“” Buzz
NEWS
Shindig earns Frost & Sullivan’s 2022 Global New Product Innovation Award in the virtual events market
03/25/2022


Frost & Sullivan: 2022 New product innovation

Best Practices Criteria for World-Class Performance


Frost & Sullivan applies a rigorous analytical process to evaluate multiple nominees for each award
category before determining the final award recipient. The process involves a detailed evaluation of best
practices criteria across two dimensions for each nominated company. Shindig excels in many of the
criteria in the virtual events space.

Match to Needs


Virtual events and hybrid events are highly complex to organize and execute. As a result, many virtual
event platforms are rigid and support largely formulaic events. Innumerable surveys on the web report
customer dissatisfaction with current choices in virtual event platforms. Sponsors and attendees want
true, quality networking, but many platforms are rife with functionalities that come up short.
Some platforms show all event registrants as attendees, with networking opportunities that
require participants to seek individual permission to connect to the other person as part of a
multistep process However, these platforms list anyone who has RSVP’d as a participant even
though they may not have actually joined the event. This wastes participants’ time in trying to
connect to others and gives them “false negatives” in which they believe the connection
request was rejected when it was never actually received. Even when successful, the result is that
such follow-on meetings are anything but the instantaneous spur-of-the-moment interactions that
might occur in person. More problematic still, these listings of people to potentially connect with also
are easily “scrapable”. This exposes one of the event hosts’ most valuable assets to being cut, pasted,
and inserted into any number of automated systems to yield a complete list of names, titles, and emails
to be sold to marketers. Certain other platforms also position participant avatars who must search
virtual worlds to find one another as engaging and compelling, but event participants often find such
interfaces distracting, and unproductive.
Breakout sessions, be they under the rubric of tables or “breakout rooms”, while great for general group
discussion are not themselves conducive to productive business conversation which by its nature
requires privacy amongst the parties of interest without overhearing by strangers to the conversation.
Breakouts inhibit real, substantive conduct of business by forcing such potential business discussions to
occur in front of others limits them from being anything but general and high-level. The opportunity to
speak candidly with just the right one or two people without being overheard by others; to pull
someone aside, as it were, to speak candidly with some assurance that the conversation is not for
general public consumption is a key feature missing from even some of the most widely used platforms.
“Speed dating” as a networking tactic is often equally problematic as it randomly or loosely matches
participants by general interest or topics, rather than on more essential criteria, potentially creating
unnecessary, awkward, and time-wasting conversations. Many who wish to network do not necessarily
wish to be locked into conversations of set duration with no graceful way to excuse oneself from the
conversation or to hang around through unproductive conversations in the hope that another pairing
might be more productive.
Unlike other virtual event platform providers, the New York-based Shindig remains steadfastly focused
on what matters most to both event audience and organizer: the ability to conduct ad-hoc, flexible
discussions that users can create themselves only with whom they want. The Shindig Video Chat, which
now supports up to 12 participants per chat session, enables participants to launch natural
conversations with those they want to network with and seamlessly add others to these conversations.
Networking Prompt automating pairs audience members into two-person private chats. Other features
that differentiate Shindig’s engagement and interaction functionality include Virtual Backstage and
Open Podium. Virtual Backstage allows admins to prepare speakers, checking their audio and video
before bringing them to the stage, thereby averting all on stage “can you hear me???” moments. It also
allows hosts to vet prospective audience contributors before bringing them up to the stage as well. A
new Picture in Picture feature enables presenters to remain visible while sharing their screen. The
exclusive Open Podium feature enables hosts to open the floor like a town hall and accept questions or
contributions from any audience participant of up to several thousand on a first-come-first-serve basis.
Frost & Sullivan praises Shindig for empowering real networking with its platform that enables people to
navigate conversations, scan the room, find people of interest easily, and seize the moment to make a
connection through messaging, video chat, and more.

Reliability


Shindig’s executive leadership takes pride in the company’s roster of clients and guests and continues to
serve as the platform organizations trust for high-value, high-stakes events. The company recently
enabled the first lady of the United States to address a hybrid conference and facilitated all ensuing
discussions among virtual participants. In summer 2021, Shindig enabled world-renowned pop star
Rihanna to invite 4,000 fans to a SavageX Pride Celebration with performances by multiple disc jockeys
(DJ) and other special guests.
Shindig supports creative event hosts to push the envelope of virtual experiences. From multi-day,
multi-session virtual conferences to one-off galas or marketing activations; from better client success trainings to all-hands meetings; and from remote office worker meeting places to virtual town halls, the
Shindig platform addresses a wide variety of use cases and formats. The platform’s ability to innovate
and execute events reliably attracts event hosts from government, enterprise, education,
entertainment, and non-profit sectors to stake their brands on the capabilities of the Shindig platform.
Shindig’s customers include SalesForce, Informa, Accenture, NOAA, the French Embassy to the United
States, SAP Pennsylvania State Education Association, Tracfone, Amazon, The Conference Board, Yale,
Netflix, Hearst, Booz Allen Hamilton and many others. With its ease of use, flexibility, customization, and
rich interaction capabilities, the Shindig platform represents the quintessential solution for organizations
to connect and build relationships with and for their core audiences.

Quality


Virtual events should be much more than the replication and transfer of physical events to online
sessions. Shindig continues to expand its platform’s functionality with unique and patented capabilities
that enhance the quality of event experiences. As demand to improve access to multi-session and hybrid
events increases, platforms must deliver efficient and inclusive events.
For example, Shindig introduced a customizable Virtual Lobby in summer 2021 to address multi-session
and hybrid events requirements. Specifically, the feature offers a venue between sessions that allow
audience participants to gather and network while simultaneously browsing an interactive program
guide to determine which session to attend next. It also enables hybrid event organizers to avoid losing
their online audiences to “dead air” in the live streams between in-person presentations and allows inperson audiences on their mobile phones to network with the virtual attendees on their home or office
computers.
Shindig is not attempting to replicate yesterday’s in-person or virtual events. Instead, the company aims
to improve and push the boundaries of both events as the world embraces the next normal.

Positioning


Shindig empowers event organizers to prioritize the event’s quality and audience engagement. Shindig
offers an end-to-end feature set of paywall (if desired), guest list, and a wealth of customization options
across RSVPs, consents, reminders, backgrounds, metadata fields, and splash pages in which
asynchronous materials reside. This breadth of capabilities is inconsistently supported across competing
alternatives.
The Shindig platform is lightweight and easily integrates with other components in an organization’s
event technology stack, allowing customers to effortlessly leverage a broader ecosystem of assets to
enrich their event content and data capture. The platform is compatible with components such as
registration application programming interfaces (API); single sign-on (SSO) services; Zapier for data
integration from customer relationship management (CRM), marketing, email, and other platforms;
web-based real-time messaging protocol (RTMP) feeds to incorporate high-performance streaming
audio, video, and data; and any application with an inline frame (IFrame) to bring in HyperText Markup
Language (HTML) documents from websites to easily enrich the virtual event experience. Additional
features to enrich the value of captured data include new Custom Conset Checkboxes that allow for specific permissions for remarketing and other audience opt-ins, and Zapier integration for data
migration to easily make event and attendee data accessible and usable within sales and marketing
workflows.

Design


Shindig designed its platform to deliver virtual event capabilities that people desire: highly engaging
experiences for participants and more business value for event organizers.
The platform facilitates hosts in creating memorable experiences for their brands, products, and services
with customizable backgrounds. Dynamic calls to action (CTA) on the platform encourage audience
participation and input while enabling hosts to learn more about their audience to improve the
experience continually. Shindig offers Dynamic Custom CTA for content downloads, purchases, surveys,
sponsor sign-ups, and more, with which participants can interact without disrupting their viewing or
listening experience.
The platform’s custom splash pages host all event information and maximize the event’s promotability
with one web link for audience RSVP and attendance. Users enjoy intuitive, friction-free access to events
instead of searching for the event link or password in different places.
Shindig enhances audience engagement by making the platform’s functionalities available on mobile
devices. Participants can join the event from wherever they choose to and interact with and consume
content in formats and layouts that work best for them with the platform’s multiple presentation views
with drag-and-drop controls. Frost & Sullivan commends Shindig for creating a flexible and robust
platform.

