Building trust is tricky. And as the saying goes, trust is hard to earn but easy to lose. So what does that have to do with digital asset management (DAM)? A lot!

Each year, the Widen Summit focuses on concepts that are key to DAM success. 

In 2017, we honed in on what it takes to set better goals. Expanding on that in 2018, we learned how to tackle those goals using a strong strategy framework. This year though, we took a step back to realize that in order for people to believe in your goals and strategy, you need to first earn their trust. And this theme carried throughout our three days together — taking center stage in workshops, sessions, and keynotes. 

Widen Summit attendees will arrive in October with a range of roles, knowledge levels, and expectations. No matter what individual goals may be, the collective goal is that each and every one of you will go back to your place of employment with actionable plans and new strategies. Plan to take your Widen Collective site and your working process around it to the next level at this year’s Summit.

People. Priority. Process. Three big topics of discussion for digital marketing teams everywhere and the core of all presentations at this year’s Henry Stewart DAM Europe 2017 conference.

Widen was a sponsor of #DAMEU a couple of weeks ago. It was fun to see the familiar faces of DAM veterans like David Lipsey, John Horodyski, and Theresa Regli overseas, and downright awesome to be in London.

Learn from the most powerful group of people in the whole DAM world — you, the DAM practitioners. Each of you brings a unique background and skillset to the Widen DAMster community. At this year’s Widen Summit, you’ll hear about others’ DAM problems and successes as you explore new ways to use DAM to address your organizational challenges.

The MarTech conference brings together 2,500+ marketing and IT executives and managers. In addition to attending sessions, our team gathered some great insights from one-on-one conversations with marketers and IT pros at our booth. Here’s a look at some of the key themes and takeaways.

There's a new opportunity for you to develop your digital asset management skills and it was informed by your DAM admin peers.

In the fall of 2016, we embarked on a training experiment to measure customer interest in training and test some material we were considering. We invited twelve admins to join us for two days before the Widen Summit in exchange for their feedback on the content and an exploration of their training needs.

As you may have guessed from the title, today we’re sharing real-world, proven strategies on how to make your visual content easily accessible so you never “wake up” wondering where your content is ever again.

Some of you may have already caught the analogy to the movie trilogy, “The Hangover.” Since the information we’re sharing here was originally presented at the Intelligent Content Conference (ICC) in Las Vegas, NV, we thought it would be fun to include some movie references throughout the article.

The Creative Operations Exchange conference, April 2017, San Francisco, CA

It’s always awesome to visit California, but Widen’s trip in April to the inaugural Creative Ops conference in San Francisco was a great excuse to go.

Creative Operations is a new-ish term for the group more commonly known as Creative Services and is responsible for increasing efficiency and compliance in the creative production process. Moving production under the umbrella of operations is elevating its value – a good move if you ask me. While the group has always been essential to the success of the creative process, it’s also been seriously underrated in terms of creative input, output, and problem solving.

Marketing Tech Talks originated at Widen as a way for our staff to learn from other marketers and marketing technologists. During Tech Talks, practitioners share their marketing strategy stories and how technology has played a role in them. The group also talks about common marketing problems and how people, process, and technology work together to create solutions.

2017 marks a year of more dedicated one-on-one support from Widen, more Workshops and Widen community events, and a couple new conferences we’ll be attending for the first time.

We know that our community of customers has great stories to tell, and they’re stories that help other DAM practitioners learn and grow. We’ve made it a point to invite our customers to the table anytime we get an opportunity to speak because their stories help others to understand just how powerful technology can lift your process, connect your teams, and save time, sanity, brain power, and money. We’re proud that our customers are joining us throughout the year!

Check out our 2017 lineup. If we’re lucky enough to cross paths in the coming months, I encourage you to join us for dinner or pop over and give us a high-five or a fist bump. We love it!