HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY – 4th July 2024!


4th July is an opportunity to commemorate our freedom. 

All of us at CircleHD wish you a wonderful celebration. Let this holiday inspire you to continue to be a valued member of our nation. Today, we celebrate yet another year of Independence! Saluting the sacrifices made by our heroes past.

We hope you have a great time celebrating Independence Day with your colleagues, family and friends. 

About CircleHD

CircleHD is a leading provider of enterprise video content management and distribution solutions. The platform enables organizations to securely store, manage, and distribute video content for training, collaboration, and corporate communications. With CircleHD, companies can efficiently create, share, and track video content to improve employee engagement and knowledge retention. If you’d like to learn more about how CircleHD’s Enterprise Video Learning platform can help improve your company’s productivity,  we’d love to chat


Enterprise Video AI


Artificial intelligence (AI) tools can work magic on the most consumed type of data which is videos, provided they are used effectively for enterprise use cases. Post-Pandemic most enterprises have increasingly depended on Video communication to get teams working effectively together and also to increase their productivity by sharing microlearning videos. Surprisingly, enterprises are underutilizing the power of Videos due to limited AI integrations. CircleHD Video platform has been one of the initial adopters of AI tools within Video, their AI interactive and indexing tool uses generative language models to index and discover content effectively and quickly. Lets walk through some powerful AI features that work with Video or Media content, 

1. Transcribing Videos Automatically 

Speech recognition technologies can be used to automatically transcribe audio or video content into textual content, making it highly accessible and discoverable for viewers searching for specific or relevant information. Users searching for keywords, can find those within the video / media content once it’s transcribed, enabling users to find relevant information quickly.

2. Using Facial Recognition

AI-powered facial recognition technology can also be used to identify voices of participants in a video, grouping similar voices together, and structuring them to easily navigate large volumes of content and metadata for organic search. This enables the platform to surface related content in a very efficient manner.

3. Analyzing Sentiments 

Using natural language processing (NLP) we can analyze the tone and sentiments of spoken words, enabling enterprises to gauge audience reactions and engagement levels. This in turn creates a richer indexing of content making it discoverable.

4. Automated Video Editing

AI-powered video editing and video creation tools can automatically produce or update videos based on predefined templates, enabling enterprises to create high-quality content quickly and efficiently.

5. AI powered Interactive Elements

Quizzes, polls, and surveys built using AI can enhance the end user viewing experience by providing real-time feedback and engaging viewers more actively in the content.

6. Automated Captioning

Using speech recognition technology Enterprises can automatically generate video captions, to achieve  accessibility for viewers who are deaf or hard of hearing. They can take a step further to automatically translate captions into multiple languages based on the end user’s language.

7. Object Detection

AI-powered object detection techniques can identify specific objects within a video, tag and categorize them which provides enterprises valuable metadata that can be used for increasing their productivity and business.

8. Predictive Analytics

Using machine learning algorithms, enterprise video platforms can predict audience behavior and engagement levels, enabling them to optimize their content strategy to improve the overall viewer experience and providing valuable data and reports to decision makers.

About CircleHD

CircleHD is a leading provider of enterprise video content management and distribution solutions. The platform enables organizations to securely store, manage, and distribute video content for training, collaboration, and corporate communications. With CircleHD, companies can efficiently create, share, and track video content to improve employee engagement and knowledge retention. If you’d like to learn more about how CircleHD’s Enterprise Video Learning platform can help improve your company’s productivity,  we’d love to chat


How to Get the Most Out of Your Video Content Management Tool

As more and more businesses are driven online, the use of video for training, communication, enablement, and other organizational functions is growing. But even before this great remote work experiment began, enterprises were still having to contend with an often-confusing matrix of overlapping solutions to manage their internal (and sometimes external) content. 

Instead of parsing together different tools to manage a wide range of assets, companies are increasingly turning to video content management platforms to securely create, host, and share information with their employees. But these solutions are only as useful as you make them. To set your team up for success, follow these best practices. 

It’s All About the Set-Up

Whether you already have a video content management system in place or are looking to implement one, it’s always a good idea to go back to basics and get a holistic view of what assets you have. Too often, content is created and then forgotten about, which can lead to employees referring to outdated information. 

While it might seem overwhelming to clean up, it doesn’t have to be. Like anything, this process becomes much more manageable if you break it down into bite-sized pieces. Create a spreadsheet of all existing assets, noting the name of the item, what type of file it is, a short description of its use, and a link to where it’s currently being stored. This will help you assess where updates are needed, give you valuable insights into what files you may want to toss, and help you address any areas where more content may be needed. 

Categorize With Effectiveness

It’s no secret that more content brings more problems, particularly when it comes to effectively storing it. After all, your assets are only as good as how discoverable they are. Employees have reported spending 43 hours every month searching for information (that’s over 500 hours a year), which contributes to lost productivity and a suffering bottom line. 

But there’s also a silent issue that many leaders don’t talk about or address: information overload. Even when there’s not a pandemic going on, workers are often constantly barraged by an onslaught of email and Slack messages, which results in key information getting lost in a black hole. 

Couple these issues together and you have a recipe for disaster, which is why categorizing your content is arguably the most critical piece of the puzzle when it comes to ensuring the adoption of a corporate video portal across your enterprise. 