Conclusion


Shindig transforms the virtual events space by creating memorable online experiences based on its
sophisticated, long-term deep understanding of what customers want from in-person events. As virtual
experiences continue to replace physical events, competition in the market is intensifying. However,
many platforms are not flexible and present formulaic, rigid events. By focusing on making each event
uniquely engaging, Shindig stands out from the competition.
With its strong overall performance, Shindig earns Frost & Sullivan’s 2022 Global New Product
Innovation Award in the virtual events market.

What You Need to Know about the New Product Innovation


Recognition
Frost & Sullivan’s New Product Innovation Award recognizes the company that offers a new product or
the solution that uniquely addresses key customer challenges.

Best Practices Award Analysis

For the New Product Innovation Award, Frost & Sullivan analysts independently evaluated the criteria
listed below.

New Product AttributesCustomer Impact
Match to Needs: Customer needs directly
influence and inspire product design and
positioning
Reliability: Product consistently meets or
exceeds customer performance expectations
Quality: Product offers best-in-class quality with
a full complement of features and functionality
Positioning: Product serves a unique, unmet
need that competitors cannot easily replicate
Design: Product features an innovative design
that enhances both visual appeal and ease of
use



Price/Performance Value: Products or services
provide the best value for the price compared
to similar market offerings
Customer Purchase Experience: Quality of the
purchase experience assures customers that
they are buying the optimal solution for
addressing their unique needs and constraints
Customer Ownership Experience: Customers
proudly own the company’s product or service
and have a positive experience throughout the
life of the product or service
Customer Service Experience: Customer service
is accessible, fast, stress-free, and high quality
Brand Equity: Customers perceive the brand
positively and exhibit high brand loyalty

About Frost & Sullivan


Frost & Sullivan is the Growth Pipeline Company™. We power our clients to a future shaped by growth.
Our Growth Pipeline as a Service™ provides the CEO and the CEO’s growth team with a continuous and
rigorous platform of growth opportunities, ensuring long-term success. To achieve positive outcomes,
our team leverages over 60 years of experience, coaching organizations of all types and sizes across 6
continents with our proven best practices. To power your Growth Pipeline future, visit Frost & Sullivan
at http://www.frost.com.

The Growth Pipeline Engine™

Frost & Sullivan’s proprietary model to systematically
create ongoing growth opportunities and strategies for our
clients are fuelled by the Innovation Generator™.
Learn more.

The Innovation Generator™

broadest range of innovative growth opportunities, most
of which occur at the points of these perspectives.


© Frost & Sullivan 2022

NEWS
Shindig recognized for it’s value to remote & hybrid workforce transformation
03/25/2022

Thank you to Robert Enderle for his Shindig analysis posted on TG Daily. We appreciate his recognition that “Shindig stands out by finally addressing one of the most annoying problems historically with video conferencing: building and maintaining relationships.” 

We couldn’t agree more. Whether it’s our full virtual meeting & event platform or our newly released Watercoolr product, Shindig is bringing back the in-person collaborations that are critical to productivity and paramount to growth with virtual lounges where remote & hybrid teams can form multiple private video chats in the same room, fostering community, and supporting the casual, ad hoc conversations that helps companies grow.

NEWS
Check out our latest Press Release
03/25/2022

Shindig Announces Launch of Watercoolr

March 24, 2022

New York, NY. – March 24, 2022  In response to studies like Microsoft’s “The Effects of Remote Work on Collaboration among Information Workers,” which documents remote workers’ increasing feelings of disconnection and its negative impact on productivity, Shindig announced the release of Watercoolr, virtual lounges for hybrid workforces.

Watercoolr allows organizations to set up their own secure 24/7 virtual meeting space where teams can gather for coffee breaks, ad hoc meetups, and informal get-togethers to share in free form conversations that might otherwise previously have occurred in the hallways, elevator lobbies or common areas of their physical offices. 

“Pre-pandemic, managers could rely on informal networks created by their physical spaces to ensure that one corporate hand generally knew what the other was doing. That can no longer be taken for granted in today’s hybrid workplace,” said Steve Gottlieb, founder and CEO. 

Unlike standard video conferencing where all participate in a single conversation, the Shindig technology uniquely allows an array of private conversations to go on concurrently, with one able to view but not hear the other conversation groups. Co-workers can easily navigate groups, popping in and out of conversations and generally engaging in the same sort of ad hoc interactions that were commonplace at the physical office. 

In addition to 24/7 deployment, organizations may also organize specific meet-up times for departmental or interdepartmental get-togethers. The platform allows social occasions like new hire welcomes, personal or departmental milestones, celebrations of achieving goals, and of course after work letting loose, to resume their place in the fabric of virtual/hybrid organizational life.

“Video conferencing is an integral part of many people’s lives, and companies rushed to fill the need by relying on slight and simple variations of a product. This has created a host of providers with little market differentiation and persistent flaws,” said Rob Enderle, President and Principal Analyst with the Enderle Group. “Watercoolr has solved a key problem that no other company has addressed, and that is how to bring casual conversations and creativity back into the workplace, replicating the in-person experience in the closest way possible.” 

Watercoolr was designed to help organizations combat the increasing fragmentation, siloing of critical information, isolation of team members, and general deleterious effects of remote and hybrid work on innovation and operational efficiency. Microsoft’s study of 60,000-plus remote workers concluded “employees’ needs for informal contact and spontaneous interaction are not being met in a strictly work-from-home environment.” 

The Watercoolr virtual lounge supplements traditional institutional video conferencing solutions like Zoom or Teams, with informal, less structured virtual experiences; recognizing the essential importance of informal backchannels and feedback loops to organizations’ well-being and efficient operations.

Gottlieb added, “Watercoolr was devised because of key clients sharing with us their realization that those informal, unstructured communications were essential to their organization’s performance and their demands for a solution that would foster such interactions amongst the hybrid workforce.”

Please see here for a video showcasing Watercoolr. For more information, details on pricing or to request a demo, please visit the website here.

About Watercoolr

Watercoolr is a 24/7 virtual space where coworkers can check-in, strike up a conversation, or alternatively, organize specific meet-up times for departmental or interdepartmental get-togethers. Watercoolr is built upon the state of the virtual events technology pioneered by Shindig, known for their work with global companies such as Amazon, Hearst and Salesforce. High-profile events include Rihanna’s Fenty Brand Virtual Pride Celebration, Accenture Global Meetings and the Connecticut State Democratic Convention. Shindig’s proprietary event tech is underpinned by 28 US Patents for such features as “Work the Room” Networking, Virtual Backstage, TownHall Open Podiums, and Virtual Lobby. It operates with SOC 2 Type II security.

NEWS
Shindig Launches Virtual Lobby Functionality, Enabling ‘Work the Room’ Networking for Virtual and Hybrid Events
06/28/2021

PRESS RELEASE: New York, June 28, 2021 – – Addressing the clamoring need for better virtual and hybrid event networking, Shindig today introduces a patented virtual lobby functionality; a virtual experience where event attendees can mingle, network and conduct private business on the platform.

The innovation is designed for both virtual events and hybrid events. 

  • – For virtual events it allows a meeting place where all those attending individual sessions, panels, tracks or exhibit booths in a Shindig-enabled event, to navigate to a single shared experience and meet up, just as they might if the event were in person. One of the key additional differentiators of this feature is that all the private conversations can go on while the participants are also able to peruse and interact with the conference program directory, discussing with friends and colleagues what session, panel, track, or booth they might attend together next while jointly exploring the full conference guide..
  • – For hybrid events the function adds two critical new elements. First, it provides a venue for in-person guests to engage with online participants freely on their mobile phones, critically uniting both audiences together for purposes of private conversation. Second, it helps event hosts avoid “dead air” in their livestreams and provides opportunities for the online audience to engage during breaks required between the in-person sessions, which otherwise would cause the online audience to be lost and otherwise leave the event. 

