E-commerce and retail brands have the necessity to have an online presence, which calls for the centralized management of their digital assets. As your business grows, the requirements for a smooth workflow also grow. Without efficient operations, you risk facing roadblocks that can be easily avoided. Considering the competitive nature of the e-commerce business and the rising demand for digital content, you need to fast-track the rate of publication of your online content. This can be achieved with integrations of your existing systems, which can drastically improve your team’s productivity.  Here are some creative tools that work with your DAM to align, sort, control, and publish content: Content Management System (CMS) and DAM A content management system (CMS) is integral to the online marketing efforts of any brand, especially e-commerce and retail brands that need to have a significant online presence. The content management system (CMS) helps you create, publish, and edit the content on your website. In other words, it’s foundational to the administration of your website and web content like blogs. The demand for rich media content has grown 80% compared to 2019. In this scenario, the management of media content can’t be ignored. This is where its integration with DAM becomes almost unavoidable. While CMS publishes written content seamlessly, it’s not the best fit to store, search, or share media content across your online channels—tasks that are possible with a DAM.  For example, with the integration of DAM and CMS, you can add metadata to media files accompanying the written content, helping you to search for the files later. Not only that, having relevant metadata also helps you in ranking on search engines. This, in turn, helps your business get new organic customers. With DAM, you can significantly increase your publication rate. This is because your team can find the assets when they need them, without getting frustrated for hours. All the media files of your business that require editing in the CMS are available in the DAM. This integration provides you with a swift way to share files in the CMS. The overall productivity of your team increases, resulting in the creation of a successful brand. Product Information Management System (PIM) and DAM Detailed information about products is the key to converting a lead to a paying customer.  This is where a PIM comes in—it stores rich information about products with minute SKU details. This makes managing product data and catalog much easier. However, PIM doesn’t include digital assets such as product images and video. PIM provides you with a single source of truth for product information, but without the accompanying media assets, there remains a constant back and forth. On the other hand, digital asset management software (DAM) helps in storing the rich media assets, including product images and other marketing collateral. Integrating the two directly results in an unbreakable synergy. Firstly, you ensure brand consistency across all channels as you have access to the product information and media assets on the same interface. Secondly, the integration significantly reduces the time required by your team to distribute the content. But more importantly, it also reduces potential human errors when sending product information to different channels, regardless of the size of your catalog. This also helps you analyze the reason behind your top-performing products by having a bird’s eye view of the pictures, descriptions, and sales analytics at the same place. Is there a certain kind of description that’s performing well? Is it the angle of the image? It’s not just the distribution process that becomes easier, you also gain clarity on where your brand is headed. Enterprise Management System (EMS) Globally operated e-commerce businesses use an EMS because it simplifies the management of their international trades. This functions across customers, partners, and suppliers. EMS provides real-time data that helps make quick and smart business decisions using up-to-date information.  The integration of DAM and EMS brings the following operations on a single platform:  Sales of your business Finance management HR management Inventory management  This provides access to necessary crucial data required for both the employees as well as the management. Project Management System (PMS) Every e-commerce platform needs a Marie Kondo hand when it comes to project management. And this is exactly what the integration of DAM and PMS helps you with—keep your projects on course.  The project management system helps you clear out the mess of deadlines, important projects, potential client meetings, and timings overlapping. On the other hand, DAM helps you keep all the necessary client information including brand style guide and other brand collaterals at the same place, helping your team access client information smoothly.  The integration of the two allows your team to: Keep a track of ongoing projects on the same interface Manage project from the start till the end Hit deadlines and milestones timely. For example, if you have an upcoming product launch, PMS and DAM together will help you sail through the product shoot to the social media campaign. With globaledit, you can seamlessly integrate your favorite platforms, be it a CMS or an email management system. Request a demo today to learn more.

In today’s hyper-interactive marketing and brand communication space, it’s hard to survive without having a robust Digital Asset Management system (DAM). With all the efficiencies and business benefits it brings, implementing a DAM is not a one-shot job.  Narrowing down how exactly you can maximize value from a DAM can be daunting, owing to hundreds of use cases a DAM can fulfill. It needs careful considerations to perfect both the initial setup and the subsequent refining and tweaking of the system to your organization’s unique demands. Let’s look at a few things you can ensure to get it right. How Should You Manage Your DAM? Picture this: Your organization has green-lit a shiny new DAM and expects to create a smooth workflow with it. What do you do now? Implementing a DAM will require you to clearly define the ways of working that will guide your team on using and maximizing the system.  Here are five tips that can help you ensure you’re getting the most out of your DAM: Define a Workflow A successful DAM allows you to create highly customized and detailed workflows. With the help of a solution like globaledit’s DAM, you can standardize all the processes underlining every stage of your workflow – from automating project briefs and simplifying collaboration to approving assets and archiving them. Defining your workflow is the very first and the most critical step in deriving the most value from your DAM. Control Who Can Access What When dealing with hundreds or thousands of digital assets, it becomes imperative that users can access only the files that they need. Whenever you’re implementing a new DAM, access controls need to be clearly defined to prevent misuse of assets that can harm your brand consistency in the worst case. With tools like Collections, you can create custom access rules by mixing and matching user permissions as you like. Manage Metadata & Taxonomy Metadata sits at the core of intelligent and instant discovery of assets. But to use it to its full potential, you need to ensure that proper metadata and keywords are being populated for every asset before they’re ingested into the system. Similarly, rules for file names and file locations should be clearly defined. A DAM admin can be appointed to review whether users are following the rules and send assets back to them in case changes are needed. The DAM admin can also be responsible for initial training of the users and regular review of the defined processes. Build an Asset Library Your valuable digital assets are not supposed to be haphazardly dumped on the DAM system. You should utilize albums and folders to organize your assets and make sense of thousands of images and videos. With globaledit’s Sync and Versioning, you can be rest assured that your assets are automatically ingested during production itself and always remain up-to-date.  Measure DAM performance No tool is good enough until you can measure its usefulness. For measuring how successful your DAM system is performing, you need to track metrics like asset performance – where users can score each asset on its usability and relevance – and the speed of approval rounds that quantifies the efficiency of the entire asset lifecycle process. Harness DAM for Explosive Growth A DAM provides multiple benefits for your employees, your brand, and the ROI for your business. Harnessing automation to prevent wasted hours, standardization to ensure brand consistency, and streamlined workflows to maximize ROI, a DAM is downright essential if you value scalable growth. Request a demo with us today to discover how you can enrich your workflows with globaledit. 

Companies with a heavy focus on creative operations, especially those in the fashion and retail space, need to constantly be on top of managing thousands and even millions of digital assets showcasing their products. You need to ensure your creatives are working in the most efficient manner possible. That’s where DAM comes in.  DAM streamlines your creative operations so that your team can perform at their peak and not get frustrated with the logistics of creating, collaborating on, and distributing product collaterals. Let’s see why using a DAM platform effectively is equally important as implementing one. How Does DAM Help Your Customers and Your Creatives? DAM is aimed at a very fundamental tenet – taking the uncertainty out of your creative operations. From shooting product images and videos and collaborating on multiple editing tools to sharing final approved content with stakeholders, your designers, editors, and marketers have a lot on their plate. DAM streamlines your entire asset lifecycle so your creatives don’t waste hours on redundant tasks.  When your team is busy producing great content and acing project management and content distribution, your business ends up cutting down GTM time and your products get in front of your customers faster. Your ROI goes through the roof and your brand recognition gets bolstered. How Can You Use Your DAM to the Fullest? Once you’ve successfully managed to jump the budgetary and leadership hoops and implemented a brand new DAM software, it’s natural to be confused as to how you should go about using it. You need to clearly put in place specific ways of working that will help you and your team derive the most value from your DAM. Step 1: Define a Workflow Picture this: Your brand needs to fast-track the launch of your latest winter collection. To even begin work on this project, you need to define a clear flow of steps from ideation to delivery. globaledit’s DAM allows you to standardize every stage of your workflow with its suite of industry-leading tools aimed at streamlining the entire process and simplifying life for your creatives. Step 2: Define Asset Permissions With multiple projects running parallel for different apparel lines, it becomes essential to allow people access to only what they need for their own projects. Collections allows you to group together different assets in contextual groups which you can share with targeted people in your team. They can then view and edit only the assets in that group. Step 3: Define Metadata and Taxonomy Rules Metadata allows fast and accurate discovery of assets. But you need to clearly define the rules for populating the metadata for digital assets Similarly, file naming conventions and upload locations need to be frozen so you’re not left in the lurch later while discovering collaterals. Globaledit’s Metadata allows automatic metadata tagging in bulk, so your creatives always have what they’re looking for, eliminating the inadvertent creation of duplicate assets. Step 4: Build an Asset Library Once you’ve defined your workflow and worked out access controls and taxonomy rules, you need to organize your assets in albums and folders, to make sense of the thousands of files. globaledit Sync helps you with the automatic ingestion of your files to the cloud in real-time and Versioning helps you maintain an easily navigable collection of each version of your assets, each with its own edit history. Step 5: Measure Your DAM Performance After all the steps you go through from producing and distributing product images and videos, you need to prove that the organization’s investment in the DAM software was justified.  DAM allows you to track asset performance with your creatives being able to score every collateral for usability and relevance. DAM offers a powerful way to maximize the potential of both the tools at your disposal and your creative team.  Schedule a demo with globaledit today to find how our innovative solutions can help transform your creative workflow.  

Every organization is going through a fundamental upheaval. Knowingly or unknowingly, from rigid enterprises being run in siloes, organizations are transitioning into ultra-collaborative and digital-focused creative teams. Consumer demands and industry standards are far outpacing the traditional pace of organizational innovation. Conventional storage solutions, even cloud-based ones, are not well-equipped to deal with the demands of modern creative workflows. Today’s creatives require more than just data repositories. They need an organized workflow powered by comprehensive digital solutions that help leverage thousands of digital assets, multiple running projects, and globally-distributed teams—and not get bogged down by them. Digital Asset Management systems or DAMs satisfy this very need and go even beyond streamlining workflows. Let’s look at how exactly DAMs can organize your creative workflow. What Is a DAM System? A DAM system helps a company store, organize, access, and distribute its creative assets, in a centralized and cloud-hosted repository. Typically composed of a suite of products, DAMs aim to bring order and simplicity to your chaotic workflow. With the DAM industry estimated to reach $8.1 billion by 2026, DAMs have never been in more demand.  Digital Asset Management was born out of the need to manage innumerable digital assets as organizations grew in size and scope. With time, DAMs have evolved to encompass every stage of the creative workflow and have also taken over branding and marketing responsibilities.  As your business grows and you take on more projects, it can become extremely difficult to be able to make sense of the sheer scale of the content your teams need to work with. This quickly leads to precious hours wasted in searching and duplicating content, scattered collaboration, brand inconsistency, and doing redundant tasks.  How to Use a DAM to Organize Your Workflow? The most critical aspect that a DAM needs to take care of is organizing your content. With automation and AI-powered features, DAMs help you give a method to the madness, organizing processes scattered all over the place into a cohesive flow.  But how exactly can you do this in every stage of your creative workflow? Store and Find Your Assets Easily With growth comes challenges. Right from uploading your digital assets to a database, you are bound to encounter pain points. You can use unlimited cloud storage and intelligent, metadata-powered search to never run out of space and ensure that your creatives can always find the assets they’re looking for..  Use DAM for a Unified Production Shuffling between multiple tools and communication channels might sound familiar to you. It’s another reason your team might not be performing at its maximum potential. With a DAM, your team can produce all content and communicate on a single platform, seamlessly integrated with all your favorite tools.  Collaborate Directly on Your Assets It’s a pain to depend on back and forth sharing of one version after the other simply to get your edits across to a team member. DAMs can help your team ditch outdated platforms with on-platform chat, and use tools like Markup Editor to enable granular collaboration directly on your assets.  Remove the Grunt Work for Employees Creatives spend, on average, 16 hours a week on routine tasks. Imagine if they could automate uploading of assets, maintaining versioning, and the multiple approval cycles, and just focus on creating brilliant work. It will translate to happier employees, more projects being completed, and more ROI for your organization.  Ensure Brand Consistency When your digital assets are always up-to-date and standardized to the latest brand guidelines, your creatives find it a breeze to find and work on the latest brand templates. With a quick ‘approve or kill’ functionality, any changes can be approved instantly. Your content will always be on brand, no matter the campaign or channel your assets are being used in.  Leverage DAM for Scalable Growth A vision for growth is absolutely essential if your organization hopes to tackle the challenges that come with scalability. A DAM solution that’s right for your business will ensure that you’re well-equipped to combat these challenges. Globaledit’s cutting-edge asset management solution not only organizes your workflow but also guides you across the asset lifecycle. Request a demo with us today to discover how you can easily organize your existing workflow.  

Digital Asset Management (DAM) solutions help organizations store, organize, access, and distribute their creative assets, in a centralized & cloud-hosted repository. With modern creative workflows increasing in complexity, DAM solutions are near-indispensable if you want your enterprise to scale with the growth of the overall industry. With the DAM industry set to grow to $8.1 billion by 2026, organizations need to reassess their existing systems and solutions. The industry’s accelerated shift towards remote work and automation has disrupted traditional workflows. It’s more relevant than ever to leverage the functionalities and superior benefits DAM can bring to your creative workflows. Let’s look at how DAM can not only plug existing inefficiencies but also unlock unexplored avenues to generate value. What does DAM do? As organizations grow in size and take on more clients and projects, some typical challenges surface naturally — countless hours wasted on operational tasks, duplicating assets due to inefficient search systems, scattered communication & collaboration platforms, and overall brand inconsistency due to lack of standardized systems. How does a DAM solution tackle these challenges and many more? Modern DAM solutions offer the following features to revamp your workflows: Store all your assets in a single, secure repository Use intelligent metadata for fast and easy search Ensure access control with granular and customizable permissions Collaborate directly on videos and images across teams and devices Ensure assets are always up-to-date and consistent with your brand Archive expired assets with automated rules Why Does Your Organization Need DAM?   It’s important to fully understand what a DAM solution can do for your organization before investing in one. The benefits offered by a solution that’s right for your specific needs can be manifold. Let’s look at some of them: Unlimited cloud-based storage: As you grow your business, your asset storage needs will be taken care of with a globally accessible cloud-based ingestion system like Globaledit Sync. Fast Asset Discovery: With tools like Metadata, your creatives will no longer waste precious time searching for assets, translating to enhanced productivity and increased ROI as you scale your client base. Seamless Collaboration: Production, editing, and communication don’t need to happen in silos. Marketplace Integrations allow your team access to all their favorite tools on a single platform. Asset Lifecycle Management: A DAM solution enhances not just your creative workflow but the overall journey from project initiation to asset archival.  Brand Integrity: When your assets are always up-to-date with Versioning, your brand communication is on point, every time. Accelerated Approvals: You no longer need to go through 2-3 rounds of approvals. With tools like Approvals, your team can review asset versions side-by-side and approve or kill actions. Prepare Your Business For Growth   With growth comes a flurry of challenges but also an opportunity to unlock hidden value for the business. As your brand takes shape and your business grows, there is a real possibility of hitting scalability roadblocks that can threaten to eat into your profits or even dismantle your processes.  With a successful DAM solution that is suited for your unique needs, you can prepare your business to manage these challenges and more, and overcome them to take that next step in your journey. The adoption of AI, automation, and newer cutting-edge technologies in asset management solutions is raising the bar for what DAM can do for creative organizations.  And with rich media assets, especially video, taking center stage across platforms and content types, DAM is more relevant than ever.  Request a demo with us to discover how globaledit can help you with your asset management needs.

