how code was meant to be written: nbcu develops the critical need for technical agility in media and...

How Code was Meant to be Written:

NBCU Develops the Critical Need

for Technical Agility in Media and

EntertainmentBy Amar Sharma

// BACKGROUND & INDUSTRY CONTEXT

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CONNECTED TV

Internet-enabled TV and apps

Roku, Hulu, Amazon Prime, AppleTV

BROADCAST TV

Over the air broadcast and broadcast networks

ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, CW

CABLE NETWORK TV

Linear cable TV content

Discovery Network, ESPN, A&E

VIDEO ON DEMAND

Via TV or Web

Xfinity Video on Demand, DIRECTV on Demand

FULL EPISODE PLAYER

Via Web

ABC.com, ESPN.com, AMC.com

TV EVERYWHERE

Via Web

HBO GO, Xfinity TV Go, DIRECTV Everywhere

What does “TV” actually mean?

NBCU Ad Sales by the Numbers

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# Commercials Scheduled

Over 5M commercials scheduled

for 2015 across all properties

$ Revenue

The system will manage over

$11B in revenue for 2015

* System Opportunities

Build custom systems to help the

transactional, analytical reporting

areas. Further invest in

technology to enable Productivity,

The multi-screen world

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Even though cross screen planning is difficult because buying systems are disparate today, we should be prepared from a technology & workflow perspective to turn the capability on when buying converges at advertisers / agencies.

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LEARNING FROM LEADING PLATFORMS

Technology

Built almost all technology for content, commerce and advertising in-house. They embrace technology. Allows for quick iteration, better business aligment, agility and control over IP. All of them have invested in self-service programs which makes the time from buying to campaign launch short and efficient.

Data

Have significant user registration / identity data across screens. None of them let the data leave their firewalls as it provides competitive advantage. Massive implementations of machine learning to inform predictive models. Deploy experimentation and work with large unstructred data sets. These companies invented “Big Data”.

People

Invest heavily in engineering, mathematics and data sciences. Their research and analytics teams have advanced SQL skills and experience in machine learning using “Big Data”.

Go-To-Market

Building relationships with advertisers directly. In many cases, agencies are dis-intermediated as they do not provide much value in the equation. This works well with the rising trend of advertisers building in-house DSP / DMP capability. Lastly, content distribution models are changing fast which is why their software services oriented architecture allows them to accommodate those business decisions (because software is often part of the disruption.

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Thoughtstarters

• Are we investing in and aquiring talent to match these leading companies? How do we start shifting our teams to think about unstructured, imperfect data to make decisions?

• How do we build more in-house versus outsourcing? How are we going to create IP if all development is outsourced?

• Are we building strong client-direct relationships? Do agencies matter?

• Do we have the right products, data? How do we get more of our own first party data?

Product

Almost all of them are working on demonstrating ROI, i.e. sales lift to the target audience. They have already moved beyond reach & frequency. They also provide holistic campaign management across screens.

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Every company Needs to Build Great Software

// NEW APPROACH – PARADIGM – REUSABLE

FRAMEWORK

diversity

of data

growing

volume of use

cases &

iterations

growing

volume &

velocity of

data sources

Individuals and interactions over processes

and tools

Working software over comprehensive

documentation

Customer collaboration over contract

negotiation

Responding to change over following a plan

Core Principles

NBCU’s Software Approach

design firstrapid

prototypingagile / cross-

functionalmicro-

components“full-stack”

Technology agnostic means continually sandboxing

new tech

Lean user-centric design drives simplistic, intuitive

experiences

Continuous development/integration allows for tighter

feedback, and faster failure

Non Dogmatic Guidelines

Test Driven Development enables confident commits

Analytics provide insights into what’s working and what’s not

Paired or peer reviewed code provides additional oversight

RolesDeveloper

UX Engineer

Product/ Project

Owner

QA

Technical Product

Manager

User

Devops

Good infinite loops…TDD && CI/CD

Scalable platform &

network

Sensible decoupling

Mature DevOps

Client partnership

Continue to Iterate

On Air

iFrame

Compare Carmine

Client Performanc

e

CIReporting/ Welcome Screen

Tableau

MobileAgency Portal DMT

SMS/RMX

PAM RMX ATP

Service Layer: Data Maker

Logical Data Mart

CDW

iFrame

MSTR

Siteminder/SAML 2.0

Application Tier

Reporting Tier

Data Tier

Data Abstraction

Tier

Operational Dashboard

API Gateway

GripIT/Rovi Pro M Media Vu VCD/PPRS Nielsen SalesForce TVROCS Playlist/AsRun

SAP REACT/OWL

Compass

EAI

Current Architecture

DMTCP RMX TAD

On Air

Data Mart/Lake/Data Warehouse

Sales unit Services

Data Maker

Data Stores

ATPPAM

Logical dataMart/Lake/Data Warehouse

Client Tier

Inventory Services

Plan Services

Rate card Services

Log Services

Event Services

Reference Data Services

Factors Services

ETL

API Gateway/Abstraction Layer

Microservices Architecture

Key Takeaways

• Everything is iterative, not just development• Flexibility• Quality • Continued teaching & learning• Sustainable pace• Efficiency & Reuse• Talent• Technology and community

• Event storming• Micro-services & micro-

components• Design-first approaches• Data pipelines• App computing & marketplaces• Cloud-first (state of mind)• Immutable infrastructures

Going forward