>> Bill, it's fantastic to see you. How are you?
>> Good. How are you?
>> I am very well, thank you.
How is sunny Los Angeles at the moment?
>> It is a little warm here in the mountains where I live.
>> So, tell us a little bit about AEG,
the company and your role.
>> AEG Worldwide, which is a conglomerate of
companies which includes AEG Presents,
which is our touring, festivals, working with artists.
We have AEG Sports,
which owns the LA Kings and the LA Galaxy.
We also have a piece of the Lakers.
It's a really interesting collection of
businesses all around live entertainment.
>> The events that you put on are pretty fascinating
but they are events, they are
in-person experiences and rely on putting thousands of people
in the same place at the same time. So, I'm
guessing that there has been quite an impact on the business.
>> Massive impact, yeah.
We are in the business of gathering
large groups of people together for the purpose of entertainment
but this will pass and we've run
polls of audiences and they
want to come back to live entertainment.
>> Now, in order for that to happen at
the point at which it's safe and you've got to keep the lights on
but, frankly, more than just keeping the lights on,
you've also got to reimagine
things because things are going to be different.
How have you been doing that in light of the situation?
>> Well, it's like every other business in
the world except we're having to
figure out what does that new live entertainment look like?
>> Now, you say there's a lot of discussion,
I imagine that your folks are not in the office.
So, how are you doing this?
>> Just like we're doing this, over Teams.
We saw more than 1,000 percent increase in the number of Teams
meetings happening in days
when we sent everybody to work from home.
>> Interesting. Have you had any notable successes since then?
>> We closed a multi-million dollar sponsorship deal
about three weeks ago.
In fact, all the meetings were happening using Microsoft Teams,
all of our internal meetings,
all of our external meetings with the outside attorneys.
We just kept that process going.
They were not avid Teams users.
They had not really picked up on this organically.
Now they're telling me they're going to stop traveling,
even after COVID-19,
because a lot of their work was traveling.
>> That speaks to just how quickly and seamlessly that
those teams could move their business into a virtual environment.
Have you had any insight or what have your learnings been as to how
people's use of the tools
have changed with everything being remote?
>> We're doing way more meetings
now because this is the only way to communicate with people.
So, we're structuring
the unstructured conversations as additional meetings.
For example, I used to do
a monthly team huddle with the entire IT team.
Now we're doing it twice a week.
There's no structure to the meeting.
It's just all of us coming together
just to have a conversation and the side chat goes crazy.
We will theme the meetings where I think we're up to
about two dozen people
have done what I refer to as two truths and a lie.
It's an icebreaker game but it's
also a way for us to engage in conversation.
We do a poll and everybody
votes a couple of hours before the meeting,
before our little huddle.
Then we have that person walk through the two truths and a lie.
>> So, have you done your two truths and a lie?
>> Yes, I have. I actually went first just to set the stage.
I had multiple superior rankings in state singing competition,
I played for an undefeated football team,
and I drove my first car on a public street at the age of nine.
>> I'm going to go with
the singing one because I think that's a bit of
a red herring that was in there and people are going to
gravitate towards that and think that's the lie.
So, I think I'm going to go with the nine-year-old kid and
driving because that one terrifies me. Was that the lie?
>> Well, I did drive a car at the age of nine years old
but not on a public street.
I didn't do that until I was 10.
>> It's a really good example of how the use of Teams isn't
just for one-on-one meetings, or very small meetings,
but it's also helping with company culture.
How you are doing that beyond just your team meeting there?
>> Well, we have
an established program called Lunch with Leadership,
where one of our senior business unit leaders,
whether it be Sports or Presents or Sponsorship, Real Estate,
any of those organizations,
will take a dozen employees to lunch and just talk.
Now we have a virtual Lunch with Leadership.
We have a parents group that is
leveraging Yammer for a parent networking group.
We're doing a number of the Teams live events now as well.
In some ways, they're enhanced
because you can do even more with them or
you can include more people in the program
because there's no physical restraints.
>> That's interesting. So, it sounds like that, while
obviously the experience has been challenging in many respects,
I don't get the sense from you that you're
going to go back to the old way of doing things.
>> No. No way.
Even if we're in the offices,
if we're in a conference room,
it will be a Teams meeting so that we can have the side chat,
so that we can have the whiteboard,
so that we can have the linkages with the files.
>> Definitely. What are some of the other things that
you're thinking about that you would advise others?
>> Just dive in. Dive into the meeting.
This is about as close as we can get right now.
It allows us to keep the business moving forward.
It allows us to keep projects moving forward,
keep all of the things that we
do day in and day out, keeps them going.
>> Fantastic. Well, I'm that sure you and
your colleagues are eager to
get back to running those live events
but it sounds like the lessons of moving to
remote work have been learned and will remain with us.
>> Yeah, from now on.
It'll never go away. [MUSIC]
>> Well Bill, thank you so much for your time today.
I really appreciate it.
>> My pleasure.