WHY DO VIRTUAL PLATFORMS MATTER?

Hello, this is Les Goldberg, and welcome to The Road Ahead. The Road Ahead podcast is dedicated to the future of the live events business, bringing together industry experts. Hello, production world, this is Les Goldberg and The Road Ahead. Today I have two amazing guests. I have Vedha Sayyaparaju. She is the Chief Technical Officer and co-founder of Zuddl. And I have BJ Singh. BJ is the president of ETP North America. Everyone, welcome to the show. Hey, Les. Excited to be here. I want to thank you both for joining today. Our show is dedicated to and why virtual platforms matter. And we're going to talk about the essence, the the elements of how they fit into the equation of doing live events and hybrid events and virtual events. And so I'm so excited to kind of have this subject. So I'm going to throw the first question to Vedha. Vedha, can you explain to me, what is a hybrid platform? So just from a from an audience perspective, just explain that concept. And we know there are many, many platforms outside that are available. Yeah, I think one, over the course of the last year, a lot of people have gotten familiar with virtual platforms. But I think something when we're talking about hybrid especially, is specifically focusing on breaking that barrier between physical and virtual attendees, speakers and so on, all of the different types of participants. Because a lot of times, what happens is that virtual attendees feel like they're somewhat second class citizens of the experience, that they don't get to interact as much with the speakers. They don't get to participate as much in the questions or meet other attendees and some of those, you know, kind of magical experiences that you have when you are in an in-person event. And so when we're talking about a hybrid platform, it's a platform that's letting you, you know, push the boundaries of what virtual attendees can do and make sure that there's an even playing field for in-person and virtual participants. You know, that was very well said. I'm not sure if I am going to be the in-person attendee or I'm going to be the virtual attendee, but I don't want to be a second class citizen, that is for sure. And so, BJ, could you maybe give us your thoughts to expand upon what Veda said as to what is a hybrid platform? Yeah, for sure. I think we sort of hit the nail on the head, but I think the a true hybrid platform at its best brings a live like experience for the remote attendee. Right. And and provides a truly shared experience between the live and the remote attendee. And I think the best way to do that is to enable that remote attendee to not just be a consumer of content, but to actually be a contributor of content, a contributor of content. I'm feeling like a tweet right now. You just hash tag contributor of content. So so this is back to beta right now. Why is a virtual platform or actually I'm sorry, a hybrid platform. And we'll call it virtual hybrid. Why is that essential right now. Yeah I think behaviors have changed a lot over the course of the last year. And there is something magical about in-person events that can't be replaced. So when we're talking about events and looking into the future, we're talking about how can we leverage all that we've learned over the last year as we kind of make that transition slowly back into some of the aspects that we were used to before the pandemic, and how can we get the best of both of those worlds? And, you know, how can we keep that magic of in-person? But we were able to reach tens of thousands of people over the course of the pandemic for events that might have only gotten 2000 or 3000 people in person. So how can we keep that scale and that aspect of virtual? And as we still go back to the magic of in person, and how can we, you know, bridge that gap between the two, we want that magic to be in the virtual experience for those attendees as well. And that's why platforms are important in making sure that we can get that scale and we can get that data. I think another thing that people have really gotten used to over the last year is having some quantifiable metrics that oftentimes are really hard to get an in-person events. And so when we think of a hybrid platform, it's not only in terms of the content and the engagement for attendees, but also how are you going to instrument the in-person event to be able to provide as much data as we were able to for the virtual event over the course of the last year? Wow, what a response. There's a lot of data there. I think that is awesome. I think what I'm getting out of this is that my audience size, because we had a virtual experience, got a lot bigger, and as we go back to live, we don't want to give up that audience that is potentially more customers, attendees, participants. And so creating, having a platform that allows you to have engagement for that extra audience has adds value to whatever your presentation is or whatever your product or services. BJ. Platforms. Why are they essential? Yeah. So I think in addition to what Veda said, a couple of other things to think about is that having a platform gives the meeting plan or the producer all the flexibility, right? If you just think about the delta variant, there's a lot of uncertainty all of a sudden, again, well, having an approach that addresses remote versus physical gives you that flexibility to quickly adapt and still