There have been several varying and contradictory reports published regarding the adoption rates of Software as a Service (SaaS) in the SMB market.  While a department, or enterprise as a whole, won’t make a decision based strictly on overall adoption rates, it helps in know whether or not a particular technology is valid when considering options for marketing and creative support.

According to Kate Evans-Correia, News Director at SearchSMB.com, recent growth of adoption rates in the SMB market can be attributed to increased security measures by SaaS providers, as well as a payment and management structure that mirrors SMBs much closer than legacy applications.  (Article)

In Evans-Correia’s research regarding SaaS adoption, Jeff Kaplan, managing director of THINKstrategies Inc., had some comments regarding this growth.  “Indeed, the ability to pay for capabilities as needed is the main factor encouraging SMBs to use the remote software delivery model.  Adding new users without difficulty and easing the workload of the IT staff are factors nearly as important for medium-sized businesses.”

With the adoption rate growing and an expected market growth of $19.3 billion by 2011, the time has never been better to support marketing and creative departments with a digital asset management (DAM) solution.  While early adoption raises red flags for some, enterprise content management and brand integrity are always going to be vital to an organization, no matter what technology is powering those initiatives.  The quicker the adoption of SaaS will lead to further integration with other SaaS applications within the organization, leading to a ever-growing ROI…and that’s something everyone can get behind.

Swinging with the X-Rite Munki

If you are a designer or photographer that is forced to "monkey" around with color on a regular basis then you may want to check out X-Rite's new product, ColorMunki...  http://www.colormunki.com/

ColorMunki is a device about the size and shape of a tape measure that is capable of calibrating monitors or projectors, creating ICC profiles for printers, and capturing and communicating color. The user selects the device function by rotating a dial on the side of the unit.

At only $500, the ColorMunki is a low-cost, entry-level spectrophotometer aimed at the photography and design markets. It will quickly calibrate and profile a computer display or projector used for presentations or slide shows. It creates ICC profiles for desktop or large-format printers using only 50 -100 color patches, which it is able to quickly scan in about one minute. Painless monitor to printer agreement is promised by telling the ColorMunki to “match my printer to my display” as the user is guided through the profiling process for both the display and printer.

Designers will go "ape" over the color sampling and communication functions of ColorMunki. The user can grab color from almost any reflective surface and build a color library that can be shared with others or used in many popular applications like the Adobe Creative Suite. With ColorMunki's PrintSafe checking capabilities, you can preview your color palettes under different lighting conditions. You can even extract a color palette from any image.

The ColorMunki is not a device that serious color professionals will likely want to use, as it does not do things like interface with RIPS for calibration or linearization. Color geeks will want to stay with devices like X-Rite's Eye-One Photo/Print ($1600) or the iSis ($5000) along with ProfileMaker or Monaco software for creating very accurate ICC profiles and maintaining calibration on output devices.

But if your goal is swinging through the jungle of pleasing color without getting your fur ruffled or spending a lot of money, then the ColorMunki is for you. With this product, X-Rite will no doubt get color management tools into the hands of many more people. And I think that is a good thing. Besides, who doesn't love monkeys?

Mark

When did modern conveniences and technology become so inconvenient?  Driving takes too long, so you fly right?  Well, how are you supposed to get anywhere when thousands of flights are being cancelled every day?  You need to be connected to your business associates at any given time; yet dropped cell phone calls, unreliable wireless internet connections and non-coverage areas for cell phone carriers all plague your essential communications.       

We’ve started to accept all of the inconveniences as being part of the cumbersome processes involved in business communications.  What if there was a solution that would allow you to not need to catch that flight and not require that phone call?

Software as a service (SaaS), along with Widen’s digital asset management (DAM), is propelling new opportunities in business workflow architecture.  Projects can now be routed and approved through a digital workflow, rather than tedious meetings.  Photography can be routed, approved and catalogued in a streamlined online portal.  Searching for your marketing and creative assets isn’t any harder than making a few clicks and choosing which file format best meets your current needs.  

Overall, business communications are in a current state of organized chaos.  Too many mobile devices, all working on different platforms and all having different capabilities.  There are too many questions driving the frustrations of marketing and creative personnel, but there is no reason to overlook an intuitive solution to some of the most tedious tasks you’re faced with regularly.  Widen’s DAM will help you save time, money and most importantly, your sanity.

