To revisit my previous post with content contributed by guest blogger Sean Banahan, “Accountability From Your Software Vendors,” I want to discuss three areas that marketing and I.T. departments looking at implementing a Digital Asset Management software solution should consider. 

With enterprise content management technologies and other software, you have options between installed software solutions, hosted / Software as a Service solutions, and options including both flavors.  When it comes to evaluating systems and service providers that help you create, manage, distribute, publish and archive the digital media that is the lifeblood of your brand and promotional materials, you’ll want to keep these 3 things in mind.

1. Support

From the point you say go on a software solution, what type of support do you get for each stage in the process – technical implementation, marketing launch, user  training, helpdesk, upgrades, more training, user promotions, customization?  Who is providing that support? 

Who handles the implementation?  Is there assistance with collecting and migrating existing digital assets from whatever scattered locations they exist? 

If you’re looking at SaaS, is the company who actually hosts the software the same company that develops it?  How many levels removed are you from the developers who handle customization requests? 

Often overlooked, but extremely important, what type of training is available – for both administrators and end-users?  First consider how easy-to-use the solution is.  Can users basically walk right up and use it based on their experience working with other common desktop applications or web interfaces? Or, are extensive user training sessions required?

What about when you have questions and don’t want to go looking through heaping piles of documentation?  Can you pick up the phone and speak with someone? Email? Chat?

Consider the technical support, marketing support and every-day user support. 

2. Upgrades

How are upgrades handled?  Who’s responsible – internal I.T. or the hosted provider?  How often are new upgrades released?  Is there a cost or annual support fee to receive the upgrades?

Are upgrades available on a routine release cycle? Each time there’s an upgrade, what documentation and training is available?  How much of each release is dedicated to new innovations vs. bug fixes and technical backlog? 

Can you skip an upgrade?  What happens if you do?  Nobody likes a legacy software application and no vendor wants to support it.

3.  Risk

Lastly, consider the risk involved with making a DAM selection.  Who assumes the risk?  If you’re looking at installed software, you assume the risk.  If you’re looking at SaaS, the vendor shares in the risk because their livelihood depends on the longevity of the business relationship.

What’s the risk?  The risk is making sure you never lose an asset … disaster recovery plans ensure business continuity … access level controls enforce accountability … security protects against external threats … system scalability accommodates future growth.

With more and more DAM vendors entering the SaaS space, I encourage you to look into company background and challenge that there’s more to SaaS than just the software.  (Consider Al’s post SaaS: Widen’s definition of “Service” is different…in a good way.”)  Coming from a 60-year-old company whose business has always been providing professional services, we understand that SaaS has a double meaning.

Post from guest blogger Sean Banahan, Widen Area Sales Executive

While browsing my iGoogle home page the other day I was presented with an interesting press release that reminded me again of a key difference between traditionally licensed software products and those offered through the Software as a Service (SaaS) model.  The press release that caught my eye described the latest upgrade of a competitor’s digital asset management application.  The recently released software upgrade included a number of bug fixes, but not one new feature or enhancement worth mentioning in the press release.  The release went on to describe the next scheduled upgrade of this competitor’s product as well, which of course was promised to be chalk full of the missing new features and enhancements.  Best of all, the next upgrade with all of the promised features was scheduled for just a few short weeks away. 

This might leave one asking why a customer should go through all the trouble of upgrading to the version that was just released if a better upgrade with all the “fixings” was just around the corner anyway.  I mean, why dedicate the time and resources when you are just going to have to do it all over again in a couple of months?  The press release doesn’t directly answer that question, though it does state that those users who were using the system’s data backup utility should seriously consider upgrading their installed application to this new release immediately.  It also warned that customers should consider renewing their support policies.  Ok… that’s a bit scary. 

