OnDAM Paris 2025 Conference Recap

John Horodyski: 00:00

Maybe thanks to what AI has potentially done to us and how, you know, it's made us rethink some things. But definitely the conversations of provenance and trust and authenticity were there. That was a huge takeaway, and it was definitely inspirational to know that these words were no longer seen as something, you know, as eruditious or sort of over there.

John Horodyski: 00:20

It was part and was normalized with, with everybody. That was impactful.

Chris Lacinak: 00:24

Welcome back to the DAM Right podcast. I'm Chris Lacinak, your host and CEO of the best DAM consulting company in the business, AVP. Today, we welcome John Horodyski back to the podcast, once again serving as our roving field reporter on all things DAM. John is just back from the OnDAM conference in Paris and is here to give us the inside scoop on the event.

Chris Lacinak: 00:44

If you're not familiar with OnDAM. It's a conference that is put on by the French company Activo. The conference has been happening for 4 or 5 years now and as you'll hear, is gaining greater and greater attention, especially in the European marketplace. Since we know no one likes going to Paris we took one for the DAM team and joined in so we could come back and tell you about it.

Chris Lacinak: 01:03

Without further ado, let's jump into my conversation with John and remember. DAM right. Because it's too important to get wrong.

John Horodyski: 01:19

This is their fifth year. Actually, did not realize it had been going for that long. So, you know, it's their fifth conception. They've changed venues over the years. This venue was right in the center of Paris. Right beside, the first district. First arrondissement. So right in the center, this beautiful location called La Halles, beautiful glass building.

John Horodyski: 01:40

And the venue was awesome. It had, like, an actual theater, a proper theater, you know, raised seating, massive screen at the back. So when people present their slides, you know, those events where sometimes it's like, I can't see, you could see everything. And it was gorgeous. And obviously with the professional theater, you get professional sound and lighting.

John Horodyski: 02:01

It was gorgeous. So every time there was presentations, you could see it and you could hear things so. Well, that just made it much more, immersive, you know, to be in a theater to see something like this and singular tracks, sort of two tracks, but most of it was in the one single track. And a when those were not going on, there was a side workshop room where you could see sort of, you know, quieter sessions, case studies, and it was a lovely room with sofas and comfy chairs and just really comfortable.

Chris Lacinak: 02:34

So I had to say the like it could be funny to someone listening to describe the aesthetics, but you have to think if you're someone that has, maybe you haven't been to a conference room. Think back to sitting under oppressive fluorescent lights and bad screens where you can't see stuff. I mean, that actually, I just say it really does make a huge difference in the conference experience.

John Horodyski: 02:54

Yeah, it makes a difference. And, and I know you and I have talked about this in the past, but there was actual natural light. There was glass windows you could see outside, and it just made it that much more, humane and comfortable as opposed, but then, you know, to further describe sort of the, the surroundings of it, they had a coffee bar and which turned into a wine, which is.

Chris Lacinak: 03:17

This is very French. This is very French.

John Horodyski: 03:21

Well, it's just civilized as well, because who doesn't want a quick espresso or something, you know, during event. But then in the afternoon, you know, red or white wine. I just think that's a lovely way to have a great conversation with somebody. You get a glass, go to a corner. So this setting in the surroundings were incredible. And of course, any conference is only as good as the people there.

John Horodyski: 03:39

And there were some incredible people. Obviously a lot of French nationals were there. But then you had Germans, British, even some Americans and Canadians that came over. So, a good, international mix for the room.

Chris Lacinak: 03:51

And maybe remind us who puts on the OnDAM conference.

John Horodyski: 03:54

So this is, shout out to, Frédéric at Activo. It's their organization who puts this event on again. They've been doing it. So, huge shout out to Fred for putting this event on. I'm sure they he and his team worked 26 hours a day to put this on, and it's a big event. And they did a great job.

John Horodyski: 04:12

And he and the team are all there, participating in many different ways, whether it's, you know, coordinating session chairing or moderating to doing behind the scenes stuff. And again, professional photographers, it was being video recorded the whole time. Had translation services. It was a really professionally well.

