It’s an enviable-yet-difficult challenge faced by many businesses: how to maintain infrastructure – like digital signage – while scaling. Add in additional obstacles like differing timezones and languages, and you’ve got a logistical nightmare on your hands. It’s a Herculean task. And one WeWork faced when scaling from 6 to 800+ offices in under ten years.  In this episode of Behind the Screen, ScreenCloud COO David speaks with Robert Hays, ex-VP of IT at WeWork, to learn of his incredible experience implementing a global digital signage strategy – all while ensuring a secure network infrastructure capable of handling thousands of remote screens. This is probably why we have just welcomed him on board as ScreenCloud’s new VP of Enterprise Solution, to help our customers do the exact same thing. Notes  Find out about ScreenCloud: screencloud.com Connect with David Hart and Robert Mays on LinkedIn. Email Robert: robert.mays@screencloud.io For all podcast enquiries: podcast@screencloud.io

BEHIND THE SCREENS

EP 62 - Scaling up a complex digital signage network with Robert Mays Former VP of IT at WeWork

Sharing data dashboards across your organization securely has always been a challenge. At ScreenCloud we are about to unveil an entirely new approach for sharing dashboards securely with anybody in your organization. No longer will you have to sacrifice scale and flexibility to meet security requirements for presenting critical company information. In this episode, David and Mark deep dive into how ScreenCloud dashboards evolved and the upcoming launch.  --- Show notes: Details of the launch event on the 25th Feb: Launch Event Link Check out ScreenCloud Connect with David Hart or Mark McDermott on LinkedIn

EP 61 - Unveiling ScreenCloud Dashboards

Levelling up your business is much more than earning more money and gaining new customers. In order to truly level up any business, you have to take a deep dive into how your teams operate and how they perform.  In this episode, David and Mark talk about the challenges of levelling up a business and how best to approach this going forward.  --- Show notes:   Check out ScreenCloud Connect with David Hart or Mark McDermott on LinkedIn

EP 60 - Levelling up your business the right way

HR teams have seen a seismic over the last few years in how they function. The classic HR team has been replaced by the more modern 'people' operations team. In this episode, Mark and David discuss how modern people teams are not too dissimilar to marketing teams when it comes to owning the employer brand. They also explore the relationship between marketing and people teams the argument of who is best equipped to own the space of employer branding within an organisation.   Show notes:   Check out the video People Ops as a Product by Jessica Hayes Find out about ScreenCloud: screencloud.com   Connect with David Hart or Mark McDermott on LinkedIn. Get in touch: hello@screencloud.com  

EP 59 - Where does employer branding live?

In the world of SaaS, churn rates refer to the percentage of customers who tried out your service and decided to leave in a given period. To outweigh churn, you have expansion revenue, which you gain from upselling and cross-selling to your existing customers. A SaaS company needs to understand, measure, and address these two key growth metrics to thrive and succeed.   In this episode, David and Mark talk about churn and expansion at ScreenCloud. David admits that there wasn’t much effort put into these two metrics in the early days. Instead, the focus was on new businesses and customer support. However, as ScreenCloud got bigger and expanded into the enterprise market, the founders realized they needed to shift their approach. Listen to the full episode to learn about the different phases Mark and David have implemented to scale and drive growth at ScreenCloud.       --- Show notes:   Check out ScreenCloud Connect with David Hart or Mark McDermott on LinkedIn 

EP 58: Churn and Expansion

In the world of business, there’s a constant focus on the next best thing, the coolest apps, the sexiest features. People want to solve gnarly problems and build sophisticated products, they aren’t excited about mundane work. However, in today's episode, Mark and David argue that it’s vital to get the “boring” basics done right and elegantly first before you start working on smart, shiny things. The basics are essential in creating a solid foundation for your business. Ignore them, and your company is in danger. Mark and David also discuss why they think documents run a business. --- Show notes: Check out ScreenCloud Connect with David Hart or Mark McDermott on LinkedIn

