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Government Communications Team Supporting Municipal Marketing
Company Situation
This company operates within the government communications and marketing sector, supporting a large municipal government. Their team is structured into multiple specialized units, including public relations, media relations, web services, digital content (social media), creative services (graphics and branding), and a dedicated TV studio producing video and live multi-camera broadcasts for public meetings. The organization manages content creation at scale across 27 departments, generating a large volume of raw and finished media assets daily.
Existing Workflow
Currently, the TV studio and content teams maintain separate local storage networks outside the city’s managed IT infrastructure, due to strict network access limitations imposed by city IT policies. This means studio staff use dedicated computers not connected to the city network for content storage and editing. Sharing assets like video clips and photos across departments relies heavily on manual requests, with photos shared via Google Photos and video assets manually clipped and distributed. For review and approval workflows, the company uses Frame.io to manage feedback.
Issues with the Existing Workflow
Access Limitations: City IT’s well-managed network policies severely restrict access to shared storage, forcing the TV studio to maintain isolated systems. Standard city devices cannot access these drives, creating inefficiencies and siloed workflows.
Content Findability: With large volumes of both raw and finished video content, locating specific assets is difficult and time-consuming.
Content Sharing Bottlenecks: Requests for content from other city departments require manual intervention to locate and distribute assets, creating a choke point that slows down operations.
Storage and Network Constraints: The existing infrastructure does not support the bandwidth or storage needs for live streaming and large-scale video production, requiring alternative networking solutions such as bonded cellular networks.
How Shade Would Change Their Workflow
Shade offers a comprehensive media asset management platform that would unify storage, access, and sharing across all teams while respecting the strict network policies. Key features include:
- Secure, Cloud-Enabled Access: Shade streams media files to users anywhere, bypassing the need to access local storage directly and improving remote and cross-departmental access without breaching IT restrictions.
- Centralized Asset Organization: Teams can create dedicated “drives” for different content types with metadata and tagging, making finding assets faster and more intuitive.
- Integrated Review and Approval Workflows: Shade complements existing tools like Frame.io by providing additional layers of access control and content versioning to streamline feedback cycles.
- Flexible Multi-Platform Access: The platform supports use on Mac, Windows, Linux, and via web browsers, ensuring all team members can connect using their preferred environment.
- Improved Performance and Compliance: Shade’s recent upgrades include enterprise-ready motion capabilities, TPN compliance, and enhanced cloud storage performance, addressing the company’s prior concerns with scalability and security.
Benefits
- Eliminates content silos and network access barriers: through cloud streaming and secure remote access
- Reduces time spent locating and retrieving assets: with centralized, organized storage and metadata-driven search
- Streamlines cross-department content sharing: without manual intervention or bottlenecks
- Enhances collaboration with integrated review and approval workflows: that complement existing tools
- Supports evolving production needs: including high-volume video and live streaming with scalable infrastructure
- Provides flexible, multi-device access: to accommodate diverse user environments