um but to start off with uh tom um just you know welcome to welcome to the conference fit for the future um just tell us a little bit about liberty global and you know you're better known as a domestic brands business um and tell us a little bit about the group and about yourself please sure and i think the easy easy place to start is probably virgin media is probably the name that everyone will know so we are a converged business for broadband for video for communication services and virgin media certainly in the uk is probably one of the the well-known brands um from our group and likewise lots of sister companies across europe so we uh tell you that and upc and vodafone's ago and so our crudely our business is i always think of it as a sort of m a type business we we create value by buying and investing in fantastic companies and then working very hard around the structural arrangements so virgin media you'll know has merged with o2 in the uk to create virgin media row 2. very imaginatively named uh business um and so uh we're we're we're in that space as well as um some some interesting um value creation as we like to call it sort of a global investment arm that we have so um the other sorts of things that people perhaps might not be aware um we we own a big chunk of things like itv so we've got strategic investment in itv and also formulary in the uk as well um so a lot of things that you will be familiar with but under the liberty global umbrella and then my role within the group is overseeing frankly what i describe as all the fun stuff so i have events i have graphic design and i have film production and that's for liberty global which tends to be the sort of head office functions as we would call them and then the opcos to the operating companies like virgin media02 or like telenet or live vodafone cigo so we'll help those to the degree that they need them and that could be anything from this sort of stuff so lots of internal uh versions of conferences and road shows awards ceremonies through to much smaller stuff you know um slightly less exciting but important things like board meetings and and some of our sort of higher-end stuff so anything and everything and we will touch it and deliver it or produce it okay thank you very much for that and as a media company um i'd expect your channels to be very sophisticated um and how how do you get the best out of them during a pandemic when many of your staff and leaders are working remotely and that's a significant change in your business environment the culture as well good oh great question and i i smile because i would say don't don't be under any illusion that they are sophisticated we we have um we we're also investing in our products and our services for our customers of course but internally we'll have the same challenges as a lot of other companies um and and even more so because we're a group structure all of our companies are typically on different platforms and stuff so actually the the channel space in particular is is really really challenging um we you know like like everyone over the last year or so we've rapidly accelerated and the deployment of technology platform systems yeah obvious stuff like office 365 and teams and all of that good stuff um and introduced newer things so things like uh facebook uh workplace from facebook um which we've been introducing or yammer in some of the other operating companies um but not necessarily hugely sophisticated in themselves what we are doing it's for me it's about what we do with them and i've i've brought a couple of images actually i was going to just just pop the first one up to show you uh one of the examples and you can excuse the the quirky titling um delivering and togethering are just some internal names for some of our leadership populations within virgin and we obviously had a spaceship themed uh strategy at the time there the reason i wanted to touch on these we've we've spent more of the time and resource thinking about things like the design and the experience than just the channel itself so a lot of the time the actual mechanic is fairly simple and you'll see in this case we've got ultimately a zoom call or it's a webex or a teams or even a vmix or something like that that we'll all be familiar with but we've invested in the theming not in in just a sort of jazz hands point of view but in in crafting that to support the message and a lot of this is much more animated and then pairing with for for example the studio you'll see on the the top picture there will have a simple small studio setup with presenters that we can bring in uh virtually and then blend that with brilliant content that we're able to create so it's for me it's creating more things that look a bit like a tv show so we might not have the channel that is actually a tv show but we are creating that kind of effect and experience and that's come and that's evolved um but the the final point for on on this one actually that's really interesting is a bit more of a cultural point internally or frankly just practical point you'll see hopefully familiar faces on there people like richard branson we've had better access to people like that over the last year or so because we're not needing to travel so actually that has in itself changed then the mix of what we deliver or how we deliver and the channels that we use to do that so the fact that we can say hey can you drop into this leadership event well yes i can obviously there's probably a little bit more prep and logistics with his team that uh that goes with that but actually having people like richard or mike who's who's the bottom left our ceo based in denver to bring them together is using a very simple channel um but thinking about what you put into it and how you dress up and i suppose they're well-versed in terms of how they're communicating with their audience through these platforms as well because that's a big benefits in