Increase to usefulness and discoverability of your content by:

  • Separating assets into channels based on goals, subject matter, or function, similar to Netflix. The best part about setting your files up this way versus a “catch-all” folder is that you’re able to quickly add a piece of content into a track with a simple click whereas it’s more difficult to add new folders to a large store of existing content while retaining their discoverability. 
  • Ensuring everything uploaded has relevant tags. Hot tip: a good way to keep tagging structures consistent is to create a document everyone on your team can refer to that outlines what type of content should be paired with certain keywords. If you’re like us and prefer things to be more uniform, putting a naming convention for all files in place can also help keep things organized. 
  • Adding contextual information. After all, information is only as good as the background you can provide on it. You wouldn’t just jump into the middle of a movie you’ve never seen without understanding the plot that led up to that point, would you? The good news is that providing this information doesn’t have to be as complicated as it sounds; it is easily achieved by adding a thumbnail that provides a clue as to what the file is about, or a short description to accompany the name. 
  • Annotating your assets and leaving important insights about content for others to refer back to. This could be in the form of notes about changes, new information, or when a certain tactic or skill should be used. This provides an easy way for thoughts and advice to be captured for posterity and is a great way for teams to collaborate and share what they have learned–a very useful feature for preserving training or sales intelligence. 

Secure Your Content

Having great assets and storing them effectively is a great start, but you also need to have a solid security strategy to prevent information from falling into the wrong hands (and, in turn, your company falling into a potential PR disaster). But sometimes, the reasons to secure your content aren’t always so clandestine: you may want to restrict content to certain teams or levels of seniority, for example. Whatever your use case, you should be using a platform that utilizes the latest enterprise-grade security protocols such as end-to-end encryption, SSO, and custom access controls. 

Another good best practice to follow includes critically assessing what levels and permissions you want to grant for each uploaded piece of content in order to keep your most sensitive information as secure as possible. 

Cast a Wider Net

Giving employees the ability to access content on their own terms is incredibly powerful for any enterprise. Whether your company is still working in-house, or you’re distributed, there’s still a great need to access information as conveniently as possible. This is where a dedicated mobile application is especially helpful. Even if people are working from home, they are still driving places in their car, going for a run, or doing things that don’t require them to be at a desk. In fact, 60% of employees use apps for work-related activity.

But there’s a prevailing idea that creating such a tool would require a ton of money or resources but that’s actually not the case. A video content management system like CircleHD comes with a native app that you’re able to custom brand so it becomes a natural extension of your organization. By having an iOS or Android application in place, you enable company information or training to be accessed 24/7 from anywhere in the world regardless of time zone or internet connectivity (and without the hurdles of trying to use a clunky VPN or a Learning Management System that isn’t optimized for mobile). 

Measure the Impact

Content is only as good as the impact it’s having and the truth is you cannot measure its usefulness or impact without proper analytics. But the truth is most systems only give you superficial insights that don’t really help you make data-driven decisions that impact ROI. 

When it comes to determining what content is working best for your teams and new hires, you’ll want to look at metrics like:

  • Who is watching videos
  • When they are watching videos
  • How long they are engaging with the content
  • Where they may have dropped off or had trouble

By understanding these data points, you can make informed decisions about what type of content to create and what may not be as helpful. 

No matter where your teams are working from, it’s important to empower them with the tools and information they need to stay in the loop and do their job effectively. By putting the proper tools and processes in place and being intentional about communications, you’ll create a winning strategy and get the most mileage possible out of your corporate video portal.


Do you want to learn more about how you can effectively implement a video content management tool at your enterprise? Let’s talk


Training Remote Employees With a Powerful Internal Communication Tool

Remote work is a hot topic right now, mostly because it’s been propelled into the spotlight in response to the coronavirus pandemic. While the circumstances surrounding the new working normal aren’t ideal, telecommuting can actually have some pretty stellar effects on your staff. It’s been reported that remote work produces happier employees, reduced turnover, and overall positive effects on most company cultures. But anyone who has had to move their operation online knows that the process doesn’t come without challenges–particularly when it comes to keeping training consistent and accessible. 

There’s no doubt that remote training comes with a unique set of challenges, including:

  • Lack of face-to-face interaction
  • Barriers to information
  • Distraction
  • Isolation
  • Technical difficulties

So how can you set up your organization to be well-prepared and equipped to deliver the most effective training experience possible? 

Think about how you want to deliver information


When it comes to delivering effective training to your team members, it’s common for many leaders to be a bit short-sighted in their delivery model. Many turn to live, synchronous learning sessions where everyone participates simultaneously on a web-conferencing tool but this approach is limited. It forces trainers into a situation where they must:

a.) create a single time slot where all parties attend or;

b.) conduct several sessions over the course of days or weeks, which understandably eats into the time they could be spending elsewhere.

Both approaches are cumbersome because they force the trainer to spend an inordinate amount of energy on coordinating details, but they also waste time on a process that is typically repeatable and lose message consistency in the process. 

Of course, with everything going on, there’s also a very high probability that many of your workers aren’t living in their usual circumstances as well, likely contending with childcare, homeschooling, and other distractions in addition to their usual workload. This in mind, an asynchronous learning model would be a far better solution for your enterprise training. This model allows learners to access content, assessments, and communications on their own time. 

But even when there isn’t a pandemic going on, asynchronous learning still has many distinct advantages over live classes. It gives employees more control over their training experience, allows them to absorb material at their own pace, fits around their busy schedule, and allows them to interact at a time that works best for them, regardless of geographical location.

Evaluate and choose a powerful employee engagement platform


Showing you the value of asynchronous learning is really only half of the battle. When you’re implementing this type of arrangement for your enterprise training, you’ll also need to consider how you store, share, and keep your company’s proprietary information secure. 

