When Prince Charles married Lady Diana Spencer in 1981, the nuptials set the world record for the largest TV audience. A week from today, on Friday, April 29, the wedding of Prince William to Kate Middleton is expected to easily shatter that record, with viewers able to tune in not only from their television sets but also from their computers with countless live audio and video streams planned across the web.
And for better or for worse, the big event is scheduled to take place during work hours in Asia, Europe and the eastern United States. As a result, most of the estimated 400 million online viewers will be tuning in from their computers at work—a fact that has the potential to turn the worldwide celebration into an international nightmare for companies that rely on the internet to conduct business (which nowadays is most businesses).
As you prepare to celebrate the so-called Wedding of the Century, we offer the following suggestions to stream the event and keep business up and running:
- Plan a tea and scones viewing party – The strain on the corporate network will be tremendous if people stream the footage – plus weigh in on social networks, read real-time news reports, and the like—from their individual computers. To avoid this, set up one computer and projector in a big conference room to stream the event for the group, and encourage employees to attend by treating them to tea, scones and other UK-inspired treats. If you’re in Asia or Europe, consider serving fish and chips to accommodate the later time of day.
- Keep an eye out for wedding crashers – Royal wedding network crashers that is. In anticipation of the big day, some staff may share their excitement by instant messaging with other enthusiasts, tweeting updates, or sending large emails with photos, links and multimedia—and on April 29, they are likely do all this while streaming the event. These users could be the sole cause of network downtime or crashes. With effective network visibility solutions in place, IT can identify these people in advance, remind them of usage policies and if necessary, reallocate bandwidth to users who are making use of the network for business purposes.
- Remember it is a global celebration – Because William and Kate have captured the hearts of people around the world, expect employees from remote and branch offices internationally to tune in. Often these offices have less IT oversight and dedicated resources, so they tend to be the most dramatically impacted. In preparation, remind users of online usage policies and encourage them to plan their own viewing party.
- Do not give IT staff a holiday – Because many IT issues are unforeseen, they can be near impossible to prepare for in advance. Fortunately, the date of the impending nuptials has been announced well in advance. Make sure IT staff are aware of the likely activity increase on April 29 and remain on-site that day not only to be part of the celebrations, but also to monitor network performance, flag any issues as they arise and immediately address problems before they impact business functions.
- Make it memorable, for the right reasons – Many people look back fondly on where they were and who they were with when they watched Prince William’s parents marry, and the same will likely hold true for the latest Royal wedding. However, many people also remember the frustrations they felt when they could not successfully stream President Obama’s inauguration or missed their team’s first round March Madness games due to overwhelming strains on the network. Additionally, network response times slow, productivity suffers and even those who are focused on business tasks suffer.
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