet this pilots requirements for a Training Campus.
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