Amazon, Amazon, Amazon

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It seems all we hear about today is how Amazon is doing everything in retail perfectly. We’re all trying to find ways to be more like Amazon.

But what is it that they’re doing so well?

The answer: They have created an exceptional customer experience. But it goes beyond Prime and free returns. Amazon is continually investing in new ways to enhance a customer’s interaction with their brand.

As reported in the New York Times, Amazon plans to “(…) pour money into photography to give internet shoppers a better representation of garments (…)”. They know that providing more photos will give people more buying information, improving the customer experience, and as a result increase purchases.

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Masterclass Series: Make Assets Smarter with Metadata

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Today’s creative production team must produce more photos, faster, with fewer resources. Rising to this challenge entails transforming the creative production process.

In this second session of our online masterclass series, we address a radical new vision for photo production, based on the concept of ‘smarter assets’ produced through automated metadata tagging.

This masterclass covers:

  • Automating metadata to enable ‘smarter assets’ through multiple platforms in the creative production process
  • How to use ‘smarter assets’ to accelerate creative production
  • Implementation guidelines for a ‘smarter asset’ workflow for high volume photo production

WATCH MASTERCLASS >

 

Past & upcoming classes:

  • Segmenting hi-res and low-res workflows
  • Building a best-in-breed creative production tech stack: Understanding the nuance differences between systems
  • The metadata holy grail: Designing a metadata schema for immediate communication and long-term access

Built for creatives by creatives: globaledit®

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When creative professionals are evaluating technology, such as a work-in-progress platform (often also referred to as a collaboration platform), one of the questions they need to ask is, “who developed the product?”

Was it someone who had a “great” idea one day, a product manager who did a handful of prospect interviews, or was it someone who would actually use the product himself? Was it someone who was feeling actual pain, and found a way to solve it?

While each approach can provide value, there are varying degrees of value that tech can provide. Understanding the history behind who developed your solution, and why, can reveal the differences between a tool that just ‘does the job’ versus a tool that you feel was designed for your exact needs. (more…)

I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For

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By David Iscove, Creative Operations Specialist at globaledit

The ability to locate precise images exactly when you need them is critical for creative production. No wonder why ‘Search’ is the most accessed feature in globaledit’s creative production platform.

As with any asset management platform, metadata plays a crucial role in unlocking the ability to search with success. If a critical mass of information (descriptive, administrative, and technical) associated with the photo can be captured, displayed, and searched against, the more likely you’ll find your needle in the haystack. ‘Critical mass’ is important here because we want to provide curators with a wide range of criteria against which they may uniquely search, while not overwhelming them (or the file for that matter) with too much data. (more…)

Masterclass Series: Learn Real-World Creative Production Techniques

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This year globaledit attended fantastic creative operations conference both on the West and East Coast. One of the main feedback we received is that creative production professionals were yearning for the chance to dive deeper into many topics discussed.

As a result, our Masterclass Series was born. We will be putting on a series of online masterclasses led by experts in the field of creative operations.

The first session will be:

Segmenting hi-res and low-res workflows to accelerate review and approval, post-production processes, and delivery. REGISTER NOW >

 

Upcoming classes:

  • Leveraging metadata to enable ‘smart assets’ through multiple platforms in the creative production process.
  • Building a best-in-breed creative production tech stack: Understanding the nuance differences between systems.
  • The metadata holy grail: Designing a metadata schema for immediate communication and long-term access.

 

The Creative Operations Community Meet in NYC

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Creative Operations is in demand. An increasing number of brands and organizations across all sectors are recognizing the importance of “creative operations” – the tools, systems, and methods that maximize the productivity of “creative staff”.

That’s why the Henry Stewart Events launched a conference dedicated to Creative Operations, co-located at Digital Asset Management New York. This is a great opportunity for every member of the Creative Operations Community to meet with their peers, share experiences and hear from a leading team of experts with hands-on, frontline experience of the latest thinking, best practices and best-in-class solutions necessary for ensuring end-to-end solutions.

We’re creative ops veterans: Since 2003, we’ve been constantly innovating to help our customers – some of the top brands, retailers, media and entertainment companies, and advertising agencies, accelerate creative production. This is why we chose to sponsor the Creative Operations Conference co-located at Henry Stewart DAM Event.