In this type of situation, many leaders turn to company intranets or LMS for their needs, but this approach is misguided. Not only are these systems typically cumbersome and not equipped to deliver information in a user-friendly manner, but they don’t take into account that the way we communicate is changing: It’s no longer effective to just email or Slack something and assume it’s seen, you need a central repository where all information is stored that is easily accessible on all devices. 

Modern communication tactics aren’t the only way intranets and LMS fall short for trainers, though. Many leaders have reported difficulty when uploading new content to these portals and even more have cited poor user-experience as a significant barrier to adoption for their learners.

Just a few ways these solutions fall short in the UX area include:

  • Nightmare navigation
  • Lack of personalization
  • Inaccurate labeling and tagging
  • Annoying pop-ups
  • 15+ clicks before you can start learning
  • Video not supported natively
  • Complicated SCORM training requires multiple toolchains

When it comes to evaluating corporate communication software for your enterprise training, you’ll want to consider several things:

  1. Is the corporate learning solution easy-to-use and simple to learn?

  2. How much time will it take until the employee training platform becomes useful to your team members? Using things like LMS becomes a time-consuming, costly endeavor that causes disruption at your organization, sometimes taking up to a year to implement. You’re better off finding a solution that is quick to start, intuitive, and has a familiar interface many of your workers may already be familiar with (this is the part where we promote CircleHD for your consideration). 

  3. What level of security do you need? It’s very likely you will be sharing sensitive information in your training program, so you want to make sure whatever you use utilizes the latest enterprise-level security protocols to keep your information safe from prying eyes. Not only that, but you want to find a solution that allows you to take advantage of access controls–after all, the information in one training module may not be suitable for all departments or team members so it’s critical to be able to restrict information to the relevant parties. 

  4. Is it mobile-friendly? That advent of the smartphone has exponentially changed the way we create and consume content and it’s essential that your team members are able to access their training modules from their device, no matter where they are. Not only should you look for a solution that has a dedicated app, but you should also check to ensure browser compatibility.

  5. What type of analytics does the platform give you? You can’t improve what you don’t understand but, the truth is, many of the solutions on the market today don’t really give you enough data points to paint a picture of what’s going on, they just give you enough information to say they offer analytics as a feature. Look for a platform that provides you with information like:
    • What content is being accessed
    • When content is being accessed 
    • How often the content is accessed
    • Who is viewing it and for how long
    • Where additional training may be needed

When you offer your workforce effective onboarding and training, you’re giving them the tools and skills they need to be successful at their job. At the end of the day, intranets and LMS are not designed for this use and you will be much happier if you find a solution that is focused on securely delivering training to your remote workforce.

Gather your existing learning materials

If you’re a training leader, you’re likely to have a large backlog of training materials stored in multiple places, which can make transferring them to a new portal seem like an exhausting, insurmountable task.

In this instance, going back to basics is the best way to address the task at hand: make a spreadsheet and take inventory of all your existing assets noting the name of the item, what type of file it is, a short description of its use, and a link to where it is stored. By putting together a holistic picture of your assets, you’re able to get a better understanding of what you have, what’s outdated, and what needs to be archived.

Assess where you may have gaps in your training


The best part about the aforementioned exercise is that it doesn’t just enable you to see what training assets you have, you can also gain insight into what you don’t have. Perhaps you noticed during the inventory step that some assets are out of date, don’t have accurate or complete information on them, or address some new processes or functionalities your product has. This is a great time to note the updates that need to be made, but it’s also a good time to strategize ways you can update your existing training with next-gen technology or other information that may make it have a bigger impact. 

Start by surveying employees who have gone through specific training or onboarding to see if there were any pieces of content they found particularly helpful or if there was anything they felt missing. Be sure to also assess materials for any knowledge gaps, looking for things your team could use more information on or any new trends in your industry they should be educated about.

Of course, finding these shortcomings is one thing, creating content to fill the void is a whole other beast. Often times other teams, such as marketing, usually need to be involved in the process, which can create less-than-ideal bottlenecks for you. If you’re using an effective internal content management platform though, you’ll find that it has native recording tools that let you create videos for key information, which is exponentially quicker to put together than a lengthy document (and wildly more effective).

Put together a training calendar and pre-class checklist

When you run a remote training program, you’re managing content, the environment, and the overall experience for a lot of people, which can be a big responsibility. It may sound old-school but checklist or agenda of modules and due dates will go a long way to ensure nothing slips through the cracks and essential steps are followed. You may even want to go a step further and create a sense of urgency to finish a program by implementing a training schedule for learners.

Define the support process

Knowing who is going to provide support for technological hiccups is an important aspect of the remote training planning process. At a minimum, you should have a member of your IT support team prepped on what happens if a serious issue occurs, and try to keep them on call. (Hot tip: if you’re using a platform like CircleHD, you should have access to 24/7 support for anything that goes awry.)

Deliver training modules

You’ve gone through all the pre-planning. You’ve selected your platform and identified what content is going to be used. Now, it’s time to actually deliver that training. The good news: if you selected an adequate corporate learning solution, this part should be incredibly simple. You’ll just need to upload your courses, set pertinent access controls, and invite employees. Make sure accessing the portal is as simple as possible. You may even want to put together a “cheat-sheet” for basic functions.