Creative workflows need to be optimized and streamlined for them to be an ‘asset’ rather than a ‘liability’ to your creative professionals. As a creative agency or media house, you always find yourself grappling with how to manage your creative assets better. Your ever-growing asset libraries make it a mandate to use a robust digital asset management (DAM) solution.  But the industry standards and consumer demand for increasingly immersive audio-visual content have now created the need for a specialized Media Asset Management (MAM) solution.  But what exactly constitutes ‘media assets’—video, audio, photos, or all of them? Media Asset Management: The Age of Specialization MAM is a niche subset of DAM, highly focused on the unique features needed for managing audio-visual assets like videos, audio, and images. MAM does for media assets what DAM does for general digital assets including documents and sales collaterals.  Video content has long been the dominant format, dictating not only marketing and business strategies but also internal communication and training programs in virtually all production companies.  But even then, the importance of images and audio has not been reduced. The success of your creative outputs hinges on video, image, and audio equally.  A photoshoot or video shoot goes through multiple stages—production, storage, transcoding, adding metadata, editing & collaboration, and delivery or broadcasting. These increasingly complex steps require your asset management solution to be advanced enough to handle both the technical and visual aspects of the entire creative process.  As a result, a successful MAM solution needs: Seamless ingestion and storage of your media assets Quick and easy search with analytics-powered metadata Granular access & security controls Streamlined collaboration tools and Versioning control Integration with your organization’s existing tools and technologies Your team might already be using a DAM or even a MAM solution for creative workflow management, but is it really the right one for you?  Is it helping you find your media assets when and where you need them, enabling granular collaboration, and integrating the system with your existing software environment?  What Qualifies as Media Asset Management? Media asset management helps you manage rich multimedia files including video, audio, and photos. It’s designed to handle high volumes of rich media and create a seamless workflow for your organization. MAM largely deals with the following media files: Photos represent the visual identity of your brand and hence, play a key role in communicating your unique brand voice.  Audio plays its part as well, as countless brands have shown with their iconic, timeless themes and motifs.   Video offers your customers a highly immersive medium to connect with your brand.  The right MAM solution for your team needs to take a holistic view of your entire media asset library and enable you to tell an engaging and complete brand story. It needs to extract actionable insights from the tons of data your production generates. And it should be able to do the heavy lifting of intelligently keeping your videos, images, and audio at your fingertips and managing multiple approvals. As we discussed earlier, you need to ensure that whatever MAM solution you’re choosing, it should be able to handle the requirements of your organization and should scale with your growth. Owing to the increased complexity of managing rich media assets as compared to documents, your chosen system should also be built around audio-visual assets  from the ground up. With a comprehensive MAM solution, your media assets are automatically ingested and made cloud-ready to be shared with curated stakeholders. Automatic metadata generation and analytics-powered search save you hours of hunting for existing content.  Moreover, collaborating on videos and images is easier than ever with comment layers and asset ratings. Once your creatives have leveraged assets from all your favorite pre and post-production tools, approvals are a breeze with side-by-side comparisons between asset versions. Managing media assets, especially rich video files, is not simple but with globaledit’s video management solutions, you can be rest assured that you’re part of the future and primed for growth and scalability. Talk to us so we can partner with you on your quest to master MAM.

Asset management solutions enable creative teams to store, access, and distribute their digital assets in a centralized repository. Propelled by the increasing importance of Digital Asset Management (DAM) solutions, the size of the industry is expected to reach $8.1 billion in the next five years.  Creative workflows surrounding rich media production and distribution have evolved rapidly and have made robust DAM solutions indispensable assets for organizations. Traditional data repositories and basic asset management solutions are not sustainable in today’s world of complex and layered digital assets—especially video files. The right asset management solution for your organization’s unique needs will not only plug existing leakages in your creative workflow but will also unlock new avenues of value generation.  What are Digital Assets and Why Do You Need DAM? Digital assets include everything from videos, images, and audio to presentations, PDFs, and design mockups. With the explosion of social media and ever-increasing customer experience demands, the growth of video has far outpaced other media.  With creative workflows compounding in complexity and globally distributed teams fast becoming a reality, every stage in your asset lifecycle is being impacted. From production and storage and discovery to collaboration, approvals, and distribution, there are innumerable ways for things to go wrong. The very purpose of a DAM solution is to streamline this entire workflow and make your life simpler. In addition to accelerating all stages of the creative process, DAM solutions also produce enhanced value through intelligent search and seamless integration & collaboration.  With your creatives no longer spending more than 10 hours a week on administrative tasks, you will find your team completing more projects on time and within budget, contributing to the bottom line.  What Does a DAM Solution Actually Do? What are the features of a DAM solution that make it so essential for your business?  Store all your assets in a single, secure repository Use intelligent metadata for fast and easy search Ensure access control with granular and customizable permissions Collaborate directly on videos and images across teams and devices Ensure assets are always up-to-date and consistent with your brand Archive expired assets with automated rules But how does this translate to actual functionality for each stage of your creative workflow?  Production: Your creatives don’t need to manage multiple tools & platforms to create content. Seamless integration with all your favorite tools ensures all production takes place on a single platform. Storage: High-res assets like videos can quickly fill up your storage space. Cloud-based DAM solutions with unlimited storage and advanced versioning capabilities take your mind off storage woes. Collaboration: Your team members can discover, edit and comment directly on videos and images from any device or location around the world. Approvals no longer delay project completion, enabled by side-by-side asset comparison. Distribution: Sharing assets with your media partners can be done from anywhere, owing to cloud-based publishing. Access controls ensure asset security so you can share what you want with exactly who you want. Measurement & Archiving: How do you measure which assets are performing better and are leveraged the most by your creatives? Detailed analytics allow you to generate these insights. When needed, automated rules can be used to archive assets to avoid unnecessary clutter. What is the ROI for Your Business? It all comes down to the return on your investment in a DAM solution. The business benefits you can reap from a successful DAM implementation are manifold: Optimized Workflow: The productivity benefits from an efficient workflow alone are immense. Organizations worldwide can save over $5 trillion annually by automating routine tasks and speeding up time-to-market. Brand consistency: When every asset shared from your organization is up-to-date and automatically aligned to the latest brand guidelines, customers consistently get the experience they demand, and your brand value benefits as a result. Long-Term Savings: Your initial investment in a DAM solution will be recouped many times over due to non-duplication of assets, enhanced communication & collaboration, and analytics-powered asset performance measurement. Scalability: You’re investing in an asset management solution for the long term and as your organization grows and your asset demands increase, a DAM solution will ensure it scales with your growth.  Request a demo with globaledit today to discover how our asset management solutions built for creatives can benefit your organization.

Globaledit, the leader in Creative Workflow Management solutions announces a new, comprehensive integration with Adobe Photoshop to allow for a more seamless creative workflow experience.  The globaledit integration with  Photoshop allows users to manage creative projects, scale output and collaborate without leaving Photoshop. This integration revolutionizes the way creatives manage digital assets in crucial post production steps. Users will be able to streamline communication with peers, manage tasks by project priority, access markup layers, comments and other notes, update project statuses,  receive notifications when you have new work to complete, manage versions in real time, and focus on creativity without switching between tools.  Users will also be able to save versions of their creative from Photoshop to globaledit and load markup layers, without leaving their workflow management tool. The integration with Photoshop is part of globaledit’s focus on its workflow automation and creative ecosystem, one of several tailored solutions for the core users of globaledit.  For more information on how to get started, check out this quick guide to the plugin.

If the year 2021 has been about one thing, it’s learning from 2020’s disruptive forces and adopting essential best practices for tackling future challenges. Creative workflows were turned inside out by the pandemic and creative professionals were forced to reckon with new challenges that came with permanent remote working.  In order to achieve consistency within your creative workflow, you need to take an inside-out approach towards optimizing all aspects of your workflow. A consistent workflow eliminates chaos and confusion and standardizes processes to ensure your team works as a whole. The importance of consistency in creative workflows has grown immensely, not just as a band-aid for ‘the new normal’, but also to anticipate and solve the challenges yet to come. From Creative Asset Management and a streamlined collaboration system to minimizing approval timelines and automating routine tasks, let’s take a look at how exactly you can arrive at a consistent creative workflow. Creative Assets at Your Fingertips It turns out that 51% of creatives waste time in producing duplicate assets and almost 40% of creatives don’t have a single source of truth. With solutions like Sync and Versioning enabling real-time access and up-to-date assets, you’re always on top of your game.  Your assets are available to you whenever you need them. You can share them with the right people by creating custom Collections. Not only that, Metadata makes your asset search extremely easy. A successful creative asset management automatically increases your workflow’s consistency by eliminating human error and standardizing asset management practices. Collaborate to Dominate Working with hundreds of assets uploaded by dozens of team members, you need a robust collaboration framework powered by innovative tools working in synergy. With Markup Editor, your creatives can annotate directly on assets and communicate within the ecosystem of connected tools without having the need for countless emails. Projects power your project management needs with features like targeted asset permissions and role-based access. Again, eliminating needless emails and thus strengthening communication and collaboration taking you a step further towards a waste-less and hence, consistent creative workflow. Automate the Redundant Any creative workflow management solution is incomplete if your team members are spending 16 hours a week on operational tasks. Not only does this lead to precious time being wasted, but it also leaves room for ambiguity, the very antithesis of consistency. Collections allow your assets to live in a virtual folder where you can leverage powerful analytics by sorting them based on rule ratings, retouching status, dates, metadata, comments, and more. Your creative workflow is getting improved daily simply by adopting a more consistent system, which is what an ideal approach should be.  Create a Consistent Creative Workflow A consistent creative workflow is achieved when a family of tools work together to achieve a single source of truth, remove redundancy in processes, enable simplified asset discovery and leverage the power of analytics-driven collaboration.  By streamlining all aspects of your creative workflow and automating the non-creative, operational tasks, you open the door for consistency to grow organically in your workflows and your organization. You’re no longer struggling to make sense of what is where and can focus on harnessing your creatives’ limitless potential, saving hundreds of hours, and contributing to the bottom line. Your creatives are energized in the absence of your old, tiring processes and complete more projects within the stipulated budget. Your clients are happier, your brand grows and your revenue grows as a result.  Request a demo with globaledit today to unlock the potential of a consistent creative workflow.

Creative projects are extremely grueling and demanding. It’s no doubt that creative workflow management tools simplify the tasks for your creative teams by automating operational work and streamlining the complete workflow.  However, finding the correct tool can be a difficult task depending upon the performance, usability, and how it enhances your workflow. With so many tools and solutions, how do you decide which tool is right for you?  Tools To Empower Your Workflow  Sync helps you to automate the upload of your creative assets as you create them during a shoot. It cuts down the traditional waiting time to receive assets at the end of the shoot. With a one-time hassle-free setup process, you get all the assets right at your workspace. Best for: Photo studios, agencies, and in-house production team at the production stage Markup Editor is a revolutionary tool for creatives like photo editors and retouchers. Markup Editor makes the review and approval process seamless as it lets you access, highlight the required changes, drop comments and finally approve the work in one single common platform. Best for: Photo studios, agencies, and in-house creative team at the review and approval stage Collections helps you organize and manage your creative assets in one place. The greatest challenge of a creative team is to find the right assets, at the right time. Instead of looking through multiple files and folders, you can create a “Collection” based on your requirement like project, client, and product, which helps you find all the relevant assets at the same place. Organizing and tagging these assets with the help of efficient creative tools makes it easier to assemble, search and administer while foregoing the risk of losing or reproducing pre-existing assets based on labels like active, archived or expired.   Best for:  Photo studios and marketers throughout the creative process Versioning helps you compare the different versions of an asset and pick the best one. Not only can you view the final assets, but also view comments, ratings, and markups on individual files. You can easily track the edits with Versioning and pinpoint any missed edits. It keeps the entire workflow transparent and streamlined. Best for: Creative agencies at the post-production and approval stages Metadata enables you to search for assets faster with the help of expandable tags and asset recommendations, update and export metadata in and out of the application in bulk. You can easily find files on the basis of metadata tags like location, time, asset description, and so much more.  But Metadata is not just a search tool. It also helps you keep track of the process, providing you enough data to help in decision making. Not just that, you can easily share files with other teammates, as well.  Best for: Marketers, media and entertainment industries during post-production,  Watermarks are essential to enhance the security of your original assets. This tool allows you to watermark pictures easily with texts or symbols so that your organization has the sole proprietorship. You can create watermarks including brand name or logo and further customize them to any size or pattern. Its flexibility allows you to hide the watermarks based on your audience selection.   Best for: Any enterprise company, retail and fashion industries during the distribution phase Approval Galleries allows talent and management to “Approve” or “Kill” assets according to studio obligations—in just a click after you integrate “Collections” or a part of it into an approval gallery to be reviewed by stakeholders. Inbuilt data analytics allows key people to see the entirety of live statistics on the platform and assign roles to your team members and grant permission for access to these assets in one place. You can further automate the process of choosing assets individually to determine what performed well or underperformed as per targets by providing real time insight to speed up the production timeline.  Best for: Producers, marketers, and retail display managers during the review and approval phase Projects automate the process of managing roles and assignments individually while also keeping a tab on the progress. Simply create a “Project Assignment” and a creative brief to keep track of your workflow. By having maximum control over your assets, you can assign roles and permissions to share or hold back information through folders, assets, and even workspaces from specific users and decide which part of the asset is visible to the user.  Best for: Art directors, creative directors, management during the workflow process Pinpoints lets you share very specific assets with your team members through a unique link and alert notifications on emails. You can then share the link anywhere, be it Google Sheets or a creative workflow software. Everyone assigned to an individual project can add and view comments, ratings and markups.  Best for: Creative management, talent management, retail display management, brand management teams throughout the workflow. These easy-to-use tools can help simplify your creative workflow management to a great extent. A single platform that automates a wide range of processes can take a lot off the stress quota of your team members while slashing production time and budget.  Request a demo with globaledit to help us identify the specific tools that your business needs.

