The marketing technologist position was born out of a need to bridge the divide between marketing and IT. Marketing technologists need to know how to make the most out of a DAM system and should have certain skills geared for this purpose. Such skills include:

Expertise in marketing software — A marketing technologist needs to know how to configure, integrate, and administrate marketing software. Digital asset management is just one of the tools a marketing technologist should be able to run point on. DAM software facilitates the management of assets needed for marketing and other communications. Without one, the process can become so slow, unproductive, and inefficient that it can seriously reduce the marketing effectiveness of any company.

Social media — Social has become an important part of any organization’s communications; every good marketing technologist should know the ins and outs of social platforms. They should also know how to effectively leverage social platforms for marketing purposes and how to incorporate digital asset management tools into those processes.

Programming — Marketing technologists need to have a good understanding of software programming. Even without development responsibilities, these skills can come in very handy in troubleshooting. They will also be more likely to engineer solutions on their own or work in conjunction with DAM software providers to come up with the right answers to programming-related problems.

Content marketing — They of course need to have a solid understanding of how to carry out effective content marketing. This includes knowing the ins and outs of SEO and how to improve the odds that clients will find digital assets such as videos, images, and white papers. They also need to know how to best leverage a DAM system for this purpose.

IT department operations — Marketing technologists need to know just as much about leveraging technology as they do about marketing. Their understanding of IT operations makes for a smooth transition between marketing and IT and helps each department work in conjunction for higher productivity. With solid footing on both sides of the fence, they are more capable of using a DAM system to manage digital assets in a way that helps both departments.

To learn more about what should be expected from marketing technologists and how they use DAM systems as their primary tool, read this white paper by industry expert and DAM Foundation founder Mark Davey titled "Digital Asset Management and the Marketing Technologist."

At last week's Henry Stewart DAM event in New York, the Real Story Group and the DAM Foundation announced the development of the DAM Maturity Model (or "DAM3"). It's a quick, yet comprehensive guide to understanding how ready your organization is, not only to capitalize on all the value of DAM software, but to get the most value possible out of yor digital assets and processes.

Here at Widen, we've always stressed the importance of treating your digital assets as tools that need to be cared for and maintained. The approach you and your organization take to the maintenance is as important to success as the DAM system you use to store and distribute your assets.

The DAM3 method of measuring yoru organization's DAM maturity focuses on "tackling those aspects that relate to human, information and system dimensions." It's exciting to see these principles highlighted by Real Story Group and the DAM Foundation (whose founder, Mark Davey, recently teamed up with us on a white paper about DAM and marketing technologists). We know how important good management of a digital asset library is to to the success of a brand's efforts to effectively, but we also know it's crucial for people involved with that brand to be committed to DAM as a communications workflow tool.

Never seen Widen's SaaS digital asset management in action? Request a live demo of the Widen Media Collective to get a feel for how our hosted rich media management tool can help you accelerate your DAM maturity.

Have you used the DAM3 model to measure the maturity of your own organization? Try it out and let us know how it goes.

We're always looking for ways to help inform people's decisions about digital asset management. For instance, we recently hosted a webinar on managing video assets with DAM software. This was a great success, and we found that there's a deep interest amoung people in DAM marketing communications in issues related to some of the more technical aspects of their media libraries.

There's a good chance you have some experience with the divide that can sometimes form between an organization's marketing teams and its IT staff. That divide can slow a brand down and keep it from realizing its full potential, as it puts cutting edge tools and strategies out of reach. To address that problem, some are introducing marketing technologists to their teams.

Marketing technologists, generally speaking, are charged with bringing special technical knowledge to a marketing operation, supporting the creative ideas of communicators without putting an undue strain on IT.

Mark Davey (of the DAM Foundation) teamed up with us to produce a new white paper titled, "Digital Asset Management and the Marketing Technologist." The white paper explains some of the functions, benefits and qualities of a marleting technologist. Having someone like this on your staff helps not only more effective administration of your DAM system, but all of your othe tech-intensive workflows as well. And what do you really do anymore that's not tech-intensive. Whether it's your cloud-based DAM software, social media or e-commerce, there are technical aspects to just about everything your marketing teams do.