Engage your learners

Since your asynchronous training is being conducted remotely, you need to go that extra mile to ensure employees are engaged with and understanding the content. Not only can you encourage knowledge retention by attaching tests and quizzes to your training modules, but you can also reward your employee’s training efforts with a build-in certification function that automatically issues awards upon course completion.

Another great way to increase learner engagement is through the activation of gamification features like leaderboards, which can be used to facilitate friendly competition amongst colleagues, or just to provide some milestones as employees progress through the program.

Make a connection a priority

Of course, you want to use your employee training platform to save time, but don’t forget that part of creating an effective working environment means reaching out and offering yourself as a resource to your team members.

Studies show that employees who are are emotionally disconnected from their companies and may actually be working against their employers’ interests; they are less productive, are more likely to steal from their companies, negatively influence their coworkers, miss workdays, and drive customers away.

Set your workers up to be the best they can be by empowering them with the knowledge they need to succeed and the support to do it.

Measure performance and results

When determining if your training efforts are making an impact, you need to go much further than just completion percentages. Be sure to track the metrics we mentioned earlier and use that information to create and distribute content that is meaningful to your audience, which will make you radically more effective in the long run. 

When it comes to remote training, don’t let “out of sight” mean “out of mind”. Equip your remote teams with the powerful corporate communication software they need to make onboarding, training, and continuous learning and cornerstone of your company experience. 


If you’d like to learn more about how CircleHD can help your enterprise implement a training program that is effective and propels your employees to higher levels of success, we’d love to chat with you. You can also read more about how some of the biggest companies in the world are using CircleHD in their own communication initiatives.


Why Video Should Be a Part of Your Business Continuity Plan

Video should be an integral part of any effective enterprise communications strategy, but the business implications of COVID-19 are making it apparent just how important it is. This situation has illustrated the fact that even the biggest companies in the world can suddenly find themselves in the midst of a crisis

Viral pandemic isn’t the only sticky situation that can derail your company. You should also be aware of other issues such as natural disasters, data breaches, social media gaffes, and PR meltdowns, among other things. This is why it’s so crucial to have an effective business continuity plan. By planning ahead, your organization is able to respond calmly and effectively to any scenario, while keeping up morale in the company and boosting confidence amongst customers and partners. 

But sometimes, it isn’t enough to have a continuity plan written down on paper. The advent of video provides a unique opportunity for enterprises who want to breathe life into communications and confront the issues head-on with a human face. Here are some reasons you should integrate video into your corporate crisis communications strategy. 

It’s Important to Visually Reach Employees During a Disaster


Decades of research have shown that visual content can be processed more effectively by the brain. In fact, one researcher found that watching a one minute video is the equivalent to hearing 1.8 million words. This makes video an exponentially more effective medium for critical information, allowing the messaging to have a higher level impact, understanding, and retention. 

Disruptive events can create a host of issues for company leaders. Everything from lost productivity to employee assistance must be coordinated. It’s crucial that employees feel supported and hearing directly from the leadership team can help your teams regain a sense of normalcy in an uncertain situation. 

While it may be tempting to just send an email or post something on your company intranet, enterprise video gives senior leaders more control over messaging. It’s an easy way to tell a story in a more personalized way that is engaging for everyone at your organization. Executive leaders should always convey a tone that emphasizes security and confidence. Be sure to position yourself as the voice of reason and stability during this crucial time, don’t make false promises, and provide a message that is hopeful, rather than despondent. 

While these are external-facing communications, they are great examples of how your leadership team can use video for effective internal messaging during a crisis:

  • Back in 2013, President Obama had a lot riding on the launch of the Affordable Healthcare Act website. When things didn’t go as planned, people started to lose faith in the government’s competency to roll-out such an ambitious initiative. In a great PR move, Obama attacked the issue head-on by appearing on Zach Galifinakis’ show, “Between Two Ferns”. The video went viral, reached new demographics, and helped mitigate the mess with humor.

  • In the age of the cell phone, catching corporate blunders on video has become more ubiquitous. That’s exactly what happened to Starbucks in 2018 when two black men were kicked out of Starbucks, despite having done nothing wrong. The video spread like wildfire over social media, raising questions about racial bias in the company. 

To combat the backlash, Starbucks President and CEO, Kevin Johnson, wasted no time taking responsibility for the incident and even went as far as posting a video apology on the company’s website. Video allowed him to respond quickly with messaging that was clear, direct, and reassuring. He also appeared on several occasions, taking full ownership of the situation at every turn. 


  • Whole Foods co-CEOs, Walter Robb and John Mackey, stepped up to the plate when customers discovered they were being overcharged due to improperly weighted fruits and vegetables. Both appeared on video, owned up to the blunder, making clear it was never their intention to rip off shoppers and outlined the steps they were taking to fix the issue.

Align Business Objectives


For most organizations, distributing effective company-wide communication is difficult on the best of days. But in times of crisis, lack of information can fuel rumors and misinformation which can quickly take the place of facts. Video gives leaders the ability to quickly produce content that succinctly explains the details surrounding a crisis, what actions staff should take, and the company’s strategy for reducing impact on business. 

Once the initial shock of the crisis has passed, everyone’s attention will turn toward restoration efforts. As these endeavors get underway, it’s especially important to keep your workforce informed about next steps. Examples of things you may want to outline include, but are not limited to:

  • Updated office hours for the days/weeks ahead
  • Updated remote work policies
  • How to log time off work due to disaster
  • Child care policies
  • Which parts of a building may be unsafe
  • Road conditions
  • Dress codes
  • How to provide updates to your supervisor

Of course, next steps aren’t the only thing you should be providing clarity on. During a crisis, there’s a high probability that your employees will be distracted and off their game. They might be worried about the security of their jobs, their family, and feel isolated or disconnected if there have been work from home orders issued, as has been the case with the coronavirus pandemic. If your employees have been put into a position where business activities have been disrupted, video can help provide a quick directive for what to work on, and the expectations around timelines and deliverables. 

