Widen’s latest version of Backdrop™ is here with our Summer Release!  What’s new?  Well, first and foremost is its plug-in integration with Adobe® Photoshop® Lightroom™2. The new Backdrop feature enables users of Lightroom 2 to upload images to Backdrop directly from the Lightroom digital photo management application. The export plug-in provides users with the ability to login to the Backdrop site, choose an upload profile, and specify the desired size and quality of the images to be uploaded.

In addition to this, we’ve added to ability to print images along with comments (which also lists author of the comment(s)) individually or in batch.  Reporting functionality has been enhanced with reporting for uploads and orders.  Need a certain layout for contact sheets?  Now you can create dynamic contact sheets – you pick how many images (columns and rows) you want per page.
 

Need to search on a specific date range for uploaded photos?  Backdrop now has the ability to search photos by upload date.  We’ve also added the ability to rate photos using a star system (hey, nice shot – I’ll give that 4 stars) – and users can search by the rating (I ONLY want to look at images with 5 stars).

Backdrop is a web-based image management application for creative professionals that provides photographers with the ability to route images to reviewers for comments and approval. Its configurable workflows eliminate time-consuming tasks and provide a high degree of workflow flexibility, as well as seamlessly connect with the Widen Media Collective® digital asset management system.

DEAR DR. DAM: Hi I'm Danielle. We've been using an internal DAM software solution for a few years now. The initial project was a massive implementation and it helped us to advance much further than where we were before. However, I'm extremely dissatisfied with the performance our current digital asset software. It seems the system is down half the time. It certainly is not providing us with the level of flexibility I would expect. Whenever we want something customized we have to request help from our I.T. department--and they're always so busy. My priorities rarely rank very high on their list of to dos. I.T. just isn't able to keep up with the needs of our growing organization.

DEAR D.A.M.N SOFTWARE DANIELLE: I know what you're saying. I recommend you check out Widen's hosted solution for Digital Asset Management. Their solution is provided under the Software as a Service model. It's up and running 99.99% of the time. Widen can accommodate all of your customization and integration needs. Their system is scalable to fit with your plans for future growth and expansion. Most of all, they understand what marketing needs from a software provider and has built-in the business logic to carry out all functions in a simple, yet robust system. They really shine when it comes to service and support, backed by an aggressive 3-time-per-year release cycle.

DEAR DR. DAM: My name is Sarah and I work in the marketing department for a large manufacturer. We have several divisions, make hundreds of products, and therefore have accumulated many product photographs over the years. I have a big problem with the images being scattered across many different locations.

We have images on servers, desktop hard drives, intranet sites, and hanging file folders full of CDs - it's a giant mess. I never know exactly where to look. When I think I have an idea of where they're at, it seems like it takes me hours to get to them. It's an absolute nightmare when salespeople call in needing images right away and I can't find them. It's embarrassing! So much time is lost just trying to get a handle on all of my images. Please help me!

DEAR SCATTERED ASSETS SARAH: I understand exactly what you're saying. Having your assets scattered across many sources can be very stressful for your marketing efforts. Lost files are worthless to you and often lead to a duplication of efforts. Repeat photography and color work become unnecessary sunk costs. The stress, along with time and money lost, can be avoided by using a digital asset management system to centralize and manage your images.

I recommend working with Widen because they make a complex process very simple. Widen is a hosted provider who will walk you through the entire process to get you up and running painlessly. Their customers say that their application is very easy-to-use and requires little user training.

Guest Blog Post from Ben Johnsen, Widen Sales Representative, regarding training and help desk support.

Ongoing training and support is an important element of Widen’s Digital Asset Management Software as a Service – with a big bold underline under service.  However, I think training and help desk support is something that is often overlooked when considering the purchase of a software solution.  

I recently had a conversation with a University looking to make a switch from their current DAM solution to something different – something more in the realm of “hosted.”  One of the main reasons this department wanted to make a switch was the time they felt was wasted by training and re-training employees on how to use their current system.  They said it was very confusing to new users and it took quite a bit of training to get them up to speed.    

Think about the time you spend training new employees or people who assume new responsibilities when someone leaves.  If you or a new employee needs help administering the DAM system, wouldn’t it be easier to say “Call Widen” as opposed to troubleshooting and training on your own?  If I.T. can help, that’s great.  But really, if you’re an I.T. person do you really have the time to help marketing and creative teams with their software or is there more business-critical tasks at hand?