Take a look at the white paper and let us know whether you have a marketing technologist at your organization. If so, what have the benefits been? What is the marketing technologist's role in advancing your brand?

Every organization would love to be able to communicate and connect with the exact people who are going to buy their products and services. This would eliminate the time and resource waste implicit in attempting to reach segments of the population that aren't going to become customers. They can still help with marketing if they talk about a product with friends and family members that do belong to the right segment but every marketer would much rather directly "speak" to such people themselves.

They attempt to accomplish this with campaigns specifically designed to talk to and connect with particular segments of the population and focus on platforms most likely to be frequented by those potential customers. DAM systems can be a huge help when marketing to any segment of your audience.

Digital asset management tools that help to organize and categorize assets might be the most important thing in any marketer's segmented campaign toolbox. The very nature of segmented marketing requires assets that are geared towards particular demographics of the population. There has to be a means of recognizing images and videos that are engineered for affluent males (big online spenders according to this article) teens, or other segments. A good DAM system is perfectly designed for this because assets are categorized with tags and other metadata used for their descriptions. Include metadata fields for various and appropriate marketing segments to make it easier to narrow your asset searches demographically.

Effective, segmented marketing done on a consistent basis is the goal of every marketing department. To experience how brand asset management software can be used for segmented marketing, take a free trial of a Widen software-as-a-service DAM system today.

It seems like all our major business tools are migrating to the cloud. Big players in technology are developing and releasing big cloud-based services, leaders in industry fields are doing more with cloud-based providers, and there seems to be more chatter about the cloud with every passing day. This isn't some technology fad. The cloud is more efficient and cost-effective, making your organization’s communications that much stronger. According to Kneko Burney, a small business owner who has focused on operating more in the cloud, “40 percent of business owners and decision-makers with 5 to 99 employees have cloud priorities for 2012.”

He sums up nicely a few of the reasons why moving to the cloud has become a priority for his business. Similar arguments can also be given for using a cloud-based DAM system. Among the reasons:

1. Digital asset management programs can easily grow with you. Just as Burney switched to the cloud as a means of keeping up with a quickly growing company, a cloud-based DAM system provides the same advantages for management of assets. Company growth often includes an increase in the geographical area where your products and services are sold. That almost invariably means a growth in your digital asset library. Cloud-based DAM is perfectly suited for these changes; it scales easily, whether you need more storage, more users or more bandwidth.
2. Cloud DAM enables you to use your time more wisely. Time becomes even more of an issue when your company is experiencing growth spurts. To keep up, you need to trim as much fat as you can from your workflows. Cloud-based DAM systems help in this regard by providing tools that help you streamline search, repurposing and distribution of your digital media.

Cloud-based services have become the next step in the evolution of technology and DAM offerings are not excluded from this trend. In fact, DAM systems fit perfectly into a cloud-based platform. To experience the benefits of a Software-as-a-Service DAM system, watch some recorded software demos of Widen brand asset management software today.

Here's a chart we drew up to show the relationship between SaaS digital asset management
and the awesomeness (an industry term) of your branding workflows.

The Henry Stewart New York Digital Asset Management Conference is next week Thursday, May 10 and Friday, May 11. Jam-packed with experts and end-users, the line-up is sure to provide practiced perspectives for DAM newbies and veterans alike. Will you be there?

If so, be sure to look us up. Widen is a sponsor and while we won't have a booth, we'll be among the mix in attendance wearing our red Widen polo shirts. I'll be joined by Nina Brakel-Schutt from our team. Here's a link to my LinkedIn profile if you spot me.