This year, we are thrilled to announce that our CEO Steve Kalalian will deliver an insightful talk entitled “Darwinism in Creative Operations” (Thursday, May 11 at 12:35 pm EST). Also, Sandie Roberts, VP of Content & Technology Operations at Rodale, will join us for our TechLab session to discuss how she uses technology to streamline ingestion and optimize content for downstream delivery and usage (Thursday, May 11 at 9:40 am EST).

We hope to see you there! Use the discount code GLOBALEDIT100 to save $100. Register now. (more…)

The Creative Production Challenge: Demand vs. Capacity [Webinar]

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A brand’s photos are their identity, making them extremely valuable. Everything that happens during the creative process directly impacts the integrity of those visual assets.

With consumers growing demand for more and more images, across all channels, creative operations must put more attention on what happens “before the DAM”.

It is about acceleration and removing roadblocks that hinder the delivery and creation of beautiful images. Well-thought-out processes and tech are critical to make your creative production more efficient and effective.

Watch our Q&A with David Iscove, Creative Operations Specialist, to hear about:

  • Creating “smart assets”
  • Leveraging tech to increase production capacity
  • Reducing time-to-market
  • Eliminating risk through collaboration

 

Racing to Market with Efficiency and Effectiveness

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By David Iscove, Creative Operations Specialist at globaledit

 

Eric Fulmer of ShotFlow One (Capture Integration) is one of the sharpest minds within the fashion photography industry. I recently read an article he wrote that referenced the massive shift that the fashion industry has undergone in recent years, known as the “Zara Effect”. For those not familiar, Zara has set the benchmark in reducing time to market in that they “can design, produce, and deliver a new garment and put it on display in its stores worldwide in a mere 15 days”. This represents a massive acceleration of previous development cycles which once spanned seasons, then months, weeks, and now days.

This is the new race that modern brands must run in order to compete and, ultimately, survive.

To compete, brands must transform their overall approach to creative production and identify any gaps that have the potential to force delays. And, as Fulmer states, “(…) there really are only three levers available to pull.” (more…)

Your Creative Operations Peers Will Be in San Francisco

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The Creative Operations ExchangeThe first West Coast conference dedicated to Creative Operations is happening in San Francisco on April 10-11. This is a great opportunity for you and 200 of your peers to convene, learn, and share experiences with each other. You will learn from seasoned experts at leading brands, including Calvin Klein, Google, Amazon, Lonely Planet, Michael Kors, Oakley, Wieden & Kennedy, and many more.

Since 2003, we’ve been accelerating studio production for our customers, some of the top retailers and media and entertainment companies, and we saw this event as a great opportunity to connect with the growing creative operations community. This is why we chose to sponsor it and participate in two panel discussions.

 

Here are the details of our panels:

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Communications Arts on 2017 Trends in Photography and Advertising

2017 New Trends and Techniques in Photography & Advertising

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On Thursday, January 26th, globaledit and Industrial Color Brands teamed up for the first 2017 Creative Operations Breakfast with Communication Arts to highlight new trends in Photography & Advertising.

We were delighted to welcome Patrick Coyne, editor and designer of Communication Arts magazine.

Communication Arts (CA) magazine has been the benchmark for creative excellence for nearly six decades, even as so many competitors have fallen by the wayside. One vital component of that excellence has been the magazine’s long-running annual competitions, which are judged by some of the industry’s top creative professionals.

Coyne outlined the philosophy and mission guiding CA, and presented examples of the latest trends in advertising and photography, along with anecdotes and insights on how the jurors are chosen for their famed annual competitions.

Coyne described the jury selection process at CA and how they select the winners. “It’s a fun and fascinating process, just to see what [the jurors] pick and how they narrow it down…” He also illustrated the types of trends they see when reviewing submissions. “Something [we see] especially in photography but also in illustration is how quickly visual trends show up.”

Watched the video recording:

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Where Are We Now? The Current Landscape of eCommerce Creative Production

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More, More, More

In today’s eComm world, it’s not just about the brand’s own site anymore. With the rapid rise of alternative online channels for content (e.g. Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, etc.), retailers face increasing pressure to engage with both customers and prospects in new ways.  

For consumers, following brands on social media is a great way to stay current with the latest trends, sales and news.  For retailers, the challenge is to craft a presence that draws those consumers in. Of course, there has to be content to support it, and with that comes the need for more from these brands: More channels to support, more content to produce, and more efficient processes.

The question is: How can they achieve this without blowing up their budget, derailing their current system and watering down their brand?