The Widen Appliance continues to evolve as the hybrid between installed and hosted software platforms in the digital asset management market.  There still remains an uncertainty in the marketplace about how to categorize such a hybrid device, so we explained the following points about the Widen Appliance to third party experts, such as Mukul Krishna, global manager of digital media practice for the research firm Frost & Sullivan.

• Owned, operated, and maintained by Widen Enterprises, Inc.
• Resides within the customer infrastructure
• Internal users interact at network speeds
• Integration with Widen data center

The consensus is that the definition of software-as-a-service (SaaS) is the most appropriate categorization because the device is owned, operated, and maintained by Widen.  Even though the Appliance exists within the customer infrastructure, it is still managed by the service provider and therefore, most appropriately defined as part of the SaaS model.
 
As a SaaS provider, we targeted two objectives for the initial release:

With the NCAA tournament in full swing, I thought it would only be appropriate to have the most common available methods of marketing asset management face off as well.  Although there are always upset victories, as this year has proven beyond the shadow of a doubt, I feel that Widen’s run through the finals is pretty much a sure thing.  Let me explain…

In the first round of the Content Management Final Four Widen was paired against Installed Software Solutions.  This would be comparable to the team with a rich history that just hasn’t really done much to update their recruiting or style of play.  Installed Software used to reign supreme, but their time has come and gone.  With Widen operating on the convenient hosted platform and also absorbing all of the IT load in regards to managing your marketing assets, the first game wasn’t much of a match up.  Widen seals the victory with pricing that is much more palatable to marketing and creative departments that doesn’t require regular software and hardware upgrades.

In the finals Widen has come up against the Shared Drive / Internal Network.  This is the relatively new team on the block that’s kind of scrappy and always seems to just barely get the job done.  While the teams may look similar to some, any experienced content manager fan will realize the difference is in the organization.  Widen’s search engine and conversion capabilities keep you on your toes, as any file format can be ingested, converted and delivered.  The Shared Drive / Internal Network seems to keep up for a little bit, but sloppy play ensues as soon as files are misplaced and re-work becomes a standard task.  Victory is ours!

While Widen has earned the 2008 Content Management Final Four Championship, they certainly won’t rest on their accomplishments, as they will continue to update and upgrade their services and application three times per year.  Be sure to tune in again next year as Widen defends their title against contenders and pretenders alike in the 2009 Content Management Final Four.

It has been rumored all week that Apple will be releasing their highly anticipated software development kit (SDK) for the iPhone on March 6^th.  This is a massive move in opening the previously locked iPhone platform.  It’s well known that a high percentage of iPhones are hacked and running third party applications, but this would allow for the development of applications that could be loaded to the unit without voiding any warranties or having to “unlock” the phone from its exclusive carrier contract with AT&T.

While this is a rather standard practice for mobile carriers and mobile devices, digital asset management has allowed for open integration for quite some time.  By using SOAP and Widen’s API configuration, we have been able to integrate with other internal workflow applications, CRM applications and even failing foreign digital asset management systems that aren’t able to be abandoned by some clients.

The overall openness of Widen’s applications allow for a higher level of marketing execution, creative support and sales enablement.  This capacity has led to a partnership exclusively with Salesforce.com and has enabled several clients to work with their marketing assets in a familiar environment while also allowing for brand approved materials to be distributed in a timely fashion.

The iPhone SDK may not be exciting to non-users, but it should.  Revolutionary gadgets have constantly been the engine promoting change in technology related industries.  What this means is that your standard, clamshell phone could soon be enabled to read your Outlook calendar, send emails and even work with things like spreadsheets and PDFs. 

Digital asset management is no exception to this inspiration.  Workflow management and photo approval processes are all procedures that could benefit from being accessed from a mobile platform.  With a constant development and testing cycle, Widen will be able to keep up with a rapidly changing industry and serve clients at a higher level with a cutting-edge services and applications that will allow them to venture to territories previously unexplored and possibly even unimagined.

With the lack of screen writing over the past months, it seems that reality TV is taking over almost all programming.  There’s Big Brother, America’s Next Top Model, American Idol, Survivor and many, many more.  Why is it that these shows are able to fill the void?  When you boil it down, there’s simply less scripting required and nearly free actors.  The shows are later edited to highlight a specific part or process of the human condition that is seen by viewers as “the plot”.