Chris Lacinak: 04:31

So multilingual event.

John Horodyski: 04:32

And sometimes people would think as soon like when you go to a different country, it'll, you'll, you know, you'll not be able to participate because with the like translation services, it was about a 70, 30 mix, 70% en francais 30 in English. But you could still participate because you were getting the translation services. So that was a big that was a big deal. Really good. Well done.

Chris Lacinak: 04:51

That's great. So tell us, like about how many people were there? Do you have any sense of like what types of folks, from what types of industries were there? Who was represented? What did that look like?

John Horodyski: 05:01

So I think, the stats and Frédéric can correct me afterwards, I suppose, by looking at what I wrote, 300 people in person. But then it was also, you know, broadcast online. So there was about 100. And that in addition to that, who are participating, you know, watching it as it was being streamed live and it had the regular mix, healthy mix of DAM practitioners, people, you know, and users who are actually participating, working in DAM, DAM managers, product managers.

John Horodyski: 05:27

But then it also had a healthy mix of the vendors, as well, participating in the event. So it had the traditional mix of both, you know, end users and vendors at the same time.

Chris Lacinak: 05:38

That sounds like a great audience. So tell us a little bit about who are the presenters? You were involved in, I think a couple maybe more presentations. Tell us a little bit about the subject matter.

John Horodyski: 05:49

So I participated in two, the first one being on governance, beyond DAM governance that powers your life cycle. And that was great because not only did you know this panel, but there was two other presentations on governance. So I had some stats in total, three presentations on governance, two presentations on trust and authenticity. That's incredible. Two on C2PA, a subject I know is very dear to your heart.

John Horodyski: 06:13

And then one on change management. But the one I was on, on governance, it was very much, you know, definitional. What is it? How does it work in your organization? What are the roles around it? What could it look like? And it was great. A lot of people, definitely. It was a topic of, of mine for many to say as we mature in our organization, we may have had DAM for years.

John Horodyski: 06:34

It's integrated into potentially a PIM, a PLM, other things. How actually do you govern it, and who could be responsible for that? The second one I was a part of, it was on, of course, you know, subject of my dearness and that is metadata. And that was actually our data for content authentication and, traceability, integrity in the AI era.

John Horodyski: 06:53

Now, definitely AI was a theme for many of the presentations. This one definitely skewed to okay, so AI is happening we see what's out there with our brands. Whether you know it is product design and or potentially the images that go out. But do we trust what we're seeing is authentic? What is provenance? And these are words that we generally don't hear at conferences enough.

John Horodyski: 07:16

And I was happy to hear that. And it was a great presentation because we were able to say, okay, so if you are looking at the future, how does one sort of provide a good defense system going forward, potentially use the C2PA. And many people in the room, hands up, tell me more. I've never heard the term. Tell me more.

John Horodyski: 07:34

Is this something useful? And that was lovely to hear because, you know, like in any good event, if there's an educational component and people can walk away taking just one thing away, the fact that people walked away thinking, okay, C2PA, how do I use it? What do we need to do? Where do I look for more information on it? So that was great.

Chris Lacinak: 07:52

Do you have a sense of like, the types of folks in the room? Was there a range as far as, like, maybe positions I mean, were these digital asset managers archivist? Was it directors of marketing? What did that look like?

John Horodyski: 08:05

Yes. And more so was that the proper mix of those who are sort of day to day DAM managers? There were, archivists, librarians, but there was also like senior product manager folks that were within the marketing departments who had many different things to look at as DAM was one of them. The other thing I saw, which I don't see very often at conferences, but, you know, tip of the hat for everyone else, let's get more of this.

John Horodyski: 08:30

And that was sort of a legal perspective. And the one session itself, and I want to call out it was called AI generation and content Authenticity and how brands relate to it. And it was delivered by Doctor Alessandra Sala, who is the chair of the AI multimedia Authenticity Collaboration in the EU. Incredible conversation. Love that she spoke beside the individual and his name is Paul Mehdy from and he's the head of AI and apps at Moët Hennessy.