Monitoring metrics like the estimated deadline in comparison with the actual one determines the pace at which your project moves and should move and the creative bottlenecks that should be solved, which ultimately helps in slashing down the time for future projects. This makes measuring the creative output with key performance indicators a significant part of your creative project. When the actual budget is less than or in alignment with the estimated one, the value of creative output by your organization is also made clear. This enhances the ROI and helps secure future opportunities and profit while also gaining customer loyalty. This can only be done by enhancing your workflow process and continuously measuring creative workflow output. But can you really measure the creative workflow output? The answer is a definite yes. Let’s take a look at how you can do it. Why Do You Need to Measure Creative Workflow Output? An effective creative workflow includes these primary phases: Conception of the project, definition, execution, review and approval, and the final project distribution. Several processes are implemented for these particular phases based on the type of content you produce, which differs from company to company.  Standardizing work intake is important to effectively measure your output. Here’s how having a standard work intake process and a measure of creative output help the entire process to flow smoothly: Clarity Enhanced and Improved Efficiency If your team members have a better understanding of how project proposals are brought forward, their participation will be higher and more effective. A standardized work intake enhances clarity, which in turn increases efficiency that helps speed up the process of creating and approving proposals. Higher Quality Standardizing work intake helps to clarify the exact information that is required in the proposal and also the clear reason behind it. This leads to higher quality work while also decreasing the approval time.  Unsurpassable Consistency  A standard work intake process includes a single source implemented by employees to forego chaos and confusion that follows if you use numerous tools and software for a specific purpose, breaking the chain of consistency. The utilization of common tools and templates will help maintain consistency in proposals.   How to Measure Your Creative Workflow Output Prioritization of projects and tasks is important in a creative workflow to determine whether something is a value-add. Let’s take a look at the basis on which the workflow output should be measured for maximum efficiency: Identify Urgency Urgency is the stipulated timeline within which clients want their deliverables. It is the timeline within which the tasks have to be completed for the next process to begin quickly and efficiently while also retaining the quality. Identifying urgency is important to work on the immediate important projects.  The scales used to measure and define urgency are critical, major, medium, and minor, critical being the most urgent. Calculate Priority Priority is a term that is dependent upon the impact and urgency of a project. Anything with a high impact and high urgency gets a higher priority whereas a low impact and low urgency gets a lower priority. You can measure the impact based on the following aspects:  Business impact Customer experience impact Brand awareness impact New market impact Deadline A high business impact, customer experience impact, brand awareness impact, and new market impact have the highest priority with deadlines being rigid and urgent.  A low business impact (less than targeted potential), customer experience impact (low value), brand awareness impact (rebrands), and new market impact (minimal) weigh the lowest and have a deadline that is made flexible.   Assign Schedule  For the workflow process to operate within the stipulated time and various tasks to be completed in the process, it calls for a fixed schedule. Adhering to this schedule can help deliver the project on time or even faster. With the help of assigning and monitoring the schedule, you can also determine creative processes that take longer to finish and why while working on the same.  Communicate Schedule  Once you have determined the schedule, communicating it to the team members who are responsible for delivering the work, is a necessity. Clear communication and cooperation make the process much more efficient leading to a high-quality output that has been envisioned by your team.   How to Increase Your Creative Workflow Output to Get Better Results There are certain steps that you should follow from the get-go to have a clear idea of the output at the end: Clarification of project scope for a clear-cut vision about the client’s product statement and perception. Having a systematic approach often saves the team from missing out on important details. Use a creative brief template to monitor each phase of growth and provide a better framework that eases the communication process. Assign roles and responsibilities according to every team member’s skillset, thus facilitating healthy team management. Chalk out your creative workflow for a better understanding of the end product. A blueprint streamlines the process making it a smoother ground for communication within the team and with the client as well. Keeping track of creative workflow output right from updating metrics to reviewing creatives will ensure a step-by-step review and documentation of the entire creative workflow. Measuring creative workflow output is a necessity in the digitally expanding world wherein the creative processes are getting much more refined and streamlined in accordance with the requirements. Consistency is key and in order to deliver consistently good work output, it is important to periodically assess, compare and work on areas to see how far you have and can go.  

Creative projects are best executed when they’re divided into phases and task orientedThe reason lies in the simplification and optimization that these phases provide. Else, the creative workflow becomes chaotic, confusing and inefficient quickly.  According to a globaledit analysis, 50% of their enterprise and mid-market clients are interested in optimizing and simplifying their workflows to focus more on the critical objectives. That’s exactly what creating phases does—simplify and optimize.  Here are six phases that’ll streamline your creative workflow and increase its efficiency.  Phase 1 — Project Intake  Traditionally, project intake involves the creation of a brief that identifies the goal and requirements of the project, timeline, budget, and other primary information.  You can optimize this phase by creating brief templates and getting all the key information at the onset of the project. This helps save time in potential sessions where several meetings have to be held while also waiting for the client to agree with the given input. This phase is the most crucial step as it lays the foundation of the workflow. Based on the clarity of the requirements, automating downstream tasks becomes easier and streamlined. From assigning and scheduling tasks to tracking progress, project intake remains the foundation of the following steps.  Automation streamlines the process of gathering feedback and creating briefs. Depending upon the requirements of the requester, dynamic intake forms with flexible fields can be generated. Automated reminders and feedback are directed to a central hub to kickstart projects immediately. Phase 2 — Discovery Discovery sets up the foundation of the project. It involves everything from researching on competitors for product differentiation to identifying the risk areas, mitigating them and setting goals for different phases of the project.  This helps in optimizing the creative workflow process while also enabling the client to know what to expect during each phase of the project.   Phase 3 — Concepting The stage of concepting is not homogenous. Clear-cut objectives for a project do not always lead to the same ideas by two different creatives. It involves a lot of brain-racking, sharing of ideas, sometimes a combination of these ideas that finally lead to the concept that has to be implemented.  With the number of ideas communicated in this phase, a creative workflow management tool like globaledit makes collaboration simpler and easier. It brings all the project materials and creative assets into one place making accessibility and locating these files easier than ever. Being able to comment on drafts also makes it easier for all the stakeholders to be aware of the progress of this phase. Phase 4 — Implementation After conception of the project, the implementation phase begins. But before that, tasks and resources have to be assigned to team members, which is one of the defining factors of project efficiency. How do you accurately set your team structures and responsibilities without any delay?  Again, a creative workflow management software will be your savior here. Project assignment and tracking are not difficult when a central dashboard keeps it organized for you. These solutions also allow you to share content and collaborate on each project layer with granular control, updates, comments, and feedback.  Phase 5 — Production If you’ve optimized the previous four phases, production won’t be too chaotic. You can also leverage creative management tools to make this phase much smoother, faster, and efficient. For example, having metadata assigned to your assets automatically will make the post-production, searchability, and distribution seamless.  From set up and uploading assets to editing and retouching, all the steps of production of assets need to be optimized for maximized ROI.  Phase 6 — Close-out Close-out includes getting feedback from the client and key stakeholders, making the required changes, and handing out the final piece. This phase includes the most grueling part of the workflow: review and approval. How do you ensure that you gather accurate feedback from the client or stakeholders?  There are various tools and creative workflow management software like globaledit that involve a single platform where clients and coworkers can collaboratively comment, vote, and provide feedback on various assets. They can illustrate the changes required with Markup Editor where annotation can be added to one or many assets.  Once the project is completed, you can have an overview of project metrics like time taken for overall approvals and edits, the number of versions of assets per project, and the overall length of the project cycle for future predictions regarding similar projects.  Globaledit helps you in every stage of your creative workflow by serving your unique business needs. Request a demo to find out how.

The value of the digital asset management market in 2020 was estimated to be USD 2,962.2 million. Digital Asset Management or DAM software creates a centralized space where organizations can access their digital assets.  Creative DAM solutions help teams and keep exclusive materials relevant by centrally storing large amounts of digital and branding content which leads to enhanced security, organization, and searchability of these assets. It empowers employees to be equipped with data that truly matters! How Does a DAM Deliver ROI Investment in DAM solutions, just like any other business investment, should reap some profit for your organization. This is assessed by the return on investment (ROI). Getting a higher ROI is based on sharp decisions. The proper implementation of a planned DAM solution delivers a guaranteed ROI. Here are three ways the implementation of a creative DAM solution helps increase the ROI of your business: 1. Reusability of Assets  With the volume of assets produced in companies, it’s common for creatives to face difficulty in finding an asset at a particular time. How do you find the exact file where the model was wearing a red shirt against a white background? Not being able to find the required assets ultimately leads to the unnecessary reproduction of similar assets. So, there are two kinds of losses incurred: expenses of reproduction and the expense of earlier production. DAM solutions help save time and cut the cost to reproduce assets. This also reduces the wastage of already existing assets.  By tracking the usage of digital assets and analyzing them according to the measurements of a campaign helps deduce the true value of an asset. 2. Optimized Search Having your highly paid creatives search for assets manually through the archives is not the best use of their paid time and puts a strain on finances. DAM makes it easier to find digital assets with the help of keywords and metadata which significantly reduces time spent looking for specific files. DAM also helps bring efficiency to the approval process. 3. Compliances and Commercial Rights There are usage terms, intellectual property(IP) rights, and legal regulations for every set of original and unique data. Complying with these usage terms, verifying the usage information, tracking information regarding the usage of your assets are all within the purview of a DAM solution.  It is crucial for a company to invest in DAM solutions that ensure compliance through rights management as it helps in detecting mistakes that can become a heavy dent in the budget and can also land in legal battles. Additional Benefits Of DAM Every penny that goes into business matters. So does any third-party agency cost that can be reduced with the implementation of a creative DAM solution. They help in eliminating or minimizing the cost that goes into the transfer and management of content. It also increases the transparency within an organization.  How to Select a DAM software for the Best ROI? The following factors will help you while finding the perfect creative DAM solutions that work for your organization: The DAM system should be flexible and versatile to achieve effectiveness in enhancing business goals. Diverse metadata can help the searchability of an asset to enhance reusability purposes. Choosing a user-friendly DAM with simple navigation systems and a simple user-friendly interface makes it easier to grasp the tools by employees and improve operational effectiveness. For example, globaledit provides an intuitive user interface that your team members can get accustomed with easily. Your organization can measure the ROI with the reduced admin work and time saved, while you as the leader of your team or your organization can measure the ROI with the reduced frustration and the happiness of your creatives in finding information easily. Increasing your ROI requires keeping up with evolving DAM trends. It is important to work in close coordination with your DAM provider to tailor solutions according to your organizational needs to reap maximum benefits.  Talk to us to find out how DAM solutions can help your unique needs.

Be it for an ecommerce store or a company’s social media, the importance and demand of visual content are increasing exponentially. In 2020, the majority of content marketers said that more than 90% of their content included visuals. This is no surprise since visuals like images and videos play an integral role in driving sales and capturing attention.  However, the increasing demand creates equal challenges like efficiently producing a high volume of assets at a low cost. This is where workflow automation comes in. Automation solutions for photography studios optimize every aspect of production and make it scalable, cost-efficient, and streamlined. You can save up to 30% of yearly revenue with an efficient workflow. Importance of Workflow Automation for Photography Studios Instead of spending days perfecting a shoot, automation can help you wrap it up in minutes. This turnaround time is significant when you’re dealing with a large volume of assets. The faster you create photos, the faster it can hit the market, which means you are making the asset profitable sooner. As a result, photography studios are shifting towards creative workflow management to handle their everyday projects. Here are some important benefits of automating your workflow: Keep a Track of Clients  It can get overwhelming to manage the records of multiple projects with various clients at the same time. A creative workflow management software can relieve you from this pressing issue by taking care of the admin tasks. Most DAM solutions will have a dashboard that shows the active jobs and the progress of the work for all your clients at one glance.  You can pace up your projects in accordance with the deadlines. For example, you can create workspaces and collections per client in a DAM solution like globaledit. This ensures you have all the assets in one place without the risk of losing an important file.  Organize Information  Creative workflow management software and enriched metadata allow you to find assets exactly when you need them. Sorting can be automated based on rules of metadata and other tags.  You can easily organize files by the date of their creation, edited date, asset information, and the like. This allows you to retrieve the information you want just when you need it. Create Consistency Automation provides the opportunity to create repeatable templates. From angles and lighting to camera settings and edits, you can store templates for different types of shoot. This eliminates human error, ensuring consistency in shoots of a certain type.  Not only this, by having a bird’s eye view of all the assets and visual language, you can maintain brand consistency. For example, Amazon has set standards for product images where product photographs must have a white background with 85% of the product appearing in the image. On the other hand, eBay allows a light grey background.  Similarly, image requirements can vary from client to client, and having a depository to maintain the records will make the task much easier. Manage Revisions  and Approvals One of the key issues faced by photo studios is being able to manage edits. How do you avoid confusion and know exactly what to change?  This is where a creative workflow management software significantly helps you. For example,  Markup Editor allows you to add annotations directly on your assets. You can use the brush tool to highlight a section and include comments to minimize any potential confusion.  Automation solutions like file Versioning significantly ease the post-production tasks. You can maintain a record of iterations of an asset, allowing you to compare different versions side-by-side with their own comments, ratings, and markups. Once you have a set of assets reviewed and edited, “Image Approval Gallery makes it easier to “kill” or “approve” assets and stay in constant touch with your creatives. Create Rich Content  With increasing competition, high-quality images are non-negotiables to drive sales. But you can take it up a notch by including rich content like 360-degree images, which show a boost in conversions by nearly 47%.  But the creation of such images is costly and time-consuming with traditional photography. With automation solutions like camera integration with motorized rigs, the output time can be as low as three minutes, making the production faster than ever.  Promote Creativity  Research shows employees spend up to 16 hours per week on admin tasks that could be automated. That’s two full working days.  As the repetitive admin tasks get automated, extra time and energy can be channeled towards exploring creativity. This includes more A/B tests or trying out different methods for the shoot. For example, you save a lot of time with the help of features like Sync that lets you upload assets during the production, as you create them. Not only that, you can customize file extensions as you import them—think about all the time saved in separating raw files from the processed ones.  Above all, workflow automation makes operations simpler and easier to access for all. It helps meet deadlines by cutting production time and creating consistent results. Ready to automate your workflow and make your production more efficient? Request a demo with us to learn how we can help.

Over 90% of marketers say that the majority of their projects don’t move along efficiently during the content creation process. This data proves the need for an efficient creative workflow in organizations.  Meeting deadlines with quality and creativity intact is only possible in a robust and streamlined system. That’s exactly what creative workflow management solutions help in creating. From role assignment to review and approval—a creative project management system keeps creative workflows on track. It sets up responsibilities and steers the work in a direction that helps save time and money.  How Is Creative Workflow Being Adopted? The workflow automation industry is expected to reach $18.45 billion by 2023, which points to the rapid adoption of the system. Creative workflow management solutions are being implemented across various industries. Few examples include: Branding and advertising agencies Digital creative agencies Graphic designing firms Enterprise in-house agencies App development companies According to a report, 66% of project managers have expressed their intentions of using workflow management tools extensively given adequate support from their organizations.  Benefits of Creative Workflow Management Solutions Creative workflow management solutions help project management and creativity to coexist.  Implement in the Entire Creative Process  Do you have to use a different tool to track time and another for review and approval? Creative workflow management solutions are built specifically for the creative process and help throughout the lifecycle of a creative asset. Here’s how:  Definition and ideation: According to a report by Project Management Institute, 37% of projects fail due to the lack of clearly defined objectives. Creative asset management solutions help set initial goals clearly, which in turn, helps in assigning responsibilities and tracking progress. Creation: During the creation process, creative project management tools promote collaboration. From managing files to tracking time, these tools offer a 360-degree approach. Review and approval: This can be the most time-consuming step of the creative workflow without a system in place. With review and approval tools and the ability to comment, you get to receive feedback in an organized manner and respond accordingly.  Reduces Cost  Workflows with defined goals and assigned responsibilities boost productivity, which reduces additional costs by sticking to the stipulated budget and avoiding budget overruns. With a creative project management tool, 43% more projects are completed within budget. Project planning becomes a smooth sail as workflow management software can help predict deadlines with the help of AI, including constraints like cost, schedule, and scope. Establishes an Effective Communication System Poor communication not only hampers the quality of work and the time taken to meet deadlines, but it also costs businesses a tremendous amount of money. According to a study, companies with over 100,000 employees have faced losses of over $62 million due to poor communication.  With an efficient management solution, you facilitate effective communication among the team that helps maintain transparency, keeps team members organized, and boosts productivity. It ensures that everything “flows” smoothly, thus avoiding confusion and chaos while working. Encourages Feedback A management tool not only invites feedback from the team but also allows your clients to input their requests directly into the project database themselves. This leaves no room for confusion as the requests are recorded exactly as envisioned. Creative operations can benefit to a great extent from creative workflow management solutions. The tools facilitate success while narrowing your goals and focus, hence improving the rate of success as observed by major companies who adopted these tools.  Request a demo to accelerate your creative workflow with us.