We have a few customers on the speaking docket, including:

Ellen Maly, Brand Management and Design at Covidien
Part of a brand strategy panel on Day 1, Thursday May 10 at 12:20 PM titled “New Approaches to Building an Effective Brand Strategy – what Digital Asset Management (DAM) has to offer”.

Alex Struminger, Unicef, Executive Project Manager
Part of “new to DAM” panel on Day 1, Thursday May 10 at 2:50 PM titled “Dealing with the Challenges of a DAM Implementation”.

Charlie Gray, Motorola Mobility, Marketing Digital Systems Strategy & Operations
Part of a metadata management panel on Day 2, Friday May 11 at 9:50 AM titled “End to End Metadata Management and Integration with DAM Processes”.

Check out the full agenda and learn more about the speakers. Follow along with all the social media for the event with hashtag #DAMNY.

Last, the premier digital asset management user event of the year will be the inaugural Widen User Summit - September 17-19, 2012 at the Concourse Hotel in beautiful downtown Madison. Get all the details at WidenUserSummit.com including a preview of the agenda and featured entertainment by The Second City.

To connect at #DAMNY send a message to @DrDAM or email jathey@widen.com.
 

How do you know whether you can trust a DAM vendor? And when you find a DAM software provider you can trust, what’s the best way to get a handle on whether their offering is the best fit for your organization?

At the end of the day, the one surefire way to know whether your investment in a product is going to show return is by testing it. Shoes might look nice in a storefront, but you really can’t know whether they fit right until you put them on and take a stroll. In the case of something as complex as brand asset management software, not taking that stroll is like buying shoes with a blindfold on.

DAM systems play such a vital role for any business that you just can’t take a chance on buying a system blind. You’ll end up kicking yourself when it becomes a money pit. That’s why the best choice you can make is to go with a provider that gives you a chance to kick the tires. Widen is happy to offer free trials of its Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) DAM solution. A provider, pioneer, and innovator of digital asset management programs, Widen has total faith in the DAM systems we offer. After all, we built it for our own use to begin with.

We are always getting great feedback from people who appreciate not only how open we are about offering opportunities to try out our system, but also about how honest we are about whether our software is a best-fit solution to their DAM needs.

When you sign up for a Widen DAM sandbox, it’ll be set up within a matter of days and give you hands-on experience with our DAM system; that way, you can make up your own mind about it in the most informed way possible. This is the kind of openness that has draw over 180 divers customers — in spheres from education to manufacturing to advertising — to our intuitive solution.

Sign up for a sandbox today to see how these digital asset management tools will help your company save money!

The digital asset management industry has come a long way. Just a few short years ago, some analysts were talking about DAM software as being relegated to a "bridesmaid" role — that is, the sidelines of marketing.

Today, though, marketers find themselves in a world where even consumers have several times more computing power in their pockets at all times. This shift in the broader technological landscape means that these consumers are not able to access a great deal of rich media at just about any time.

Today, CMSWire, a trusted name on DAM and other software, ran a piece I wrote about the evolution of DAM and what it will take for DAM providers to keep on evolving. Here's a bit of it:

This begs a new question, of course: how much longer can DAM vendors keep up?

After all, a commitment to reacting quickly and wisely to new developments in technology presents its own challenges (sometimes more perilous than those of the innovators the DAM industry is reacting to). In other words, keeping up is as much a matter of path as it is a matter of pace. It might be helpful, for the sake of analogy, to think of a manufacturer of home theater equipment, for whom it’s just as important to have gotten products to market on time as it is to have bet on Blu-Ray over HD DVD.

DAM Skill Sets

We can’t know what the next wave of tech advancements will bring. The only way for us in the DAM industry to make ourselves (and our customers) ready for anything is to strive to be good at everything. We in DAM need to be as good at marketing as we are at metadata, as good at composing pictures as we are at transcoding them.

The organizations best-poised to meet the DAM software needs of the marketing world will be those that see themselves as being a part of — as opposed to just selling to — that world.

Read the whole piece at CMSWire.

