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Blog post
June 24, 2019

My life product owning a baby

In my nine to five job, as a Product Owner, I’m responsible for working on projects to enhance Isentia’s Mediaportal website and it involves liaising with stakeholders, IT teams and developers, in order to keep improving our website as a product for our clients. In 2017 I was blessed with the news that I was expecting a baby boy, due in November.

In October I started my parental leave. That sweet time in a parent’s life where they can take time off work, and enjoy nurturing their offspring without the pressure of work. Right? Wrong! You do not leave work, you have a new employer, and they want you to work 24/7, for no money, with no instruction on what to do. For my own experience as a first time parent, I soon noticed some uncanny similarities that my employer, the baby, was also very much like a product that I owned.

Baby as a product

Developed in 2017, the first iteration of the child aka newborn 1.0, was a beautiful thing to behold. The magic of human code, DNA, and the ability for it to create an entirely new human is truly a miracle. However no product is ever truly complete, so work began to continue developing my perfect bundle of joy into an ever improving bundle of cells.

Being agile

Boy, does this take on a whole new meaning. There is no better way to learn how to be agile than working out how to juggle feeding a baby, getting to an appointment, packing the car, changing the nappy, re-changing the nappy then the whole outfit after an accident, and then putting on washing before the baby runs out of clothes and has to be dressed in newspaper. On top of all that you need to be remembering to do… ah what was it you were meant to remember?

Prioritisation

Speaking of forgetting things, number one priority is your product, the baby. And then you need to prioritise everything relating to them. And then somewhere down the list you may have some priorities of your own, like taking your first shower in a week. If you need to work out what’s important then may I suggest – will it keep the baby happy and healthy? Then the answer is yes, do it, and in six weeks you’ll get your first smile from them.

Blockers

You are scrum master as well as product owner, and you don’t have a daily stand-up to discuss progress, you have a seemingly hourly review to ensure there are no blockers. Blockers can include being hungry, having wind, having a dirty nappy, being too hot, being too cold, being too stimulated or not stimulated enough. Sometimes after reviewing all possible blockers, you run out, and you’re not sure why your product is not working at all so it needs to go to the developers.

Developers

Your developers are your network of assistants: the midwife, your partner, your family, your friends, the doctor, the helpline, the forum of parents also up at 2am on Facebook, and quite often the all mighty Google. Sometimes the answer to improving your product is with them. Sometimes there is no answer, and you just need to wait for the product to improve by itself.

In conclusion

If you’re a parent – I hope your product is going well, it’s improving, and it continues to reward you in new and surprising ways. If you’re not a parent, enjoy being your own person, and if you see a new mum or dad slumped over their desk or looking like they’ve aged 40 years in 4 weeks… buy them a coffee.

Petrina Harper, Product Owner – Isentia
See original post on LinkedIn

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Tis’ the season to be jolly, but before we get into the holiday spirit here’s a few things that we’ve heard bring joy to our clients

A portal to your media data, made easy.

The volume of chatter and news coverage has increased and diversified with the introduction of new distribution channels almost daily. The task of capturing all relevant data is incredibly important, but often overwhelming and difficult to manage. Our Mediaportal clients love that while the technology is complex, the solution is simple.

Wherever a story appears – from Twitter to the weekend press – our technology picks it up, and delivers it directly to Mediaportal. It doesn’t matter when or where that story breaks, our clients get 24/7 access to their data via our intuitive online portal and app. They can customise how they would like to view their coverage, or zero in on a slice of data with flexible filtering tools. Most importantly, it is now even easier for our clients to sit back and take a look at the bigger picture, all from the one platform.

Have it your way.

One of the most loved features of Mediaportal is the ability to create Personal Folders. Mediaportal can automatically organise media items into folders based on criteria set by you. These folders can be organised by search terms, locations or media outlets, with the added feature of being able to manually add content to a folder if desired. This makes managing topics or key themes much easier – once created, folders can be shared with colleagues too, so they automatically appear under their Mediaportal login too.

Trust us with no fuss notifications.

Who sits at their desk from 9am-5pm nowadays? Our clients need to be kept informed and provided with timely updates no matter whether they’re in a meeting, dropping kids off to school, or presenting at a conference. Isentia’s media alerting system utilises all platforms and devices, supported by our news-hungry, market-leading account management teams who distribute information via email, RSS feeds or Isentia App notifications. The ability to receive information anywhere, anytime is a huge advantage for many of our clients who need relevant, accurate and manageable updates in a timely fashion.

Reporting that matters.

Regular reporting is nothing new for our clients – it is imperative in demonstrating sentiment and success relative to outputs. We know how important this is; in fact, we know that more than 5,000 reports are built in Mediaportal every week! Our Custom Reports tool is designed to suit a range of needs, allowing Mediaportal users to create, brand and share reports via a simple web link in under 2 minutes.