After one of the most unpredictable years in living memory, 2021 looks to be the year when we learn many lessons from the unprecedented shifts in technology in 2020. Creative workflow management systems got stress-tested like never before in the year the Covid-19 pandemic turned the world on its head. Although the next 12 months could see a return to normality, some stitched-together solutions from 2020 could become part of the furniture this year. Work from home makes a centralized asset hub more important Few people could have predicted that for many of us our homes would become our offices at the start of 2020. Working from home wasn’t invented in 2020, and it didn’t take a global pandemic for the notion of some work-life balance to trigger a relocation to a more homey setting. However, it will be forever remembered as the year when a huge chunk of people suddenly had to get to grips with the limits of their home broadband as well as Zoom meetings, Slack chats and a host of other apps and forms of communication. Even after the virus will be banished, though, the trend towards work-from-home looks set to continue, which is why 2021 will be a big year for Digital Asset Management (DAM). Team members on any particular project could be scattered across a dozen different locations, but that won’t change the fact they will need access to the same creative assets. Creative DAM acts as a central hub for all assets required for creative production. This year will improve many DAM systems’ functionalities to take into account more permanent remote working arrangements.  Making files, dates and creative assets more accessible no matter where a team member is will be key in 2021. Using DAM for brand consistency Although the trend towards online shopping and e-commerce was very much on an upward trend before 2020, the pandemic confined most people to their homes, with a large part of their purchases being made online.  Most significantly, the uptake rate in online grocery shopping accelerated in 2020, and studies show that this could be a tipping point for e-commerce. Previous online grocery shopping skeptics have had a taste of it in 2020 and liked it, meaning 2021 looks set to be the year when those abnormal rates start to become the norm. And with increased commerce online comes the need for more digital marketing across the many different platforms that find themselves in front of consumers’ eyes daily. DAM will play a huge role in omni-channel marketing this year as brands try to grab consumers’ attention wherever they are looking. A DAM allows marketers to create different content for relevant platforms that retain consistent brand identity with a centralized source of assets such as logos and branding. Greater reliance on automation for creative workflow DAM helps you find relevant assets at the touch of a button. Still, given that creatives might need to use that asset in several different programs, it must be compatible with the various platforms it gets used on. To do this, it requires metadata and tags be added, which will allow for it to be repurposed for each particular use. Automating this process is essential to the smooth running of creative workflows, but studies show that only 6% of users of DAM systems are on board with AI. That gives enormous scope for an increase in reliance on automation in 2021. Integration for greater efficiency With an increasing number of SaaS players, it is more important than ever that whatever creative software you use, it is compatible with other platforms.  Software integration is crucial to an efficient, creative workflow. While software purchases should be carefully considered and weighed up, this year could also see companies putting significant stock in plug-ins and APIs. This will make software investment much more valuable if users know that content can be created and shared seamlessly across different programs and platforms. While 2020 may be a cautionary tale for making predictions, it seems that the many ways we were forced to adapt to new ways of working quickly have encouraged us for what’s to come next. Many of the last 12 months’ developments were already in the pipeline and had been accelerated by outside events. In 2021 comapnies should adapt trends which have made workflow management more efficient and sustainable.

You may know that old saying “a picture is worth a thousand words.” Well, when it comes to processing, editing and sharing images using your software of choice, storing the metadata in an XMP file ensures those “thousand words” aren’t lost. If you frequently work with RAW images, you’ll know that there can be a varying amount of tweaks and retouches involved. Keeping track of all these changes is the job of the XMP file. XMP files allow you to transfer your image metadata, ratings, tags, keywords, geolocation, and other attributes about the image outside of the actual JPG, CR2, or other file. The XMP format is a standard way of recording these data so that other programs can carry all of the additional data you added to your images. An XMP file acts as a roadmap for the editing process of a RAW image. This means that when the image file is shared in another application that is different from the one it originated in, the XMP file will allow it to be read.  Often an XMP file is known as a “sidecar” file, meaning it travels alongside the RAW file to make sure that all the metadata is retained through editing and sharing.  This is especially beneficial when files are shared across different applications. For example, if a RAW file is edited in Lightroom, those changes are recorded in the XMP file. If the image is then opened with Photoshop or Bridge, the XMP file means that the original edits are not lost and the image appears as intended by the creator. Compatibility can be a major stumbling block when sharing image files, therefore, storing metadata on an XMP file is one way around this. Another benefit of using XMP files is that it allows you to store important information about an image which will follow it through a series of edits, often involving multiple applications. You can create the RAW file in your chosen application, add metadata to it such as geo-tagging and file info on who or what is in the image and assign it to a particular category. Storing that information in an XMP file will make sure that all that information follows the image file wherever it goes, making filing and organizing your images much easier. Most creative work doesn’t live in a single piece of software. You might start by capturing images in Capture One. There you might do your quick selects, add job information, and other relevant data. Next, you might organize the files using Adobe Bridge. From there, you might pass the RAWs off to a retoucher and get back a finished TIFF file. When you to import this into your DAM – the TIFF file may no longer contain the job information, photographer, talent, or the other metadata you meticulously added earlier. This is where XMP files save the day — when you import them into your DAM, your software can read the metadata and append all of the missing information to the asset.

You can’t rush the creative process, we’re often told. Whether it’s crafting content, finessing a photo or imagining the right image, time needs to be taken.  However, while quality is key in any creative project, it’s equally vital to keep on top of all aspects of the process to complete it on time and on budget. Sure, the creative process can’t be rushed, but that doesn’t mean missing deadlines due to poor project management. The best way to do this is with a reliable project management system. This will allow you to track tasks, share creative assets and conduct real-time reviews on what’s working and what isn’t. Keep Things Flowing Effective creative workflow management is essential to the formation and completion of any project. Bringing creatives and marketers together to focus on a defined goal can be a time-consuming process. However, with a project management system,  there is a more efficient flow of resources, ideas and communication. All members of the teams can get an overview of what is happening, from inception to delivery. Creative workflow management means everyone can contribute ideas and review progress as the project is going on. It cuts out the need for various proofs to be sent back and forth for approval and sign-off. That whole process can take place in real-time, with revisions able to be completed much quicker. Creative workflow management can allow you to set deadlines for projects and individual tasks within those projects. You can assign tasks to team members and track their progress to make sure everything is on schedule. Closer Collaboration The collaborative aspect of a project management system is one of its most significant selling points. Not only does it allow multiple inputs into a project, but it also allows for creative assets to be shared and accessed more easily.  Digital asset management (DAM) allows for a centralized store of assets, such as images, artwork, graphic files and video footage, or just about anything which can be used in a creative project. An innovative digital asset management solution will allow that library of assets to be made available to all creatives on a team, whether working remotely or in an office setting.   Creative asset management allows for closer collaboration and sharing of ideas. Increased Integration From a purely practical point of view, having countless different applications from a range of various providers can lead to a bumpy ride for your project.  Downloading individual apps can be expensive for a start, and there’s no guarantee that they will work smoothly together. Given that the creative projects involve a range of different apps such as photography software, illustration and design platforms and video editing suites, it’s essential to have a project management system that will allow them all to seamlessly integrate. Increased Revenue   A steady workflow, greater collaboration and increased integration can contribute to the quicker completion of a project. However, because creative project managers can constantly review a project, increased speed does not mean decreased quality. A project management system allows for a significant volume of projects to be completed and approved by stakeholders. Real-time reviews and revisions mean you can get feedback from stakeholders along the way to make sure you are delivering to the brief. This not only saves on time but means you can deliver the project on budget and to the required specifications. That allows you to take on more projects, safe in the knowledge you can provide and generate more revenue. 

What is a PIM? PIM stands for Product Information Management, a system that manages your content for marketing and selling purposes. PIM systems are typically used for e-commerce businesses, and for good reason. A PIM can store all the data of your e-commerce company from SKUs, to product images, and descriptions of items.  The e-commerce industry is growing rapidly, especially in these unprecedented times. Because shopping and retail have shifted more online, it’s imperative that businesses that want to grow to scale have a PIM to manage their daily needs.  Why is having a Product Information Management (PIM) system important? Think about what goes into selling a physical product online. If you’re buying an electronic, you’re going to want the details of the year, make, model, reviews, photos, etc. On the contrary if you’re buying clothing you’re going to want to know the material/fabric used, size, color, etc. Keeping track of all of these things to make sure the consumer is getting the best possible description of a product is difficult; nearly impossible if the product is sold in different languages, through different vendors, or in different variations.  That’s where a PIM system comes in. A PIM can help with sales organization, up your revenue, and make sure the right products are being shown to the right potential customers. A PIM can even go as far as cross-selling and up-selling products when a customer is already interested in something. It’s the ideal way to keep track of products and increase conversion.  Does a PIM help with efficiency? The traditional way an e-commerce business keeps track of their inventory/product is through spreadsheets. Numerous spreadsheets spread across departments show how much a specific item sells, the details of the item, even the previous conversions. Unfortunately, this takes endless hours and manpower to keep track of these spreadsheets.  With a PIM system in place, a company can organize sales information and have classification of products. The PIM system will internalize all of the information and give your business a workable solution for understanding your inventory and sales. It also helps when working with creative assets to help sell your products.  How does a PIM system work with a Digital Asset Management (DAM) system? When you consider everything that goes into an e-commerce company, the most important thing is the creative assets. No product sells without images. Hence, you need a DAM to be able to support your creative asset needs. For example, if you have a PIM system and join that with a DAM system like globaledit you will be able to facilitate a workflow that is coherent and multifaceted. Using globaledit as a DAM will enable you to store creative assets that feed into your PIM (and vice versa), you’ll be able to easily search for images via custom metadata schemas, edit, comment, and share on images, and even create versions of the best images that will lead to conversions. Having a DAM system is essential when using a PIM system because they work together to create an efficient and effective workflow. Learn more about our products here: Creative operations process makes perfect or New Webinar! Ramping Up your eCommerce Production Workflow

Cloud Asset Management, in its simplest form, is managing what’s stored in the cloud as it pertains to your business. For example, if your company has a creative sector (marketers, retouchers, digital asset managers, etc.) they can store assets within globaledit. In this case, since globaledit runs on cloud governance, your Cloud Asset Management (CAM) system for your creative assets would be globaledit. Having Cloud Asset Management for your business ensures that processes run smoothly and securely within the cloud infrastructure. Is there value in a Cloud Asset Management system? In short, yes. Having Cloud Asset Management ensures that you have visibility and control over all of your assets. Let’s say your creative assets were stored within globaledit, you would be able to use the integrations of the software to control your assets from ingestion to distribution. This provides you with unparalleled control over what those assets are being used for. What are the benefits? The first thing to consider when looking at Cloud Asset Management is automation. The process of asset discovery and inventory of assets is automated because there is one source of truth for all of those assets. With Cloud Asset Management, you will no longer have to spend endless hours looking through data. Instead, your business is becoming self-serving in a sense because you’re feeding the data you need into the system. Another important part of Cloud Asset Management is accuracy. If we’re talking about creative assets, you’re essentially removing human error when searching for, editing, commenting, or rating a visual. The key here is that there’s visibility across the system. Asset accuracy ensures the optimization of your business by taking the guesswork out of data. Lastly, a Cloud Asset Management system ensures your assets security. Cloud Asset Management systems allow your business to see potential risks to your cloud infrastructure. That way, you can act before the threat occurs, make sure your company’s assets are always safe.

Omni-Channel Marketing. It’s a term we’ve all heard over and over again. But really, what is omni-channel marketing? How will it help your brand? How do you put omni-channel marketing to use properly?  Those are all questions we’ll be answering here to help you understand how to grow your business.  What is Omni-Channel Marketing? We’re connected to our devices: phones, tablets, laptops, etc. Why? Because the internet is a place where things are constantly changing, evolving, and growing in order to help user experience. Bottom line is, the more convenient something is for the user, the more likely they are to come back. Hence, omni-channel marketing. Make the user experience so seamless from point A to point B that they can help but come back to experience it over and over again.  Omni-Channel Marketing is a solution that looks at the entirety of your brand rather than just mobile, desktop, and tablet experiences. It looks at the transition between platforms and how a user moves from one place to the next. More than Omni-Channel Marketing, we’re looking to create an Omni-Channel experience.  How can you create an Omni-Channel Marketing Experience? Essentially an Omni-Channel Marketing Experience is how you market, sell, and help customers. It’s an integrated experience, meaning no matter where the customer is, the experience is the same. So, when your marketing, the messaging, imagery, and branding need to be the same across the board. When engaging in an Omni-Channel Marketing Experience, your social media, website, all allow for interaction with the company.  For example, let’s say a potential customer sees a social media post that peeks their interest. That customer should be able to be routing directly onto the website where the experience would be the same. They would receive the same messaging, same visual branding that engaged them in the first place, same goals and objectives. The channels all work together to hook the customer.  To build a truly successful Omni-Channel Marketing Experience you need to connect your product, marketing, and customer success.  Omni-Channel Marketing Strategy: Content “Content is King.” We’ve heard that time and time again. But, it’s true. Content is the first thing a potential customer sees. You want your audience to understand your message first and foremost. What does your company do? How can they help? How can your company create a good experience for them? These are all important points that content marketers want to tell their audience.  Customer Most importantly, you have to have a deep understanding of your audience. If you’re trying your hand at Omni-Channel Marketing, you have to know who you’re marketing to. Learn everything there is to know about your potential customer. What do they search for? What do they like? What do they buy? Once you know your customer, you can gear your content specifically towards them.  Integration As mentioned, all Omni-Channel Marketing needs to work together. You need to make sure all of your systems work together to give the customer a seamless experience. Making sure your technology stack works together is key.

