Movies began as epic spectacles produced by major motion picture companies as entertainment for the masses, a theater for the proletariat, so to speak. Then, from silent “moving pictures,” we saw theater legends as living, breathing icons that speak of beauty, strength, and freshness. Modern cinema was born. From there, the medium became more intimate, as movie theaters were threatened with extinction by the arrival of cheap, distributed, mass-produced VHS videos that could be viewed from the comfort of one’s couch.
It was a small leap, relatively speaking, from there to the ability of ordinary people to make their own videos and the technology grew to allow them to eliminate the step of transferring them to a photo shop, to be able to plug them directly into the video display device. your choice and press “play”. In the few decades that videos have become massively available media, many things have changed, especially the uses and users of them. Home movies made in recent decades are paradoxically intimate and universal: they believe in the human desire to document and share knowledge and experiences that are relevant to a particular group or subset of people, that is, a family, a group, or an association. And it is perhaps this jump that most closely matches the commercial applications of video: conveying a story that is personal, captivating, and conveys distinctive value to the audience.
With this overriding imperative in mind, the use of video in business has evolved from a dry, basic “guidance” or “how to” video to videos that can address a wide range of organizational needs and responses to those needs, from all levels of an organization. Business video solutions take communications beyond traditional forms of communication, due to their mobility and accessibility, they are a way to democratize corporate communication and put a human face on it.
Some compelling reasons for video in the enterprise:
Consumers upload 35 hours of video to YouTube every minute. For the enterprise, a similar growth in the virility of video as the optimal medium for disseminating information is forecast (by 2014, video will exceed 91 percent of global Internet traffic). Small teams, “mom and dad”, to large multinationals, go global through video. And a global, Millennial workforce (those people posting all those videos on YouTube) needs robust information to be available anywhere, anytime. Whether I’m in Bangladesh or Bermuda, to keep pace with 21st century business, I need to be able to “talk” to someone in a real and meaningful way, regardless of their time zone. Enter: video conferencing, video-based distance learning, events, communications, and safety and security as the new drivers of best practice.
Better than a “live chat” (no face)
We’ve all heard the stat: 64% of all communication is non-verbal (and a third of the human cerebral cortex is dedicated to processing vision), so video as the “big differentiator” shouldn’t surprise anyone . “Live Chat” became a game changer in the previous decade, because it put a live human voice and immediate response to the impersonal and boring process of getting technical support. In this century, video’s ability to create virtual teams that are as responsive, dynamic, and visually cueing as a group gathered outside on the patio will do the same for teams operating across great divides of time and space, It is the new business paradigm.