TharsternTV is a fun and informal video channel that will initially start with 4 programme streams: Integration, Leadership, Implementation and an exclusive series just for Tharstern customers called INKspiration. Every episode will feature different experts from the industry, both from Tharstern and from their industry partners too.

While the initiative has been in the planning for a few months, its launch will be timely for those who are working from home and are missing out on any training events or seminars they may have planned to attend.

“We’ve always been good at delivering educational content to our customers and the industry in general, and we wanted to evolve this approach and move it along from written content, to everyone’s preferred format these days - video. There are numerous studies that chart the increased consumption of video online and dependent on which study you look at it, this has risen from anywhere between 30% to 100% in the past few years. Basically, everyone is loving video content at the moment, and we wanted to give our customers and website visitors what they want.”

Integration series

Tharstern have selected their 4 topic streams by looking at the key challenges faced by the industry, and then creating programmes that address them. Their Leadership series, for example, will look at challenges such as pricing, customer experience, and culture. While their Implementation series aims to help those managing MIS projects understand more about a typical implementation and how to manage each stage, whether that’s a brand-new MIS implementation or the addition of a new module to an existing system.

“One of our main objectives with TharsternTV is to create learning opportunities that are fun and entertaining,” said Amanda Newman. “So we’re using broadcasting software that delivers a live feed of the presenters and guests, along with a load of widgets that viewers can interactive with while they’re watching, such as resource downloads, Q&A, speaker bios and twitter feeds.”

The Integration series so far has three episodes with guest appearances from Eve Limeburger at Fuji, David Whiteley at Flex4 and Mark Galluci at Agfa, all experts in their field and technologies. There will be a new Integration episode every month, with April’s session featuring Tomas Lefever and Peter Hulsman from Kodak.

“With the Integration series, we wanted to delve further into the topic, beyond what can be achieved. So we created a chat-show style series of interviews that also talk about the ‘what’ and the ‘how’ as well as the ‘why’. In the future we plan to deliver some sessions that have a more in-depth technical look at integration technologies such as JDF, XML, and API to help train up those who want to get more involved in this field.”

Tharstern have also created a programme stream just for their customers, called INKspiration. This will delve into the different modules of the Tharstern MIS, the various add-on tools and how to apply them, plus tips, tricks and hidden gems.

“Our original intention was to create a TV style studio to broadcast from and we did manage to film quite a few episodes in there,” added Amanda Newman. “Going forward, we will be adhering to the social distancing measures in place and filming the presenters remotely, but the quality of content and fun style will stay the same.”

“We’re looking at collaborating with other printers and partners in the industry too, so if anyone wants to get involved and has an idea for an episode, we’d love to hear from you, just send me a message on Linkedin or on our website!”

You can access TharsternTV by heading to www.tharstern.com/tv