Create a “Single Source of Truth”


Not only does providing clear, concise executive and team lead video communication get everyone on the same page, storing that information in a central location should also be part of your crisis strategy. By providing employees with a central repository for updates, key information is accessible to everyone at any time, regardless of location or time zone. This is easily accomplished with a portal like CircleHD, where assets are created, stored, organized and easily captured for posterity. 

Encourage Employee Collaboration


Even when you’re not dealing with a crisis, video is still one of the most effective tools your company can use to call employees to action. A Gallup survey revealed that only 30 percent of full-time employees in the United States feel engaged at work. There is no doubt that this number gets amplified during times of unrest at work. This is why looking for alternative avenues of collaboration are so important and why video can support in a big way. 

Encourage your workforce to create content like: 

  • Tips the department can use
  • A problem they are working on and how they solved it
  • Fun content that shows their office or workspace if telecommuting
  • How they are spending their day

Employees are often a company’s most effective storytellers and an under-utilized content resource. Not only can you build team connections through effective video exercises, but it can also become good material for your marketing department to use externally.

Implementation and Best Practices


For video to become a natural part of your business continuity plan, you should employ the use of an enterprise video platform that can seamlessly integrate with your existing tech stack (we’re biased, but CircleHD is a great choice). These features are particularly important:

  • Enterprise-grade security: You’ll likely be sharing sensitive information, so your platform needs to incorporate the latest security protocols to keep communication from getting leaked. 
  • Access controls: The capability to restrict viewing to specific groups, teams, and individuals should be available. 
  • Mobile-friendly: Information should be readily available, allowing your employees to access the most up-to-date information at any time, from anywhere, regardless of if they have wifi access or not.
  • Analytics: Communication managers should have access to an extensive analytics suite that gives them insight into who is watching content, what they are watching and when. Utilizing these data points can also let you know who has seen your videos and who still needs to be informed. 

Of course, there’s still this prevailing idea that creating video content is difficult or requires costly investment. With all the advances in technology, that adage is no longer true. Today’s enterprise video platforms are both easy to use and integrate seamlessly into existing infrastructure–whether your company has a dedicated media room, or you’re just using the built-in audio/video features on your computer. 

More than any other type of corporate communication, your crisis messaging requires a high level of credibility and engagement that can only be produced by video content. People are 20 times more likely to retain information in the form of a story and video engages in a way that is not possible with text or still images, allowing you to convey the right message, to the right persons, at the right time. 


How to Engage Your Employees and Salesforce During a Pandemic

There’s no doubt that the spread of novel coronavirus (COVID-19) has turned the world upside down. From quarantined cities to a run on basic hygiene items, school closures, and beyond, it seems there isn’t one person who hasn’t been touched by the outbreak in some way. 

Global tech giants like Twitter, Google, Amazon, and Microsoft have advised their employees to work remotely, a tactic that’s being replicated by companies large and small across the globe. And while telecommuting has steadily been on the rise for the last few years, the pandemic may serve as a trigger for the greatest remote-working experiment ever conducted. 

For some workers, telecommuting can be a logistical nightmare. But it doesn’t have to be. By having the proper tech infrastructure in place, working from home can benefit both employees and employers. 

Setting Up a Tech Infrastructure That Works


The best time to set up a contingency plan is before you need it. Of course, now that the pandemic has drastically escalated over the last week, that time has passed and businesses need to act now. 

The first step to setting up any successful remote collaboration is to ensure your tech stack is up to snuff. You’ll need to figure out which everyday processes can be digitally replicated using the proper tools. For example, Zoom and WebEx, who have made their platform free during this time, are great ways to facilitate face-to-face interactions and meetings without having to be in the same room as your team. Some other programs you may want to consider for use at your company include:

  • Google Docs + Google Drive, which offers real-time collaboration, doc sharing, and storage
  • Slack is a great productivity app that is for just more than chatting. Not only does it cut down on emails, but its endless array of integrations (including with CircleHD) will help your employees keep up with projects and feedback from anywhere. Hot tip: As a distributed team ourselves, we’re also big fans of the Giphy integration, which helps the team express humor and emotions. 
  • Github is the ultimate tool for developers to host their code online. Even if you’re not a developer, it’s a great choice for a company wiki. 
  • Project management apps like Asana and Basecamp work well for remote teams because of all the options available to manage projects and track tasks

Secure Your Communications


Even if you’re using some of the above programs to fuel your organization’s productivity, you’ll also want to make sure you have a central, secure portal where sensitive information can be hosted away from prying eyes and malicious actors. Companies often try to achieve this through a corporate VPN (virtual private network), but they can be notoriously difficult to set up and can add a lot of stress on your team’s network connections. While VPN technology has come a long way, administering various network privileges is a cumbersome chore at best and will likely not provide you with nearly enough protection in the rapidly-changing cyber threat landscape.

Access permissions for content can create additional security concerns for enterprises. After all, you want to be sure that sensitive information isn’t leaked and is only being shared with your intended recipients. You should always train employees on how to detect and handle phishing attacks and confirm any information being stored or shared is encrypted in transit and at rest. 