How can this possibly be related to software as a service you ask?  There’s actually some interesting parallels between the behind-the-scenes functionality of standard programming and software as a service.  These similarities can also be seen when comparing reality TV and installed software.

Mind you, I’m not talking about functionality here, but more what goes on behind the scenes through the eyes of the providers.  Your typical installed software solution for asset management in similar to reality TV in the way that there is less required for deployment.  Once the software is installed on site the provider typically gets to sit back and watch it’s product.  It has left the building and it is now the job of their client to maintain what they created.  This is similar to reality TV as they release their segment and see how people react to the situations and the characters.  Their work is continually done with much less behind the scenes.

Software as a service isn’t quite as lucky.  There is the constant hosting and transmission of information all around the globe and continuous updating and development that goes into keeping a system on the cutting edge of technology.  Standard television programming can be similar with research constantly being done to keep the topics socially relevant as well as working with many actors and intricate sets.  All of this compounds into what arrives at the consumer as a much more polished product. 

There are general differences in the ways that both comparable situations are forced to operate as well.  Reality TV requires constant changing of characters and plot twists to keep people interested, while installed software solutions also require large sweeping upgrades too keep with modern development trends and functionality.  With so much more going on behind the scenes, your favorite sit-com is able to stay on the air for decades without changing the core characters and keeping similar stories going all along the way.  Software as a service is comparable, with minor changes being made here and there, but the overall product keeps pace with your workflows while never needing a complete overhaul.

The end result seems to be a system that you’re able to be more familiar with.  It grows and adjusts with you, and never leaves you wondering why a certain parts may have been left out or even why new, crazy things are included.  It’s logical.  It’s intuitive.  It’s exactly how you like it.

The delays of your favorite TV programming are similar to delays that many of our clients experienced before using our digital asset management (DAM) application.  File conversions and routing are always issues for marketing and photography departments.  Our newest application, Backdrop™, is specifically designed for photo routing and approval, helping photographers even more.

With all of the media requests that marketing individuals are getting on a daily basis, some sort of process needs to be in place for fulfilling these requests, whether it be for images, audio or video.  These requests not only need to be fulfilled in the most timely fashion possible, but also in the correct format.  Interaction with media is especially sensitive as feeding your press outlets bad information or the incorrect media could lead to your company, product or service not being covered appropriately.

While five weeks seems like an eternity to wait for new shows, I’m grateful that it only effects my free time and now my work.  If these delays are something that I encountered at work I would constantly be struggling just to keep my head above water, not to mention trying to keep my sanity.

Hopefully, with the time off during the strike, the writers will have a renewed sense of productivity and creativity, similar to what DAM provides to marketing departments due to time being able to be spent on more core activities rather than inefficient processes like file conversion.

It confused me as to how this could even be a problem.  I knew it was a potential issue, but all I was asking was for was the camera to upload footage to what has become the most popular platform for consumer video editing.  I started to think even more and it made me realize that this may not just be a consumer issue, but also a problem that video editors and marketing departments face every day when trying to work with their video materials.

How difficult can it really be to convert the video quickly to another format so that one of your possible prospects can view it?  With thousands of possible video codecs and formats, it can be very difficult, and possibly expensive.  The different conversion programs can take significant amounts of time to actually convert the video (many convert in real time) and some are also quite expensive.

I was now thinking that my best option was probably just to take my camera to work.  It suddenly occurred to me why our Video Asset Management application has been making such a splash with video-centric clients as well as other marketing departments that just needed to work with their marketing videos.  Everyone wants to use video, whether it’s for video white papers, customer testimonials or video product tours.  It’s become the mark of industry conscious marketers, and those that don’t have the capability, want it.

Our application allows you to import video in nearly any format and then with the help of Rhozet Carbon coder, we can convert that video on the fly to wherever it needs to go.  Whether it’s to your personal desktop or to a client, the video will always arrive in the appropriate format without having to worry about delays from your media department or conversion programs.

In the end I was able to use our system to upload the footage and deliver it directly to my desktop at home in the appropriate format.  I was able to save all of the footage that I had started to think was taken in vain.  The conversions happened in a flash and I couldn’t be happier with the finished product, now all I have to do is make sure my boss doesn’t get curious as to why I keep bringing my video camera at work…

Every night when I get home the news blares for over an hour before I get frustrated about hearing the same leads and stories over and over again on all of the different channels.  It’s not that I don’t care about what’s going on in the world; I just can’t take the repetition, even if there is more information with this particular report.  Marketing works the same way, and making sure that your messaging and workflows aren’t repetitious is just as important as the message you’re trying to communicate.

