IBC 2019: EditShare establishes EditShare Academy, improves Adobe Premiere Pro and appoints Stuart McGeechan to VP of customer success

EditShare (stand 7.A35) has launched EditShare Academy, a mix of instructor-led and e-learning courses that offers sales and video professionals a structured curriculum that culminates in industry certification in one of three areas: EditShare Associate, EditShare Engineer, and EditShare Sales Professional. Also, the company will showcase Helmut FX, IO, CO (Cosmo), and HK (Housekeeper) solutions designed to enable extensive project administration, back-office management, and render farm control for Adobe Premiere Pro enterprise post-production workflows. Lastly, they have appointed Stuart McGeechan to Vice President of Customer Success.

EditShare Academy
With EditShare the solution of choice to manage the exponential growth in video production, EditShare Academy gives sales engineers, IT managers and video professionals the confidence that systems are running at optimal performance and knowledge to maximize the return on investment.

“As the media landscape shifts beyond the traditional production and post-production practices and demand for video professionals expands into new markets, our customers and sales channel partners require training and certification programs that can equip them to navigate the new technical waters and distinguish themselves from the pack,” comments Stuart McGeechan, vice president of customer success, EditShare. “EditShare Academy is an important foundation for customer and partner enablement and success, which are top priority at EditShare. It is a tremendous learning platform that the community can leverage to gain new professional skills and enhance their talents across media workflow design, installation and operational maintenance. Courses combined with certification will help advance careers in creative and or sales tracks, and for business owners, help their company thrive whether they are a post facility, corporation with a media department or a sales partner providing the wider community guidance and support.”

EditShare Academy training and certification curriculum covers technical operations and workflow for EditShare’s EFS high-performance shared storage solutions, Flow media asset management (MAM), QScan automated quality control (AQC) and Helmut. Program tracks include:

• The EditShare Associate Program: providing channel partners and customers with foundational knowledge of EditShare products, workflows, and solutions.
• The EditShare Engineer Program: upon completion of this track, channel partners and customers will command expert technical and operational knowledge of EditShare products and solutions.
• The EditShare Sales Professional Program: designed for channel partners who actively support customers through the sales process and manage ongoing customer success.

EditShare Academy training and certification is developed in conjunction with CSMD Group, a global leader in building training and certification programs with exceptional end-user experiences for both emerging and Fortune 500 customers.

Adobe Premiere Pro Improvements
Using a highly efficient, user-friendly node-based approach to workflow configuration called ‘Streams Engine’, Helmut facilitates critical back-office functions such as encoding, migration, render farm control and other housekeeping technical tasks for Premiere Pro based post-production workgroups. Seamlessly integrated with EditShare Flow media asset management, the flexible Helmut and Flow north-bound API architecture enable a high degree of customization, empowering enterprise deployments to efficiently automate both creative workflows as well as complex and redundant ‘under-the-hood’ technical jobs, optimizing overall productions.

“With the increasing number of new content-delivery options, the demand for adverts, snackable content and high-quality programming has surged and, in turn, has significantly expanded content creation opportunities across the post-production market. However, as opportunities grow, so do the pressures on these video professionals to create and deliver significantly more, higher quality content, faster than ever before,” comments Tracy Geist, Chief Marketing Officer, EditShare. “Helmut, combined with EditShare Flow, puts the focus back on storytelling with optimizations at every step across the Adobe workflow. By eliminating complexities and elevating collaboration, EditShare gives a much longer runway for post facilities to create and deliver even more high-quality projects.”

The Expanded Helmut Product Family on Display at IBC2019:

• HelmutFX – The HelmutFX software solution connects Premiere Pro and storage environments, simplifying production management and streamlining working processes. Adding a layer of control and automation, HelmutFX manages a broad range of administrative and organizational tasks, communicating with third-party systems (ingest, archive, backup, MAM, PAM, etc.) to reduce complexity and improve workflows, so editors have more time to focus on the creative aspects of production.
• HelmutIO – An innovative new rendering workflow developed for Adobe Media Encoder, HelmutIO manages rendering resources on the network, identifying idle and unused CPUs or servers and automatically exporting and assigning clips and sequences from Premiere Pro and Adobe After Effects® projects, freeing up valuable system time for productive creative work.
• HelmutCO- Cosmo indexes projects including folder structures, metadata, assets, and sequences before making them available in a database. At the same time, this data is made available in a visually intuitive dashboard for creatives to easily identify and locate content. This companion database enables full synchronization between Premiere Pro projects and third-party systems without users needing to open Premiere Pro.
• HelmutHK – Housekeeper is directly connected to Cosmo, utilizing the extensive metadata to delete, move, archive and manage projects and project-related assets. Tasks can be automated, performed manually or set to run at a specific time.

• HelmutHK can also distribute these tasks across HelmutIO’s render nodes in scenarios where both products are being used in tandem.

Stuart McGeechan

Appointment of Stuart McGeechan
Responsible for building high-performance teams and programs that amplify customer engagement and enablement, McGeechan will define EditShare’s customer success strategy with responsibility for training, support, and professional service teams. The McGeechan appointment, which is effective immediately, rounds out the EditShare leadership team and positions the company for continued growth and rapid expansion across existing and emerging markets.

“Customer experience is at the heart of EditShare’s core values. Our mission is to simplify storytelling and enable our customers to be incredibly successful. From the moment they place the order until the time they turn it off and go home, the Vice President of Customer Success owns the experience of that customer journey,” states Conrad Clemson, CEO, EditShare. “We are building a world-class customer success model that moves from reactive response to proactive outreach. It’s a model in which we envision connecting with the customer to let them know that we can make their experience better. EditShare already has the core technology platform that we can proactively enhance. Stuart has the passion, vision, and experience to expand how we engage with our customers and channel partners, and the success they can achieve with EditShare.”

As EditShare moves toward software-based solutions and progressively into the cloud, there are opportunities to customize, extend and augment the platforms to enable new levels of efficiency and new revenue opportunities for customers. Under McGeechan, EditShare will be enhancing its customer service programs, including professional services and custom engineering, to onboard new capabilities that enable a support model that proactively engages customers on the potential of their EditShare investment.

Clemson comments on the importance of the role the extended EditShare network plays in creating a world-class customer experience, “EditShare has always been committed to growing its business with channel sales partners. So it is important that we drive the expansion of EditShare’s world-class customer success program together. Stuart and his team will work closely with EditShare Channel Sales partners ensuring they have the tools and support they need to deliver an unrivaled customer experience from workflow concept to delivery and beyond.”