Presentation

Insights from the Henry Stewart DAM LA Conference 2024

By: Chris Lacinak
March 28, 2024

The Henry Stewart DAM LA conference brings together industry professionals to discuss the latest trends, challenges, and innovations in Digital Asset Management (DAM). This year’s conference showcased a vibrant atmosphere filled with networking opportunities, insightful presentations, and engaging discussions. Here’s a look at the key themes and takeaways from the event.

Day One Highlights: The Buzz of Excitement

As the conference kicked off, there was an unmistakable buzz in the air. Attendees from around the world were ready to dive into the rich content and networking opportunities that the conference offered.

Emerging Themes and Trends

Christine Le Couilliard from Henry Stewart shared insights about the evolving landscape of DAM. She noted a significant focus on global expansion, with DAM serving as a catalyst for growth within organizations. The personalization of content outreach was highlighted as a key agenda item, alongside the rise of AI and generative AI technologies.

Attendees expressed a keen interest in how DAM systems can facilitate not just content management but also strategic planning across larger enterprises. This focus on enterprise-wide integration reflects a growing recognition of DAM’s central role in organizational success.

Voices from the Floor: Attendee Insights

The conference featured a variety of perspectives from attendees. Here’s what some of them had to say about their expectations and excitement for the sessions ahead.

Amy Rudersdorf’s Insights

Amy Rudersdorf, Director of Consulting Operations at AP, shared her enthusiasm for learning how major brands are managing licensed content efficiently. She emphasized the importance of automating rights management to streamline operations and reduce the reliance on manual processes.

Matt Kuruvilla on Rights Management

Matt Kuruvilla from FADEL expressed excitement about the ongoing discussions surrounding licensed content and how brands handle rights management. He highlighted that the growing complexity of content creation necessitates effective automation solutions.

Yonah Levenson’s Perspective

Yonah Levenson, co-academic director of the Rutgers DAM Certificate Program, reflected on the evolution of DAM discussions over the years. He noted that early conversations revolved around basic concepts, while current dialogues focus on integration with other systems and the advanced capabilities of DAM platforms.

New Innovations in AI and Automation

AI and automation were hot topics, with many participants eager to explore how these technologies can enhance DAM workflows. The potential for AI to expedite tagging processes and improve metadata management was a particular area of interest.

Nina Damavandi on AI Applications

Nina Damavandi from USC shared her excitement about leveraging AI and machine learning to expedite tagging processes, a challenge that many organizations face. She highlighted the need for efficient data management to enhance asset utilization.

Leslie Eames on Automation

Leslie Eames from the Maryland Center for History and Culture discussed her interest in automating metadata processes. She emphasized the importance of ethical considerations in using AI tools to ensure equitable benefits from shared data.

Networking and Community Building

Networking opportunities were abundant, with attendees sharing stories, challenges, and successes. The conference fostered a sense of community, reminding participants that they are not alone in their struggles.

Billy Hinshaw on the Value of Networking

Billy Hinshaw from Bissell Homecare emphasized the value of meeting peers and hearing their stories. He noted that these connections are crucial for professional growth and learning from one another’s experiences.

Key Takeaways from Day Two

As the conference progressed into its second day, several themes emerged that encapsulated the evolving nature of DAM.

The DAM Ecosystem

Emily Somach from National Geographic highlighted that DAM systems are central to a broader ecosystem. She stressed the need for seamless integration with various other systems used within organizations, ensuring that all components work harmoniously together.

Christina Aguilera on Community and Collaboration

Christina Aguilera, Vice President of Product for Crunchyroll, shared her multifaceted career journey and the importance of community in professional development. She underscored how the relationships formed at conferences like Henry Stewart can open doors to new opportunities.

Technology Providers’ Perspectives

The conference also featured insights from various DAM platform providers. Each shared their unique offerings and how they differentiate themselves in a competitive landscape.

Orange Logic’s Cortex Platform

Christopher Morgan-Wilson from Orange Logic introduced Cortex, an enterprise-level asset management software that adapts to user needs. He explained how this flexibility allows organizations to consolidate multiple DAM solutions into a single source of truth.

FADEL’s Innovative Solutions

Matt Kuruvilla highlighted FADEL’s focus on automating content rights management, emphasizing the necessity for brands to manage licensed content efficiently.

Bynder’s Usability Focus

Brian Kavanaugh from Bynder discussed the platform’s emphasis on usability and configurability, ensuring that organizations can maximize their DAM investments.

Looking Ahead: The Future of DAM

As the conference drew to a close, discussions turned to the future of DAM. The concept of DAM 5.0 was debated, with attendees speculating on how the landscape might evolve.

AI’s Role in the Future

Participants expressed varying opinions on the role of AI in DAM. While many were optimistic about its potential, there were also concerns about the limitations of current technologies, particularly in terms of metadata entry and contextual understanding.

Content Authenticity and Security Concerns

One topic that received less attention than anticipated was content authenticity. With the rise of generative AI and deep fakes, the need for robust security measures is becoming increasingly critical.

Final Thoughts

The Henry Stewart DAM LA conference not only provided valuable insights into current trends but also fostered a sense of community among professionals in the field. As the industry continues to evolve, the conversations sparked at this event will undoubtedly shape the future of DAM.

For those looking to stay updated on the latest in DAM, it’s essential to engage with this community and share experiences, challenges, and solutions. The power of collaboration and knowledge sharing is the key to navigating the complexities of digital asset management.

Thank you for joining us in this recap of the Henry Stewart DAM LA conference. We look forward to seeing how these discussions will influence the future of DAM in the coming years.

Transcript

CHRIS LACINAK

So here I am at home about to leave for Henry Stewart DAM LA. I’m excited although there’s two to three feet of snow on the ground here. I have to say it’s a gorgeous day and I wouldn’t otherwise want to leave but for Henry Stewart DAM LA I’m down. Let’s go. Henry Stewart DAM LA here comes the AVP and the DAM Right Podcast.