Software as a Service (SaaS) has revolutionized marketing communications for years now, helping ease the burden of complicated workflows involving images, audio and video.  By storing all of your marketing assets in one location and regulating entry to the collection, time is eliminated that you would typically spend searching for images and then making sure they’re in the right format.  While the time saving is nice for you, media outlets and bloggers greatly appreciate this freedom to locate their own materials.

While these individuals may be working with you now through bulky emails and excessive disc burning, SaaS allows them immediate access to images, audio and video that can all be used in a more timely fashion to help them meet deadlines.  These individuals outside of your company that want to discuss your products or services are vital to the health of your marketing department. 

In this new Web 2.0 world timeliness is fundamental, along with a simple user experience that will leave these outside individuals always wanting more.  One of our clients, Nikki Beach Publishing, has started using our DAM system for just such a purpose.  Nikki Beach is using the central repository of images and marketing materials to feed the creation of launch kits for hotel openings, collateral material creation and overall brand management of this rapidly growing company.

Widen’s digital asset management has allowed the media to get brand approved pictures of new venues, while also allowing creative and marketing internal access for a more searchable and overall usable system where the catalog virtually every piece of marketing collateral.  And all of this without waiting on one cd to burn, or getting burned out on repetitive messaging or tasks.

Several articles have been published since the Aberdeen Group recently released a study on “Marketing Digital Asset Management: Capturing, Storing, and Retrieving Digital Media to Deliver Strategic Value,” however I want to focus on one particular figure from the study – “Qualitative Value in DAM.”   To clarify, Marketing Digital Asset Management is DAM for the marketing function – makes sense.  The report was authored by Ian Michiels, Sr. Research Analyst for Marketing Management & Digital Marketing, Customer Management Technology Group.

The Qualitative Value in DAM

The study reveals the following improvements for Best-in-Class organizations as a result of digital asset management implementations:

• Time spent locating content DECREASED 75%
• Employee productivity INCREASED 83%
• Asset utilization INCREASED 67%

These are some impressive stats.  I particularly like the increase in asset utilization, which is a good indicator of high user adoption, high return on marketing investments and greater marketing effectiveness.  Since DAM is the central repository for brand-approved assets, increases in asset utilization should also represent increases in marketing efficiency.  This makes the protectors of the brand (like myself) very happy as well. 

To provide a quick customer statistic, Widen’s DAM system has helped the Reebok On-field Apparel Group (now the Sports Licensed Division of the Adidas Group) repurpose each digital asset created over six times in its lifecycle versus a one-time use prior to Widen.   Before Widen, Reebok used to ship physical apparel samples to their retail customers to conduct their own photography for use in catalogs and e-commerce sites.  Widen’s digital sampling process and digital asset management technology allowed Reebok to give their customers on-demand access to official Reebok images, each to be used for a different purpose an average of six times per asset.  In a library of 200,000 assets, that’s a lot of repurposing and brand exposure. View the case study to learn more.

Another interesting part of the Aberdeen report were the “Steps to Success,” separating companies into three categories of Laggard, Industry-Average and Best-in-Class.

Steps to Success

Laggards

• Provide sales & marketing access to marketing assets
• Evaluate asset usage
• Identify business drivers and formalize process for measuring ROI

Industry Average

• Extend access to key stakeholders beyond sales & marketing to others in the value chain
• Standardize the use of one DAM system vs. multiple systems in one organization
• Integrate with workflow processes

Best-in-Class

• Extend access to external members in the marketing value chain
• Integrate DAM with creative applications
• Formalize process allowing users to provide feedback and rating system for content – along the lines of web 2.0
• Invest in people and processes to support the technology

Access the full report from Aberdeen Group

Other people have talked about customization and configuration, but now I want to talk about repackaging digital asset management technologies to serve a slightly different purpose.  The Widen DAM is a very configurable application, however our research team found there were very few web-based applications dedicated to photography workflow so we decided a more drastic change was necessary.

Widen launched a beta version of Backdrop™ with the Winter ‘07 release of the Widen Collective suite of digital asset management technologies to better serve the needs of  photographers and creative teams who can’t be at the same place at the same time during the review process.