terms of what you've been doing it's it is it's interesting it's one of the is one of the challenges and when i was preparing for this with claire was one of the challenges i i raised to say actually it is easier but equally i think our speakers and our presenters need help in different ways and so from my side of the table thinking about production or thinking about the experience i want someone to have you take for granted i understand how the technology works broadly um what i learned very quickly for people particularly this level we're putting them through a different version of the platform three or four times a day for the events that they're attending and frankly i was getting getting more pissed off when they're like well why is the mute button in a different place on this and i'm like well it's a completely different system why is it a different system well i've got a different provider providing well why have you got a different provider and so the support that presenters now need or speakers now need is is actually is is very different to this sort of in-person environment um and we've had our clunkiness of well i could connect my headphones in that way to that platform why can't i in this way and they then start making a judgment call about the technology as well so that's interesting it's a challenge and and now you're sort of you're back to work back in the office i'm presuming you're back in the office or getting back into the office environment um what is the strategy in terms of the comes you know now and event the future another good one i think around experience for for me so i i sit as broadly as part of a comms function which is fantastic because we're effectively the delivery on but beautifully plugged into what is the narrative and what are we trying to do and actually then what we've become is that voice of challenge around experience and consistency and i think just debating with some of my team on the way in this morning we we're looking to go back from the 20th our offices will be reopening and we're going to have some town hall type moments that will just need to be clunky because we've not been through that moment yet of people being in an office and people being either at home or in another room in the same building because we won't have the capacity that feels right and so how do you then deliver the content in the way that feels consistent for everybody um how is that content even consistent before it's delivered um but then really basic stuff like and i've experienced it myself if you're if you're using hardware in an office and you're then being told use the chat function on this well i don't have the chat function anymore because i'm not sat at home on my laptop so the instructions that we give people so frankly for me a lot of it is about our role a lot of our focus i think will be providing the right experience that is as consistent as we can get it accepting where there is going to need to be some compromise um but then also i think helping our comms colleagues from from a strategy point of view really we're using language like onboarding people again you know we are having to reintroduce people to a world of work and we are of working in an office and we have a huge role that we can play in doing that and so i think a lot of the focus of my team will be we're getting requests can we just capture this moment on film so that we've got something to play back at some point can we just help with some engaging activities you know it could be as crude as booking catering and you know ice cream vans to welcome people back into our offices and stuff at the right time so there will be an awful lot of supporting the rest of the business to come back safely i think that reconnecting piece is really important isn't it yeah and the connecting is an important word again from from the team that we sit in it's about celebrating and connecting people it's not incentivizing people is the message that i've had you know my my my manager looks over culture communications and engagement and she said we have a very fine line we're not here to entice people back in when incentivize them we're connecting them and then we're celebrating those moments we can be together and for me you've got to be mindful i have a number of people that don't have an office because they're now home workers because of some structural change we have to be really sympathetic to those situations or people who for whatever reason we may not may not see cannot travel in and not make a judgment about them and and what lessons would you take away from the last 18 months and not looking backwards but looking forward yeah good you know what and how would you apply them in the future you know not the next three months but you know in 2022 and beyond did you see that evolving look a couple of simple points and then actually just reflecting on on the first session we had today my first point nothing nothing that we do in my team is ever going to be as important as what's going on out of work and so i have a really clear personal message to my own team and you know i'm fortunate i've got a fairly decent sized team nothing that we deliver you know films and powerpoints and wonderful events will ever be as important as your friends your family your health and that sort of stuff and so i think we've had a real shift in balance and i talked to my team about better balance and and i think just understanding what's going on in in people's lives and in people's minds so i think that has to be a start point to to just keep yourself grounded to a certain degree internally and then i think the other message for me is don't don't try and sweat stuff that we're not in control of i think if you without looking back it does make the point the world quite literally changed overnight for for everybody so when you look forward i i feel less worried now looking forward about not knowing what's coming up