[Music]

All right here we are day one of the Henry Stewart conference. Let’s go in and let’s talk to some people. I’m here with Christine Le Couillard from Henry Stewart. Christine how’s the conference going so far?CHRISTINE LE COUILLIARD: 01:15

Oh Chris it’s great. There’s a real buzz, a real buzz about the place. We’ve seen folks coming from all over, not just the US but overseas and they’re just hungry for content, hungry for networking, hungry to see what’s next on the agenda.CHRIS LACINAK: 01:33

Yeah and you’ve got such unique insights because you help put the program together for Henry Stewart every year. So are there topics or themes that you think are emerging this year that are new?CHRISTINE LE COUILLIARD: 01:42

Great question. I think we’re looking at global expansion. How DAM is that helpful catalyst within an organization to help companies grow and expand and with a whole personalization of content, outreach and so on. That is certainly high up on the agenda. Connected to that is AI, generative AI. Where’s that leading? It’s scary but there’s an opportunity there too to make it work for you.CHRIS LACINAK: 02:13

I’m here with Amy Rudersdorf, Director of Consulting Operations at AVP and we’re starting the day, day one of the Henry Stewart DAM LA Conference and Amy, love to hear what what are you excited to hear about at this conference?AMY RUDERSDORF: 02:27

I’m really excited to see what the Maple Leafs are doing with their DAM. They are talking about moving from implementation and moving a million objects into their DAM in a short period of time and then bringing their strategic plan to the larger organization. So bringing it enterprise-wide all while the Maple Leafs are playing and they’re adding new assets all the time. So it’ll be exciting to see what they’re doing.CHRIS LACINAK: 02:56

I’m here with Matt Kuruvilla from FADEL. Matt, what are you most excited about hearing about at this conference this year?MATT KURUVILLA: 03:03

Well, I’m tempted to say spending time with you, Chris, because this has already been so much fun. But I am really excited to see how brands are handling all their licensed content and managing those rights and making sure that’s easy and automating that because I just feel like that’s a bigger part of how content’s being made nowadays. So you got to have a way to solve it that doesn’t require a whole lot of humans. So I’m excited to hear how people are doing that today.CHRIS LACINAK: 03:28

I’m here with Yonah Levenson. Yonah, can you tell us a little about who you are first?YONAH LEVENSON: 03:32

Sure, I am the Co-Academic Director of the Rutgers DAM Certificate Program, State University of New Jersey, and along with David Lipsey is the other Co-Academic Director. And I’m also a metadata and taxonomy strategy consultant.CHRIS LACINAK: 03:48

Great, great. And you’ve been coming to Henry Stewart for a long time now.YONAH LEVENSON: 03:53

This is true.CHRIS LACINAK: 03:54

What would you say, what are you seeing as some of the themes or trends over these years and kind of where we are today?YONAH LEVENSON: 04:01

So way back when at the beginning it was what’s a DAM? And then it was how do I update my DAM? And then it was how do I replace my DAM? And then it’s become how do I integrate my DAM with other systems? And now it’s how do I get my DAM not just to integrate with other systems but also to push the envelope and how much can I do within and across my DAM? And there’s also been I think a much bigger interest in metadata and taxonomy because it’s being recognized that you have to have a way to have commonalities and normalize language across multiple systems if you’re going to do it right. So that this way when senior management says, “Hey, can you get me a report on this?” You’re not going to like necessarily 15 different places and then having to figure out does this really mean that?CHRIS LACINAK: 04:57

Right, right. Okay, great. Well, thank you for that insight. I appreciate it.YONAH LEVENSON: 05:01

You’re welcome.CHRIS LACINAK: 05:02

All right, I’m here with Phil Seibel from Aldis. Phil, what are you most excited about at this conference this year?PHIL SEIBEL: 05:08

Yeah, honestly I’m just really excited to see what people are doing, what’s new in the industry, how things are trending. It always feels like at this conference that people are both looking to share everything they’ve learned and find new things and it’s really interesting to see where people have made up ground and where they’re still looking to make up ground in the industry and I really like to feel the pulse of things here so that’s what I’m looking forward to.CHRIS LACINAK: 05:29

Awesome, all right, here to feel the pulse. Sounds good. Thank you, Phil.

I’m here with Nina Damavandi from USC, Digital Asset Manager. And Nina, I’d love to hear what are you most excited about, any particular topics or sessions or anything at the conference this year?NINA DAMAVANDI: 05:43

Yeah, I think the main thing I’m excited about is how companies are using AI and machine learning in their DAM workflows to expedite the tagging process. That’s kind of one of our biggest struggles at USC is getting enough data on our assets and so if there is a way to make that faster and I look at our assets they share so much in common like there should be a way to make this easier without so much human labor needed.CHRIS LACINAK: 06:09

Yeah, and we’re about halfway through the first day so have you gotten any nuggets yet?NINA DAMAVANDI: 06:15

Yeah, there were a couple of good sessions this morning on the topic of AI like Netflix gave a great presentation so I think they are much further ahead with it than we are but it’s really cool to see what the potential is.CHRIS LACINAK: 06:27

All right, I’m here with Billy Hinshaw, BISSELL Homecare. Billy, what are you most excited about at the conference this year?BILLY HINSHAW: 06:32

Just the continuing networking opportunities, meeting so many people, hearing their stories, hearing about what they do and seeing where there’s similarities in terms of the accomplishments and the struggles that they deal with. I think the biggest benefit of attending these conferences is that we realize we’re not alone. We might be on an island, you know, at our particular companies but that’s not the reality as far as our industry is concerned nor should it ever be.CHRIS LACINAK: 06:59

Yeah, well that’s that’s fantastic summary of the value of Henry Stewart for sure. Now you’re a past presenter at Henry Stewart and you’re presenting this year, popular sessions. Can you tell us a little bit about what you’re presenting on tomorrow?BILLY HINSHAW: 07:11