Similar in look to Adobe Lightroom, Phase One’s Capture One and Apple Aperture, Backdrop is the web-based extension of these desktop software apps developed to streamline the photography routing and review process by speeding up the front end of the creative cycle.  It means photographers spend more time shooting pictures (and not doing admin tasks) and organizations get their images faster so they can focus on merchandising, marketing and creative.  What is there not to love?

Some of the overlapping parts with DAM and Backdrop include the drag-and-drop uploads, metadata and search functionality.  That’s all well and good, but the cool parts of the app include: an interface designed for professional photography review, automated workflow triggers for approvals, comments and re-shoot notifications, and the ability to integrate the application with other digital asset management systems via web services.  Plus, our favorite part – all the positive feedback we’ve received from photographers and art directors.

Backdrop is available for photography studios and corporate marketing / creative departments.  Learn more at http://www.widenbackdrop.com/.

Check out a demo of Backdrop at: http://www.widen.com/widenbackdrop/backdrop_demo.html

The Painted Desert Part 2

Notes from the 2007 PIA/GATF Color Management Conference

Goexplore with Pantone

In 1963 Pantone introduced us to the Pantone Matching System. Since then, the system has been used by everybody from designers to printers to ink and dye manufacturers. It has been used in the automotive, home improvement and textile industries among others. 

In our corner of the industrialized world, the PMS system allowed designers, ink manufacturers and printers to speak the same language when it came to color. It was the Rosetta Stone of the printing industry.

But Pantone had its share of critics over the years. They wanted a better system with more colors, laid out in a more intuitive - chromatic fashion, incorporating new technology advances.  

So last September, Pantone came out with the PANTONE Goe™ System. It is a system that comprises both print and software components that allow designers to specify and effectively communicate color on a level that PMS has not provided. 

Although the Goe system has almost twice as many colors (2,058) as PMS (1,100), they use only ten base inks as opposed to the fourteen base inks in the original Pantone Matching System. There are more neutrals and more in-between colors. New colors were selected because they filled out color choices available, they were distinguishable from each other and were attainable on press. Only two colorants are mixed at any one time in addition to black and clear in order to achieve all the Goe colors. This helps to reduce metamerism and color shifting. 

Speaking at the PIA/GATF Color Management Conference last December, Pantone's Vice President of Advanced Color Technology, Andy Hatkoff, outlined the new system which includes:

• PANTONE GoeGuide™ A fan-guide, similar to PMS swatch guides,containing all new Goe System colors, arranged in a logical numerical progression - seven colors per page, each identified by a unique number.
• PANTONE GoeSticks™Two volume set of adhesive-backed color chips that can be arranged temporarily on a “Palette Playground” and then, when a palette is decided on, stuck permanently on palette cards for future reference.
• myPANTONE™  Software that makes choosing and exploring color in the PANTONE Goe System easy, and analyzes images to produce custom palettes, which can also be shared with the world via the myPANTONE.com online community. Kind of a "MySpace" for color geeks. "What's your color? I'm 116-2-4C! Like, OMG! Jenny, my old BFF is so PMS235! DYKWIM?"

The myPantone palette software allows the user to define, explore and save palettes of sampled colors.

Hatkoff was careful to stress that the current PMS system will not go away. "The Goe system was not intended to replace the internationally accepted line of PMS products." he said.

Pantone is selling the complete Goe System for $499. Or you can purchase GoeSticks with myPantone software for $369, and GoeGuide with myPantone software for $129.

My Take
The Goe system is being supported by many software programs and output devices, but it remains to be seen just how quickly it will be adopted. It is a better system, but many people are creatures of habit. I meet a lot of people that still refer to digital photography as "film". Will people "Goe" to the Goe system as their old PMS swatch books need replacing? And once it is more ubiquitous, will Pantone, in fact, continue to support the PMS system years from now? Either way, right or wrong, I'm sure Pantone will continue to have their share of detractors. 

In a DM Review Special Report on February 5, "The Marriage of Customer Relationship Management and Content Management," Dan Carmel discusses the inefficiencies plaguing sales and marketing organizations and the benefits of integrating CRM systems with SaaS-based content management systems. 