What’s needed with training in a DAM system?  Sometimes there’s basic end-user training on things like searching and ordering or downloading assets.  Then there’s administrator training for asset ingestion and indexing on things like setting up asset groups, upload profiles, metadata types and asset security settings.   Next, there’s training on setting up users to include things like roles, permissions and users. 

Thankfully, from an end-user standpoint, the Widen digital asset software is very user friendly and end-user training is held to a minimum – if any at all.  Any web savvy person who can use Google or Amazon can use Widen marketing software.   Searching is as simple as Google.  Ordering assets for yourself or others to download or ship is pain free with Widen’s checkout wizard.   Instead of calling around the horn or running though the building to find out who can help when there’s a question, Widen’s DAM solution has live chat with a dedicated technical support team available to help.

If you’re like most marketing and creative professionals, you know the answer.  So what are you doing about it?  How are you going to manage all that stuff?   You have choices…

• Do nothing, but continue to save it to your desktop or server
• Buy more servers
• Leave it up to your I.T. department to figure it out
• Use Adobe Bridge or Lightroom
• Buy a workgroup edition of some sort of installed digital asset management software product
• Buy an enterprise edition of some sort of installed digital asset management software product

OR

Consider a hosted, aka software as a service, digital asset management solution that can meet your needs now and scale to meet your needs 12, 18 and 36 months from now… We’ll save “Making a case for DAM SaaS” for another blog.

We recently ran a poll to see what drives companies to implement a DAM system.  The choices we provided and results are as follows:

• Reduce the chaos - 47% - centralization all digital assets
• Enable real-time marketing - 33% - internal and external collaboration
• Speed time to market - 7% - improved efficiency
• Empower sales channels - 7% - self-serve access to sales channels
• Gauge effectiveness - 7% - track and measure usage

It’s interesting that “reducing the chaos” was the biggest driver.  Talk about a case  “tyranny of the urgent”… out of all these wonderful options, our poll-takers just want to get organized by centralizing all media assets and be able to find them.

Widen wants to help you get organized.  Beyond that, we want you to be able to take advantage of all the other benefits Digital Asset Management can bring as a foundation for marketing effectiveness and efficiency.   

I bought Madden 2009 last week and it still sits on my shelf, wrapped in plastic and un-played of course.  That’s ok… it doesn’t affect my ability to complete tasks quickly and efficiently.  It doesn’t help me communicate and collaborate with others that I do business with.  My customers aren’t demanding it.  And it doesn’t give me the satisfaction of being able to measure the work that I do…

Welcome to the “Un-Installed Installed Software” group for LinkedIn -  Join Here.  I don’t expect a lot of people to join this group because not many people want to admit that they’ve made a decision to buy a software solution that still, after some time, hasn’t been implemented for one reason or another.

For those that have admitted it, it’s usually because it’s an un-prioritized priority; it’s not a big enough box so it gets lost in the clutter; or they just haven’t had a chance to pick up the manual and try to become an expert inside the amount of time it takes to read ‘Software Implementations for Dummies.’ 

Last week, I met with someone who recently (March) bought an installed digital asset management software solution and I asked them how it was going.  When they said “Oh, we haven’t got it up and running yet” I wasn’t actually sure how to respond.  I thought this was a hot item… something they needed… something they were excited to begin using and move on.  (It was 6 months ago.)  So I asked, “Did you consider a hosted solution?”  Through my line of questioning, I was basically trying to get to the point that a DAM SaaS solution has you up and running quickly, painlessly and professionally. 

Now I understand things get pushed to the back burner, but for something that is a foundation application for marketing efficiency and effectiveness, I hope that digital asset management can get bumped up on the list.  In this case, leave the DAM software implementations up to the people that do this for a living and get up and running within 30 days… not 180+.

How does Digital Asset Management from Widen help simplify brand management and marketing?

Reduces the chaos in managing the latest product images, logos, presentations, audio/video and other marketing materials with one master library under Widen’s DAM SaaS platform.

How do you do that?  Manage all your digital media from your very own branded web portal, while your master assets reside at Widen’s secure hosting facility.  Administrators control who can access what assets via roles and permissions.  Additionally, administrators can control when assets are to be released to general users or expired / archived and made unavailable for general access.

