When Covance, a leading drug development organization recently celebrated its 5th anniversary as an independent public company under the Covance name, the impact was felt all across the world-in 35 sites throughout the US, Europe, Asia and Australia. Members of the Covance teams from Vienna, Virginia to Tokyo, Japan joined in the celebration, listening to presentations, asking questions and contributing input. Despite the worldwide impact the event created, travel was minimal-the entire Covance "Global Town Hall" originated in Princeton, New Jersey, at a hotel ballroom attended by over 600 Covance employees. The event's success, however, really began just 30 days before the "Town Hall" opened, when Covance called upon business communications experts Media Matrix to pull the celebration together.

"A month wasn't a lot of time to create an event like this, with video and satellite broadcasts all over the world," said Media Matrix President Michael Olenski, "but Covance knew that we'd pulled off successful video teleconferences on short notice before, and they were confident we'd meet the challenge."

Media Matrix did exactly that, providing the creative and technical expertise to extend Covance's "Town Hall" from a single location in Princeton, New Jersey, to five sites across the US and five more sites in Europe. Satellite-based video crews set up receivers in each location, plus related audio visual equipment for the viewing audiences. As many as 1,000 people in certain sites had a clear picture of the telecast.