because i know we will have an ability to unpick it in real time understand as much as we can do and just make a judgment decision and so i found my own function internally has has probably shifted from being a longer lens or more strategic thinking about the moments that we might support delivering over a year to being actually ultimately as a support function what does the organization need this week or this month everyone's coming to me for can you help us get people back to the offices so that's what we'll do we've got lots of other big cyclical lovely stuff on but i think shortening the lens actually is is okay and that's cool and then for me it's just really been comfortable to see what what is going on use the the news flow that is around you whether that is from the government or whether that's from wonderful industry bodies um in our own area and don't be afraid to make a judgement call in the moment go with what you know and just have a go and i know that probably sounds a bit easy or a bit sort of vague but i think actually looking much much further out is going to be is going to be harder to do and i think my final point would probably be don't don't underestimate anything and so therefore think much more broadly around technology if you look at the way we're using technology now and also the way we are behaving so look at those two things um think just much more broadly about actually when i do this thing that i did a year ago in two years time it's likely to be very different throw the rule book out and don't be afraid to make it feel very very different and a bit random yeah that's a really good point i think when we were chatting in the leadership meeting or conversation we're having one of the guys we're going i don't know isn't you know saying i don't know isn't a problem really isn't it he's actually saying you know this is we're all we're all learning as we go absolutely certainly aren't we and so the short term versus the long term going on that journey is just part of that journey and being i have found you know just in my own experience as a sort of senior leader within liberty global being confident to say i don't know is the thing if you if you look like you're not sure that doesn't always go down well if you go in very firmly and say i do not know but i'm very happy to give you my judgment call or my experience or my opinion because of these things you can get things over the line that's a really good point so again part of the conversation we were having earlier in the leadership conversation was around uh user-generated contents um obviously it's uh it's a word that's been used a lot now this is another awful one isn't it it's a bit like hybrid and furlough and that sort of stuff so i mean what do you think the benefits of it are in the content and the content mixed on that side of things um generally great and big fan and actually i've got um a couple me a couple of more images actually so i'll take you on to the next one just to to start making the point um so genuinely i think user-generated content is great and for me it's it's often about how you brief people what you want them to to do and then how you use it so actually by default i've already said it's great but i'm managing it and i'm doing something with it which is kind of my point so so as as a start point i think it's fantastic it gives particularly for us as a corporate it gives employees a voice which is fantastic it then opens a can of worms of do you curate it do you police it or whatever what i choose to say which i was going to come onto is we'll probably finesse it we'll help help make it even better um but no generally generally great for very many reasons more of them actually about culture and behavior for me so i think it's more um culturally cool to allow somebody to have a voice in a way that's very different rather than it's a restricted corporate governance uh governed view and this example for for example this was a big um event we think we kind of used this to close virgin media so it was a big virtual event at the time but with a bit of a studio function i wanted to show this for a couple of reasons because it makes the point of that that kind of not quite hybrid but we're using a studio to bring more of that tv vibe that i talked about albeit it was all watched virtually but user generated content featured heavily and so you'll see um you might be able to see on the led wall there workplace was was the tool that we had introduced into virgin media at the time and so became a really cool dynamic to gather it gather stuff in advance or importantly to use as part of the playback and engagement throughout yeah throughout the event um but also just a really great platform for hosting that with the right framework so by default or by its definition it allows people uh to really well have their framework to drop their user-generated content in and engage in a way that is it's it's authentic and it is safe but also it's got the the framework of an internal coms team around it and stuff so it was a really big user-generated content was a really big part of a huge event that we played to close um and i think i've got some other user generated uh content kind of points coming up perhaps uh a little bit later on but yeah so yeah great great point great fan but sometimes with some support and can you be authentic and creative and how's the pendulum swung how does that yeah and i think i probably alluded to it my only era of around let people have this wonderful voice and then we'll help them tidy it up so perhaps actually if we go to the the last um the last picture it'll it'll make that point um and again then this is the benefit of the team that i have internally so all of this is is effectively user generated content from from lutz is our ceo of virgin media o2 business in the uk the other two are genuinely um snippets from from events that we've run and the point