How does Digital Asset Management (DAM) from Widen help simplify brand management and marketing?

• Reduces the chaos in managing the latest product images, logos, presentations, audio/video and other marketing materials with one master library under Widen’s DAM SaaS platform.

How do you do that?  Manage all your digital media from your very own branded web portal, while your master assets reside at Widen’s secure hosting facility.  Administrators control who can access what assets via roles and permissions.  Additionally, administrators can control when assets are to be released to general users or expired / archived and made unavailable for general access. 

• Enables real-time marketing for geographically dispersed employees, external agencies and creative partners to manage, create, collaborate, share, upload and download your digital media 24 / 7.

How do you do that?  Internal and external teams all dial into the same set of master assets via web based DAM system to ensure the latest version is accessed when re-working or re-purposing digital media.  When new versions are created, approved users can upload the new versions and attach them as the new current version or create new assets with the simple click of a button.  Haven’t quite reached the final version?  Widen Project Collaboration allows you to route new digital media files (in their pre-asset state) to other internal users to gather and track all comments and approvals.  When the final version is reached, the project (PDF document, image, audio/video file or presentation) can be released as an asset available to all general users with permission to view the file.

• Speeds time to market with new product introductions, ad campaigns and sales promotions by automating the distribution of marketing materials in the proper formats to print and web channels.

How do you do that?  First, automatic file conversions allow you to store only one file type as the master and access other derivative formats on-demand.  Need an image for a website, presentation and brochure – you can get a 72 dpi JPEG and a 300 dpi TIFF from the master hi-res EPS file stored on Widen’s servers.  We do the same for Audio and Video assets as well.  Secondly, where do the files need to go?  If you need the files now and can download them from the web… no big deal.  What about when you’re unable to download a 2GB image or a 60-minute video?  That’s ok too because Widen will burn / author the files to a CD / DVD and ship them overnight on your behalf. 

• Empowers sales channels to create personalized on-demand marketing resources according to brand compliance guidelines and marketing-approved messaging.

How do you do that?  Using brand approved templates and marketing-supplied content, dealers, distributors, franchisees, branches, sales people or anybody else who doesn’t have the know-how or access to Quark or InDesign (but still rep your brand) can build professional quality marketing collateral.  Users point-and-click to build ads, brochures, POS and direct mail customized, localized or co-branded for any selling situation – ad campaigns, special events, or in-store displays. 

• Gauges effectiveness of marketing campaigns and brand assets with automated tracking and reporting tools.

How do you do that?  Using real-time reporting tools, administrators can view and evaluate user access and asset usage.  Standard reporting tools can be used to show reports matching a variety of statistics including trending graphs that allow you to monitor trends over time without having to do the calculations and build the graphs yourself.  You also have the ability to run custom reports that can be mixed, matched and exported to Excel.  Want to know what was the most popular product image representing X-model widget in China last month?  That’s easy with just a few clicks.  Widen Digital Asset Management is not only a tool for marketing organization and execution in dealing with rich media management; it’s also a key part of marketing planning and strategy.

DEAR DR. DAM:  I’m a Director of Marketing for a sporting goods company.  We have three different divisions and each of them have their own separate archives of marketing materials and brand assets.  As the head of the marketing activities for the enterprise, I’m challenged with needing to minimize costs by centralizing all of our marketing content.  Our distributors and dealers have been begging for more online capabilities to access and assemble materials for POP displays, signage and advertisements.  I’m in search of an easy to use application that would allow all of our divisions to centralize their creative content including POP displays, ads, images, graphics and other collateral and share it with our sales network.  It must be scalable for all but separate for each division because of different workflows and brand recognition.  Can you help?

DEAR SKATING FOR SAVINGS SAM:  I have a system in mind and it rhymes with “hidin’.”  They can set you up with a hosted digital asset management system that can provide you with one central location for everyone to access, one database for all assets, but have separate site skins to represent each individual brand.  In fact, with the robust roles and permissions structure, you can keep users and assets separate in addition to different features and workflows specific to each division.  You’ll find cost savings from a reduction in capital investments for I.T. with web based DAM, in addition to a tremendous amount of soft dollar savings by automating redundant administrative tasks and creating more efficient workflows internally and externally.  You’ll be more effective with all marketing activities using a DAM system as users reuse and repurpose your rich media.  For divisions that need to provide sales channels with access to not only find materials for POP, signage and ads, the Widen Media Builder will allow dealers to build customized materials specific to location, special events and other promotions within brand compliance guidelines.  I know you’ll find cost savings and satisfaction from you users.

