Widen DAM software customer Mercury Marine recently announced some major rebrand efforts. According to a recent item on TradeOnlyToday.com:

Mercury Marine introduced new branding that includes a refresh of its corporate logo. The manufacturer says the new logo will replace the previous one in nearly all instances.

...

The new branding is being rolled out globally on Mercury’s Digital Asset Manager system, which can be accessed by media, dealers, boatbuilders and other partners.

Mercury Marine has been using Widen for about a year now. We caught up with Michel Bryson, associate manager of global branding, to find out more about how things have been going for them with the Widen Media Collective.

“We launched the DAM system in September 2011,” said Bryson. “On top of the rebrand, it has helped collaboration among international groups. Once we started sharing content, that made the global rebrand easier for everybody.”

When Mercury Marine launched its Widen DAM system a year ago, the company had its published DAM URL redirect to the new system and stopped updating assets on the old system. In addition, they would remove assets (like logos) that had been updated. This was a way to wean people off of the old system and create a need for the new one.

So far, so good. As Bryson put it, “In one year, I haven’t heard a negative comment or even a question about the new DAM system.” That's exactly what we like to hear.

Widen digital asset management software as a tool for achieving global brand consistency

Bryson also noted that Media Collective has helped Mercury Marine to not only distribute assets more efficiently, but also create more consistency in its brand image across the many global markets in which it operates. That includes places where most users speak a first language other than English.

“We were looking for something everybody could access no matter where they were,” Bryson said. “We started sending this to people whose native language isn’t English and they just get it.”

Widen’s user interface is intuitive enough, she said, that it didn’t make sense to worry about investing in a system packed with features designed for use in multiple languages.

“An arrow pointing down means download. A magnifying glass means you get a bigger preview. People understand.”

Before Widen, there wasn’t “a consistent global look and feel” to the way Mercury Marine was being represented. Now, however, Widen Media Collective has enabled the organization to put all the resources people need at their disposal, so that, for example, teams in Europe can create new brochures using North American ones as templates. The time that it takes to update collateral across all global markets has been cut drastically.

“Bass boats aren’t big in Europe like they are in the States, so our European team needed to be able to swap out the photography for something more appropriate to their region,” Bryson noted, so it’s key that Widen software has given the organization a way to keep nimble while also enforcing brand standards.

As the screenshot below shows, Mercury Marine is also ensuring that users of the DAM system are immediately aware that they can access the Mercury Brand Style Guide through the Collective site.

Keeping DAM top of mind

The DAM software has also helped Mercury Marine staff keep digital assets and branding top of mind.

“I have it set up so that every admin is notified when anything is uploaded. That keeps this system top of mind,” Bryson said. “So someone might think, ‘Alessandra in Italy is uploading assets. Maybe I should, too.’”

To find out more about the kinds of strategies you could be putting in place to make the most of your digital asset management processes, request a DAM consultation.

In addition, the Madison, Wisconsin-based digital media solutions provider is now offering two new consultative DAM services, offering strategy development and expert administration

MADISON, Wisc. – With a new digital watermarking integration, analytics tools that allow administrators to more closely monitor asset activity, PDF export tools and other enhancements, version 6.2 of the Widen Media Collective digital asset management system is the best yet.

“We’ve been listening closely to feedback from our user community, and this is just the first of many releases we’ll be issuing to help them address the pain points they’ve described to us. We know that these enhancements will make our software a far more valuable tool for the marketing and communications teams that depend on it,” said Widen Software Development & Infrastructure Manager Deanna Ballew.

Media Collective version 6.2 highlights include:

NEW Widen Analytics Application - Media Collective now enables the generation of data and graphical reports on, among other things, storage (by month, date and file format), user data (including login activity, roles, and new users), and asset order activity.

PDF Export Tools - PDF contact sheets of search results could be exported prior to the 6.2 release, but contact sheets were limited to 500 results and users could not continue to work in the system until the download was available. Now, these reports are generated in a manner similar to CSV exports, meaning that users can continue to work in the DAM system while the PDF export is generating.

Watermarking Integration - Widen has partnered with another trusted firm to integrate digital watermarking and other content identification technologies into Collective, enhancing rights management security.

NEW Web Services API - The Widen Collective SOAP API provides a simple interface to query and extract data and images from the DAM system. The new API has been redesigned to provide a simpler programming interface, faster search results, and compliance with WS-I Basic Profile 1.1 standards.