According to Dan Carmel, the top 5 benefits of combining CRM and content management are:

1. Improved win rates with more effective and timely responses to opportunities
2. More effective marketing with greater collaboration, faster turnaround and greater ability to leverage the latest material across distributed sales networks
3. Sales & marketing alignment by eliminating the gap between different processes and workflows
4. Faster time-to-revenue by speeding up sales cycles
5. Broader impact by integrating other best-in-class technologies serving their own distinct purpose to share information via web services

As the form of content management dealing with rich media, Widen has integrated our digital asset management software as a service platform with the Salesforce.com customer relationship management system.  Widen’s Digital Media Organizer brings the content marketing creates – images, videos and marketing materials – closer to the salesperson and end users. 

Widen’s Marketing Template Creation gives salespeople the ability to easily customize or localize printable materials such as ads, brochures, direct mail and point-of-sale signage using marketing-controlled templates and content. 

Marketing users within Salesforce.com have the ability to direct campaigns and manage all media used for email marketing, websites and print campaigns.  Our web analytics indicate that interest levels in Widen’s video asset management capabilities within Salesforce are of the greatest interest as video grows in popularity for marketers and consumers alike. 

As Carmel explains, five benefits of SaaS-based content management include:

• Faster time to deploy because there is no hardware or software to install
• Low initial cost for subscription-based pricing models
• Rapid innovation with automatic upgrades every few months
• Easy to use and configure specific to the requirements of each client
• Globally available with no burden on IT because applications are delivered via web browser and maintained by the hosted provider

These five benefits overlap with the same benefits Widen DAM customers enjoy.  SaaS-based business applications are not just for small to medium-sized businesses as larger companies continue to adopt best-in-class software as a service solutions.  Jim Egan, Director of Communications Programs at Kerry America, a leader in global food ingredients markets, stated, "By integrating [the Widen] tools within our Salesforce application, we now have a 'one-stop-shop' for all marketing and collateral material; making them easily accessible for our sales teams and channel members. These tools will help us strengthen our overall brand messages and enable our sales and application experts to deliver innovative, business-building solutions for our customers."

View Dan Carmel’s full article at: http://www.dmreview.com/specialreports/2008_60/10000666-1.html

Learn more about Widen’s digital asset management integration with Salesforce.com – Digital Media Organizer – and the brochure creation application – Marketing Template Creation.

It’s the new year and many of us have made new year’s resolutions.  If you’re like me, you haven’t exactly made a resolution, but you’re committed to changing at least one thing in your life.  What’s the difference, right?  Last night, after I got home from playing basketball, at the club I was checking email and something triggered me to google “Top New Years Resolutions.”   The top spot (http://pittsburgh.about.com/od/holidays/tp/resolutions.htm) listed these as the Top Ten New Year’s Resolutions:

1. Spend More Time with Family & Friends
2. Fit in Fitness
3. Tame the Bulge
4. Quit Smoking
5. Enjoy Life More
6. Quit Drinking
7. Get Out of Debt
8. Learn Something New
9. Help Others
10. Get Organized

Naturally, a marketing guy can always find a way to relate new year’s resolutions back to our digital asset management service offering.  This opportunity is just too perfect not to mention in my blog. 

I could go down the list and explain how Widen’s marketing technologies and digital asset management services help those in the marketing, creative and sales work more efficiently so they can spend more time away from work, be with family & friends, leave work by 5:00 to get in the gym and have a better outlook on life.  I could tell you how Widen could help you be a champion in your company to get out of debt, help others also get ahead, and help yourself / others at work (and personal life) get organized.  I’m not going to tell you Widen can help you quit smoking or quit drinking (our HR Director might if you worked here), but if Widen can help you accomplish the other eight goals, I’m guessing you may have a better outlook for some of those other lifestyle changes with more time to re-focus your priorities.  No, I’m not really a Doctor, so I’m not going to feed you all of that info.

I don’t need to tell you in this venue about how Widen can change you life.  I’d much rather coordinate a one-on-one review of your creative / production workflow, marketing execution strategies or sales enablement processes. 

If any of these goals are on your “to-do” list, then you’ve come to the right place:

• Organize digital assets
• Improve creative / marketing efficiency
• Help sales channels sell your products
• Focus on global brand consistency

What I really want to do is quickly mention our new year’s resolutions. 

