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[00:00:00] Jess Ryan: Welcome to the get together 

[00:00:04] Joe White: well over the world, there are people thinking about and creating a future of live digital events and performances. 

[00:00:09] Jess Ryan: They're disparate innovators who are artists, tech, founders on profits and investors, and they need a place to gather and share ideas. That's what the guest gather is all about.

[00:00:19] Jess Ryan: I'm just a theater creator who loves bringing people together around technology art and the internet. 

[00:00:25] Joe White: And I'm Joe, a tech and media startup bet with over 10 years of experience growing and 

[00:00:29] Jess Ryan: operating businesses. Thanks for getting together with us. Let's dig in.

[00:00:47] Jess Ryan: It's just a mess over there, Joe. 

[00:00:49] Joe White: I was actually thinking about this last night. Like I had like a series of just like stupid. Like I like bruised my rib and then I got that weird rash. And then I got COVID it's just like a, like a [00:01:00] stream of like weird, not really major medical maladies that are just like.

[00:01:05] Joe White: And I was like, oh, can I just be like healthy 

[00:01:07] Jess Ryan: for oh, Bob is, he's also so pretty all listening. Like before we started recording, I was looking at the script. So I wasn't looking at zoom. And then I just heard like crashes, like a couple of times. 

[00:01:20] Joe White: Maybe that's why my audio is offs because I dropped my microphone.

[00:01:24] Jess Ryan: So you got the Rona. 

[00:01:27] Joe White: I I do currently have COVID 19. Oh, ma'am I'm two days in. She got you sniffly one year 

[00:01:34] Jess Ryan: anniversary, a little scratchy, uh, of, uh, the, our vaccine. You and I got vaccinated this 

[00:01:40] Joe White: week on the 28th, 29th. Of last year, so true. I've gotten three shots since then. And it's still got 

[00:01:51] Jess Ryan: what he's fairly mild though.

[00:01:52] Jess Ryan: I have a random question for you that I was thinking about on this. Like, uh, you know how sometimes she asked me like what my read is, what my bed is on things. [00:02:00] How do you think COVID-19. In its current form. Right. Which is less deadly overall, but still seeming to disrupt in person live events. Like how do you think that is going to impact the way we plan across the next couple of years?

[00:02:20] Jess Ryan: Yeah. I'm curious to know what you think, because I feel like there's a campus lag. We gotta do it all and have 10 backups. And then there's a camp it's like, fuck this. I don't need any backups. And if we have to cancel it all, we'd cancel it all. So I'm just like curious what you think about it because it's because we're in the middle of this like huge disruption, right?

[00:02:35] Jess Ryan: Like for everyone, because, because you get COVID, that's not, I was like, oh no, this is not sounding the way I wanted to say 

[00:02:46] Joe White: you saved it right there. I was just about to shut my laptop and storm off to the other room in my apartment. Um, with, with all the, uh, necessary and obvious [00:03:00] caveats of neither of us are epidemiologist, neither of us really knows what we're talking about when it comes to, um, communicable diseases.

[00:03:09] Joe White: But we do know events and we can speak with a little bit of authority there. I think it'll be something. Combination of everything that you just throw out there that it'll be a coronavirus and COVID-19, and being sick with it. And like, I think, you know, for example, I just ran this past weekend, the Brooklyn half marathon.

[00:03:30] Jess Ryan: You're a hero with COVID 

[00:03:32] Joe White: probably. Yeah. Who knows? I felt fine that day. And then the next day I was sick. And that, you know, that race, that event was obviously scheduled like way out in advanced, but then there was, was another like small surgeon in cases with the latest variant of the overgrown virus.

[00:03:52] Joe White: And they like didn't shut down the race. They didn't require any new testing. They didn't like need or do anything. That would have [00:04:00] been, you know, standard or required a year ago, six months ago, even though there is like currently in New York city, like a slight increase, I believe in the number of cases that are being reported.

