Supernova Award Category

Tech Optimization and Modernization

The Problem

The disruptive future is arriving fast for the financial services industry and only a few firms will remain intact. Scaling education of cryptocurrencies and blockchain is difficult but critical for our future. 

The Solution

FinTech Friday - An internal 30-minute live-studio audience and live-streamed show about technologies including crytpocurrencies, blockchain, machine learning, artificial intelligence, AR/VR, big data, etc.. The show has real time interaction with audience and viewers via Symphony (like The Stream on Al Jazeera or HuffPo Live). 

• Segment one - the week in FinTech news, using emojis as story backdrop (late-night talk show)
• Segment two - ELI5 (Explain Like I'm Five) on the topic of the day. A lot around crypto currencies.
• Segment three - guest interview (Colbert Report esque)
• Segment four - explain this Venmo payment. A hypothetical emoji-only Venmo payment between our founders (Alexander Hamilton & Andrew Mellon) is posted on our Jive site at the beginning of the week. The best explanation wins. 

The results

Blockchain has become a mainstream conversation topic at our firm in less than a year.  Many colleagues are now aware that the financial industry is about to go through what the media industry has gone through with the rise of social media use. 

Metrics

x amount of increase of new blog posts and discussions about blockchain
x amount of viewers
x amount of audience members

all those numbers can be gathered. the real measurement will be how many products and services use blockchain
 

The Technology

• Symphony - real-time chat client that we use similar to a "Twitter Stream" at a conference
• Jive - where we market the show, crowdsource guest and article submissions, host the Venmo payment and have discussion, keep the replays for binge watching
• Qumu - enterprise video platform which allows us to scale viewers
• Confluence - work out loud project tracking 

Disruptive Factor

No one gave us an approval to run the show. It started like any basic YouTube show that started low quality but picked up on production value as it gained traction. 

All of the above technologies fall under me as Product Manager. The exposure of each has increased because of the show. 

Shining Moment

A number of times where people I didn't know told me how they are now thinking of ways to use blockchain within our current business models.