In the 2021 Event Tech Innovation Report, the EventMB publication cited ‘the biggest challenge for planners in virtual events is how to keep attendees engaged’. 

In response to this need, Steve Gottlieb, CEO & Founder of Shindig, Inc. said, “while many platforms claim that one-on-one appointments, speed dating or text interactions are the same as networking, those just don’t compare to real life behavior people want. Working the room, running into an old friend, being casually introduced to a mutual contact, or opportunistically pulling someone aside who has a free moment, are the types of in-person networking encounters that Shindig now recreates online.  With Shindig’s Virtual Lobby we have brought all the spontaneity and serendipity of in-person networking to the virtual experience”.

Virtual events also promise to play a significant role in hybrid events, as they can allow in-person attendees to take advantage of the opportunity to engage with the potentially larger audience attending online, and vice versa. 

Shindig’s Virtual Lobby is completely unique in allowing free-form interactions just like those at any in-person event. Every participant in the Virtual Lobby can see who is talking to whom and who is free for conversation. Conversations can merge and individuals can easily move from conversation to conversation to work the room. And just like an in-person event lobby, the Shindig lobby is perfect for sponsor messaging, video displays, dynamic CTA’s and other activities that can be facilitated in a conference reception space. 

NEWS
New York Times Reviews Shindig Enabled Theater
12/04/2020

The New York Times recognizes Shindig enabled theater company prevailing over Covid. So proud to have helped This is Not A Theatre Company pioneer new online theater experiences that are more than simple livestreams.  Congrats to Erin Mee and her creative team in turning crisis into artistic opportunity.

NEWS
D.C Power Brokers are Using Shindig to Bring Life Back to the Party
11/12/2020

Thank you to the Washington Post and Roxanne Roberts for recognizing Shindig’s unique ability to facilitate memorable virtual events. So pleased to have enabled this sensational virtual convening of dignitaries, ambassadors and business leaders. Congrats to Meridian on your flawless execution and the stellar 850k raise. Diplomacy and international cooperation could certainly not be more important at this time.

Find out what Shindig can do for your organization today: click here to schedule a demo.

NEWS
Enable The Best Virtual Learning Experience with Shindig
10/08/2020

Fascinating article in Fast Company from September regarding Zoom’s failings for virtual learning asks the question: why does [Zoom] still feel like a corporate meeting app that has been MacGyvered into an education platform?

Because it is. Zoom was never designed to enable the dynamics of a classroom experience.

Shindig, on the other hand, was designed from the ground up for flexible interactivity. With Shindig, teachers can address the whole class, cold call or take student’s video chat questions. They can also circulate through the class to provide individualized private attention to students who need it, all without having to worry about Zoom-bombing (Shindig was designed to prevent that too).

And beyond better classrooms, Shindig enables the full 360 of online education. In K-12 this includes parents meetings, where parents in different locations can attend together to discuss in real time; professional development, where active participation is critical; departmental and district meetings where the floor might be opened and or video chat contributions solicited from any of 1000 attendees; and more.

Don’t wait for Zoom to try and add incremental improvements. Start with something designed to address educators’ needs from the get go. Shindig.

NEWS
HQ Surpasses 2 Million Live; Time to Rethink the Power of Live Online Events?
03/08/2018

Oscar Night was a big night for Frances McDormand, Jordan Peele, and Guillermo del Toro, but perhaps one of the most noteworthy and least recognized winners of the night was HQ Trivia. At approximately 9:06 pm ET, just after Dunkirk won the golden trophy for Best Sound Editing, some 2.18 million people were drawn from whatever they were doing, or possibly watching, by the siren call of Scott Rogowsky aka Quiz Daddy, aka Edward Quizzerhands, aka Quizzie McGuire, hosting HQ Trivia, the mobile Trivia show.

Let’s put HQ’s Sunday night audience in perspective for a moment.

2.18 million is more than the audience that typically tunes into Trump’s beloved morning program Fox and Friends (or CNN for that matter). It’s also more than the average viewership of Jimmy K’s other gig, Jimmy Kimmel Live.

From another perspective, 2.18 million live is over a hundred Madison Square Garden sellouts at once.

Indeed, the audience HQ got is more than the entire digital paid subscription of each of the nation’s major print outlets (WSJ, Washington Post, LA Times, USA Today) with the exception of the New York Times (now reportedly up to 2.6 million paid subscribers).

So, in light of HQ’s momentous success in aggregating live audience, is it finally time to retire the myth that audiences don’t respond to live online events?

For the last decade, media companies have persuaded themselves that their online audiences are simply not interested in engaging live. The perceived failure of media’s experiments with Google Hangouts circa 2013 and 2014, the flash in the pan of Meerkat and then Periscope, and the more recent disappointments around Facebook Live have all been blamed on the audience’s purported lack of interest in live events.  

The success of HQ suggests that judgment may be premature. Perhaps it is the nature of the media’s live offerings and specifically their lack of audience engagement that have doomed past attempts at live online events.

HQ’s success demonstrates, more than anything, that audience participation can trump more static TV studio type production for the internet. That spontaneous off the cuff interactions with a live audience is an irresistible force, sometimes more powerful in its appeal than the $$$ sometimes thrown at “production value”

While playing HQ, one is very much aware that it is decidedly not a TV show. Passive viewers in former TVLand have now been replaced by active participants out there in iPhone/Androidland and it is the interactions of these participants who are now the focus, such as their collective successes or failures on full view as well  as the conversations among friends as they play on phones side by side with one another.)

Sure, the possibility of winning the $20 or so dollars a small elite group gets deposited nightly in their online wallet is enticing; but it is no accident that majority of the show is Scott’s banter, his mangling the names of participants as he attempts to call out an impossible number of them; his commenting on random texts, sharing birthday wishes, and poking fun of groups of participants to the delight of others. It is our involvement with Scott, our desire to be personally acknowledged and/or perchance celebrated on the closing review of winners that keeps us there until the end and coming back for more.

We certainly could not have predicted HQ’s success. Who knows whether two years ago the founders themselves imagined their ability to drag 2 million away from Hollywood’s greatest night to play trivia. But they have clearly created a new paradigm that demands recognition.

It should be abundantly clear to all in media that live online events can compete at scale with pre-recorded content of all varieties and that a secret ingredient to making this possible is audience participation.

In celebrating HQ’s hard-earned achievement, we are excited to enable other creatives to similarly pioneer new live online experiences. The Shindig large scale video chat platform offers media entrepreneurs the opportunity to engage audiences in wholly new ways, empowering the transformation of static audience/spectators into active personalities who can directly engage with hosts as well as their fellow audience members.

If you’re ready to join the live phenomenon, jump into the post-text era, and take advantage of the immense participation that large-scale online events can generate, check out Shindig’s large scale video chat technology.

NEWS
5 Ways for Businesses to Balance Automation and Authenticity in 2018
02/27/2018

I recently came across a Forbes Article from contributor Ian Altman who is a strategic advisor, author and internationally sought keynote speaker on integrity-based sales and business development. Ian outlines the top business trends that will drive success in 2018 for your company. Below are the five I’m most excited about:

1. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE DRIVES CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE – Leading companies are embracing AI to perform repeatable, redundant tasks and to process large amounts of data not to avoid human interaction, but to enrich it.”

Yes! In today’s age of “engagement automation” we will need to build trust and authenticity more than ever and AI will help us understand where and when to provide that. The trick is providing live face-to-face communication “at-scale” to match the automated text and voice communication that comes from Artificial Intelligence. More on the importance of live interaction below…

(P.S. I will be speaking on a panel, “Real AI for Real Sales” in San Francisco at the Sales 3.0 Conference on March 12-13. Additional featured speakers are Keith KrachNancy NardinGerhard GschwandtnerAlice HeimanElay Cohen and more.)

2. COMMUNITIES EMBRACE LIVE INTERACTIONS OVER SOCIAL MEDIA – “ …top companies realize that building great communities engenders long-term brand loyalty. Nothing drives strong communities better than in-person and live interactions.”

