We’re all faced with a challenge, how can we do more with the resources available? The reliance on content to communicate, build an audience, and sell has turned up the pressure on marketing and creative teams. Fortunately, there are many tools available to help do more with the same. Workflow management software not only seeks to improve productivity but to do so while removing friction to managing and reviewing work before it’s published.

The Widen Collective product vision builds on DAM to connect marketing content across the entire content lifecycle, from ideas to analytics. Most importantly, to connect the people and teams to create, manage, and use your content.

We’re really excited about these version 12.0 updates and we think you will be too — since these are heavily influenced by your feedback.

We hear from a lot of organizations that meeting deadlines is a big challenge. Teams are so used to being behind on deadlines that it’s often considered to be exceeding expectations if they simply finish their work on time. This puts stress on your teams, and the of quality of work usually suffers.

So what do you do? If your teams are left with the following questions unanswered, it’s probably time to evaluate your process and eliminate the confusion with project management and digital asset management (DAM) software.

Latrisha Eilers would print and staple a stack of 15 sheets of paper together, walk to a marketer’s desk, and then leave it there for review. It was now that person’s responsibility to review and mark up that piece of artwork. So when Latrisha, a production design supervisor at Spectrum Brands, says her creative department’s review and approval process was manual, she means it literally.

Sludge. The creative engine behind your brand is likely suffering from a slow buildup of inefficient and confusing processes. The source is email. That wonderfully easy and flexible form of communication. You can message multiple people at once, attach files, and embed funny animated GIFs of goats. 

Widen’s latest DAM-centric application, Workflow, is now available for subscription to anyone who uses the Collective. This application is a robust online proofing and work management application that can significantly raise the efficiency of creative project management.

Before starting up with Workflow, it’s beneficial for organizations to assess their current processes. New Workflow customers will benefit from working with Leah Ujda, our on-site Workflow consultant. Leah works with organizations to, “develop a deep understanding of how you currently do your creative work — and how you would like to do this work in an ideal future. By identifying and understanding your current processes, we can ensure the technology you’re bringing into the organization will provide a valuable, efficient, and engaging experience.”

We believe in Workflow, and the understanding Leah brings to the table, so much that we decided to have her help the Widen team!

The following is an internal case study that gives an overview of how Leah helped us transform our creative project management with Workflow. Here’s a little bit more about Leah …

At the 2016 Widen Summit, we announced that we were planning a consulting service to aid in making our Workflow product more successful for your organization.

That plan is now reality. And heading up our on-site Workflow consulting is one of our fellow team members, Leah Ujda. In this brief article, we’ll give you an overview on how this consulting service works, and how it can help you.

In the first part of this series, we defined what Workflow is, what it does, who it helps — and how it solves their problems.

Here, we’ll be walking you through a Workflow demo to give you a real-world idea of how it can support your team.

If you prefer, you can also watch our brief demo video, or you can request a live demo where you can see Workflow (as well as Assets, Portals, Templates, and Insights) in action with our cloud-based DAM system.

Katherine Knight is responsible not only for marketing but also for the love lives of hundreds of thousands of relationships all over the world. As director of marketing at Zoosk, a leading online global dating platform in over 80 countries, her work powers a platform that over 33 million people rely on to find true love. She oversees all of Zoosk’s digital marketing and advertising and uses the Widen Collective to house all of their creative assets.

Sharon Doan considers herself the “Jane of all trades” at Poly-Wood, a manufacturer of fine outdoor furniture based in Indiana, but she’s also one of the global admins of their digital asset management (DAM) system. Anything that deals with content, whether it be digital or print, goes through both Sharon and their DAM.