John Horodyski: 09:00

So it was like this wonderful theoretical, here's what the world is looking like. Here's the problems we're seeing out there thanks to AI in terms of provenance, trust, authenticity, and then countered that with, or sort of assembled with Moët Hennessy, talking about some of the things that they are trying to do going forward. They realize the challenges and they're speaking to say, okay, we know it's out there. Here's what we are doing ourselves to sort of live in the AI world. Incredible conversation.

Chris Lacinak: 09:27

What about, geographic representation? Obviously it's in Paris, France, so I'm going to assume it was mostly European audience. But what what was the spread? How much, you know, could you tell, where folks.

John Horodyski: 09:38

Definitely French nationals were the I mean, this was a, an event for, you know, it's for the world, but definitely held in Paris. The majority were French nationals. But then again, I saw people from Germany, definitely Britain, other sort of regions in the European Union as well as from Americans and Canadians came over as well.

John Horodyski: 09:57

So, yeah, international mix. But I want to say one of the other big sessions that I was impressed with, and that is and again, this sort of a theme of the conference and I think a theme of DAM itself. And, you know, you and I had just been to New York City and seen some of the topics, and the one topic that I really enjoyed was showing, like the maturity of the industry.

John Horodyski: 10:18

And that was on 3D, CGI technology with Moët Hennessy talking about workflow. And they spoke with FLUiiD4, their tech provider and how they're using 3D. And I think that is just something more and more people need to talk about. It was one of the busiest sessions in terms of people looking. And of course, gorgeous imagery in the product design of what's going on and people realizing that is a potential of what we can do in our organization.

John Horodyski: 10:44

But how it integrates with the DAM? Fantastic. It's available online to, to rewatch again, but very impactful session.

Chris Lacinak: 10:51

Oh that's great. So those sessions are all being recorded and made available after the fact. That's great. Yeah that's great. Yeah. And it was free to attend. Do I have that right?

John Horodyski: 11:00

It was free to attend. That's one of the big takeaways from for I think many people myself included it. That is a free event. And how many times can you remember sort of free events with the caliber of presentations and the people participating? That's impressive. So again, well done. Fred from Activo, for putting on something like that.

Chris Lacinak: 11:23

Was this all kind of a symposium sitting in a room with presentations? Were there vendor booths? What did that look like?

John Horodyski: 11:30

There was the main theater where the bigger presentations are being held, a workshop room on the side, and then they had a vendor room, situated right beside where one would assemble to sort of have coffee or nibble throughout the day. So it is a it was sort of a traditional sense of speaking space, symposium sort of space.

John Horodyski: 11:47

And then vendors to the side was a flurry, very fluid movement of getting around the room again where the vendors were situated with, again, natural glass windows with that light pouring in, the weather was cooperative for a little bit of the days, and it just made for a very lovely space to walk through and participate and meet new folks.

Chris Lacinak: 12:06

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Chris Lacinak: 12:46

You can find it at bit.ly/yourdamchoice. That's bit.ly/yourdamchoice. Now back to my conversation with John. So I think you've touched on some of this already, but I wonder if there's more to say about like, you know, if you're going to have 1 or 2 key takeaways, from the event, what would you say?

John Horodyski: 13:08

I mean, here we are, DAM’s maturing, matured. It's part of their... but it was not even a but it was exciting to see that the evolution of DAM more than just, it's integral part in the ecosystem to involve such things in 3D and, and that type of sort of structure. And I think more people now need to start figuring out in all industries where 3D, 3D could play into fashion retail, for sure.

John Horodyski: 13:33

Luxury brands. But there's other places, you know, furniture design where people could think about 3D design. That I thought was a wonderful evolution and sort of a maturity of industry. But the other one that I sort of walked away with is that the conversations around words that are important to you and I and others, but things like trust and provenance, words that actually were defined in conversations and it wasn't sort of eruditious or scholarly in the sense of, you know, a professor would say those words to which I remember my professor saying those words, but it actually had meaning for individuals.

