And we thought Zoom’s problems were limited to its inability to protect users using the communication platform, something its CEO seems to think is the problem of the enterprises using its platform. As for endusers who choose to use Zoom for free, any issues they may have using Zoom is mostly their problem as of May 2020.
As it turns out Zoom has been secretly sharing data with Facebook – which just goes to show that money and greed trumps leaders’ words about valuing customer data privacy.
FutureCIO spoke to Elle Hosek, general manager, Asia, Panopto, to get her perspective on what users and enterprises can do to secure their connection while at work.
With lockdowns in force, what are some of the challenges for enterprises around remote working and collaboration?
Elle Hosek: Covid-19 has brought unprecedented challenges to business operations on a global scale. With lockdowns in force, enterprises without business continuity plans have experienced disruption, preventing them from managing employee productivity, sustaining clear communication channels while ensuring security from a distance. Even the enterprises with an agile work environment including infrastructure, communication, and collaboration tools, they too have needed to adapt to the new normal.
From a very high-level perspective, the objective is to keep the business performing at the same or similar level and at a more granular level to keep employees engaged and maintain targeted levels of productivity.
Video is one of the most effective mediums to communicate and collaborate within organizations. It is a natural extension of how we consume content today. It is the next best thing to being in person.
We have been seeing customers using videos to share knowledge, capture meetings, deliver online training and for the purpose of effective remote communication to keep the business operation running smoothly.
What are some of the security issues faced by video software platforms and how can they distinguish themselves better?
Elle Hosek: I can really only speak to Panopto’s security, but Panopto provides a secure video content management solution for medium to large scale enterprises who wish to create, migrate video assets and manage these video assets in a secure and scalable environment.
The reality remains that there are capable people with malicious intent. It is the responsibility of technology companies to safeguard themselves against potential breaches and misuse.
The silver lining is, people or organizations with such intent highlights the importance of security and forces the whole industry to keep “security” front and centre. The cost of failing to provide a secure environment is far greater than securing your applications and infrastructure.
What do you think is the public’s reception towards remote working?
Elle Hosek: Before Covid-19, a lot of businesses were sceptical about remote working. The concern was on employee productivity and how to sustain business operations without people physically being in the office. I believe the perception is changing towards acceptance globally.
What we have learned in the past few months is, enterprises leveraging the type of technologies that support communication and collaboration are able to keep their operations running well and remain agile to adapt changes when faced with disruption.
This is also an opportunity for businesses to rethink the prioritization of digital transformation. Video is a more powerful tool than text-based communication, especially for messaging and knowledge transfer. I think video has played a key role in changing the public’s view of working remotely.
I foresee more companies will provide flexible and remote working arrangements in the future, supported by increased acceptance and use of video as means for communication, means for providing context, means for consistent messaging.
In the long run, companies will reap the benefits of increased employee engagement, reallocation of the percentage of funds associated with physical office expenditures to other key areas such as technology enhancement and digital transformation tools. All this is possible by providing flexible work arrangements.
What are some of the future steps that we can take to encourage further adoption of remote working and home-based learning?
Elle Hosek: For businesses, CIOs should rethink and review the company’s IT infrastructure and applications to support remote working. Considerations should be around user experience, existing ecosystems and its ability to support remote work, security and policies. IT and business leaders should implement work from home guidelines and policies on the use of supporting technologies.
Video communication will be the norm. This will not just land on a video conferencing level alone, but also an evolving need for knowledge sharing, reference materials such as meeting captures and social learning materials on a secure, scalable and searchable platform.
Search is a key term here. It supports productivity and allows companies to reap the return of investing in a video content management platform.
For education institutions, EdTech, Classroom Tech and IT teams should work together and look for applications that are device-agnostic, easy to use, and easy to integrate with existing platforms. It is important to consider student access, such as from any device, anywhere and even if needed offline. Education professionals also need to rethink how to engage with the learners in an interactive setting and track their learning progress.
Post COVID-19, what will happen to these online collaborative tools and platforms?
Elle Hosek: I am confident that the coronavirus pandemic will change consumers’ behaviour permanently. For many universities and companies, online video learning has become very popular but is sometimes regarded as an interesting experiment rather than a fundamental part of operations.
Now that so many universities have transitioned to online classes, instructors have learned that recording lectures is easy and all students now have an opportunity to learn using video lectures.
It is hard to imagine that the use of lecture recordings will return to pre-coronavirus levels since universities have developed such sophisticated and comprehensive online-only courses, and students who benefit from these tools will continue to expect them going forward.