I’m presenting on the different responsibilities that DAM professionals have to balance and how to best manage that without losing losing your mind basically. Yeah, that’s important to keep your mind intact.CHRIS LACINAK: 07:26

Awesome, well thank you Billy, I appreciate it.BILLY HINSHAW: 07:28

Yep, thank you Chris.CHRIS LACINAK: 07:29

I’m here with Leslie Eames. Leslie, can you tell us who you are?LESLIE EAMES: 07:33

Yeah, I’m Leslie. I’m the Director of Digital Collections and Initiatives at the Maryland Center for History and Culture.CHRIS LACINAK: 07:38

Great, and is there any particular topics or sessions or anything that you’re most excited about this year at the conference?LESLIE EAMES: 07:45

Yes, I’m really looking for ways to automate our metadata processes so we can ingest more of our data into our DAM. So looking at machine learning and AI tools that can help us and then also exploring some of the ethical implications behind those, knowing that, you know, we want to be deliberate about who’s benefiting from the data we’re sharing when we use those tools.CHRIS LACINAK: 08:11

Yeah, the ethics part of that is a very important part of that conversation. That makes sense. We’re about halfway through the first day so far, so have you have you gotten what you’re looking for yet or are you hopeful to find it in the coming day and a half?LESLIE EAMES: 08:25

I feel like it’s coming together slowly. I’m getting pieces here and there from a lot of different sources, so I’ve learned a lot and hoping to learn more and make connections with others that continue to grow my knowledge.CHRIS LACINAK: 08:39

All right, so I’m here with Emily Somach from National Geographic. Emily, thanks for talking to me. I appreciate it. So we’re nearing the end of the conference on day two. Are there any particular themes or takeaways that you found interesting this year?EMILY SOMACH: 08:53

Yeah, definitely. I think the biggest takeaway and theme too is that the DAMs is really at the center of an ecosystem. We all have other systems that are integrating with it and communicating with it and just always keeping that in mind when you’re working in the DAMs or changing things in the DAMs or building a DAMs. Just knowing that eventually it’s going to be connecting and talking to all these other systems that either you or your coworkers or other teams in your organization are using. So I think that’s just an important thing to keep in mind. And then I guess some other, I guess, yeah, always thinking about the next step and the future and what you can do to set yourself up for success. Migration is just a big part of our world, so always knowing that you might be having to migrate down the road or bringing stuff in from another system eventually and kind of keeping that in mind and making sure everything works together and is standardized.CHRISTINA AGUILERA: 09:43

I am Christina Aguilera and I have multiple jobs. So we’ll start off with my most recent. So I am currently, I just joined Crunchyroll. So I’m the Vice President of Product for Enterprise Technology and Enterprise Technology to Crunchyroll is basically the entire studio workflow. So it is amazing the way that we incorporate asset management into the operations of getting content published to a platform. So that’s an incredible opportunity. I’m also the president of Women in Technology Hollywood Foundation. So as part of Women in Technology Hollywood Foundation, that is my nonprofit where I get to spend all my passion. So we do a lot of professional development opportunities. We’ve got mentorship programs. We do live events in the spring and the fall. The spring is technology focused, the fall is leadership focused. So it’s a great combination and a great network. And then also I am launching a new business with some incredible women out there. So in March on International Women’s Day we launched the brand and it’s called Enough. And it’s basically we are going out there to all of those women leaders globally and making sure they know they are enough. So this is a professional development platform as well as a community and that platform launches April 17th. So that is our brand reveal, our brand launch that’s happening in April. And it’s really really exciting. I think it’s going to change the world.CHRIS LACINAK: 11:11

Wow.CHRISTINA AGUILERA: 11:12

Yeah.CHRIS LACINAK: 11:12

Wow. Wow. So you’re a powerhouse.CHRISTINA AGUILERA: 11:14

I love it.CHRIS LACINAK: 11:15

You’re doing all kinds of things. That’s amazing.CHRISTINA AGUILERA: 11:17

I’m about this close to publishing a book too.CHRIS LACINAK: 11:19

Fantastic. That’s amazing. You’ll have to tell us how you do all these things at some point.CHRISTINA AGUILERA: 11:23

Very little sleep.CHRIS LACINAK: 11:24

And what so what do you think the value of coming to the Henry Stewart Conference is?CHRISTINA AGUILERA: 11:29

You know I’ve been involved with the Henry Stewart Conference for probably over 20 years now. I’ve known them throughout my entire career and the biggest value to me is the people and the people you meet and the people that you grow to connect with and you build the relationships with. You don’t know when you’re first meeting somebody if they’re gonna open that future door for you.CHRIS LACINAK: 11:55

Yeah.CHRISTINA AGUILERA: 11:55

So my career has taken so many different paths and the people that I’ve met at Henry Stewart have opened many of those doors. So it’s an incredible community of people. It’s a great place to come and connect on like ideas and like concepts and it doesn’t matter what industry we’re in or what our job title is because we all have similar problems in the workplace and we come here to commiserate and build relationships and help each other evolve in our careers.CHRIS LACINAK: 12:24

Thanks for listening to the DAM Right podcast. If you have people you want to hear from, topics you’d like to see us talk about, or events you want to see us cover, please send us an email at [email protected]. That’s [email protected]. Speaking of feedback, please go to your platform of choice and give us a rating. We would absolutely appreciate it. While you’re at it, go ahead and follow or subscribe to make sure you don’t miss an episode. You can also stay up to date with me and the DAM Right podcast by following me on LinkedIn at linkedin.com/in/clacinak. And finally, go and find some really amazing and free resources focused just on DAM at weareavp.com/free-resources. That’s weareavp.com/free-resources. You’ll find things there like our DAM Strategy Canvas, our DAM Health Score Card, and the Get Your DAM Budget slide deck template. Each one of those also has a free accompanying guide to help you put it to use. So go get them now.