deliver your show regardless of what happens. Right. That I think is huge and set it three times for four times. What virtual gives you that we've never been able to get out of a live event is real, actionable data, and a platform that allowed you to capture that on both engines is is huge. You know, I stole a line from somebody that wrote an article in PCMag that says moving forward, events must be programed like TV, produced like Broadway and sold like Hollywood. And I believe that to be the case moving forward. And you cannot do that without having a platform. If you think about Ted Talks, 95% of the people that consume a Ted Talk content don't do it live. It happens after it's programed and delivered. And I think that's the wave of the future. It doesn't take anything away from live events, but you can't do that unless you have a platform as part of your strategy. I like that line. That would be another tweet, definitely. Now, I must tell our audience that we are so committed to this platform. We're actual investors in Zuddl. So, Vedha, just for clarity, it stands for a zillion huddles. Is that correct? Yep. So so that's if anyone wanted to know where the name came from. It's a zillion huddles. And so ETP, our company is absolutely an investor. And we're completely, 100% committed to the product development and making this the best platform humanly possible and deploying. So this is a question to BJ, and BJ, how do virtual platforms differ from Microsoft Teams? You know, if you think about those are probably the most popular desktop apps that people use to communicate. Yeah. I think before I answer that, I want to talk about what you said first, which is that we we are investors in Zuddl. And what I think it's important to hit on why. And, you know, I personally researched I think I gave up a platform number 130. I gave accounting. But you know, what Zuddl brings to the table is the ability for the meeting planner, the producer, to truly tell their story. Right. One of the biggest feedbacks we got over the past 18 months or so is that every event on every platform looks like every other event on that platform, and it really does impede the creative ability to tell your story. And for brands, that's a very big deal, and that'll allow you to do that and still have it be a very easy platform to build the engagement we think is better than most. And last but not the least, we're working together to deliver some hybrid capabilities that we think are not only first to market, but also best of breed. For example, a hybrid experience doesn't work on most platforms because you have a 15 to 20 second RTMP delay, it's impossible to have a meaningful conversation between panelists or between an attendee and a presenter when that kind of delay happened, and we've already worked with Zuddl to bring that down to below a second, right? So just just a few things we're working on that make it very, very attractive to us. And we think to our clients. Back to your question. Hold on, hold on, BJ, I just want you to know, if you're telling the audience that our platform is the best, I'm endorsing that. I just want you to know right now shameful. Is this shameful endorsement? Absolutely. You know, you can't have a 15 to 20 second delay and have a panel discussion of any meaningful way. So. And those are the remote panelists. So but anyway, back to the question at hand. And this is how is these platforms different than how people are working on zoom or teams. You know that that feels very different. Yeah, absolutely. So I think yeah. So I think Zoom or Teams are primarily a video conference solution at an event platform. Right. It's they're usually designed for one way very simple content delivery. And the remote attendee are primarily static consumers of content. There's really no engagement. There's no sustainability. There's surely really no way for the remote attendee to be a contributor of content. It's not really a rewarding experience for the attendee, let alone getting any meaningful feedback other than text chat and text Q&A from the attendee. And I think it's validated recently by the fact that LinkedIn, which is owned by Microsoft, has invested in an event platform, as has Cisco. And now you see Zoom starting to invest in a virtual event platform. So it really validates that those are really video conference tools and not event platforms. Okay. This question is to Vedha. Vedha. When, when what are the important elements to consider when you created the platform or anyone who's creating a platform, what are the key things that it has to do? Yeah, absolutely. So I think one is definitely being hybrid ready. And I think when we talk about being hybrid ready, it it can't be like a set of features that you tack on to a platform that you built, intended for a virtual audience. It really needs to go throughout every feature that you're building and thinking of every engagement that you're enabling. For a virtual participant, how are you going to enable for the in-person participant, and how are you going to enable it between in-person and virtual attendees as well? And not just virtual people talking to virtual people and in-person people talking to in-person people. The other thing is the actual show run, which I think is an aspect that a lot of platforms miss, you know, how are you going to enable the actual. I think stepping back one is event. Live events are