Is it time to upgrade your digital asset management system? If you’re not sure, it could be because you’re used to your current slower, less efficient way of doing things. That is, you’ve become accustomed to an early-generation DAM system
The next generation of DAM is here!
But before diving into what your future asset management offers, let’s look at the top four signs that it’s time to upgrade to a next-generation DAM system.
Your Use of Digital Assets Has Grown Rapidly
When your enterprise was young, you might not have needed a robust, cutting-edge DAM system. Maybe you didn’t use a DAM system at all and instead relied on managing a few asset folders on your hard drive. After all, you might have only used digital assets on occasion, such as creating a brochure or updating your website.
But with company growth comes a new set of challenges. For example, many organizations have staff producing weekly website updates, email newsletters and e-blasts, countless brochures, and daily updates across multiple social media channels. So not only has your use of assets outgrown your old system but so has your creative and marketing staff.
The Size and Scope of Your Library Has Grown
Greater use of assets presents another problem. Your asset library has grown disorganized and out of control. And with growth comes increased difficulty keeping all of these assets categorized. Rapid growth has turned your library into an unwieldy mess, making the images, videos, graphics, and other files increasingly challenging to search. You find yourself trying to manage categories of subject matter areas, places, dates, and even colors and moods.
It is harder and harder to get quality metadata for your objects, and for the last 30 years the only way to search a DAM has been via metadata. Plus, even with training, some team members think differently than others. For example, a photographer may be tagging images by events and dates while your designer or webmaster seeks particular objects for their projects. Even a relatively strong DAM system of the old-fashioned variety can’t keep up.
Your DAM Doesn’t Integrate Well with the Logins, Marketing, and Creative Systems You Use Most
Sometimes, you don’t know a problem exists until you’re presented with a better way of doing things. For instance, many staff members and managers must use multiple logins to access their assets, content management systems, and creative software, such as Adobe CC.
Furthermore, when they log in to one system, they just accept that the various applications aren’t well-integrated. They download the needed assets from their current DAM system to a folder on their drive, save, close the window, open their CMS, and upload again. Some employees may even rely on email attachments of a cloud service such as Drive for creative collaboration, which is cumbersome. Neither is aware that you can now access a modern DAM from within your CMS or Adobe application. You might not even realize how clunky and time-consuming the process is until you’ve experienced a next-generation DAM system!
You Still Rely on Keyword Metadata and Auto-Tagging
With all the difficulties stated above, you must increasingly depend on metatags when storing and retrieving your assets. The previous generation of DAM systems requires it! That means they need to create a complex library of metatags for all of your assets, or work with fairly random freeform captions. Each employee is expected to use this system consistently – which rarely happens – or they will need to funnel all their searches through a DAM manager, which creates a bottleneck and runs counter to the idea of “democratizing” access to your assets.
Perhaps your older DAM system has auto-tagging functionality. But auto-tagging is not a useful solution: it usually adds a few words that are marginally useful, and a lot of words that just add noise to your system. Furthermore, these systems still rely on a list of words created by a vendor. So if you’re searching for images of “electronics” or “computers” generally, and your vendor uses specific keywords such as “PC” or “Mac,” you’re out of luck. Same with “kitten” or “pet” vs. “cat” or countless other examples. This is how time gets wasted, frustration grows, and important files become impossible to find.
Welcome to NOMAD™!
Meet the next generation of digital asset management search technology!
Say goodbye to 30-year-old technology and lost files. NOMAD™ AI Visual Search from MerlinOne addresses and solves every issue outlined above. Using advanced AI technology, NOMAD™ recognizes both the concept you are looking for, and the content of every image you store in this cutting-edge system. That means you can search using natural language, without having to guess the exact metatags, and NOMAD™ retrieves exactly the assets you need. Need a picture of “alternative energy” for your next project? NOMAD™ retrieves images of wind turbines and solar panels! “happy people running” more serves your needs? NOMAD™ understands emotions and actions and gets you the best images.
What’s more, capabilities of NOMAD™, as part of the Merlin DAM system, are extended to the integrates with the CMS and creative software you use most, and it does it all through a single login. WordPress, Sitecore, and Drupal connectors ensure your content managers find exactly the assets they need without leaving their CMS environment, and without needing to exactly match keyword metatags. And the Adobe CC Extension ensures that your creative team works from the most up-to-date files when working on their Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, or Premiere Pro collaborations.
Ready for the Next Generation in DAM?
Contact the MerlinOne team with questions regarding Merlin with NOMAD™ AI Visual Search and how it can benefit your enterprise. We make it easy to schedule a demo or take the next step in the future of DAM and request a price quote today!