“The Widen Media Collective is a key tool in the execution of our users’ marketing and creative strategies. Now, with these new integrations and applications, we’re making our software a more powerful tool for gathering valuable business intelligence,” said Marketing Manager Jake Athey.

Version 6.2 of the Widen Media Collective is live for all Widen customers, and many have been anticipating the benefits of this new release’s enhancements. Just last month, about 100 users of Media Collective gathered in Madison for Widen’s first annual User Summit, during which attendees got a sneak peak at some of these updates.

Two new DAM service offerings

In addition, Widen has announced that it will offer two new services: DAM Administrative Services and DAM Strategy Development.

DAM Administrative Services - Widen will allocate resources to managing the day-to-day administrative tasks associated with digital asset management operations. These administrative tasks include the maintenance of digital assets and users.

DAM Strategy Development - These services will consist of, among other things, consultative guidance and in-person training sessions for DAM software stakeholders, led by Widen’s own DAM experts.

For a guided demo of the latest release of Widen Media Collective, get in touch and let us know a time that works.

The software-as-a-service DAM system is now the choice of about 200 diverse organizations.

Widen Enterprises closed the third quarter of 2012 with 11 new digital asset management customers, including organizations in the education, consulting, military, restaurant and medical sectors. The Madison, Wisconsin-based digital media solutions company is on pace to break its annual sales records.

“Our talent has been doing a fabulous job making the marketing and creative teams at our customer locations look really, really good. Word is spreading fast about our ability to deliver a reliable DAM system that flexes to meet the digital media demands of a variety of organizations.  In a recent blind taste test, most marketers preferred to drink the Widen Kool-Aid,” said Widen CEO Matthew Gonnering.

New Widen digital asset management customers include:

Superior Energy – Superior Energy Services, Inc. serves the drilling, completion and production-related needs of oil and gas companies worldwide through its brand name drilling products and its integrated completion and well intervention services and tools, supported by an engineering staff who plan and design solutions for customers.

Creative Converting – In 2007, with over 80 years of combined experience in the paper and party goods industries, Creative Expressions and Converting, Inc. partnered to form Creative Converting, under its parent company Hoffmaster Group, Inc. Since the merger, Creative Converting has successfully transitioned and established itself as a highly respected “full line supplier" while continuing to expand its capabilities to substantially grow its core business.

Froedtert Health – Froedtert Health is a regional healthcare organization. Joining the capabilities of an academic medical center affiliated with The Medical College of Wisconsin, two community hospitals and 32 community-based primary and specialty clinics, Froedtert Health delivers highly coordinated, cost-effective healthcare to residents of southeastern Wisconsin and beyond.

In addition, Widen digital asset management software has been adopted by a quick-service restaurant company with thousands of locations in dozens of countries; a leading producer and planner of digital media, network solutions and digital environments; a part of the U.S. military; a training and consulting firm in the energy industry; a university medical center; a popular maker of chocolates and candies; a university in Virginia; and a global supplier of electronic interconnectors serving various sectors, like telecommunications, consumers and the military.

The Media Collective®, a Widen hosted DAM system, is now in version 6.2 and supports creative and marketing workflows for about 200 diverse customers. The Media Collective’s scalability allows organizations of all sizes to support their user groups with a centralized digital media library and marketing resources for improved performance. Version 6.2 was released in October 2012, and includes a new digital watermarking integration, analytics tools that allow administrators to more closely monitor asset activity, and PDF export tools.

We sat down with Kate Bennewitz of Life Fitness to talk about their marketing workflows and how Widen digital asset management software fits into those global processes. She had great things to say about — among other things — what DAM means to Life Fitness and how the organization went about getting its users to adopt a new system.

Meet Life Fitness

Getting user adoption at Life Fitness

Want to learn more about our DAM software and what it can do for you? Request a DAM consultation and we'll help you better understand your needs and what you need to do to address your biggest marketing workflow pain points.

Life Fitness has global marketing needs. In this video, Kate Bennewitz explains how Widen Media Collective digital asset management software has helped support their digital media workflow needs across various countries, languages and cultures.

Using DAM for global branding at Life Fitness

In this portion of our interview, Bennewitz offers her view of the value of the high levels of service that come with being a Widen digital asset management customer.

"If I call and they actually provide me with multiple solutions, that makes me feel like my business is valuable," she said.

People at Widen are "super helpful" for Life Fitness

To take the system Life Fitness uses for a spin, request a DAM demo. You can also contact us about a DAM consultation, in which we'll help you understand your DAM needs and how the right software could help you meet them.

