In Which We Experiment with a Smartphone App to Better Inform Employees

September 1, 2011 by

Here’s why we’ve launched a new experiment: ComcastWA, an app for smartphones.

Use this QR Code with your smartphone to download and access the new ComcastWA app.

Comcast employees are part of a vibrant company that people talk about. Through the Internet, commentary and news about Comcast flies around the world in seconds. The speed of communication is a challenge for any company these days if the company wants its employees informed. Imagine this conversation between two people, one who works for Comcast, and the other who doesn’t:

“Yes, I work for Comcast.”

“Gosh, I just saw on Twitter that your company is introducing a new product, a television that plays inside your brain. You must be very proud.”

“Oh, um … did that get announced?”

OK, we made up the part about the TV inside your brain. But the rest of the scenario is real. And it’s not pleasant. You don’t want an employee surprised about news about their very own company. So how do you inform employees without sending them emails or blast phone messages throughout the day?  In the old days, you just published memos and newsletters to share news with employees. Today’s newsletters are much more interactive and timely. The newsletter, like the blog, are a foundation of the information chain. But newsletters generally can’t inform you about something that a newspaper announced on Twitter five minutes ago.

That’s why we created an app we’re testing that would allow an employee to quickly, on their smartphone, access news about the company. In the ‘categories’ section, we have feeds to company news through our company’s national Comcast Voices blog and our company news release site. And we have a feed from this blog, where we try to capture important news for the Washington market. In the ‘social’ section, we have our Twitter feed, @ComcastWA. If a social media site or newspaper or whatever announces an important story about Comcast, we share the link via Twitter. There will be a connection to our state market’s Facebook page. And so employees can know instantly who we support in the community, we also have links to the videos we produce here locally: public service announcements,  Comcast Neighborhoods and Comcast Newsmakers.

Our hope is that the ComcastWA app is one more tool employees can use to keep track of company news. This is no substitute for reading all the news that’s out there, but there’s only so many seconds in the day. We’re hoping our app helps employees. We will be looking forward to their feedback and revise the app accordingly.

By the way, we can’t say enough nice things about the folks at GENWI who really did the work on these apps. If you need an app, they’re a great bunch of people and very responsive.

We’re assuming that mostly employees are going to be interested in Washington-specific Comcast news. But of course, anyone can download the ComcastWA app. The ComcastWA app is available in both Android and iPhone flavors. Search for ComcastWA in your market, use the QR code above, or visit our app distribution home on iSites.

Filed under 2011 News Releases, 2011 News Releases, News Releases Tagged with , , ,

Another Way of Checking on Any Comcast Service Interruptions/Outages

August 29, 2011 by 2 Comments

So here’s an example of what a customer might say to himself or herself if there’s an interruption to their service: “I’m having a problem with my Comcast service. Are others having this same problem or is there a problem at my home/business? Should I call the company, or are they already working on a problem in my area?’

First of all, don’t hesitate to call and check. But lots of folks want something more automated. We here in Washington were working on a mapping system, but then something simpler came along. We were very pleased to announce a few months ago that you can subscribe to a text-messaging service that will tell you if you are affected by a Comcast outage. The catch to that service is you have to subscribe in advance and of course you need a text-messaging-capable phone. Signing up is still worth doing, by the way. You can also use text messaging to learn what your balance is, the location of the closest payment center, and a number of other convenient bits of information. See the full list here.

But there’s a new way to check, online, if there’s a service problem in your area. When you sign into your Comcast account at Customer Central, you should see a prompt in the upper right of the screen. The Comcast Service Health Status space is circled below.

You can now check online if there are any Comcast service problems or outages in your area here in Washington state.

So now you can use the Customer Service Health Status to check on your service. Between this and the text messaging service, we hope this helps. I’m sure there will even more tools along the way.