In the coming years, we know that DAM software will evolve even more, expanding our concept of just what constitutes "management" of an asset, as well as extending the reach and power of digital asset libraries into some of the other areas we know well, like social media.

Want to take a look at where Widen's marketing asset management is today? Request a live demo (or watch a recorded one) here.

The fact that a digital asset isn’t being used doesn’t mean that it can’t be later. In other words, you should avoid taking a short-sighted approach to understanding the value of any given digital asset.

Historical assets, in particular, are often discarded or left out of digital image libraries due to their supposed lack of value (i.e. the fact that they haven’t been used in a long time). These can be just about any assets: product photos, staff headshots, old marketing collateral, and other materials. No matter how dated an asset is, you should always give serious thought to storing and managing it in your DAM system. It’s been our experience that organizations almost always reach a point where they need old historical assets, and it’s not uncommon for those campaigns and asset searches to become terrible headaches. Here are a couple of examples:

Alumni and employee photos — In the case of universities, metadata should be applied to any and every photo of students to facilitate finding images. You never know when you’ll need those images (to celebrate a member of your organization or supply photos to the press), but when you do, you’ll want them to be as easy to find as possible.

Preserve image quality — It may seem like it was ages ago, but it hasn’t been very long since image capture became predominantly digital. Many companies, universities, and other organizations still have archives of negatives and prints. Some of these may end up being very useful but are subject to the inevitable effects of time. To avoid losing your images to the slow effects of sunlight, acids and other factors (like floods, for instance), you should digitize them and store then in a DAM system.

At the end of the day, no matter how many analysts and programs are involved in the process, it's impossible to predict exactly where a company is headed or know the true potential value of certain assets. Instead of taking a chance on images that could increase in value, include them in a corporate image library and preserve their value  with digital asset management tools.

To experience DAM software designed to easily manage all of your assets, take a demo of a Widen software-as-a-service DAM system today.

The Kitchen and Bath Industry Show (aka KBIS) introduced something new this year with learning seminars geared up to provide actionable insights for attendees, who range from small business owners to larger exhibitors like Kohler, Grohe and Delta. The seminars provide added value for small business owners and marketers who want tips to help their businesses grow in this economy and ways to do things better.

Through our experience in serving customers like Kohler, Sub-Zero and Wolf and InSinkErator, Widen had the opportunity to introduce its digital media solutions in a multimedia learning session titled “How simple digital tools can be used to strengthen your business” presented by Widen CEO, Matthew Gonnering.

Widen CEO Matthew Gonnering speaks about Digital Asset Management at KBIS

The key technology and practice at the center of the presentation was Digital Asset Management, which helps to streamline the digital supply chains from the manufacturer all the way to the end consumer.

DAM solutions provide the following key benefits to suppliers:

• Assist in creating, managing and distributing content necessary to bring products to market
• Support marketing communications with consistency in supplier branding guidelines
• Enable a consistent representation of products throughout the supply chain
• Save on expenses related to the creation of files (e.g. photography, retouching, brochure creation)

DAM solutions provide the following benefits to distributors and dealers:

• Use the right content for the right product, promotion or event
• Easy repurposing of files tagged and living in a central location
• Create co-branded templates for sales and print use
• Save on maintenance expenses associated with file storage and management

The primary digital asset management use cases covered included:

• Image & video access to search for digital assets, download in various formats and embed in websites
• Brochure creation with pre-defined templates allowing for variable content, co-branded and print-ready
• Social media integrations to share “cool” images or videos direct with followers on social networks

Key takeaways from the event included:

• Realize the importance of managing your brand across all customer touchpoints
• Provide and/or request access to image and video libraries to fuel customer communication
• Create content to add value to customer relationships

Contact us to request the slide deck from the learning seminar. Request a demo for a closer look at the Widen digital media solutions.

