Did you know that approximately 80% of women in the workforce fall into only 20% of the industry categories tracked by the federal government? That means that there are MASSIVE amount of industries out there that are underrepresented by women – including the prepress / premedia sector. What is Widen Enterprises (an industry leader in software as a service and prepress) doing to change this?
Widen has partnered with Madison Area Technical College (MATC) in assisting in the education of non-traditional female students in prepress technical careers. As part of MATC’s Tools for Tomorrow: Women in Trades and Technology Program, Widen has welcomed three women to its Madison facility to learn about career opportunities within the prepress industry. I spoke with Nancy Nakkoul, Program Coordinator at MATC and she offered a great perspective of why this type of experience is important. She said, “This type of opportunity gets students thinking beyond the classroom and allows them to envision themselves working in a particular industry. Thanks to companies like Widen, these women get an up-close and personal look at the variety of jobs available in the prepress industry.”
The Tools for Tomorrow Program encourages women to consider a vocation in the fields of high-skill construction, or industrial and technical fields, and then offers a network of services and education related to those industries. Widen’s more than sixty years as a leader in software technology, prepress and color industries provides an invaluable glimpse at technical careers in this sector. By offering a full day of job shadowing, Widen’s prepress professionals provide a first-hand perspective of the industry and help women to network with people already working in the field. Nikkie Keck, a Widen Digital Sampling Specialist, was one of the prepress employees who met with the MATC students. She offers a fantastic perspective as she went through a similar program at MATC several years earlier.
Students enrolled in the program got a behind-the-scenes tour of the Widen facility and spent several hours rotating between three distinct production and prepress areas, learning about the specific responsibilities of each operation.
• In the Production Art department, students learned about reviewing paperwork, project requirements, creating templates, marketing and design implications, and quality control processes.
• In the Digital Sampling department, students were shown Widen’s involvement and responsibilities to clients like Reebok, and learned about workflow from initial capture to neutralization and team-specific colorization and graphic application.
• Finally, in the Color department, students saw a demonstration of high-end color retouching and color correction, and saw a variety of ways images are manipulated for web and print.
Thanks MATC for offering this program! We here at Widen are more than happy to help. To learn more about Tools for Tommorrow - click here! To learn more about Widen's premedia world - click here!
We had our big splash “60 Years of Service” celebration and announcement back in September, but I just had to blog about it again after some dialogue we had at the Henry Stewart Digital Asset Management Symposium in LA earlier this week. The guys from Kaiser-Permanente stopped by our booth to find out more about the Widen digital media management solution and they first asked “Where is Widen?”… Response being… “Headquartered in Madison, Wisconsin. “ Next, they asked “How long have you been around?” Answer being quite firmly “60 Years…” the confused looks on their faces automatically triggered the question, “Did you say 6 or 16?” I had to clarify with my Wisconsin accent “6-T or 6-D (depending on how you want to say it meaning 6-0)” … 60 years. Like many others that ask about our age, the response is “Wow, a 60 year old DAM company!”
I’d love to make the claim… that yeah “we invented digital… we invented digital assets… and we invented the term ‘digital asset management.’ We didn’t invent any of that, but we were there as they all evolved. We were managing large amounts of large files for clients before DAM was an industry and DAM solutions were commercialized. You can take a look at our history and see how we’ve evolved from a photographic engraving shop 3 generations of Widen’s ago to learn more about how we’ve evolved. Keyword being: “we’ve evolved.” There’s a lot behind evolution… and the evolution of a technology company. However, to keep it simple, two things remain constant in a continuously changing world of marketing operations and creative workflows from a Widen point of view. First, Widen is committed to ‘interpreting the unarticulated demand of the marketplace’ through client interaction and providing technology solutions to make their everyday lives easier, save money and bring more value to each customer and their customers. Secondly, we value our reputation, culture and commitment to ‘customer service.’ Whether you need Widen for premedia production help or for marketing software solutions, you’re going to find ‘service’ in the title of each division because that’s what it’s all about. We will earn your business every month because of the service – Software as a Service or Premedia Services. There’s not many other companies in the content management space that can say they’re 60-years-old.
What’s in the name Backdrop? I can’t tell you how many times today people came up to us and asked “Do you sell Backdrops?” If we did and that’s what people were looking for, we all would have left the show thinking we sold gold. Also, no we don’t digitally superimpose you on top of 30 Rock, getting chased by a Rhinoceros on an African Safari or of your children sitting on Santa’s lap at the mall. (We could… we do have the premedia services expertise to do so.) That’s not the purpose of Backdrop. Backdrop by Widen is “behind the scenes” for photography workflow management just as Widen’s other solutions are considered “back office” marketing and creative software. (Much of the software for content management and structure of digital content is categorized as “back office.” We’ll accept that.)
