HubTalk   What's New?
Tough times call for better tools.

With consumer and business spending as sluggish as it is, every single customer and every single sale count even more.  Jeff Zabin, a Research Fellow at the Aberdeen Group, has studied how the best organizations are using new approaches to achieve a higher level of efficiency and effectiveness across all aspects of marketing operations.  One of the most effective tools?  Email marketing.

Research shows email marketing outperforms virtually all other media in terms of ROI.  So of course we've built that feature into HubCentrix. The postcard marketing and newsletter marketing tools allow you to create dynamic content personalized to your customers, and then track measure results. Digital content you already have on your Hub can easily be re-purposed for your email efforts, to coordinate with your larger marketing strategy.

For more ideas on how to stay competitive in tough times, you can read Mr. Zabin's entire article - "Recessionary Times Call for Reccessionary Marketing" at http://www.crmbuyer.com/story/66618.html.
Tough Times Call for Better Tools
How do you use your Hub? (Take a hint from Best-in-Class companies.)

As a depository for all your digital assets, HubCentrix shines. But that's just the tip of the iceberg. If you want your Hub to really work for you, take a look at what some of the best-performing companies do with their DAM solutions. Here are just a few ideas to get your started:

Open up access to your digital assets. Allow everyone in the organization access to your Hub to enhance communication and collaboration. You can use permission-based access to protect any sensitive data.

Use the search functionality to speed up workflow. HubCentrix's sophisticated database tracks all kinds of metadata, allowing users to search and find files across multiple servers and drives. Add your own metadata tags, comments and descriptions on every file so anyone can find anything.

Optimize marketing content online. HubCentrix allows you to create custom HTML files for web applications. You can feed copy and images from your Hub directly to your web site.

For even more tips on maximizing your Hub, take a look at this idea-packed article from CRM Buyer: "Delivering Value With Marketing Asset Management" at http://crmbuyer.com/story/62077.html.
How do you use your Hub?
Stop brand degradation in its tracks.

Keeping your brand pure and powerful is always a challenge. When you get third parties involved - advertising agencies, printers, franchisees, broadcasters and the like - the problem gets even stickier. HubCentrix can help, with powerful tools designed to keep your brand safe. Here are 3 examples:

Version Control is automatic; HubCentrix updates content dynamically, to maintain brand integrity across media, across geography, and across time.

Asset Lock & Release allows you to set up automatic locking of expired assets and set pre-determined release dates for special promotions. You never have to worry about your Spring Sale ad being run in November.

Permission-Based Access gives you control over who accesses what so your vendors can access the files they need while you keep all other files safe and secure. You also make sure the Spanish-language flyer meant for Miami won't end up in Milwaukee.

With HubCentrix deployed, you're in control of your branding message - who, what, where, when and how.

For more food for thought on this topic, we recommend this thought-provoking article from TechNewsWorld: http://www.technewsworld.com/story/37635.html.
Stop Brand Degradation in its tracks


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July 6th, 2010 13:02:00 (EDT)

What is a digital asset?
A digital asset is a digital file that you have the right to use---and that most likely has value to you. It can be textual content or image content or multimedia. Your digital assets include your logos, your product images, illustrations, photography, word documents, spreadsheets, audio files, video files, CAD files page files and more.

How do you value a digital asset?
The word "asset" implies value. So...how much are your digital assets worth? There is certainly expense involved in creating the asset in the first place--taking the photograph, purchasing an illustration, creating a design, writing a document, filming a 30-second commercial. That's the cost of the asset--the value of the asset is a little harder to calculate. A company's logo is highly valuable, of course. Any asset that represents your company or promotes your products, or communicates to interested parties, has intrinsic value. The value of these assets increases with use. If wisely re-purposed and carefully put to work, assets can increase in value the more they are utilized. And re-purposing existing digital assets can save time and money as opposed to creating new assets.