i wanted to make here was we we've polished them so we've taken something that's self shot um and very authentic and hasn't been edited but what we have is give it that polish so to your question around the sort of the pendulum swing i think is is one that we've helped swing so we will all know you know the obvious was it was it was pretty pretty ropey at the beginning of you know mutes and camera angles and all that sort of comedy stuff that would thankfully we're now well through and i think everyone behaves brilliantly um and i think with the with having the gist of that and having particularly for me because we look after them our most senior leaders able to shoot something themselves and be a part of that quite authentic storytelling what we do find they benefit from is the polish so with these examples you'll see this is where i would say we've got great user generated but i've also got the value of my in-house film team just to give it the polish um and hopefully that comes across as i'm not overly policing or curating something but we'll we're saying actually just the effects that we've applied to something and and these are actually films that we've just turned into gifts to make the point today but so they wouldn't normally operate like this but it it looks a little bit more polished and authentic but has helped that swing from some of the clunkiness and that experience has moved on significantly as you've been going through that learning curve hasn't it as well which is which is interesting to see yeah we haven't got this on the questions but i'm just intrigued around how you're measuring success and metrics and things like that it's great you know it's a really good question because i would at this one i would happily say we're not not in a in i'm proud of that as in i think we've been so focused we've had to be so focused on um getting it up and running and out there that actually we're very aware of the need for measurement and i i say we're not we of course do across the internal comms teams and and the stuff that we deliver but not probably at the level that i would like to specifically around some of the outputs that we create and that's um that's that's probably more in my own part within liberty global i think there will be much more measurement more easily in places like virgin media because of workplace they will have much better visibility of you know who is accessing what and how how people are interacting with stuff than we do but i think in my own direct control within liberty global we we need to do more we're actively talking about that okay as a comms function we need to do more around measurement and you're i mean you've your team's gone through a journey this evolution of what you've do you're creating now as well so you've got a large team how do you encourage them to think differently and do things differently how do you how do you work with your team honestly some of it's as as simple as just encouraging people to be curious and to get out and about and to keep an eye out on what's going on out there um i so i i will just actively encourage people and so often if i say it is cool to go and look at something to spend some time thinking about something or to bring a new idea to the table giving that permission as the leader is is a great thing and so um i will always do that and and oddly social media is actually really really helpful for this sort of stuff because to the point we touched on it again earlier on you that that kind of time when you can scroll through is is a really great way to digest stuff without overly thinking about it so actually we'll we'll also say to people just you know follow um follow companies that you know you might be interested in for you for the different parts of my team follow companies on instagram for example and linkedin is awesome but is obviously more professionally led don't underestimate some of the more playful stuff or more everyday social stuff just to spark a bit of curiosity and then bring that to our team meeting we we meet regularly as a as a function so every couple of weeks um we'll get together and i'll say to people i want to hear what have you seen what have you heard and so it's it's often as simple as just giving people permission to be curious and bring stuff to the table okay i think we're into question time now actually awesome um i don't know i don't there's any questions from the audience if anybody's got any questions for tom got jj down here uh you mentioned about uh obviously different platforms through the different businesses in virgin media but um do you find this much uh the way you're delivering the content for different businesses is it very business related i.e it's a particular style for one brand it's a different style for another and is that a problem when you've got people saying actually i think i think the brand over there is much sexier than what we're doing over here or vice versa great shout out yeah and actually i've i've got one of my wonderful colleagues here who looks after the design team in the film team so i'm going to have a go and see if it makes him smile because we we one of the attractions so if i start with my own team one of the attractions for my team is actually the ability to deal with different brands so that you know just having different colors virgin media is a lot of red and red gets quite tiring after a while um and so actually the as my team has grown to support either liberty global or the other operating companies selfishly just dealing with other colors other patterns is is interesting so for my own team the more we get to touch and deal with the better which is great and then on a more practical level um we we see real benefit we see real i'd want to use the word synergy to look like we're just saving money and being being tight but actually we see real value by being able to reuse some of these great ideas in different ways and