Bravo! Communities need the freedom to organically connect live, learn socially, and bond over shared experiences, just like they would at in-person events. It should be in every brand’s customer engagement strategy to provide an online forum that represents those in-person dynamics at internet scale. Social media is not going away anytime soon, and communities will continue to learn “on-demand”. The video that comes from those authentic interactions can be both a powerful social media and social learning content asset. More on social learning below….

3. SOCIAL LEARNING OUTPERFORMS REMOTE LEARNING – “Social-learning promotes autonomy and self-direction, increasing overall learner engagement. It can also be a welcome departure from online courses which can be lonely, isolated experiences that lack engagement. Learners do not feel the presence of other learners in the experience.”

As a professional who has built a career out of selling webinars, this one really hits home. Social Learning may be one of humankind’s oldest forms of learning but somehow hasn’t translated completely to webinars, which are predominately used for employee and customer engagement. Let’s face it, webinar technologies like Webex or GoToMeeting can actually make your audience feel more isolated and lonely. If we barely tolerate “death by powerpoint” why are we still stuck in an online version of it? Your online community is gravitating towards more engaging ways to learn. As they start to experience social learning online, it’s the face-to-face interactions with experts and peers they will seek more than your ppt slide deck.

I hate to say it, but it is finally time to say “Death to Webinars”?  

4. LIVE STREAMING VIDEO CONTENT GAINS MOMENTUM – “Customers demand real connections, with real people. Live video has the ability to give many businesses a face AND a soul.”

Amen! Live video is a critical component to connect to today’s online audience because that is the way they want to engage. Even as we aim to personalize content to the right audience at the right time, your customers and employees are still seeking “real connections, with real people” in their “critical moments of truth” with your brand.

5. SERVE YOUR COMMUNITY NOT JUST BUYERS – Analyst Jon Reed writes marketers also “should be thinking in terms of “buyer’s community” or “buyer’s network.” Reed notes that “buyers aren’t always buying but they are always learning” and “we shouldn’t only be targeting buyers.”

There you have it. As we begin to depend on a troop of “bots” or “intelligent agents” to personalize and distribute content aimed at advancing a buyer through a buying journey, our human effort will shift towards producing the brand trust and loyalty that will strengthen our entire online community, so that when they are ready, they will look to us as a trusted resource to solve their problem.

The businesses that will thrive in 2018 and beyond will be those that can balance personalized engagement from artificial intelligence with online platforms that deliver the community pillars of human-to-human, in-person event and social learning dynamics at internet scale.

I’m excited to be speaking at the Sales 3.0 Conference this March and look forward to seeing you there. For more info and tickets click here or contact me directly at scott@shindigevents.com.

 

NEWS
NYT’s “The Post-Text Future”: Are Video Chat Events The Answer?
02/12/2018

Friday NYT’s Welcome to the Post-Text Future article describes the new media reality.

Surviving may depend on right-sizing expense associated with video production while also engaging an audience in a new exciting way.

TALK RADIO came of age when radio found itself with timeslots with impossibly low CPMs.

REALITY TV was born when cable found itself unable to sustain the production cost of quality of scripted programing.

Both formats were soon recognized as also being compelling new modes of entertainment, equally popular with audiences as the more expensive productions that were previous gold standards. These new formats uncovered audiences unending and previously untapped desire to be part of the show.

Shindig video chat events; (interactive newsmaker interviews, weeks in review, Q&As, town halls, and forums) derive their appeal from the same dynamics. Audience’s desire for meaningful engagement; Advertisers desire for demonstrable evidence of such.

In an age where people (advertisers and audiences both) prize authenticity above all else, nothing can feel more authentic than the unscripted dialogues between personalities and their public that Shindig uniquely enables.

And no format has the potential for timeliness, relevance, or cost-effectiveness than live online events: able to be convened with a tweet; produced almost instantly in the cloud; and with hosts, guests, and participants all on devices from wherever they happen to be.

If your organization is ready to explore the future online video chat events holds we hope you will reach out.

Get in touch with the Shindig Team.

NEWS
How Publishers Can Thrive Under Facebook’s New Algorithm
02/06/2018

Live interactive online events around news content maybe THE answer to Facebook’s plan to de-prioritize branded content in favor of friends and family and Shindig is the only platform where you can create large-scale online events that are just as interactive and memorable as real life.

According to Facebook there are three ways to ensure your content makes the cut with this new algorithm:

1) Be authentic
2) Create meaningful interactions, like long, thoughtful comments
3) Engage the friends and family network.

Here’s how Shindig’s unique technology delivers on all three and more.

Your brand creates a stimulating conversation around a topic that is relevant to you and your audience and invites 1,000 fans to join the conversation LIVE on your custom URL (you can involve sponsors, if you like). During your real-time video chat, you welcome audience members up on your virtual stage to ask your journalists and/or newsmakers their own questions. Lastly, you gain maximum exposure by simulcasting your event on Facebook’s choice feature, Facebook Live receiving six times the interactions of non-Live videos.

What’s more authentic than a lively forum of engagement that liberates your audience with face-to face-interactions at internet scale? Image the number of long comments generated by such real-time conversations! Think of the potential reach when influencers and audience members share the event on their personal Facebook pages with an exuberant “watch me in this clip!”.

Creating a world where your audience expects the most exciting, most interactive content directly from you is now more accessible than ever. Shindig requires no download, no install, is totally mobile, and is remarkably easy to use, brand, and promote. It comes equipped with monetizing capabilities and customizable backgrounds and widgets perfect for sponsorship, branding, and in context e-commerce.

Check out some recent events hosted by big names on Shindig: MIT Technology Review, Turner Classic Movies & BSU, and the NYC Deputy Mayor’s Office.

Ready to host your own Shindig? Get in touch with the Shindig Team.

NEWS
Inside Higher Ed & Online Learning Consortium to Host Interactive Interview Series at OLC Accelerate 2017
11/09/2017

Inside Higher Ed, the online media company for higher education and go-to source of online news, thought leadership, and opinion, is hosting a two-day series of fully interactive interviews with experts and thought leaders in higher education technology at the Online Learning Consortium’s annual international conference, OLC Accelerate. These interviews will be powered by Shindig, the premier video chat event provider.

Attendees will be able to interact with each other over video chat during the interviews, as well as partake in video chat Q&As with the interviewees and ask questions throughout.

The interviews will be moderated by Inside Higher Ed Editor & Co-Founder Doug Lederman, and will occur over two days: Wednesday, November 15th, from 11:30am – 1:30pm ET and Thursday, November 16th, from 12:00pm – 2:00pm ET.

The growing list of confirmed interviewees includes Curtis Bonk, Professor at Indiana University and Owner of CourseShare; Phil Hill, Co-Publisher of the e-Literate blog, Co-Producer of e-Literate TV, and Partner at MindWires Consulting; Rolin Moe, Assistant Professor and the Director of the Institute for Academic Innovation at Seattle Pacific University; and Jill Buban, Senior Director of Research & Innovation at the ‎Online Learning Consortium; with more being added.

“We are excited to be partnering with Inside Higher Ed and Shindig to extend the reach of the thought leadership that will be on hand next week at OLC Accelerate to those who are unable to be there in person,” said OLC’s Buban. “We thank our community of digital learning experts who will be sharing their insights through these interviews, and we look forward to some tremendously interactive discussions.”

“OLC’s conference is a key gathering place for the most thoughtful and creative people in digital learning, and Inside Higher Ed (and our “Inside Digital Learning” newsletter) are excited about taking advantage of the Shindig platform to bring the innovative ideas of these smart people to those who can’t be in Orlando with us,” Lederman said.

“The Shindig team is thrilled for this partnership and the chance to power more thought-provoking conversations in the education space, as well as foster new connections between interested people who couldn’t make it in person,” said Christopher Downs, Shindig’s Vice President of Business Development for Higher Education.

RSVP for the first in this series at https://gateway.shindig.com/event/accelerate.

