From this point, things begin to bog down. And like MacGyver, you’ve found yourself using a bobby pin and some piano wire to improvise a solution (though hopefully yours won’t explode). However, you do have a choice in the matter. And it doesn’t mean you’ll have to invest a small fortune in yet another disconnected solution. The beauty of hosted, customized DAM solutions is that they can effectively be integrated to work with the solutions you currently have built. So if your organization has standardized to some degree on SharePoint, fantastic. In fact, many organizations have been able to successfully leverage facets of their SharePoint site with a new DAM (i.e., organizational structure, naming conventions, and to a limited extent, version control). The difference being is that they understand the unique requirements of each solution and what it means for a solution to be “purpose-built” -- sure you can hack something together and make it work but in the end, it’s hardly an elegant solution. 

What other constructs of social media do you think DAM systems would be wise to adopt?   

Application Arts (Appart) has been lucky to be involved with a project that is a bit different than our normal course of business. We installed a webcam directly on a nest of a local pair of osprey. The story is that a pair of osprey originally nested at the site of the Barbee Mill Company many years ago. The sawmill was located in Renton, Washington on the shores of Lake Washington. Barbee Mill was the last operating sawmill on Lake Washington until 2005. The original pair of osprey chose to nest on a piece of sawmill equipment in the early 90’s. This beautiful site was located near the mouth of May Creek which offered great fishing for the osprey. When the mill closed in 2005 and the equipment was disassembled; the nest was removed and relocated to a new location nearby on the lake. You can see some historical photos here.  With the help of many people, this nesting site continues to attract a pair of ospreys every year.

Appart provides the technical support, hosting, and programming for the site www.ospreynest.org. This website has been up on the web in some form since 1998. This is our fourth year offering live streaming video of the nest. In the past few years, we’ve been able to see the whole cycle from egg to fledging.  This year we’ve added a selectable camera view, nest or perch, which the user can select.

I’d like to take some time to thank the people who help make this osprey site possible. First, Bruce Nagata, whose diligence and continued work on the web interface has made for a project that continues to improve every year. Second is William Parent, who has helped me from the beginning of this project. His pole climbing skills have been invaluable in allowing us to service and maintain the hardware at the site. Additionally, I’d like to thank James Kaiser who has provided a ton of technical advice and encouragement over the years about the osprey lifecycle and traits and for his help in relocation of this nest.

As most of you know, this was the first pair in the general South LakeWashington area, and I believe the other ospreys who have taken up residence nearby, (Park Avenue Pair, Bellevue Pair, 167 Pair) are all offspring of the original Barbee nest. There is no way to know for sure, but I sure like to think that it’s true!  Check it out on the web. We should have chicks soon!

Robert Cugini

Assessing the total cost of ownership of a DAM system is no small task. It's a bit like evaluating mortgage offers from a number of different banks -- it's difficult to get an apples to apples understanding of the costs as their costs and fees are structured in different ways, which can make evaluating numerous vendors a frustrating experience (thankfully, DAM vendors don't look at your FICO score... at least not yet). To deal with this conundrum, consider creating a standardized spreadsheet that each participating vendor must complete to be eligible for consideration. Once all of your proposals have been accepted then you'll have a standardized format in which to understand each system's total cost of ownership. 

• Less is More - Just because the style guide is the brand bible, it doesn't mean it has to be the size of a bible. Be realistic about what are the most important attributes of the brand and don't get too mired in the minutiae.
  
• Make it Widely Accessible - Ideally, once a style guide is published it will be made broadly available across the entire company. Physical books should be created and distributed to groups and individuals who need it. Make a downloadable PDF version available on your Intranet. Put copies in the lunch room. If you want people to use it, make it easy to find.
  
• Be Flexible - There's a tendency to think that style guides are the irrevocable word of marketing and not subject to change. That's not just wrong, but it also contributes to 'rogue' branding where employees purposely ignore the style guide because it doesn't meet their particular requirements (i.e., there's no approved reversed out logo in the guide but I need one for this new landing page). To ensure that your style guide is a living document, make sure people have a vehicle to express their issues and concerns so they don't take branding matters into their own hands.
  

What other piece of advice would you share for building a brand style guide?