On the bright side, the press release told customers who currently have support policies in place not to worry about upgrading at all until the next version was released.  Now I am scared and confused.  I think what they are saying is that those of you who pay annually for support need not worry.  For the rest of you… watch out.  If you plan on using your DAM system to back up any of your data you just might find yourself up a creek.  Since a big reason for implementing a DAM system to begin with is to centralize and protect your assets, a broken backup utility kind of kills the whole point doesn’t it. 

If this all seems confusing and spiritually draining then I think you and I are on the same page.  For the rest of you, I have to ask why you allow this kind of abuse to continue?  Haven’t you suffered enough?  Why don’t you hold your software vendors accountable?  If you think I am exaggerating then do a search on Google for the press release I describe above yourself.  It was published by a well known DAM provider so I am sure you can find it.  With that in hand, ask yourself if you haven’t been thrown into this spin cycle before.  Your software vendor forces you to upgrade an application repeatedly each year along with all of the databases, application servers and service packs that go along with it just so you can protect your investment.  Plus you have to pay additional support fees just to have access to an 800 number should anything go disastrously wrong.   

One of the biggest differences between software and software as a service providers is accountability.  SaaS providers are contractually obligated to provide you more than a simple software disc in a box.  Do all software products have problems?  Of course that’s true and bugs definitely pop up, but that shouldn’t excuse your vendor from providing a reasonable level of service.  As a customer you have the right to feel that the vendor you partnered with is actually on your side.  Hosted and SaaS providers take all of this out of your hands and upgrade everything for you, seamlessly, automatically and without hassle.  Why you would go any other route is beyond me.  I know software providers argue for flexibility in customizing and tailoring the service to meet your specific needs.  Though that argument is hardly true and most SaaS solutions can be customized just as easily as licensed products, a heavily customized platform is all the more difficult to upgrade and support and ultimately compounds your problem even more. 

Your message of “we are currently reducing our marketing budget at the same time the amount of marketing projects is increasing” is heard, but what are you going to do about it? 

If a marketing professional wants to make their presence known to the organization, the time is now.  Instead of cowering in the corner waiting for your job to be cut, rise up and take charge.  Establish yourself as a marketer that can work in all types of situations, even the darkest of economic hours.  Prove to the organization that marketing will not be steered off course in the effort to reach the marketplace with a consistent brand voice.

Your resources are being eliminated and your budget cut in half but what are you going to do about it?  The time to step up and advance your career is now; but how?  Let the spotlight shine in the corner of software-as-a-service.  You could not paint a better picture for the justification of software-as-a-service technologies:

• Marketing resources being eliminated – CHECK
• I.T. resources being eliminated – CHECK
• Marketing budgets being cut – CHECK
• Marketing project load increasing – CHECK

You have heard the message from every software-as-a-service provider but maybe this time that message will resonate.  When the provider says you can do more with less, they are talking about the situation you are currently in.  Trying to market in a downturn is an extremely difficult task but doing so successfully requires the right strategy, the right resources, and the right attitude. The attitude is all in your court but strategy and resources is where you can reach out and ask for help. 

Isolate the creation, management, and distribution of your digital media.  You cannot just stop creating the digital media that helps drive revenue.  In fact you are creating exponentially more of it because the impact is greater and it is the most cost effective way to reach the market with your message.

As you create more of it, you create larger problems with managing and distributing it.  Managing and distributing large and large amounts of marketing and creative files is a responsibility you can delegate to your sales and marketing channels.  Establish the process by which everyone in need of your digital media is granted self-service access.  Establish one central source of digital media that can be repurposed and distributed worldwide while maintaining the integrity of your brand.  Establish the foundation for reducing costs.  Establish a digital asset management system using a software-as-a-service provider.

As a fellow marketer, I have used software-as-a-service technologies to manage and distribute digital media and I can guarantee that software-as-a-service providers enable you to do more with less.  Whether it is customer relationship management with Salesforce.com, digital asset management with Widen, or web content management with Clickability, a software-as-a-service provider is the answer to the ultimate question; what are you going to do about it?

