USC Upstate Removes Bottlenecks to Meaningful Collaboration

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University of South Carolina (USC) Upstate is U

S. News and World Report’s top public university in the South, boasting a beautiful campus, prestigious academics and Big South Conference athletics.

The University Marketing & Communications (UMC) team broadcasts the school’s story to the public and brings the community of students and alums closer together. Jav Rivera, multimedia producer, and Les Duggins, photographer, work together to achieve this through visual storytelling.

Goal: Unlocking the Team’s Creative Flow

Jav and Les work closely with other departments on campus, such as graphics, admissions, student life and athletics. Les’ photography is used in news articles, advertisements, the university magazine, the website and social media. Jav focuses on design and video production, leading two video series that tell the stories of community members.

The university was using a system of servers and hard drives, which made it time-consuming and difficult to find assets.

“When we got an image request, we would have to go through all the hard drives to find photos, and we couldn’t access the photos off campus. It was so time-consuming,” says Les.

The team chose Canto for its user-friendly interface and value.

“Once people saw how easy it was to use Canto, they were excited to get started,” says Jav.

Enter Canto: Removing Bottlenecks to Meaningful Collaboration

Now, the university has a place to store all of their finished visual assets in Canto, including photography by Les, videos by Jav and artwork by the graphics department.

“What I really like is that it’s mostly me and Les who upload into Canto. We don’t need to sort through all of the stuff that was stored in our server before – all the documents, Excel sheets from every department – to find what we need,” says Jav.

Getting Organized

Jav and Les set up the folder structure to make it intuitive for users to find assets. The search and filter features have empowered all end users to self-serve. Les makes sure that all photos are tagged thoroughly so that the search and filter is as effective as possible.

“The search tool is lovely. With the server, trying to find anything was an endless process; Canto’s search function makes it so easy,” says Jav.

Les loves Canto’s facial recognition because it automatically tags the people he photographs, saving time later.

“We get many requests for the chancellor’s photograph, so Canto’s facial recognition saves me a lot of time,” says Les.

Simple Sharing Enables Collaboration

“Les used to run around campus with a USB drive to share the photos between departments. Now, he just shares them with a Canto link,” says Jav. “Since our athletics got accepted into the Big South Conference, there are new requirements for the photos that Les takes at sporting events – and now he’s taking way more photos. I don’t know how he would’ve shared all of these photos without Canto.”

The graphic design department can now pull their own photos from Canto, instead of having to ask for images from Les.

“I noticed that a graphic designer had taken one of my photos to use in her work, and made it really pop by making it black and white. That’s the thing when you collaborate – other people see things differently. And she really made it work. I didn’t send her that photo; she pulled it from Canto herself,” says Les. “Now, I just tell the team to look in Canto when they need photos from a shoot. It’s a simple process.”

Streamlining Media Relations

The team uses a media portal in Canto to share pre-approved images and brand assets with the press. Jav completed the portal just in time for Media Day, when the school hosts local media outlets on campus.

Results: Bringing a Campus Closer Together

The UMC team aims to nurture a campus culture that welcomes everyone and to reach prospective students who would be a good fit for the community. The content the team creates helps them achieve this goal.

“We want our students to feel at home here. Chancellor Kelly really advocates this idea that we should all – students, faculty, administrators, staff – take ownership of the campus,” says Jav.

With Canto, the team has moved on from being hung up on the pain points of managing their assets to freeing up their creative flow.