A couple of weeks ago, Lee Stadler and I got together at HighEdWeb to speak to a group at the Higher Education Web Professionals conference in Milwaukee. We talked about higher ed communications and marketing, along with how DAM software fits into the strategy behind telling a school's brand story.

Here's a video of the whole talk:

At Widen, we're lucky to work with digital asset management software administrators who are true thought leaders — be they in higher education, manufacturing, apparel, or any other industry. Our experiences with those thought leaders, along with our being able to hang out with all the briliant people we have here at Widen HQ, goes a long was in informing our thinking.

To talk to use one on one about your challenges and how we can help you address them, request a DAM consultation and we'll find a time that works for a chat.

Sometimes the best gauge of something's value is how much you'd miss it if it were gone. That can be true of people, products, software, opportunities, or anything else.

DAM software is no exception. What would it cost you to lose a given system? What would life be like without it in the picture? We put this question to Kate Bennewitz of Life Fitness. Her answer: Life would be miserable without Widen DAM. Like the stone age.

Life without Widen

Maybe that's because our system is so easy to use. After all, we've been at it for decades now, and we built the system from the ground up to meet our own DAM needs. So it stands to reason that our system would be among the most intuitively designed out there. It sounds corny, but we wouldn't offer a system we wouldn't use ourselves. And we back that claim up every day.

Widen Media Collective's ease of use

That people who use our system speak so highly of the software is one thing. But it's quite another to see what people think things might be like without it. It's a product of not just our excellent SaaS offering, but also of the partnerships we forge with every one of our clients.

Want to try out the system Kate would be so miserable without? Try a DAM demo today.

Josey and I hosted a webinar yesterday covering the new features in version 6.2 of the Widen Media Collective Digital Asset Management solution. Among the new features covered were the basics of Analytics, PDF Exports, the new Widen partnership with ConceptShare, and a look ahead at what to expect with version 6.3 in early 2013. You can view the webinar recording here.

One of the most notable new things in 6.2 is the release of Widen Analytics, which provides digital asset management administrators a more efficient way for measuring activity to gain valuable market insights and determine future budget and resource allocation.

The new Widen Analytics app provides dashboards for storage, users, asset counts and orders. Widen Analytics helps marketing and creative decision-makers better understand popular asset types and key user groups to concentrate on.

Three specific dashboards worth pointing out for site managers include:

1. Storage by File Type – This is useful for site storage maintenance to understand what file type or what specific files within that file type are comprising the most storage.

2. Asset Status – This allows you to watch your Pending Delete and Unreleased queues. Having too many unreleased assets likely means a large portion of your users aren't finding valuable assets (or you’re really good at planning ahead). Your assets in the Pending Delete bucket can affect your storage costs. For some, it’s worth the peace of mind knowing that data is recoverable, but it’s worth knowing what’s there and if any clean-up is needed.

3. Asset Orders by Users and Filenames – Monitoring site usage via asset orders can be very useful. Are the power users placing the most orders who you expect them to be? What assets are most popular and, within that, what conversion formats are most popular. Come back here often as you try to promote specific assets and collections.

Bonus Tips!

Get to know your top users by name if you don’t already as they’re a great source for more qualitative intel. Need to quantify your DAM ROI to your top management? The Asset Counts and Asset Orders by date charts make for some impressive visuals.

During the webinar, we also provided a brief look at the kinds of complementary insights the Google Analytics profiles within Collective DAM software sites can bring to your organization. 

You can get a better understanding for how users are searching your digital asset library and what they’re searching for by comparing top quick searches and top category searches. 

The user insights complement the user login dashboards from Widen Analytics by telling you absolute unique visitors, pageviews, time on site and new visits. The map overlay can provide some fascinating displays of where your users are coming from.

We’re also tracking analytics on popular browsers & operating systems, screen resolutions and mobile devices to help us guide product roadmap decisions. You can use this data to better understand your userbase and what to develop as well. 

We’d love to compare notes with any other analytics junkies out there so feel free to contact us!

Request a demo to learn more about Widen Analytics and the other new features in 6.2 of the Widen DAM.

We hear all about “what the pros wear” when it comes to our championship-caliber athletes. What you often don’t hear about is what the pros use to manage and distribute the images you see when you want to buy what what the pros wear. Marketing and creative pros that is.

You are right! That would be Widen.

More specifically, Widen Digital Sampling and Digital Asset Management make it happen.