[00:04:10] Joe White: And so yeah, if you, if you looked back a year and took that same scenario, that race probably would have gotten canceled, or there would have been some more stringent sort of requirement around showing proof of vaccination and, or having some sort of a test that's in the 72 hours leading up to this, you know, mass event.

[00:04:27] Joe White: And there just wasn't really any of that. I'm like I got. I stood on a line that was the wrong line, you know, a thousand other people. Oh, good. And then I got into another line and at no point was anyone checking vaccinations or anything like that. Um, and I think that's like a representation of sort of where we're going culturally, when it's like, Hey, everyone is just sort of either had it and therefore slightly desensitized to it or just fucking over it.

[00:04:51] Joe White: And therefore slightly desensitized to it with a slight like resignation to being like, ah, maybe I'll get it. And hopefully it'll be fine. Um, I think [00:05:00] that that world sounds hard for people who are immunocompromised and are like, you know, doesn't, don't have that luxury, but I feel like we're already trending that direction.

[00:05:08] Joe White: I, I could see it continuing to go that direction of just people just not wanting to think about it or worry about it in the same way that we did across the past two years. Um, but it's still obviously existing. Uh, back to us not being epidemiologists, what the, the, the sort of difference between pandemic and endemic.

[00:05:27] Joe White: And I sort of, you know, I know like the flu isn't Demica comes in cycles, but I don't know why right now the arguments that COVID is turning into an endemic viral. Is not right. Like I've, I've heard and I've read that, but I don't, I don't understand it. Um, but I do think, well, we are starting to treat it as if it's just the flu.

[00:05:46] Joe White: We've all, we've all just become for public.

[00:05:53] Joe White: Um, so that that'll be one big important factor that like the. The people going to the events and probably the people [00:06:00] putting on the events, we'll be like, we just got a bit more risk tolerance for this thing, because we have more understanding of it. People are vaccinated or at least vaccination is an option.

[00:06:07] Joe White: There's all those other medicines. Like I think it's called Paxil of it that the new Pfizer drug for, um, helping to sort of reduce hospitalization and death in people who do have COVID. Um, so things like that, more and more remedies. And so everyone's tolerance will go up and fewer things will get canceled and right more events will happen and people will be less worried.

[00:06:26] Joe White: About throwing the super spreader event of the, uh, the millennium 

[00:06:30] Jess Ryan: that's fair. So we just wrapped up the New York crime victims, candle light vigil, which is in its 37th year, which is wild. So, and it happens during national crime victims rights week, every. Every year and in New York, it's quite a big vigil.

[00:06:48] Jess Ryan: It happens on the upper west side and all of our district attorneys speak at it and survivors speak. And it's just this incredible event that I was introduced to through my work with the give back concert. Um, and [00:07:00] a couple of years ago when COVID hit, uh, they asked us to help them take the vigil digital, and it's sort of.

[00:07:07] Jess Ryan: You know, I think just from the committee's feedback to us, sort of really, really revolutionized and changed in their eyes, what could be with the vigil, because all of a sudden this really important, beautiful event that brings so much comfort and to survivors that promises, you know, so much action by.

[00:07:29] Jess Ryan: Legislators. And by, um, folks in government offices was reaching five times the amount of people that I was reaching when it was in person. And so this year, uh, when it was clear that we could come back to in-person, they asked us to help make it a hybrid event, which was really exciting. And so that's what we've been doing, and that's what we just finished.

[00:07:48] Jess Ryan: And, uh, we had wild, like analytics coming out of that on the digital side, which I thought were really. Really interesting. You know, they, they think they had about 125 people in [00:08:00] person, which was amazing, especially for our first year back. But we had about 260 people online and that's the exact kind of balance we were looking to get, you know, as we start moving forward in these hybrid events, because that's the potential of the space is four walls, right?