Organizations are churning out marketing materials more than ever. No matter what industry you’re in, creating visual assets is essential to a successful business. However, keeping track of all of your assets and organizing them properly can be difficult. Digital asset management systems (DAMs) are the center of operation for these organizations.  Choosing the right DAM comes down to ease of use and efficiency. You have to choose a DAM that allows you and your team to produce marketing assets, both photo and video, quickly and seamlessly. Rather than using multiple different softwares to achieve one goal, a DAM can centralize your work and cut your production time in half.  When choosing a DAM, it’s important to take into account the needs of your organization. Globaledit was built by creatives, so we know the difficulties you’re facing and we’re here to help.  For Your Work In Progress (WIP) Globaledit offers streamlined ingestion of your assets, automatically appends metadata allowing for advanced search where you can build collections of your favorite assets and then streamlines sharing or download. Having a bird’s eye view to all of your assets is important. When you upload or download (in bulk) take advantage of custom metadata to append any special tags you care about. Metadata becomes a key part of how your assets are easily searched, filtered and saved for later use. This will slash the time you spend searching and working on visuals because we understand having the right photo or video at your fingertips is essential. To shorten your creative workflow, you can add a new collection based on your search results and filters, then choose to share or download. Once team members have eyes on the right photos or videos, leverage globaledit’s voting and rating system. This allows you and your team to simultaneously choose assets, find what’s best based upon team consensus or that one special approval and move on.  Scalability Security and enterprise solutions are at the forefront of globaledit. When choosing a DAM for your organization, one of the most important things to consider is the security of your assets. Globaledit has top-tier security to ensure your assets are always safe. With globaledit’s asset rights, you can set expiration dates, grant or deny access requests, track usage, watermark, and more. Prevent the use of unauthorized, expired, or inappropriate media.  Customization If you’re working with globaledit, the interface provides you with an incredibly easy way to use the markup editor. While in the interface, you simply press the pen icon to enter the Markup Editor. Once activated, you can swipe through your team’s imported images and see current markups. You can then make your own markups in the editor by using the brush tool, comment section, or text. You can create versions of your visuals to see what is most up to date, and archive for later use.  Customer Service Globaledit prides itself on becoming part of your organizational needs. Once you choose us to become your DAM we are there with you every step of the way. From recreating a more functional creative workflow, to hours of customer support and onboarding, we want to make sure your organization has all the support you need.

Hey creative community! What will you be doing on May 3rd – 4th? Globaledit will be attending the Henry Stewart DAM event in NYC: the world’s largest conference dedicated to Digital Asset Management and Creative Operations. We think you should join us and here is why… DAM NY 2018 will feature 100+ speakers and 60+ sessions covering topics like Metadata, Integration, AI, Automation, Creative Operations, Corporate Archives, Video Workflow, Rights Management, Semantics, Governance. Want another reason? Co-located at the DAM NY event, on May 3rd, is the Creative Operations. It is a great opportunity to network with your creative community and share best practices. Our very own creative operations guru, David Iscove, is participating in a very exciting panel “What’s in your Creative Ops Toolbox?” If you’re serious about Creative Operations, this is an event that can’t be missed. You will also have a chance to check out a live demo of globaledit, the essential creative collaboration platform, at our booth! See for yourself why brands like Asics, Rent the Runway, boohoo and Warby Parker have made investments in tech to create efficiencies in their photo production processes. Finally, don’t forget to use the code GLOBALEDIT100 to save $100 on your registration! SESSIONS NOT TO MISS: MAY 3rd, 9:40 AM – 10:10 AM – David Iscove’s TechLab   How to sync capture software to embed and deliver custom metadata into your DAM In this TechLab, David Iscove, Solution Architect for globaledit, will show you strategies to collect custom metadata prior to the point of capture in order to embed and deliver valuable product data to downstream users of a DAM. MAY 3rd, 11:20 AM – 12:20 PM – Panel with David Iscove What’s in your Creative Ops Toolbox? A Scenario-Based Approach Co-panelist: Lauren Luscombe, Creative Resource Director, Netspend Moderator: Kevin Brucato, VP, Creative Operations, Prudential The panel will use a scenario-based format to go behind the curtain and explore which tools the panelists identified as must haves for their Creative Ops Toolbox.

Does your brand’s demand for visual content exceed your production team’s capacity? Does the combination of volume and speed have you looking for better ways to manage post-production workflows? If you are a creative on a daily hunt for answers to these pressing questions, join globaledit at the Digital Assets & Content Leadership Exchange presented by Insight Exchange Network on January 22 – 24, 2018 in New York City as we explore the solutions and challenges faced by the creative ops community today. The event will explore two parts of the creative process: strategy & monetization and implementation & stewardship. Network with us, share experiences and hear stories from industry experts at brands like Revlon Cosmetics, NBCUniversal, Hasbro, Facebook, World Wildlife Fund and many more. Additionally, don’t miss out on two presentations from our thought leaders: January 22, 2018 – 9:10 AM   Mathieu Champigny, CEO at globaledit Today’s digital commerce requires creative production to move faster, and for digital assets to be made smarter. Creative production leaders are now tasked with designing and implementing digital content management solutions with the future in mind, from smart digital assets to the breakthrough of Artificial Intelligence. Mathieu will explore the topics of digital creative asset production challenges, review industry-leading practices and future technologies. January 23, 2018 – 9:35 AM David Iscove, Creative Production Solution Architect at globaledit In today’s fast-paced creative production environments, metadata has more value than ever before, enabling automation to accelerate your time to market and analytics to inform future creative ROI. But unlike the traditional approach to administrative and descriptive metadata where enrichment occurred post asset creation, new sources of relevant data, such as product and sample information, can be captured upstream prior to the creation of an asset to then feed downstream value. David will show you how to identify and capture both this valuable upstream product information and downstream creative feedback to provide more value and automation to your creative assets as they move to market. To learn more about the event, visit the Insight Exchange Network website. Use the discount code GE200 for $200 off this event until 1/22/18  

Top brands, leading organizations, and fast-growing startups are investing in creative operations to scale and fuel growth. That’s why the Henry Stewart Events is hosting their Creative Operations event in Los Angeles, co-located at the Henry Stewart DAM LA 2017. This gathering is a great opportunity for the creative ops community to network with their peers, share experiences and learn best practices from industry experts with frontline experience. Brands like HBO, The Coca-Cola Company, Farfetch, Nickelodeon, and Beachbody will be in attendance. In 2003 globaledit release the very first cloud-based collaboration platform offering essential work-in-progress features to create efficiencies in creative production workflows and processes. We are pioneers on creative operations and this is why we are honored to be participating in several sessions during the Creative Operations Conference in LA on November 14, 2017. We look forward to seeing you at one or all of our sessions. Segmenting hi-res and low-res workflows to accelerate creative production What is in your creative ops toolbox Securing buy-in for investments in creative ops technology For more details visit the Henry Stewart DAM conference website. Use the discount code GLOBALEDIT100 to save $100. REGISTER NOW. Here are the details of our panels: Tuesday, November 14, 10:20-10:50 am PDT   Accelerate Creative Operations: Segmenting Hi-Res and Lo-Res Workflows Segmenting your hi-res and lo-res workflows can accelerate your review and approval, post-production processes, and creative asset delivery. Join David Iscove, Creative Production Solution Architecture & Implementation Manager, to learn real-world techniques and dive deeper into the specifics of creative production. David Iscove is a seasoned professional with 10+ years experiences as a digital archivist, workflow solutions architect and asset manager at companies such as Activision Blizzard, EMI, and Universal Music Group. ************************************ Tuesday, November 14, 2:20-3:40 pm PDT What’s in your Creative Ops Toolbox? An Interactive Session In today’s creative environment, where the stakes are high and the challenges are real, each of us needs our Creative Ops Toolbox to get the work done. Every successful marketing and creative leader has their own key “tools” which help them sort through the complexity that modern-day creative execution demands. Many think of these as their “Swiss army knife for success”. Automated Workflow, Data Analysis, Agile Methodology, and Business Acumen are a few examples of the “tools” that these leaders depend on to be successful. In this interactive panel discussion, we will go behind the curtain and explore which tools these industry professionals have identified as must-haves for their Creative Ops Toolbox. These tools include: Technology for identifying and overcoming pitfalls in your creative process Creative harmony through a balance of technology, process, and business acumen Meaningful reports and dashboards drawn from a set of data A standardized intake process to drive efficiencies in your workflow Agile project management which keeps your processes nimble Real-time content production. What you need in order to keep up. Augmented and Virtual Reality, what’s next on the horizon? Change Management: Embrace the change Moderator: Kevin Brucato, VP, Creative Operations, Prudential Panelists include: Clair Carter-Ginn, Partner, Forecast Carin Forman, Director, Digital Photo Services, Home Box Office, Inc. David Iscove, Manager, Solution Architecture & Implementation, globaledit

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. Here are the details of our panels: Thursday, May 11, 9:40-10:10 am EST Accelerate Creative Operations: Capturing Assets and Metadata Upstream Large-scale creative operations must effectively manage incoming content from multiple sources, teams, and partners. To do this right, brands are leveraging technology: Platforms that are flexible enough to provide multiple options for ingest, yet powerful enough to enforce an organization’s delivery requirements, often in the form of metadata enrichment/validation or file name convention rules. In this session, Sandie Roberts, VP of Content & Technology Operations at Rodale, will discuss how she uses technology to streamline ingestion and optimize content for downstream delivery and usage. Sandie Roberts, VP of Content & Technology Operations, Rodale David Iscove, Creative Operations Specialist, globaledit ************************************ Thursday, May 11, 12:35-12:50 pm EST Darwinism in Creative Operations Creative Operations has changed tremendously over the past 20 years. Those who do not evolve, by inheriting superior traits, will inevitably become extinct. Those who do will prosper from the process of natural selection. Join Steve Kalalian, CEO of Industrial Color Brands, to learn about the single most important evolutionary trait of successful creative groups: acceleration.

The 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: Tuesday, April 11, 1:15-2:00PM Workflow solution – Find the tool to boost your team’s creative process!   Moderator: David Iscove, Creative Operations Specialist at globaledit Panelists: Molly Gallagher, Creative Services, Creative Operations, Consultant Yasaman Golban, Creative Operations Manager, Firewood Marketing – Google Inc. Jennifer Pentes, Senior Director, Client and Creative Services at Lonely Planet —————- Tuesday, April 11, 2:00-3:00PM Online Proofing, Review and Approval Tools Panelists: Dickson Bueno, Director of Creative Operations – Americas, HH Global Patti Fox, Creative Project Manager, Scout Steve Kalalian, CEO of Globaledit Shannon Leighton, Senior Project Manager, Global Prairie We hope to see you there! For more information on The Creative Operations Exchange 2017, visit: http://www.insightxnetwork.com/creative-operations-exchange-2017.html

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: The Creative Operations Breakfast series brings together creative leaders to address key issues and challenges faced by creative production and operations professionals today.

For 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: The Creative Operations Breakfast series brings together leaders in the creative production and operations community for a casual breakfast. ABOUT OUR GUEST SPEAKERS Brendon Derr – VP, Enterprise Solutions, Cella Consulting and The BOSS Group As the VP, Enterprise Solutions, Brendon Derr and his teammates have helped hundreds of Fortune 1000 organizations to optimize their investments in marketing and creative resources. He has helped companies like American Express, Staples, Coca-Cola, Verizon, Chevron, and many others to build, optimize and evolve their in-house agency capabilities. Brendon has been working within the corporate creative environment for more than 15 years. Mai Nozoe – VP, Creative Services, alice + olivia Mai Nozoe joined alice + olivia in 2013 to develop their first in-house creative department. In her role, she oversees all creative branding and global image direction of brand collateral and website. Prior to her current role, Mai served as the first VP of Creative Operations for Moda Operandi where she was responsible for developing their first branding print campaign and global photo studio operations. From 2005-2012, Mai was responsible for developing the first in-house creative department at Michael Kors. Mai holds a Bachelor of Science in Marketing and International Business from the Stern School of Business at NYU. She is also certified in Digital and Graphic Design from the Parsons School of Design. Globaledit is a cloud-based platform that empowers creative professionals to manage visual production at scale. Globaledit launched the Creative Operations Breakfast in 2015 to address key issues and challenges faced by creative production and operations professionals today.  

With 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: Globaledit presents the Creative Operations Breakfast Series, a monthly event that addresses key issues and challenges faced by creative production and operations professionals today. ABOUT OUR GUEST SPEAKERS Anne Cassard – Senior Project Manager, Refinery29 Anne Cassard’s work at Refinery29 centers on establishment, enactment, and constant improvement of workflow and inter/intra-departmental processes for the Design and larger Creative teams. She also oversees the growth and development of the Design and Creative staff in response to the shifting pursuits and demands of the business. Anne has refined her interest in creative management through her work with R29 over the past three years, having previously gained experience in the businesses of fashion and finance. Michael Ciancio – Creative Director, Refinery29 Michael Ciancio heads up the Design team at Refinery29, overseeing all aspects of design across editorial, events and branded content. He brings diverse experience to the R29 team, joining from Wolff Olins, a leading international brand consultancy, where he helped major clients strategically and creatively change the way they do business. Michael was previously a grant-holder at FABRICA, the Benetton design research center based in Treviso Italy, where he worked alongside a wealth of international creatives, practicing product design and advertising.

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.

  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. ABOUT OUR GUEST SPEAKERS Carrie Roberts has over 15 years experience leading and executing creative projects for various companies and clients. Before leading the U.S. creative operations team at The Body Shop, Carrie was Director of Creative Services and Head of Production at Exposure America, where she was developing brand campaigns, events and content such as Nike, Converse, Dr. Martens, and Coca Cola. Dan Cohen has over 20 years experience in the music industry, working at various record companies, an independent marketing company and independent distribution company. He recently joined Republic Records (home to Ariana Grande, Lorde, Pearl Jam, The Weeknd, and more) as the Vice President, Marketing. Over the course of his career, he has worked with a wide array of artists including LCD Soundsystem, Gorillaz, Daft Punk, 50 Cent, and Chrissie Hynde, as well as chart topping campaigns for Alabama Shakes, The Decemberists, Five Finger Death Punch, All Time Low and Tyrese.

For our fourth installation of the Creative Ops Breakfast at globaledit HQ on February 25th, 2016, Scot Safon (former EVP/CMO of The Weather Channel, CNN, and TNT) and Christopher Grakal (former VP of Image Management & Technology Strategy at Turner Broadcasting) shared their perspectives on how to maximize the combined power of creative, tech and business teams. > Check out what they had to say: Globaledit presents the Creative Ops Breakfast Series, a monthly event that addresses key issues and challenges faces by creative production and operations professionals today. ABOUT OUR GUEST SPEAKERS Scot Safon is a brand consultant and media executive who has served as the Chief Marketing Officer of CNN Worldwide, The Weather Channel, and TNT. He also ran the cable network HLN. He started at NY ad agencies, after getting his MBA from Cornell and his BA from the University of Virginia. Christopher Grakal is the former VP of Image Management & Technology Strategy at Turner Broadcasting. He has strong track record of creating strategy and building technology-forward systems and organizations that maximize the value of content, marketing, PR and sales assets. He’s also a thought leader on how technology is driving consumer experience, advertiser value and creative workflow potential.

