Now’s a good time to curate and organize your visual assets
It’s been a while since I’ve had much to write about here, given the heavy body blow covid19 has made on the business of events and conferences in general. As a provider of photo and video coverage for large gatherings, I finally know what it’s like to be a bee in complete colony collapse.
But there is always something you can do, and no sense in wishing for a past that is now seemingly become a new normal. The best way to move forward is look for the positive, keep creating and adapt to the changed environment.
As we offer animation services, we are still able to help clients communicate with their clients and audiences. But for those many event organizers and conference planners who have had their activities severe curtailed, this may be a good time to review your visual assets library and curate the best event and conference images you have from past events.
One of my clients recently reached out asking about making a video slideshow of event photos to share with their members. While I generally use the built in functionality of Lightroom for creating slideshows, there are several online options for clients working at home and trying to create some value for their members and audiences. My client was using Smilebox, which has many good reviews online. It is free with a paid version for upgrades and enhancements.
Another thing you could be doing with your event photos is organizing them with a visual asset library tool like Libris. Libris is a cloud based digital asset manager which can help distributed teams work on creative assets, comment and optimize their use – all while practicing safe, social distancing. I have often been contacted by clients over the years asking me to help them find a certain image, or in some cases even complete galleries and collections of work from past events. Using a digital asset management system can spare you from experiencing what some of my clients have gone through when they lose track of images and video files over time. Sometimes the account managers on the file leave or change jobs, sometimes drives just get misplaced or lost, and sometimes data doesn’t get backed up and systems konk out. With a well-organized visual asset library you can save time and extract more value from your investment in the work.
As we move ahead through these strange and tumultous times, people will begin to learn new ways of living and working. Events and conferences may become virtual experiences and the need for live coverage and images of audiences interacting, networking and engaged with each other will certainly look different in the future. I suspect the wide angle will be making a comeback, but there is still value in telling stories and communicating the good that has come – and will again rise from creating a nexus of people and ideas, whether in real life, online or somewhere in between. Extracting the images and video clips needed to help tell these new stories can be done with your existing brand and image bank of work – just as long as you can find it. Take this time now to get organized and prepare for the work to come.
