January 2021 Partner Content 37 designed to maximise collaboration and exemplifies digital transformation .
The teams had just three months to transform the in-person conference into a virtual event , as Willetts explains , “ We ’ re used to stages and conference settings , but not the world of TV , so we relied heavily on the technical expertise and incredible production quality from the Anna Valley team and from Common Ground , who ’ ve worked with us on everything from the enormous logistical challenge of recording so many speakers over so many weeks through to making sure that we ’ re creating the right experience for the audience .”
The show is hosted from a three-camera , purpose-built studio at Anna Valley ’ s headquarters , with video contributions via OBS software , video conferencing and Quicklink feeds — and it ’ s the volume of these contributions that has made this project both logistically and technically complex .
The TM Forum event team and Common Ground put a 24-hour operation in place to support speakers in every time zone around the world and , as well as managing the incoming contributions , Anna Valley provides each speaker with a personalised return feed that excludes their elements but which allows them to see and hear all the other participants . The AV company also repurposed their traditional production comms to incorporate Zoom inputs from remote clients and created a first-of-its-kind solution to allow an anchor in the studio , panellists joining via Quicklink and 50 + Zoom participants to interact in real time for TM Forum ’ s CXO Summit that took place during the event .
“ There ’ s a lot of complexity behind the scenes to make it possible for people to contribute properly ,” says Anna Valley project director , Ben O ’ Shea . “ Thanks to our experience in both broadcast and event production , we ’ ve been able to change how technology is traditionally used to cater for this new approach to production .”
While the technology and approach
“ WE ’ VE BEEN ABLE TO CHANGE HOW TECHNOLOGY IS TRADITIONALLY USED TO CATER FOR THIS NEW APPROACH TO PRODUCTION .”
may have changed , Common Ground founder , Jeremy Oldfield believes some things have remained the same . He said : “ When we started looking really intensively at virtual events early this year , it was quite intimidating initially because it just felt so different . But we quickly realised the same rules apply . It ’ s about delivering really engaging content and understanding how an audience reacts to that content .”
With over 13,000 registrants from 171 countries , at the time of writing , DTWS is the biggest gathering of TM Forum members in history and the largest digital telco event of the year . But the organisers recognise that metrics for digital events go beyond numbers at the door , “ We ’ re focused on ensuring the audience has a good reason to come back throughout the series , so we ’ ve had to adopt a little bit more of a TV series mindset and think about how we keep things fresh and moving throughout the whole series , and keep improvising and improving each week ,” continues Willetts . “ It ’ s a very different experience from the classical physical event mindset where you put in 12 months of planning , execute a physical event , learn some things , and then do it again .”
Digital Transformation World Series looks and feels like nothing TM Forum has ever done before . Despite being a solution born of necessity , its success is indisputable , so what does that mean going forward ? Willetts sums it up with , “ There ’ s been a lot of talk for a long time about digital events . They ’ re here now , they do work . We see the future as a hybrid between physical activities and digital content , and we ’ re already planning what that means for more ground-breaking events in 2021 .”