I like to periodically expose some of the actual stories that take place with clients looking for ways to get control of their brand assets and rich media.  This was my original intention for Dr. DAM.  Does this sound like you?

We recently had a discussion and demo with the creative director at an advertising agency seeking help in managing two terabytes of data stored on local hard drives and CDs.  They currently use FTP sites to distribute digital assets to clients, but they're getting complaints that this isn’t meeting their needs.  The current processes are not user friendly, assets aren’t globally accessible, they’re grappling with multiple file formats and all of the files are too large to email at 70MB+. 

Like many agencies working with big companies, they have an enterprise client that has turned to them for help in building a web based DAM system to manage their brand assets.  The client needs to allow people from multiple departments all over the world to access current assets, add metadata, share, send and download images, store displays, banners and other marketing resources. 

Other “must-haves” for the client include:

• Branded site to meet corporate branding standards
• Full reporting and tracking of asset usage
• Simple ability to upload assets, add metadata and structure content
• User permissions to control who sees what

Since many ad agencies do not have the time or resources to take on enterprise digital asset management software implementations nor is it within their area of expertise, it’s becoming more common for agencies to turn to a hosted service or SaaS provider for help.  If you’re interested in Dr. DAM’s recommendation… trust the experts.

...in more ways than one.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I traveled to New York this year for the Henry Stewart DAM Symposium.  Along with participating in the vendor shootout panel on Brand Asset Management software, I was also joined by Jim Magruder, Director of Marketing at InSinkErator. Talk about a brand dominating an industry… InSinkErator is a case study in Global Brand Recognition.  Granted they only sell two products (In sink garbage disposers, and hot water dispensers), they blow away the competition...  In fact, I don't think there is any competition.

Jim and I went out for dinner and I thought he would be a good person to ask his opinion on how our DAM enables InSinkErator's corporate branding. Jim had a very interesting answer that I believe will resonate with other businesses.  He skipped over all the standard DAM jargon on how it centrally organizes brand approved assets… Roles and permissions... blah blah.  He went directly to InSinkErator's Brand Guidelines Document.  A large sum of time, research, resources and money went into creating this document that was to define how InSinkErator is to look to its customers and its dealers and distributors worldwide.  There is a sentence explaining that InSinkErator is constantly striving to incorporate the newest technology available, not only in their products but in the way they communicate with customers - both retail and professional.  Jim directed me to that section as one of his main reasons.  DAM to InSinkErator is not only a tool to protect their brand, it’s also a major part of portraying it as well.

Post from guest blogger Sean Banahan, Widen Area Sales Executive

There has never been a shortage of vendors claiming to offer some sort of tool to manage, archive or distribute rich media files.  Of the throngs of Digital Asset Management vendors that cloud the market, few competent pure play vendors and even fewer DAM as Software as a Service (SaaS) providers seem to remain.  A landscape that has traditionally been characterized by companies who focused exclusively on providing solutions for managing digital media files has been taken over by the larger Content Management behemoths that have gobbled up the original inhabitants to offer DAM modules instead of solutions.  This trend hasn’t been a secret or a surprise to many as companies like OpenText, EMC and Oracle have recognized the benefits of digital asset management platforms and begun bundling them into larger product portfolios.  What I find surprising however, is while giant CMS and licensed DAM providers have in some part recognized the benefit of offering hosted services to their customers, those companies that previously led the charge into the SaaS arena have all but disappeared.  They too have been eaten by the larger beast and become a line item on a long product list. 

