Organizing and finding your assets

The documents, images, and templates a company builds up drift into a state where it exists somewhere but nobody knows where. Each person keeps their own in their own drive, folder, and chat, so when you need something it will not turn up and you remake it from scratch. In the meantime several versions of the same asset appear, and someone sends an old version or a stale logo or price sheet to a customer. Images, fonts, and templates from outside get reused with no license basis, leaving a copyright risk on top.

Material like this, organized like this.

We gather the work as it actually arrives, and record what each step is judged against.

Collect and normalize the assets

Gather the documents, images, and templates scattered across drives, folders, and chat, and organize them by type, use, and version.

Judgment Group the several versions of the same asset into one, in a state where you can tell which is the latest.
Classify and index

Tag by use, industry, and format and build a searchable asset index, so you can find things without knowing the name.

Judgment Index by the smallest searchable unit (what the asset is for), so people find it by use, not by folder location.
Judge version and latest

Pick out the latest approved asset among duplicates and mark old versions as archived.

Judgment Only one latest. Limit what can go to a customer to the approved latest version.
Confirm license and source

Record the source and use scope of images, fonts, and templates from outside, and flag assets that need a judgment.

Judgment Exclude assets with an unclear source or license from external-use candidates. Let a person judge the copyright risk.
Provide search and maintain

Provide the organized assets through a search screen, and when a new asset comes in, queue it for indexing under the same rules.

Judgment A person approves confirming the index (writing to company asset memory). A misfiled asset keeps getting found wrong.

If the source is unclear, we do not send it out

We settle the exceptions that actually come up before they do. When a rule doesn't fit, we don't force it through. It goes to a person, with the evidence.

Exception It is unclear which version is latest

Do not pick one as latest on your own. Raise the candidates side by side and let the person handling it designate the latest approved version.

Exception An outside asset with unknown license or source

Remove it from external-use candidates and quarantine it as needs source confirmation, leaving the copyright judgment to a person.

Exception A document holding personal data or confidential material

Separate it from the public index into an access-controlled area, and let a person set its search exposure.

License and index confirmation are a person's call

Anything touching money, contracts, personal data, or the brand is drafted and no further. It sends only after a person approves.

Writing a confirmed entry to long-term company memory (the asset index)

A misfiled asset keeps getting found wrong, so a person approves indexing.
Judging an outside asset's license and use scope

It is a copyright-risk judgment, so a person confirms.
Designating the approved latest version for external use

What is allowed to go out is set by a person.
The search exposure of confidential or personal-data documents

Judging exposure scope is a person's job.
Retiring or merging old versions

It is cleanup that is hard to reverse, so a person confirms before it proceeds.

How you know it worked

How fast we found it and how much less we remade

Asset search time

Interaction workers spend 19% of the workweek searching for and gathering information (McKinsey Global Institute, The Social Economy, 2012)

Measure information-search time before and after each customer rollout. The goal is to cut search time with a use-based index so people find things without knowing the name.

Duplicate and remade-asset rate

Measured by the rate of remaking something that already exists but could not be found (worth measuring in-house).

Approved-latest usage rate

Measured by the rate of old-version misuse among files sent externally (worth measuring in-house).

Rule

Images, fonts, and templates you received from outside sources can infringe copyright if they are reused beyond what their license allows, so record each asset's source and the scope of permission with the asset. When an asset contains customer or employee personal information or anything confidential, manage it under access controls in line with the applicable privacy law, and treat your own templates and materials as trade secrets with export controls.

There is less that a person has to hold on to.

Once the scattered checks and repeat replies are drafted and sorted, your staff can spend the day on review and exceptions, and you look only at the decisions that matter.

Get an assessment

Today

Checks pile up on a person.

Nobody knows where the documents, images, and templates they need live, so people re-hunt for them or just remake them.

With Velros running it

The work arrives ready to go.

It sorts and indexes your assets so they're searchable, and keeps things so only the latest approved version gets used, which cuts down on remaking the same thing.

Asset search time Share of duplicate or remade assets Use rate of the latest approved version

What people ask before they hand this over

The things people actually check first about Organizing and finding your assets.

Filenames are all over the place, so search fails. Can it still be found?

We index by what the asset is for, not by file location or name, so you can find it without knowing the name.

Can we just use an image grabbed from the internet?

We record the source and license with it, and assets that need a use judgment go up for a person's approval before external use. If the basis is unclear, they are excluded from external candidates.

What to sort out next

Building a target customer list

Building a target customer list can be joined up the same way, on the channels you already use, from intake through to the approval queue.

Reply rate

Cold outreach schedule

Cold outreach schedule can be joined up the same way, on the channels you already use, from intake through to the approval queue.

On-time publishing rate

Content publishing pipeline

Content publishing pipeline can be joined up the same way, on the channels you already use, from intake through to the approval queue.

See every workflow

Inquiries, bookings, quotes, order updates. You can compare the work that keeps a person busy, side by side.

We start with the work that keeps a person tied up.

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