Digital asset management has become an essential tool for any organization that works with digital assets. In other words, this includes just about any company that has an Internet presence and carries out marketing campaigns that use social media sites, email newsletters, or online videos. Organizations that aren’t very aware of DAM software eventually end up looking for it when they start to have problems managing their digital assets. Issues involving bandwidth, duplication of assets, and difficulties in finding assets become inevitable as videos and images accumulate.

Realization of the need for a DAM system is a first, big step in finding the right DAM solution, but many organizations have trouble moving forward with the next step. As they begin to look into options, companies quickly realize that finding the right DAM solution isn’t as straightforward as they had hoped. Dozens of vendors sell different types of DAM products and use unfamiliar jargon. A lot of them seem to have features that might be useful, but it’s still hard to pinpoint the best DAM system. With new applications and DAM systems making it to market, it seems like the more you investigate DAM, the more you need to learn.

As with many complicated processes, the search for the best-fit DAM solution can be simplified by thinking about what your organization needs to manage its digital assets and coming up with questions based on those requirements. That list of questions reflects the key DAM considerations of the company and will quickly whittle down the list of DAM vendors. This strategy works because it helps you figure out which DAM systems provide the solutions that most directly address the issues faced by your company.

Knowing what a good DAM system is capable of will also help in formulating a list of concerns and needed solutions. A quality DAM system will at least be able to:

• Eliminate or greatly ease storage concerns: Cloud-based systems work well in this regard.
• Increase efficiency: A good DAM system will save huge amounts of time by simplifying various processes associated with digital assets.
• Be easy to use: Since a lot of people will be using the system on a daily basis, it has to be easy for users to adopt and simple to use. Software-as-a-service DAM often helps in this regard by providing training and ongoing service.

To learn more about what you need to know when looking for a DAM system, check out John Horodyski's excellent white paper, “What to Know Before you Go!”

Here's the latest on the new Widen customer brands that will soon experience what it's like to go to 11.

Twelve brands chose Widen digital asset management solution, Media Collective, in Q1 2012

After a record year in 2011, the Madison-based SaaS DAM software provider continues to attract stellar brands with its intuitive UI and reputation for unrivaled customer service.

Coming off of a milestone year, Widen Enterprises continues to grow the diverse community of Media Collective users. The company's software-as-a-service digital asset management (DAM) solution is now being used to meet the marketing workflow needs of twelve more organizations, including a community college, an academic medical center, a top-ranked liberal arts college and a film production company.

"After months of deliberation, we chose Widen for our digital asset management service because in comparison to the other services we looked at, it was the easiest and most intuitive to use as well as the most affordable. We're in the process of implementation now, and the Widen team is both responsive and efficient," said Julia Van Develder, editorial director at Vassar College

Widen's responsiveness and efficiency are a big part of what leads brands to trust the Wisconsin-based DAM software provider to help streamline their marketing asset management.

"We take pride in setting the standard for service in the DAM industry," said Lanita Haag, Widen's director of project services. "We thoroughly enjoy focusing on the customer experience and building long-term relationships with our customers. Whether it's the Project Service team, the Help Desk team or the Customer Development team, we strive to provide best-in-class service."

New Widen clients include:

Cryovac - A global leader in fresh food packaging technologies, Cryovac has been keeping food fresh, better tasting and more accessible for more than half a century.

Pure Flix Entertainment - This Christian movie studio produces, distributes and acquires Christ-centered movies.

Vassar College - Founded in 1861, Vassar College is a highly selective liberal arts college. Consistently ranked among the top liberal arts colleges in the country, Vassar is renowned for pioneering achievements in education and for the beauty of its scenic Hudson Valley campus.

Teach For America - This high-growth, outcome-oriented nonprofit recruits committed recent college graduates of all backgrounds to teach for two years in urban and rural public schools. In 2011, TFA was named one of Fortune magazine's "100 Best Companies to Work For."