 

Fashion is Getting Faster

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Creative Operations Webinar Building the Case for a New Workflow Solution

New Webinar! Building the Case for a New Workflow Solution

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Building the Case for a New Workflow Solution

Drive Transformation in your Organization

Featuring Molly Gallagher, Consultant,
Former VP of Marketing, Creative Services and Operations at Kenneth Cole Productions.

WATCH THE WEBINAR

Congratulations! You’ve identified new workflow solutions to make your creative services team more productive and deliver more content more economically. Now what?

How do you convey the message that with the right tools the cost center can be transformed into a revenue engine? How do you get the resources? How do you get C-level sign off? And once the budget is in place, how do you roll it out and get broad-scale adoption?

In this webinar, Molly Gallagher, Consultant, Former VP of Marketing, Creative Services and Operations at Kenneth Cole Productions, will offer strategies, tactics and tips to build the business case for a new workflow solution. That’s the best way to drive innovation and transformation, and reap the benefits accordingly.

Watch this FREE webinar and learn how to:

  • Identify the right timeframe to implement a new technology solution
  • Communicate the need–and the enhancements possible–to decision makers
  • Understand the potential disconnect between system users and C-level executives
  • Develop successful strategies for rollout / adoption (more…)

New Webinar! Ramping Up your eCommerce Production Workflow

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Globaledit released a new webinar in partnership with Industrial Color Studios.

Ramping Up Your

eCommerce Production Workflow:

How to Better Manage High-Volume Imagery

As retail transactions migrate increasingly to the internet, eCommerce image production workflows have become intensely demanding and essential to the profitability of today’s merchants.

In this webinar, Jim Zdancewicz, Head of Studio Services at Industrial Color Studios, illuminates the best practices for achieving the ideal high-volume image production workflow at your company.

Whether your’e at an eCommerce brand, a traditional retailer, or any company wanting to improve its creative production workflow, don’t miss this special webinar!

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Next Generation In-House Creative Services

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Creative Operations Breakfast SeriesFor six consecutive years, The Boss Group, Cella Consulting & In-Source have teamed up to benchmark the in-house creative community. The 2016 In-house Creative Services Industry Report is full of insights, as always.

How are in-house creative services teams becoming more strategic and handling their increased responsibility? What role are existing and emerging technologies playing in this transformation? And how can they be used more effectively?

Mai Nozoe from alice + olivia and Brendon Derr from The Boss Group joined us Thursday, September 22 and share their insights and the implications of these for your companies and creative teams.

Watch the video recording:

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Q&A with Brendon Derr, VP of Enterprise Solutions at Cella Consulting and the BOSS Group

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Brendon DerrAs Vice President Enterprise Solutions for BLR Holdings, Brendon Derr and his team have helped hundreds of Fortune 1000 organizations build, optimize and evolve their “in-house creative agency” operations over the past 15 years.

In this interview, Brendon shares some industry insights from the sixth and latest survey benchmark for the in-house creative community from Cella/BOSS and In-Source, along with advice on how to best optimize creative resources. You can see Brendon Derr live at our next Creative Ops Breakfast, on September 22nd in New York City.

Q. What common and recurring challenges are your clients facing when it comes to creative services?

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5 Easy Ways to Implement Modifications to Your Creative Production Workflow

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We’ve all been there before. Your company’s creative production workflow process isn’t functioning quite as well as you’d like, but you’re not sure how to fix it without derailing the whole thing. Do you scrap everything and start from scratch? Do you make modifications to each step? Do you just leave it alone and hope for the best?

First, don’t panic. The most important thing is to embrace the idea of change. Here are five easy tips to remember as you move toward a smoother and more efficient creative production workflow.

 

 1. Take a Look at Your Creative Team as a Whole

In order to make effective changes, it’s important to look at the big picture first, rather than focusing on just one person in (or one part of) the process. To do this, you have to make sure to map out the entire creative production process, step by step, and look for bottlenecks that may cause a domino effect and impact the final outcome. Find out the purpose of each step, who does it, how long it takes, how data is passed between steps and what tools are used. Talk to everyone on the team and make no assumptions! Once you find the bottlenecks, you can zero in on them and begin to figure out ways to make improvements.

creative-production-workflow-mapping

2. Staying Agile is Key

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Q&A with Mai Nozoe, VP of Creative Services for alice + olivia

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Mai NozoeMai Nozoe is the Vice President of Creative Services for alice + olivia, a contemporary women’s lifestyle brand founded by Stacey Bendet in 2002.