For the third installation of our Creative Ops Breakfast Series, David Plavin, Creative Applications Service Manager at Resources IT, and Irene Yoo, Photo Manager at Food Network & Cooking Channel, discussed the specific tools and technologies that make professional creative production kick. From Capture One to DAM to Dropbox and Photoshop, panelists shared the indispensable tools that their teams use to get work done. What key solutions for creative production toolkit today How to evaluate your current tools and technology What upcoming technology to look into/for to improve your workflow Watch the full panel: The Creative Ops Breakfast Series is the breakfast lecture series for creative production and operations professionals to network and learn as well have a delicious breakfast. ABOUT OUR GUEST SPEAKERS David Plavin Creative Applications Service Manager Resources IT, a Publicis Groupe company David has been at the Publicis Groupe for over 20 years and currently serves as the Service Manager for Creative Solutions. He works with the Groupe’s North American creative agencies helping them become more productive by supporting a suite of applications. David has a strong background in production and creative development, which enables him to better understand the need of his clients. He migrated from publication design to technical support in a period of 35 years. Irene Yoo Photo Manager Food Network and Cooking Channel Irene is responsible for still photography production and asset management for Food Network and Cooking Channel shows and related entities. She has 7+ years of experience in the Digital Asset Management (DAM) field working with different brands and industries to streamline creative workflows. Matt Glueckert Host – Product Manager globaledit Matt uses his lifelong passion for creative technology to lead a development team define and design the creative production application of the future. Before joining globaledit, he was a creative technologist at Showtime where he managed the photo department, photographed boxing events, and developed DAM tools for non-geeks.

Companies are being asked to get higher quality results out of creative efforts, while at the same time having fewer resources and time as they had in the past. Those challenges, coupled with the inherently chaotic nature of creative production, have forced creative professionals to try to bring order to disorder so that they can achieve those goals in an ever-competitive marketplace. What is the progression of the ideal workflow? How do we move from an ad hoc, chaotic environment, to an efficient creative production machine? Who are the right people to manage each phase of the workflow? What is the best allocation of roles and responsibilities for maximizing results? In the second edition of the Creative Ops Breakfast Series (Oct. 22, 2015), Stephen Hunking, Director of Studio Services and Asset Management at Showtime, Wiesia Mancewicz, Principal at High Touch Studio, and Lauren Philson, Digital Assets Manager for The Rockefeller Foundation, joined us in our TriBeCa headquarters to share their experience in building creative operations processes and workflows, taking them to the next level, and discussing the challenges they faced, from internal obstacles to managing external and internal technologies. Watch the full panel to learn more about how to build the perfect creative production workflow: The Creative Ops Breakfast Series is the breakfast lecture series for creative production and operations professionals to network and learn as well have a delicious breakfast (the last event featured Crepes By-Suzette!) ABOUT THE GUEST SPEAKERS:   Stephen Hunking Director of Studio Services & Asset Management, Showtime Stephen has been working in the media industry for over two decades. He oversees the Studio Production and the Digital Asset Teams at Showtime Networks. These departments are responsible for everything from print to in-house photography, mobile apps, and the entire digital asset catalog for the company. Wiesia Mancewicz Principal, High Touch Studio Wiesia is a seasoned executive with over 15 years experience in eCommerce and web technology. She currently runs her own retouching company, High Touch Studio, specializing in image post-production for retailers and photographers. Wiesia previously worked as Director of Imaging at macys.com where she supervised operations and image post-production for one of the most successful web retailers in the U.S. Lauren Philson Digital Assets Manager, The Rockefeller Foundation Several years in creative production and operations led Lauren into DAM, where she now specializes in enterprise system deployments in both the private and public sectors. Lauren is currently rolling out a new DAM for The Rockefeller Foundation as part of a larger digital enhancement to evolve the esteemed philanthropy’s message through storytelling and compelling media. Previously, she implemented DAM and a suite of creative tools for e-commerce leader Gilt.com.

As brands and retailers are embracing new omnichannel strategies, the demand for product photography and visual content is exponentially growing. How do omnichannel strategies affect brands and their creative operations? What challenges are they facing? How do they (plan to) adapt to this new environment? In the first edition of the Creative Operations Breakfast Series (Sept. 22, 2015), Vanessa Holden, Independent Consultant and Former VP Creative Director at West Elm, and Jim Zdancewicz, Head of Creative & Content Production at eBay Enterprise, joined us in our TriBeCa headquarters to discuss how the multiplicity of marketing channels have impacted brands and organizations’ creative operations. As new channels and devices are constantly emerging, companies and creative production teams are trying to produce the best content that fits their brand identity and messaging. After years of rushing for new pop-up channels, Vanessa and Jim have noticed a change in companies’ marketing and creative production approach: Brands are now putting more strategic thought into their creative assets, focusing on producing core assets, while constantly innovating by experimenting with a multitude of asset types, formats, and channels in order to test and learn. This reality-check is mostly due to stagnant or shrinking creative production budgets, especially for experimental assets. Creative teams themselves have also evolved: Because creative teams and operations are more condensed, they also need to be more versatile. On set, every single link of the creative operations chain needs to be clear about the company’s identity, objectives, and key messages to be able to shoot, pick the right edit, and properly edit the appropriate assets for each channel. They need to understand the nuances of each channel to make better creative decisions on-the-go. Watch the full panel to learn more about the impact of omnichannel marketing on creative operations: The Creative Operations Breakfast series brings together leaders in the creative production and operations community for a casual breakfast.   Globaledit is a cloud-based platform that empowers creative professionals to manage visual production at scale. Globaledit launched the Creative Operations Breakfast in 2015 to address key issues and challenges faced by creative production and operations professionals today.  

As brands and retailers are shortening their supply chains and embracing omnichannel retailing and marketing, the demand for product photography and visual content is exponentially growing. Today creative production and marketing teams are constantly facing the challenges of producing more visual content (e.g. product photography, editorial), for a larger number of on- and offline channels, and in a shorter period of time. Finding technological solutions to these growing pressures has become critical for creative production professionals and their companies in a highly visually competitive market. Scale & agility are key in this new creative production environment. During a DAM Meetup about “Product Photography & DAM”, Deanna Bedoya (Lafayette 148 NY), Sara Mitzner (swimsuitsforall), Nikki Schiwal (J.Crew), and Jim Zdancewicz (eBay Enterprise) shared their creative production volume and process, as well as the solutions they are using or considering to produce more content better, cheaper, and faster.  More visual content than ever before Top brands and retailers like J. Crew, Lafayette 148 NY, swimsuitsforall, and eBay Enterprise capture more products and lifestyle photography than ever before: J.Crew shoots around 10-15 different looks a day, 50 to 300 images for each look; Lafayette 148 NY shoots 1,500 images per month; swimsuitsforall produces approximately 2,500 images month per month; and eBay Enterprise shoots from 3 to 4,000 images for their clients from different sets all across different locations. That’s just the beginning. Once photographed, in-house creative production teams have to review each individual shot and make their selects for eCommerce websites, catalogs, social media, and a myriad of other channels. As Jim Zdancewicz from eBay Enterprise put it: “I don’t envy being an art director these days when you’re looking at three or four times the images they used to, a couple of years ago, because the content channels are so immense (…)”. At Lafayette 148 New York, Deanna Bedoya mentioned shooting “about 1,500 images per month… we make 150 selects per web shoot (that’s 50 SKUs 3-ways), for catalog shoots it’s usually 120”. Sounds like a lot? It is. Some creative production professionals estimate that 10 times more visual content is being produced today when compared to five years ago. Why visual content is crucial to brands and retailers There are more products to sell. Sara Mitzner, Content Director at swimsuitsforall, mentioned: “the biggest change for us has been volume because we’ve grown so much as a business. When the company started out, they only had about 10 styles. Now we have close to 1,100 styles per season”. Customers are requesting more details about those products. For Deanna Bedoya from Lafayette 148 NY, “the expectations for eCommerce are only getting larger, not smaller”. As eCommerce is maturing and eCommerce customers are becoming more sophisticated, they tend to have higher expectations when it comes to the products featured online. In the past, companies used to shoot front and back of the product featured online, and that was it. Today, customers are looking for detailed photography for each individual item (zipper, buttons etc.), videos for each product, and more. To appeal to their online customers, more and more brands and eCommerce websites are now shooting each product from every angle, and zoom in on small details. The rapid growth of consumer channels. The proliferation of social media has encouraged brands to create dedicated imagery and campaigns for these platforms. According to Nikki Schiwal, J. Crew now does about 25 shoots per month for social media only – that cover everything from J.Crew, Madewell, and Factory. Deanna Bedoya from Lafayette 148 NY mentioned creating dedicated images for each social channel, such as original imagery for Facebook ”because it is not as cut and dry as eCommerce”. Technology solutions to produce more, faster, cheaper To increase their efficiency and productivity, brands and retailers are looking to leverage technology solutions to scale their creative production. A digital asset management software or a workflow platform is typically the first step to keeping media assets organized and the process flowing. Teams can store and distribute files quickly, track and control access and usages of each of their assets. Swimsuitsforall currently uses globaledit as their DAM system: “[We] have the image database on globaledit. That’s where all the final imagery lives (…). We actually have two offices as well, so using globaledit really helps in that regard”. Outside of digital asset management systems, brands are increasingly looking for cost-efficiency. At Lafayette 148 NY, Deanna Bedoya mentioned eying technology solutions to cut the production load and lower its costs. This leads brands to explore platforms like Looklet, for example, where you can “shoot all of your clothing on mannequins and have the company clone it on to models”. While these solutions are not quite there yet, brands are keeping an eye out for the latest and greatest technology to improve their processes in a very competitive world. These quotes were taken out of the NY DAM Meetup about Product Photography & DAM that was hosted by globaledit on Tuesday, July 14, 2015. Watch the full recording to learn more about product photography & DAM.

You’ve got your creative production under control – if not, here are three ways to get your creative operations on track, now time to take a creative break! Here are 6 inspiring exhibits to check out this month: 1. “The Rise of Sneaker Culture” (NYC) The first exhibition that includes approximately 150 pairs of sneakers, looks at the evolution of the sneaker from its beginnings to its current role as status symbol and urban icon. Brooklyn Museum July 10 – October 4, 2015 Hours: Thu: 11a.m.-10p.m. Wed & Fri-Sun: 11a.m.-6p.m. Entrance: $16 suggested contribution 2. “Emerging” (LA) All about new, upcoming artists who are bringing “a fresh perspective and creative techniques to professional photography.” Get ready for some unfamiliar names and jaw-dropping images. Annenberg Space for Photography Jun 6, 2015 – September 20, 2015 Hours: Wed-Sun: 11am-6pm Free Admission 3. “Light, Paper, Process: Reinventing Photography” (LA) Center stage at the Getty Center’s latest exhibition. Rather than focusing on the final image, this retrospective will spotlight the canvas on which the photo was printed and how that affects the end-result. J. Paul Getty Museum April 14 – September 6, 2015 Hours: Wed–Mon 10a.m.-5p.m. Free Admission 4. “Zoe Leonard: Analogue” (NYC) This ambitious project made up of both color and black-and-white photos was created over a ten-year period, and takes its cues from Eugène Atget’s iconic documentation of ancient Parisian neighborhoods disappearing under the onslaught of modernization. MOMA – Museum Of Modern Art June 25 – August 30, 2015 Hours: Thu-Fri: 10:30a.m.-8p.m. Sat-Wed: 10:30a.m.-5:30p.m. Entrance: $25 5. “Sarah Charlesworth: Doubleworld” (NYC) Charlesworth, photographer and pioneer of the “Pictures” aesthetics, used newspapers, magazines and other sources as her palette, isolating image fragments against lush monochromatic backgrounds to deconstruct how we are manipulated by mass media. The New Museum June 24 – September 20, 2015 Hours: Thu: 11a.m.–9p.m. Wed & Fri–Sun: 11a.m.–6p.m. Entrance: $16   6. “Folk Art and American Modernism” (NYC) Stylistic borrowings from outsider art have become something of a vogue among contemporary painters. Self-taught artists have long exerted a pull on Modern Art, especially in the United States, where folk traditions have played a large role in the nation’s cultural life. American Folk Art Museum July 18–September 27, 2015 Hours: Tue–Thu: 11:30a.m–7:00p.m. Fri: 12p.m.–7:30p.m. Sat: 11:30a.m.-7p.m. Sun: 12p.m.–6pm. Free Admission

Globaledit had the pleasure of hosting a DAM Meetup NY about “Product Photography & DAM” featuring a great panel of experts and professionals who joined us to share their experience and best practices: Deanna Bedoya, Director of Creative Services, Lafayette 148 New York Sara Mitzner, Content Director, swimsuitsforall Nikki Schiwal, Senior Digital Archivist, J. Crew Jim Zdancewicz, Head of Global Content and Creative Production, eBay Enterprise With the rise of multi-channel retailing and marketing, product photography is booming. Today’s organizations are documenting, photographing, and videotaping every single item and SKU for various purposes. This results in extremely high volumes of assets generated, and creates growing challenges for companies when it comes to storing, tracking, reviewing, retouching, and sharing all those assets while managing time restrictions. Learn more about the challenges big retailers like eBay Enterprise, J. Crew, Lafayette 148 New York, swimsuitsforall are facing everyday when it comes to product photography, and the best practices they’ve put into place to solve them. Watch the full video:

Thanks to everyone who came out for last night’s Industrial Color Brands gallery opening!  We celebrated artist Jean Jullien‘s installation ‘In Case of Ubiquity’, illustrations overlooking New York City from 22 stories up in air.  The French artist concluded his 6 month residency in New York by creating a visual diary with the city skyline as his canvas. The finished work is a clever, insightful narrative on the nuances of life in the Big Apple. Check out a few choice pieces below and the full gallery from the event’s photo booth here. The exhibition runs through May 1st at the Industrial Color Brands gallery in TriBeCa. Email gallery@industrialcolor.com to come by!

We hosted the Advertising Production Club’s ‘Integrated Media’ panel last night to learn what makes a good integrated campaign work and why. The outstanding panel discussed what drives a brand, how media is distributed and how the creative process travels from concept to consumer.  Check out the some photos below and the full album on our facebook page.

We had a great time at LeBook’s Connections Los Angeles event yesterday.  Hosted by our friends at Smashbox Studios, we got to rub elbows with the best in creative production at an incredible facility. We joined sister divisions Industrial Color, Fast Ashleys Studios and Impact Digital to present Industrial Color Brands and cheers at the after-party. Check out the gallery for a peek into one of the highest caliber industry events in the biz.

Join us at LeBook Connections Los Angeles next Thursday, January 29th! We’re excited to present at the show hosted by our partner, Smashbox Studios, in Culver City.  We’ll be sharing a booth with sister divisions Industrial Color, Fast Ashleys Studios & Impact Digital.  Hope to see you there! LE BOOK Connections January 29th 11:30am – 7:30pm Smashbox Studios 8549 Higuera St. Culver City, CA 90232

On October 16, 2014, the Advertising Production Club of New York hosted a panel discussion on ‘Mobile Mayhem’ at Parsons The New School for Design. Product Manager Matt Glueckert joined representatives from Google, Adobe, Drawbridge, and AKQA to present the globaledit iPhone app to the crowd of creatives. https://vimeo.com/109867396

Panelists from luxury brands Estee Lauder and Tiffany & Co. joined Mathieu Champigny, VP of Sales & Marketing at globaledit, to discuss the benefits of managing a large brand’s digital assets — and the difficulties that come with it. Check out the video below to gain sharper insights into the big picture of Digital Asset Management (DAM) systems’ implementation, the importance of metadata, a well-structured taxonomy and more. Panelists Abigail Meisterman – Metadata Architect, Tiffany & Co. Melissa Pandolfi – Manager /  Archivist, The Estee Lauder Companies Mathieu Champigny – VP of Sales & Marketing, globaledit DAM and Luxury Brands from globaledit on Viemo. This event was part of the DAM Meetup Group in NYC.

