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In recent years, film studios have begun to mine the vast pool of digital assets found within their films, creating a new and growing income stream for the studios. Each movie is a mass of unstructured data, containing visual effects shots, drone shots, audio recordings, music files, and contracts. Some of these assets can be re-used in subsequent films (Jurassic Park’s digital dinosaurs, for one); others can be licensed for other uses (movie music licensed by commercial advertisers, for example). Digital asset management (DAM) organizes and exploits a film’s data pool, adding value far beyond the film’s entertainment income.

Unstructured data isn’t confined to the film industry, however. In any industry there is unstructured data that can yield improvements in production, logistics, marketing, and management. Much of that unstructured data is contained in paper documents, from contracts to customer correspondence. Transforming the unstructured paper data into usable assets requires a document conversion effort far beyond mere PDF scanning.

One goal of document conversion is to create an “intelligent” document which contains easily-searchable information. Whether the data extracted from an intelligent document is a single data point – the specific language of a legal agreement, for example – or an aggregated data set showing history or trends, the value of such insights is unquestionable. Reduced research time and nimble trend response will translate into real dollars.

Another goal of document conversion is the creation of a responsive document, one with capabilities beyond passively appearing on a screen. Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 requires government agencies to make all their converted documents and websites accessible by the visually impaired, using a variety of specialized visual enhancements ranging from high-contrast large fonts to audio translation.

Such responsive documents can be valuable to other industry sectors, too. Healthcare providers, for example, can make use of such technology when sharing health records with visually-impaired patients.

As the film industry has discovered, digital asset management, including document conversion, can create value for companies that undertake the transition. Successful conversion requires specialized AI software as well as human QC oversight, a task that is often impractical for your own personnel to undertake. Talk to a document conversion expert to determine the most productive way for your organization to move from the unstructured data pool to value-added digital asset management.

After all, information is power.

 

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