“Not only do we get rid of all those external drives running back and forth, the system comes with software to sort it all.” Isabel had swallowed her initial nervousness and was excited to be presenting to the Management Team. “It’s called Sharebrowser, and that’s System Network Solution’s Asset Management software—it comes installed,” She smiled. “When you save a file, you also enter meta-data tags so you can find it by keyword later.”
“So, for example,” Mickey chimed in, “if we were saving files for this safari piece we were just working with, we would use keywords like ‘lion’ so we could just search for lions later, like our own personal search engine.”
“Yes. But then some of those clips might also have the keywords sunrise or sunset—that sort of thing—and come up in searches for other projects, too. All of them could be tagged with the date and the location, and then we pick a few keywords that are specific to what’s in each clip,” Isabel continued.
“That would really help,” Diane said. “The first step of every project might be hitting the database with a list of keywords and seeing what we already have in the archives to work with. That would change brainstorming.”
“And we can all sign on to the same drive at the same time, even working in the same folder on different files. We can comment on a project and keep all the comments about that file in the file—it would save tons of time.” Isabel cleared her throat. It isn’t over until she makes the ask, just as she practiced. “And that’s why I believe we should invest in a new shared digital storage system. The increase in efficiency would pay for the equipment in the long run and both our products and our productivity would improve. We call SkyTech, they order it, they install it, they provide training, they provide support, and all we have to do is use it.” Isabel paused and smiled triumphantly. “And, yes, they have financing.”
Diane smiled. She raised an eyebrow. “I know I still owe you guys for that crazy last-minute idea. But I was right.”
“You were right—they liked your version best,” Mickey conceded.
Diane tapped her pencil on the table a few times. The room had grown tense in the silence. It wasn’t often that they had funding for anything, and improving anything that wasn’t flat-out broken usually didn’t make the list. Knowing the problems it would solve and how much easier their lives would be, every member of the team was holding their breath, waiting for her answer.
Diana nodded and turned the page of her planner. “So, how soon can we get started?”