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. 

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.

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.

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?

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?

Two weeks ago, I was one of the presenters at the $5 Friday seminar hosted by C2 Graphic Productivity Solutions in Milwaukee titled Life Cycle of a Digital Asset. C2, the only Wisconsin-based Adobe Authorized Training Center, hosts the $5 seminars once a month for those interested in learning more about current topics in the world of graphic design and creative.  The topic of the seminar – Lifecycle of a Digital Asset – was a learning session about how Digital Asset Management (DAM) software helps design, creative, and marketing communications people “find all their stuff.”  

My co-presenter, Jim Conway, a photographer and C2 instructor with years of experience managing a digital imaging center, discussed some of the fundamentals of file management and showcased Adobe Bridge & Lightroom software and other single-user management solutions.  He talked about how metadata is used and why it is useful to help you catalog, manage and find files using Adobe XMP metadata.

My presentation focused on the advantages of web-based, enterprise-level digital asset management systems over the single-user applications for larger workgroups, enterprises and organizations with a distributed user base. 

Advantages of enterprise-level digital asset management software solutions (as we see it) include:

Internet Accessibility – With whenever - wherever access, web-based DAM systems allow marketing and sales channels to find and retrieve exactly what is needed in the hustle and bustle of a highly competitive sales environment. 
 
On-the-fly File Conversions – With the power to store one, yet deliver many files via on-demand conversions allows organizations to maintain only one master hi-resolution or hi-definition asset and not have to mess with an infinite number of multiple file formats of multiple assets.

Distribution & Fulfillment – Emailing large files straps I.T. resources and sending CDs doesn’t allow you to react to last second demands for tight deadlines and deal closing meetings.  Upon placing an asset order to another person, Widen web-based DAM sends an automatic email containing a link to download the assets in the format(s) requested.  If you need a CD library of images or video on DVD, Widen will handle it for you and ship it overnight without tying up your staff. 

Security and Access Control – Need to keep user groups apart so only certain users have access to specific sets of assets or features…you won’t find that with single-user asset management systems.  Cases include granting your ad agency access to upload assets, while granting salespeople basic access to view and order materials they need.  Or in the case of many of our clients, you may have products branded for your separate dealers in which you need to keep their assets separate as well.  Motorola wouldn’t want Verizon Wireless to have access to Sprint branded image assets and vice-versa.  You see the reasons…

Administration & Management – Enterprise / web-based asset management systems have a tremendous amount of configurability and scalability to accommodate growth and expansion, which often comes with high-levels of administration and management functionality.  There are often multiple tiers of administrators and user groups having separate roles, responsibilities and levels of interaction with the system’s features and assets. 

Reporting & Measurement – What good are your assets if they can’t be found, retrieved and used?  … That’s why you implement a digital asset management system.  But how great would it be if you could quickly and easily know who, what, where, when and why your assets are used?  Enterprise / web-based digital asset management systems are more than just a means of organizing and distributing assets, they are a marketing tool for intelligence, strategy and budgeting purposes. 

SaaS Infrastructure / Support – Like most software, you have choices… two in fact – installed or hosted a.k.a. Software as a Service (SaaS).  With the former, it’s up to your I.T. department to handle the implementation, maintenance, upgrades, training, security, support, trouble-shooting, customization, etc. along with their list of other projects supporting critical business operations.  With the latter, the service provider handles all of that for you … and if you pick ‘em right – they’ll put marketing, creative and sales at the top of the priority list. 

Integrations and Other Applications – Does the software provider offer other technologies than DAM related to the digital media lifecycle – upstream to support the creation and workflow or downstream to support the distribution and publishing of assets?  That’s another thing to look at when considering an asset management system.  On top of that, do they play nice with others?  Integration and the ability to share information (assets and metadata) with other systems supporting critical business functions is key to selecting a system that can continue to grow with an organization. 

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.