EP 57: Why getting the basics right is more important

We’ve talked a great deal about how, as a startup grows and builds out new departments and structures, there will be more chaos and disconnection. So how do you solve this problem and get more organized while scaling your business? This is where the Cadence comes in. It’s an operating philosophy coined by David Sacks, Founder of Yammer and former COO of PayPal.    The Cadence synchronizes major functions of a SaaS startup and runs them on a quarterly cycle so that teams can better communicate and collaborate. Under this concept, Sales and Finance are on one calendar, while Product and Marketing are on another.    In this episode, Mark and David explain why they decided to adopt the Cadence for ScreenCloud, what is working for us, and where the Cofounders think this approach can improve upon. They also promise a more detailed review of ScreenCloud's implementation of the Cadence in six months, so stay tuned! ---          Show notes:   Learn more about the Cadence via this article or video Check out ScreenCloud’s first virtual event, Reboot Connect with David Hart or Mark McDermott on LinkedIn

EP 56 - Implementing Company Cadence

Writing a book is a nerve-racking leap into the unknown. In Kurt Vonnegut’s words, we have to continually be jumping off cliffs and developing our wings on the way down.    A few months ago, two of our founders David and Mark decided to take the plunge. They’re writing a business book about modern approaches to connecting and engaging with employees effectively.    Today’s episode deep dives into their writing journeys, including the ah-hah moment that inspired them to write the book, the book’s structure, how they divide the workload, how we’re going to promote the book, and the potential outcome. The real gem of this episode is their honest struggles with writing a book (captured in an upcoming video docu-series), their different writing processes, and how they’re balancing these differences to achieve promising end-results. Show notes:   Check out Scribe Media, co-founded by Tucker Max. Follow The Connected Company book’s journey and be the first to hear when the book is published. Learn more about The Conversational Marketing by Drift.   Check out Remote: Office Not Required by David Heinemeier Hansson & Jason Fried.   Find out about ScreenCloud: screencloud.com   Connect with David Hart or Mark McDermott on LinkedIn. Get in touch: hello@screencloud.com    

EP 55 - Writing a Business Book

Pricing is hard and don’t tell anyone this, but in the early days of ScreenCloud, pricing was basically a “pull a number out of a hat” exercise, as Mark explains in today’s episode.    As your startup grows and expands however, your pricing strategy needs to adapt and evolve with it, and continual experimentation and testing is essential. In this episode, David and Mark discuss their experience and challenges with pricing at ScreenCloud, as well as what they’ve learned from well-respected experts in the industry, including the three tiers of B2B SaaS customers and the four myths of bundling. And how above all, your pricing should be simple and aligned with the value you create for your customers.   Show notes:   Check out the EnterpriseReady podcast episode featuring Adam Gross. Check out the Invest Like the Best podcast episode featuring Shishir Mehrotra. Read more about the four myths of bundling.  Find out about ScreenCloud: screencloud.com   Connect with David Hart or Mark McDermott on LinkedIn. Get in touch: hello@screencloud.com 

EP 54: Diving into SaaS Pricing

Staff are arguably the most expensive “line item” on most companies’ budget sheet. Yet, the lion’s share of effort, resource and creativity is spent on our customers, and far less is given towards creating a truly effective employee experience. That’s what today’s podcast episode is all about, as David and Mark question why we aren’t more focused on our biggest asset. From why “HR” is often tactical, reactive and responsive and not considered at a Leadership level, to why top-down announcements in real-time aren’t the only way to share information. Suggesting that companies who apply the same approach that revolutionised customer success in recent years, to changing employee engagement, could be the ones who win.  ---   Show notes: Find out about ScreenCloud: screencloud.com   Connect with David Hart or Mark McDermott on LinkedIn. Get in touch: hello@screencloud.com   

EP 53 - Are Employees The New Customers?