Let’s turn to the DAM platforms in the room now. I’m gonna ask them each a series of questions and I’m gonna edit it so that you can hear their answers side by side. Before we get into the questions, I’ll introduce you to each of them. Christopher Morgan-Wilson from Orange Logic. Shannon DeLoach from Censhare. Melanie Chalupa from Frontify. John Bateman from Tenovus. Brian Kavanaugh from Bynder. Bróna O’Connor from MediaValet. Jake Athey from Acquia. Tell us about your platform and what differentiates you from the other platforms in the room today.CHRISTOPHER MORGAN-WILSON: 14:01

Orange Logic has created Cortex. Cortex is an enterprise-level asset management software that’s actually able to adapt the way it presents itself depending on the user. So if you think a lot of companies out there, they’ll buy multiple DAM solutions. Like their teams and departments will kind of go rogue and buy different software. But now there’s a big push for companies to consolidate all that into one central source of truth and that’s where Orange Logic comes in with Cortex.SHANNON DELOACH: 14:28

Censhare is an omni-channel DAM, PIM, and CMS platform. What differentiates us is it’s fully integrated out of the box. So there’s no outside integrations needed to get that full functionality. Those three functionalities, DAM, PIM, and CMS, are built on a common structure. So it’s very flexible. Really where we stand out is if you need DAM and PIM, our niche is where you can buy one platform and have them both. So that’s what we’re very proud of.MELANIE CHALUPA: 14:57

Frontify is a brand-centered solution that’s focused on all facets of your brand. So of course looking at a critical element of your brand is going to be the DAM itself, but on top of that we also have the ability to digitize all of your guidelines. And a lot of our clients will also include a multi-portal setup. So looking at your corporate brand, the assets that are associated with that, as well as the guidelines, sometimes campaign toolkits, but also being able to support product brands, employer brand, really every facet of your brand. So that’s kind of our unique differentiator.JOHN BATEMAN: 15:24

Tenovos is about a five-year-old company, so relatively young in the company of a lot of legacy DAM providers. So we like to think that we’re differentiated because of the architecture of our platform built on microservices, APIs, and very flexible modern technology, very scalable. So that sets us apart. It really means that we can fit in into different ecosystems in people’s MarTech stacks. So very easy to connect with other platforms, other technologies. So I think that’s one of the key differentiators.BRIAN KAVANAUGH: 16:11

Bynder is a leading digital asset management platform according to Forrester, as well as our G2 customer reviews. And I would say what sets us apart is first and foremost use cases in the enterprise, but when you look at Bynder, it’s really usability and configurability of the platform, the most integrations, and the biggest marketplace in terms of plugging into other platforms, and then a leading AI strategy centered around search as well as generative AI. So those are three things that come to mind, Chris, but there’s certainly more as well.BRÓNA O’CONNOR: 16:40

MediaValet is a Canadian DAM. We are a digital asset management vendor. We are built on Microsoft Azure, so we are the only platform built exclusively on Microsoft Azure. We help customers across a variety of industries, so whether they are higher ed, non-profit, manufacturing, media and entertainment of all sizes, from SMB through to enterprise, and we work with those organizations to deliver content at scale. So very much a core DAM platform that delivers seamlessly through integration so that your users can work in the systems that they love, but have a great DAM platform at its base. And in terms of setting us aside, I think we’re very proudly rated the highest security vendor for DAM, so the highest security rating, we’ve got a 99% rating there, so we’re exclusively a league of our own in that area.JAKE ATHEY: 17:28

Acquia is the open digital experience platform, and we provide content management, digital asset management, product information management, and customer data management solutions, and Acquia acquired Widen in 2021, which is where I come from as one of the early pioneers in the DAM space, and I’ve been in this space for 20 years. Let’s focus on some of our strengths. Our strengths in flexibility and adaptability, really leaning into that open promise of Acquia, and the fact that we integrate with anything, and that’s really key among our roadmap priorities as well, and then having a scalable performance and governance model, and being one of the few combined DAM and PIM platforms on the market.CHRIS LACINAK: 18:12

For this next question, taking AI off the table, what in your roadmap is your company most focused on or most excited about?CHRISTOPHER MORGAN-WILSON: 18:20

Orange Logic. One of the big things right now is different file formats. Last year was a huge push for MAM, so media asset management, or I guess multimedia asset management, so video. We’re seeing a lot of requests for working with 3D files, project files, resource management, so like not only being able to handle the assets, but the people working on those assets, their time, the budget. Again, it’s that central source of truth where everything regarding the asset, from ideation to creation, all the way to final approval, like pushing out to other platforms, all that is handled within the DAM.SHANNON DELOACH: 18:55

Censhare. We’re most focused on our cloud initiative, right? So we’re going cloud native. It’s going to offer much more flexibility and faster speed to deployment for our customers. So that’s really the aim, to get our customers a usable system more quickly. We’re going cloud native.MELANIE CHALUPA: 19:13

Frontify. So something we’ve been focused a lot on lately is templates. So we do have a template offering within our portal, or our brand portal solution, is of course templating and being able to scale production across several channels is such a critical part of leveraging and getting the most out of your assets, but also being brand compliant. So something that we’re looking to do right now is to further enhance that tool and be able to include things like video templates and being able to manipulate templates for each channel in one go. So I think that’s something that has been really resonating with our clients and we’re looking forward to offering more in that realm.JOHN BATEMAN: 19:46

Tenovos. When the company set about developing a DAM platform, in the back of our minds was how can people get value from the assets and how do you derive the most value? Previously you couldn’t really see how things were performing out in the wild once it left the DAM. So our ideas really from the start, I think from the inception of Tenovos, have been around that smarter use of the assets and smarter use of your resources being guided by the data that you’re pulling back from the assets through all your different channels, whether it’s your social, through your e-commerce, etc. So I think that for us it’s a big focus at the moment.BRIAN KAVANAUGH: 20:36

Bynder. Composable architecture and just using a best-in-breed approach for sure.CHRIS LACINAK: 20:42

Okay, that’s a lot of big words. Can you break that down for us a little bit?BRIAN KAVANAUGH: 20:47

