International PR thought leader videos from the Davos World Communication Forum

The sixth Davos World Communication Forum (#WCFDavos) was probably the best ever with almost 150 participants from 30+ countries and every continent (except Antarctica). I was the WCF moderator for the first day and at the end of the second day I was responsible for presenting a summary of the two days of debate and discussion on public relations and communications.

My dilemma was deciding which of the many fascinating ideas and thoughts I’d heard and seen to include. So I decided to experiment and instead of me giving my summary I invited some of the moderators of each discussion panel and some of the other participants to join me on the Davos stage and give their personal highlights. But the challenge was that they had to do it in 15 seconds so I could capture it as an Instagram video. Most succeeded in one take and these are the results.

Lena Brandt talking about the Dura Lex industry game to simulate the state, business, society and media to ask if media needs regulating.

A video posted by Stuart Bruce (@stuartbruce) on Mar 11, 2015 at 9:46am PDT

Gábor Hegyi on place branding.

A video posted by Stuart Bruce (@stuartbruce) on Mar 11, 2015 at 9:48am PDT

Nurul Shamsuri on her communication and leadership panel with Weber Shandwick EMEA CEO Colin Byrne

A video posted by Stuart Bruce (@stuartbruce) on Mar 11, 2015 at 9:48am PDT

Maxim Behar, Chair of Hill & Knowlton Strategies in Prague

A video posted by Stuart Bruce (@stuartbruce) on Mar 11, 2015 at 9:48am PDT

Saurabh Uboweja, CEO of Brands of Desire in India.

A video posted by Stuart Bruce (@stuartbruce) on Mar 11, 2015 at 9:48am PDT

Roman Vassilenko, Chairman of the Committee for International Information at the Kazakhstan Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

A video posted by Stuart Bruce (@stuartbruce) on Mar 11, 2015 at 9:49am PDT

A video posted by Stuart Bruce (@stuartbruce) on Mar 11, 2015 at 9:49am PDT

Kara Alaimo, Assistant Professor of Public Relations, Hofstra University, New York

A video posted by Stuart Bruce (@stuartbruce) on Mar 11, 2015 at 9:49am PDT

Philippe Borremans, PR and social media adviser, Belgium

A video posted by Stuart Bruce (@stuartbruce) on Mar 11, 2015 at 9:49am PDT

Flavio Oliveira, community manager, Brazil and Netherlands

A video posted by Stuart Bruce (@stuartbruce) on Mar 11, 2015 at 9:49am PDT

Sujit Patel, VP Corporate Communications, Godrej Industries, India

A video posted by Stuart Bruce (@stuartbruce) on Mar 11, 2015 at 9:50am PDT

Guntram Kaiser, MD of Kaiser Communications, Germany

A video posted by Stuart Bruce (@stuartbruce) on Mar 11, 2015 at 9:50am PDT

 #PRGeek stuff

To record and upload the videos I used a Nokia Lumia 1520 running Windows Phone (Cyan update). Instead of the official Instagram app I used 6tag, which is a much better alternative by Windows Phone developer Rudy Huyn. Because I was doing lots of 15 second videos back to back on stage and wanted to upload them quickly I didn’t have time to type in a caption for each one. But I didn’t want to just automatically broadcast uncaptioned Instagram videos to my Twitter account as I wanted the videos to appear on the live Twitter wall in the Davos auditorium. I used an IFTTT (If This Then That) recipe to add the #WCFDavos hash tag and ‘panel summary’ to every video and automatically post a tweet to @stuartbruce.

That was the plan. The reality was despite the Lumia 1520 being a flagship phone I was still asking a lot of it to encode and upload XX videos in just five minutes on a congested wifi network. The first video uploaded quickly and perfectly, but the rest took a little longer. The IFTTT recipe partially worked in that it sent the first tweet instantly, but the rest didn’t appear until 45 minutes later, despite the Instagram videos having already uploaded perfectly.