NEWS
Cornell University & the University at Buffalo Partner on Shindig Event Series to Discuss Women In Tech
10/16/2017

Shindig is proud to partner with the UB Women in STEM Cooperative on “The Next 10 Years: Helping STEM Students Thrive,” a series of video chat events on inclusion and improving the status of women in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). The Cooperative itself is a collaboration between the University at Buffalo and Cornell University and features the perspectives of national thought leaders and institutional representatives about expanding the participation of women in undergraduate STEM education at different scales.

The series features monthly events until January, each featuring a new set of experts and opening the floor to questions from attendees. Participants are encouraged to join the conversation, ask questions, share their stories, build their networks, and further their understanding of topics including:

  • Innovations that can expand female or underrepresented minority student participation and success in STEM undergraduate education
  • Effective evidence-based STEM teaching practices commonly adopted at research universities
  • Unique institutional and cultural challenges to achieving STEM diversity
  • What difference at scale looks like

The first event in the series took place last week, with great engagement and feedback from the attendees. There are three more scheduled as follows:

Don’t miss out on this groundbreaking series and sign up today!

NEWS
Shindig Offers Free Video Chat Classrooms and Meeting Spaces to South Texas Schools & Colleges
09/06/2017

Shindig is proud to offer free video chat classrooms and meeting spaces to all educational institutions affected by flooding from Hurricane Harvey. With the academic year beginning, many school systems, both K-12 and higher ed, will face a shortage of physical classrooms and disruption due to the dislocation of staff, teachers and students.

As Marci Powell, former president of the Texas Distance Learning Association (TxDLA), put it:

Now is the time to lean into distance learning for overcoming this disaster. Through state-of-the-art virtual learning environments such as Shindig, we can start the semester and keep classes going.”

To that end, Shindig is offering its technology for FREE to educational institutions for virtual classrooms and large-scale parental or faculty outreach.

With Shindig, dislocated teachers and dislocated students will be able to meet for classes with all the same interactivity that they would enjoy in their physical classrooms if such were available.

The tech enables an online teacher to move seamlessly between addressing the whole class to circulating around the class to coach students individually. It also allows students to form teams and discuss the class material privately with one another in smaller groups just like the would in their physical facilities.

Similarly, Shindig enables large-scale town halls or all hands meetings in which up to 1,000 audience members can participate, both addressing the entire gathering or discussing issues in small groups.

The technology is also being made available to relief organizations for planning meetings and community outreach.

Any institutions interested in using Shindig’s technology are encouraged to attend any of the upcoming scheduled info sessions available for sign up by emailing info@shindig.com.

NEWS
FantasyPros Starts Hosting Premium Forums With Experts on Shindig
08/29/2017

FantasyPros is one of the premier online resources and communities for all things fantasy sports. It’s branched out from being a forum for fantasy sports fans to bringing on its own in-house experts, write articles and produce content aimed at informing FantasyPros readership/subscribers how to win their fantasy leagues.

FantasyPros started using Shindig as a forum to host exclusive, gated Q&As for a handpicked group of premium subscribers with their resident experts, Mike Tagliere and Bobby Sylvester. In the forums, subscribers ask Mike and Bobby a series of rapid-fire questions about their fantasy football dilemmas. Not only have the Shindig Q&A events added value for existing premium subscribers, but they also incentivize would-be subscribers to opt for a premium subscription because it gives them access to immediate actionable feedback for their lineups.

NEWS
Thanks to our virtual attendees of the EdSurge ASU + GSV Interview Series!
05/22/2017

On the week of May 8th, 2017, anyone and everyone with a vested interest in learning and talent innovation packed their bags and headed to Salt Lake City to attend this year’s ASU + GSV Summit. Shindig was certainly in attendance, and not just to mingle with the learning community, but to also power an interactive interview series, produced on-site by leading edtech media outlet, EdSurge. The series featured some of the most influential thought leaders, top executives, and authority figures within the business of providing or enabling education. Some big names included: Chip Paucek (Co-Founder and CEO of 2U, Inc.), Scott Pulsipher (President of Western Governors University), and Jessie Woolley-Wilson (President and CEO of DreamBox Learning), to name just a few. Thanks to all those that tuned in and participated! And for those of you that missed out on the live event, no worries! Follow this blog, or any of our social media pages (FB + Twitter), to stay tuned for when we upload the event recordings.

NEWS
Shindig earns Frost & Sullivan’s 2022 Global New Product Innovation Award in the virtual events market
03/25/2022


Frost & Sullivan: 2022 New product innovation

Best Practices Criteria for World-Class Performance


Frost & Sullivan applies a rigorous analytical process to evaluate multiple nominees for each award
category before determining the final award recipient. The process involves a detailed evaluation of best
practices criteria across two dimensions for each nominated company. Shindig excels in many of the
criteria in the virtual events space.

Match to Needs


Virtual events and hybrid events are highly complex to organize and execute. As a result, many virtual
event platforms are rigid and support largely formulaic events. Innumerable surveys on the web report
customer dissatisfaction with current choices in virtual event platforms. Sponsors and attendees want
true, quality networking, but many platforms are rife with functionalities that come up short.
Some platforms show all event registrants as attendees, with networking opportunities that
require participants to seek individual permission to connect to the other person as part of a
multistep process However, these platforms list anyone who has RSVP’d as a participant even
though they may not have actually joined the event. This wastes participants’ time in trying to
connect to others and gives them “false negatives” in which they believe the connection
request was rejected when it was never actually received. Even when successful, the result is that
such follow-on meetings are anything but the instantaneous spur-of-the-moment interactions that
might occur in person. More problematic still, these listings of people to potentially connect with also
are easily “scrapable”. This exposes one of the event hosts’ most valuable assets to being cut, pasted,
and inserted into any number of automated systems to yield a complete list of names, titles, and emails
to be sold to marketers. Certain other platforms also position participant avatars who must search
virtual worlds to find one another as engaging and compelling, but event participants often find such
interfaces distracting, and unproductive.
Breakout sessions, be they under the rubric of tables or “breakout rooms”, while great for general group
discussion are not themselves conducive to productive business conversation which by its nature
requires privacy amongst the parties of interest without overhearing by strangers to the conversation.
Breakouts inhibit real, substantive conduct of business by forcing such potential business discussions to
occur in front of others limits them from being anything but general and high-level. The opportunity to
speak candidly with just the right one or two people without being overheard by others; to pull
someone aside, as it were, to speak candidly with some assurance that the conversation is not for
general public consumption is a key feature missing from even some of the most widely used platforms.
“Speed dating” as a networking tactic is often equally problematic as it randomly or loosely matches
participants by general interest or topics, rather than on more essential criteria, potentially creating
unnecessary, awkward, and time-wasting conversations. Many who wish to network do not necessarily
wish to be locked into conversations of set duration with no graceful way to excuse oneself from the
conversation or to hang around through unproductive conversations in the hope that another pairing
might be more productive.
Unlike other virtual event platform providers, the New York-based Shindig remains steadfastly focused
on what matters most to both event audience and organizer: the ability to conduct ad-hoc, flexible
discussions that users can create themselves only with whom they want. The Shindig Video Chat, which
now supports up to 12 participants per chat session, enables participants to launch natural
conversations with those they want to network with and seamlessly add others to these conversations.
Networking Prompt automating pairs audience members into two-person private chats. Other features
that differentiate Shindig’s engagement and interaction functionality include Virtual Backstage and
Open Podium. Virtual Backstage allows admins to prepare speakers, checking their audio and video
before bringing them to the stage, thereby averting all on stage “can you hear me???” moments. It also
allows hosts to vet prospective audience contributors before bringing them up to the stage as well. A
new Picture in Picture feature enables presenters to remain visible while sharing their screen. The
exclusive Open Podium feature enables hosts to open the floor like a town hall and accept questions or
contributions from any audience participant of up to several thousand on a first-come-first-serve basis.
Frost & Sullivan praises Shindig for empowering real networking with its platform that enables people to
navigate conversations, scan the room, find people of interest easily, and seize the moment to make a
connection through messaging, video chat, and more.

