MarkLogic, RSG Media, BTI Studios Bring Smart Content Know-How to July 25 M&E Day

MarkLogic’s chief strategy officer, the chief product officer for RSG Media, BTI Studios’ chief revenue officer and more will be on hand at the July 25 Media & Entertainment Day event in New York City, to share the latest news, tech and trends impacting the smart content side of the M&E industry.

The CEO of ThinkAnalytics, the innovation lead of LiveTiles and the executive director of the Entertainment ID Registry (EIDR) will also present on issues ranging from metadata to AI-powered analytics.

Here’s a brief rundown of what attendees July 25 can expect during the afternoon Smart Content Summit portion of the program.

• Following opening remarks from Mary Yurkovic, director of Smart Content for the Media & Entertainment Services Alliance (MESA) and Scott Bounds, U.S. media and cable industry lead for Microsoft, Matt Turner, chief strategy officer of media and manufacturing for MarkLogic, will present on the topic “Operationalize Your Data and Get the Most Out of Your Smart Content.”

“Like a lot of industries, media and entertainment organizations are starting to look at data as a valuable asset,” Turner said. “This smart content vision of linking all the data around the content can not only help create great experiences, it can also help media companies understand the value of their content, better connect with their customers and partners and be the foundation for automation and AI.”

While this idea of investing in data is pretty well known — it is often quoted that “data is the new oil” — actually delivering on this vision is harder than it seems. In fact, many traditional approaches to bringing together data can’t handle the complexity of the data or meet data governance and security requirements needed to take advantage of data across the organization, he added.

Turner will share how organizations are taking a different approach using the data hub pattern to bring together and deliver the true value of their data. These include Sony Pictures linking their sales and finance data to better understand where products can be made available, NBC connecting fans to their content and, for a different perspective, a Dutch non-profit using data to help protect endangered species.

• In the panel session “Wrangling Content to Maximize the Consumer Experience,” Nona Janssen Walls, founder and president of Janssen Entertainment & Media Services, Mark Coatney, VP of digital news for Forbes, and Grant Nodine, SVP of technology for the NHL, will discuss why customer-focused offerings, technology integration and data strategy are critical to the long-term success of content consumption, including direct-to-consumer.

• WarnerMedia/HBO’s Laura Dawson (metadata analyst) and Yonah Levenson (manager of metadata and taxonomy) will offer an update on the Language Metadata Table and its 2.0 release, sharing details about the offering which provides a way for the media and entertainment industry to ‘herd the cats’ of existing system interoperability, in the presentation “Tower of Babel: Decoded!”

• For the presentation “Leveraging Metadata in the Moment,” Gabriel Berger, CEO of ThinkAnalytics, walks attendees through the nexus of data science and information science that can unearth meaningful discovery and personalization, which can lead M&E players to better analytics and business decisions.

• The keynote of the afternoon — “Aligning Analytics Strategy with Business Strategy for Success” — will come from Ash Dhupar, chief analytics officer for Publishers Clearing House, who will offer insights into a common data mistake overlooked by many organizations, and reveal that when an effective company data strategy is closely aligned with business strategy, the path to achieving business goals is illuminated with powerful insights.

• Dennis Helms, innovation and experience lead for LiveTiles, will share popular AI and bot applications for common business functions, along with real customer AI and chatbot use cases, in the session “Intelligent Transformation: How to Build an AI and Bot Strategy for Your Organization.”

• In “What Does A Machine-Learning & A.I. Enabled Media Organization Look Like?” Shiv Sehgal, chief product officer for RSG Media, will show attendees how the introduction of machine learning and AI enables organizations to scale platforms that meet the demands of increasing amounts of data, offering audience-based insights, democratized across the enterprise, all in real-time.

“Today, media companies must understand their consumers at an almost Orwellian level: monitoring cross-platform viewership, identifying individual viewing behaviors and cross-analyzing social, demographic and lifestyle insights,” Sehgal said. “Until now, the multibillion-dollar media industry has been tasked to manage viewership fluctuations via archaic transactional-based systems. Through RSG Media’s Audience Analytics offering networks are equipped with innovative self-service solutions that feature a unique mix of data analytics with business understanding for their strategic competitive advantage.”

• Sehgal will then be joined by Microsoft’s Bounds and Chris Carey, chief revenue officer and managing director for the Americas for BTI Studios, in the panel discussion “Smart Analytics with AI,” looking at the unique use of data-driven connectivity and backend systems that allow for a seamless experience, one that benefits creators, distributors and, ultimately, consumers. They’ll explore how AI integration into data and analytics platforms is transforming the way media content is being created and distributed.

• Renard Jenkins, VP of operations, engineering and distribution for Public Broadcasting Service, will show how PBS is using new workflows to improve accuracy, lower cost and improve the time-to-value of their machine learning-enabled technology, in the presentation “Artificial Intelligence: Creating and Augmenting Models with Human In-the-Loop Workflows.”

“This session will give you an overview of PBS’ plans to modernize its supply chain by bringing harmony and peace between the robots, machines and humans,” Jenkins said. “Join us for a kumbaya moment that we hope will help you bring peace and efficiency in your environment as well.”

• The final panel of the day — “Discover, Build, Measure and UX : Digital Transformation 2.0” — sees James Cooney, director of software engineering for Pearson, Dave Klee, VP of media infrastructure for A+E Networks, EIDR executive director Will Kreth, and Maciej Ochman, director of media technology and service strategies for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, discuss challenges in measurement, how the industry will transform through technology collaboration, how technology is helping (and hindering) workflow in production, and how technology and marketing leaders are collaborating to ensure the best user experience.

The Media & Entertainment Day is being produced by the Media & Entertainment Services Alliance (MESA), in association with the Content Delivery & Security Association (CDSA), the Hollywood IT Society (HITS) and the Smart Content Council, and is presented by Microsoft, with sponsorship by Akamai, BTI Studios, Independent Security Evaluators, LiveTiles, MarkLogic, RSG Media, ThinkAnalytics, Amazon Web Services, the Entertainment ID Registry (EIDR), the Trusted Partner Network (TPN) and Richey May Technology Solutions.

For regular program updates visit the event website here. To register, click here.

To showcase your company’s solutions and services at Media & Entertainment Day contact: Christian Calson at [email protected], 310-945-6284.