The Industrial Color Brands family gathered last night to host the opening reception for PDN’s “The Curator” gallery exhibit. We enjoyed hors d’oeuvres and drinks over some great photography from the six winning series.  Our guests and friends from Fast Ashleys Studios, Impact Digital, and Industrial Color took in the great views from our terrace and got a little silly in our photo booth. See some of the highlights below and check out the rest of the party pics here. The gallery is now open to the public through July 9th. Please email gallery@industrialcolor.com to schedule a visit.

Last night we joined the rest of our Industrial Color Brands family to kick off the summer with a Monday Margarita Mixer. We mix and mingled with our teams from Industrial Color, Fast Ashleys Studios and Impact Digital for an evening filled with tequila, taquitos, a killer terrace and of course a piñata. Check out highlights in the rest of the gallery here.

Last week’s Henry Stewart DAM Conference proved to be another great forum to engage with the Digital Asset Management ( DAM) community, see our industry pals, and meet new faces.  We also had the opportunity to present in one of the TECH LAB sessions during the show.  Product Manager, Matt Glueckert, took the stage to share our newest mobile and video features and discuss the future of workflow.  Check out the recording of his session below.  Matt also joined The Food Network, HBO, and Turner Broadcasting on a panel to discuss creative operations and the journey from ‘Cam’ to ‘DAM’. Thanks to everyone who stopped by our booth and let’s stay in touch! globaledit TECH LAB Session at Henry Stewart DAM Conference from globaledit on Vimeo.

Last night we hosted the world’s largest DAM meetup group right here in our TriBeCa headquarters to discuss collaboration tools and digital asset management.  Our very own Product Manager, Matt Glueckert, was on the panel alongside Megan Re, Photo Director, Food Network and Shane Vella, Technical Solutions Engineer, North Plains. The panelists reviewed the ever changing workflow processes that Digital Asset Managers need to adopt, and the challenges faced in implementing solutions.  A productive and educational evening was had by all! View a recording of the panel discussion below. And if you’re in the NYC area, sign up to join the NYC DAM meetup group here. Working with collaboration tools and digital asset management How do groups and teams work together with digital assets today? Can you collaborate with others on digital assets today? How about after or even during a photo shoot? How about with video? What collaboration tools do you use along with digital asset management (DAM) today? How do these collaboration tools work with your DAM solution? Can you work remotely and still collaborate effectively? What about doing all this on mobile devices? Find out the answers to these questions and more during our NYC DAM Meetup panel discussion on working with collaboration tools and digital asset management. -Henrik De Gyor, Co-Organizer

globaledit’s Product Managers, Matt Glueckert and Tommy Lionelli were in Austin this past week at the SXSW Interactive Festival to see the latest and greatest technology buzz the industry has to offer. The duo heard Google’s take on the New Digital Age, sat in on a conversation with Neil deGrasse Tyson, and had a chance encounter with the real Lucas from Venmo’s viral NYC subway ad campaign. The duo capped off their trip with an incredible experience at Pandora Radio’s send off party. With all that they saw at SXSW Interactive, the team can agree that there are some truly amazing technological changes erupting throughout the industry. globaledit is proud to be a part of it all!

A few lucky members of the globaledit team are on their way (literally!) to Austin, TX for the SXSW Interactive Festival. Product Managers, Matt Glueckert and Tommy Lionelli are headed to the largest music festival of its kind to mingle with the best in the industry and get a look at what’s next in the world of tech. SXSW’s take on this year’s event: “An incubator of cutting-edge technologies and digital creativity, the 2014 event features five days of compelling presentations and panels from the brightest minds in emerging technology, scores of exciting networking events hosted by industry leaders and an unbeatable lineup of special programs showcasing the best new websites, video games and startup ideas the community has to offer. From hands-on training to big-picture analysis of the future, SXSW Interactive has become the place to preview the technology of tomorrow today.” Matt and Tommy will be filling us in on their adventures along the way, so stay tuned for a play by play of all the Hi-tech happenings!

Tag Yourselves, Relive the Party Last week friends and industry peers of globaledit joined in a celebration. Together we sipped on our fabulous specialty cocktail “The Accelerator” and learned more about the journey we’re embarking on in 2014. The big theme of the evening was that we’re “ready” for what’s to come. We hope globaledit will make a difference in your 2014 adventure. Our team took some great footage during the event. Tag yourselves in photos in the Keynote facebook album. The following video is a recording of our Keynote presentation. You should also check out the footage from our celebration!

Amidst our teams shooting runway shows this New York Fashion Week, we also brought a presentation right into our own abode. Industrial Color Brands proudly presented Adam Selman’s FW14 collection. Selman worked with stylist, Mel Ottenberg and collaborated with headphone designer, Skullcandy to deliver an impressive sophomore collection. Our gallery was filled with some of New York City’s most creative including V Magazine, i-D, Interview, Style.com, Vogue, Amy Sedaris, Lauren Esersky, Ladyfag, Jeanette Hayes and more! To view some photos behind the scenes click here, and check out the personal interview with Mr. Selman himself above. Until next time #NYFW…

Last night the Industrial Color Brands family got together for a good ol’ fashioned Holiday Hoedown!! We brought in 15 bales of hay and a four-piece Bluegrass band that brought the house down.  The folks from globaledit, Impact Digital, Fast Ashleys Studios, and Industrial Color captured the fun in our farm themed photo booth.  Check out the gallery here!

The globaledit team had a wonderful time at Ngage last week in Niagara Falls! Thanks to our partner, North Plains for hosting such a wonderful event loaded with industry leaders and thought-provoking sessions. Have a look at the video above featuring our very own Jody Martinez for a recap of the event as well as information about our partnership with North Plains.

Industrial Color Brands exhibited together at Le Book Connections New York in Soho last week. Representatives from all divisions, including GLOBALedit, Industrial Color, Impact Digital, and Fast Ashleys Studios were on hand to unveil new products and services and talk shop with the industry@f40s top creative professionals and brands. Thanks to all who stopped by our booth to learn more about our capabilities!

We’re looking forward to another productive Henry Stewart Digital Asset Management Conference at The Hilton New York on May 2-3. We will also be hosting some informative educational sessions (see below). If you have not registered yet, click here and use the globaledit discount code GLOBALEDIT100 and receive $100 off of registration fees. Brand Workflows and DAM – The who, what, where, when, and why Friday, May 3, 3:20-4:00pm A panel discussion featuring Steve Kalalian, CEO, globaledit on what the future holds for creative operations; what is already on the horizon, and what is just over the horizon. Tech Track: WIP – Controlling Your Assets from Capture through Production Friday, May 3, 11:20-11:50am Matt Glueckert, Business Development Manager, globaledit, will discuss current customers’ success and performance factors for implementing a solid WIP platform.

North Plains held their annual Partner Conference on December 6-7 in Toronto, at the Soho Metropolitan Hotel.  We were proud to attend, representing Industrial Color’s sales, product and marketing teams.  We heard about plans for 2013 and spent time with the North Plains team and channel partners from around the world.  There’s much more to come as we work closely together to offer customers the best work-in-progress and DAM solutions. Check out the photos from the conference here.  

The 2012 Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show aired this week. There was no shortage of glitz and glamour as the very lovely VS Angels rocked the runway and brought in 9.3 million viewers. We are always very excited to be a part of this annual holiday show. Victoria’s Secret used globaledit to manage all the on-site show photography and behind the scenes footage. Check out the photos and watch performances by Rihanna, Justin Bieber and Bruno Mars from the show here.  

We’re still stuffed from yesterday’s Industrial Color office potluck! Lasagna, osso bucco, and meatballs, oh my! It was a fantastic culinary turnout. It was great to enjoy and share with each other. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!    Our office will be closed from Thursday 11/22 and Friday 11/26. For support help, submit a ticket to support@globaledit.com.  

This month GLOBALedit went to the Henry Stewart DAM LA show. We showed off LightTable to the West Coast while leading and participating in several panels and discussions. Check out our photos from the show: GLOBALedit Booth Day 1: How Creative and IT can Work Together, presented by Christopher Grakal, VP of Photo and Digital Asset Management, Turner Broadcasting System, Inc   Day 1: Work in Progress is DAM for Creatives, presented by Matt Glueckert and Aaron Holm of GLOBALedit and Industrial Color Software Day 2: How to Make Talent Approvals So Easy, Even Zombies Can Do It,  presented by Rick Zwicker, Director of Photography at AMC Check out this highlight video from the conference!  

Get to know Dan Fusaro, globaledit Software Developer and guy who likes to eat. Dan was featured on foodie blog Midtown Lunch recently and revealed his Downtown culinary savvy.  Here’s a peek of his interview: Favorite lunches downtown: … South’s on Church (btw. White & Franklin) for nachos. Their nachos are the greatest thing you’ve ever seen come out of a kitchen, time and time again. They take the care to layer everything nicely, cook it through, top with guac, sour cream, pico and plenty of jalapenos. I dare you to find a better plate of nachos anywhere. I finished these by myself on a dare for lunch once, I was never the same… Read the rest of Dan’s interview here as well as his top picks for a great lunch in TriBeCa.  

Next week the GLOBALedit team will be at the Henry Stewart DAM Conference in Los Angeles. Here are some highlights we’re looking forward to participating in: North Plains & GLOBALedit Strategic Alliance  Discover how we partnered to offer enterprises the best-of-breed solutions to seamlessly manage content. Educational Sessions Panel: New Approached to Building an Effective Strategy – What DAM has to Offer with Rick Zwicker, Director of Photography, AMC, Thursday, 11/1 @11:40am Panel: How Creative and IT Can Work Together with Christopher Grakal (Turner Broadcasting), Lisette Azar (CBS), Aaron Holm (Industrial Color), Paul Nicholson (Showtime Networks) and Chris Wittmayer (NASCAR), Thursday, 11/1 @ 1:00pm Case Study: Talent Approvals So Easy, Even Zombies Can Do It, Rick Zwicker, AMC, Friday 11/2 @ 11:50am Technology Track: Work In Progress is DAM for Creatives, GLOBALedit, Thursday 11/1 @ 1:30pm                            Rick Zwicker                       Christopher Grakal                        Lisette Azar                        AMC                               Turner Broadcasting                             CBS                                                Aaron Holm                           Matt Glueckert                                           Industrial Color                        Industrial Color Join us at Booth #8 and experience the GLOBALedit LightTable. We look forward to seeing you there! Register Now and save $100 when you enter discount code “INDUSTRIAL100′ “

Last week GLOBALedit presented at Createasphere at The New Yorker Hotel. The market debut of the GLOBALedit LightTable was a success! In light of the release, we offered live demonstrations to members of the digital asset management community while participating in panel discussions and case studies. Conducted Demonstrations with Industry Leaders at the GLOBALedit booth. Christopher Grakal from Turner Broadcasting Conducting Live Case Study with the New GLOBALedit LightTable Aaron Holm of Industrial Color Software Moderating Workflow Panel Featuring client BJ Gray from Victoria’s Secret Visitors Enjoyed Collaborating on GLOBALedit’s LightTable at Booth #214 Watch our exclusive interview and demo for DAM Coalition here. “

Congratulations to AMC and Showtime on your Emmy Award wins! We tuned in on Sunday night to watch the 64th Primetime Emmy Awards and to see them win big and take home statuettes. Showtime won for its Outstanding Drama Series, Homeland. Co-stars Claire Danes and Damien Lewis both went home with “Best Actor- Drama” and “Best Actress-Drama”. Homeland is Showtime’s first series to win top prize for an Outstanding Drama Series. Aaron Paul won the Emmy for “Best Supporting Actor – Drama” in AMC‘s Breaking Bad. Be sure to tune in to the season premiere of Homeland on Sunday, September 30th at 9PM on Showtime. Breaking Bad fans…we’ll have to sit tight until Summer 2013 for the final season! “

This weekend GLOBALedit teamed up with Microsoft at the Style Coalition VIP Influencer Lounge at The Empire Hotel for New York Fashion Week. We showed off the new GLOBALedit LightTable@f2 in the suite dedicated to showing how technology is affecting the fashion industry. Special guests, including industry bloggers and media outlets, were invited to partake in a Tech Meet Up, led by Steve Clayton, Editor of blog Next at Microsoft. The Lounge focused on the emerging technology trends that are contributing to the forward movement of the fashion industry. The Influencer Lounge was a perfect opportunity for us to share a sneak peak of our soon-to-be-released GLOBALedit LightTable@f3! Steve Clayton, Editor, Next at Microsoft; Yuli Ziv, Style Coalition, Founder & CEO Beth Keebler of Waggener Edstorm, with GLOBALedit’s Lindsay Rapoport, Marketing Director and Irene Yoo, Director of Product Management   Wesley Robison of PSFK.com checking out the LightTable?.   Thanks again to Style Coalition for hosting such a fabulous event! “

We are thrilled to announce our partnership with Style Coalition for #NYFW!   The leading blogger network has invited GLOBALedit and Microsoft to host their VIP Influencer Lounge at The Empire Hotel. Located next to the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week tents at Lincoln Center the 3-day event lounge will be a retreat from the runways. We teamed up with Microsoft to provide an experience focused on technology affecting the fashion industry by showcasing our very own LightTable ?. The GLOBALedit LightTable? is the first digital touch table that collaborates in real-time with the GLOBALedit cloud-based platform, bringing photo editing, image markups, layout creation and creative review sessions from the web to your fingertips. Inside the Influencer Lounge, guests will be be treated to hair styling by ted gibson and a showcase of accessories by Skagen Denmark and shoeline.com. Event presenter Style Coalition recently launched SC TV, their own channel of exclusive and original content featuring the digital world’s top beauty and fashion bloggers, and will be on scene to capture all the behind-the-scenes action at NY Fashion Week. Follow @globaledit on Twitter this week for our #NYFW coverage! “