John Horodyski: 14:08

And I think that was a huge takeaway, was that it was normalized and people understood it. And it may be thanks to what AI has potentially done to us and how, you know, it's made us rethink some things. But definitely the conversations of provenance and trust and authenticity were there. That was a huge takeaway, and it was definitely inspirational to know that these words were no longer seen as something, you know, as eruditious or sort of over there. It was part and was normalized when with everybody that was impactful.

Chris Lacinak: 14:38

That's those are great points. As you are talking it's just making me think that it's so true that you know, amongst our customers that we work with, 3D is ever more present. We're doing a lot more things with 3D. Trust and authenticity is a conversation amongst our customers. And I'd say that those topics are large that have largely been underrepresented. So it's great to hear that, they were they had some representation here because I do think that, if they're not if they're not in the conferences that, you know, the conferences are a failure of falling behind the reality. So glad to hear that was there.

John Horodyski: 15:11

Well, and, you know, Frédéric started the whole event. I mean, he did start it with the hip hop dancer thing, which was very sort of lovely way to start a conference. But he did sort of a really interesting sort of state of the nation of DAM and how it's, no, it's more than what it was. You know, way back in the day.

John Horodyski: 15:28

It was that, you know, that single source of truth, which it still is, but it was over there, and now it's over here and it participates in so many more things. He went into how the media has sort of taken AI, and he went to the Coca-Cola ad, which many people have been discussing in the press, but he brought it into such a way of like looking back to the audience, sort of saying, “what are you doing? How are you participating? Are you prepared?” And it was a lovely setup because then for the next few days we heard those things like governance, change management, trust, provenance, authenticity. It really sort of, you know, found it was the foundation for us to know what we were going to be talking about for two days. That was incredible.

Chris Lacinak: 16:06

How does the dancer fall into that? Like I got lost there. Maybe I went somewhere else, I don't know, but I'm like a hip hop Dancer. Okay. And then what.

John Horodyski: 16:15

In the place that we were, the theater, which we were at, it's actually, a space that is sometimes used by a hip hop educational institute. So they look to start up the event. He brought the dancers in. That's awesome. And with some awesome hip hop music, they kicked it off and the crowd was clapping and standing. One gentleman came up and participated. I'm like, this is great.

Chris Lacinak: 16:38

I'd like to see that, to see Frédéric do some hip hop dancing. And that'd be fun. No. That's great. That's funny. I, you know, I went to the FIAT/IFTA organization. I went to a conference years ago, but it was in Amsterdam, and it's what you're describing sounds as similar. It was like everything, like the aesthetics.

Chris Lacinak: 16:55

But they also had, like, this event with these, like, ribbon dancers, people doing acrobatics and stuff. Oh, it's very European. And yeah. We got to really step up our game in the US here. Well, let's say North America. I'll bring the Canadians in with us. Let's, we all collectively have to step up our game of the conference.

John Horodyski: 17:12

Well, it certainly set it up. It started it made it. The energy was right from the beginning, right? It was exciting. It was like, okay, but now let's talk about some serious issues.

Chris Lacinak: 17:22

Yeah. It takes you out of you're like day to day. You're not just going right into like, let me drink as much coffee as possible, sit in this seat and like, hear people talk about the stuff I'm doing every day. All right, well, those are some interesting, takeaways. Any, any kind of, hot takes. And when I say that, I mean, like, bold statements made about what's happening or where we're going or anything like that, or was it pretty, pretty mellow on that front.

John Horodyski: 17:47

I love the idea of a hot take. And I'm going to say that in 2026, we're going to hear a lot more about trust, authenticity, and C2PA and it could be a prediction as well as a hot take. And maybe that's the same thing. But even before the conference started, just a few days before, there is a thing known as the EU Artificial Intelligence Act.

John Horodyski: 18:09

And in fact, the EU, you know, body that sort of, sponsors and coordinates this, it actually has paused a little bit in implementation due to some of the things that are currently happening right now and in 2026 and 2027, we have new legislation coming in with the United States. Two of them, actually. One is the Transparency and Frontier Artificial Intelligence Act, and the other one is the California AI Transparency Act.

John Horodyski: 18:32

There's going to be a lot of movement happening in the next year as to what can and cannot be done. And similarly, you know, remember the days when GDPR was rolled out? People like, do I have to participate in this? Well, yes you do. Well, similarly, at this point in time, it's happening and I think a lot of people are going to go, oh, wait a minute, there is legislation.

