Case Study: Association of the United States Army

		"We are working closely with Vodium to provide a new level of access to information that affects the members of the Army, Congress and the defense industry. As the 'Voice of the Army' we want to use the Internet to reach our membership around the country and around the world. Vodium's technology allows us to do that in a completely new way." - General Gordon R. Sullivan, President of AUSA

Association of the United States Army (AUSA)

www.ausa.org

Target Market

Association

Applications

Virtual Conferences and Meetings

Distance Learning

Issues

AUSA’s objective was to find an Internet-based, cost-effective communications solution that would increase member participation in its range of activities. By making events such as conferences, debates, meetings, and educational programs more accessible to its global membership, AUSA hoped to build an even stronger professional and representative association.

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Business Overview

Business Challenge

Vodium Solution

Results

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Business Overview
The Association of the United States Army is the premier voice for America's soldiers. Since 1950, AUSA has worked to support all aspects of national security and to advance the interests of America's Army and the men and women who serve. Its global membership comprises more than 95,000 individuals spread across 17 different time zones.

AUSA's mission is to represent every American Soldier by: being the voice for all components of America's Army, fostering public support of the Army's role in national security, and providing professional education and information programs.

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Business Challenge
AUSA is committed to building a stronger organization by reaching out to new members and deepening its relationship with existing members. AUSA offers a breadth of programs and services to advocate for the men and women of the U.S. Army, support soldiers and their families, educate the public on the value of the Army and keep members current on issues that affect them in the work place. Its services include conferences, seminars, regional defense forums, legislative monitoring and reporting, newsletters, magazines and other publications.

However, traditional means alone fall short of achieving maximum reach and superior communications. On-site participation in conferences and other meetings is limited by capacity, geographic or time constraints. Member exposure to important issues and upcoming activities could be enhanced with high impact, interactive video clips that would drive traffic not only to media on demand events, but also to other information assets on the website and in publications.

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Vodium Solution
AUSA turned to Vodium to implement an Internet-based, cost-effective communications solution. With the MediaPod™ platform, AUSA and Vodium have created and delivered to the desktop a wide range of interactive media on demand events representing dozens of hours of content. In addition, with the MediaMosaic™ platform, AUSA has created an extensive, searchable online library housing all of this rich media content.

With Vodium's leading technology, AUSA launched Internet and CD access to its premier events, including the Woodrow Wilson Conference, its Winter Symposium, its annual conference and, most recently, a forum on the future of the Army. Vodium transformed existing videotapes from meetings into enriched presentations of streaming video, synchronized slides, transcripts, table of contents and high resolution images. To raise the level of interactivity and impact even further for select events, Vodium incorporated advanced features such as video in video, web pages that launch directly from slide presentations and bookmarks to save favorite areas of events.

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Results
AUSA's partnership with Vodium has resulted in an organization that is better able to grow its global membership and educate and advocate for its cause.

Cost-Effectiveness
Vodium's outsourced, pay-per-event business model appealed to AUSA. The organization did not want to invest in an expensive enterprise system and the specialized skills needed to operate it. With Vodium's technology platform, AUSA is able to cost-effectively provide its members access to events that were previously closed to them.

For example, at AUSA’s recent forum, “The Future of the Army: Challenges of Securing the Nation in the 21st Century,” AUSA was able to expand its audience more than 1200% by including a virtual conference component, available through the Internet or on CD. More importantly, Vodium enabled AUSA to boost its audience to this level in a very cost-effective manner. The cost per head of the virtual conference was less than 5% the cost per head of the physical conference. In addition, with Vodium’s help, AUSA sent attention-grabbing CDs, complete with video clips, slides, transcripts and images from the forum, to all the Congressional offices and select individuals at the Department of Defense. For AUSA, creating a high impact conference CD cost less than half the amount of producing hard copy conference reports. Vodium’s combination of cost-effectiveness, reach and impact makes for a very powerful solution for AUSA.

Expanded Reach
Whereas AUSA's meetings were previously limited by capacity, geographic or time constraints, they are now open to a larger number of members via anytime, anywhere Internet and CD access. In the past few months alone, several thousand viewers have participated in AUSA events through Vodium's MediaPod™ and MediaMosaic™ platforms. Members are returning again and again to AUSA's rich media library to easily find the information most important to them. Even more indicative of the popularity of the media on demand events, members are emailing presentation links to colleagues. This results in greater reach across programs and effective viral marketing for AUSA.

Superior Communications
With Vodium's rich media presentation platform, AUSA can keep all its members and the public better informed of important issues and programs. Remote viewers have access to presentations previously limited to physical attendance. On-site conference attendees can return to the event anytime and view an enriched presentation with not only video, but also with slides, speaker bios, hyperlinks, reports and other related files.

Furthermore, all viewers have full control over their own viewing experience. With Vodium's interactive tools, individuals can easily fast forward or replay parts of a presentation, retrieve the precise information they need within a single presentation and across multiple events and dig deep when desired. With this innovative use of technology, AUSA can more successfully attract new members and be the voice for America's Army.