[00:08:18] Jess Ryan: There's a limit, there's a finite limit to the amount of people. And that's what makes it so special and more valuable in some ways. And of course, digitally, you can have as big scalable audience as you can reach, you know? So I was really. Uh, heartened to see that happened even this year, going back to being able to be in person for something that people have gone in person to for 37 years or, well, whatever 35 years prior to COVID.

[00:08:43] Joe White: Yeah. And there's something about that number or the balance of those two numbers? Like you were talking about that basically one is like twice as much as the other that I appreciate so much because it makes it feel tangible. And that's a place where I wanted to get to with our. Our friends, [00:09:00] um, across the various district attorney's offices, uh, that we're actually helping to put on this event, this is watching them sort of understand the connection to those people out there digitally and how easy it is to get desensitized to big numbers on the internet.

[00:09:14] Joe White: It's a a hundred million dollar, 10,000 viewers or this and that and that, and like, It's that sort of idea of like huge numbers just have no sort of connection to reality in some ways, you know, like, like a Jeff basis, his net worth, like, I have no sense of how much that actually is. I just know it's a very big number.

[00:09:30] Joe White: Um, but to think about like 268, you know, views on this YouTube live stream across the, you know, four hours that it was. And you're like, wow, that's like 268 people. That's like twice, as many as men who came in person, like there's like a reality tethered to it. It's not just like an infinite number of people and that lets us grow.

[00:09:50] Joe White: And, you know, the hope is to have as many people as possible to be able to access it digitally, but to watch their eyes light up when they made the connection and to be like, yeah, we think we had about 125 [00:10:00] in parts and it was incredible that we were able to double the number of people that came in person.

[00:10:05] Joe White: And like the access that they had to it, because we did create and produce a live stream that gave them access to the vigil and all of the stories and sort of the, the message inside of that event. And it was just like really wonderful to see them sort of have that, that full realization and that, that sort of full connection to the impact of.

[00:10:26] Jess Ryan: And my favorite part. Sometimes I think of all of this is that it doesn't stop, right? It's not just that 2 68 number now, this video and all the individual videos of the performances and the speeches get cut apart and they go to work, you know, while the visual committee is sleeping for the next year and they touch people.

[00:10:46] Jess Ryan: As the algorithm starts feeding it into the recommended video engine on YouTube. And I just, I love that, especially when we're talking about impact focused stuff that we work on. I love that [00:11:00] so much because that is like quadrupling the horsepower of this event, you know? Like you just like, they could not have done that and reach that many people and, and gotten that message out in that same way there's themselves or are we couldn't do it on our own.

[00:11:15] Jess Ryan: Yeah. 

[00:11:16] Joe White: Yeah, that's actually something I was so curious about as I was looking through analytics was like, where did those 260 people come from? Like how, how did the word get out? And how did they get those sort of those butts in digital seats? And I just like, cause that is like, it is a big number. If you think about a room full of 250 people, you'd be like, wow, there's a lot of people here.

[00:11:36] Joe White: That's great. Um, and just, yeah, where they came from, 

[00:11:39] Jess Ryan: I can actually speak to that a little bit of that. Although of course we will never know exactly like how each person got pointed there, but the vigils put on by the downstate coalition, which has made. About, I think 11 to 15 different organizations across New York state that serve victims and survivors and families of victims and survivors.

[00:11:58] Jess Ryan: Um, and I know that each [00:12:00] of them, this is like a great example actually, of that grassroots organizing model that we talk about a lot with people we're working with each of those agencies is empowered and incentivized to get the word out, right. Because the goal of this is to. Provide comfort and space for as many people as possible that have been impacted by violence.

[00:12:21] Jess Ryan: So you've got those 11 or whatever it is, agencies doing the work. And then I know Vilma who's on our producing committee. She's from safe horizons. I believe she got ahold of the actor's fund and got someone to put it in their actress on email, which we know from working with the actors fund has a pretty sizable mailing list as well.

