The management, secure access and distribution of digital media and files is also becoming increasingly important in the public sector at all levels. Despite this, many organizations still struggle daily with the problems of digital file and folder chaos.

Time-consuming

For example, it takes a lot of time to find a specific file, duplicate files and folders take up a lot of valuable space, and employees are often frequently forced to manually convert and edit images. For municipalities and government agencies, this is often no different. They therefore need to see the value of a media management strategy and having a singlesource-of-truth for all content, files and media. A Digital Asset Management (DAM) application offers the solution. Indeed, it is not just a digital repository for storing, organizing and sharing
files, but offers innovative functionalities such as:

• Conversions and variants for multimedia (re)use

• Adding and checking metadata

• Approval and permission of use and access

• Linking media to channels and systems

• Controlled sharing of media

• Mechanisms for rights expiration and archiving

Active version control

Municipal and government marketing teams in particular are often challenged to execute large tasks and campaigns with agencies often on minimal budgets and with minimal IT support. Instead, these tasks and campaigns produce a large amount of creative output such as images, documents, videos and other files, all of which
must be efficiently stored, controlled, distributed and archived. An effective DAM solution addresses all of these needs and can take a lot of work off your hands.

Relocation

Unfortunately, many organizations in recent years have merely moved chaos from one place to another. A shoebox full of slides became a closet full of DVDs and those were converted back to (network) disks full of obscure or personal (sub)folder structures. So there are some significant challenges from the past in implementing a successful DAM application, and it requires thoughtful analysis of needs and workflows to determine the right strategy. But as an organization, it is time to take action now, as the number of files continues to grow exponentially in the meantime. So don't become the next digital chaos victim, but grow into a Digital Asset Management superhero!

More info: Comrads Digital Asset Management >>

Article Comrads in: Stadswerk magazine 09/2016