What is meant by “behind the scenes"…you ask? Basically, we like to think of it like this: Photographers take photographs, creative people design – and everything in between should be held to minimal duty by automating many of the manual tasks and communication procedures. The automated workflow takes place courtesy of Backdrop by Widen - a photography approval system working “behind the scenes.” We understand that everyone has a different workflow and photographers have different ways of doing things with different clients. That’s why Backdrop is both intelligent and flexible. The configurable Photoscript is designed to follow your workflow (photographers and commercial clients) all while making things more efficient. We don’t aim to add any steps to your photography review cycles, but we do help to remove more than a few and make other steps faster.
So what is Backdrop? Here’s a few of our rehearsed elevator pitches… Backdrop is a web-based photography routing and approval system… photo asset management and collaboration software… but not software as in “Oh no, I can’t buy anymore software.” It’s SaaS – which means no installs, no licensing fees, no complicated functionality to learn, no upgrades and nobody gets left out or left alone. Backdrop allows clients to review photo shoots online. Can’t make it to the shoot? Need to review and approve photos in real time? Backdrop by Widen is there. Trying to eliminate unnecessary travel? Backdrop will have you at the shoot without physically being at the shoot.
Lastly, there’s much to be said about accountability. Backdrop is intended to let people see and interact with only the files they are supposed to see. All comments, approvals, requests for reshoots, denials and every other major action is automatically stamped with who did it and when.
So there’s a little ditty on Backdrop by Widen. If you’re in the Javits Center area in New York City this Friday or Saturday, feel free to stop by Widen’s booth #1848 for a closer look at Backdrop.
There’s a lot to be said about the clocks on the wall! 
Every now and again we at Widen get the opportunity to see how much of an impact our digital asset management technologies and premedia services have on our customers. This image was taken in a merchandising room at one of our customer's locations (Adidas Sports Licensed Division). Things like this really impress upon us that each customer engagement really ends up becoming a partnership of mutual dependability.
Sarah Cronn, Prepress Apprentice
What does 60 years of Widen mean to me? In celebrating our 60th anniversary, I would have to say that to me, Widen means change, it means growth, it means advancement.
On July Fourteenth, in this year, Two Thousand and Eight my cohort and I embarked on an incredible journey. The journey continues with a great many successes, lessons, hard work and laughter. I am one of the Apprentices to the Prepress Services division at Widen Enterprises. It is quite exciting to be a part of such an experience as we celebrate Widen's 60th year in the Prepress Industry. As technology changes, so arise new demands, knowledge and fresh approaches. Two Apprentices, new to the industry – you cannot get more fresh than that.
Just two and a half months ago we were introduced to the functions of the Premedia Services Division. We began working in the Digital Photography Studio alongside Widen's photographers. This entrance gave us a primer into the procedures followed at Widen. Pouring the foundation for the Widen workflow, we were showed the "hows" and "whys" that enable Widen to thrive supplying high quality marketing communications in a competitive market.
From the studio to the machine. We began with photography, processing the digital images or passing them onto other departments to work their magic. The machine became a more integral part of our day, a more important tool to our set of growing skills. We began working with members of Quality Control, the members of Quality Control would introduce us to our next great adventure, our skill sets expanding.
Skill sets expanding, ah I like the sound of that. Learning is a great joy of mine, and in an industry like Prepress that attitude is an asset as well. With the many developments in technology over the past 60 years (even 10 years), openness to change and acceptance of the "new" and the "now" are a must. Acceptance becomes practice, practice becomes proficiency. I think of it as variety, as they say, it is "the spice of life". Learning new techniques I can apply to my set of skills impacting my work day as well as my personal work gives me that variety I strive for. Only two and a half months in and I look at all I have learned, the small details, the bigger themes and I know there is much more to come.
The journey continues… I look forward to the new territory thus far unrevealed to me at Widen. To me, Widen will continue to mean advancement, as I learn and progress, Widen will continue to mean change as it grows to meet the ever volatile market it has thrived in for the past 60 years.
