Dear readers,
We have paused our Tuesday interview posts to present you our MARCONI use cases! The following month, we will publish stories that illustrate the value of MARCONI for radiomakers and listeners. The illustrations have been made by MARCONI member Sandy Claes, whose interview will also be posted shortly 😉 Any questions or interested in being part of MARCONI? Subscribe to our newsletter here or mail us on contact@projectmarconi.eu!
Every year, in the week before Christmas, a week-long 24/7 radio event for charity is organized in Belgium. This radio event takes place outside, in a custom studio set-up. Many people are invited to be interviewed live on radio and there is a lot of interaction with the listeners.
Linde is the radio presenter for the following three hours of the radio event. She goes to stand behind the presenter’s desk and swipes through the rundown of the next hour. For every group of listeners that is invited to talk about their fundraising activity, a separate item is displayed in the rundown. When she clicks on a item, she can see more information about that specific group, along with the media that the group has sent in by using the radio station’s app.
Sien, the editor for the next three hours, prepares a rundown based on the content that has been, sent in. For every relevant story that is submitted with the radio station’s app, she creates an item at an appropriate slot in the radio show. Moreover, she is able to approve or reject sent-in media directly. When a piece of content is approved here, it can be used by any subsequent by-product (e.g. television, social media, public screens). The studio is equipped with several screens that can showcase user-generated content during the radio show. The content on these screens also adapts to the users (of the radio station’s app) that are standing in front of the microphone. When available, the approved content sent in by that particular group is displayed.
During the next hour, Linde requests listeners to submit messages via the radio station’s app about the current topic. Sien is able to follow up all the responses with the editor app. Before letting anyone call in during the show, the editor asks additional detailed questions. Luckily, the MARCONI app has got her covered: it automatically analyses incoming messages and tries to derive the context. Based on this context, the app suggests a couple of automated responses, that Sien can simply select to send. If these responses are not sufficient, also pre-programmed responses by the editorial team (such as ‘Thanks!’) are offered, as well as the ability to send a custom message.
Later during the show, a listener sends a message to the radio station via the app. MARCONI recognizes some relevant keywords in the message, including the subject of the current radio show and the topics Linde talked about the last hour. Therefore, Sien is notified of this message by means of a smart alert in the MARCONI app. She decides it would be interesting to have a quick phone call with that listener to elaborate on the topic on live radio. She taps the ‘Request phone number’ button in the MARCONI app, that automatically sends a message to that listener with the question to respond with their telephone number to talk about their on live radio. A couple of moments later, the listener answers with their phone number. Because MARCONI has been integrated with the telephone system of Studio Brussel, Sien can tap the phone number and choose ‘Call’. This sets up a call with the listener, using a third-party solution (Phonebox, Skype, Telos,...). After a brief conversation, Sien puts the listener through to Linde, who has a nice conversation on air. The conversation went well. In fact, Sien decides this could be an interesting contact for future radio shows. Within the MARCONI app, a button pops up next to the phone number that reads ‘Request permission for future use’. Sien taps this button. This initiates an automated conversation with the listener, that automatically asks him or her for permission to save the phone number for future use. If the listener accepts, this is reflected in the personal settings of the app as well.