Analytics to help develop understanding.

With Mediaportal Analytics you can create visually engaging charts to measure the success of your media coverage and efforts. Many of our clients add relevant charts to their Mediaportal dashboard for repeat use – both saving time and allowing the delivery of a consistent picture of activity across every report.

Confidence in coverage.

Everyday our technology ingests millions of media items, and adds hundreds of millions of additional data points from other sources. Our team works hard to capture coverage that matters most to our clients, while also ensuring that the content captured meets the brief. It’s what gives our clients confidence in communicating this activity out to their wider teams, internal stakeholders and sometimes even with industry peers. 

There when you need us most.

We’re no strangers to a crisis. We’re there when our clients need us – whether the news is good, or not so good. One of the key reasons why many of our clients choose Isentia is because we know technology is great, but people are still critical to success. We have some fantastic, longstanding relationships and dedicated teams ready to assist at any time of day whether that is to simply help compile a report, or deal with an urgent crisis. Our clients lean on us, on the days when it really matters.

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Blog
These Are A few of Our Client’s Favourite Things

Tis’ the season to be jolly, but before we get into the holiday spirit here’s a few things that we’ve heard bring joy to our clients…

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What you may have missed on Mediaportal

From new data sources, customisable reports, a mobile app and a foray into AI – Isentia’s Mediaportal has had so many enhancements in 2017 alone, that it’s easy to see how things get missed.

Our constant curiosity to better understand the challenges that our clients face is something we’re very proud of. It’s the hunger to deliver solutions that make everyday tasks easier for our clients that has allowed us to deliver meaningful innovation. We know the pace and impact of media data, and beyond this, the pace at which many of our clients must run to keep up with it all.

So, in case you missed some of our new features, we’ve developed a quick overview of the things you may not know about Mediaportal and the Isentia App.

Connect with the right people and make sure your message is heard first

Our comprehensive media database and distribution service, Connect, ensures that your messages get to the right audiences. You can create your own contact list, track what happens to your media release when you send it, and measure the impact of the media coverage generated – all in the one place.

Beware of the myths

We’re more than traditional, basic media coverage. The breadth and depth of our media data is unrivaled – right across the whole media landscape. Pair that with our passion for accuracy and a team who live and breathe data, and we’ve got you covered. Whatever you need, online, print, broadcast, social – you can feel confident with us. Just check out some of the Australia & New Zealand activity here

Start your journey to success

We’re constantly working with product experts and a dedicated Client Success teams to help our clients get the job done, 24/7 and without stress. We work as an extension of our clients’ teams – particularly when an issue is breaking. Going beyond damage control, our teams know exactly what to look for and actively seek out ways to better support or help champion your efforts. Additionally, our dedicated User Experience team spend time with a mixture of clients as they go about their day – collecting the research that drives our product innovation.

Share the wins

When you’re doing good work, you need the tools to share your results and showcase the strategy behind that success. Within Mediaportal, we’ve built our most dynamic Report Builder yet to help you share those wins effectively. You can create reports that match the look and feel of your organisation, and even add in external content that doesn’t sit inside Mediaportal – all in the time that it takes to make a coffee. However, if you are too pressed for time, our Daily Briefings reports can be ready in your inbox by 6am every day.

We’re not afraid of new tech

We use machines where they work best, and human beings where they’re most effective. That’s why our IT team includes data scientists and machine learning experts who are working away on new technology that will allow our clients to work smarter, not harder. The Stories function within Mediaportal is a great example of this. Utilising artificial intelligence and machine learning, Stories sifts through the noise of your media coverage allowing you to quickly identify the most important stories, where they’re heading, and who is driving them.

You’ve got us in the palm of your hand

If you’re anything like us, your job doesn’t stop when the clock hits five o’clock. Our app optimises the Mediaportal experience for when you’re heading out the door, but need to stay in the know. Many of our current users visit the app before they’ve even turned their lights on in the morning. With the ever-present reality of busy family and work lives, the app sends you notifications on need-to-know media coverage straight to your device, wherever you are.

Tune in

We’ll be your eyes and your ears when it comes to radio and TV coverage. We’ve been delivering the best in broadcast summaries for years, with experienced subject-matter experts capturing all the data you need.

Got your passport?

Need to track social media in Shanghai, or send a media release in South Korea? If your organisation has a global footprint, Mediaportal can help you pull all of your information together from the one platform. We can track coverage, measure data and distribute media releases right across the globe. 

It’s better with a team

When your workload hits a peak, you might need a little help from your colleagues. Mediaportal is packed with tools that make it easy to collaborate with your team – you can share media items via email, or use comments to discuss specific coverage. Using the Isentia App, you can receive a notification straight to you phone when one of your team members comments on an item.

For more details on what success can look like for your team, contact us about Mediaportal so that we can help make your life a little easier.

