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.

...Blu-ray. Toshiba said Tuesday it will no longer develop, make or market HD DVD players and recorders, handing a victory to rival Blu-ray disc technology in the format battle for next-generation video.

What does this mean for Digital Asset Management, and/or Video Asset Management?

2 things I see.

1. A standardized delivery format for HD video. Third party software and hardware developers have held off until a winner emerged. You should now see a flood of lower-cost hardware, set-top players, drives, and integration into popular editing platforms. Digital Asset Management integrators will be looking for authoring tools to use to offer Blu-ray authored disks as another video delivery option. This would allow a VP of Marketing to order a customized, High Def video sent to a prospect, without involving high cost media personel.

2. Higher capacity Data movement alternative to high cost bandwidth. While bandwidth is always coming down in price, it is still not "Cheap." The need to move large amounts of data between two people or businesses is increasing. The question is,…how often will the transfer take place? If it happens regularly, purchasing bandwidth is probably the best solution. If it happens infrequently, your current internet pipe might choke on large amounts of data, or take forever to transfer. With Blu-ray, you now have 10 times the data capacity of DVD’s, making your Gigabyte to FedEx dollar ratio more attractive.

What does this mean for me?

My wife is happier than I am about there being a winner. You see, we got married last summer, and to save some dough, I hired 2 guys to shoot video,…in HD. I told my wife I would edit the footage to save money, but I would start it when a HD disk format winner emerged. I thought I had bought myself more time.

Watch our new video demo of our Video Asset Management capabilities. So far, we have had great feedback and interest in this new product. We also have some great new features planned for the future. Actually, there is a hint at a new feature in the video. See if you can spot it.

My first day at Widen was full of tours, explanations of general operations, and general information. Day two started the training process. Now it was time for me to start learning exactly what Widen did. The first thing handed to me was a 15 page document. This document was a case study of how Widen revolutionized how this client created, managed and distributed their digital assets. It was an amazing document, and I learned a great deal, but man was it long. It took me almost an hour to read. It detailed our unique selling position, which was imperative for use to “broadcast” in our marketing efforts. But the last time I checked, the majority of  potential clients researching Widen are not ready to give a “War and Peace” effort to learning about our products. I knew we needed something different.  

Enter the “Video Case Study.” That same client graciously accepted our invitation to be interviewed on camera for a customer testimonial. In a conversational, interview setting, we asked him a number of questions and let him talk freely about how he felt about Widen and our services. The answers he gave were similar, if not identical to the answers given in the 15 page document, but there are a couple key differences.

Editing! We were able to edit the interview down to small, manageable segments. Yes, I know you can edit text, but an image is worth a thousand words. The math-geek in me then starts to think….there are 1000 words in a picture, there are 30 pictures (frames) per second in video…that is 30,000 words per minute...1.8 million words per hour...Yeah, I’d much rather just watch the video.

Senses! It is a proven fact that the more human senses you stimulate, the better the chance of someone remembering. Video is a visual and audible (Hey, turn on your speakers!) medium. Remember that we have shortened the information down into a quick video. We have now succeeded in packing all of the information in a shorter time, and made it effortless for someone to acquire. It is safe to assume that most people would much rather be presented a solution than to have to read up on it.

Believable! We cannot put a value on the “believability factor.” It is one thing to read about what a client has said, it is completely different to actually watch them and hear them say it….to see and feel their emotion. References are probably one of the most important tools in making a buying decision, yet so many companies do not follow through on calling them. Now we can broadcast our references.

Good thing we have a Digital Asset Management System to manage all these videos…

I was listening to the radio, and on came the Big n' Rich song, "Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy" ........well, back to that in a minute.

As I have spent most of my post collegiate working daze as a corporate video guy, I can confidently say that too much of my time consisted of fielding requests from sales and marketing people to find an old video that we did umpteen months ago and convert it to a windows media file for a presentation. An hour later, the task of finding this 5 minute video, converting it, and getting it back to the sales person is finished. Now I can get back to what I was supposed to be doing. Jot that one down on the timecard as "non-billable." A month later, a different sales person requests the same video, but wants it in quicktime to send to a mac-based client. Repeat process....again, non-billable time.

A digital asset management system can not only free up my time by allowing the sales and marketing department to search for their own video, but more importantly, the transcoding features of a DAM system, like Widen's, allows them to instantly request the video in the desired format....whether it be Quicktime, Windows Media, Flash....etc. I had the luxury of working for companies that had internal video departments. Obviously, not all companies have this internal resource, and can rack up quite a large bill sending out for these types of services.

The job of an internal video department is to create videos promoting the company and it's products and services. I would be willing to bet all of my lunch money that most of these people spend more time "rendering" than they do "creating." While rendering comes with the territory, the amount of it can be greatly reduced by allowing a DAM system to do the tedious task of rendering multiple versions.

....back to the radio. while I was listening to the song, I kept thinking, "Save a Video Editor, Ride a DAM system." It may not top the billboard charts, but you get the point.

I'm Al Falaschi. I’ve been with Widen Enterprises, Inc. since October of 2006, but my roots in dealing with digital audio and video date back to the late 1990’s. I’ve built numerous audio recording and video editing facilities and continue to be an independent music producer/engineer and video editor.

Understanding the technological blueprint of digital audio and video, I’ve helped form Widen’s expansion of the Digital Asset Management system to include additional audio/video capabilites, and help plan future growth in these areas. Understanding industry standards and custom workflows allows me to guide Widen’s product into maintaining the status as one of the leading providers of Digital Asset Management systems and services.

The purpose of my blog is to keep you in the loop on what's going on in Widen's world of video handling, in addition to discussing the opportunities and issues with audio / video and digital asset management. Stay tuned...