Reliability


Shindig’s executive leadership takes pride in the company’s roster of clients and guests and continues to
serve as the platform organizations trust for high-value, high-stakes events. The company recently
enabled the first lady of the United States to address a hybrid conference and facilitated all ensuing
discussions among virtual participants. In summer 2021, Shindig enabled world-renowned pop star
Rihanna to invite 4,000 fans to a SavageX Pride Celebration with performances by multiple disc jockeys
(DJ) and other special guests.
Shindig supports creative event hosts to push the envelope of virtual experiences. From multi-day,
multi-session virtual conferences to one-off galas or marketing activations; from better client success trainings to all-hands meetings; and from remote office worker meeting places to virtual town halls, the
Shindig platform addresses a wide variety of use cases and formats. The platform’s ability to innovate
and execute events reliably attracts event hosts from government, enterprise, education,
entertainment, and non-profit sectors to stake their brands on the capabilities of the Shindig platform.
Shindig’s customers include SalesForce, Informa, Accenture, NOAA, the French Embassy to the United
States, SAP Pennsylvania State Education Association, Tracfone, Amazon, The Conference Board, Yale,
Netflix, Hearst, Booz Allen Hamilton and many others. With its ease of use, flexibility, customization, and
rich interaction capabilities, the Shindig platform represents the quintessential solution for organizations
to connect and build relationships with and for their core audiences.

Quality


Virtual events should be much more than the replication and transfer of physical events to online
sessions. Shindig continues to expand its platform’s functionality with unique and patented capabilities
that enhance the quality of event experiences. As demand to improve access to multi-session and hybrid
events increases, platforms must deliver efficient and inclusive events.
For example, Shindig introduced a customizable Virtual Lobby in summer 2021 to address multi-session
and hybrid events requirements. Specifically, the feature offers a venue between sessions that allow
audience participants to gather and network while simultaneously browsing an interactive program
guide to determine which session to attend next. It also enables hybrid event organizers to avoid losing
their online audiences to “dead air” in the live streams between in-person presentations and allows inperson audiences on their mobile phones to network with the virtual attendees on their home or office
computers.
Shindig is not attempting to replicate yesterday’s in-person or virtual events. Instead, the company aims
to improve and push the boundaries of both events as the world embraces the next normal.

Positioning


Shindig empowers event organizers to prioritize the event’s quality and audience engagement. Shindig
offers an end-to-end feature set of paywall (if desired), guest list, and a wealth of customization options
across RSVPs, consents, reminders, backgrounds, metadata fields, and splash pages in which
asynchronous materials reside. This breadth of capabilities is inconsistently supported across competing
alternatives.
The Shindig platform is lightweight and easily integrates with other components in an organization’s
event technology stack, allowing customers to effortlessly leverage a broader ecosystem of assets to
enrich their event content and data capture. The platform is compatible with components such as
registration application programming interfaces (API); single sign-on (SSO) services; Zapier for data
integration from customer relationship management (CRM), marketing, email, and other platforms;
web-based real-time messaging protocol (RTMP) feeds to incorporate high-performance streaming
audio, video, and data; and any application with an inline frame (IFrame) to bring in HyperText Markup
Language (HTML) documents from websites to easily enrich the virtual event experience. Additional
features to enrich the value of captured data include new Custom Conset Checkboxes that allow for specific permissions for remarketing and other audience opt-ins, and Zapier integration for data
migration to easily make event and attendee data accessible and usable within sales and marketing
workflows.

Design


Shindig designed its platform to deliver virtual event capabilities that people desire: highly engaging
experiences for participants and more business value for event organizers.
The platform facilitates hosts in creating memorable experiences for their brands, products, and services
with customizable backgrounds. Dynamic calls to action (CTA) on the platform encourage audience
participation and input while enabling hosts to learn more about their audience to improve the
experience continually. Shindig offers Dynamic Custom CTA for content downloads, purchases, surveys,
sponsor sign-ups, and more, with which participants can interact without disrupting their viewing or
listening experience.
The platform’s custom splash pages host all event information and maximize the event’s promotability
with one web link for audience RSVP and attendance. Users enjoy intuitive, friction-free access to events
instead of searching for the event link or password in different places.
Shindig enhances audience engagement by making the platform’s functionalities available on mobile
devices. Participants can join the event from wherever they choose to and interact with and consume
content in formats and layouts that work best for them with the platform’s multiple presentation views
with drag-and-drop controls. Frost & Sullivan commends Shindig for creating a flexible and robust
platform.

Conclusion


Shindig transforms the virtual events space by creating memorable online experiences based on its
sophisticated, long-term deep understanding of what customers want from in-person events. As virtual
experiences continue to replace physical events, competition in the market is intensifying. However,
many platforms are not flexible and present formulaic, rigid events. By focusing on making each event
uniquely engaging, Shindig stands out from the competition.
With its strong overall performance, Shindig earns Frost & Sullivan’s 2022 Global New Product
Innovation Award in the virtual events market.

What You Need to Know about the New Product Innovation


Recognition
Frost & Sullivan’s New Product Innovation Award recognizes the company that offers a new product or
the solution that uniquely addresses key customer challenges.

Best Practices Award Analysis

For the New Product Innovation Award, Frost & Sullivan analysts independently evaluated the criteria
listed below.

New Product AttributesCustomer Impact
Match to Needs: Customer needs directly
influence and inspire product design and
positioning
Reliability: Product consistently meets or
exceeds customer performance expectations
Quality: Product offers best-in-class quality with
a full complement of features and functionality
Positioning: Product serves a unique, unmet
need that competitors cannot easily replicate
Design: Product features an innovative design
that enhances both visual appeal and ease of
use



Price/Performance Value: Products or services
provide the best value for the price compared
to similar market offerings
Customer Purchase Experience: Quality of the
purchase experience assures customers that
they are buying the optimal solution for
addressing their unique needs and constraints
Customer Ownership Experience: Customers
proudly own the company’s product or service
and have a positive experience throughout the
life of the product or service
Customer Service Experience: Customer service
is accessible, fast, stress-free, and high quality
Brand Equity: Customers perceive the brand
positively and exhibit high brand loyalty

About Frost & Sullivan


Frost & Sullivan is the Growth Pipeline Company™. We power our clients to a future shaped by growth.
Our Growth Pipeline as a Service™ provides the CEO and the CEO’s growth team with a continuous and
rigorous platform of growth opportunities, ensuring long-term success. To achieve positive outcomes,
our team leverages over 60 years of experience, coaching organizations of all types and sizes across 6
continents with our proven best practices. To power your Growth Pipeline future, visit Frost & Sullivan
at http://www.frost.com.

The Growth Pipeline Engine™

Frost & Sullivan’s proprietary model to systematically
create ongoing growth opportunities and strategies for our
clients are fuelled by the Innovation Generator™.
Learn more.

The Innovation Generator™

broadest range of innovative growth opportunities, most
of which occur at the points of these perspectives.


© Frost & Sullivan 2022

NEWS
Shindig recognized for it’s value to remote & hybrid workforce transformation

Thank you to Robert Enderle for his Shindig analysis posted on TG Daily. We appreciate his recognition that “Shindig stands out by finally addressing one of the most annoying problems historically with video conferencing: building and maintaining relationships.” 

We couldn’t agree more. Whether it’s our full virtual meeting & event platform or our newly released Watercoolr product, Shindig is bringing back the in-person collaborations that are critical to productivity and paramount to growth with virtual lounges where remote & hybrid teams can form multiple private video chats in the same room, fostering community, and supporting the casual, ad hoc conversations that helps companies grow.

NEWS
Check out our latest Press Release

Shindig Announces Launch of Watercoolr

March 24, 2022

New York, NY. – March 24, 2022  In response to studies like Microsoft’s “The Effects of Remote Work on Collaboration among Information Workers,” which documents remote workers’ increasing feelings of disconnection and its negative impact on productivity, Shindig announced the release of Watercoolr, virtual lounges for hybrid workforces.

Watercoolr allows organizations to set up their own secure 24/7 virtual meeting space where teams can gather for coffee breaks, ad hoc meetups, and informal get-togethers to share in free form conversations that might otherwise previously have occurred in the hallways, elevator lobbies or common areas of their physical offices. 