Companies like Interwoven, OpenText and North Plains can now finally claim they have hosted solutions, whether that’s through a recent acquisition or a simple “find and replace” effort on a marketing brochure.  One has to wonder though...  With R&D, sales and support resources focused on licensed product sales worth hundreds of thousands of dollars in each transaction, how much room does the smaller hosted service warrant in the grand scheme of things?  After all, most DAM SaaS solutions cost less per year than the annual support fees associated with standard licensed DAM products.  Do CMS and DAM software providers view the hosted service as a viable product or just another sales tool to ultimately force customers into the licensed application where the revenue’s at?  If that’s the case, as I suspect it often is, can these software companies truly make the claim that they offer hosted services?  I think it’s a bit of a stretch.  While SaaS offerings for DAM have never been in higher demand, the number of vendors offering those services has shrunk to just a few left on the field.

Kristina and I represented Widen at the ACCM Show in May showcasing our newest brand and product addition to the Widen Collective family – Backdrop –a photography routing and approval application.  Backdrop is a “new face to DAM” for photography and creative teams to collaborate on approvals and manage workflows.  

At the ACCM Show, we demonstrated how Backdrop helps catalogers cut cycle time with photography review workflows to allow more time for more demanding time-sensitive tasks in the creative process. Going into the show we believed we were right on the money placing all focus on Backdrop because it is a  tremendous time and cost savings mechanism for companies doing a lot of photography by allowing creative people to be a part of the photo shoot without physically being “at the shoot.”

We had several catalogers say they would use Backdrop to manage photography shoots, however, they weren’t doing a lot of their own photography – it was supplied by their vendors (among others).  When we asked “how many images do you have and where are they?” the common response was “we have tons of images and they’re everywhere.” 

The lesson here is simple:  If you need to be two places at once and one of those places is at a photo shoot – you need Backdrop.  If you have tons of images and their everywhere – seek professional help from a DAM service provider.

Last week I attended the University Photographers’ Association (UPAA) Symposium in Auburn, AL as a vendor.  I presented Widen’s digital asset management (DAM) applications for this unique group of photographers working in colleges and universities across the United States (Alaska, Idaho, Wyoming, Iowa, Michigan, Louisiana, Florida – and more).  One of the interesting things of the UPAA is its focus on “photographic excellence through continuing education” which I find one of the most admirable missions of any organization.  These photographers strive to learn more about equipment, techniques, and software applications that will enhance not only their personal style, but also improve the practice and use of photography at the colleges and universities in which they operate.

These photographers understood not only ‘what DAM is all about,’ but also ‘why organizations need dam.’  What struck me is that – regardless of if a photographer shoots for a college in Louisiana or a university in Michigan – they have the exact same problems with image storage, management, and retrieval as photographers shooting product images or lifestyle shots for Fortune 500 companies.  Why is that?

I think it’s the nature of the beast with digital assets.  Everyone has them.  Everyone tries to manage them.  Everyone struggles.  The need for hosted digital asset management solutions crosses all industries regardless of an organization’s size or structure.  A photographer takes images of a football game, students on campus, a concert – and now what?  Who needs to review them?  Who needs to receive them?  What format do they need?  Where to store them?  Will the IT department give them more server space?  Where to find them when someone calls 3 months from now for a particular photograph?  Hmmm … it’s a good thing Widen solves these problems on a daily basis.

p.s. On a lighter note – I’d highly recommend the fried pickles and fried green tomatoes on your next trip to Alabama.

I just read a great article about how photography studios should ‘farm things out’ to become more profitable, less stressed, and overall more productive.  Brilliant!  The author of “Farm It Out,” (PDN Online) Sarah Coleman, discusses how once photography moved to digital, photographers started doing more and more work.  Retouching images, tweaking color, storing client images, burning CDs and shipping them to clients – the list goes on and on!  These secondary tasks not only take away from spending time shooting images but also take additional time and resources to complete.  By outsourcing things such as these – photographers spend more time shooting – less time doing time-consuming administrative tasks – saving time and money.  By hiring outside service providers to take care of image management and photography workflow – photographers can earn more doing less.  Now who doesn’t want that?

