Digital Asset Management (DAM) for Local Government in Australia

Local governments in Australia play a crucial role in serving their communities. From managing records to promoting transparency, the right tools can make a world of difference. That's where Digital Asset Management (DAM) steps in.

Because local governments are all about Process, Place and People, the right content is what best illustrates, documents, records, celebrates and promotes these organisations and their events.

It is not only about the need to capture and store content, it is about having this content available to the right people, in the right format, at the right time.

Why digital asset management is important for local government?

Typical Content Challenges Local Governments Face

1. Complexity of Local Government Data

Local government agencies manage vast amounts of digital content, from records and documents to multimedia assets. This diversity of data can quickly become overwhelming, making it challenging to locate and utilize resources efficiently.

2. Data security and compliance

Protecting sensitive government data is a top priority. Local governments must adhere to strict regulations and compliance standards, such as SOC 2, ISO27001, and ISO9001, to ensure data security and integrity. Failing to meet these standards can lead to serious consequences, including legal issues.

3. Collaboration and workflow efficiency

In the local government sector, multiple departments and teams often need to collaborate on various projects. Ensuring efficient workflows and seamless collaboration while managing digital assets can be a daunting task.

4. Content accessibility and citizen engagement

Local governments are accountable to their communities. Providing easy access to information for citizens and maintaining a user-friendly online presence is a constant challenge. It's important for government websites and portals to offer a seamless user experience.

5. Data growth

The volume of digital content generated by local governments continues to grow. This necessitates scalable solutions that can accommodate this ever-increasing data flow without causing operational bottlenecks.

6. Data loss

In a world where data loss or disasters can strike at any time, local governments must have robust disaster recovery plans in place to safeguard their digital assets and ensure uninterrupted service delivery to their communities.

Along with this simple need to capture and store content that defines your Place and People, a Local Government organisation is responsible for putting into place Process - implementing governance regarding the storage, accessibility, usage, permission, privacy, accuracy, and – findability.

A DAM system is designed to provide a Process to your management of digital assets.

Here is why many Local Government organisations have a DAM:

Centralised Repository: All digital assets are stored in one place, making them easy to locate.

Metadata and Tagging: Ensures your assets are easily found.

Share Links and Portals: Easy asset sharing publicly or privately.

Upload Links: Get images from public or external agencies, collaborators.

User Access Control: Gives appropriate access permissions.

Robust Security: Enhanced security features, including backup and privacy, are integrated.

Streamlined Operations: Features like submission, approval, and sharing are simplified for the marketing team.

Legal Compliance: Ownership and licensing information are easily traceable, reducing the risk of legal issues.

Analytics and Reporting: Valuable insights into your content performance.

DAM Use Cases for Local Government

Communications and Marketing Team

Streamlined Content Sharing: A DAM solution allows marketing and communications teams to easily access and share high-quality images, videos, and promotional materials, ensuring a consistent brand image.

Efficient Campaign Management: With quick access to approved content, marketing teams can execute campaigns faster and with greater accuracy.

Video Capabilities: The DAM isn't just for static assets. Its advanced video capabilities allow you to pivot to a more dynamic communications strategy effortlessly.

IT and Technical Departments

Security and Compliance: DAM solutions with robust security features, like Canto, aid in maintaining data security and meeting compliance standards.

Local Studies

Cataloging of Historical Materials: A DAM solution allows for the systematic cataloging and archiving of historical documents, photographs, maps, and other materials, ensuring their long-term preservation and easy retrieval due to applied metadata.

Collaboration and Sharing: DAM solutions support collaboration between local studies staff and external researchers, historians, and educators by providing a secure platform for sharing materials.

Public Engagement: Local history and cultural materials can be made available to the public through an online portal, enriching community engagement and education.

Parks and Recreation

Event management: These departments can use DAM to store and organise event-related resources, including photos, brochures, and promotional materials.

Museum and Gallery

Efficient Resource Access: Staff can quickly access digital records, images, and videos, aiding in research, curation, and educational programming.

Collaboration with Artists: Artists and creators can collaborate with the museum or gallery, sharing their works and contributing to exhibitions and events.

Branded Public Portals: DAM ensures a consistent and visually appealing online presence, assisting in branding, promotional efforts, public engagement, and education.

Public Relations and Community Engagement

Accessible Resources: PR teams can easily access press releases, images, and community engagement materials, ensuring prompt and accurate responses to public inquiries.

Community Outreach: Enhanced digital asset management can aid in community outreach efforts by providing access to resources for community events and initiatives.

Tourism

Efficient Content Management: A DAM solution streamlines the storage, organisation, and retrieval of promotional materials, such as high-quality images, videos, and brochures. This efficiency allows the Tourism Department to execute marketing campaigns swiftly and effectively.

Collaboration and Partner Engagement: DAM facilitates the sharing of promotional assets with external partners like hotels, travel agencies, and local businesses, ensuring that everyone is using the latest and most accurate content.

Canto for local government

Canto is as a scalable, cost-efficient digital asset management solution. Canto offers core DAM functionality, including:

Single source of truth for all your digital assets, such as photos, videos, audios, templates, Adobe creative files, presentations, pdfs, etc.
Advanced search features
Nicely organised files with thumbnail display
Added metadata and tags
Brand portals for specific projects, external partners, departments
Asset level team collaboration
Version control
Digital rights management (DRM)
Streamlined asset sharing
Asset analytics
Integrations with other popular workflow and project management platforms
Advanced security protocols

Customer experience

databasics have been Canto’s partner in Australia and New Zealand for nearly 30 years. Our only focus is providing the best possible customer experience to our Canto customers.

Prouding ourselves as DAM experts with over 30 years DAM experience, we offer DAM consultations, 100% personalised Canto DAM onboarding and Hands-on customer service.

We will assist you throughout your DAM journey from start to finish. 100% dedication to our customers is what will set us apart from the rest of Australian DAM vendors. Choose databasics. Schedule your free consultation now.

See if Canto is the right DAM for your local government organisation

After your team has outgrown Dropbox and Google Drive, it is time to look at a suitable DAM solution – one that is user friendly and intuitive, a solution that will streamline your workflows, ensure brand consistency, adhere to regulatory requirements, and empower your teams.

Canto is considered the pioneer/ inventor of DAM with their flagship on-premise solution Cumulus, later introducing the Canto cloud DAM – named - Canto, solution that has now been their focus for the last 10 years.

Investing in a DAM system is not just a cost but a strategic business decision. It can substantially improve operational efficiency, compliance, and even provide insights into your digital assets' ROI.

Don't wait, explore your DAM options today and redefine how your organisation manages its digital assets. Reach out to databasics to schedule a DAM consultation.

Digital asset management (DAM) for Local Government

Local governments have been one of the first adopters of DAMs in Australia and New Zealand

Why?

It is not only about the need to capture and store content, it is about having this content available to the right people, in the right format, at the right time.