TwentyThree Summit interviews | Maurice Smits - GEA

First things first, thank you so much for taking the time and being here with me. It's a pleasure to have another interview with you. Yeah. I want to ask Maurice, you are the Internet and Online Marketing Specialist at GEA. And you were the one responsible for skyrocketing the webinars in the company. What is the importance of webinars at GEA now? Yeah, we started off with video with TwentyThree in 2013, I think. That's a while ago. Yeah. Yeah, it was mostly for internal video. So we wanted to show videos on the intranet. And then we opened up for external video because, yeah, video speaks more than a thousand words. And then I think just before COVID, we started with webinars, like on a very low level. But obviously during COVID, it skyrocketed. Everybody wanted to reach out to their customers and stakeholders. And so that's when it really hit off. We stuck with TwentyThree. And I think that's why I chose TwentyThree because it's just monkey proof. I need to do a training of, let's say, 30 to 45 minutes. And then people are able to do a webinar and only have to focus on content. And that's, yeah, that's what you really want. So, yeah. You actually might have had on board more people than our own head of specialists. Might be, yeah. Yes, which is impressive, I have to say. What are some of the biggest challenges and opportunities when it comes to getting this organizational buy-in? Yeah. We are a German company, so we have to get a system via security, legal, for German law. So that was a journey. Once that was done, everybody was signing up on one system. So we tried to get rid of, there was people still using Zoom and other platforms which are not particularly safe for your data. Sometimes we had some really tough conversations. And then I came in, and well, this is way easier. No modules and weird stuff. Just put in a title, put in your speakers and off you go. Sometimes I don't even know that they did a webinar. So, yeah. That's amazing. That's how you actually. Yeah, that's what you want. Yeah. Yeah. That actually leads to my next question, which is how do you measure success? What are the key metrics that you map when making sure that the tool is being used successfully? The most time in coaching. We do is how people try to be perfect. And I'm always keep saying them, just be just be you. Yeah. And we really help them to try and find a way of presenting because some people just don't like staring straight into the camera. Yeah. We really try to find things which suit to them. So we had one engineer, very technical area, and we just gave him a wall behind him with paper on it. And he could start writing. But it'd be like only themselves coming out to them. I was very wise about that. I plays very well. So much. So much. Which is the most important, right? Yeah. In the end, that's what I always tell them. People don't sign up because your hair is great. They're there for what we have to tell. And we engineers are ugly anyway. In this sense, which advice would you give to other product owners or change makers within the companies who are tasked with implementing video tools or platforms in complex organizations such as GIA? For me, it's showing the tool, showing that things are possible. We did live feeds with 7,000 people in it. We did smaller webinars with like 20 people in it. With some of them, we started off, we had two presenters and two viewers. And I said, we're going to do this and we're going to keep it going. If the same two now set up a webinar, six, seven hundred people sign up. But that's just because they kept on going, kept on going, kept on going. Consistency is essential, right? Yeah, definitely. So. This year's theme of the 23 Summit is the human side of digital. Yes. What does that mean to you? For me, it means that we don't have to be perfect. I'm very aware. I say a lot of ums always. We all do. Yeah, yeah. So that's one of the things. Feel free to bring the content as you think that it should be brought. And feel free to make a mistake. Nobody likes perfect. Yeah. It's always. The one scar or the one rip in the pants or what makes it interesting. And it gives an interesting story. Stories are remembered because something weird happened. And I'm not saying that you should create weirdness, but you should be yourself in all your weirdness. That's that's more the message. Yeah, I love it. As a weirdo myself, I feel seen and recognized. We all have it. Thank you so much. You're welcome. Yeah. Enjoy the 23 Summit. Thanks. Bye.