Brian Becker, Vice President of Client Development & QC
It was May 1988, I just completed my initiation with Widen Colourgraphics (what we were called back then) by surviving 3 straight months of making dylux books for Western Encylcopedias. I really enjoyed the “D” book, my fascination with dinosaurs I guess. I soon moved into making color proofs for Widen which – back in the old days – was done by hand toning the CMYK toners onto stock that was exposed with a high-powered light source. At that time, Widen had two rooms of “strippers” (did they actually have that title on their business cards?). These people assembled the images and copy manually onto many flats of film that, in turn, were merged into 4 individual separations. Ever hear of Plate Negatives, Plate Positives, Emulsion Up, Emulsion Down, linescreen, dot shape? It all seemed very complicated! Color management has changed a lot in the last 20 years. Heck, I might have even had a mullet back then!
It’s now September 2008 (no mullet) and working at Widen has changed dramatically. We are still a very strong premedia services supplier, 8th largest in the USA, but we’ve added even more to our portfolio. The architecture that we created to manage our own company’s internal needs and expectations has been developed into an outward facing, web accessible system known as digital asset management (DAM). Just as Widen became a leader in premedia services, Widen is the 3rd largest software as a service DAM provider in the world. Widen provides solutions for brand recognized companies such as Motorola, Reebok, Sub-Zero/Wolf and Trek for the management, organization, and distribution of digital assets from a central repository.
I have also had the luxury of working with some of the best people in the industry and without their dedication to grasp new processes and equipment, our success today could not have been achieved. I am looking forward to the next 20 years.
Ryan Cathman, Color Production Specialist
I recently celebrated my 2 year anniversary at Widen. I have to say I am glad I left Lands' End after 13 years to come here. My knowledge of premedia services and creative software has expanded greatly and my old company has even signed on with Widen as client. It has been a great learning environment. I hope I have many more years to laugh and learn with my great coworkers.
Sean Banahan, Area Sales Director
Companies love to talk about where they came from. You see it in commercials as grainy images of patrons drinking America’s oldest lager or at your bank in photos of stage coaches. When we introduce ourselves and our products, we almost always start with a brief explanation describing who we are, where we come from and why we’re there. It’s a natural point to make in a conversation. That’s why it is so incredibly nice to be able to say that as a marketing software and premedia services provider you have been around for 60 years. Are there any technology companies that can make that claim? The idea that the company you are considering as a partner to manage your most important marketing and creative assets has been in business for 60 years carries a lot of weight. As a company Widen is very special because the people that drive it and the experience behind it are so unique. There are people here who have been with the company for 30 years mingling with folks like myself who have so recently jumped into the mix. There is that combination of new ideas and experience that really makes it easy to become passionate about Widen.
Chris Rewey, Widen Sales Manager
I began working at Widen on April 11, 2007 and I am the DAM sales manager. I actually began working in this building in 1998, when I was with a software company that was leasing space from Widen. I sat right about where Michael Kiesler’s (CFO) office is. Widen had been in business about 4 years when I was born, and though for many years I was impatient to begin my career here, trusted advisors told me to wait until I had gained adequate experience; they were right. I doubt I could have appreciated what a great company this is, had I not worked for so many lesser ones. It is a great company because everyone unleashes their creative energies to fulfill the vision of providing superior marketing software and premedia services. If the first 60 years has brought us to this point, I can’t wait to see what the next 60 will bring.
Kevin Arkin, Sales Representative
With Widen Enterprises turning 60 years old this year, I began wondering about what else happened in 1948? The list below is a small snippet of all the happenings that occurred that year. I pulled out several that appealed to me.
- Warner Brothers shows the first color newsreel
- NASCAR is incorporated
- Toast of the Town, later named The Ed Sullivan Show debuts
- New York City airport known as John F. Kennedy International officially opens
- Candid Camera makes its television debut
- The Best Picture at the Academy Awards was Hamlet
- Honda Motor Company was founded
- Hells Angels were founded in California
- Land Rover was unveiled at the Amsterdam Motor Show
- The first McDonalds opened
- The board game Scrabble was released
- Velcro was invented
- Cable TV was invented
For nearly 60 years, Widen has built a tradition of pioneering new tools and technologies to better serve clients. Today, Widen continues to invest and create the most advanced graphic communication products and services in the industry. If our customers need it, Widen will create it. This holds true not only for our digital asset management services, but also for our premedia services.
Widen is celebrating our 60th year of operation this year and we launched the official announcement this week. Founded as Widen Engraving in 1948, the company began by providing photographic engraving for a local newspaper and employed three people. Today, Widen is an industry leader in premedia services and digital asset management software as a service employing over 100 people. View the rest of the Widen history timeline.
To help celebrate this remarkable milestone, we’ve asked employees to share “What 60 Years of Widen Means to Me”… We hope you find our next series of posts to be diverse, informative and entertaining bundles of genuine information from a wide variety of “real” Widen employees.
