Microsoft has been going through transformation of their own and recently launched Live Events. Various groups throughout the organization have started to use it as part of their communication strategy to engage employees.
There are different groups using live event capabilities in Microsoft 365 to create, run, and share events that connect employees using a single robust solution to produce events ranging from global all-hands meetings to specific topical webinars, leaders across the company foster employee engagement, information sharing, and meaningful conversations while achieving their communication goals, reaching various audiences, and working within any budget.
Read more details about the different types of production, experiences and outcomes on the IT Showcase Blog.
For one group, they are using live events in Yammer. Here’s a summary of their story from the IT Showcase Blog that shares how MCB Radio uses these tools in the real world.
“MCB Radio, a 30-minute broadcast hosted by Microsoft Chief Marketing Officer Chris Caposella, has adopted the live event capabilities in Yammer and Microsoft Stream for the program’s live broadcast and content-sharing needs. In each broadcast, Caposella and his guests explore inclusion from different perspectives in an informal discussion on a topic that is important to the guest.
Launched in 2019 by the Marketing and Consumer Business organization at Microsoft, MCB Radio is open to the entire company.
The live-broadcast format enables audiences to experience Microsoft’s growth mindset in action by:
- Creating a safe space for employees to have authentic, ongoing conversations about difficult topics not often discussed in the workplace.
- Reinforcing Microsoft’s core initiatives that emphasize how proximity can power empathy in the workplace.
Instead of hosting these conversations in a few large events throughout the year, the team realized they could use the new live event platform to facilitate these sensitive conversations in shorter, more frequent conversations. By using a live broadcast format and complementing it with high-quality video broadcast, Caposella’s team can share these conversations across the company for more meaningful impact.
Executive-level broadcast production
For each broadcast, the MCB Radio team works directly with a producer at Microsoft Studios to manage the live video radio broadcast. Figure 3 outlines how the MCB team initiated event coordination. The event production flows seamlessly from pre-event planning to post-broadcast sharing.
- For each event, the MCB Radio team collaborates with the production studio in a Microsoft Teams channel to discuss and coordinate needs like accessibility requirements, room signage, microphones, and the process for facilitating audience Q&A.
- The MCB team gathers pre-seeded questions and notified attendees of the upcoming broadcast using its subscriber opt-in list.
- Thirty minutes before a broadcast, the team posts in its Yammer group, notifying attendees that the broadcast is about to begin and calling for questions. They also provide a phone number that listeners can use to call in with live questions.
- During the live event, the host uses a Surface device to monitor the discussions and questions coming in real-time in the Yammer group, while alternating with pre-submitted questions.
- Throughout the broadcast, the event team uses a backchannel to monitor the video and audio broadcast, and queue up call-in questions.
- After the live broadcast, the video stream and audio transcript are immediately available to the entire company within Microsoft Stream. The video link is published within the Yammer group to broaden the reach of the broadcast and discussion.
- With transcription in Stream, the team can extract and share snippets of the conversation on social media channels. This enabled guests and attendees to easily reshare the broadcast content, which increases the visibility of Microsoft’s overall inclusion efforts. In this format, the teams can greatly increase the shelf life and consumption of content beyond the live broadcast.
Outcomes
The event team is able to seamlessly work between Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Stream, and Yammer to host events geared to diverse audiences for each unique broadcast. Each broadcast, although often discussing sensitive topics, can be made more consumable and approachable for a wider audience.
With live events in Microsoft 365, the MCB Radio team was able to:
- Double participant engagement from the program’s previous Q&A format in just one year.
- Foster real-time, deep discussions around sensitive topics that matter to employees seeking a more inclusive workplace.
- Use high-quality video to complement audio recordings while retaining an intimate environment for personal conversations and, at the same time, reach a large audience.
- Extend the shelf life of broadcast content by making it easy for broadcasts to be distributed and reshared with all employees across Microsoft.
Host your own Live Event in Yammer
If you’d like to do something similar within your own organization, we’ve pulled together best practices and resources in the Live Events Playbook.
Additional insights and lessons learned in the variety of live event types can be found in the full article on the IT Showcase Blog.