What we’re most excited about is organizations taking what we call a best-in-breed approach to their MarTech stack, not being dependent on a single suite provider or single platform. More identifying needs and capabilities for DAM but also adjacent technologies around CMS, marketing automation, what-have-you, and using the best vendor for each and integrating their platforms using APIs. And another big theme that is right tied into that is delivery of assets. So being more intelligent, more automated, more sophisticated of how assets get delivered out of the DAM to downstream platforms that the customer touches.BRÓNA O’CONNOR: 21:24

MediaValet. We’ve got an exciting roadmap ahead of us this year which we are finalizing and building at the different components but something that’s coming up very soon that I think you’re going to hear from us is about templating. So we’re working with a great partner called Mark and we will be releasing a templating solution in Q2 which will really enable our marketing customers to really drive better impact by enabling their teams to work efficiently with their campaign materials, drive more campaigns out the door, and then leverage your other resources on more strategic initiatives. So it’s really empowering your team to do more which of the time we’re in that is really important for our marketing organizations to drive that efficiency.JAKE ATHEY: 22:03

Acquia. Top non-AI priorities of 2024. We have the priority of integrated workflows. We want more native integrations and more partnerships to really help our customers optimize their content operations as well as to connect assets and metadata across the digital experience. We also have new insights analytics and reporting capabilities with new data visualizations and more analytics API endpoints coming so that customers can work with their DAM data, their DAM reports within whatever business analytics tools that they use. And we also have a new search experience coming with enhanced usability, accessibility, and some added features. And of course we’re advancing our PIM and DAM combination with added PIM and added syndication capabilities that we’re very excited about for our customers that are makers and marketers of products.CHRIS LACINAK: 22:57

Putting AI back on the table, which of the following are you most focused on in the application of AI? Content generation, search, or tagging and description?CHRISTOPHER MORGAN-WILSON: 23:07

Orange Logic. So it’s a good mix of everything. Right from the get-go we’ve always focused heavily on the search because there’s really no point in having a DAM if people can’t find what you’re looking for. And I used to be an asset manager on Disney’s AFV for about seven years so I was the one doing the tagging and it’s so hard to know what people are gonna search for. So if you use the AI for the tagging and the searching that kind of gives you a level up on you know surfacing those assets. And then the third one we are now starting to focus on content generation whether that’s actual physical images based off of other assets in your DAM, document creation like being able to create a brief before you kick off that project. So you’ve cheated and said all three I asked you to pick one. Oh I’m sorry. That’s okay that’s fine. I think we’ll assume that. Searching is the most important. Search, okay all right fair enough.SHANNON DELOACH: 23:57

Censhare. Oh content generation for sure. Okay and can you tell us at all about where how you’re focused on content generation? Yeah so generative AI right so creating product descriptions right so you have a great product and you want to quickly create those descriptions we want to generate that for you. Generating images even videos the whole concept of you know create once use many but now let’s just do it with AI so you can do it faster. And actually using AI to find specific areas within content that you may want to reuse. So I said a mouthful there but really it’s really it’s a lot of our clients are using it for yeah creating those those quick you know give me three bullets on my new product right so boom we can generate it now that’s in the DAM now you can use that and push that out to you know your online channel or whatever other platform or whatever, so.MELANIE CHALUPA: 24:54

Frontify. Probably search at the moment so we’ve recently rolled out our brand AI assistant so that’s going to be able to help our clients have their end users enter their portal and search for assets and through their guidelines and kind of chat to this bot to be able to find what they need and also have that bot generate answers for them that might not even involve them going into the system further so really looking at improving that kind of speed to search timeline as well. We do have some other exciting things around the other elements that you mentioned. Okay tell us tell us about it. Okay yeah so we’re also rolling out a plug-in with open AI where you can generate images within the DAM so on that kind of generative image topic that’s what we’re doing there and we already have AI tagging which has been really great and helping our clients to cast that wide net so that whatever their end-user search for has you know the most likely hood of producing results for them.JOHN BATEMAN: 25:43

Tenovos. Content creation I think and you know really you know the generative stuff is very interesting at the moment but things like localization of assets is it seems to be very prevalent on some of the big global brands that we’re we’re working with that’s a big thing at the moment and then things like you know some of the the cropping and creating different derivatives of assets for different different formats and that sort of thing so yeah I’d say probably the latter two you know search and tagging I think we feel have been done you know for a number of years and work you know it’s kind of matured but I think the content creation side of us seems to be evolving at a sort of exciting pace now particularly around the generative stuff you know.BRIAN KAVANAUGH: 26:35

Bynder. So I think when it comes to tangible applications and what our customers are getting ROI out of like every single day and discovering new use cases for I would start with search because it’s this whole philosophy of a great place to start with AI in your organization is maximizing existing data and what is existing data for a DAM? Well it’s usually the volume of assets you’ve built up over time where if you can apply AI to it there’s just a added level of discoverability and an added level of efficiency you’re going to get which every organization right now is focused on when it comes to efficiency or getting more out of what they’ve already created. So I know generative is exciting and I know that there’s probably a lot to unlock from here on out but if I think of the here and now, it’s really search I think represents the most efficiency.BRÓNA O’CONNOR: 27:23

MediaValet. I would say you’re gonna hear more from us on search very soon with us developing that area. Tagging is a huge one, especially for our customers that have huge libraries, right? So they’re ingesting a ton of content into the DAM and that automatic tagging with AI has been essential for them to get through utilizing their catalogs. Something related to that that we’re very excited about and I was speaking with our customer here about is the Jane Goodall Institute leverage video intelligence. So that’s another AI capability that they’re leveraging and really it’s about extracting that content from their video and then for reuse. So leveraging content, using AI to generate transcripts and social quotes and everything has been really important for that customer and a great story we talked about yesterday as Henry Stewart DAM LA.JAKE ATHEY: 28:07