Generally, by hiring a software as a service provider such as Widen to take care of image management – studios find that they don’t have to worry about storage, IT, infrastructure, hardware, etc – which is both an emotional and financial relief.  Backdrop™ helps streamline photography workflows by automating, centralizing, and tracking all reviews, comments, and approvals from anywhere in the world.  By combining this with digital asset management – photographers not only improve their workflow but provide their clients with a secure, centralized location in which they can access their images (by permission, of course).

For studios looking to expand, farming out digital asset management and workflow applications can help move them to another level of business growth.  By utilizing partners who are experts in their respective markets, studios can enhance what they do best and offer their clients the latest technology to outpace their competitors.  What better way to do this than offer your client’s digital asset management and Backdrop for photography routing and approval?

Honda announced today that they have started production on a vehicle that produces no measurable emissions.  Beyond the implications for the environment and all of us on this planet, it’s even more encouraging that steps are being taken to limit and eradicate inefficiencies.  Now that it’s possible with vehicles, what about marketing and creative departments?  I know, I know, marketing and creative departments…zero emissions…not possible.  Well, getting rid of all excess might be slightly ambiguous, Widen is certainly lending a hand in cutting down on the creative department carbon footprint.

Widen’s digital asset management (DAM) solutions help thousands of users every day.  Simplifying the storage, conversion and delivery of assets, as well as streamlining photography workflows and collateral material creation are all just benefits of using Widen’s services.  While duplicate and misplaced files, corrupted file data and complicated conversions may be raising your departmental level of “emissions”, technology now exists that can help you eradicate that unneeded waste.

Widen’s current users experience “zero emissions” marketing on a daily basis.  Brand and content management are simplified, time to market is decreased and our favorite praise, frustration has greatly decreased.  While the status quo may be fine for secondary workflows, asset management certainly is an exception.  Departments and organizations are seeing an ROI inside of 12 months and the acceptable rate of your departmental emissions is more than likely going to be decreased in the near future.  Maybe it’s time to take a step in the right direction and explore a little bit more about possible solutions.

Our theme at Henry Stewart New York last month was “A New Twist on DAM” featuring the twist ice cream cone… what does ice cream have to do with software, you ask?  As a pure play Software as a Service (SaaS) provider of digital asset management, Widen has blended hosted and installed solutions by putting hardware/software on the client site – the Widen Appliance.  How is that different than installed software?  Widen manages the installation, replication, monitoring, maintenance and upgrades in tandem with the Widen Collective hosted platform … staying true to the model of providing software as a service.

I presented our concept of “DAM as SaaS 2.0” – managed services on the client site – in one of the technology tracks and featured case studies from Sub-Zero/Wolf and The Sports Licensed Division of the Adidas Group.  At the beginning of the presentation, I polled the audience to get an idea of what roles of people I was actually talking to – creative, marketing, or I.T. – because the meat of my presentation talked about how each of those roles benefit from the Widen Appliance.

Creative 

• High-speed workflow
• No application switching
• Eliminate redundant work
• Eliminate distribution of outdated materials

Marketing

• Feeds the global demand
• Consistent use of materials
• Self-service access for sales channels
• Immediate use / no training necessary

I.T.

• Disaster recovery policies
• Share data with other applications
• Higher security standards
• Widen handles the customer support
• External access uses Widen security and bandwidth

In the case of Sub-Zero/Wolf, their master assets reside in Widen’s data center to feed the external demand from their distributors and dealers, while replicated assets are available on the Appliance for local search and consumption by Sub-Zero corporate marketing teams. 

In the case of the Adidas Sports Licensed Division, they have six different locations of fully replicated data at each site.  Their creative groups work with files at LAN speeds and have employee mobility to access the same data from site-to-site.

One of the questions/concerns at the end of the presentation asked about the speed of the replication between appliance sites and Widen’s master data center (a.k.a. “the mothership”).  Widen Director of R&D, Ed Chwae, was available to answer and there were multiple responses… Speed of the replication is dependent on the bandwidth available at the client site.  We can use private networks or public networks, VPN tunnel over public networks (dependent on bandwidth) determined by amount of files to be replicated daily.  We can throttle the bandwidth… post-pone it for after-hours activity – all of which is dependent on user needs. 