Before the end of last year, members of our R&D, Communications and Marketing teams met to decide on the development themes for the Widen Collective Digital Asset Management offering for the three 2008 releases.  Here’s a quick snapshot of what they came up with:

• Continuing expansion with video asset management and video handling technologies.
• Advancing the recent beta release of the Backdrop photography routing and approval system to be one of the most feature-rich, flexible and user-friendly photography workflow solutions on the market.
• Incorporating more web 2.0 concepts into our technologies to improve the user experience while helping organization retain brand control.
• New innovations continuing to support marketing, creative and sales functions, while staying true to the Software as a Service model.

Good luck with your new year’s resolutions!

The Painted Desert 

Notes from the 2007 PIA/GATF Color Management Conference

The PIA/GATF Color Management Conference concluded it's four day run on December 11. It was a record event this year as over 400 color geeks converged on the Pointe Hilton Tapatio Cliffs resort tucked into the mountains on the North side of Phoenix.

I used to say that you could always tell when the Color Management Conference was in town because the population of balding, middle-aged white guys would go way up. But that's not the case anymore. Now you will find younger attendees at the beginning of their careers and many more women along with all the chrome domes. Which is a testament to not only the popularity of the conference itself, but also the pervasiveness of color management in general. Printing, prepress, creative, photography... You can't swing a dead cat around a production workflow without hitting an ICC profile of some sort these days. And no matter how hard you try, you cannot turn off color management in Photoshop. But that's the subject of a future blog.  

Standard Talk

Every Color Management Conference has several sessions that deal with industry standards, and this year was no exception. The conference kicked off on Saturday with a day dedicated to G7. G7 is not really a standard per se, but rather is a revolutionary new methodology that outlines a process to calibrate a press or proofing system based on spectrophotometry (colormetric data) for gray balance instead of traditional densitometric (dot gain/TVI) methods. More and more printers are using G7 to control the color on their presses. It helps them print more consistently with less waste. At least this is true in North America. Europe and Asia have a different take on G7...

The European Perspective

One of the two keynote presentations at the conference was from Darrian Young, founder of Color and Image Consulting in Castellon, Spain, and member of the ECI (European Color Initiative). He gave his opinion of the G7 movement from the European perspective.  He essentially argued against any competing standard such as G7, asking, "If a method is shown to work better than the current standard, does that warrant or justify creating a second standard?". Young said that the European viewpoint is no. "Any improvements should be made to the standard, in order to avoid confusion, incompatibilities, and ambiguity. Not against it." He added.  Young emphasized that the current methods of controlling color on press via TVI (tone value increase, or dot gain) is specified by ISO (International Organization of Standards), and it is therefore a necessary conclusion that TVI is an international standard.    

Young claimed that time and money spent developing the G7 method would have been better spent on resolving issues like optical brighteners in paper, FM screening, varnish, etc. He concluded by saying that Europeans and Americans should work together to merge existing methods if possible, or search for common ground - one standard.

Donkeys vs. Elephants

After Young concluded his presentation, he received a standing ovation from about half the audience. I felt like I was watching a session of Congress on CSPAN and all the democrats just got up to applaud some other democrat from Iowa after his speech on universal health care, while the republicans watch silently. Actually, he did get a good round of applause from the entire audience. His argument, no matter what side of the fence you come down on, was well presented. 

Afterwards, a number of audience members had questions or comments for Darrian Young. Among them was Don Hutcheson, president of Hutchcolor LLC and well known speaker on color management. He is also the inventor of the G7 method. Don argued several points including that G7 is in fact based on existing ISO standards. Don later joked that he felt like he was the person that touched off WWIII.

My Take

What Don Hutcheson and the G7 method has done for the printing industry is a very good thing. Calibrating and controlling a printing press based on colormetric data makes sense. It reduces waste, and a G7 calibrated press will be more likely to match new SWOP and GRACoL certified proofing systems. Clearly other agree with that. Many large, progressive printing companies like Quad Graphics and RR Donnelley have already implemented G7, and many more are learning the process.   

One of the most dangerous things that can be said in any business is, "That's the way we've always done it." If we don't continually look for process improvement, then we are not moving forward. If there weren't those that looked for better ways of doing things, we might still be printing with hot lead. And I don't think that TVI or gray balance would even matter much then... 

That being said, there should be a concerted effort to try to unify the global printing industry. Many US companies outsource work to Europe and Asia among other places. The more we have true global standards for things like substrates, ink sets and calibration methods, the better off we will all be. But hey- we can't even get our electrical plugs to look the same or agree on what side of the car the steering wheel should be on, so maybe all hope is lost. As Rodney King once said, "Can't we just all get along?"  

