Yvan Cohen
Mon Jun 26 2023
'Sharing is Caring' - LightRocket's Egalitarian Business Model
Two Boys Sitting on Bench Wearing Hats and Long-sleeved Shirts. Photo by 100 files
At LightRocket we've taken the 'sharing is caring' concept to heart. Liberty, equality and solidarity (almost like France's Liberty, Equality, Fraternity) could also very well be our corporate slogan.
Liberty at LightRocket
Put simply, we want our users to be free of any limits. In practice this means our clients can have as many admins and registered users as they like.
The thinking behind our 'free and easy' approach is that since we've spent decades building an amazing tool, the best way to express the value of what we've created is for as many people to benefit from our platform as possible.
We don't want to build walls around our system, but rather to open our doors to as many users as possible, and create a sense of freedom.
That freedom doesn't just apply to the number of users either, clients can have as much storage as they need.
Importantly, freedom also means being free to exchange ideas, so the LightRocket platform can become a creative, ever-evolving process of refinement. More like an ongoing project than a finite product.
Our goal is to create smooth, friction-free workflows that make digital archive management fast and efficient.
The most intuitive of interfaces become so translucent that the user no longer has to think as they navigate. There is a natural progression from click to click, from feature to feature. Ultimately, we're reducing stress and saving time - releasing the value of precious archives and removing costly inefficiencies.
Equality
That we should all enjoy the same benefits in life has become a central tenet of modern liberal societies. The belief that while we may not be the same, and while we may be endowed with different talents and aptitudes, we should nevertheless all enjoy the same basic rights and opportunities.
Of course, we know that daily reality is often far removed from these utopian ideals. Capitalism may play out on a relatively equal playing field, but it nearly always delivers stunningly unequal results.
In the microcosm of the LightRocket universe, we have taken equality to mean that all our clients should benefit equally from the innovations and improvements which make the LightRocket Enterprise Digital Asset Management system so powerful.
All of our clients, no matter how large or small, get all upgrades to the LightRocket system, even those that have been paid for as custom development. If this doesn't seem fair for those who pay for custom development, it is nevertheless an equalizing system that works because it re-distributes the benefits of great ideas and larger budgets.
Amazingly, all our clients love this egalitarian approach.
For example, client A has a great idea but can't afford the custom development to rapidly implement their concept. By sharing ideas, we can offer the opportunity for client B to invest in that same idea and turn it into a new feature. Ideas are shared and the benefits of larger budgets are shared too.
Black Hawk Soaring. Photo by Tim Mossholder
Solidarity
I've chosen to replace 'fraternity' with 'solidarity' because it better expresses the relationship that exists between the LightRocket team and our clients.
We have a uniquely personal approach to the provision of our media management system. We don't just deliver a DAM platform; we embark on a collaborative and symbiotic relationship with our clients. The relationship doesn't end when we are paid, it begins.
The foundations of our customer service are built around the concept of solidarity because we share in the challenges faced by our clients and invest our decades of professional experience in finding solutions to those challenges. In practice, this means we are on-hand to provide personalized consultancy to our clients.
The kind of consultancy provided by LightRocket is like super-charged customer service. A LightRocket client is tapping into expertise in archive management that has been developed over decades.
When we talk about our support and upgrades service package, which is part of the LightRocket license, we are offering a degree of solidarity that goes well beyond the often-reluctant approach to service, that we observe among competitors. We equate the success of our clients with our own success.
I often meet with people who are surprised at how focused we are on both product and service. It's simple: our passion is for perfecting the challenge of digital asset management and we translate that into an infinite process of improvement and refinement.
If you're curious to learn about how LightRocket is helping organisations large and small manage and protect their archives, feel free to contact Yvan at info@lightrocket.com.
Written by Yvan Cohen | Yvan has been a photojournalist for over 30 years. He's a co-founder of LightRocket and continues to shoot photo and video projects around South East Asia.