John Horodyski: 18:52

How do me how does me and my brand and the people participating in that with the digital assets, how do we participate in this? And I think that's really good thing going forward because we actually have legislation behind this. So it forces those discussions again of provenance, trust and authenticity. I do think that's a hot take and a takeaway going forward.

Chris Lacinak: 19:12

Was there anything that you feel like wasn't discussed that should have been I mean, I don't hear you saying that. I suspect the answer may be no, but I'm just, you know, always, always interested to hear, like, what wasn't being talked about that maybe should have been.

John Horodyski: 19:23

I have a little play on that, because one of the things I said, you know, you and I had just been to a conference two months ago in New York City, and one of the things I walked away from that saying, oh, I wish there was more discussion on change management. Well, here it this event they did.

John Horodyski: 19:37

But I want to hear more of that because people had hands up and this discussions were like, how do I do this? Actually, you know, whether the DAM has matured or not, the idea of change management in a world where AI is impacting it and now potentially legislating, how does one do this? In the 3D presentation, they involved a little bit of discussion on, you know, the change management aspects of the workflow design. And I do want to hear more about change management going forward. I think we don't get enough of it.

Chris Lacinak: 20:08

So here's here's a I'll throw out an implicit hot take. It's just hit me.

John Horodyski: 20:13

Uh oh.

Chris Lacinak: 20:13

Do Europeans have a bigger appetite for, or greater capacity to stomach topics that are Americans or North Americans might think of as boring? Governance, change management, the hard stuff. Right? Do we just like to look at toys and like get excited about features. I don't know, just hot, hot off the press. Literally a hot take, do you think?

Chris Lacinak: 20:37

Or is that is that step in?

John Horodyski: 20:39

Do I respond or.

Chris Lacinak: 20:40

What do you think? What do you think?

John Horodyski: 20:41

I think, well, it's been discussed many times over. I think Europe is ahead of us, in North American society in terms of just let alone from, like mobile technology, governance, those type of, things. And I do think they are ahead of us and that it's a large amount of people squished into a fairly small space.

John Horodyski: 21:00

They need to figure out how to get along with each other. And I think they are ahead of us in terms of considering these types of things. So they do stomach it and they do talk about it. And again, walking away from an event where the word provenance was mentioned so many times, that's incredible. That's awesome. We in North America need to think about these things a little bit more.

John Horodyski: 21:19

We're distracted by other stuff, but I think we need to pull some of these things into our conversation hopefully in ‘26

Chris Lacinak: 21:25

Hopefully these two, and of course, it's not just these two. There's, all over the world. Hopefully there's pushes and pulls that collectively take us all in the right direction. Some of us are pushing, some of us are pulling, some of us are just grabbing our hair and screaming. There's all sorts of reactions going on. So, I wonder, though, you mentioned, DAM New York, having been there just not too long ago.

Chris Lacinak: 21:48

So and, you know, we're not, we don't want to cast shade on anybody. We're not looking to, you know, promote anybody. But two events happened in fairly close proximity, different continents. Just curious, you know, how would you compare and contrast the two events?

John Horodyski: 22:05

It's almost like a parent trying to decide which child they like better or something, which you'll never answer, as a parent. I would definitely. And if you had asked me this last week when I was there, I would have said the same thing as I'm saying right now. The energy was high, the energy was there, the conversations.

John Horodyski: 22:24

Why do we go to conferences? To network, to meet people, to have good discussions. That was strong. And the level discussion, even though some of it was en Francais, the translations, you still got it. And people were talking about it. After the end of the session, they would go have a coffee or a glass of wine. That energy level was high the whole time.

John Horodyski: 22:42

That is something I want to see again and again when I see an event. Yeah, higher energy for sure.

Chris Lacinak: 22:47

What was the, I mean, one of the things that I always find interesting, the way you describe it, it sounds a little bit like other conferences I've been to that are maybe like more, driven from the user base that come with a little bit more passion. It's like driven, you know, the folks that are in the trenches are the ones that are really driving the event.

