If you want to meet, learn and network with the largest group of DAM experts, users and vendors in one place within the span of two days, come to the Digital Asset Management New York 2009 Conference. This year, it will be held at the Hilton in New York City on June 1 and 2. Click here for a full conference program.
I am scheduled to speak on June 1 with a case study, a panel discussion and I will attending both days of the conference because there is so much to see and listen to. I personally stay up 20 hours per day just to fit everything in (not that you have to)…including the dinner events which are worth checking out too. This is the DAM Conference, all about DAM, all day long.
Many DAM systems are able to store multiple types of assets. One of the many factors you should consider when selecting your DAM is what media does the DAM support.
What type of media does your organization have now?
What type of assets will be added to the DAM?
What else will you add to your DAM going forward?
What file formats are you exploring to use in the future?
Do you plan to only store one type of media in the DAM? If so, why? Are you forgetting (or ignoring):
Any asset with a file name and a file extension should be able to be in a DAM (NO, this does not mean the DAM should be a dumping ground for whatever assets you happen to find somewhere). With versions and file formats aside, an asset is an asset is an asset. Therefore, any DAM should be able to store any asset and have metadata associated to it (not necessarily embedded metadata though), but the DAM will not necessarily be able to preview any file format you want. A preview to an asset is often a need (not a want) even if you have great metadata. If you have assets in a DAM, you should be able to find it using metadata, but you will often want to be able to see the asset before downloading (exporting) it from the DAM.
Check with the DAM vendor on what file formats are supported before choosing the DAM you know you will need to use. If you are uploading new file formats to a DAM, check with DAM vendor to minimize surprises and see what workaround they have to offer in case the file format is not supported for whatever reason. The DAM vendor will often have a list of file formats they support and this list may evolve as the DAM vendor upgrades their system over time. Be sure to check on the versions of the file formats which they support because sometimes the version of file format may evolve quickly depending on the software vendor. Some DAM vendors try their best to keep up with the latest file formats and new versions (at least the common file formats) within a reasonable time frame (sometimes within months of the new release). The DAM vendor may support new file formats (and new versions) based on their clients’ needs and/or even client requests to support a ‘necessary’ file format.
Many people realize Adobe comes out with a new version of their software every 18 months. We all hope that the latest version of the file formats will be backwards compatible, but sometimes versions are not fully compatible and some features don’t work from one version to another. Therefore, keeping track of what version of a file format was used to create the asset can sometimes be quite important in order to make sure all the component assets work well together. This can be part of your metadata, if necessary. Using software which created the asset is sometimes the only way to see all the relevant metadata, such as the version of the file format. Some file formats which fall in this category are PDF and SWF. Many vendors have this issue with file format though. If you aren’t sure about compatibility, contact the vendor directly.
Knowing the version of a file format may be important whether the assets in the DAM are components for a ‘final’ version of an asset and/or the ‘final’ version of the asset itself. The DAM could a stand-alone, searchable repository for assets and/or the DAM may be closely tied to other systems which work together in a workflow. Either way, file format (and its version) may be one factor to interoperability in your workflow.
When implementing a DAM, one of the questions that will come up is who will upload (aka import) assets to the DAM with the metadata. Often, the case is uploading to the DAM will be a regular process with a stream of new assets. That is unless the organization stops producing new assets, limits the total number of assets in the DAM or is not using the DAM (aka another shelf baby).
The answer to who should do this depends on the following:
What happens after assets are uploaded to the DAM? Do people need to be notified when newly uploaded assets are available in the DAM? Is the DAM used as a centralized distribution point for assets?
Like any position in an organization, find the people with the qualifications necessary and the willingness to do the work. Typically, this position involves:
Data entry skills.
A mindset for working with data.
Positive attitude and ability to think constructively (no, you don’t want a robot).
Willingness to learn new things.
Technical savviness is a big plus.
Be sure the individuals working on the DAM understand:
What the job/tasks involve and what it does not.
The process or workflow.
This is not creative position, but rather a creative problem solving position involving data entry.
Communicate regularly. Listen to them when they have questions or suggestions since they be able to improve the process or even streamline it for all.
A few words of caution when picking the individuals who will do the uploading to the DAM: Do NOT randomly pick a person from your staff to do this task. If you don’t pick the ‘right person’ to do this task, not only do you risk the task not being done correctly (because they don’t get it or can’t wrap their head around it after training), but you also risk having a high rate of attrition and frustration until you find the ‘right person’ to do this task regularly. If the person did not intent to do this type of work (which often resembles data entry), they may be quite reluctant (particularly at first) to do this. Remember, no one is born with this knowledge nor mindset. Training is a must.
In order to get consistent results in uploading assets to a DAM, the easiest way is to have a finite group of trained and practiced individuals to upload all assets and metadata to the DAM. This will help:
Focus the accountability for all uploaded assets.
Limits the scope of issues that could occur.
Make it easier to resolve any issue before it becomes rampant or repetitive.
The smaller the group, the better trained the group can be (if all trained at the same time) and the more consistent the results will be in the DAM (if they all practice this regularly). If you do keep all the uploading within your organization, train a finite group rather than one individual in order to have a backup in case that one person is sick, on vacation or leaves the organization for any reason, particularly in today’s job market. I would not recommend giving every DAM user access to upload freely to the DAM, otherwise you risk correcting issues more frequently and this is often a recipe for a growing disaster of inconsistency. This task should be left to a select few DAM power users.