[00:12:39] Jess Ryan: So it was like, this is, I hadn't really thought about it until I was thinking about the answer to this. Great example of like what I hope that all folks thinking about doing a digital engagement will start to really lean into, which is like activating and mobilizing the groups of people who care very much about the work you're doing.

[00:12:58] Jess Ryan: Um, and, and let them [00:13:00] help get that word out and get those digital butts in seats. Like you said. 

[00:13:04] Joe White: Yeah. I love that. It's got like a, a bit of a captain planet feel to it. It's like bringing together all the disparate, you know, like you're just going to. Different district attorney offices that were like great.

[00:13:14] Joe White: We, as our own entity are going to be part of this coalition, the downstate coalition and reach our, our individual audiences and coming together. It's an interesting model too, around like how. How to organize and develop an event itself or a thing that is worthy of live streaming, I guess, to be like, oh, let's bring a bunch of component pieces together that each have built in and says, and cross-pollinate them all through a live digital engagement.

[00:13:40] Jess Ryan: I wanted to ask you too, on the vigil and some of those analytics that we're looking at, I know, you know, during our debrief with them, I was talking a little bit about, I, I, as. User creator on YouTube, but not person that has experience with companies on the backend of YouTube, the way you do. Um, I was surprised [00:14:00] pleasantly by, uh, the numbers and our analytics around how many times the vigil, the live vigil went into the recommendation search engine with YouTube and, uh, how many people actually clicked through.

[00:14:13] Jess Ryan: And it's not so much. Click through. Cause I, you know, that is what it is. And of course this is incredibly compelling and incredibly specific and it impacts a lot of people. So that part, I get a little more, but I did find it really interesting those numbers for how often we use. Uh, put in front of someone during those three and a half hours that we were streaming were much, much higher than a lot of stuff I've ever put out, you know, particularly live on YouTube.

[00:14:41] Jess Ryan: And so I wonder just if you had any thoughts about that, cause you just have this different set of expertise, you know, where my, my shit is like lived experience, just like trying every kind of content on YouTube. 

[00:14:53] Joe White: Yeah. I was, I was digging into them a bit yesterday. And, and trying to, you know, the whole concept of like explained to [00:15:00] me, like, I'm five.

[00:15:00] Joe White: Yeah. Like when I'm going through analytics, like these, I try to like approach it that way where I'm like, okay, you know, in the, in the back end of YouTube, it talks about, you know, where these views come from of this live stream. And it says things like other YouTube features and I'm like, okay, what the hell does that mean?

[00:15:16] Joe White: And then, you know, you get more information about it. So it's like, Traffic that's within YouTube that doesn't fall into other categories or like the browsing features and like, okay, great browsing features. What does that mean? I'm like, oh, it's the homepage or it's a subscription feed. I'm like, okay. So if I'm a user, if I'm one of these nine people who showed up via a browse feature, I went to the YouTube homepage or I somehow ended.

[00:15:36] Joe White: So it's like, okay. As one of those nine people, I came into it with a certain intention. Of like, I'm trying to find, you know, the 37th annual near a crime victims, candlelight vigil, like God that, that like tells me a story of those nine people and how they got there. And. Ways that we can play with, um, how YouTube, you know, uses these browse features to help get people to that.

[00:15:57] Joe White: But like that person or those nine people in my mind are [00:16:00] like, they're already bought in. They're just trying to find the video. And then like the, the interesting one, cause there's a bunch of ones like that. The channel page is kind of like that. It's like someone who's bought in, who's just trying to find the video, YouTube search, someone who's bought in just trying to find the video, but it was the suggested video ones that I was most interest.

[00:16:15] Joe White: Because that's someone who was on YouTube that is not searching for the candlelight vigil. Um, and the numbers back here show that it was shown to 14 people and one person clicked it, but then that one person, and I think this is the most important part, stayed for 12 minutes, right? If that one person jumped in there and watched it for a threesome, Then that, you know, that tells me what yeah.

