What makes a computer file into a digital asset?
A thorough audit of the digital files that a firm creates reveals that only a small percentage of those files have a reasonable potential for reuse.
ENGINEERED FOR REUSE AND REEXPRESSION
A thorough audit of the digital files that a firm creates reveals that only a small percentage of those files have a reasonable potential for reuse.
Yet GISTICS’ research of thousands of mediaproducing firms reveals that the systematic reuse of preexisting media and related digital objects can significantly reduce costs, errors that necessitate reworks and make-goods, and time-to-market cycles.
For a few firms, an enterprise-wide reuse strategy hinges on a particular type of digital asset—the digital master.
As the name suggests, it represents a file on which its creator expended extra effort to provide for the highest levels of reuse.
In this context, a reuse strategy turns on three prerequisites.
First, potential users must be able to quickly and easily locate and retrieve the file, necessitating a robust search capability.
Second, the creators must optimize the file for broad reuse by a range of users.
Third, the owners of the file must take measures to protect their intellectual property rights—their investment in creating and managing the file for reuse by others.
THE DIGITAL ASSET
Corporations spend billions on the development of artwork and brand-related material and collateral. In many cases, the owners of these brand resources cannot envision others reusing their finished works and direct their design firms and internal creativeservices departments to create less-reusable digital objects (oneshots).
While only a small percentage of all creative work warrants the investment to create digital assets, most corporations do not realize the economic benefits of reusing those few masterworks they could easily commission each year.
A digital master represents a multipurpose reusable digital file with embedded metadata derived from four systems or tools:
• Authoring tools to create the file
• Business systems to manage accounting and intellectual property rights
• Digital asset repositories to manage the file with its metadata and creation workflows
• Cross-media publishing systems to use or express the digital master in a finished work