stressful. And then when you add virtual to it, you have all of these people from all of these different places. That kind of just adds to that stress. So keeping that in mind, how are you going to make the actual show run in itself really seamless and stress free? And from that perspective, that's why we really focused on our studio aspects of subtle really early on, because we wanted to have that production level experience within the platform and make it as seamless as possible for producers and stage managers to really have a seamless show run. And then the last bit is kind of what BJ touched on is how are you going to make sure that people aren't limited in their creativity, that they can whatever wild ideas they have, their able to throw that on a platform and have that come to light and really be able to tell their story and not have every other event look the same. I think we're starting to see a lot more virtual events, and what that means is you really need to go the extra mile and making sure your event is memorable and unique and stands out. And if you're kind of stuck with a platform that will let you just update your logo and your colors. I mean, a lot of big companies have the same colors. So what do you what else can you do to push that boundary? I think the idea, it's very refreshing to hear what you've said, because everyone wants to look unique and have a unique experience, especially with whatever the remote audience is and, and engagement. And I think a lot of people have Microsoft Teams and Zoom burnout where they that that they've, they've been on their screens so much that they need to have some kind of unique experience to engage them. Or it's just I have to look at my computer screen for another hour. Oh my goodness, that is not going to bring me happiness. Okay, BJ, this question is to you. If someone is using a platform provider and obviously there's many of them, you can use what the right questions to ask. Like what would be a good five or checklist questions that that that they ultimately know the you know, the issues associated with the platform they're going to commit to. Yeah. Great question. I think the first question I always ask, and the first question I asked of the 130 some platform vendors that we talked to, is how much live event experience do you have? And it's a strange question to ask of a platform, but but you can't deliver a real virtual experience unless you know how live events work. So the first question I would ask is how much live event experience do you have? Even though you're you're providing a virtual event platform because I think it matters. The second is, will you truly let me have the creative freedom to tell my story the way that I want and still keep it easy enough to deploy? The third is the platform is only half of the solution, right? As things come back to hybrid, there's going to be a live component, whether it's from a studio or a full live event, and clients need support more than just the platform. Some of the clients don't really have the resources to learn or deploy platforms, and even if you do, you need your support. You need webinar text. You need somebody to manage the help desk. It's what support do you truly provide? Pass just giving me licensing me the licensing, the platform to me and the last couple of things. Of course, is what meaningful engagement do provide because we've been talking about that today. What integrations are available. Because the fact of the matter is we keep talking about data. A lot of organizations have tons of data in their CRM systems, right? Whether it is HubSpot or Salesforce, they might have other platforms or solutions that they use to be able to integrate. That is is is huge. And last but not the least is just your ability to scale and do things like breakouts and seamless breakouts that I think a lot of platforms overlook. So there's a list of questions each. Those were those are great questions. Those weren't good questions. Those are great questions. That's from someone who really understands platforms. These aren't you know, those are really constructive questions. So this question is to you. How important is it the connection between the participant for the virtual online experience. You know, how important is it that connection for it to work. And you know, people have varying different types of internet connections. And they're on their phones and they're on their tablets and they're on their they're at their farmhouse or working remote somewhere. So maybe you could comment on that. Yeah, I think one, it's really important as a virtual platform to be able to provide experiences for people of varying internet connectivity. Right. That experience might be different if you're, you know, if you have really great internet that might look different from if you have really low internet, but it's important that they are able to participate in that experience and that they're not excluded from it. So that might mean, you know, if your internet is really bad, you get an audio only version of the experience or whatever that is. But I think it's extremely important to make sure from a platform perspective that you give everyone an experience no matter what, and that you make it seamless for them to transition between, you know, if their internet gets better, you upgrade them to whatever that experience is, and if it's getting worse, make sure that you don't