Since we live in a time when companies need to be extra-vigilant about mitigating cyber threats, superior security protocols are at the heart of what we’ve built at CircleHD. We host your content in the Amazon cloud, which is a SOC-1 security facility so you can rest easy knowing that content is stored responsibly and served only with whom you permit using AES 256-bit encryption.


Engage Your Workforce From Anywhere


Chances are if your team is suddenly distributed, you’re looking for ways to continue to propel employee engagement and foster connections.  Here are a few ways you can use a portal like CircleHD for internal use at your organization:

Provide a central repository for company communications, announcements, and onboarding modules

Whether you make telecommuting a cornerstone of your organization’s work policy, or you’re responding to the coronavirus pandemic by incorporating it for the moment, it’s important to make sure everyone is on the same page and that there is a “single source of truth” for all company information. This can be easily accomplished with a portal where company assets are created, stored, and organized so teams can access them on demand. 

You might be thinking that many organizations have a company intranet that usually serves this purpose, and you’d be correct. However, these legacy systems are increasingly becoming outdated due to irrelevant and outdated content, poor organization, ineffective search capabilities, complicated UX, and a lack of native video support and mission-critical mobile optimizations. So it’s easy to see why an intranet may not be the best business communication tool.

Not only is CircleHD easy to use on desktop, but it’s also incredibly mobile-friendly, with native apps you can share with your team that allows them to access company content from anywhere at any time, even if there’s no wifi connection.

Record, store and share department and all-hands meetings

When teams work remotely, it’s imperative that they communicate more. Whether you’re utilizing on-demand messaging programs like Slack, a web conferencing tool like Zoom, or a platform that allows you to natively record video, adding all of this content into a central location can make it easy to access and refer to at a later date. It also is a great way to give everyone in your organization to attend the meetings at a time that is convenient for them, regardless of timezone or locale. 

Amplify executive to employee communications

In a time of crisis, it’s important that information flow from the top to the workforce as smoothly as possible. Obviously, this can be accomplished through an email or a message that is stored in your hub but seeing a member of the exec team on video can be incredibly powerful. Not only does it lend a human face to the crisis, but it also helps build employee trust and the credibility of the organization. 

The numbers don’t lie: According to a recent study, 76 percent of companies who used video found improved communications among remote employees, while 58 percent of companies found “increased alignment with company and organizational goals.”

Of course, this method is still incredibly effective when you’re not dealing with a pandemic. Video is one of the most effective tools for leaders. The best executive videos aren’t just a way to share what’s going on in the company, they’re a way to call people to action. 

Build an inclusive culture when all employees contribute

According to a recent Gallup poll, only 30 percent of full-time employees in the United States feel engaged or inspired at work. The study continues, “These employees are emotionally disconnected from their companies and may actually be working against their employers’ interests; they are less productive, are more likely to steal from their companies, negatively influence their coworkers, miss workdays, and drive customers away.”

Building a company culture that gets your workers excited should already be top of mind for any organization but the hurdles can seem insurmountable when your team is distributed. How do you encourage engagement when physical presence isn’t possible? After all, video conferencing and chatting to each other can only get you so far.

One solution is to build a video library where all your team members can upload and contribute their own content, such as:

  • Tips the department can use
  • A use case they are working on and how they solved the problem
  • Fun content that shows their office or workspace
  • How they are spending their day

Employees are often a company’s most effective storytellers and an under-utilized content resource. Not only can you build team connections through effective video exercises, but it can also become good fodder for your marketing department to use externally.

Encourage on-the-job training and continuous learning

Coronavirus has upended day-to-day operations for many companies. Even if your team is telecommuting, it’s likely not everything is going to be “business as usual”. For example, if your team relies heavily on calling potential customers, you’re not going to get as much traction if everyone in your target market is also out of the office and not answering their regular phone calls. 

That doesn’t mean all productivity needs to go out the window. Times like this are a great opportunity to reskill your workforce or offer additional learning opportunities. CircleHD helps you quickly put together a complete training module with your existing media.

Don’t have as much information as you’d like and need more content? Our platform has native video and podcast recording capabilities which can help you greatly reduce the time it would take to create courses using a traditional learning management system (LMS).

You can also assess how well knowledge is being retained and understood by creating quizzes and certifications for your workforce. 

Hot tip: Not all training needs to have extreme detail or be comprehensive. Nor is the human brain wired to pay attention for hours on end. Consider creating some bite-sized, or “micro-learning”, content that learners can take at their own pace. 

How to Engage Your Salesforce During a Pandemic


People are currently adapting and taking extra precautions to keep COVID-19 at bay. So too should your reps be flexible and agile at this time. There are several strategies you can employ to cope with the business impact of COVID-19 and keep the sales team functioning properly.

Bring marketing and sales together for better collaboration

If the virus has left you with a little bit of extra time on your hands, it’s a great time to take a step back and think about how your team is collaborating with marketing, and vice versa. Oftentimes, the two teams work in silos which can have some pretty awful effects on your bottom line. Case in point: Hubspot found when sales and marketing teams work together, companies see 36 percent higher customer retention and 38 percent higher sales win rates.