“Pre-pandemic, managers could rely on informal networks created by their physical spaces to ensure that one corporate hand generally knew what the other was doing. That can no longer be taken for granted in today’s hybrid workplace,” said Steve Gottlieb, founder and CEO. 

Unlike standard video conferencing where all participate in a single conversation, the Shindig technology uniquely allows an array of private conversations to go on concurrently, with one able to view but not hear the other conversation groups. Co-workers can easily navigate groups, popping in and out of conversations and generally engaging in the same sort of ad hoc interactions that were commonplace at the physical office. 

In addition to 24/7 deployment, organizations may also organize specific meet-up times for departmental or interdepartmental get-togethers. The platform allows social occasions like new hire welcomes, personal or departmental milestones, celebrations of achieving goals, and of course after work letting loose, to resume their place in the fabric of virtual/hybrid organizational life.

“Video conferencing is an integral part of many people’s lives, and companies rushed to fill the need by relying on slight and simple variations of a product. This has created a host of providers with little market differentiation and persistent flaws,” said Rob Enderle, President and Principal Analyst with the Enderle Group. “Watercoolr has solved a key problem that no other company has addressed, and that is how to bring casual conversations and creativity back into the workplace, replicating the in-person experience in the closest way possible.” 

Watercoolr was designed to help organizations combat the increasing fragmentation, siloing of critical information, isolation of team members, and general deleterious effects of remote and hybrid work on innovation and operational efficiency. Microsoft’s study of 60,000-plus remote workers concluded “employees’ needs for informal contact and spontaneous interaction are not being met in a strictly work-from-home environment.” 

The Watercoolr virtual lounge supplements traditional institutional video conferencing solutions like Zoom or Teams, with informal, less structured virtual experiences; recognizing the essential importance of informal backchannels and feedback loops to organizations’ well-being and efficient operations.

Gottlieb added, “Watercoolr was devised because of key clients sharing with us their realization that those informal, unstructured communications were essential to their organization’s performance and their demands for a solution that would foster such interactions amongst the hybrid workforce.”

Please see here for a video showcasing Watercoolr. For more information, details on pricing or to request a demo, please visit the website here.

About Watercoolr

Watercoolr is a 24/7 virtual space where coworkers can check-in, strike up a conversation, or alternatively, organize specific meet-up times for departmental or interdepartmental get-togethers. Watercoolr is built upon the state of the virtual events technology pioneered by Shindig, known for their work with global companies such as Amazon, Hearst and Salesforce. High-profile events include Rihanna’s Fenty Brand Virtual Pride Celebration, Accenture Global Meetings and the Connecticut State Democratic Convention. Shindig’s proprietary event tech is underpinned by 28 US Patents for such features as “Work the Room” Networking, Virtual Backstage, TownHall Open Podiums, and Virtual Lobby. It operates with SOC 2 Type II security.

NEWS
Shindig Launches Virtual Lobby Functionality, Enabling ‘Work the Room’ Networking for Virtual and Hybrid Events
06/28/2021

PRESS RELEASE: New York, June 28, 2021 – – Addressing the clamoring need for better virtual and hybrid event networking, Shindig today introduces a patented virtual lobby functionality; a virtual experience where event attendees can mingle, network and conduct private business on the platform.

The innovation is designed for both virtual events and hybrid events. 

  • – For virtual events it allows a meeting place where all those attending individual sessions, panels, tracks or exhibit booths in a Shindig-enabled event, to navigate to a single shared experience and meet up, just as they might if the event were in person. One of the key additional differentiators of this feature is that all the private conversations can go on while the participants are also able to peruse and interact with the conference program directory, discussing with friends and colleagues what session, panel, track, or booth they might attend together next while jointly exploring the full conference guide..
  • – For hybrid events the function adds two critical new elements. First, it provides a venue for in-person guests to engage with online participants freely on their mobile phones, critically uniting both audiences together for purposes of private conversation. Second, it helps event hosts avoid “dead air” in their livestreams and provides opportunities for the online audience to engage during breaks required between the in-person sessions, which otherwise would cause the online audience to be lost and otherwise leave the event. 

In the 2021 Event Tech Innovation Report, the EventMB publication cited ‘the biggest challenge for planners in virtual events is how to keep attendees engaged’. 

In response to this need, Steve Gottlieb, CEO & Founder of Shindig, Inc. said, “while many platforms claim that one-on-one appointments, speed dating or text interactions are the same as networking, those just don’t compare to real life behavior people want. Working the room, running into an old friend, being casually introduced to a mutual contact, or opportunistically pulling someone aside who has a free moment, are the types of in-person networking encounters that Shindig now recreates online.  With Shindig’s Virtual Lobby we have brought all the spontaneity and serendipity of in-person networking to the virtual experience”.

Virtual events also promise to play a significant role in hybrid events, as they can allow in-person attendees to take advantage of the opportunity to engage with the potentially larger audience attending online, and vice versa. 

Shindig’s Virtual Lobby is completely unique in allowing free-form interactions just like those at any in-person event. Every participant in the Virtual Lobby can see who is talking to whom and who is free for conversation. Conversations can merge and individuals can easily move from conversation to conversation to work the room. And just like an in-person event lobby, the Shindig lobby is perfect for sponsor messaging, video displays, dynamic CTA’s and other activities that can be facilitated in a conference reception space. 

NEWS
New York Times Reviews Shindig Enabled Theater
12/04/2020

The New York Times recognizes Shindig enabled theater company prevailing over Covid. So proud to have helped This is Not A Theatre Company pioneer new online theater experiences that are more than simple livestreams.  Congrats to Erin Mee and her creative team in turning crisis into artistic opportunity.

NEWS
D.C Power Brokers are Using Shindig to Bring Life Back to the Party
11/12/2020

Thank you to the Washington Post and Roxanne Roberts for recognizing Shindig’s unique ability to facilitate memorable virtual events. So pleased to have enabled this sensational virtual convening of dignitaries, ambassadors and business leaders. Congrats to Meridian on your flawless execution and the stellar 850k raise. Diplomacy and international cooperation could certainly not be more important at this time.

Find out what Shindig can do for your organization today: click here to schedule a demo.

NEWS
Enable The Best Virtual Learning Experience with Shindig
10/08/2020

Fascinating article in Fast Company from September regarding Zoom’s failings for virtual learning asks the question: why does [Zoom] still feel like a corporate meeting app that has been MacGyvered into an education platform?

Because it is. Zoom was never designed to enable the dynamics of a classroom experience.

Shindig, on the other hand, was designed from the ground up for flexible interactivity. With Shindig, teachers can address the whole class, cold call or take student’s video chat questions. They can also circulate through the class to provide individualized private attention to students who need it, all without having to worry about Zoom-bombing (Shindig was designed to prevent that too).

And beyond better classrooms, Shindig enables the full 360 of online education. In K-12 this includes parents meetings, where parents in different locations can attend together to discuss in real time; professional development, where active participation is critical; departmental and district meetings where the floor might be opened and or video chat contributions solicited from any of 1000 attendees; and more.

Don’t wait for Zoom to try and add incremental improvements. Start with something designed to address educators’ needs from the get go. Shindig.

NEWS
HQ Surpasses 2 Million Live; Time to Rethink the Power of Live Online Events?
03/08/2018

Oscar Night was a big night for Frances McDormand, Jordan Peele, and Guillermo del Toro, but perhaps one of the most noteworthy and least recognized winners of the night was HQ Trivia. At approximately 9:06 pm ET, just after Dunkirk won the golden trophy for Best Sound Editing, some 2.18 million people were drawn from whatever they were doing, or possibly watching, by the siren call of Scott Rogowsky aka Quiz Daddy, aka Edward Quizzerhands, aka Quizzie McGuire, hosting HQ Trivia, the mobile Trivia show.

Let’s put HQ’s Sunday night audience in perspective for a moment.

2.18 million is more than the audience that typically tunes into Trump’s beloved morning program Fox and Friends (or CNN for that matter). It’s also more than the average viewership of Jimmy K’s other gig, Jimmy Kimmel Live.