Acquia. I want to say all three because we have all three among our roadmap priorities for the next year: smart tags is one of those roadmap priorities, smart tagging and search. Effectively, search is the desired outcome. We also have this concept of automatic video transcription and automatic video generation and templates, and so we are excited about the generation capabilities there. But I’m gonna go search if I have to pick just one because that’s really fundamental to DAM. Should I say funDAMmental is if I will, yeah.CHRIS LACINAK: 28:41

Got to get the DAM pun in.JAKE ATHEY: 28:43

Indeed, never gets old.CHRIS LACINAK: 28:44

Now there’s a few providers in the room that are not DAM platforms. They’re add-ons, they’re partners, they’re technologies that work alongside DAM, and I’d like to ask them some questions. They’re a bit different, so I’m gonna approach this one a little bit differently and just talk to each one for a few minutes. Reinhard Holzner from Smint.io, we see that you are not a DAM, so can you tell us what you are?REINHARD HOLZNER: 29:11

Hey Chris, yeah, so we are not a DAM but we work with your DAM. Imagine you have your favorite DAM and you want to give it different experiences for different audiences. We say the DAM is not the right place for everybody to for every audience, for example. So if you want to reach other audiences like partners or the press or your employees, you might need a different experience, and that’s what we do with our content portals. You can build a brand portal, you can build a media center, you can build a download area, you can build all those different experiences on top of your DAM that you can’t do with your DAM alone.CHRIS LACINAK: 29:47

Could you give us an example of a, I mean I don’t know if you’re allowed to use client names or not, but maybe not, if you can just anonymize it, give us an example of how one of your clients uses Smint?REINHARD HOLZNER: 29:56

So we have several clients that we can name, for example, we have in Europe we have Ferrero Group, which is one of the largest retailers in Europe. They use this, for example, for the internal product portal or product imagery portal, so all the employees can access the imagery that is required through easy to use, simple, mobile-enabled interface and they don’t need to go to the DAM, which is very complicated, for example. Or we have two of the largest sports organizations in the world as our clients where I cannot name them, but I can tell the story. So they reach the press and the media through our portals because, for example, the DAM that they use is not really mobile-enabled, it’s not properly printed, and stuff, and so they put the content from the DAM in front of the media when there’s tournaments and when there’s events that they need to cover. Or we have guys like Somfy, which is a big manufacturer of home automation devices, they’re doing partner portals and providing all the content to their partners, to their resellers like product imagery, data sheets, and so on and so on. So we have a beverages vendor from the US who is using that as a product information portal, bringing together, for example, content from the DAM together with content from their Salsify PIM in this case, and really displaying that data or providing that data to their departments. For example, to see which marketing material is missing for which market. So a lot of different use cases and you see a lot of different audiences that have different requirements that not necessarily can be covered with the DAM alone.CHRIS LACINAK: 31:34

Great, and can I ask what are you particularly excited about in DAM in 2024 or at Henry Stewart DAM LA or anything that’s caught your attention or that you’re particularly focused on?REINHARD HOLZNER: 31:47

Hmm, good question. So what happens in DAM, I think, is that everything professionalizes, everything grows a lot. We see also transactions in the marketplace, going on mergers, companies taking up other companies. I hope that in the future, this will be even going into a more interesting direction that we see larger players in the marketplace that have more influence. The thing is we have a very fragmented DAM marketplace right now with, I think, over 220 vendors out there competing in the marketplace, and it will be very interesting to see if this consolidates because that would probably make things easier for the clients because they have a more complete offering for all those different units that are out there.CHRIS LACINAK: 32:37

David Sultan from OneTeg. David, thanks for agreeing to talk to me.DAVID SULTAN: 32:41

Nice to see you.CHRIS LACINAK: 32:42

Could we start off by you just telling me about OneTeg and what you guys do?DAVID SULTAN: 32:46

Sure, so OneTeg is the integration platform as a service, and what we do is we connect any system to any system, kind of like Zapier, but our focus is on digital asset management, product information, and e-commerce. So we’re able to make integration a lot easier, a lot faster, easy to maintain, easy to deal with upgrades, and just making the level of effort to your customers a lot easier to manage. So instead of having big projects, it’s a lot smaller projects, and you can predict a little bit more that.CHRIS LACINAK: 33:17

That sounds like a good goal, so it sounds like kind of creating more predictability and efficiency around the integration process, which can be unwieldy and a lot of risk as far as costs and time. That’s great.

Could you give us an example of maybe how, and you don’t have to use names, it’s okay if you want to anonymize it, but just how like a customer has used OneTeg, give us an example of that.DAVID SULTAN: 33:43

So we have a customer who uses OpenText as their DAM and using Syndigo as their syndication engine. So whenever he needs to go to Amazon or to any of those other marketplaces they sell beverages, so we had to connect their assets from their DAM to their they had a separate PIM which is it’s like in a separate PIM system, it was an in-house PIM, and we had to syndicate it to Syndigo. So we basically are marrying all of that information, a very complicated flow, and ensuring all of the information is married up between the product, the images, into the website, into the marketplaces.CHRIS LACINAK: 34:21

Okay, all right, that’s great. Thank you, that’s helpful. And what’s one of the features that’s on your product roadmap that you’re most excited about?DAVID SULTAN: 34:29

So when we first launched it a couple of years ago, it was really about just being kind of more of a generic iPaaS solution focusing on DAM and PIM, and we still are, but what we’ve realized is that a lot of our customers, what they really want is a quick way to get into a project. So we start building a lot of templates, so a template, so we call it a recipe, so a template or recipe, so say for example you want to connect inriver to MediaValet, a DAM and a PIM, we can very easily spin up a recipe that already has done the, already has all of the hooks between those two systems, and then we can, you can use a template to expand to your own flow that you need to build in your environment. So that’s like a big thing we’re doing as well, and we also, this is not short term, but long term, we also trying to look for an AI in order to help the developers or whoever is actually building the flows to use AI to generate the flow for it by putting prompts. That’s kind of a little bit longer in the roadmap.CHRIS LACINAK: 35:27