Sloan - Sloan is the world's leading manufacturer of commercial plumbing systems and has been in operation since 1906. Headquartered in Franklin Park, Illinois, the company is at the forefront of the green building movement and provides sustainable restroom solutions by manufacturing water- and energy-efficient products such as flush valves, electronic faucets and soap dispensing systems, sink systems, and vitreous china fixtures for commercial, industrial and institutional markets worldwide.

"We chose Widen for management of all our digital assets based on the simplicity of the system, the support they offer during implementation, and to reduce our overall costs of digital asset management," said Tim Schiffbauer, marketing communications manager at Sloan.

Widen DAM will also be adopted by a college preparatory school; a manufacturer of water conservation and plumbing products; a provider of medical devices and procedure solutions that improve health care delivery to women; a provider of solutions and support for the life sciences industry; a world-class academic medical center; a well-known headwear and apparel brand; and a community college in Michigan.

"The main reasons we chose Widen were Media Collective's ease of use and the team's customer service. We didn't just need DAM software; we needed true partners that could provide guidance and insights on how to best manage our digital assets," said Ken Velazquez, senior managing director of creative services at Teach For America. "In addition, we're confident our assets are secure in the Amazon Web Services cloud."

In this fifth and final installment of our video interview with Bob MacCowan of the adidas Group's Sports Licensed Division, Bob explains that Widen is uniquely capable of taking customer satisfaction to the next level.

Specifically: 11.

We're not sure, but this might be the first time a digital asset management customer testimonial has included a reference to Spinal Tap.

In any case, that's exactly what we've always been going for, and we're glad that our customers agree that we're capable of taking our serice to 11. After all, even when other providers are serving you at 10 — all the way up — where can you go from there?

Nowehere! When you need that extra push, you know what we do?

Eleven.

In all seriousness, customer service is paramount here at Widen, and few things are more gratifying for us than hearing people like Bob and others tell us how readily they would recommend our DAM software and premedia services to their peers.

That's part of what has drawn and continues to draw such great brands to Widen for help in reaching that next level. We're off to a great start in 2012, and we know that even more exciting things are ahead for Widen and the community of Media Collective users in the months to come.

To get a taste of our eleventh-level DAM software, request a free demo today.

Yesterday, we had the opportunity of joining a great lineup of panelists in CMSWire’s DAM Tweet Jam to talk about the evolving role of digital asset management and customer experience.

Other industry notables included Anjali Yakkundi or Forrester, Irina Guseva of Real Story Group and John Horodyski of DAM Education along with a number of representatives from the vendor community.

The key questions discussed included:

1. Given how digital we are, what is your current definition of DAM?
2. What are the core elements of a DAM strategy?
3. What 3 things make a DAM solution successful?
4. How do DAM and CXM/WEM currently relate?
5. What is the single biggest DAM opportunity in 2012?

Some of the quotable tweets from yesterday’s jam session include:

From @gklebus: DAM for Digital Marketers is the hub of brand strategy and multi-channel brand experience

From @goegejosd: Avoid silo thinking. DAM as a standalone solution won’t bring the expected benefits

From @rselvey: DAM is not just about technology. DAM is technology + best practices + amazing support + processes

From @drdam: 3 P’s of DAM -- Platforms, Processes and People.

From @jhorodyski: DAM 2012 Opportunity – DAM is the shared, creative playground in modern business

From @WidenEnterprise: Assets are the lifeblood of the brand

From @jhorodyski: DAM as a practice and profession is maturing - we need best practices and standards to help DAM mature

From @WidenEnterprise: Don't forget the beavers... Beavers are at the core of every good DAM strategy

You can view all the tweets with hashtag #CXMChat or check out the replay below.

Continue to follow @WidenEnterprise for updates or request a demo to get a live look at the Widen Digital Asset Management solution.

Everything we do at Widen, we do for our customers. Even before an organization makes its final decision on a DAM software provider, we take plenty of time to get to know each other and ensure that our offering is the best fit on the market.

