Reflections on winning the DAMMY of the Year.

Thomas Schleu founded Canto in 1990 with three other colleagues, and since that time has remained at the helm of the company’s software development, stepping into the CTO spot in 2008. His contributions to the company and the industry are well recognized for their impact and longevity. A native Berliner, he graduated with a diploma in Computer Science from Technische Universität Berlin, and began his career at a small software company in Germany before launching Canto. Over the past 20 years, Canto has grown into a leading supplier of DAM solutions, serving a wide spectrum of market segments including corporate communications, manufacturing, advertising/design, government, publishing and retail.

Thomas’ work and stature in the digital asset management community cannot be underestimated. He invented Canto Cumulus more than 20 years ago, and today, its core features are found in virtually all DAM software applications. For almost twenty years Canto has been a pure-play DAM vendor, concentrating solely on digital asset management. Given that more than 14,000 Cumulus Servers have been sold, with more than 1,000,000 user licenses distributed, it’s doubtful that the DAM contributions of any other individual have touched more people directly, or with such impact and influence.

Last September, during the DAMMY Awards ceremony at Createasphere’s Digital Asset Management Conference in New York, Thomas Schleu and his work at Canto were honored with the DAMMY of the Year. We caught up with him from his Berlin headquarters to find out why awards matter, the state of DAM, and what’s ahead.

Createasphere: You bring an uncommon perspective and experience to this conversation about DAM, developing a product that has had lasting impact, given that Cumulus has played a meaningful role in the evolution of DAM. What do you consider to be the most crucial challenge facing practitioners and those who need solutions in today’s dynamic environment?

Thomas: In general, I would say that it’s important and sometimes difficult to remember that DAM is an initiative and not just software. What Canto provides is a tool that humans can use to help them manage their digital assets, but the value of that human component and contribution cannot be overestimated. Canto Cumulus enables customers to do virtually anything they need to do, but it doesn’t tell people what to do or how to do it. A successful DAM initiative is like a successful exercise regimen: You can buy a membership at the best gym in the world, but the equipment doesn’t exercise without you. People need to have plans for asset management, and they need to work those plans. This is the main reason we’ve invested so heavily in our Canto Professional Services division. When people leverage all that expertise, they become more successful DAM practitioners. People who buy a one-size-fits-all type of solution are doomed to frustration.

Createasphere: What developments are ahead in the near term, the next year or so, which might prove critical for DAM?

Thomas: DAM as an industry is being handed an expanding customer base simply because everything anyone does these days involves a proliferation of data. Yet, at the same time, the notion of a “digital asset” is changing because files are becoming increasingly invisible to the user. DAM vendors will have to react accordingly.

Customers today see the opportunity to connect more and more software systems to the DAM that manages all their media assets. This integration into the whole working environment is what will make DAM even more powerful and important in the future.

Createasphere: What do you have in development?  Any interesting news to discuss?

Thomas: We’re actually on the verge of the first major new product announcement we’ve made since we launched Cumulus more than 20 years ago. And if I say anything more than that, I’ll be assassinated by our marketing director. What I think I can say is that Canto expects a dramatic shift in the purpose and appearance of digital asset management in the coming years. We’ve immersed ourselves these past few years in preparing for that change and I think we’re ready. I expect our next 20 years in this industry to be even more fun than the last 20 years have been.

Createasphere: The DAMMY Awards are a relatively new award. What motivated you to enter?

Thomas: Honestly, I was nominated without my knowledge! I was told the nomination was offered to call attention to the amount of time I’ve been dedicated to digital asset management. When we started Canto over two decades ago, there really wasn’t a DAM industry, and there were only a few other companies that were even thinking along these lines. Canto was fortunate in that we’ve been able to grow right along with the industry all these years, which is why we’re still here. But, honestly, I was so humbled by the nomination, and when I found out that I’d won, I think it was the best DAM day in my - life.

Createasphere: Do you see the DAMMY Awards helping to draw attention to the industry?

Thomas: I think there’s definite value in making clear just how far DAM has come these past two decades. Canto has customers now who were newborn babies when we released Cumulus 1.0. The DAMMY Awards help people better appreciate how we got to where the DAM software market is now. In turn, they become participants in moving us where we’ll all go next as an industry. Without something like the DAMMY Awards, I don’t think there would be as much appreciation for our industry’s history or accomplishments.

Createasphere: Is there value for your company in participating in the DAMMY Awards?

Thomas: For Canto, I think the benefit comes from people getting a better perspective on the fact that we have been here since the beginning and, since we are a pure-play vendor, we do take this seriously.

Createasphere: Cumulus is well known in the DAM industry, but can you give us a brief overview of what the DAMMY Award recognized?

Thomas: I believe that this DAMMY Award is recognition of a number of important steps we have taken over the past twenty years that have had lasting impact. In Cumulus 1.0, we envisioned a computer desktop that enabled users to actually see the files they worked with so they could make better decisions about storage and use. That might be considered the origin of modern digital asset management. We also were instrumental in the concept of platform agnosticism, and released Cumulus on Mac, Windows, UNIX, IRIX, SOLARIS and LINUX. We also made it easy for users to share files across platforms, which was unheard of at the time. Eventually, we updated Cumulus so that live catalogs could be easily shared across the Web – a first for any DAM system. Before the term “open” was used to describe any sort of software architecture, we built an application programming interface (API) into Cumulus, and published it for anyone to use. The result was the start of a global Canto partner network full of Cumulus add-ons and services that now number well into hundreds of members. Today, Cumulus easily integrates into other systems because of that rich, feature-complete API that we’ve made sure remains open, published and supported by the Canto team. To ensure users the world over could fully benefit from digital asset collections, we localized Cumulus into 5 languages to start, with support for scores more released since.

We are dedicated members of the DAM community, and hope that we are considered cordial and open to work with. It was an honor to win the DAMMY Award and I am proud to be in the company of my peers!

Createasphere: Thank you Thomas!