Filed under 2011 News Releases, 2011 News Releases, News Releases, Outages

Comcast Continues Support of Federal Way Youth Leadership Program

August 25, 2011 by

The Federal Way Advancing Leadership Youth Class of 2012

Comcast was a founding sponsor of the Federal Way Chamber of Commerce’s wonderful youth leadership program. We’re honored to help sponsor Advancing Leadership Youth again this year. Though this yearlong program, the future leaders of tomorrow meet with the present leaders of today. Both groups emerge at the end of the year with many learnings from each other. The Federal Way Mirror acknowledged the program in this week’s Wednesday issue, and below you’ll find a news release from our community partner, the chamber. We’re delighted to be associated with Advancing Leadership Youth again

 
Federal Way, WA – 8/22/11 – The Federal Way Chamber of Commerce’s Advancing Leadership Youth (ALY) program kicked off its 2011-12 program year last week.  At the two-day opening retreat, 32 teens from seven schools identified their leadership styles, learned about economic development in Federal Way, went on a citywide scavenger hunt, met the mayor, heard from local business leaders, pitched their ideas for City of Federal Way tourism campaigns and talked about living their lives in ways that create a legacy for others.

Comcast in Washington State has renewed its partnership with Advancing Leadership Youth for the eighth consecutive year, contributing $7,500 to support ALY 2012’s One Day Federal Way (1DFW), a team project that focuses the students’ leadership training on helping a targeted population in a significant way.  The ALY 2011 1DFW brought out over 300 volunteers – mostly teenagers – to provide major upgrades to three low-income schools, including extensive cleaning, interior painting and exterior landscaping.  Comcast was the first company to partner with ALY, and thus far has contributed $172,000 plus donated media valued at $225,000.

GlobalScholar, a Bellevue-based education solutions company, is the newest ALY partner, contributing $5,000 to the program.  GlobalScholar learned about Advancing Leadership though it’s work with Federal Way Public Schools, and saw a clear alignment between the program and it’s corporate focus on supporting comprehensive, life-long learning that extends beyond classrooms.

Students in the ALY 2012 class will continue to meet monthly during the school year, addressing different topics each month, visiting different sites and working with over 100 leaders. For more information, visit www.advancingleadership.org.

 

Filed under 2011 News Releases, 2011 News Releases, Community investment, News Releases Tagged with ,

An Honor to Serve TVW, the Network that Serves All Washington

August 16, 2011 by

Washington's public affairs network TVW is where you can hear firsthand from state policymakers, elected officials, interest groups and citizens about what's going on in the state capitol and beyond. Click the screenshot to go to their website where you can also watch programming.

Many of us who work here enjoy following news about politics and public policy; and of course TVW, the Washington state public affairs network, is a primary source for firsthand information of what’s going on in Olympia and the rest of the state. So it was thrilling to have them sign up as one of the first customers of our Metro Ethernet solution (which you last heard about when we and the city of Seattle announced the Pioneer Square iniative) Here’s a news release about the project.

 

 

 

TVW Upgrades with Comcast Business Class Ethernet

for Reliable Internet Connectivity and Cost-Effective Solution

 

– Scalable 30 Mbps Metro Ethernet Solution Provides a High-Capacity Connection

and Saves TVW $12,000 a Year –

 Comcast Corporation, one of the nation’s leading providers of entertainment, information and communications products and services, today announced that TVW, one of the oldest and most respected state public affairs networks in the country, has upgraded its infrastructure with Comcast Business Class Ethernet.

TVW, often called the Washington state version of C-SPAN, provides unedited television coverage of state government, elections and public policy events to more than 3.5 million viewers.  From its state-of-the-art media center in Olympia, TVW sends a television signal to a satellite service at the University of Washington’s main campus in Seattle, which transmits the signal for distribution to cable television households statewide. 

 TVW is leveraging Comcast’s Ethernet Private Line Service for a secure, high-capacity fiber connection between its Olympia media center and the University of Washington satellite service.

 “Our viewers trust TVW to bring them not only unbiased but uninterrupted legislative programming. A network outage would take us off the air, and we would lose credibility with our viewers,” said Greg Lane, President of TVW.  “As a previous T1 customer, we began looking for a new point-to-point solution.  With Comcast, we found a reliable, cost-effective solution with scalable bandwidth that can be easily ramped up when we need it in the future.”

TVW made history in 1995 with the first televised state court proceeding – a death penalty case being heard by the Washington Supreme Court. The TV network has big plans for the future to ensure Washingtonians have access to all public proceedings; therefore, the cable television network needs a data connection with flexible and scalable bandwidth to grow with it.

About Comcast Business Services

Comcast Business Services, a unit of Comcast Corporation (Nasdaq: CMCSA, CMCSK), provides advanced communication solutions to help organizations of all sizes meet their business objectives. Through a modern, company-owned fiber network that is backed by 24/7 technical support, Comcast delivers Business Class Internet, TV and Voice services for cost-effective, simplified communications management.