Chris Lacinak: 23:07

I'm not saying that's the case here, although maybe it is, I don't know, but it's it just has that sort of energy, that passion, that excitement. It just makes me wonder if the presentations were, what was your sense? Were these vendor driven? Were the user driven? Was it a mix? What did that look like?

John Horodyski: 23:25

It was a mix, but it definitely skewed higher to user driven for sure, because, I mean, you looked at the topics that as I went through earlier, in terms of the the topics you were seeing, there were definitely user driven. Now, definitely the workshop room to the side with the comfy sofas, etc. there were vendors demonstrations, but it wasn't just here has it used my tool?

John Horodyski: 23:43

It was here how to use it in this way to do these things. It was very much more meaningful to see those presentations, but definitely as a whole, user led, user driven, for sure.

Chris Lacinak: 23:54

That makes sense, I wonder, I wonder if that is a discrepancy between the two events. I was just, you know, earlier I made the comment, oh, that's great to hear that this was at the conference, because that's what we're hearing with our customers. And that could be the natural conclusion or evolution or outcome of user driven content.

Chris Lacinak: 24:16

Because maybe, you know, Henry Stewart is, is is not exactly that structure. It's a different structure. And so that leads to different topics, which maybe I mean maybe that's, could be speculation, pure speculation ... who knows. But could be a diff... could be a reason for the difference as well.

John Horodyski: 24:31

Well, and it was nice to, to end an event when you conclude an event, you know, it's like, you know, good to see you. But it was like, can we talk again in a few weeks? Let's talk about these things. Can we get together a phone call? I can't wait till next year because, you know, with things like changes in legislation, etc., there was an actual community participation that I don't see very often.

John Horodyski: 24:52

And again, to walk out of an event energized and excited, that's just that's very meaningful.

Chris Lacinak: 24:57

Did you have the sense of community of people gathered here are a ongoing community that has a persistent presence? Or is this the first time or maybe, you know, they only come together around OnDAM maybe or something? I'm just curious, is this does this community of DAM exist outside of this event, you think or not?

John Horodyski: 25:17

They. Well, I a lot of people do, look forward to this event as like the event of the year that was definitely, I talked to a few people, French nationals and even Brits and others. They say like, this is the event because it is such a community. So there is this singular event. But that does you ask a good question and I'm not too sure, like in the, in the interm between now and next November, how much there is being done between there then obviously online discussions are one way in which to participate, but there is nothing like a live group in-person meeting to really stimulate discussion.

Chris Lacinak: 25:53

And I ask this because we see so much fragmentation, right? I just I'm wondering, do these people, you know, the DAM community has fragmented. Folks are going to different conferences with different focuses. And I think I'm just curious, you know, I wonder I wonder what that community looks like. Is this is this a group of folks that are largely getting together in other ways, virtually or in person throughout the year and not but and I assume now I saw a lot more about OnDAM this year than I remember ever seeing before.

Chris Lacinak: 26:22

It felt bigger to me. I don't know if it was just, you know, the algorithm and LinkedIn and stuff feeding me things or because, we we were present with you there. But what do you know, was it bigger this year? Is this just kind of turned into something more?

John Horodyski: 26:39

No, it's again, it's their fifth time doing this. This was the biggest event. So it was bigger and I do believe regardless of the algorithm, I think there was much more attention because like anything, as it grows, it gets more people. I think this as their fifth sort of, annual event, it did have much more people.

John Horodyski: 26:57

And it wasn't just, you know, French nationals, it was the European Union. Even North Americans were attending. It was a big event. I can't wait for what happens in 2026.

Chris Lacinak: 27:08

So there is there's plans for a 2026 OnDAM, I presume?

John Horodyski: 27:12

Correct. Yeah. It may be at the same location. We did talk about that. It might be moved a little, you know, Fred is always looking for the best. And while this venue was great, I think he might have other plans. But definitely 2026 will be happening.