[00:16:37] Joe White: Like that, that doesn't matter. That person, you know, didn't actually stay for any significant amount of time. So that click, it doesn't count in a sense, but the fact that that person stayed for like almost 13 minutes meant. It was compelling in a way that yeah, like you were saying a sort of a random person off the streets of YouTube, uh, that was suggested this video on that, that sort of right-hand [00:17:00] bar, you know, back to explain to me like, I'm five, it's like, hi, I'm watching a video and there's a bunch of videos off to the right side of my screen.

[00:17:05] Joe White: And I see, you know, the thumbnail for Kramnik individual and like, what is this? I'll click that. They landed there and then they stayed for 13 minutes, 13 minutes on the internet is an insane amount of time. They found a compelling enough to hang around and to continue listening to the choir's or to. Got sucked into one of the, the sort of crime victim survivors, speeches and stories like that is really compelling to me.

[00:17:29] Joe White: And it makes me think like, okay, what are the other ways that you can get it in front of people? And like, what's the best way to optimize that thumbnail to appeal or the title or any of those other things that could increase the number of people who are actually clicking on those and then get YouTube to drive it to more places and to then therefore generate more impressions and therefore hopefully get more people to click.

[00:17:47] Joe White: And then once they land. That's the hardest part I think is actually having the compelling content, such that people will stay once they get there. So if that's already done, then it's easier to like tweak the model and figure out how to get people to click on [00:18:00] it. If we know that once they're there, they get captured and they continue watching.

[00:18:04] Joe White: Okay. So is 

[00:18:04] Jess Ryan: that part of the iteration process that we're always talking about with live digital, that it it's, you know, a longer, a longer journey than just one show? I E like, what you're talking about is if you're thinking about or doing live digital, you take those analytics afterwards, you learn the things that you're talking about from your analytics, and then you plan differently for the next one, because you know, a little bit about your audiences, because.

[00:18:30] Joe White: Yeah, exactly. Like as I read through these analytics, you know, it's telling me that the majority of people almost 50% came directly. Like we did a pretty good job of getting the correct URL to people in such a way where all I had to do was click it. And it brought them into the experience that they're expecting for all those other ones, where people who went to the YouTube search or all the other YouTube features like that raises the question in my head of like, okay, well, why did that person go to YouTube first?

[00:18:57] Joe White: Did they not realize it was on YouTube? Like how did they end up [00:19:00] doing that? And like, 50% of every other view. And it's like, oh, were there issues with the stream such that they reloaded the page and ended up on the YouTube homepage or something like that? Like, that's what I try to read into of like all those other, all those other sort of views and where they came from, you know, if you came from a channel page or a browse feature, um, which is like the homepage of YouTube, it's like, okay, well, how did they get to the homepage?

[00:19:23] Joe White: Or how did they get to the downstate vigils channel page first? Like what were they doing and why was that confusing for them? Cause that's. That's an inferior path towards the content, because it requires a one to two more clicks to get there. So it's like, okay, what did we do? What could we have done better to get those people more quickly to the actual live stream where we want them to be and where we know once they get there, they hang around forever.

[00:19:47] Joe White: They get lost in the shuffle because they're confused on which link to click and they try to go to YouTube, but they end up on some other random video and they don't actually ever make it. Then, you know, that's a, someone who could have enjoyed the content that just never got there. So that's, [00:20:00] that's what these numbers speak to me saying, like how do we be as clear as possible at where to go and how easiest to get.

[00:20:08] Jess Ryan: I think that's really cool. And for everyone working in this field, but just to bring it back specifically to the vigil, right? We're not going to have another meeting for the vigil till September. So we've got, I don't know, whatever that is six months, a long time, but for us, right. When we're thinking about this right after we're done, we're doing a bunch of work to think about what we can do different and what we can add to.

[00:20:31] Jess Ryan: Achieve, even more of our goals for a live digital experience. And sometimes, and often that is across, you know, how we build the broadcast, what kind of tech we're using all this sexy stuff. But this work that you're describing, like the, just like talk to me like I'm five. Where did these people come from?