Basically, the ability to the give our clients exactly what they need is simple because we are the experts - we develop the software, manage the hardware and have the service and support teams to make it happen…

View the full presentation and other resources at www.widen.com/twist. 

CMS Watch is an analyst firm reporting on the content management and digital asset management markets.  CMS Watch is not vendor funded and drives revenue by selling their in-depth studies.  A CMS Watch analyst authored a study on DAM that compared key vendors reviewing their offering, underlying technology, service and support plans, and speaking with their customers (to purchase this report, please visit http://www.cmswatch.com/DAM/Report/).   

Widen received a great review whereas some of the competitors did not – for the simple fact the analyst spoke with the customers.  Widen has always made the statement that customer satisfaction is higher with true Software as a Service organizations than it is with installed or SaaS pretenders and this report helped validate that statement.  A few suppliers were upset with the CMS Watch report because their customers could not back up what they told the analyst in the interview.  A disconnect between what you tell an analyst and what the analyst hears from your customer is a near death experience.  

CMS Watch was also a moderator at a trade show we recently attended (Henry Stewart DAM Symposium) where she spoke with our marketing team and listened to our customers (Reebok and InSinkErator) speak about how Widen helped with their DAM initiative.  North Plains, a DAM vendor, announced their SaaS offering at this show and Interwoven also mentioned their relatively new SaaS offering.  But are they really SaaS offerings or are they just hosting their own software? 

The CMS Watch blog post from industry analyst Theresa Regli for your reading pleasure...

North Plains and Interwoven offer DAM SaaS service -- or do they?

Wasn’t the purpose of digital asset management always supposed to be a platform technology?  By platform technology, I mean not acting as a stand-alone application but as an enabling technology allowing other applications to perform a task without having to be concerned with the complexities associated with digital media.

So why are so many digital asset management providers unable to easily provide other applications a means to use the digital assets in the most efficient manner?  Simple answer is because they created their digital asset management system with the intent of being a stand-alone application and not with the intent of being a platform technology.

What’s the difference; don’t they both have a purpose in digital asset management land? 

Sure they both have a purpose; the stand-alone digital asset management application is for temporary use and has a lifecycle that places it near end of life the minute you purchase it.  The stand-alone application has some of the following traits:

• New releases and functionality are promised but never delivered – no formal release cycle exists
•  You have a phone number to call for support but nobody picks it up or returns the call
• The application is not used by the company to help manage their own digital media challenges
• The company that sold it to you is not the company that creates the software
• The product portfolio consists of DAM and that’s it – no other complementary products
• Customization is part of the standard offering because they cannot anticipate how you will use it
• When you ask for integration, they say, “Sure, we are partnered with several integrators; let me find you a phone number.”
• The price tag borders on ridiculous and you begin to question their financial viability
• They might also be under the cover of the “installed software provider” label and cringe at the very thought of the software-as-a-service market
• After you shake their hand you need to count your fingers

I recommend you purchase a stand-alone application if you have:

1. Money to burn
2. Internal I.T. teams looking for something to do
3. A complete understanding of digital asset management and all the related technologies
4. No direction or vision for how you want to use your digital media as your organization expands and your market reach increases

A digital asset management provider positioning as a platform technology possesses the following traits:

