Looking back on 2009, the blog entry that generated by far the most fervent feedback was an entry in May called "YouTube is About the Last Thing the Enterprise Wants!"  Interestingly, not only was most of the feedback (pro and con) on point, but in many ways the pro-UGC and anti-UGC camps agreed on most things: 

• Users Generate Content - they do, will, and always have.
• The ability to create content should be distributed and accessible internally and externally.
• There should be a central portal or destination where content is organized.

The genesis of the original post came after chatting with some of our top customers about this subject. They expressed a sincere concern that YTfE would encourage unfiltered and unregulated  user-generated content that would be largely unproductive for, or even detrimental to, the organization (because of the quality, liability and other issues - the "top ten" I referenced in the earlier blog).   

At the same time, all of these organizations, without exception, believe strongly in empowering the experts in their organizations to rapidly and easily capture and share knowledge using video: this is expert-generated content (ECG) and it is created to further a business objective.  And obviously, if you look at our track-record of releasing products that make content creation more accessible throughout organizations, it is evident that we subscribe to this model as well.*     

However, our clients also told us that video EGC was being created from many other sources - such as produced video, archives from conferences and meetings, video conferencing meetings and more - and that they needed a central platform they could use to share, categorize and secure those assets as well as a way for new content to be routed through a review process to ensure corporate branding, quality, compliance, and liability policies were being followed.  These are all requirements that we considered at length when designing our recently released version 3 of the Accordent Media Management System.

Hence, when our clients, like North Shore-LIJ, tell us that they want to empower experts at 15 hospitals around New York City to use a TANDBERG end point in a conference room to demonstrate, for example, proper hand washing techniques, we have the automated, end-to-end workflow that makes it possible.  North Shore- LIJ can build a standardized process into the AMMS to ensure that any EGC video is reviewed, posted and available to relevant employees, and that administrators can track who views the videos and compare those viewing analytics with other mission-critical metrics - such as  reducing patient infection rates.

Our success in delivering end-to-end ecosystems that work for enterprise video communications was recognized in November by the readers of Streaming Media Magazine who voted us the best "Enterprise Video Platform," and by FierceOnlineVideo, which honored us as one of the 15 best "Online Video Companies" for 2009.

We'll continue to adapt our new platform to meet the needs of our clients, including myriad ways to upload the huge array of video content - new and legacy - that comprise their growing content libraries.    

We are firm believers in distributed content creation, empowering experts to produce content that helps support organizational objectives, and we are firm believers in central portals that organize content and make it easy to find.  It that sense, we are as pro-UGC and arguably pro-You Tube.  However, in the enterprise, we believe that the critical distinction between You Tube and enterprise online communications is that the enterprise requires more oversight - and potentially less inclusiveness - than empowering everyone to potentially publish anything for potentially anyone's eyes.

*More than six years ago we designed the Accordent Capture Station - which delivers a level of automation and ease-of-use that allows even non-technical users to create rich media presentations. A couple of years ago we rolled out  Accordent Engage - an internal,  service-bureau product that enables these same Fortune 500 clients to empower any expert speaker to stage their own, organization-wide rich media webcast right from the desktop. And our flagship product, Accordent PresenterPRO, has been enabling media professionals to deliver large scale, live webcasts for F500 and other organizations for more than a decade.