From another perspective, 2.18 million live is over a hundred Madison Square Garden sellouts at once.

Indeed, the audience HQ got is more than the entire digital paid subscription of each of the nation’s major print outlets (WSJ, Washington Post, LA Times, USA Today) with the exception of the New York Times (now reportedly up to 2.6 million paid subscribers).

So, in light of HQ’s momentous success in aggregating live audience, is it finally time to retire the myth that audiences don’t respond to live online events?

For the last decade, media companies have persuaded themselves that their online audiences are simply not interested in engaging live. The perceived failure of media’s experiments with Google Hangouts circa 2013 and 2014, the flash in the pan of Meerkat and then Periscope, and the more recent disappointments around Facebook Live have all been blamed on the audience’s purported lack of interest in live events.  

The success of HQ suggests that judgment may be premature. Perhaps it is the nature of the media’s live offerings and specifically their lack of audience engagement that have doomed past attempts at live online events.

HQ’s success demonstrates, more than anything, that audience participation can trump more static TV studio type production for the internet. That spontaneous off the cuff interactions with a live audience is an irresistible force, sometimes more powerful in its appeal than the $$$ sometimes thrown at “production value”

While playing HQ, one is very much aware that it is decidedly not a TV show. Passive viewers in former TVLand have now been replaced by active participants out there in iPhone/Androidland and it is the interactions of these participants who are now the focus, such as their collective successes or failures on full view as well  as the conversations among friends as they play on phones side by side with one another.)

Sure, the possibility of winning the $20 or so dollars a small elite group gets deposited nightly in their online wallet is enticing; but it is no accident that majority of the show is Scott’s banter, his mangling the names of participants as he attempts to call out an impossible number of them; his commenting on random texts, sharing birthday wishes, and poking fun of groups of participants to the delight of others. It is our involvement with Scott, our desire to be personally acknowledged and/or perchance celebrated on the closing review of winners that keeps us there until the end and coming back for more.

We certainly could not have predicted HQ’s success. Who knows whether two years ago the founders themselves imagined their ability to drag 2 million away from Hollywood’s greatest night to play trivia. But they have clearly created a new paradigm that demands recognition.

It should be abundantly clear to all in media that live online events can compete at scale with pre-recorded content of all varieties and that a secret ingredient to making this possible is audience participation.

In celebrating HQ’s hard-earned achievement, we are excited to enable other creatives to similarly pioneer new live online experiences. The Shindig large scale video chat platform offers media entrepreneurs the opportunity to engage audiences in wholly new ways, empowering the transformation of static audience/spectators into active personalities who can directly engage with hosts as well as their fellow audience members.

If you’re ready to join the live phenomenon, jump into the post-text era, and take advantage of the immense participation that large-scale online events can generate, check out Shindig’s large scale video chat technology.

NEWS
5 Ways for Businesses to Balance Automation and Authenticity in 2018
02/27/2018

I recently came across a Forbes Article from contributor Ian Altman who is a strategic advisor, author and internationally sought keynote speaker on integrity-based sales and business development. Ian outlines the top business trends that will drive success in 2018 for your company. Below are the five I’m most excited about:

1. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE DRIVES CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE – Leading companies are embracing AI to perform repeatable, redundant tasks and to process large amounts of data not to avoid human interaction, but to enrich it.”

Yes! In today’s age of “engagement automation” we will need to build trust and authenticity more than ever and AI will help us understand where and when to provide that. The trick is providing live face-to-face communication “at-scale” to match the automated text and voice communication that comes from Artificial Intelligence. More on the importance of live interaction below…

(P.S. I will be speaking on a panel, “Real AI for Real Sales” in San Francisco at the Sales 3.0 Conference on March 12-13. Additional featured speakers are Keith KrachNancy NardinGerhard GschwandtnerAlice HeimanElay Cohen and more.)

2. COMMUNITIES EMBRACE LIVE INTERACTIONS OVER SOCIAL MEDIA – “ …top companies realize that building great communities engenders long-term brand loyalty. Nothing drives strong communities better than in-person and live interactions.”

Bravo! Communities need the freedom to organically connect live, learn socially, and bond over shared experiences, just like they would at in-person events. It should be in every brand’s customer engagement strategy to provide an online forum that represents those in-person dynamics at internet scale. Social media is not going away anytime soon, and communities will continue to learn “on-demand”. The video that comes from those authentic interactions can be both a powerful social media and social learning content asset. More on social learning below….

3. SOCIAL LEARNING OUTPERFORMS REMOTE LEARNING – “Social-learning promotes autonomy and self-direction, increasing overall learner engagement. It can also be a welcome departure from online courses which can be lonely, isolated experiences that lack engagement. Learners do not feel the presence of other learners in the experience.”

As a professional who has built a career out of selling webinars, this one really hits home. Social Learning may be one of humankind’s oldest forms of learning but somehow hasn’t translated completely to webinars, which are predominately used for employee and customer engagement. Let’s face it, webinar technologies like Webex or GoToMeeting can actually make your audience feel more isolated and lonely. If we barely tolerate “death by powerpoint” why are we still stuck in an online version of it? Your online community is gravitating towards more engaging ways to learn. As they start to experience social learning online, it’s the face-to-face interactions with experts and peers they will seek more than your ppt slide deck.

I hate to say it, but it is finally time to say “Death to Webinars”?  

4. LIVE STREAMING VIDEO CONTENT GAINS MOMENTUM – “Customers demand real connections, with real people. Live video has the ability to give many businesses a face AND a soul.”

Amen! Live video is a critical component to connect to today’s online audience because that is the way they want to engage. Even as we aim to personalize content to the right audience at the right time, your customers and employees are still seeking “real connections, with real people” in their “critical moments of truth” with your brand.

5. SERVE YOUR COMMUNITY NOT JUST BUYERS – Analyst Jon Reed writes marketers also “should be thinking in terms of “buyer’s community” or “buyer’s network.” Reed notes that “buyers aren’t always buying but they are always learning” and “we shouldn’t only be targeting buyers.”

There you have it. As we begin to depend on a troop of “bots” or “intelligent agents” to personalize and distribute content aimed at advancing a buyer through a buying journey, our human effort will shift towards producing the brand trust and loyalty that will strengthen our entire online community, so that when they are ready, they will look to us as a trusted resource to solve their problem.

The businesses that will thrive in 2018 and beyond will be those that can balance personalized engagement from artificial intelligence with online platforms that deliver the community pillars of human-to-human, in-person event and social learning dynamics at internet scale.

I’m excited to be speaking at the Sales 3.0 Conference this March and look forward to seeing you there. For more info and tickets click here or contact me directly at scott@shindigevents.com.

 

NEWS
NYT’s “The Post-Text Future”: Are Video Chat Events The Answer?
02/12/2018

Friday NYT’s Welcome to the Post-Text Future article describes the new media reality.

Surviving may depend on right-sizing expense associated with video production while also engaging an audience in a new exciting way.

TALK RADIO came of age when radio found itself with timeslots with impossibly low CPMs.

REALITY TV was born when cable found itself unable to sustain the production cost of quality of scripted programing.

Both formats were soon recognized as also being compelling new modes of entertainment, equally popular with audiences as the more expensive productions that were previous gold standards. These new formats uncovered audiences unending and previously untapped desire to be part of the show.

Shindig video chat events; (interactive newsmaker interviews, weeks in review, Q&As, town halls, and forums) derive their appeal from the same dynamics. Audience’s desire for meaningful engagement; Advertisers desire for demonstrable evidence of such.

In an age where people (advertisers and audiences both) prize authenticity above all else, nothing can feel more authentic than the unscripted dialogues between personalities and their public that Shindig uniquely enables.

And no format has the potential for timeliness, relevance, or cost-effectiveness than live online events: able to be convened with a tweet; produced almost instantly in the cloud; and with hosts, guests, and participants all on devices from wherever they happen to be.

If your organization is ready to explore the future online video chat events holds we hope you will reach out.

Get in touch with the Shindig Team.