Sounds pretty great, right?  But how can you put that into something that is actionable? We recommend using CircleHD to create a central portal for sales and marketing to share things like:

  • Product demo videos
  • Content that can be shared with clients and prospects
  • Product sheets and updates
  • Notes from prospect and client conversations that can help marketing tailor their messaging in a way that helps sales win more business

    Look for new ways to engage your reps


    While many reps are used to telecommuting in some fashion, you want to make sure you’re taking every step necessary to keep them motivated during this quarantine period. Some content you should consider for your team might include:
  • Share winning stories: It’s not enough to know why a customer’s business was won, it’s also important to discuss how
  • Motivational talks: We’ve heard about leaders in the CircleHD community who do a quick pep-talk every morning to get their team excited about selling and, maybe we’re biased, but we think it’s a brilliant idea
  • Quote of the day: Similar to motivational talks, you can make a short video discussing why this thought is important and how it should inspire your salesforce to do great things
  • Recognition videos to call out reps who are crushing it
  • News and trends happening in your industry that may affect the way sales reps approach certain customers or products
  • A team podcast that reps can access from anywhere 

The good news is that quarantines don’t last forever and these motivational pieces can be used long after the chaos has passed.

Encourage the development of skills and tactics

There’s never been a better time to brush up on your sales skills than now. After all, what may have been effective yesterday doesn’t always work today. And since sales is moving faster than ever before, it’s more important than ever your team keeps their techniques fresh. 

By using a secure training system like CircleHD you can:

  • Put together modules and tracks that can support ongoing sales coaching and onboarding efforts 
  • Create on-demand training employees can browse and access, just like Netflix
  • Enable learning on-the-go (or, in the case of coronavirus, while doing other things around the house)
  • Set up role-playing scenarios that help your reps hone their negotiation skills
  • Create quizzes to facilitate knowledge retention
  • Play into your reps natural competitive instincts and set up a team leaderboard to encourage engagement

    Provide resources for virtual client meetings


    If there was ever a time to get creative with your sales prospecting and presentations, now is it. Coronavirus is forcing lots of businesses to cut down on travel and in-person meetings, which means web presentations and digital assets are more important than ever. This may require you to change the way your sales process works. There are many ways you can supplement an in-person meeting if your potential new client is working from home, including:
  • Giving them a virtual tour over FaceTime or a web conferencing application
  • Creating a pitch video you can share with prospects and leads
  • Putting together a video of your product or solution so your prospect can see it in action
  • Share some supplemental material the marketing department has put together to make a business case for your product and company knowledge

Just because you’re not able to meet in person, doesn’t mean you have to stop doing business. Deals may get stalled in your pipeline so it’s up to you to keep them warm. Keep checking on your leads and continue to offer them things of value. They may not be willing to make an investment until the storm passes but recognize that this is temporary. 

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No matter where your teams are working from, it’s crucial that leaders don’t succumb to the panic.  Remain calm, be intentional about communications, put the proper tools and processes in place, and you’ll create a winning engagement strategy that survives long after this pandemic has passed. 


The Power of Employee Video and Self-Broadcasting for Enterprises

At CircleHD, we believe opportunities made available by employee video can transform knowledge into company wealth. While many are moving the needle with self-broadcast in video, it often does not go past the top 10% of performers. In order to break through that barrier, a newer, faster experience is needed to replace legacy roadblocks to adoption.

There are some best practices organizations are implementing to operationalize video into learning, while encouraging peer-to-peer and knowledge sharing to encourage team skills growth. Here’s just a few:

  • Cambridge Engineering & CircleHD: I believe the epicenter for employee generated video is in Chesterfield, Missouri. Marc Braun is a primary lead in a consortium of 500 companies, hacking culture with video.

    As President of Cambridge Engineering, Marc doubled revenue and tripled operating profit in an industry with a CAGR of just 6.62%. Marc’s employees are told, “if you see a problem or waste, you have the job autonomy to fix it.” Just shoot a 1-min before / after video, and it’s played next morning at the all-hands meeting.

    “I have learned video takes courage to make. There is mastery in self-broadcast. And when video is given a purpose, the gift is people that outgrow the company.”

    This video interview was released to LinkedIn, where it got 7,600 views, and 69 likes.
  • Dell: Video lets employees bypass the organizational chart and connect with colleagues in other silos in the pursuit of better customer experiences. Dell uses Sonic Foundry’s Mediasite to connect its salespeople with subject-matter experts.

    “There are a lot of salespeople at Dell, but there are only a few ph.D.s in big data or machine learning,” said Lawrence Grafton, Solutions Product Manager at Dell. “Those ph.D.s can post an explainer video so that sales can better understand the topic. 
  • Moffitt Cancer Center uses an enterprise video platform to deliver content externally. The Moffitt Cancer Center uses its enterprise platform from vBrick to deliver video externally to patients.

    “We use it internally but also use a guest portal for external use,” said John Maass. He added that a doctor could curate or record videos to help patients understand their specific prognosis, “rather than go out to WebMD and get scared.” 
  • Video for Sales Training: ‘In fact, peer-to-peer instruction is one of the main pillars of modern learning programs and the majority of reps prefer peer knowledge sharing over corporate or manager-generated content. 

    Our survey of sales reps and their managers found the majority (65 percent) of sales representatives agree that sales pitch advice from peers is more effective than training from the corporation and that top-performing sales organizations are 76 percent more likely to utilize peer-generated video content for training than other firms. 
  • CISCO Shorty Awards: While more social in nature, the results from Cisco in 2016 for employee-generated video and content are outstanding. Get tips from this Shorty awards entry
  • Video in HR: “Employees want that guidance in an easy-to-access format to help them translate a complex topic in a way that will lead them to the right decision. Advanced HR teams have picked up on this, making video their medium of choice and incorporating into their open enrollment communications strategy.” 