We’ve written before about how Widen has supported the hot market demands of the official apparel suppliers to the NFL, NBA, NHL, and now Major League Baseball — along with many other licensed sports apparel marketers for colleges and universities across the country.

Widen has all but set the standard in how sports licensed apparel is managed, distributed and presented in the digital channels where you see it first.

The most recent example of this on display come with the victors of the 2012 World Series, the San Francisco Giants.

While Widen did not create the digital samples shown here with graphics applied this time around, the garment blanks were shot in our photo studio and the master assets are housed and delivered with Widen DAM software. Both of the vendors shown here are Widen DAM customers. Watch this video to learn more about Widen Digital Sampling services.

The Widen digital production process and apparel marketing technology helps marketers cut costs, improve efficiency and shorten time to market.

More specific benefits of using Widen cloud-based Digital Asset Management include:

• Accelerated search and retrieval time in accessing official imagery
• Increased real-time collaboration of assets and approvals
• Cost savings through the elimination of physical delivery of samples
• Elimination of the cost of lost or misplaced work
• Reduction in time-to-market through digital delivery

Check out more related posts about Widen Digital Sampling services.

We continue to hammer on the importance of customer satisfaction in the digital asset management market by publishing our customer survey results year after year.  This is primarily so prospective customers can see what it’s like to work with us before they sign up.  It’s also hard to get data about other DAM providers to see how you are doing in the competitive landscape, so we publish this so that other DAM providers can establish a target for best practices in loyalty, service, and product performance.

“How arrogant of you to think of yourself as the standard bearers in the DAM industry for loyalty, service, and product performance. I mean, you have the evidence and all, but really,” says nobody.  In response to the phantom, I say, “We believe that anyone purchasing digital asset management deserves the best experience possible and we know we cannot serve 100 percent of the market demand. So the 1 percent that doesn’t fit the Widen DAM model should at least use someone almost as good as Widen.”

• Let’s take a sneak peak into customer loyalty from 191 responses, which is measured using Net Promoter Score (NPS) by asking how likely it is you would recommend Widen. 
• Our jump in NPS from 27 to 33 was a direct result of building more promoters within our customer base.
• We advanced from 43 percent promoters in 2011 to 49 percent promoters in 2012, a result of our service model strengthening and the great direction of our product strategy.

Next, let’s take a look at feedback on the overall experience with Widen that was taken from 191 responses.

• 87.4 percent of customers responded that they were either satisfied or very satisfied with the service experience.
• 0.5 percent responded that they were dissatisfied with the service experience.

Although we have an industry best in customer satisfaction at 87.4 percent, we are continuing to work on advancing our customer satisfaction levels through improved user experiences, educational sessions, and access to subject matter expertise.

Customers were also asked how satisfied they were with the overall product performance.

• 83.2 percent of customers responded that they were either satisfied or very satisfied with the product performance
• 3.7 percent of customers were dissatisfied with product performance, while 0.5 percent said they were very dissatisfied

The 4.2 percent dissatisfied or very dissatisfied in product performance were engaged immediately to discover that they are seeking some new features on our 2013 roadmap, a few were unhappy with speed issues related to internet connectivity. Others had encountered bugs that were fixed immediately, but still resulted in dissatisfied score (and rightfully so).

We have more incredible things planned for 2013 that will increase satisfaction, service and product performance. We know this because our leading indicators, our employment culture, our innovation, our operations, and our service processes are moving closer to target because of the initiatives that our managers have implemented. And the satisfaction levels of our employees are increasing.

How about another opportunity to flaunt how awesome the Widen experience is for customers?  OK then!

The satisfaction levels of our marketing, sales, development, quality assurance, project management, help desk, and customer development teams, are leading indicators of the customer experience.

In our 2012 employee survey, 95.5 percent of employees responded that they were either satisfied or very satisfied with Widen as a place to work and none (0, zilch, nada) responded that they were dissatisfied or very dissatisfied.

The benefit of this for customers is simple: happier employees make better stuff that makes customers happier. The benefit of this for competitors is that you have another best practices benchmark in employee satisfaction.  When is the last time you measured how satisfied your employees were and what did you do about it?  

“Again, how arrogant of you to think of yourself as a best practices place to work, I mean, even though you have the evidence, again, it still sounds like you’re bragging about yourself and assuming you are the best,” says nobody again.

To them I say, “We are proud of our employees, the best of Widen is all of us; contributions of every member of the team goes into each release, every product, every customer experience. If you’re not measuring employee satisfaction and doing anything to change it, then we’ll gladly hire your best employees. They can send resumes to matthewg@widen.com.”