Mai joined the company in 2013 to develop their first in-house creative team. Her 8-people team handles all creative branding and global image direction including photography, video, art direction, casting, styling, advertising, design, and production of brand collateral and website. Prior to her current role, Mai served as the first Vice President of Creative Operations for Moda Operandi, and developed the first in house creative department at Michael Kors.

In this interview, Mai shares her past experience, some of the insights and best practices she learned along the way. You can see her live at our next Creative Ops Breakfast on Thursday, September 22, in our TriBeCa office.

 

Q. You’ve developed the first in-house creative department at Michael Kors and currently at alice + olivia. What recurring challenges have you faced in both jobs?

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Centralize Your Digital Assets For Improved Productivity

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If you’re looking to transform your company’s creative operations, the single largest impact you can have on your organization’s creative operations productivity is the establishment of a single, centralized (ideally cloud-based) digital asset repository. This one change completely alters the way your team stores, manipulates, collaborates, searches, retrieves, tracks, secures, and shares photos, videos, PDFs and other files.  (Note: many of globaledit’s customers have already taken this step and have made globaledit that digital asset repository.)

centralize digital assets in one place

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Why You Should Map Your Creative Production Process

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We get it. Creative production, as fun as it sounds, is inherently granular and complex. It’s not just shooting photos and videos, and bang, you’re done. In reality, someone has to take a picture, some else has to select images on set, along a chain of people who enhance or approve the content.

So when our clients come to us for help, we usually recommend that they map their team’s workflow. Without some encouragement, few companies dedicate the time and resources to do this preliminary work. But it could improve their team’s productivity and well-being and the quality of the final deliverables.

What are the key benefits of mapping your creative production workflow?

 

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Adding Crop Marks to Image Markups

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We’ve released a commonly requested globaledit feature — adding crop Crop Marks Tool Closeupmarks to images. The markup tool now allows you to draw constrained rectangles to clearly specify a set aspect ratio.

To use the new feature, click on the shape icon in the Markup Editor. Select the shape you want and begin drawing.

More tips to:

  • Switch between portrait or landscape drawing: Simply use the mouse to draw a shape that is either taller or wider and the system will draw the appropriate shape.
  • Move a crop mark: Select the pointer tool, click on the rectangle, and drag the shape around to move it.
  • Delete a crop mark: Simply select it and hit the delete key or delete the layer it is on.

Enjoy!

image crop marks added in globaledit software

Rectangular crop marks added to an image in globaledit

 

Scaling Creative Production at Refinery29

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Creative Operations Breakfast Series logoWith over 25 million visitors per month and over 175 million users across all platforms, Refinery29 has become the fastest growing media company and today’s go-to place for millennial women looking for daily lifestyle & fashion inspiration. How does Refinery29 creative production team keep up with the increasing needs? For the 6th edition of the globaledit Creative Operations Breakfast, we asked Refinery29 team members Anne Cassard and Michael Ciancio to discuss the unique evolution of the creative production workflow at R29 over the past three high-growth years.

Learn more about the behind-the-scenes of Refinery29’s creative production:

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Meet globaledit at Henry Stewart DAM NY

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Are you attending Henry Stewart DAM NY May 5-6 and its Creative Operations track on May 5? As the largest event focused on Digital Asset Management (DAM) and Creative Operations, it’s your best chance to meet DAM and Creative Ops experts and professionals, and globaledit will be a sponsor of the Creative Operations track.

We’ll be on stage and at the exhibition to share insights and best practices to help brands and organizations better manage their creative production workflow and the digital assets that come with them.

Plus use our discount code GE100 to save $100.

Where can you find us?

 

 1. At the panel discussion at the Creative Operations 2016 track

Steve Kalalian, CEO of Globaledit and Industrial Color Brands, will be on stage to share his insights on today’s use of technology for Creative Operations management. Don’t miss his panel discussion!

Theme: Creative Ops Technology: Same Destination, Multiple Paths
When: Thursday, May 5, 2016, from 11:50AM to 12:50PM
Where: New York Hilton Midtown Hotel, 1335 Avenue of the Americas, New York.

 

2. Exhibition

Stop by our booth #12 on the exhibition floor to get a private session with our Creative Ops experts, get a workflow diagnostic, and see how we can help you take control of your creative production.

