Every healthy business program is made up of three things: people, processes, and technology. This union can be powerful when all three are established and implemented well. Digital asset management (DAM) programs are no exception.
A healthy DAM program has the right people in the right seats with well-defined roles and responsibilities. It has clearly documented standards and workflows that have been validated over time and tuned based on feedback from end-users. It also has the right DAM platform in place to serve as the central hub for managing digital assets throughout their lifecycle.
Stacks was founded by creatives who needed to learn more about DAM to do their jobs well rather than by IT professionals with a background in technology. This means we rely on partners with expertise in this area to help our clients build healthy DAM programs.
DAM platform providers also need partners who can help their clients build a functional program around their technology. From this shared need, partnerships between Stacks and DAM platform vendors were born. This article outlines how Stacks works with one of our partners, Widen, an Acquia Company, to make DAM easy for its clients from end to end.
What is Acquia DAM?
Previously known as Widen, Acquia DAM, began providing DAM solutions over two decades ago. Now, the Widen product is part of Acquia, a digital experience company that enables some of the world’s most ambitious brands to create powerful websites, mobile applications, and multi-touch marketing campaigns. Widen is available standalone or as part of Acquia DXP.
Flexible and easy to use, Acquia DAM helps brands manage and distribute their digital assets across teams, tools, and channels. Its highly configurable metadata schema provides powerful, business-specific search and workflow capabilities. Plus, AI-powered auto-tagging makes assets instantly findable.
Acquia DAM’s platform allows users to sync content across systems using the API or pre-built integrations with over 50 tools, from creative suites to project management. Product-based companies use Acquia to build a unique 360-degree view of their product content.
How Acquia DAM and Stacks Work Together
In 2021, the Minnesota Vikings, a longtime Widen customer, realized they needed support. While the DAM platform met all their requirements, the sheer volume of assets the team generated each week made it increasingly difficult for their in-house team to manage.
This meant that assets were falling through the cracks or coming into the platform with incorrect, irrelevant, or completely missing metadata and file names. The user experience had become difficult as the team couldn't use the robust search features Acquia DAM offers.
One of the Vikings’ core DAM administrators contacted Stacks after hearing from other league personnel about our work in the industry. With the help of Stacks, the team was able to gain better control of their newly-created assets each week and implement best practices from around the league and industry to take even better advantage of what their platform had to offer.
“Widen is the Minnesota Vikings’ photo library for the thousands of photos that our team photographers capture throughout the season. With metadata support from Stacks, our photos get uploaded quickly to Widen for immediate access by our staff so we can focus on pushing out content quickly for our fans.” – Jessica Faucher, Archives Manager
The Vikings’ DAM team also worked alongside Acquia and Stacks team members to develop technical solutions to clean up other messes in their library that had gone unaddressed since their migration to Widen many years earlier.
Conclusion
By combining the features and capabilities of the Acquia DAM platform, their technical expertise, and the experience, best practices, and bandwidth of the Stacks team, clients can maximize not only the day-to-day value of their digital assets but also the return they get on their investment into the platform.
If you're a Widen or Acquia customer who needs support managing and getting the most out of your DAM program, contact Stacks or your Acquia representative today. If you’re just getting started with DAM and want to learn more about Widen and/or Stacks, check out our websites (widen.com / stacksteam.com) and connect with us!