Okay, interesting. Yeah, that’s an interesting use of AI. It makes sense; it’s going to be different than how the platforms are using it. So that’s interesting to hear. Eric Wengrowski, CEO of Steg AI. Eric, can you tell us a little bit about Steg AI and what you do?ERIC WENGROWSKI: 35:41

Yeah, sure. So Steg is a state-of-the-art watermarking company. So we do watermarks for a variety of use cases, everything from leak protection to identifying generative AI, deep fakes, things like that, and we do it all with state-of-the-art watermarking technology that we’ve developed in-house and we’ve patented. We work with many of the DAMs here at Henry Stewart to bring our tech to customers.CHRIS LACINAK: 36:06

Great, and can you tell me, in your roadmap, what are you most excited about that’s on the horizon that you can talk about?ERIC WENGROWSKI: 36:17

Yeah, sure. So, you know, the benefit that Steg brings to our customers is primarily around security, and so, you know, with the explosion of deep fakes and generative AI, seeing is no longer believing. I mean, like, I’ve been working in this field and developing AI algorithms, you know, for 10 years now.CHRIS LACINAK: 36:38

Okay.ERIC WENGROWSKI: 36:39

And a lot of the times I can’t tell the difference between something that came out of a camera and something that came out of an algorithm. So, it’s getting to the point where, you know, even relying on people better than me, forensic experts, aren’t going to be able to tell the difference, and just given the sheer volume of content that people consume over social media and things like that, we really need tools to help understand what’s real, what’s trustworthy, what’s synthetic, what’s organic without labeling something as like, you know, just good or bad, just telling us more about the provenance. So, you know, we’re working right now, we’ve created tools to help identify the origin of content, what’s trustworthy. This is for everybody from generative AI companies to federal governments who are wanting to ensure that there’s a sort of a clean communication channel between them and their nationals.CHRIS LACINAK: 37:31

Great. Yeah. And maybe could you help us wrap our heads around it a bit more, maybe but give us in a case study, and you don’t have to name names if you need to anonymize it, or but just help us understand how some of your customers are putting your technology to use.ERIC WENGROWSKI: 37:46

Yeah, sure. So a couple of years ago, we were approached by a company that was experiencing million-dollar on average leaks for every one of their products that had launched for the past three years, and they were having multiple launches a year that were all leaking ahead of time. This is a consumer electronics company. So they were working with a DAM who we decided to partner with that was great, but, you know, the problem was they really couldn’t tell where these leaks were coming from. Is this stuff that was internal, people on their own team, was it any of their vendors, partners, anything like that. So we integrated Steg’s watermarking technology with their DAM, so automatically in the background whenever they were sharing assets out or any step with the creation process, we were applying new watermarks every time. So if anything leaked out, we could always go back and identify the source. And when leaks happened, and they’ve happened many times, we’ve always been able to trace back and identify the source of the leaks and help the customer plug this extremely costly problem.CHRIS LACINAK: 38:47

And last but not least, what’s the last song you added to your favorites playlist?CHRISTOPHER MORGAN-WILSON: 38:52

Orange Logic. Dance, Dance by Ryan Prewett.SHANNON DELOACH: 38:55

Censhare. An oldie but a goodie, it was Public Enemy and then the Hour of Chaos. So for some reason, I just had a hankering for that song, I added it to my playlist.MELANIE CHALUPA: 39:05

Frontify. Do What I Want by Kid Cudi somehow wasn’t in my playlist before today, and now it is.JOHN BATEMAN: 39:11

Tenovos. Iron Maiden, Run to the Hills, that’s one you probably haven’t gotten.BRIAN KAVANAUGH: 39:16

Bynder. Square One by none other than Tom Petty, and so I’m a big Tom Petty fan but that’s not one that I’d heard, and so I added it this past weekend.BRÓNA O’CONNOR: 39:25

MediaValet. Billie Eilish, What Was I Made For, and that was because I saw her perform it at the Oscars a week ago, so that was that.CHRIS LACINAK: 39:33

You were at the Oscars yourself?BRÓNA O’CONNOR: 39:35

No. I wish.CHRIS LACINAK: 39:36

Let’s just say you were. Let’s just say you were.BRÓNA O’CONNOR: 39:39

Yeah, I was there.JAKE ATHEY: 39:40

Acquia. I’m a girl dad, so I’m gonna go with Taylor Swift, and one that really gets me revved up is Ready For It, and that’s from the Reputation album.REINHARD HOLZNER: 39:47

Smint. It’s that Elton John, Dua Lipa song.CHRIS LACINAK: 39:51

Okay, all right, all right, great, wouldn’t have guessed.DAVID SULTAN: 39:55

OneTeg. So I like John Prine, I know he’s, I think he died a few years ago, but I love his music, it’s country music, and I think the song, it’s called That’s the Way That the World Goes ‘Round.ERIC WENGROWSKI: 40:09

Steg AI. All right, so I didn’t add it to my favorites playlist, but I took, so my wife and I just had a baby a few months ago, as a present while she was still pregnant, I took her to see Taylor Swift here in LA.CHRIS LACINAK: 40:27

Best husband award of the year.ERIC WENGROWSKI: 40:29

Yeah, I’ll take that for this one. So, you know, I’m, I would not describe myself as a Swiftie, I’m definitely not a hater, but you know, my wife is a real Swiftie, and so I was like, hey, you know, I’ll go, it’ll be fun. Best concert I’ve ever been to, hands down. Yeah, SoFi, it was awesome.CHRIS LACINAK: 40:47

All right, so give me a favorite Taylor Swift song.ERIC WENGROWSKI: 40:51

Oh, I like Colors.CHRIS LACINAK: 40:52

Now, there’s a fun session that happens at every Henry Stewart I’ve been to at least called Stump the DAM Consultant. It’s hosted by Jarrod Gingras from the Real Story Group. A number of brave consultants get on stage, the audience asks a bunch of questions in an app, Jarrod Gingras looks at the upvotes to see what are the highest priority questions or the ones that have been voted on the most, and asks those of the consultants. Now, all the consultants put on headphones with music so they can’t hear the other consultants answering, and at one at a time, they answer, and then the audience votes on who has the best answer. And because I don’t have the approval of all the consultants on the stage or Jarrod, I’m going to include just answers from Kara Van Malssen from AVP in this one to give you a little taste of what that looks like and sounds like; it’s a fun event. So, a little bonus for you here.

