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Dates for Your 2013 Calendar

We'll be visiting the following cities this year - look out for early bird discounts and savings!

Please check back for updates as we develop the content-led briefings packed full of case studies - all from the user's perspective! Attendance ensures that everyone involved in the capture, storage and application of digital media assets is fully briefed on the latest developments and best practices. We hope to see you in 2013 as we continue to present events dedicated to DAM.

Reflections on 2012 and Opportunities in 2013


To: The Henry Stewart DAM community - users, vendors, consultants and academics.

From: David H. Lipsey, Chair, Henry Stewart DAM conferences

Our DAM community can look back on another year of impressive growth. The entire field has expanded and the reach of community members has grown enormously. We can reflect with confidence, but without complacency, how DAM is contributing every day to the positive development of commercial businesses, not for profits and government agencies. The impact is extensive: media, manufacturing, education, museums, libraries and a host of other sectors are all benefiting. While much remains to be achieved, we can, collectively and individually, take pride in our achievements.

As I write this end of year message, your insights and feedback are being put to work. We are busy planning the 2013 series of conferences. I was again privileged to see more than a thousand of you at our events in New York City, London, Chicago and Los Angeles. And judging by our conversations there was no shortage of new thinking. Many of you told me how much you benefited from our highly regarded breakout sessions which we will, of course, continue in 2013. The issue you have told us is at the forefront of your concerns is organizational alignment for adoption. Under this heading you include: How do we help management see DAM as a business transformation dynamic? To whom should DAM executives report? How should we budget for change management? Who is our high level DAM champion? How does DAM get understood throughout the organization? Who helps make a DAM-wide enterprise and gets us beyond departmental self-interest? How do we translate the pervasive presence of digital in everything we do into C-Suite awareness about DAM? Valid questions all and we are in the business of creating forums in which you access practical, implementable answers.

We heard many answers to these questions in 2012 embedded in case studies, best practice discussions, panel presentations, keynote addresses and spotlight sessions. In 2013 we will hear more answers and different answers to long standing questions this field does not stand still. My thanks to all of you who took the time to present and share your insights. And special thanks to the hardy east coasters who made an extra effort to travel to Los Angeles in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy.
The intelligence of the vendor community and system integrators continues to unlock vital IP about how DAM projects succeed or encounter challenges to overcome. This knowledge is critical for our community, and watch for more of this in 2013.

Other important issues regularly raised at our round table discussions include working effectively with IT, making metadata work and intellectual rights management. In 2013 our programs will be taking full account of your suggestions of the important matters to address and the inevitable new problems and emerging trends. We value your opinion. Its you we are here to serve. So, if there are issues you wish us to address forward them to us and well see that they are covered. We, very much, welcome your input.
DAMs journey is one of change this is a vibrant, novel technology opening up new opportunities across the board to gather, process, create and deliver information, and to communicate more effectively. This dynamism gives us energy and determination. We experience our share of challenges and frustrations but, overall, let there be no doubt, optimism is our default-state. We are all contributing to something new and important.

Please join me again in 2013, and share your stories as we travel together and learn from each other. Thats what community is all about.

With best wishes for the New Year to all of you.

David H. Lipsey