Chris Lacinak: 27:25

Good to know. So, an event to put on people's, calendars. Especially if, you know, you're in the you're in the US. You want a nice little trip on top of a great conference. Right. That makes it extra nice. But, no matter where you are in the world, it's something to consider for 2026. I'm certainly compelled by the description. I think I'd like to go next year as well. Is there anything we didn't touch on that you think is important to mention, or do you feel like we've had.

John Horodyski: 27:52

Well, you know, I'm always looking for trends and new ideas and topics and certainly some of the stuff that was trickling throughout many of the discussions was something that you, you know, you're quite familiar with as well. And that is the topic of AI agents. And I do think as we move into ‘26, ’27, we're going to hear a lot more about that.

John Horodyski: 28:11

I think ‘24, ’25 when it was first being discussed, it was seen as, I don't understand, tell me more. But now many of the DAM vendors are actually participating in AI with AI agents, and I think that's quite exciting. It was mentioned a few times at the conference here, and I think we are going to hear a little more more of that going forward because it's now realized, I would love to see some case studies.

John Horodyski: 28:32

You know, I'm looking at you vendors and conference organizers. I want to see people who used it, how they'd used it. How well has it done, you know, any success ROI metrics behind that? I would love to see a little bit more about that. Plus the other theme that I, you know, take away or sort of, from this event was and we've talked about this before and whether you want to call it Postmodern DAM or something, but it's that human aspect to what you do with DAM, and maybe it is because of what's happened with AI, I don't know, yes or no, that's a whole different discussion that you could have over a glass of wine.

John Horodyski: 29:05

But it has made us realize the humans participate. So much in this, whether it's the digital asset manager, the metadata librarian, but also that governance is the human aspect. For that I think is really well done. And I think that's something to consider for ‘26, ’27 that pulls it.

Chris Lacinak: 29:22

Those things all come together in interesting ways. You've got AI agents and the fear of, you know, people being replaced in their jobs. You've got a changing landscape of how digital asset management functions, which brings in change management, which brings in AI, which brings in governance, which brings it all together. And, there's certainly a lot of work to do, a lot of things to discuss.

Chris Lacinak: 29:43

It's going to, it's a fast moving picture that it will be important to keep a finger on the pulse of.

John Horodyski: 29:49

And I would also shout out then as well, when we do think of conferences going forward, make it engaging, you know, but they did it OnDAM is I walked out with a big smile of what was happening, how they did it. They even at one session they had a live feed to Toronto Metropolitan University and had some of their students and faculty with them on the screen.

John Horodyski: 30:12

I'm like, okay, we know it can be done.

Chris Lacinak: 30:15

So let's go try some do try some different new things.

John Horodyski: 30:18

Yeah, yeah. And it was so exciting to see that Doctor Reem El Asaleh was there with the students live feed talking like come on this. It's 2025. We can do this right.

Chris Lacinak: 30:28

All right. So final question. You’re a music man. What was the last song you added to your favorites playlist?

John Horodyski: 30:34

I love this. Have to obviously makes sense. Edith Piaf Non, je ne regrette rien, makes sense. You know, iconic, artists flying into Paris listening to that song, you know, your heart pounds, you know, and you know, Edith Piaf, meaning my goodness. And then secondly, one of the events as it was closing up there, you know, great discussions and cocktails, Norwegian electronic band by the name of Hubbabubbaklubb with the song “Fjellet”, which translates into mountain was playing.

John Horodyski: 31:05

It was a chill, good vibe to end the day. Lots of hugs. And then we'll see you at the conference the next day. So Hubbabubbaklubb was the other one.

Chris Lacinak: 31:12

All right, I'm gonna have to ask you for links to those. If you have.

John Horodyski: 31:15

I will. I will provide them

Chris Lacinak: 31:16

Wonderful. Well, John, thank you for being our field reporter from, all over the world I should say. Thanks for the great insights and takeaways. It was, really fun to catch up and hear all about it.

John Horodyski: 31:29

Thank you.

Chris Lacinak: 31:30

All right.

John Horodyski: 31:30

My pleasure.

Chris Lacinak: 31:33

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Chris Lacinak: 32:13

You can find it at bit.ly/yourdamchoice. That's bit.ly/yourdamchoice