CircleHD is the first cloud-native enterprise video platform for employees and teams of any size. For more information about how we can help your organization implement video learning, schedule a demo.


Should You Choose a Learning Management System or Video Platforms for eLearning

eLearning constantly evolves to adapt to the changing needs of the organization and its learners. Once upon a time, a Learning Management System (LMS) was enough to handle all your training needs. But since video has become an integral part of corporate learning, the LMS deemed quite inadequate.

If you’re still contemplating whether getting a dedicated video platform is worth it, this list will help you decide.

Many Learning Management System’s are not designed to handle video requirements

Sure, there are LMS that support video but when it comes to features and functionality, they are very limited. Since LMS cannot support large video files, there are often bandwidth issues and no HD video capability. It also has compatibility issues with different devices and video conferencing tools. If you require on-screen video capture or live streaming of lessons, you’ll probably need a more powerful video platform.

A Learning Management System is not conducive to social learning

Video learning encourages collaboration and knowledge sharing among peers and colleagues. By recording and sharing his own video, an employee will be able to contribute his own inputs/feedback to the learning system. Retiring subject matter experts can also use video to capture their institutional knowledge which will be stored and be shared with generations of employees to come. An LMS won’t be enough to handle the creation and sharing of videos and therefore would limit your social learning potential.

A Learning Management System does not support video analytics

If you want a more comprehensive analysis of your employees’ viewing behavior, you’ll need an upgrade from your LMS. A separate video platform not only tracks whether a video is clicked but also whether the videos were watched until the end. Knowing at which part of the video the learners stop viewing will help course creators tweak the course content as needed.

A Learning Management System cannot build interactive video features

Games and other interactive features such as tests and quizzes make video courses more fun and engaging for learners. LMS cannot make these modifications due to its limited video support capabilities.  

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A Learning Management System is a good reliable platform for your corporate learning. But if your e-learning modules are heavy on video content, you might want to get a dedicated video platform. Not only will it be able to provide all your video requirements and customizations, but it also manages video-related issues way better.


8 Ways to Increase Employee Engagement with Video Content

Whenever an organization implements a new program, its success is contingent on employee engagement. But video can sometimes take a little encouragement to make and sometimes it’s difficult to know where to begin. Here are a few video content ideas you can share with your team, utilizing everything from gamification to vendor collaboration, and beyond.

Hot tip: CircleHD has plenty of features to help you easily set up “games” for your company. Users can set a start and end date and a rewards section which are all tied to a points-system displayed on your virtual leaderboard.

SharkTank 

Is there an opportunity the company should invest in? A 2-5 minute pitch video may be the way to go. Big ideas come from anyone regardless of position and the best storytellers often win support. Let the collective smarts of your team identify and incubate winners faster.

Improvement Videos

If you can identify waste, you should have the job autonomy to fix it. Shoot a one-minute “before and after” video yourself, and encourage others to follow suit by highlighting the best content at the next company meeting.

A consortium of 500 companies in manufacturing, healthcare, and technology sectors have entirely transformed with this simple but high-impact culture hack.

CEO to CEO Video Series

RIP It

Want to record a live web meeting? Just rip it live from the source. Record your screen, assign it to a channel, transcribe and upload. Within minutes (not hours or days) your video asset is uploaded and published. Find spoken words now in search. Listen later in the company TV app on the drive home.

Vendor Corner 

Do you have a vendor with a particularly interesting proposition? Ask them for a video to share in your “Vendor Corner” where new opportunities go to be vetted company-wide.

Hackathon 

Set goals. Explain rules. Put the innovation to a video pitch. Highlight winners.

Sales Influencer Awards

The brands with the best stories pull ahead of the pack. Challenge reps to create their own unique video pitches then allow the company to vote for the best using the CircleHD 5-star rating system.

Train

Create a lineup of videos and assign a playlist lesson to other users. Viewers can mark when a lesson is complete.

Looking for something more complicated? CircleHD can integrate out-of-the-box with your existing LMS.

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Are you looking for a secure platform to host your original video content? Contact us for a demo and learn more about how CircleHD can facilitate better employee engagement and knowledge-sharing across your organization.


How Employee Collaboration Impacts Your Business

Employee collaboration is important for any organization. Not only does it help foster better company culture, but it can also help a business become even more successful. While there are no hard KPIs for employee collaboration, these are some areas teamwork can positively impact.

Expertise Specialization

Often time, collaboration empowers employees to become experts on the specific subject matter. Not only does this help their professional growth, it benefits the company to now have someone who specializes in a particular area. When these experts socialize and work with each other, they share this knowledge and are able to solve complex problems for the organization.

Setting Up A Team-Oriented Environment

In order for collaboration to be effective, the company must first set everyone up for success. Encourage employees to shift their mindset from individualism to focusing on the team. A great way to do this is to promote any existing collaboration efforts the company has already undertaken.

Leaders should also find ways to illustrate how this teamwork strengthens the company using growth, reputation, financial profits and more as examples.

Implement the Proper Technology Tools

One great technology that promotes employee collaboration is CircleHD. With useful web-based tools, users can create and share on-demand videos or interact with live demonstrations throughout the company–easily sharing each other’s specialized knowledge with others.

Leadership can also utilize CircleHD to amplify the new company goals and help employees understand their role in the overall success of the company.

Hot tip: From reports to data and more, staff members can easily dictate which team members can see certain pieces of content and more.

Want to learn more about how CircleHD can help your company increase employee collaboration across your entire organization? Schedule a demo today.