Voting for (technical) independence

According to Time Magazine, more than half the world’s population will go to the polls in 2024. The fact that the UK’s election also coincides with Independence Day presented an irresistible opportunity for Blue Lucy’s chief strategy officer, Jonathan Lunness, to share some thoughts around change, independence and choosing the technology you entrust with your media workflows:

Over the last few months, I’ve attended a series of industry events – from MPTS to Amagi’s AI conference, the DPP media supply chain festival and Henry Stewart’s DAM Europe 2024 conference – and sat through more than my fair share of product and customer presentations.  It’s been interesting to hear a broad range of customers talking about all the changes their organisations are undergoing: migrating to the cloud, launching FAST channels, growing audience share and those other important shares – the ones that relate to their stock price.  If there’s one thing COVID taught us, it’s that we don’t know what’s around the corner –what’s right for today’s situation isn’t necessarily going to be best option for the future. As an example, we collect metrics on how many times our customers change or tweak a workflow in BLAM. Over the course of delivering millions of assets, they also make hundreds of iterative changes to their workflows. And these changes aren’t to correct errors in the system – they’re in response to constantly changing requirements as they deliver new formats to new platforms. Fortunately, BLAM is a low-code/no-code orchestration engine, so it’s easy to make these changes. But imagine if each change meant filling in a change request, coding or scripting the new workflow and testing each iteration before deploying it…oh, and maintaining that code, at your cost, for the lifetime of the platform. Long deployment cycles, inflexible solutions, and changing customer requirements are not a recipe for success.

Another observation from attending these events is just how diverse the various customer approaches can be. Some are looking to support hybrid operation, others for variations in cloud provider, but everyone is looking for a mix of integrations with a diverse range of technology vendors that meet their unique business needs. Clearly there’s no point adopting a new MAM or Content Supply Chain solution if it means giving up your independence of choice – it’s not flexible if you’re locked into certain vendors because of walled garden ecosystems. That off-the-peg MAM with simple functions and $100 dollar per month seat pricing might meet your base requirements on day one, but what happens if the project is a success, and you want the whole company on the platform? Equally, is that vendor really going to be interested in building the 3rd party integrations and custom workflows you will inevitably need?

Walled gardens, it seems, are not just on the ground and some solutions are also tied to specific cloud vendors. An interesting aspect of attending such a range of events was to listen to international customers, and how the engagement and economics of cloud vendor choice differed between geographic regions. Clearly, in not following the herd, these customers are seeing different benefits to others. Ensuring your choice of MAM is independent i.e. not dependent on a single cloud vendor seems like sound advice.

As we head to the polls this year, it’s important to remember that all candidates are telling us what we want to hear. We need to do our own research, read those manifestos, and choose the right party for our own specific needs. In choosing a MAM or Content Supply Chain solution you should take similar precautions. Unlike a government however, with the right platform you can easily change direction mid-term and cope with unexpected global events – without running up the national debt. Choose wisely.

Want to find out more about BLAM?  Get in touch with our team to book a demo.