Taking the DAM software plunge can be intimidating. Whether you're putting a system in place for the first time or swapping one DAM system out for another, it can feel like there's a bit of mystery surrounding the issue of what exactly happens after you sign on the dotted line.

That's why we put together this video, featuring some of the very people who walk our new customers through the process.

LimelightPlayerUtil.initEmbed('limelight_player_263940');

These and other aspects of the Widen customer experience are outlined in this popular new infographic. In it, we expand not only on the process of implementation, but also the ongoing support and development attention that all Widen customers get when they trust us with their creative and communications workflow needs.

Want to know more? Get in touch and ask for a free DAM consultation. We'll discuss your needs and how you can go about finding the best-fit solution possible.

Widen Enterprises' Software-as-a-Service DAM now aids in the marketing processes of two state tourism offices.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

MADISON – Widen Enterprises, a Madison-based provider of digital asset management solutions (Widen Media Collective), has been chosen by Laughlin Constable to meet the agency’s DAM software needs in serving the Wisconsin Department of Tourism.

Laughlin Constable, with offices in Chicago, Milwaukee and New York City, has been providing integrated marketing for over 35 years.

The Wisconsin Department of Tourism markets the state as the Midwest’s premier travel destination, executing industry-leading marketing programs and establishing strategic partnerships.

“We’re proud of the fact that we’ve gained the trust of organizations all over the world thanks to our stellar customer service and high-caliber software,” said Widen CEO Matthew Gonnering. “Still, there’s a special satisfaction that comes from helping our Wisconsin neighbors become leaner, meaner marketing machines.”

That Badger State connection, along with the strength of Media Collective, helped make the decision just a little easier for the people at Laughlin.

“We knew the system that was currently in use was archaic,” said Laughlin Constable Vice President of Public Relations Lisa Todd. “It only included still images, but we wanted it all – photos, video and logos - in one spot. This was a good opportunity to enhance what we have and not break the bank.”

Having things in “one spot” is important, but Widen Media Collective also ensures that users can easily find the right assets no matter how large a digital media library grows.

“The searching within the DAM system allows users to easily browse through files or pinpoint the exact file they need. Users can choose a category to browse through images and filter down based on criteria that fits their needs. They can also enter multiple search terms for what they need and add filtering to pinpoint the right brand assets. Having many ways to search for assets is part of what allows our DAM software to be used by organizations of so many different kinds,” said Widen Software Development and Infrastructure Manager Deanna Ballew.

In addition, Todd found that Media Collective’s intuitive organization tools were instrumental to the decision that Widen was the best fit.

“Having all assets organized and tagged with key words makes the Widen system really easy to use and that will be key as we transition to the new system,” she said.

About Laughlin Constable

Laughlin Constable, with offices in Chicago, Milwaukee and New York City, has been providing integrated marketing for over 35 years. The agency’s Full Circle Branding services include strategic planning and brand strategy; primary and secondary research; identity development and design; media planning and buying; digital design and development; public relations services; social media and community management; and award-winning creative strategy, content and execution for all of the above, in all media channels. Laughlin Constable clients include a who's who of American brands, such as Harley-Davidson, MillerCoors, Wisconsin Dept. of Tourism, GE Healthcare, Pfizer, Bridgestone/Firestone Retail Operations, Bon-Ton Stores and Lung Cancer Alliance.

About the Wisconsin Department of Tourism

The mission of the Wisconsin Department of Tourism is to market the state as the Midwest’s premier travel destination by executing industry-leading marketing programs and establishing strategic partnerships. The Department plays a significant role in generating greater economic impact and jobs for Wisconsin. The portal for traveler information can be found at www.travelwisconsin.com.

About Widen Enterprises, Inc.

Based in Madison, Wisconsin, Widen has honed its more than 60 years of experience in premedia services and color management specifically for assisting customers with building brand equity and supporting consistent brand representation across print and Web communications. Through its inventive suite of Web-based digital asset management applications, Widen software services provide marketing networks with real-time, Web-based access to clients' digital asset libraries, subsequently eliminating manual search and file preparation time, costs related to replacing images and videos that cannot be located, and added costs for hardware, software and upgrades. For more information, visit www.widen.com.

Widen has a number of additional services that we provide to our customers to help them not only maintain their digital asset management system, but to continually improve its organization and efficiency for its users. One of the methods is to gather direct feedback from their users via an end user survey.

