As a well-established firm with over 120 years of history, we had photos from a very wide range of projects that were spread all over. We have 8 offices, and marketing photos were shared on a drive that was accessible to marketing. Beyond that, we also had project teams keeping photos on their desktops, and each individual office had photos from company and client events stored locally. Our need for a photo library was unquestionable.
We shared with leadership the difficulties we faced finding photos, making sure they were approved, and that we had rights to use them on our website or in proposals. One of the biggest risks associated with the way we managed photos was making sure that employees weren’t using photos improperly. For example, we didn’t want damage relationships with photographers by utilizing images that we didn’t have the rights to use, or assume legal risk by using site photos that aren’t safety-approved. It was really becoming a liability to use photos improperly.
The ease and time saving aspects of OpenAsset quickened the process of getting leadership buy-in for the system.