Widen has positioned product advancements and new product developments along the information lifecycle and continues to take a progressive stance on meeting the unarticulated demands of the marketplace. The progressive nature of Widen is an integral part of the business and is a trait embedded in the organizational culture.
Widen matches several different product offerings with the three components of the information lifecycle to meet the demands of the marketplace. The Widen product offering matched to the three components is as follows:
- The creation of digital media utilizes Widen premedia services in the form of photography, color retouching, color management, image preparation, and page production.
- The management of digital media involves the use of Widen software services for approval, collaboration, and centralization.
- The distribution of digital media employs Widen software services to publish files into various channels while simultaneously enabling channels to obtain digital media through self-service access.
The history of Widen is rich with a balance of innovation and proactive interpretations of customer demand. This progression has allowed Widen to sustain itself economically and has positioned the organization with a foundation for growth and the scalability to meet the demands of the marketplace.
A couple weeks ago I met with a kitchen equipment and accessories manufacturer that was interested in improving their creative workflow. They were struggling with image management internally – images were being lost, reworked, and the overall workflow was being hampered by extreme inefficiencies. Art directors didn’t know which photos were approved or not, which photos had moved to premedia services, and frustration was high. One of the art directors is friends with an Account Executive at Widen – and called him one day to ask if Widen had any type of photography organizational software. The AE laughed because as the Art Director described what she needed – it was as if she was reading a product guide for Backdrop!
Backdrop by Widen is a photography workflow management application that allows many tasks to be automated in the creative workflow process when dealing with photographers and images. Photographers select a profile (or workflow) – upload images using a drag and drop applet which triggers emails to the reviewers (often times Art Directors) in that particular workflow. This photography approval system organizes images, allows for approvals and reshoot requests, and provides for as much metadata information as needed – including EXIF and IPTC info. All actions associated with an image (approval, reshoot, comments, discard) are time and date stamped along with WHO did that action to that particular image.
All of these features thrilled this manufacturer as they shoot with multiple photographers in several locations (Backdrop is web-based so people can use it from anywhere there is internet service). In addition, the ability to comment directly on images in Backdrop meant that they didn’t have to try and describe comments via email. Team members loved the accountability feature with time/date stamping and were excited about being able to associate metadata with images prior to them being released into their digital asset management application. Overall, they realized that Backdrop would help them get organized and improve the efficiency of their workflow – which makes us at Widen so happy we could help!
Are you ready for some football? Week 2 of the NFL football season is this weekend and are you all geared up for the big game? Who’s your team? Where do you go to purchase team apparel? Do you purchase NFL apparel from a catalog or online?
If you’ve purchased an NFL jersey or other officially-licensed NFL apparel item by Reebok online or from a catalog, then those images that sold you on the product were likely created by Widen. Widen’s digital sampling department from the premedia services and color management division digitally creates all of the Reebok NFL apparel and Adidas NBA jerseys and apparel you see online or in print.
Widen’s ability to digitally create product images allows apparel catalogers and e-tailers to sell to “shop anywhere” consumers before the physical products are available. Take for example the “hot market” demands when a player is traded, such as Brett Favre for example.
Widen apparel marketing technology and services help apparel marketers achieve first to market goals because their channel partners can instantly retrieve and post official product images to e-commerce websites as soon as they’re available digitally. Widen’s web-based digital media management software allows apparel marketers to distribute product images to their sales and marketing channels quickly and cost-effectively, versus distributing physical product samples. Widen also helps apparel marketers enforce brand recognition / consistency and carry the continuity of the products across multiple channels to match the quality of their physical products. Plus, since the apparel marketers are supplying their dealers with official product imagery, it saves the retailer the added time and cost for capturing and preparing their own images.
Why do so many people come through www.widen.com asking for pricing information before a demo of our DAM system or even talking with our people? Are these people interested customers or are they just looking to gather competitive intel? We used to think Widen was the best kept secret in digital media management by providing premedia services and solutions to a niche customer base before digital asset management was mainstream. Is it internationally known that Widen has the best hosted DAM system for the price?
If you’ve seen our Google ads, you may see this:
Digital Asset Management
Hosted DAM. No Long-Term Contracts.
Unlimited Downloads. Zero Setup.
That’s right, you get your very own full-featured digital asset software with all hosting and I.T. support handled by Widen.
No long-term contracts required… What’s that about? Believe it or not, many other digital asset management software vendors require you to be locked in for a period of 12 months or more. Not Widen… we will earn your business with the quality and importance of our service every month.
