Gonnering Speaks to Digital Asset Management Students at Columbia University About SaaS DAM

Nov. 15, 2010 - PRLog -- Matthew Gonnering, CEO of Widen Enterprises, a Madison, Wisconsin-based provider of digital asset management software recently spoke to Digital Asset Management (DAM) students at the Columbia University School of Continuing Education. Course instructor, Donna Slawsky, invited Gonnering to speak to students about the definitions, growth, advantages and challenges of implementing DAM SaaS solutions in a variety of businesses and organizations. The Digital Asset Management course at Columbia University is one of a few higher education courses devoted to DAM instruction and regularly utilizes representatives from the industry.

"Donna Slawsky was gracious enough to invite us to speak with her graduate class at Columbia University to help them understand the power of the software-as-a-service model and the relevancy for the digital asset management market,” said Widen CEO Matthew Gonnering.

Gonnering’s lecture covered a number of key areas surrounding the SaaS DAM model, including:

•  Definitions of SaaS with an emphasis on the last "S" being “Service”
•  Growing market demand for software-as-a-service and DAM as a service
•  SaaS DAM advantages—speed to market, upgrades, functionality, integration and costs
•  SaaS DAM challenges, security concerns, custom features and workflow requirements
•  Cloud computing and digital asset management

"Donna has positioned Columbia University well to educate the next generation of information professionals to support complex metadata and taxonomy structures within digital asset management systems," added Gonnering.

Widen provides Columbia Digital Asset Management students access to the Widen Media Collective, the company’s Web-based DAM software to complete hands-on learning projects using a live digital asset management system.

“We thank Widen for providing use of their SaaS product for our DAM course at Columbia. As a guest speaker, Widen CEO Matthew Gonnering really helped enhance our understanding of SaaS, hosting and the Cloud," said course instructor Donna Slawsky.

"The graduate level students are very knowledgeable and actively participated in our presentation on software-as-a-service with inquisitive questioning. Their commitment to the information and digital age by continuing their formal education is commendable and if Widen can help weave our live environment into the classroom to better prepare them, we will," stated Gonnering.

With nearly 140 customers across sixteen major vertical markets including manufacturing, healthcare, and higher education, Widen’s SaaS DAM solutions allow clients’ internal IT teams to focus on improving internal operational systems without diverting those resources to digital asset management.

About the Columbia University Digital Asset Management Course
The Digital Asset Management course at the Columbia University School of Continuing Education is part of the programming for the Master of Science in Information and Digital Resource Management. The course, which employs case studies, theoretical readings, student projects, guest speakers, and site visits, is a companion course to the Master's Project Seminar. Students of the Digital Asset Management course learn about the increasing variety and importance of digital resources held and used by business, nonprofit, and governmental organizations. Among the topics the course considers are the transfer of records and other materials from analog and other non-digital formats to digital format; the design and maintenance of digital databases; the preservation of digital assets; the practical integration of digital assets into the daily work and long-term missions of diverse organizations.

About Widen Enterprises, Inc.
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 the 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. For more information, visit: http://www.widen.com.