How do you organize digital assets?
In a word: metadata.
Metadata describes other data. In the case of digital assets, metadata is the embedded descriptive information that is connected to the file. This is how you are able to organize and then search for and retrieve your digital assets. There are some file formats that automatically write metadata to the asset, or you can also add metadata to your files manually.

The metadata might describe how large a photo is , the image resolution, or when the image was created. Some types of metadata allow you to personalize the descriptive information exactly the way you want--in the case of an illustration, for example, you may want to catalog by artist or the subject or the product. For other files you may want to catalog by keywords or creation date or client name.

A Digital Asset Management system is a centralized location for storing, managing and accessing your digital assets--along with their accompanying metadata, which allows you to organize and retrieve your files.


February 8th, 2010 15:27:00 (EST)

Some of us are natives of the digital age...and some of us are immigrants here in the digital world, maintaining our "accents" that mark us as being from somewhere else. Not sure which one you are? Take this simple test:
  • Do you sometimes print out a document to read it or edit it?
  • Would you rather walk across the hall to talk to a colleague than send an email?
  • Do you regularly read the newspaper?
  • Do you bring people physically into your office to show them an interesting web site?
  • Are you able to walk out of the house without your cell phone?
If you answered "yes" to all or most of the questions, you're a digital immigrant - someone who is probably pretty competent with text messaging or iPhone apps or internet searching, but also needs to disconnect from the digital universe every now and then and reconnect to the physical world. The immigrant's digital "accent" just means you may turn to other forms of information at times rather than always using the internet.

Author Marc Prensky, who coined the terms, claims that digital natives are different from digital immigrants, because the natives have been digitally hardwired since birth. He has calculated that the typical college grad today has, on average, exchanged 250,000 emails, IMs and mobile text messages and spent more than 10,000 hours on their cell phones. They've spent less than 5,000 hours of their lives reading - but over 10,000 hours playing video games and another 20,000 hours watching TV.

Good news is, Digital Immigrants and Natives can coexist peacefully and even work pretty well together. Technology like HubCentrix can help bridge the gap, allowing each group to work in ways that are comfortable for them. One might draft copy in a word program first, then cut and paste into an HTML file for web, while the other will probably just write directly into HTML. The Hub allows both. One might use the Hub primarily to move business and projects along, while the other will use it to also connect socially. One might keep a hard copy of a warranty after scanning it into the Hub, while the other will toss it.

The Hub is an equal opportunity tool, no matter how fluent - or not - you might be. For immigrants, the more you use the Hub, the more you might feel at home here in digital land. Welcome!

Free at Last! If everyone were working and thinking while connect to some large portal spread out on a global range....

From infotoxication to cybernetization, Naseem Javed of E-Commerce Times makes some observations and predictions about the coming new world order. Fun and fascinating reading! Read it here: http://www/ecommercetimes.com/story/69252.html


December 15th, 2009 18:57:00 (EST)

The little company that could.....

Some of you may remember MyBrandVault - the brainchild of a frustrated art director/design studio owner who knew there had to be a better way for writers, art directors, printers, photographers and clients to collaborate on projects. Everyone who used MyBrandVault fell in love with it. And then some interesting things began happening. The idea began to grow. What if, someone asked, we could add notes on individual pages within a file for true collaboration? What if, someone else asked, we could set pre-determined release dates for special promotions? What if we could receive automatic email notification when uploads are completed? What if we could feed copy and images directly to custom-designed web pages? The result of these "what ifs?" is HubCentrix - a bigger, smarter, faster, broader, better version of the little digital asset management company that could make a big impact on how you do business.


December 15th, 2009 18:28:00 (EST)

Wow! You're a Digital Asset Manager

So, you got roped into managing all of your company's digital assets. Now what to do? This blog might be of some interest to you for building that super resume or just find out what you need to do to to get the job done!
Be more productive and get a Hub today!
http://anotherdamblog.com/tag/dam/
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