Widen will help you craft a survey that is sent to users of your digital asset management system. There are two main areas in which we aim to gather useful data from your users to help direct future software development and organization efforts. The first area is specific to Widen’s software — more specifically, the user interface. For example, do your users find it easy to use?

The second area is specific to the content contained within your DAM system. For example, do your users understand the organizational structure of your category tree? Or, are the assets they are looking for even available?

Here are some questions we suggest you ask your end users.

Background info on user - We start by gathering background information on the user. Depending on their role within your organization, this will help put a perspective on their answers.

What is your current role within the organization? Dealer/Distributor/Internal Employee etc...

Frequency of use

How often are you in the system?

Ease of use of the software - Find out whether they feel that the software is easy to use. 

Do you feel that the look and feel of the software interface is easy to understand and intuitive?

Speed and performance of software - Find out their perception of the speed and responsiveness of the software.

Do you agree, disagree, or neither agree nor disagree with the following statement?

“Overall, the software seems very responsive and I am happy with the speed in which pages refresh and show results.”

Conversion formats and quality are appropriate - Converting assets is a major feature of Media Collective. The available formats must be appropriate for your users for the system to be useful. Make sure available conversion formats are clearly labeled and meet their needs.

Do you agree, disagree, or neither agree nor disagree with the following statement?

“When ordering converted assets, I find the available conversion options are clearly labeled and understandable, and they are formats that I find useful.”

Competing sources for asset fulfillment - Media Collective might be the only source to obtain your assets. If it is not, consider asking a question comparing it to the other sources.

Do you agree, disagree, or neither agree nor disagree with the following statement?

“I find the collective to be the most efficient tool available to me to obtain assets.”

Quality of assets contained in system - Widen’s software can be the easiest to use in the world, but if the assets in it are not what your users are looking for, no one will come back.

Do you find the system to contain the images and files you are looking for, and that they are of excellent quality?

Quality of metadata - If you have bad metadata, no one will be able to find the assets they are looking for.

Do you find that the metadata, or information about the file, is current, accurate and useful?

Quality of organization - The categories on the left and spotlights categories are a very important way to organize your assets. The ease of understanding that organizational structure will greatly impact the usability of the system.

Do you agree, disagree, or neither agree nor disagree with the following statement?

“I find the organizational structure of the categories on the left side of the user interface to be well structured and easy to understand.”

Training - Find out whether your users feel they have been properly trained, and whether they are interested in future training sessions.

Do you agree, disagree, or neither agree nor disagree with the following statements?

“I feel I have been properly trained on how to use the system.”

“I would be interested in attending future training sessions.”

Support - Support is only helpful if it is easy to find, fast, and accurate.

Do you agree, disagree, or neither agree nor disagree with the following statement?

"I am quickly able to locate support resources within the software, and the support team is very quick and accurate with their response to my questions."

Feature-specific questions - Ask questions about specific features within Collective to find out whether you could better tweak them to improve usage.

• Embed codes  - Do they find them useful? Are the size and quality options appropriate?
• Collections - Do they find them useful? Are they easy to use?
• Sharing - Do you use the sharing feature?

Want to talk about how Widen Media Collective can help your organization? Schedule a complimentary consultation with our DAM advisers.

Just compare features and price, right?

Wrong.

It’s deeper than that. It’s not just about picking a place to put your content. DAM is about maximizing the value of your brand assets. To do that well, you need to find the right partner to help you do that.

It’s all about “the fit.”

How do you find the fit? Well, that’s where it gets a little more complicated, because those aspects become harder to pin down.

Here’s a list of other things to consider to find the right fit with your digital asset management solution provider.

• History and experience
• Company stability and direction
• Product evolution and maturity
• Depth of design and user experience
• Customer retention and loyalty / advocacy
• Customer understanding and input
• People and culture
• Thought-leadership and expertise
• Service and support

Again, we know these things are hard to qualify, but they’re important nonetheless. It takes time and effort on the part of you (the buyer) and us (the vendor), so we look forward to getting to know you better.

Did we mention it all comes back to “the fit?” In other words, it’s about your comfort level with us (or whomever you think is right) being able to stand by the promise to deliver a solution that creates value for your organization.

Are there any shortcuts?

Not really. You could come to Widen! We’re certain that after you meet with our people — the team of experts that guarantee your success — you’ll get a good understanding of what the best-fit solution would look like for you.

For more information:

• Get the DAM Decision Guide to help you along your journey.
• Check out Capterra Reviews to get customer reactions.
• Let’s talk so we can get to know each other a little better.