On June 28th, GLOBALedit and the APC welcomed clients, agencies and industry leaders to our TriBeCa office for a special educational event on how web-based technologies are revolutionizing content management. We were excited to see many friendly faces as well as have the opportunity to present to APC members, agencies, and brands. The crowd gathered at 6PM at our 22nd floor office and cooled off with refreshments, enjoyed impeccable views from our balcony and said goodbye to a 90? day.   Guests were welcomed by Aaron Holm, VP of Industry Relations, who gave insight into how a platform like GLOBALedit fits (but most often stands out from) into generalized digital asset communities. Following was a demo by Matt Glueckert, who walked the audience through the process of initial digital asset capture, onto editing, retouching and approval all in under 10 minutes! Matt Glueckert, Business Development Manager Christopher Grakal, Vice President of Photography and Digital Asset Management for Turner Broadcasting, made a special trip from Atlanta to demonstrate how his team uses our new GLOBALedit App for Surface.  Christopher Grakal, VP of Photography and Digital Asset Management for Turner Broadcasting Left: Matt Peterse, Digital Production for Sony Music Entertainment and Chris Borgman, Owner of Chris Borgman Photography The educational mixer concluded with live demo stations where guests were able to experience GLOBALedit in more detail. Other notable highlights include a lucky raffle winner going home with a brand new iPad and the announcement of GLOBALedit’s donation to the APC Scholarship Fund. Matt Peterse, Digital Production for Sony Music Entertainment Left: Jim Sewell, Account Executive at Contemporary Graphics & APC Membership Chair. Right: David A. Luke, Business Development Director at DAL Consulting & APC Education Chairman Thanks again to the APC and to all of our guests who made this event such a success!   To view a fun video recap of the event click here. “

globaledit is proud to be a part of Henry Stewart’s DAM Conference 2012 New York. This year the conference is taking place at the Hilton New York on May 10th and 11th. Stop by booth #23 to experience the latest touch software on the Microsoft Surface table. We will also be doing live globaledit demos on the newly released Version 4 software on both the iPad application and the traditional web-based platform. globaledit will be participating in the following presentations: How the iPad has changed our DAM Consumption – The Next Chapter Handling ‘Work in Progress’ – how creative teams can use DAM Why DAM Doesn’t Work for Creatives Visit the globaledit website for more information about our platform. All DAM attendees are invited to attend the DAM NYC Party hosted at Industrial Color (22 stories above Manhattan for best views of New York City)! RSVP to DAM2012@industrialcolor.com today. For more information about CC52: The Exhibition, please visit cc52.tumblr.com. “

We were in London this past weekend to participate in Comic Relief’s amazing Sport Relief 2012. Comic Relief, a major charity based in the UK that drive[s] positive change through the power of entertainment”, produces this biennial campaign to generate massive awareness and funding for a variety of charitable causes by connecting sport, celebrity, family, and physical activity. On Friday, we were part of the studio audience for the Sport Relief 2012 telethon broadcast on BBC. The program featured major British sport and entertainment stars and generated over ?50 million. The funds will be spent by Comic Relief in both the UK and the world’s poorest countries. On Sunday, over one million people in hundreds of venues across the U.K. participated in the Sport Relief Mile, running 1, 3, or 6 miles to raise money through sponsorships. The London event, in which we participated, was hosted in front of the beautiful Buckingham Palace. Behind the scenes, the Comic Relief photo team used GLOBALedit to upload, edit, and distribute photography to press and media outlets across the U.K.. The team graciously allowed us to film their work in action during the busy production. Stay tuned for a Comic Relief case study video coming soon! For more information on how GLOBALedit can accelerate your event / production workflow, contact us at info@globaledit.com.\

Last night, we faced off against design agency Area17 in an epic ping pong tournament. Fueled by pizza from our favorite pie shop Saluggis and beer, members of Industrial Color and Area17 went head-to-head in a single elimination bracket. The final showdown came down to Seiji Ohashi, Industrial Color IT manager, and Kemp Attwood, partner at Area17. The two were neck and neck right to the end, and after a triple (or quadruple@f36) overtime Seiji took the crown! He got to take home a nice bottle of Buffalo Trace whiskey as the prize. Area17 is an interactive design agency located in New York City and Paris who specialized in creating modern interactive systems. Their design work on the upcoming GLOBALedit web application, the GLOBALedit App for iPad, and the GLOBALedit App for Surface has been truly beautiful and inspiring for both us and our clients. Many thanks for all the hard work and a great game; we look forward to the next round! “

Industrial Color will be attending National Retail Federation (NRF) 101st Annual Convention & EXPO on January 15th to 18th, 2012. We will be joining Microsoft along with our Surface development partner SevenSteps to preview the industry’s first digital table, which will work in real time with GLOBALedit. The new Microsoft Surface multi-touch system, the Samsung SUR40, features a 40-inch HD 1080p screen and relies on PixelSense, which uses the pixels of the screen itself to act as cameras and register both human and object input. The new Surface holds huge potential in the retail world as well as other communication and information based industries. We’re excited to be involved with this new technology and believe it will be a revolutionary and innovative tool for photo and video production teams to create and collaborate on content. The NRF Convention will be taking place January 15 – 18, 2012 at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in New York City. Visit the NRF site for more information on attending the convention for exclusive sneak peeks and demos on what’s ahead for globaledit. Stay tuned for official announcements soon! “

On Wednesday we went to check out the new Lytro Light Field Cameras on Display at the 7th Annual WIRED Store in Times Square NYC. It was really great to get a hands on demo of the new camera and see how it works. It allows you to take a picture and to then focus and re-focus after the fact. You can then share your images online which allows anyone to interact and select new focuses in your images. You can see more and try it out for yourself here. Check out our photos from the event below! The three Lytro camera models will be featured along with more than 200 other hot new products. Visit the store between noon and 7pm Wednesdays through Sundays between Friday, Nov. 18 and Saturday, Dec. 24 to request a Lytro camera demo with one of the WIRED Store employee ?Ambassadors.? “

Last week we stopped by the Gizmodo Gallery opening at White Box here in NYC to check out everything from the 82-inch LCD touch screen, to the high speed automatic pancake-making machine, to a machine that will paint little anime cartoons on your nails. On display was a fantastic collection of iconic gadgets of the past as well as the latest and most innovative in technology including a variety of smartphones, tablets, and computers. Naturally, we had a great time looking around and playing with all the fun gizmos. Check out some of our photos from the gallery below. “

The 2011 Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show aired nationally last week, shot here in New York City earlier this month.Victoria’s Secret used GLOBALedit to manage all the on-site show photography and behind the scenes video footage. We are incredibly excited to once again be a part of this amazing, ever-growing production! Check out the photos and behind the scenes video from the show, and watch the full episode here to view the elaborate costumes and catch performances by Jay-Z, Kanye West, Maroon 5, and Nicki Minaj.

Last Thursday, Industrial Color hosted its first GLOBALedit User Conference at our NYC offices. It was a huge success and a great opportunity for us to preview upcoming technologies and for everyone to network with and learn from each other. Organizations who participated: AMC Networks, Digitas, Food Network, Getty Images, HBO, J.Crew, NBC Universal Cable Group, New York & Company, Nickelodeon, Saatchi & Saatchi, Scripps Interactive, Showtime Networks, Starz Entertainment, Time Inc., Turner Broadcasting, Victoria’s Secret Stores, Victoria’s Secret Direct, Victoria’s Secret Pink, and Warner Bros. Image Lab A warm thank-you to everyone who was able to attend, and especially to our esteemed presenters: Stephen Hunking from Showtime, Maribeth Burton from Victoria’s Secret, and Christopher Grakal from Turner Broadcasting.

We visited this year’s New York Comic Con this past weekend at the Javits Center right here in Manhattan. NYCC is a four -day event that plays host to the latest and greatest in comics, collectibles, technology and gaming and is the second largest comic book and pop culture gathering in the country. We made our way through the aisles and crowds to see our friends over at The Walking Dead booth, where comic creator Robert Kirkman was posing for photos and signing autographs for fans. Also among the exhibitors we visited: NBCUniversal, Disney, Animal Planet (a division of Discovery), Warner Brothers, and Anchor Bay Entertainment (a division of Starz). Check out our photos/video below from our adventure at NYCC’11!

A major client of ours gives out some GLOBALedit love at the Creatasphere Entertainment Technology Exposition that took place this week at the New Yorker Hotel.  Here, he demonstrates the GLOBALedit Image Editor and its streamlined photo editing and viewing capabilities. Visit the Creatasphere website to find out more about the conference, and stay tuned for more GLOBALedit news!

Industrial Color Software is planning the 1st Annual GLOBALedit User Conference to take place in the Fall of 2011. We would love to get your feedback so that we can plan a great event. The survey should not take more than 2 or 3 minutes. Contact us at support@globaledit.com with any additional questions.

Yesterday evening, VP of Development Aaron Holm spoke at a fashion and technology meet-up presentation organized by Fashion 2.0. The event featured presentations from several retail-targeted technology companies including Clothia, ShopperSeeks and Stylect App. Aaron focused on GLOBALedit?s capabilities to greatly improve workflow and collaboration between teams in the retail industry. To learn more about the event and Fashion 2.0 click here. Have twitter? Follow the trending #fashion20 to see audience responses to the presentation. Thanks to Yuli Ziv and Fashion 2.0 for organizing such an interesting group of presenters. We are looking forward to the next meetup. “

Aaron Holm, Industrial Color Software’s VP of Development, will be speaking at this years PRIMEX Leadership Summit in Coral Gables, Florida. Aaron will be a panelist on Wednesday’s 5pm session PROCESS: Enabling Integrated Media answering the question – What are the best practices for operating an efficient, scalable, integrated cross-platform media production workflow? Senior executives from IDEAlliance and IPA members will be gathering at the Biltmore Hotel from February 23-25, 2011 to discuss the integration of print and digital media across the entire media supply chain and to learn about integrated best practices, efficient workflows, and profitable business models.

Globaledit will be hosting an interactive Lunch & Learn workshop with IO Integration at Industrial Color in New York City on Thursday, February 10, 2011. We’ll show you how you can save time and money by giving productions teams of any size the power to access and manage both images and videos from anywhere, anytime using Globaledit. Join us for lunch and learn how you can: Turbo charge your photo and video upload, review, and approval workflow Streamline library management using a easy, secure, drag-and-drop interface Use Globaledit to gain incredible workflow efficiencies like today’s top retailers and ad agencies Eliminate hard drives, DVDs, and FTP from the production workflow with built-in high-speed file distribution Leverage the powerful creative approval system favored by the world’s leading entertainment companies Try out Globaledit with your Production Teams! Exclusive, risk-free trial enables on-the-go review/approval – includes iPad application Click here to register today or call 408-996-3420 to RSVP – the event is free but space is limited.

Our good friends at the Aperture Foundation hosted legendary New York photographer Bruce Davidson last night at the Levi’s Photo Workshop in Soho. You can read more about last night’s event here at the Levi’s Photo Workshop website and learn more about the Aperture Foundation at their site.

Please join us and our partners at IO Integration for an exclusive Lunch & Learn workshop June 23 at the SOHO House in NYC. When: Wednesday June 23, 2010 10:00 a.m.- 4:00 p.m. Where: SOHO House Seating is limited so register today! The Lunch & Learn workshop will offer strategies for gaining band control and demonstrate how advanced production workflows when integrated into your existing process can help you save your company time and money. For more information please visit www.iointegration.com/LL

Industrial Color Software will be at the Henry Stewart DAM Symposium in NYC May 20-May 21. This year’s Henry Stewart DAM Symposium will be held at the Hilton Hotel in Midtown Manhattan. Our partners at IO Integration will be there providing GLOBALedit demonstrations and information.  There are also many panels and presentations that could be useful if you’re hoping to learn more about Digital Asset Management concepts, products, and best practices.  You can learn more about the conference and agenda by going to the conference website here. If you’d like to schedule a meeting to learn more about GLOBALedit or to find out some of the developments scheduled for release in 2010, please contact us by email at info@globaledit.com to schedule an appointment during the conference. This year, we’ve introduced video support, added Dropboxes to make it easy to get content from anywhere, and have an iPad app coming out in June that we can’t wait to unveil.  VP of Development Aaron Holm will be on location at the conference meeting with customers, partners, and the usual DAM suspects. If the weather’s nice, the party could even move downtown to our Tribeca offices for drinks on the terrace.

Victoria’s Secret PINK will be opening its very first stand-alone store in New York City@f2s Soho district this Saturday, March 13. Victoria’s Secret will be throwing a public grand opening party hosted by PINK models Behati Prinsloo and Chanel Iman. If you?re in the neighborhood, check out the opening of their store located at 565 Broadway, on the corner of Broadway and Prince. GLOBALedit has provided image management for all images PINK in preparation for the store’s upcoming launch including in-store displays, catalogue mailers, and other promotional materials.  The members of the marketing operations group of Victoria’s Secret PINK were able to collaborate with their retouching and print vendors throughout the country quickly and securely- distributing terabytes of campaign images back and forth. To learn more about Victoria@f3s Secret PINK, the worlds #1 loungewear brand, visit www.vspink.com

Aaron Holm, Industrial Color Software’s VP of Development and Integration, will be speaking at this years Createasphere / EXPLORE Digital Asset Management  conference and exhibition in Universal City, CA. On Thursday, February 18, Aaron will be speaking about managing worldwide workflow, the strengths and weaknesses of the current asset management technologies, trends that are driving innovation, and how high speed file transfer, social media , and asset management technology are converging into global digital workflows.  Aaron will also be moderating a panel discussion about capitalizing on storage Createasphere / EXPLORE Digital Asset Management is a two-day conference, held February 17-18, and is comprised of keynote presentations, expert panels, and educational sessions lead by industry insiders.  This conference is designed to bring together industry leaders, organizations and practitioners to define the future best practices of the entertainment, broadcast, gaming, advertising and media industry. If you are interested in attending this conference feel free to contact us for a discount code before you register.

For those who may have missed the the sexiest night on television” the first time, Victoria’s Secret will re-air its fashion show on the CW tonight at 9. Watch Alessandra, Doutzen, Miranda and Heidi strut down the runway as The Black Eyed Peas perform.  For a preview of the excitement click here  globaledit is proud to manage and support Victoria’s Secret’s Terabytes of very sexy images from photo shoots and campaign visuals while encouraging collaboration with their partners and vendors.

IO Integration will be showing globaledit at the Henry Stewart DAM LA show next week Monday Nov. 9 and Tuesday Nov. 10.  This years theme is “The Art and Practice of Managing Digital Media.”  If you are in LA next week, please stop by IO Integration’s booth and say hi.

We’re pleased to participate in this year’s IPA conference in Chicago which runs April 22-24 at the Westin Michigan in Downtown Chicago. The conference brings together industry leaders and provides sessions on color management, pre-media, cross media marketing, technology, and creative workflow.. We’re also very pleased to participate in the production of a cross media marketing campaign for Big Brothers Big Sisters of Metro Chicago. The campaign would utilize the IPA members, vendor sponsors, and conference attendees to execute the campaign consistent with its conference theme of ?Leveraging Cross Media Convergence? and utilizing the IPA status as the premiere pre-media workflow conference in the US. The photography and production teams will use globaledit to upload photography from multiple sites at high speed, choose selects from hotel rooms and offices around the country, and distribute high resolution files for retouchers using our high speed XFER file transfer system. This is an important campaign and we’re proud to be involved. On Wednesday, April 23 at 3:30 pm, I will participate in a panel on the Technology Track titled: Digital Asset Management: Making it Work. The focus of the panel is to showcase real world technology and examples of digital asset management systems providing value and changing the way people work. These themes are at the core of our vision and I’m looking forward to the session. If you’re in Chicago on the 23rd, please stop by and participate in the discussion.