just disconnect them entirely, but give them a different experience so that there is that continuity. Cool. Very interesting. It doesn't matter what device, what internet speed I can connect and have an experience. I know a lot of times people are in their car driving and they want to catch something, but you obviously can't watch something while you're driving. But you can listen and you know, and it's ultimately about how and when and how people can participate no matter where they are and whatever their scenario is. So, BJ, I would like to ask this question to you. Where do you see the adoption of virtual platforms as live events returned? So we're going back to ballrooms, convention centers. So where does the virtual platform fit? Yeah. So it's interesting, I was just reading a research study by Metro Research this morning that said, even as of today, 50% of corporate events attendees consider hybrid as the ideal format for the future compared to exclusively in person or exclusively virtual. Right. So this this meshing of the two worlds is surely coming. 64% of the businesses think they're going to increase their virtual events. What we are learning from our clients is a lot of them are taking their live event back to the ballroom or back to the arena in a hybrid format, but they're also not curating a lot of smaller events that are 100% virtual, right, because you can't do them. And the cost for deploys is is fairly low, and 58% of them say that planning they're planning a mix of virtual and in-person events. But I think the platforms will continue to do is that it puts the attendee in charge, right. It allows you to meet the attendee wherever they choose to participate from, and it allows the attendee to consume the content in whatever format they choose to consume it in. And it allows you to have this sustained engagement with your attendees way beyond having the event be over. And again, you know, we keep saying it. The role is in the data, right? And platforms are going to continue to give you that data. And true hybrid platforms are going to give you that data not only for the virtual attendee, but for the live attendee. And that's something we've never been able to do before. So I believe that they're here to stay, which is why we're making this investment. Well, you know what B.J. It's very, very interesting to hear your perspective on platforms. I do realize that even if the show is confirmed for next week, with the uncertainty of sometimes the geographic area or what's going on with this virus, you could quickly switch to a virtual audience. If whether it's participants actually being able to travel, whether it's an international audience or it's basically an insurance policy against the unknown, no matter what happens, you can put on and communicate the message and put on that show in some form or fashion. So I think virtual platforms are for sure here to stay. So this is my last question for this session today. And this question is pretty simple. What are you most excited about with the development of Zuddl and the roadmap and the future? And and I will tell you the future, we're in it. So we're super excited to be in it. And maybe you could share maybe a little bit of what's coming like a preview and maybe you can share that with the audience. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Really excited to be working together. Yeah. Some of the things that I'm really excited about, one is just making the studio that we have even better. And to make sure that you can do really high quality production as needed from within the platform as well, so that you can drive really interesting interactions between virtual and in-person speakers that are on the same panel and things like that, and also just continuing to push on hybrid. And like BJ said about, it's not from a data perspective, not only providing data for the virtual attendees, but also giving people data about in-person attendees as well. And then the third thing I would say is personalization. And I think with digital, that is something that you're able to do is make that experience unique for each attendee, not just between events, but for the same event. The more you know about an attendee, the more you're able to kind of cater to them, whether that's from the welcome experience, whether that's, you know, the kind of sponsors and sessions and boots that you direct them to, the kinds of attendees that you help them network with and meet, and the connections that they make during the event. Just really doubling down on that personalized experience is what we're really excited about. Well, I will tell you that for anyone in the audience, the people at Zuddl have live event experience. And it's it's a refreshing concept to be able to have a live event team build a virtual platform and make it really awesome at doing both the live and hybrid and virtual, and we are super excited to be partners in that on the team, and we look forward to all the great things and all the great shows that we're going to get to do together, and I think you both are amazing and your knowledge and your experience and all the things that are going to happen in virtual platform world. And this is Les Goldberg and The Road Ahead, everybody. Great job to all the platforms and the great shows we're going to do. Whether we have a COVID or no COVID, we're still going to deploy. Thanks. Thanks for having us.