Because your satisfaction means so much to us, there's no greater feeling than the one that comes from hearing a customer say that he or she would (or does) reccommend us to friends, peers and colleagues. So you you can imagine how giddy we got when Bob MacCowan, of the adidas Group's Sports Licensed Division, told us just that.

"We create (digital imagery) and put it out there better than anybody else, and Widen helps us to that," Bob said. It's that kind of partnership — where we and one of our customer form a relationship that helps us both reach new heights — that we live for here. And we're pretty sure it's why those partners feel so comfortable recommending us.

Whether it's digital sampling or DAM software, we set the standard for excellence in customer satisfaction.

If you want to take a peek at the DAM system that has Bob, his teams, and so many others excited enough to spread the news, check out our recorded demos. Once you've taken a look, get in touch with us and let us know what questions you have about the system and what we can do to help your organization streamline its workflows and open new doors.

A lot has happened in the world of digital asset management in the last 5 to 10 years or so. While a “corporate image library” might have been a step up from the status quo five short years ago, other kinds of media now play bigger roles in your marketing campaigns and workflows. Images aren’t enough anymore, so neither are systems designed narrowly with images in mind. Here are some of the reasons why changes in the industry have rendered image libraries insufficient:

Video content is taking over — Online video has become hugely popular as a result of faster connection speeds and the evolution of hardware (for both creating and consuming the content). The best DAM systems have adapted to this new dynamic with features that make it easy to manage and work with videos. Cloud-based DAM systems often bring the added advantage save on storage costs typically associated with managing video content.

Digital audio is everywhere — Audio files are handy in all sorts of ways. You might use them in videos, presentations, or even as their own independent assets (podcasts, for instance). It’s just as important to manage these effectively as it is to do so with any other kind of file.

Office documents are important as ever — White papers, slide shows, spreadsheets... all these can be digital assets as well, so treat them as such. After all, a hard-to-find PowerPoint file can slow you down just as much as a hidden photo.

The list could go on and on, you get the idea. DAM is about more than just images, because your brand is about more than just images. Your tools should be as versatile as you are, and DAM is no exception.

See how brand asset management software goes far beyond the mere storage and management of images by signing up for a free demo of Widen software-as-a-service today.
 

It's been a while since we last shared customer testimonials here on the blog. That's partly because we've had some other exciting things going on here at Widen HQ.

But there is more in our stash. Previously, we posted the first and second installments of our interview with Bob MacCowan of the adidas Group's Sports Licensed Division. Today, we bring you the third chunk of our talk with Bob about the relationship between Widen and adidas SLD.

In this piece, Bob explains why it is that "culture" makes Widen so well suited to meet the premedia and digital asset management software needs of adidas. As he explains, it's not just about the fact that we provide great products and services. It's also about the fact that Widen's is a culture of ceative expression.

"Those things fit very well into our world," Bob said.

Bob goes on to say that Widen also is good at presenting new opportunities to the adidas Group. In a sense, we serve more as a partner than a vendor to Bob and his teams — and that's the way we like it. This interview illustrates not just our competency, but also the degree to which we care about our relationships here at Widen.

We like the feeling that we have a stake in our customers' success. It's what drives us, and its what keeps people like Bob and so many others incredibly satisfied with the Widen experience.

To get a taste of what Bob's talking about, check out recorded demos of our software-as-a-service DAM system. Or take a look at what Widen has to offer on the premedia services side, if that's what you're looking for.

Just the other day, Widen hosted a webinar on video asset management. We were glad to see so many customers and others in the meeting with us, hungry for information that would help them make better use of their video assets and their DAM system.

Al Falaschi, our in-house video expert, led us through a crash course that included topics like codecs, metadata, embed codes, file conversions and HTML5. We based the topics included in the webinar on responses to a survey, in which we asked respondents what they were most inrerested in learning about. Here is a chart showing the results. As you can see, there was a pretty even distribution.