When: May 5-6, 2016, from 9AM to 6PM
Where: New York Hilton Midtown Hotel, 1335 Avenue of the Americas, New York.

 

See the full agenda of the Creative Operations 2016 track here.

 

Unable to attend the Henry Stewart DAM event? No worries, you can contact us here with any questions you have.

DAM or WIP?

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The digital asset management and creative production industry commonly mistake Digital Asset Management (DAM) and Work In Progress (WIP). People often believe they need a digital asset management (DAM) system when in reality, they’re looking for a Work In Progress system. There is overlap between the two, but also some distinct differences. Below are the key differences that will help make sense of it all and where globaledit fits in among enterprise solution providers.

What Is Digital Asset Management (DAM)?

Digital Asset Management is the practice of storing, cataloging and handling digital files to make them more findable, reusable and available for distribution and monetization. The term “DAM” is used industry-wide to refer to not only this concept, but also the software system used to manage files.

A DAM system provides a centralized asset library for ingesting digital files. These files can be catalogued, searched, retrieved, distributed and archived. The DAM system stores these digital files in a database or on a file system. Metadata attached to each asset is entered at the time of ingest to categorize and make files easier to find and secure. The metadata is typically stored in a database alongside the files. The combination of the digital file and its associated metadata is referred to as a “digital asset”. Users can browse and search the DAM to retrieve the assets they need, as well as download, share or deliver the assets.

Benefits of a DAM:

  • Maximize asset reuse and minimize duplicate content production efforts by making your existing assets easily findable
  • Enable teams to share and collaborate on content production
  • Enable distribution and monetization of digital assets
  • Learn the value of your media assets by gathering metrics about usage patterns

Globaledit focuses on Work In Progress. But what Is Work In Progress exactly?

Work In Progress usually represents the first step of the creative production workflow, right after the photo shoot or the digital asset creation. Work In Progress is the practice of sharing, collaborating and distributing media files including photo, video, audio and collateral documents (pdf, doc, etc.) prior to final delivery. Various groups within an organization generally co-managed WIP systems. They’re typically accessible to internally or external stakeholders in various geographical locations. This phase of the overall creative production process is the most chaotic and requires multiple collaborators to take action simultaneously in order to move that perfect asset along.

A WIP system is similar to a DAM in that it can provide a central repository of digital assets. However, unlike typical DAM systems, WIP systems include additional functionality that is specific to team collaboration; such as rating systems, contact sheet generators, communication tools, and fast upload, download and ingest methods for large media files (photos, videos). They also provide vehicles to easily share assets with various stakeholders while managing user permissions. These tools enable an organization to collaborate on assets and manage their creative workflow process in a more streamlined, efficient way.  The results are shorter production times and work that gets to market faster, at less cost. A DAM system doesn’t care so much about getting the asset to market faster, but rather provides a organized repository for your employees to find approved assets later.

Benefits of a WIP:

  • Manage visual assets at scale, right after they are created
  • Streamline the review and approval process
  • Centralize all the assets into a single repository
  • Enable teams to easily share and collaborate on assets in real-time and from any device (web, tablet, mobile)
  • Workflow unification across departments, divisions and brands
  • High Speed Distribution to teams, stakeholders and vendors – saves time and money vs. manual distribution methods

Cloud-based WIP platform like globaledit appeals to enterprise creative teams because it needs little to no IT intervention. Implementation ramp up time is minimal. The ability to work anywhere, anytime and remain in sync is even more appealing. Globaledit provides easy-to-use and beautiful interface (along with enterprise-level security) to encourage adoption.

Of course each company, process and team structure is different. It is important to find the right partners that understand your specific creative production workflow to recommend the best solution. The first step to improving your creative operations process is not putting all of your eggs in one basket. Speak to the “workflow wizards” within your company, as well as your vendors. Globaledit may just be the best egg. Happy hunting!

 

To learn more about the difference between WIP and DAM or the globaledit platform contact us today.

The Creative Project Lifecycle

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At our fifth edition of the Creative Ops Breakfast at globaledit HQ on March 24th, 2016, Carrie Roberts, Director of Creative Operations at The Body Shop, and Dan Cohen, VP of Marketing at Republic Records, shared their strategies, tools, and techniques for leading successful creative projects from ideation to delivery.

Check out what they had to say:

Globaledit presents the Creative Ops Breakfast Series, a monthly event that addresses key issues and challenges faced by creative production and operations professionals today.

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