Believe it or not, some web-based DAM providers actually differentiate between the types of users and will charge you more for people who are able to make certain decisions or contribute content to your media library. Can you believe that some even limit the number of concurrent users? At Widen, we don’t want to limit your usage in any way.

We include a bunch of users (and they can all be online at the same time), storage is cheap, bandwidth is free and every customer has a 30-day out. That’s right! You get a lot and your commitment is very low. What’s more, the monthly subscription is easy to budget for, updates are free and support is included.

I know what you’re thinking: “WOW, that’s a great deal! How do they do that?”

The answer is simple. It’s a great product and we provide really awesome service. With that, customer loyalty and retention are high. We’ve been around for 65 years, so we know what we’re doing and where we’re going.

You need to know that not all web-based DAM solutions are created equal.

Back to our digital asset management user model where “a user is a user is user”.

Typical installations have user roles to include a few global administrators, some mid-level admin roles, and end-user roles representing the widest user base.

Here’s a breakdown of the types of users you might have. Again, they all cost the same:

Global Admins - You should only have a few of these. These are the key knowledge managers that have the ultimate rights to see and do everything with your content, your users and all the available features of the system. They administrate all of the user roles and asset groups, set up the metadata schema and taxonomies, and are in the know about all activity.

Mid-Level Admins - You can have as many of these types of users as you need. These are managers of specific roles and asset groups where they would have authority and hold the knowledge about the users and assets within specific groups under them.

Contributors - We don’t necessarily call these out specifically, but this group includes anyone with permission to upload content to your digital library. That means photographers, videographers, designers, agencies and other content creators along with marketing coordinators and assistants who help keep the workflow running smoothly and the asset lifecycle in check.

Editors - These would be anyone with permissions to add and edit metadata on your digital assets. These knowledge workers possess the details needed to keep your content organized, searchable and repurpose-able as they work with other systems and products that influence what they know and how they interact with DAM.

Publishers - You got it, we don’t differentiate for these types of users either, but these are the folks that embrace some of the publishing features of DAM to connect your content direct with the intended audiences. Features available include on-the-fly conversions for print and web channels, embed codes, social publishing, collections & galleries, and ad & brochure creation.

Auditors - We don’t break these out either, but these are the managers, validators and decision-makers that want access to the wealth of usage data that can be gleaned from your Widen cloud-based DAM system. These are the people that take advantage of the data exports and analytics tools to measure and assess user activity and asset consumption for future budgeting and resource planning.

End Users and Subscribers - These are the people who represent the largest groups of users. Often, these users are broken out across various roles such as field sales, distributors and dealers, media & press, etc. These users just want to get in, find the assets they need and download them in the appropriate formats for the task at hand, then get out to move on to the next thing.

With Widen, your digital asset management implementation can contain any combination of users and it’s typical for many of those mid-level users to have many overlapping roles and permissions. Users change over time and your user base will increase as new departments and constituents see the value of the system. Fortunately, Widen’s flexible governance model and pricing accommodations make growth very easy.

Request a DAM consultation to talk more about how you would structure your digital asset management user base.

For more reactions from Widen digital asset management users, check out some of the Widen reviews on Capterra or recommendations on LinkedIn.

When you see a DAM vendor announcing a new update that provides compatibility for a new (or not so new) operating system release, you really start to think about the hidden costs of developing and maintaining onsite DAM, especially when those DAMs require installed client software.

To the defense of onsite DAM vendors, it’s difficult to synchronize DAM release schedules with the release schedules of Apple and Microsoft. On the other hand, how long are users supposed to wait to upgrade their machines? It’s one thing for a DAM update to come out a few weeks after a new OS version is released. But it’s quite another issue when users are forced to wait upwards of half a year or more before they can upgrade their workstations. (It’s even worse when some other software requires the new OS upgrade but the DAM software forces the user to stay put.)

And then you have the labor involved with each upgrade. For example, upgrading an onsite DAM server means you have schedule a few hours’ downtime and hope for the best — for one machine. You might lose an evening or, if things don’t go so well, an entire weekend. But if you have hundreds of users scattered across the world, or even just across the campus, think about the time you’ll need to update all those installed software clients every time a new update is released. (God forbid a .1 “fix” is issued a few months after a major update and you have to do it all over again!)

Maintaining onsite DAM that’s based on installed software clients can be a lot of ongoing work — there’s no getting around that.

Want to talk DAM? We'd be happy to help you navigate all the issues that come with choosing a digital asset management system. Just schedule a chat with one of our DAM advisers.