For large organizations, tracking and managing a library of sales and marketing materials can be daunting. Just like a library requires a taxonomy scheme for managing their constantly changing archive of periodicals, marketing departments require a similar system that can be easily indexed and cross-referenced. Enter the literature number ("lit number"), an alpha-numeric identifier that is automatically generated and attached to each document in a marketer's library. Think of it as the corporate version of the Dewey Decimal system. Most companies might not think their small library of corporate materials warrants such a system. But they would be mistaken. As organizations grow, so do the materials they use to support their sales staff, educate partners, and inform end-users. Lit numbers are the Rosetta Stone of the corporate library. 

Dams in the traditional sense are not known for being all that Green. In exchange for controlling water levels and producing energy, they exact a heavy toll on the environment. People are displaced, waterways are altered, and the landscape is forever changed.

So what do 'our' DAM's have to do with the environment? Turns out, more than you think. Think about all of the printed materials large companies still rely on to market and sell their products. Whether it's product brochures, sales slicks, or marketing brochures, most companies still rely on a Printing 1.0 model -- design your materials, email the files to the printer, print thousands of copies using analog off-set printing techniques, and then archive all of those materials somewhere. More often than not, these materials grow outdated faster than a carton of milk left out on a hot summer day. It's hard to find a figure, but I imagine that it's safe to say that huge tracts of forests are probably wasted every year on corporate materials that never even see the light of day. 

But there is a better way. It's what we call "Printing 2.0". In this model, smart companies with complex printing needs integrate their DAM system directly with a digital printer. Beyond the environmental benefits this affords (no economic incentive to print more copies than you need), there are of course a variety of efficiencies to be realized. For one, with such an integrated DAM/digital printing set up, companies can maintain better control over all of their materials as they're all being served from a unified online archive (which means fewer mistakes and again, fewer trees wasted!). Likewise, marketing managers now have greater control over the printing process. Finally, for digital printers, an integrated DAM system provides them with a direct link to the customer and a way to add value to the print production process. It's one more example of how new technologies can not only radically improve complex business processes but also do some good for the environment at the same time.  

According to a January CMS Watch report, mid-market DAM players are disappearing at an alarming rate. For companies looking for an asset management solution, this translates into fewer choices. Or does it? 

Clearstory , Interwoven , and North Plains are just a few of the "large" DAM vendors currently competing at the top end of the market. These are robust systems. And often, quite complex. At the low end of the spectrum are the bare bones providers, which typically require a great deal of customization and additional work for the client. For companies that want the best of both worlds, there is a middle way. Just look up into the Cloud. 

Software-as-a-Service has been loitering on the sidelines for the better part of a decade. But over the past few years this market has quickly matured and become legitimate for even the largest enterprise organizations. For every major business category -- whether it's CRM, Business Intelligence, or financial services, there is now a healthy ecosystem of SaaS-based providers. And DAM is no different. In fact, the business case for "DAM-as-a-service" is perhaps even stronger. And this is precisely where the mid-market will be filled as both ends of the spectrum converge. There are three converging forces that I see driving the DAM market to the middle of the cloud:

1. Distributed Workforce: As Thomas Friedman declared, 'the world is flat'! This means that a company's most valuable resources are no longer housed under one common roof. Increasingly, the modern enterprise relies on a workforce that is scattered across the globe -- whether it's remote employees, vendors, or contractors. These resources require the same access to digital assets to effectively do their job.

2. Commoditization of Bandwidth - Over the past decade, the cost of delivering high-speed bandwidth has decreased by a factor of 10. The notion of "ubiquitous computing" is fast becoming a reality and with it, the ability to quickly access and retrieve large files in the cloud has enabled new efficiencies.

3. Cost of Managing IT - Organizations are looking for ways to drive the costs out of IT and have found that it makes a great deal of sense to leverage SaaS-based services for non-critical data and applications.

Of course, the most compelling reason right now for adopting SaaS is cost. Even the largest companies are hard pressed to justify a high six-figure investment in a DAM system -- especially when all of the associated costs of managing such a system are accounted for. The mid-market might be a little shallow right now but I expect this gap in the market will be filled relatively quickly as demand for hosted DAMs heats up. What do you think?