Launched in 2011, the Comcast Business Class Ethernet suite offers high-performance point-to-point and multi-point Metro Ethernet services with the capacity to deliver cloud computing, software-as-a-service, business continuity/disaster recovery and other bandwidth-intensive applications. Comcast Metro Ethernet services are significantly faster than T1 lines and other legacy technologies, providing scalable bandwidth from 1 Mbps up to 10 Gigabits-per-second (Gbps) in more than 20 major US markets.

For more information, call 1-800-391-3000 or visit www.business.comcast.com.

Filed under 2011 News Releases, 2011 News Releases, News Releases Tagged with , , ,

Washington State’s Most Popular On Demand Movie: The Blind Side

May 25, 2011 by 2 Comments

screen shot from the Blind Side, Most Watched Movie On Demand in Western Washington and Spokane according to Comcast

Screenshot from The Blind Side, our most popular On Demand film

 Comcast today celebrated 20 billion views through its On Demand service with a lot of national publicity. We thought you might be interested in what our local showings say about us.

Nationally, the most-watched movies were, in order, The Hangover, The Blind Side, and Couples Retreat.

Our area had different results. The most-watched new release movie in Western Washington and Spokane was the Sandra Bullock picture, The Blind Side. And before you even get to Couples Retreat, you have to get past Twilight - the moody romance which of course is set in the Northwest – and Gran Torino.

You can see the overall national winners here. Here’s the list of top 10 for Western WA and Spokane County:  

  1. The Blind Side
  2. The Hangover
  3. Gran Torino
  4. Twilight
  5. Couples Retreat
  6. He’s Just Not That Into You
  7. The Hurt Locker
  8. Hot Tub Time Machine
  9.  Four Christmases
  10. Date Night

Here are the top 10-viewed TV series in our area. The local results there are that people in Western Wash and Spokane were more likely to watch Sex and the City and NCIS than folks nationally, according to the stats:

  1. South Park
  2. Sex and the City
  3. NCIS
  4. Entourage
  5. CSI
  6. CSI: Miami
  7. The Sopranos
  8. CSI: NY
  9. Family Guy
  10. Weeds

To save a click, here’s more information from the national news announcement:

Comcast, one of the nation’s leading providers of entertainment, information and communications products and services, today announced that its customers have watched 20 billion entertainment choices On Demand since the service launched in 2003 – an industry first in television (TV).  Comcast celebrates this milestone with the launch of the Xfinity On Demand Awards, honoring the top-performing movies, TV series, musical artists and other programming as determined by what customers watched the most on the service.
 
“On Demand was the first technology to give millions of our customers instant access to entertainment choices to watch on their schedule,” said Marcien Jenckes, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Video Services, Comcast.  “By making a huge library of content available for free with a click of the remote, On Demand was an instant hit and continues to drive viewership.  The service has been a major influence in the adoption of time-shifted viewing, which has now become mainstream.”

ON DEMAND: THEN AND NOW
Comcast launched On Demand to half of its customer base eight years ago with 740 movies, music videos and cartoons from a handful of content providers.  Available today to 20 million customers, On Demand usage continues to explode with approximately 350 million programs viewed each month.  Over the years, both the number of entertainment views and choices on the service have increased dramatically:

Entertainment Views (Overall)        Entertainment Choices
2003:    200 million entertainment views 2003:    <1,000 entertainment choices
2005:    1 billion entertainment views          2005:    3,500 entertainment choices
2007:    5 billion entertainment views                   2007:   13,000 entertainment choices
2009:    14 billion entertainment views 2009:   17,000 entertainment choices
2011:    20 billion entertainment views
            (to date)        		 2011:   25,000 entertainment choices 

Comcast is creating new personalization tools including a “Watchlist” where customers can save and track their favorite shows and movies across platforms and watch thousands of them online at XfinityTV.com and through the Xfinity TV app on the iPad®, iPhone® and iPod touch®, anytime, anywhere.  Customers can also use these devices and Android™-powered devices as a remote control to find what to watch, change the channel in real time, start On Demand titles on the TV, program DVRs to record TV shows and movies and sort content based on different filters, keywords or titles.

Filed under 2011 News Releases, 2011 News Releases, News Releases Tagged with

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