During the current crisis and the almost certain financial downturn that will ensue, many companies are going back to basics. Questioning their positioning, who their core customers are, what their offering is, and perhaps most importantly of all, how this is still relevant to the world today. In this episode, Mark and David talk about revisiting our positioning at ScreenCloud and what questions this has brought up. How serving everyone and being a generalist can lead to short-term profit, but why niching to one expert area could unlock an underserved need in the market. With examples of category leaders like Drift, who found a way to change the entire system by specialising in one area, and why looking back to what worked isn’t the way to determine what could be.   ---   Show notes: Find out about ScreenCloud: screencloud.com   Connect with David Hart or Mark McDermott on LinkedIn. Get in touch: hello@screencloud.com  Drift’s Conversational Marketing 

EP 52 - Going Back to Basics

With so much change happening in the world right now it can be difficult to not get caught up in the immediate effects without considering which dominos will fall later down the line. Also known as second and third order thinking. In this episode, David and Mark discuss the theory in light of the current coronavirus pandemic and question: what will the second and third order effects be on the way we work? Sharing examples from their own history running an agency, where focusing too much on the first order had a detrimental effect in other ways. Plus, looking at how remote work and social distancing will affect the future office, where people choose to live and how access to WiFi could even change how we perceive each other. ---   Show notes: Find out about ScreenCloud: screencloud.com   Connect with David Hart or Mark McDermott on LinkedIn. Get in touch: hello@screencloud.com   

EP 51 - Second and Third Order Effects on the Way We Work

As we enter week six of lockdown in the UK we’re starting to question what the future may hold. Like how long can you respectably justify as a “blip” and if this isn’t a blip, then what does life and work look like as we start to return to a new normal? In this episode David and Mark discuss some of the mental and physical changes the lockdown period has had on them personally and what they might do differently should there be advance warning of a second period. What a return to normal might look like for office workers and how the rapid adoption of remote working and video conferencing might change the future of work.    ---   Show notes: Find out about ScreenCloud: screencloud.com   Connect with David Hart or Mark McDermott on LinkedIn. Get in touch: hello@screencloud.com 

EP 50 - Speculating on the New Normal

We’ve always been distributed with the requisite that anyone can work anywhere. But now we’re working fully remote, we’ve seen a huge amplification in the amount of content in our communication channels. We’re also spending an increasing amount of time on Zoom calls, with some of the team and friends we’re speaking to, reporting that they feel less productive. In this episode, David and Mark discuss some of the methods they’re using to overcome this, like implementing short daily stand-ups and how to do this well. Why long Slack threads should often be quick calls, and how we can lean into the medium of live and recorded audio or video, in order to be heard. Plus a quick note on the side product ScreenCloud Signal we’ve created to help separate what’s most important from Slack or Microsoft Teams, into one consumable content queue.    ---   Show notes: Find out about ScreenCloud: screencloud.com   Connect with David Hart or Mark McDermott on LinkedIn. Get in touch: hello@screencloud.com  Get an early look at Signal: screen.cloud/signal  Study on employee video-watching habits 

EP 49 - Dealing with Zoom Overwhelm

As the world sits 10-feet deep in the coronavirus pandemic, how do you navigate these uncertain waters as an entrepreneur? In today’s episode, David and Mark share their past experiences of running businesses during turbulent times, how their priority at ScreenCloud has shifted, and what’s helping them stay sane and clear-headed.    Key takeaways? Stick with a realistic goal and long-term vision. Have a plan, but allow circumstances to help you evolve that plan. Leaders will naturally emerge in crisis. Bad things happen—it’s all about what you choose to do next. Above all, show gratitude, appreciate how far you’ve come from your initial starting point, and help your fellow humans when you can.     Show notes: Check out Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts  Find out about ScreenCloud: screencloud.com   Connect with David Hart or Mark McDermott on LinkedIn. Get in touch: hello@screencloud.com 

EP 48 - Leading a Business in Turbulent Times

The trials and tribulations of building a global SaaS business from the UK

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BEHIND THE SCREENS

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