[00:20:48] Jess Ryan: How did they get there? How long did they stay? Is, is so much more. A than just a set of analytics on a spreadsheet, like it's such an important part of designing a digital experience [00:21:00] that continues to succeed and maybe exceed your goals as a person who's putting that on. Um, and it, you know, being. Build that brief and that breakdown while everything is fresh so that we can come back to it in September in that first meeting, when we start making choices for the next time that aren't just let's do it again.

[00:21:20] Jess Ryan: The exact same way. Um, I think is just like super exciting. And certainly by the way, just like as a quick shout out to the vigil committee is our favorite thing about working with them. They are not a group of technology, native folks. I don't think they would describe themselves as that. They never sit there and tell us, no, this worked last year.

[00:21:40] Jess Ryan: Let's just do it that way. You know, like, I really appreciate that about them. They're so curious. And they're so excited to discover new ways to like continue they're. So mission led, I think it's something you pointed out, not in those exact words, but I'll cross all of our production meetings that they, they [00:22:00] come to the table with a spirit that is informed.

[00:22:03] Jess Ryan: Because by their mission led their sense of mission for doing this. And therefore they are so curious about how we can do it better. 

[00:22:12] Joe White: Yeah. I love that. And I love to the way that, like, we can empower them with things like this data from the backend of YouTube to help tell them the stories around what it means and like, you know, ways that they can change the messaging or the URL that's on the flyer that they send.

[00:22:27] Joe White: They're so excited about those things. And I love like seeing that in their face when they get like, recognize and understand what this information means. And it's not just a bunch of random numbers in the YouTube backend 

[00:22:38] Jess Ryan: and like, just to be fair. Will we tell Susan all of this and will she go? I have no idea what you're talking about, but I trust you let's do it.

[00:22:46] Jess Ryan: Yes, probably. But that being said they do. They just always ask a bunch of really good questions and, and, uh, I'm really excited cause we haven't even talked through all of this. You're hearing all of this live and in real time, [00:23:00] um, on our end. So if you have any questions, you know, as you're getting your live digital stuff together around how to sort of.

[00:23:08] Jess Ryan: Leverage and lean into your analytics around your audience's behavior. You know where to find us we're nerds. We want to talk about it with 

[00:23:16] Joe White: you. Yeah. Maybe, maybe we should do a, like a give back breakdown. Go, go back through maybe 2019 though. Analytics, assuming that they're all roughly the same. It looks like they updated things in like 2015, so we're probably fine, but, uh, yeah, to do a little breakdown into post something, maybe on LinkedIn, there's just like we broke down.

[00:23:34] Joe White: Uh, yeah. Get back onto its YouTube analytics, to tell you a bit more about what it means from the user behavior and stream behavior side. 

[00:23:42] Jess Ryan: I would, I'm, I'm annoyed with how excited I am to do that. And if they changed the analytics in 15, that actually means we could do 16, 18, 19. I'm curious in particular because 19 was so diff like something changed going [00:24:00] into 19, you know, I don't know if that's true in terms of.

[00:24:04] Jess Ryan: Well, I just don't know the scope of an, you know, the terms that, that is true, but certainly it was a bigger concert. There were more people watching the videos performed, you know? Well afterwards, I don't know. Um, I'd be really interested to see some like across the life cycle of those three concerts to some of the things that stayed the same and some of the things that differed.

[00:24:24] Jess Ryan: Cool. Let's do it amazing. Well, this has been a very fun episode, everyone. Thanks for joining us 

[00:24:31] Joe White: as per you. The goal of this podcast is to bring people together and have these important conversations. So share this conversation with someone who is interested in live streaming analytics and wants to learn more about them, Jess 

[00:24:45] Jess Ryan: and I'm Joe.

[00:24:46] Jess Ryan: And we'll see you back here next week.[00:25:00] .