We got great feedback on the webinar, and people seemed to really appreciate getting Al's perspective on some of the hot topic in video management. In case you're not familiar with Al, here's the bio we shared during the event:

Al Falaschi has been with Widen since October 2006, but his roots in dealing with digital audio and video date back to the late 1990’s. He has built numerous audio recording and video editing facilities and continues to be an independent music producer/engineer and video editor. Understanding the technological blueprint of digital audio and video, he has helped form Widen’s expansion of the Media Collective to include additional audio/video capabilities, and helps plan future growth in these areas. Understanding industry standards and custom workflows allows Al to guide Widen’s products and maintain their status as one of the leading providers of DAM systems and services.

Immediately after the webinar was over, we started getting questions about whether and when a recording of the webinar would be available. Well, here it is. The whole thing takes about an hour, and we know that, for many of you out there, this would be an hour well spent.

If you're interested in learning more about video asset management (VAM), take a look at our webinar on that topic. Once you've been through it, contact us to let us know what you thought of the webinar and what questions you still have about VAM. If you have ideas for future webinar topics, feel free to shoot those our way, too.

Widen's Al Falaschi (left) leads our video asset management webinar as Jake Athey moderates online discussion.

When we think of marketing and communications software, we tend to think of tools used by advertising agencies, manufacturers or retailers. Those same tools, however, are used all the time to meet the needs of educational institutions.

To highlight the benefits of digital asset management (DAM) software in higher education and show how a diverse sampling of three schools are using digital asset management to make their asset workflows more efficient, I recently contributed this piece to CMS Wire:

Digital Asset Management Streamlines School Spirit

When people think about the institutional challenges faced in higher education, they might consider graduation rates, diversity, research and fundraising. We all know there’s a lot going on at colleges and universities, but many might be unaware of the marketing and public relations side of running a top-notch school.

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Naturally, all this activity means a virtually constant generation of digital media related to the institution and the brand. As in any other kind of organization, colleges and universities have digital asset libraries (containing images, videos, presentations, illustrations, audio, documents and other file types) that can grow to the point where managing, tracking and governing the use of those assets becomes unwieldy without specialized digital asset management software.

The piece goes on to show how DAM software is used at Corinthian Colleges, Inc., the University of Georgia Terry College of Business, and an anonymous university in the northeastern U.S.

You can read the rest of it here.

Universities are unique environments in a lot of ways. But that's often precisely the reason they have such great need for DAM software.

Are you in higher ed communications? What do your asset management workflows look like? If you have questions about how you can reap some of the same benefits as these three universities, contact us or request a live demo of our SaaS DAM system.

You do a lot with your digital media. What if you could do a lot... better? Digital asset management programs come in many shapes and sizes. Because organizational DAM needs vary, so do the solutions that are available. Still, good DAM systems generally provides at least a few common benefits. Those core benefits include the ability to easily:

Find things — DAM systems make it easy to find the assets you’re looking for. This is a principle foundation of any quality DAM system. Search in a DAM system is only as good as the metadata attached to assets. A software-as-a-service (SaaS) DAM system is particularly useful in this respect, as the vendor may help the system administrators determine the best taxonomy and metadata to employ.

Organize things — Good digital asset management tools make it easy to form collections and groups out of assets in multiple categories. This is especially helpful for marketing campaigns that target particular segments of the population, but draw from a variety of assets.

Share things — Easy and efficient communication among a group of people with the same goals is one of the main keys to quickly reaching objectives. A good DAM system makes it easy to share assets and collaborate with others in your marketing team or with external marketing partners.

Get things — A DAM system also has to make it easy to download assets from the system after retrieving them from a digital image library. Cloud-based DAM systems in particular let users download available assets 24 hours a day, anywhere in the world, as long as they have an Internet connection.

Use things — Assets can be downloaded but if they aren't available in the correct formats, they become more difficult (or impossible) to use. This is why quality DAM systems perform automatic file conversions; this way, assets can be quickly employed for any number of uses.

Take a free trial of Widen software-as-a-service DAM to experience the basic benefits of a DAM system.