so what often happens is one part of the business it could be one operating company will say i've seen this really cool thing that you've done for liberty global can we get a virgin media version and so it's really easy for us to then crudely sometimes it's changing colors and fonts and shapes but actually we also hold that content so we were also able to help other parts of the business go well we we have created this tool for virgin media we think it's what you're telling us why don't you copy that with pride and we can do the design job so there is real value in us actually past we we are the part of the business that passes a lot of good stuff that exists and repackages it into other things and film is another great example we can you know without just crudely reusing footage we can easily repurpose either the idea of something or some of the elements and then just fit it into another brand whether it be color shape or even language so it's for me that's it's really positive we got any other questions on the floor thick and fast i love it hi there um how's the pandemic affected how you resource externally in any way yeah great how you look at who your core how your supply base is is constructed to really yeah absolutely it's a great question i think my pause was almost one of actually we're in quite a humble position internally that we were able to maintain the sort of function i have frankly there are people that have had a pretty brutal time um and and we haven't and so we're very fortunate because of the nature of my business our other business that we're in my team has been safe albeit we've actually been quite careful at deploying people and helping other parts of the business when i look externally you know we've lost lots of great businesses and and people that have truly suffered so i think we're in a blessed position but actually of course it's made it very very hard you know you from a practical point of view the sorts of companies that we would partner with for if we take events there will be events companies that have closed down as a result of things over the last year those were companies that we were using for things so that's been really really tough um the i think the swing inter we're doing more stuff that's not requiring the same services like production or venues or accommodation and stuff so actually we've then found our feet okay by either upskilling people internally so becoming experts in operating some of these virtual platforms to the degree that we can and then just finding the right partners that can operate those brilliantly externally so we we haven't struggled but we're not back in the market at the moment doing the stuff externally i think the and the only obvious point which i'm sure a lot of you will be facing is things like venues are probably where you feel the pinch point of particularly with your sales teams that aren't available will be just much harder to either get hold of or they're having a thankless task to reply to thousands of random inquiries as to whether you can do something on a tuesday in a few months time so actually those are probably the pinch points which we're not quite tapping into yet because we don't we're not there yet for some of the external stuff but yeah it's a it's a great one okay so i'm i've got one final question for you which is uh it is on our list and i think it's a nice way to wrap things up in terms of this session in terms of what are your key priorities uh you know you know as you merge out of this um and you know in the upturn of what's happening in the marketplace as well yeah good shot i think um and a couple of angles so so on a on a team level so as a as a leader and as a manager of a team i think it's just keeping the team stable and on track and again reflecting on the first session i probably spend more time now um worrying is is probably the wrong word but but being mindful and worrying about my people and my team than projects that we're delivering and so actually the needs of people are so much more important that i think you know as a manager that's probably my first point um then i think the second is that sort of short term and then longer term lens so certainly on the long term where it's much more exciting i am looking at things for next year and we are looking at venues and overseas projects and that sort of stuff so it's having the right percentage of my time focused on the big sexy stuff um for the next year and then the gap in the middle is probably some of that stuff that i touched on it is that innovation of what what's going on what's out in the market what's going to be the next thing and so there's almost these three kind of very here and now practical how am i people doing what is going to be big and sexy in probably 20 22 sort of second half onwards and then in the middle you know where is technology where is people uh where are people from a comfort point of view and what do we need to be doing a little bit differently for the rest of this sort of year that's great tom well thank you very much for taking the time to come in to see obviously great to be in this physical environment with lights and cameras in front of us as well and hopefully you all find that interesting so thank you very much for the questions as well from the from the floor it's much appreciated you'll be pleased to know that it's now time for a break and so you can relax go and start to network we've put time in the agenda for people to talk you know chat with each other they haven't seen each other for a while good time to catch up network as well so the coffee break is upstairs on the balcony level and so we're back here in in 30 minutes i don't know if you're still around tom if you're open to people grabbing you and having a further conversation with you outside what we've discussed on the floor today as well so much appreciate thank you much for your time and your insights thank you you