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Blog
Beyond The Dashboards, Mentions, Syndication, Tweets, Radio Chatter…

From new data sources, customisable reports, a mobile app and a foray into AI – Isentia’s Mediaportal has had so many enhancements in 2017 alone, that it’s easy to see how things get missed.

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With so many different media types, the cycle is becoming increasingly complex...

I was recently asked what my take on the media landscape and the direction of our industry was. It was a great question. I think that there is an abundance of data out there and with so many different media types, the cycle is becoming increasingly complex. There was thought and speculation in the industry a few years ago that consolidation within the media industry would result in fewer media content creators, fewer media outlets, and that all media was moving online.

What we now see is that it’s actually more complex than it has ever been, with an increase in both the number of different publishers and content that is being created by media outlets, organisations and individuals. Within the media intelligence industry, it’s important that you can cast the net out wide in terms of what you are actually looking for, but to still have that focus on context and relevance to ensure you can find exactly what you need in a much bigger pool of information.

What I’m noticing more so, is that our clients are asking us to understand what that data means, instead of it just being collected and presented to them. More organisations are looking for insights, through measurement and research, and that isn’t easily sourced; it is deep within that data.

So what does that mean for our clients? 

The next big thing for most industries would be artificial intelligence and machine learning, and we’ve started our first steps towards this at Isentia with Mediaportal Stories. With machine learning comes faster insights, faster intelligence, better data and better decision-making capabilities. Ultimately, we want to be at the forefront of that within the media intelligence industry, so that our people can use their expertise and knowledge to truly help our clients’ problem solve.

One of the key things that we’re currently talking to our clients about, and where we’re really helping them to problem solve, is through understanding what the most important issues are for them – right across the media landscape. Understanding what channels are important to which customers, and what topics are driving influence or opinion across different customer segments are the more common questions we receive.

There are just so many different formats and channels that professional communicators could focus on, and it is trying to identify those important areas across all media types to give our clients the whole picture of their media landscape, which makes the difference. Ultimately, we are best placed to help our clients in this space when you consider our relevance, our scope of content, the knowledge and expertise of our account management teams, and our understanding of our clients and of the media landscape. This is at the core of how and what we help our clients with every single day.

If you don’t know where to start, why don’t you consider getting in touch with our team?

Brendan McGreevy

Country Manager, Isentia Australia

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Blog
Problem Solving Through Understanding

With so many different media types, the cycle is becoming increasingly complex…

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A user-centric approach to delivering media data

We check our phone, on average, more than 80 times per day, and that number is even higher for younger generations. Many of us check our phones before even turning the light on in the morning.

There are some fantastic synergies between mobile use and the news cycle – seemingly both never stop, both take different forms as new technology and communication evolves, and both are often weapons of choice for many Communication professionals and CXO’s alike.

After a recent update to the Isentia App, we asked our product specialists to share insights on our mobile gateway to Mediaportal.

If you’re not familiar with Mediaportal, it is Isentia’s flagship platform that brings the complexity of media data into a simple-to-use, easy-to-navigate solution. The platform provides the tools that our clients need to stay informed, demonstrate success and measure coverage with confidence. 

Designed for any device, along with a dedicated app – the future is flexible, and most importantly, focused on creating a great user experience.

“I was speaking to a client the other day and she informed me that before she even gets out of bed every morning, she checks the Isentia App. I loved hearing about how integrated we are in her daily routine.”  Sean Smith, Chief Executive of Media Intelligence.

Bringing real time insights where our customers need them is our first priority – that’s why we approach every project with a specific focus on the mobile experience.

The Isentia App has been especially important for clients wanting to be instantly notified to new and important media coverage and to create media reports or share important media coverage on the go.

Media teams need to be able to access relevant content and mentions as soon as possible, so the ability to get customised notifications is rapidly becoming the most important tool for our clients.

“Our most recent reports are showing a 30% month on month increase in app sessions. And with the latest version of the iOS app, we’ve seen a 47% jump in screen views,” Michael Bade, Senior Product Engineer.

Our latest update includes refreshed coverage listing, item card and detailed UI to better align with the web interface and a redesigned swipe function on media items for frequently used actions. We’ve also made enhancements to the UX for a better overall experience, along with updates to the settings sections so that all app-related functions can be managed from the one place. 

“It’s not always about innovation sometimes it’s simply solving a real problem. Knowing how much value we add to our clients’ day in, day out, is what keeps me motivated to find more solutions to their problems, perhaps before they even know they have the problem.” Sean Smith, Chief Executive of Media Intelligence.

Learn more about the Isentia App, or download the latest release available on the App Store and Google Play today.

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Blog
The Future Is Flexible

We check our phone, on average, more than 80 times per day, and that number is even higher for younger generations. Many of us check our phones before even turning the light on in the morning.

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Get in touch or request a demo.