Growth of Digital Assets
by Jake Athey
Today’s businesses have not yet attained the much-ballyhooed goal of the paperless office. We do know that the amount of paper businesses produce has decreased substantially. Just ask file cabinet manufacturers. Their sales are down considerably and are at their lowest in the most computerized nations. Recycling boosters, efficiency experts and even some newly disciplined paper pushers themselves can share congratulations for the improvement. Of course, while saving some trees, making printer ink last longer and switching to online faxing is all well and good, the fact is that paper use may be down but the amount of information businesses need to store is up. It just has to be stored some other way, as digital files on hard disks, DVD-Rs, tape backups and online storage.
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The growth of digital assets has changed the modern office. There are more computers, network storage devices and backup equipment than file cabinets now. Even companies that are not involved in publishing, the arts or the media might have product catalogs to both print and post on their Web sites. In-house advertising and marketing departments (to say nothing of ad and marketing agencies) have a tremendous amount of art, typefaces, software programs and other digital assets even before they start creating things. While it is true that firms are saving money on paper, they are now spending it on various kinds of storage media. If they didn’t make a plan to handle it with some sort of DAM (Digital Asset Management) procedures, they may have less paper but more confusion.
Managing bits and bytes
For some companies the transition from Computer Age to Online Age, meaning the change between the early 1990s and now, caught them off-guard. They did not see where things were going, something many of us are guilty of, and did not pause along the way to devise a DAM plan. A DAM program can be as simple as a single network storage device allowing a one-person operation to have all its clip art, fonts, photographs and finished pieces (ads, brochures, audio files, whatever) in one handy place. Adding another hard drive to the mix for backups, externally or in the network storage device, completes a bare bones DAM system.
Of course, most companies have greater needs than this, and companies that are in the business of producing digital media themselves have rather substantial requirements for both use and storage. With a strong onsite IT department, some companies can assemble their own DAM system from the ground up, buying servers, writing custom software, automating backups and transfers, and so forth. For safety and security, of course, these firms will most likely rely on the Internet, too, for offsite archiving of mission-critical assets. For companies that use and produce great quantities of digital assets, it’s all mission-critical.
Third-party systems
The Internet’s apparent ease of use (there’s a lot happening in the background that most people don’t know about) has created a situation where many people think they can build Web sites, run networks and set up digital workflows with just a few mouse clicks. Although there are push-button solutions for some things, like family photo-sharing sites and publishing your neighbors’ garage sale signs, business operations are too important to be left to cookie cutter solutions. Large firms with well-staffed IT departments even turn to third party professionals when they encounter new challenges, and no one is embarrassed in the least. Why should they be? They want to do things right, and efficiently, and everyone who wants to make progress will retain the attitude of being ready to learn new things.
One of the great new things about all the technological advances is that there are always people who jump into a new thing and make it easier for everyone else. There are now companies that will help you manage your digital assets efficiently, with a minimum of setup headaches and full ongoing support. You can even choose to store your assets remotely, or both offsite and locally, for added security. A variety of DAM packages are available for firms with all sizes of budgets, where you can get just a few services, or a full solution with training, upgrades, a browser-based control panel, maintenance and technical support.
For all kinds of companies
Companies in all industries and of all sizes, whether retail stores or nonprofit groups, can leave the mess behind and bring efficiency and security to their digital assets. Again, this being the Online Age, you can try to cobble together your own DAM system, or avail your firm of one of the many solutions already designed for your situation. With a few tweaks and little training, you will have a truly custom solution for creating, distributing, managing, securing and archiving your important digital assets.
About the Author:
Are you looking for a digital asset management or photo archive? Brand management, marketing asset management or video management platform? Widen provides web-based digital asset management systems aka Hosted aka Software as a Service (SaaS). All hardware, software, implementation, training, integration, upgrades, maintenance, security and technical support is handled by Widen.
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