• Religious release cycles with proactive development addressing the future needs of the market
• Service and support teams that pick up the phone and hold several training sessions for the user community to attend
• Their own digital asset management platform is used by the marketing, creative, and production teams to drive internal workflows
• The digital assets are not duplicated and placed into other locations; all sources using the digital assets of the organization reference the digital asset management platform eliminating redundant and outdated libraries of digital assets serving other applications and/or individuals
• The value resides in the combination of efforts from on-site marketing, development, and service, and product teams
• The portfolio of products is rich with other ways of using digital media in the approval and collaboration process or distribution and publishing channels
• Digital asset management functionality is designed around use cases creating immediate value from day one
• Integration teams are in the same facility as the development, infrastructure, service, product, and marketing teams so when you ask for integration, the parties involved already understand the technology and the process
• The price tag makes you wonder why the other providers are so expensive
• Software-as-a-service organizations commonly create digital asset management as a platform technology because the relationship continues after the agreement is signed; stand-alone digital asset management providers have a tough time looking someone in the eye after selling a soon-to-be outdated application
• Trustworthy and transparent

I recommend you purchase a digital asset management platform technology if you have:

1. Restricted budgets
2. Limited or no internal I.T. resources
3. A complete understanding of your business
4. A vision for how you want to expand the use of your digital media

When we set up digital asset management systems for our clients, they typically contain a full mix of marketing's brand assets....images, logos, brochures, audio and video.

As corporate marketing departments are adding video production and video services to the mix, the wrench in adding these files to DAM is the relative size of a video file compared to other file types. Typical hi res image files pale in comparisson to broadcast quality videos, not to mention videos that are longer than 30 seconds in length. A hi res image from a digital slr camera will be around 50 Megabytes. That is a little over 10 seconds of Standard Definition DV quality video...less than 3 seconds of HD video. If you do the math, you see how storing video can eat up hard drive space very quickly.

One way to combat this is to store what are called "Mezzanine" files in the DAM. They are compressed videos that take up less space than the full res files, but are hi res "enough" that they make great quality highly compressed videos typically used on the web.

For example, if you decide to use Mpeg 2 as your mezzanine file for a 10 minute video, it will look completely normal on if burned to a DVD, while only taking up 1/5th the disk space of the full res DV version. If you decide to make a flash video for your website or publish to Youtube (converts all videos to flv or flash after you upload) you will see virtually no visable difference in the quality of the flash video created from the mpeg 2 verses one made from the DV file. Vid-heads will argue about this, including myself. But make no mistake, they....we are looking at it under a microscope. Everyone else will see no difference.

If your video collection is growing, and you are worrying about storing all the hi res versions, settling on a mezzanine format may be a great solution for you.

Both podcasts and vidcasts are designed to be taken with the viewer and experienced on the go.  Users appreciate this due to the growing number of responsibilities of departments and individuals, which leaves less time for examining and experiencing new products or services.  Messages can be communicated clearly and quickly so that the user can get a quick snapshot of whatever it is you are communicating.

While podcasts and vidcasts still have a good amount of room to grow, the advancements in technology and technology adoption are allowing for broader audiences to be reached.  What was previously only viewable on a portable media player can now be seen on cell phones, ultra-portable laptops or even streamed through gaming consoles.  The possibilities for message delivery have grown immensely, with development continuing in these type of applications at an astounding pace.

The overall ease of use and the growing types of delivery for these messages have opened a new stream of contact directly to the consumer.  Unlike television commercials, users select the information that they ingest and are willing to be confronted with targeted commercial messaging as long as it is comparable to the rest of the information they are viewing.

The benefit of this type of connection to marketing and sales departments is huge.  You are able to reach a much more segmented audience that wants to hear your message.  While this may have been rare in the past, Web 2.0 methods and tactics are allowing for higher levels of direct customer interaction than ever before.  While the adoption of new technology may not be near the top of the priority list for some companies, it may be time to do some more exploring as to what other possibilities you may be missing out on by not being part of the Web 2.0 movement.

With the recent tragedies in Asia, it has become blatantly obvious that catastrophes can happen anywhere, at any time.  These events have destroyed families and also businesses.  Many businesses haven’t even considered the need for a recovery plan, not realizing that their brand management efforts could suffer greatly following any sort of system failure, large or small.  Those that may have thought about it haven’t stopped to think about what sort of disaster recovery plan they should have, or how to implement it. 