Zero setup! Seriously? That’s right, our most basic DAM package is available “out of the box” without additional setup charges. We’ll even you have you up and running in 30 days.
No hidden fees. There’s plenty of “extras” in terms of features and service that you can add, but we’ll be up-front with all the details of those “extras” right off the bat. You won’t get your monthly invoice and see a bill full of surprises.
Simple budgeting. With a low-cost monthly fee, you can better budget for all 12 months without having to read too much into the peaks and valleys for your fiscal year.
Flexible package options. Our package options our designed to fit the unique workflow and budgeting needs of your organization, whether its unlimited downloads or unlimited users.
Upgrades 3 times per year. You automatically receive three major upgrades per year – Spring, Summer and Winter – with new features and innovations without having to touch a server or install an update yourself.
DEAR DR. DAM: I’m Sean, a web marketing manager for a sportswear apparel manufacturer and retailer. We currently have three e-commerce websites and expanding to six by the end of the year. We also do a print catalog each year. We have over 20,000 sku’s and multiple images for most of them. Version control has historically been a nightmare. We need to provide access to our product images to over 1,000 users – some with more repeat usage than others. I need to provide our catalog customers with self-serve access to our corporate image library. I turn to a web-based distribution model with an easy-to-use portal so our customers can efficiently respond to hot market demands.
DEAR SPORTSWEAR SEAN: Did I mention Widen works with a number of top apparel brands? Widen marketing software and premedia services will help you create, manage, version, distribute, publish and track all your digital apparel samples. In fact, Widen has a whole department that specializes in supporting apparel marketers. Visit Widen’s video testimonials to hear how Widen has helped the Adidas Sports Licensed Division with market advantage, sales enablement and speed to market.
Another area that doesn’t get as much recognition is Widen's color management and premedia services. Widen’s prepress services division has been accurately reproducing color to match physical products for over 20 years. Widen’s expertise in helping catalog and multi-channel marketers get their products to market faster, with accurate product representation has helped our customers in the following ways:
- Decrease sales cycle timelines
- Reduce consumer confusion and hesitation
- Compel consumers to buy products represented by brilliant quality images in print and web channels
- Reduce rate of product returns because catalog and web consumers know exactly what they’re getting
- Differentiate brands and products from a highly competitive marketplace
We talk a lot about our software as a service and digital asset management solutions, but we rarely give recognition to our roots in premedia services, particularly our photography offering. Here’s a quick look how Widen’s professional photography services can help you get better control over quality, costs, and turnaround times.
Photography specialists – Our experienced staff ensures that your products are captured the way you want, while allowing you to conveniently approve each shot online right from your desk.
Print & web photography – Widen provides both high-end photography for printed collateral and captures for use in web pages only.
Seamless Integration with digital asset solutions – Post captures to the online digital asset library for immediate distribution to your sales channels.
Pre-press and printing expertise – We understand how color needs to be captured to provide the highest quality in print or electronic reproduction.
On-location photography – Our studio will also travel to shoot products that would be difficult to shoot in the Widen studio. All equipment and technology is highly portable, allowing for convenience and professionalism on-site.
Check out our Photography Portfolio
We often talk about the technology that we offer, but we do not talk about the industry specific solutions that we provide. Hence, I’d like to provide a look at the apparel marketing technology we provide with our digital asset management software and premedia digital sampling services.
Widen works with several apparel brands that have a need to respond to hot market demands and foster effective methods of communication between internal workgroups and external sales channels. Widen has helped apparel manufacturers accomplish the goal of "first-to-market" with our best-in-class marketing software. Here’s how Widen apparel marketing technology has helped a number of reputable apparel brands:
- Manage and track vendors, images, versions, design specifications, digital assets, marketing collateral, and users with simple online tools to maximize product marketing ability, efficiency, and targeting.
- Market products and gather time-sensitive feedback without mass producing physical sample orders to cost-effectively anticipate demand.
- Increase wholesale channel efficiencies with real-time collaboration and immediate distribution of promotional materials.
- Improve target market frequency and reach with self-service, "hands-free" access to images and promotional materials.
- Improve sales cycle timelines with accurate product representation across print and web mediums.
- Optimize margins with pre-market analysis tools and digital sales collateral to market products before physical availability.
- Enforce brand consistency across all sales channels and marketing affiliates with official product images from one master tracking system.
- Securely offer digital product samples, promotional collateral and technical specifications to online retailers at a moment’s notice.
- Gain the competitive edge with quick response tools to changing market conditions—buyers, sellers and technology.
