Before David took control of digital asset management at Visit Seattle, the nonprofit organization had been using a DAM solution popular within the travel and tourism industry. David describes this previous system as “mindboggingly counterintuitive and expensive”; team members didn’t actually use the solution because it was too convoluted to figure out.
“Our previous solution had a lot of functionality, but it was very nonvisual – like seeing a wall of text without paragraph breaks or punctuation. That’s just not how people work,” said David.
To move the team forward, David knew they needed a DAM that would bring the team together, not scare them away. He evaluated and deeply compared seven products, finally choosing Canto for its flexibility, user-friendliness, and price point.
No stranger to bold moves, David took the lead with the organization’s transition to Canto.
“Although there was already an interest in moving on because people understood how our previous DAM wasn’t helping anyone, there was also a bit of reticence to try a new system. But once people saw how easy Canto is – how easy it is to tag, collect, and share things – they got on board quickly,” said David.
By migrating files over and setting up the library structure before introducing Canto to the broader team, he avoided any possible confusion. David implemented the folder structure in a way that made sense for the organization: each department has its own folder which contains content most relevant to them. He set “big bucket” items such as neighborhoods and major landmarks as keywords, and encourages his team to use tags generously to help folks find assets as easily as possible. Thanks to David’s foresight and Canto’s intuitive design, the organization was able to start reaping the benefits of their new DAM solution right away.
Internally, marketing uses Canto to centralize assets created by in-house photographers, freelance content creators, and production agencies. Once in Canto, the assets are easy to find and share. To streamline their media relations workflow, the team created a media portal containing pre-approved assets that they can share with press with just a link.
The sales team, which brings meetings and events to the Washington State Convention Center, also uses Canto to find and access assets they need when they’re in the field. Sales representatives can quickly download the images they need to create presentations on the fly or communicate with prospects and clients.
