Widen's Second Annual User Summit Brings Together Digital Asset Management Software Users

MADISON, WI--(Marketwired - Oct 22, 2013) - Digital asset management software provider Widen Enterprises closed its second annual User Summit with a bang last week. This year's event theme was "Inspiring Harmony." Attendance was up 43 percent from the previous year, with guests coming from longstanding Widen customer brands, companies new to DAM and still others exploring the possibilities of the software.

Widen's 65-year history -- which includes 20 years in DAM technology -- has always differentiated the organization. With this second Summit, the company has marked a significant milestone, demonstrating that it can sustainably serve its customers and the DAM industry at large with a face-to-face educational platform.

"This is only the second year we've done this, so there's always concern about whether you can replicate a great first effort," said Widen Marketing Manager Jake Athey. "The result, though, has just blown us away. Whether it's first-timers or users who were here for our first Summit a year ago, everyone seems to be going home with lots of valuable lessons and the enthusiasm it'll take to translate that into positive change when they get back to their teams."

The Summit's 103 attendees participated in panels and breakout sessions that ranged from the technical to the strategic, including discussions on managing multiple brands, encouraging user engagement, content curation and Widen's own product roadmap for the Media Collective. The breadth of topics covered and the enthusiastic participation of all in attendance highlighted just how important digital asset management has become to the success of a thoughtful and engaging communications strategy.

"DAM has gone from a place to store images to being mission-critical to Yankee Candle, because the latest and greatest asset is available immediately," said Lisa Gauvin, associate sales planning manager at The Yankee Candle Company.

The "Inspiring Harmony" theme of the event underscored the notion that bringing order to a marketing department's digital asset library benefits the entire organization. DAM software has become a tool that supports brand strategy from end-to-end, both internally and externally.

"We believe that if we can inspire harmony in digital asset management, success, well-being, and wealth will follow," said Widen CEO Matthew Gonnering in his opening address on Monday. "There are a few things we're going to focus on throughout the User Summit to inspire that harmony. Some of those things include the administration of DAM, the integration of DAM, the active use of digital asset management by your user communities and our own advancements in digital asset management. We believe if we can create harmony across those areas, that indeed wealth, success and well-being will follow."

The event was held at the Monona Terrace Community and Convention Center, which gave Widen DAM users visiting Madison a central location from which to venture off and explore downtown Madison.

"It was very interesting to find that a lot of people are facing the same issues and achieving the same successes," said Will Johnson, sales support manager at Messer Construction, who also sat on a panel to share his insights on the role of DAM within the broader marketing and sales workflows.

In addition, Widen offered attendees a glance at version 7.0 of Media Collective, as well as a new mobile app, an expansion of the global infrastructure supporting the system, integrations with web content management tools, web-to-print services and more.

Widen will be sharing materials from the User Summit, including video of panel discussions and more details on Media Collective version 7.0, at www.widenusersummit.com.

About Widen Enterprises
Based in Madison, Wisconsin, Widen has honed its more than 60 years of experience in premedia services and color management specifically for assisting customers with building brand equity and supporting consistent brand representation across print and Web communications. Through its inventive suite of Web-based digital asset management applications, Widen software services provide marketing networks with real-time, Web-based access to clients' digital asset libraries, subsequently eliminating manual search and file preparation time, costs related to replacing images and videos that cannot be located, and added costs for hardware, software and upgrades.