In today’s fast moving world, video has become a part of our everyday life, evidenced by the success of YouTube and DailyMotion. More and more people also have access to mobile devices with video capabilities. Video is a technology that enterprises are now giving more attention to, as an efficient, cost effective collaboration tool.
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Alcatel-Lucent is a leader in mobile, fixed, IP and optics technologies, and a pioneer in applications and services, Alcatel-Lucent includes Bell Labs, one of the world’s fore most centres of research and innovation in communication technology.
It’s also is one of very few companies to have created and implemented an internal video sharing service company-wide, especially one that demonstrates the successful adoption of video sharing by employees, of which AL has 77,000 across the planet.
Their solution, ALU TV, includes many features including:
- easy uploading
- file conversion
- viewing and user commenting
- thumbnail previews
- adding subtitles
- people-tagging and keyword tags
- multiple channel creation by subject
- URL and embedding codes
- all video formats and sizes are accepted and automatically re-sized
- integrated search engine
- cloud tags
ALU TV (former Bell Labs TV) was originally developed as an experimental application by the Alcatel-Lucent Bell Labs Applications Domain. It was trialed successfully in Bell Labs in early 2009 to facilitate work and collaboration between Bell Labs researchers. During 2009 the tool caught the attention of various Alcatel-Lucent leaders who saw the potential for its wider use, and the decision was made to deploy it company-wide. Uploading videos in 5 minutes is compelling. It eliminates a lot of network hurdles and blockages seen in other organisations.
The creation and implementation of ALU TV has produced new ways of working: using video as a communication channel has now become part of the DNA of Alcatel-Lucent employees and is fully integrated within AL’s digital workplace. Specific benefits include:
- Improved knowledge sharing: Employees upload training videos, executive and customer interviews, recordings of internal events, meetings or demonstrations. They also share know-how.
- Democratised video usage: Filming and producing video is no longer something limited to outside agencies or ecommunication teams. Any employee can make and post a video. This has made video a part of the organisation’s DNA. Making this part of everyday working life has also increased employee creativity. ALU TV is used extensively for various local initiatives and employee contests. For example the most viewed video in ALU TV, with almost 26,300 views, was created and posted by an employee as part of a local contest.
- Improved efficiency: ALU TV is so simple and quick to use that all ALU employees, from communications teams to a group of interns, can create and publish video from a mobile device or webcam and then upload to the tool, embed in their intranet pages and share with the entire company in less than 5 minutes.
- Reduced costly agency fees: Videos can now be filmed, produced, and uploaded internally, reducing a large number of hefty agency fees. In the past, all board member video interviews were filmed and produced by an external agency.
- Flying our own jets: Alcatel-Lucent strongly encourages the use of its own technology within its own organisation. This is formally done through the ‘Fly Our Own Jets’(FOOJ) program. More than 80% of Alcatel-Lucent’s Enterprise products are deployed on the firm’s network. Alcatel-Lucent continually promotes and sponsors internal innovation through dedicated boot camps. ALU TV is yet another example of a successful FOOJ project. The program has given the intranet team the opportunity to fully integrate the firm’s product portfolio into the way the company does business.
- Image and production: The tool has been developed for external commercial use under the trade name OpenTouchTM Video Store. Not only does the tool benefit the company by increasing internal efficiencies and collaboration, but it is a key addition to the company portfolio. ALU TV also demonstrates Alcatel-Lucent’s 2.0 ‘transformation’ to other leading companies worldwide.
ALU TV is a 2011 winner of the Intranet Innovation Awards. To see other winning case studies, download The Intranet Innovation Awards Annual Report on the winners. To participate and submit your winning intranet or employee app, see the Intranet Innovation Awards entries site.