There are several risks involved in not being prepared for such an event.  You stand the chance of losing all of your branded materials as well as any marketing or sales assets that will cripple overall sales.  What are some processes that could be put into place to prevent this?  Who do you need to contact?  What can they do for us?  These are all questions that are answered and serviced by Widen.

Widen not only provides digital asset management services that can help with this, but we also have several security measures in place for our own office.  We back up all of our servers to an off-site facility once a week as well as having security standards in place that will ensure the protection of both your brand and data.  With a new-found emphasis on security and threats growing by the day, you need to start examining your options.  Let Widen help.

So I am on the plane flying back to Madison after attending the Henry Stewart DAM Symposium in New York City, and I am realizing (to borrow a line from Sesame Street) that one of these things is not like the others, one of these things is not the same. Lets look at the acronym “SaaS, or software as a service.” What is “different” is how hosted, or SaaS digital asset management companies define the last S, “Service.”
 
I sat on a panel with 3 other companies. To be completely honest, it was my first panel in the DAM industry (I have been in the Audio and  Video, and Service world for quite a while) and I was outranked….flanked by VP’s and Chief’s. My goal was to answer any direct questions and keep my comments conservative. As I was listening to them talk, a number of things were going through my head, most of it I truly believe to be technical jargon that made them sound extremely intelligent, but which in reality just confuses the audience….taking away from the simplicity of the reason for the panel….explaining what made us different.

There is a famous saying…”Jack of all trades, master of none.” The one thing I think I did make clear, through the clutter, was that Widen was a 60 year old company, we have never been acquired, bought, sold, eaten, spit out, and that we have a long history of Service. “Service,” that magical word. We have been in a “Service” industry for 60 years. I started to mention some of the things that we do for our customers,…things that we do not charge “extra” for. They are not part of an “extended service plan.” They are just part of doing business with Widen. Nothing else was said by the other vendors that had anything to do with this…. If you believe that most DAM companies have the same functionality in their software, then what’s the difference between us?

I now realize that it is “Service.” I took for granted that what Widen calls Service, was the same as everyone else. My mistake! There is a line in one of our customer case studies that states that because of our excellent service, and quick response, Widen felt like it became and extension of that company’s Marketing dept.

After the conference, that line has now taken on new meaning for me.

As the sun shines and summertime nears it makes me want to get outside and play yard games – bocce ball, bean bags (where I come from) and that game with the golf balls on a string.  Would you agree?   However, I have a game you can play right there in the office… it’s a classic called “Where’s my assets?” 

Unfortunately, I doubt the one you’re looking for has a hat, sweater and glasses. 

Al, Ryan, Kristina and I enjoy it because it gives a chance to really give each other lots of grief.  I’ve been with the marketing team the longest, so naturally I’ve structured a majority of the internal shared drive for our sales and marketing materials.  It’s great because I know where some of the stuff is so I get to laugh at them when they’re basically stuck in the mud (another childhood favorite).  

When our sales team asks us to create something that I swear we did at the end of the year last year, it’s like a game of duck, duck, goose or rock paper scissors to see who gets to handle the request.  Hmmm… I’m not sure if this ever happens to you, but after about 20 minutes of hide and seek we’re forced to ask our designer, Danielle, if she can quickly whip up a new document.  I can’t even begin to tell you how many lunches we owe her for the number of times she’s had to recreate a new version of something that’s been done a half-dozen times. 

What’s even more fun is when Matthew calls on us for the most current slide that he needs for a presentation tomorrow – it’s kind of like a game of marco polo the way our speaker phones echo across the corridor – more office fun!

For a marketing department of 7 at a company of 110, we really don’t have any excuses because we have this DAM marketing software at our fingertips to help us manage our content and brand assets.  But, I’m sure bigger companies don’t really have these problems because they’ve got it all figured out.   If you feel like joining in on the fun, just ask Dr. DAM.