What is Executive Order 3?

On his first day in office in 2007, former New York State Governor Eliot Spitzer issued a number of Executive Orders including one requiring all New York State Agencies and Authorities to make their open meetings available to the public online. In June 2008, current Governor David Patterson continued this order.

Background

Webcasting.com (Formerly Mike Pollock International, Inc. and ExecutiveOrder3.com), has specialized in both live and on-demand video broadcasting over the Internet for Government clients since 2004. We were one of the first companies to provide webcasting services to State of New York Agencies and Authorities who needed compliance with Governor Spitzer's Executive Order 3 - Promotion of Public Access to Government Decision Making.

Benefits

By outsourcing this project, you are saving yourself a ton of money and time. Our firm has all the equipment necessary. You don't have to buy any hardware or software, including cameras, encoding machines, or servers. You also don't have to spend money or time researching which hardware to buy, training staff on new equipment, maintaining the equipment, or operating the equipment during the meetings. We handle the entire project for you! We are a one-stop-shop that can take care of camera operation, webcasting (live and on-demand), and captioning!

Camera Operation

We use only professional 3-chip digital video cameras to record and broadcast our meetings. Whether you need one-camera or multiple cameras, we can handle it for you!

Real-Time Live Webcasting

One of the reasons why our services are in such demand is because we are one of the only firms who can broadcast meetings LIVE on the Internet! Whether you have five or five hundred people watching, our media servers can handle the load of even the most demanding live broadcasts. Our current government clients prove this every week.

On-Demand Webcasting

While our machines are broadcasting the signal LIVE on the Internet, they are also encoding the video for archiving purposes. You are required to have your meetings available on-demand no later than two business days following the meeting - we meet this requirement and usually have your videos available same or next day.

On-Demand Webcasting - Storage Time Period

You are required to keep your videos for a minimum of four months. We typically store them for 12 months - and we can store them longer than that if you need! You can also keep the files locally or burn them to CD or DVD for archiving or distribution!

User Accommodation

You are required to provide streams that accommodate both dial-up and broadband users. We provide multiple streams that will accommodate your users whether they use dial-up or broadband.

You are also required to provide streams that support multiple software clients including Real Player and Windows Media Player. Our streaming and archive servers can be accessed by either of these two players AND can be accessed by Apple users running Quicktime. We also provide links to the different software clients' websites so users can make sure they have all of the latest software.

Accessibility - Captioning

You are required to provide captioning with your video. We take care of this entire piece as well. Our captioning works with both format (windows media, real) on both streams (broadband, dial-up) in BOTH our live and on-demand streams! To be in compliance with EO3, we post your captioning on the archives within 7 days - usually much sooner!

In addition (yes, there's more!), captioning is user-specified - meaning the user can choose to watch the video with or without the captioning. This keeps you in compliance with Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act.

NYS Backdrop Contract

Our parent company, Mike Pollock International, Inc., received one of the first New York State Backdrop IT Services Contracts for Webcasting in July 2007. This contract assists our clients and helps make procurment very easy. Our contract number is CMT297A.

How it Works

As mentioned, we have all of the equipment and expertise needed. We bring in our own staff during your meetings to run the cameras, webcasting devices, and captioning. If you already have camera, we can get the video feed from you and webcast it out. All of our equipment plugs into one of our routers, so all we need from you is one Ethernet connection to your high-speed network and one IP address. We then "push" the video streams to our media server network which can handle any number of simultaneous viewers.

People will find the links to both the live and on-demand videos on YOUR website. We work completely in the background. Although the links are found on your site, the bandwidth and storage space required for the videos are coming from OUR servers ! There is no extra hardware or bandwidth you need to be worried about!

Agenda Indexing Service

One of the main reasons why so many NYS Agencies and Authorities use Webcasting.com is because of our Agenda Indexing service.

This is when we post your meeting video on a webpage next to a copy of your agenda. Then, we link each agenda item to the exact moment in the video where that item was talked about.

Most of our clients have 1-4 hour meetings. Agenda indexing is the critical compenent that allows users to jump right to the agenda item they are looking for.

Webcasting.com is the only provider currently offering this service in compliance with Executive Order 3. Here is an example of Webcasting.com's Agenda Indexing.

Webcasting.com's EXCLUSIVE PowerPoint Integration Service

Webcasting.com is also the only provider to offer a PowerPoint Integration service like the one we have. Let's say you have a PowerPoint presentation in your meeting. According to OFT's Best Practices, your video should be encoded at 282kbps. The problem is, your PowerPoint slides will be unreadable at this level if you try to mix them with your video.

What's the solution - don't mix the PowerPoint slides with the video - embed them in their own area NEXT to the video window - then, time each slide to the video. (it sounds like a lot of work - and it is - but we handle all of that!). Here's an example

Fees

We are a one-stop-shop that will handle the entire project for you and get you in compliance with EO3. In fact, we are probably the only one who can do the entire thing for you - and at these prices! I designed these prices so they would not break your budget!

Costs are determined based on the services required. We conveniently break our fees down to an affordable rate for camera operation, streaming, and captioning. Each client has different requirements so we encourage you to give us a call. We'd be happy to provide a free assessment for you.

How much would it cost you to research all of the hardware/software, buy it, configure it, train people on it, maintain it, and operate it during the meetings?

You have enough to worry about.

Contact Us Today and We'll Help You Get Into

Full Compliance with Zero Hassle.

Call Mike @ 1-914-432-8623