Widen Digital Asset Management Customers Will Now Be Able to Send Their Media to ConceptShare for Review, Making the DAM System a More Powerful Collaboration Tool Than Ever.

As we recently announced, Widen has brought an integration with ConceptShare into Widen Media Collective, offering users of our digital asset management software a powerful new option for annotation, markup and collaboration in their creative workflows.

Want to take a deeper dive into how this works and figure out whether Widen and ConceptShare are right for you? There will be a webinar covering just that on January 10, 2013 at 12:00 p.m. CST.

Register for our webinar. If you have particular questions you'd like us to address during that webinar, feel free to get in touch with us and let us know.

Not sure what this is all about? Here's an excerpt from our recent announcement to clear things up:

"We know people are excited about having access to these new tools. Our customers have come to put a lot of trust in us, so we're glad to now be bringing these review capabilities to the table, as they'll enable users to make Widen solutions a part of even more of their creative processes," said Lanita Haag, Widen's director of project services.

How does it work? Users of the integration can send any asset to ConceptShare from Widen Media Collective's asset details page. Once the asset is placed in a ConceptShare workspace, reviewers can use any number of annotation tools to mark up and make suggested edits to the asset. They can also initiate a review of the asset with a group of people. Once the review process is complete the asset's status is updated to reflect that, Widen pulls it right back to Media Collective.

Finally, take a look at this video to see the integration in action:

2012 was a big year for content marketing, and there's going to be an even greater need for digital asset management solutions at organizations of all shapes and sizes in 2013. In this post to kick off the lucky year ‘13, we bring you our top DAM blog posts from 2012. 

1. Choosing a digital asset management system: The four phases of the DAM decision journey– This handy guide was created to help those embarking on the DAM journey for the first time to navigate the milestones necessary to strategize, research, justify and evaluate potential solutions and come out with the best fit partner.

 

2. Digital assets are "repurposaceous" and other key takeaways for the uninitiated– This post gets into five key takeaways for digital asset management newbies and why repurposing content is so important to efficient marketing operations.

 

3. How do you choose the best Digital Asset Management solution?– This post introduces the intangible factors to consider in identifying the right DAM partner to help you maximize the value of your brand assets.

 

4. The value of embed code generation in DAM software– One of the more popular DAM subjects of the year, this post introduces you to one of the most handy features for repurposing your digital media across the online customer experience.

 

5. Ad agencies and digital asset management - the end benefit– Advertising agencies are among the verticals where the need for effective DAM tools are most critical for improving resource allocation and creative collaboration through the digital supply chain.

 

6. Creative agencies that use digital asset management experience big benefits– This post introduces three must-haves for successful adoption of digital asset management at a creative agency according to a renowned Chicago-based ad agency.

 

7. On-premises digital asset management software - How other systems add hidden costs – This isn't one of those diatribes on hosted vs. installed software; this post offers an insider’s view of the costs that typically go unaccounted for during evaluations.

 

8. A user is a user is a user and more about the Widen digital asset management user model– This post uncovers the differences of user license models among web-based DAM vendors and provides a breakdown of the types of users you employ across all facets of the digital asset lifecycle – from content contributors to editors, publishers, auditors, and more.

 

9. How to audit your digital asset management system in 10 easy steps– This site audit outline was developed for Widen Media Collective customers, but the format can be adopted for just about any solution as a way to evaluate, improve and optimize the structure of your DAM system and, in turn, the use of your brand assets.

 

10. Making your DAM usage better with a Widen end user survey– This resource offers a guide to the continuous improvement process by tapping the feedback from end users of your brand asset library.

 

11. It's about “protection of investments” with destination marketing organizations (DMOs)– Beyond the benefits of repurposing content, this post gets into the most valuable justifications for DAM tools — security and protection of your assets and your brand.

 

12. You don't need to break the bank to meet your business' DAM software needs– This post reminds us that sophisticated DAM tools don’t need to cost a fortune, although they can be worth a fortune to your marketing operation and brand equity.

 

13. Drive Then Sign - Experience what it’s like to use Digital Asset Management Software Before You Buy– We know you sometimes just feel like getting in and taking a test drive! This post provides a number of different options for "getting a feel" for potential solutions.

 

We hope you’ve enjoyed our content! What did we miss? What would you like to see more of? 

 

Leave a comment or ask an expert to get in touch.

 

BONUS: This post from 2011 introduces what continues to be our most popular white paper – What to know before you go!