Mark

If you’re in creative or marketing, you know that new and potentially great ideas come all of the time, but the ones that actually make it through to your audience for good first impressions and lasting impacts are hard to come by.

If you’re like me…new marketing ideas can come at all hours of the day and in all different places.  Where do they get recorded - the palm of your hand, a voicemail on your office phone or on a bar napkin?

New ideas are unpredictable and uncommon, but they’re not always unforgettable. They often get lost in the shuffle and then you’re back to recreating that great idea or coming up with new ones.

That’s why we have the cool idea box – a convenient place to keep inspiring artifacts, mementos, raw scribbles and gibberish jottings that have at one-time made us think “that’s a cool idea!” They’re inspiring little pieces of information that give us something to build on for our next campaign message or product launch.

Of all the great ideas that come to fruition in the form of usable media – photographic captures, illustrations, graphic designs, sounds bytes and video clips – where do they get recorded so they can be easily repurposed? That’s a DAM good question.

They’re likely on the designer’s hard drive or departmental network folder, but what good are they if they can’t be easily accessed.  They don’t actually become digital assets if they aren’t applied to the ultimate goal of maximizing profitability or serving as a building block to your brand identity.

One of the biggest frustrations in marketing or creative is the lost time spent having to re-create usable media that once began as a great idea. 

Just think of how many hours you’ve worked late trying to recover that once great idea and put it to work by recreating the digital assets adding to your message.  How many people were involved?  How many resources were used?  Was it as good as the original?

Now, where would be a great place to keep those tangible (or digital) ideas so they can be accessed anywhere and repurposed by all stakeholders part of building the brand experience?  You got it…digital asset management isn’t just for the finished media, it’s an idea box for creative and marketing people too.

Have you ever been to the magical place where your technology projects are the top priority? 

If you have NEVER used a software-as-a-service provider, you have been trained to say something like, “my I.T. department does everything possible to make sure marketing projects are #1.  If I need something now, they tell me I can have it within the year then actually deliver it in three years.  You don’t get any higher prioritization than that so take your magical place and shove it!”

I have met some marketers that like to use their internal I.T. departments because they need excuses for why things don’t get done; an I.T. scapegoat, what a great way to avoid accountability.  When it comes to review time, they just say, “I handed off the project to I.T. but they are swamped, should see something next year sometime.”

If this is you, the software-as-a-service model will just not work.   Your sense of practicality is skewed because you think that you can get more done by relying on installed software and your I.T. teams versus software-as-a-service providers.  No need to read any further, you’ll be looking for a job soon anyway.

Software-as-a-service providers allow marketers to expand reach, build equity, and grow profitability without having to worry about all the nuances related to installing and maintaining software within your infrastructure.  The I.T. teams don’t like you anyway, so get over it and start taking control of your projects.  Be a champion for the marketing cause, not someone that makes excuses for why your stuff doesn’t get done.

Let’s take one of the industries that Widen participates in as an example: digital asset management.  This software technology allows marketing and creative professionals to centralize, manage, and distribute branded materials such as video, images, and other digital media. 

What reason would you have for purchasing software and running it internally? 

One reason is that you may need digital media available at local area network speeds for internal marketing and creative users so the “through the internet thing” just won’t work.

To further define, software-as-a-service doesn’t mean all digital media is hosted and the only access point is through the internet.  Software-as-a-service architectures mean you don’t worry about the software and hardware implementation, setup, configuration, integration, and maintenance – that is why you selected Widen (in this example).  Your digital media will be made available at local speeds using the Widen Appliance (www.widen.com/appliance) with integration all the way to the desktop. 

You know man’s best friend to be a dog, now you know I.T.’s best friend to be the Widen Appliance.  It keeps marketing and creative out of their hair and it addresses something they don’t want to deal with – large, complicated, cross-platform material.  Words that make most I.T. people nervous: managing terabytes, Macintosh.

Using the Widen Appliance in conjunction with hosted software-as-a-service for digital asset management throws a wrench into the ongoing debate of hosted versus installed.  You can have the best of both worlds and not worry about getting into a drunken fist fight with your I.T. counterpart at the Holiday party.

More pros for software-as-a-service architectures as the ramblings continue...

Matthew