If we’re currently in DAM 4.0, what will DAM 5.0 be?KARA VAN MALSSEN: 41:53

Okay, so my answer is, I don’t think that there will be a DAM 5.0. I just, I luckily, I did my homework and I went to Jarrod’s session earlier, and it got me thinking about this exact question because as he was describing it, it just seemed more and more to be not DAM anymore, as kind of a content convergence and, you know, we have these beautiful and massive content orchestration engines. It seems like the concept of DAM as we know it today, DAM or MAM, as this kind of it just, that idea makes it a silo in and of itself, and I think that puts it into this corner which I just don’t see the future being. So, I just don’t know if there is a DAM 5.0. I think it’s an evolution. If you have a kid that has a Pokemon and you know how the Pokemon work, they go from like the basic Pokemon to evolution 1, 2. And I think by the time you get to evolution VMAX, you know, it’s not even the same character anymore, and that’s the reality.CHRIS LACINAK: 43:02

When will AI tagging actually work right?KARA VAN MALSSEN: 43:08

Okay, so my question is, who’s your DAM vendor? Because it should already be working. So if you don’t have it working, you come see me and we help you find a new one. Just kidding. Okay, in all honesty, I think where we are in that space, the maturity is pretty good for specific types of use cases. So, I think you have to get specific on what you want it to do. So if you’re trying to do things that are more visual, object recognition, computer vision, what’s in the photo, what colors are in this photo, what’s that object, things like that. There’s pretty good capabilities there now that are readily available. I think the harder part and maybe I’m not sure this is what you’re trying to get at is when we’ll be able to not have humans do any kind of metadata entry. I don’t know if we’ll ever be quite there. There’s certain metadata, contextual information, provenance information, information about what campaign was this part of, what project was this a part of, what are the rights to this image, what’s the credit line, should it credit the AI that created it. You know what, all of those kinds of things, I don’t think we’re necessarily ever gonna be there. So there’s just a certain amount that I think that the AI tagging can and can’t do. But I think there’s a level of maturity that is pretty solid right now for certain use cases. So, I’ll just say it’s limited but it’s evolving.CHRIS LACINAK: 44:39

What’s the easiest AI win for a DAM when your boss is forcing a quick AI answer?KARA VAN MALSSEN: 44:44

The quickest AI win right now… Okay, well it’s, I think it’s kind of similar to the last question, which was some of that tagging. But I actually think the very easiest one you can unlock pretty fast is speech to text for video and audio. So that’s pretty good. You know, you might have to do some editing. What’s so funny back there? Okay, vote for Kara. So, speech to text is pretty, you know, that’s an easy one. And you can just get all of that transcription of your audio and video, and then you have so much searchable text. Boom. Easy way. Go for it. Do it tomorrow.CHRIS LACINAK: 45:30

If you had to use a song to describe a DAM, what song would you pick?KARA VAN MALSSEN: 45:37

The first word of this song title is a curse word, but it’s “b” with those, you know, special characters, better have my money. It’s expensive, right?CHRIS LACINAK: 45:51

So here we are at the end of the Henry Stewart DAM LA conference. It’s been a great conference. What are some of the takeaways and themes from this year? One is that a lot of people were talking about portals. Last year, that was a word that was being used, but we mostly saw it on the DAM and technology provider side. This year, I heard a lot about it from users. People that were talking about real use cases wanting to create seamless user experiences on both the download and the upload side. Speaking to very specific audiences both internal and external to their organization, and it felt like a thing that was new in a new practical way. Speaking of practical, another thing that was that felt new this year was we heard a lot about AI. Last year felt a bit more wide-eyed than it did this year. This year, people had clearly put it to use. They had grappled with the issues more. There was skepticism but helped mix with healthy enthusiasm, and we just heard a lot about real-world AI applications, conversations that were happening in organizations, proof of concepts, and then day-to-day use. We still heard a mix of perspectives but it felt like a new mix, a healthy mix, and something that I think represents the progress of how organizations are using AI. That was interesting and fun to hear about. Lastly, I’ll just say that the vibe in general was really good. It felt like there was more energy this year than last year, and not to say last year was bad, but there was just something this year, there was a momentum. There was a lot of great engagement. I think the content and the program was really good this year compared to last year, and not to say it was bad, but just this year felt exceptionally good. It felt cohesive. It had people talking in the coffee breaks, at the lunches, you know, there was a lot of conversation around the program, which just meant to me that they nailed it on the authenticity of the topics, and that it was resonating with people, so that’s great. Whoever did the programming did a great job. I will say one thing that was missing, and there was one company that was representing this, actually, there were a few companies that were representing this, but it just wasn’t a topic that came up much, which was content authenticity. I heard about it in one session that I attended. There was one vendor, Steg AI, that had a booth. FADEL was here, and then there was one other company I think they were called Verify that was here in the audience. They were focused on rights management and one or two use cases for content authenticity, but I was surprised that there wasn’t more there. Now, it’s not a super sexy topic, you know, security is not the most fun thing to talk about, but it’s been bubbling up so much this year, and with the massive amounts of content generation that’s happening, with the questions around content authenticity, you know, calling real things fake and calling fake things real, and the meaning and potential impact that has to DAMs and archives is huge. So, I was just surprised that there wasn’t more about that, but I bet that that, you know, will be a conversation that we’ll hear a lot more about next year. That’s going to be a prediction for next year, so we’ll see. Anyway, it’s been a great time. I hope that you’ve enjoyed the content around the Henry Stewart DAM LA recap, and remember, DAM right because it’s too important to get wrong.

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