Who uploads assets to the DAM in your organization?
DAM. As soon as you start thinking about getting a Digital Asset Management (DAM) solution for your organization, you will hear the jokes coming.
Having a DAM day? Is this the hour of the DAM? Having a DAM moment?
What if you were:
the DAMM (Digital Asset Management Manager)
the DAMD (Digital Asset Management Director)
the DAM VP (Digital Asset Management Vice President)
(It is just a title)
Do you have DAM-IT (Digital Asset Management and Information Technology) group meetings?
You can imagine the DAM conversations:
Do you have DAM access?
You need a DAM account.
Here is the DAM URL.
Got a DAM login?
What about a DAM password?
Having DAM problems? What is your DAM problem?
What about DAM permissions?
What is your DAM role?
When you have a DAM, there are often:
DAM assets
DAM budget
DAM consultants
DAM department
DAM downloads
DAM groups
DAM meetings
DAM metadata
DAM people
DAM reports
DAM ROI (Return On Investment)
DAM strategy
DAM support
DAM TOC (Total Cost of Ownership)
DAM training
DAM uploads
DAM vendors
All DAM, all the time.
Been there. Done that. Got the DAM t-shirt. (Yes, there are some DAM t-shirts available. Really. Google it.)
Learn DAM. Live DAM. Love DAM. (Keep up the enthusiasm.)
Don’t give a DAM? Well, of course not. You don’t give a DAM. DAM is not free (even when it is open source, it still requires time to implement). Instead share a DAM within your organization and save money.
Let everyone make the DAM jokes and do not take it personally. DAM humor is a good thing.
There are plenty of ways to research the best Digital Asset Management (DAM) solution for your organization’s business needs. Which of these did/do you use?
Let us say you already have an established DAM solution within your organization. You have a metadata schema. You have assets with metadata in the DAM. You have established workflows using the DAM for your business needs. You know the DAM is being used by people in the organization.
Now how can you measure the progress of the DAM? This can be done several ways:
How many active DAM users do you have?
How many departments or groups in your organization use the DAM? Who does not? Why not?
Who are the most active groups or users?
How many assets are being uploaded (imported) to the DAM? Each day? Each week? Each month? Each year?
How many assets are metatagged (i.e. applying metadata to assets either before or after upload to the DAM) per hour? per day? per week?
How many assets are being downloaded from the DAM? Each day? Each week? Each month? Each year?
What type of asset is the most popular download from the DAM? Photographs? Graphics? Video? Powerpoint? (You do use the DAM for more than one type of asset, right?)
When does the activity in the DAM peak? What time of the day? What is most active month of the year? Do you know why this period is so active? There is usually a business need being resolved.
Where are the most active DAM users located geographically? If you can locate them, congratulate them on being the most active DAM users and find out why they are the most active DAM users. They probably did not even know this themselves. More on this topic later.
When you selected the DAM solution, did it come with a reporting feature? Can you generate reports directly from the DAM to answer these questions listed above? Hopefully, the DAM did come with it this feature so it should not be too hard to filter reports generated from the DAM and yield these answers to give you measurable results. Just as people may file weekly reports, they may have ways to measure their progress. If these ways to measure progress are consistent, you can gather metrics (not the metric system, but rather quantifiable measurements) to report on the progress of the DAM regularly to stakeholders. Once the DAM has been used for a while, many people are amazed by what information is generated by these reports. Surprisingly, many people at first do not realize the extent of the DAM activity which these reports expose, even when it is increased by:
Do you reward the reuse of assets in the DAM? Consider annual recognition or even awarding the most active users and “re-users” (people who have appropriately reused the most number of assets in a year) from the DAM. Give them company-wide recognition. Why would embarrass employees like that? This recognition may not sound like a big deal at first (even to the employee), but:
Using the DAM, theysaved the organization measurable amounts of money every time they reused or re-purposed an asset from the DAM because:
They spent less time looking for the needed asset compared to other places the asset might be hiding within the organization. This frees up employee time to accomplish more and/or produce better results.
They did not have to create nor acquire (buy) that asset again because they found it again in one centralized location (The DAM).
This is one of the easiest way to get more user adoption. (How could others get an award and/or recognition for simply using a business solution as intended?)
This is a plus on the employees’ record for their annual performance review when it comes time for a bonus and/or raise. It shows that person uses company resources to benefit their projects and the organization as a whole by saving time and money in the use, reuse and repurposing of assets from the DAM. This fact can be highlighted even more so if they regularly contribute new assets to the DAM.
This may peak the interest of the rest of company who may not have heard of the DAM before. (What can the DAM do for them?)
When you find the individuals who are most active users of the DAM, ask them:
Why they use the DAM so much
For any best practices they have been using to achieve their results
What they would like to see improved. This could be valuable feedback for future improvements.
To tell their story as a DAM user so everyone could learn from them how and why they use the DAM. That has great value in encouraging even more user adoption or more departments getting on board with the idea of the DAM solution. Every organization with digital assets needs a DAM, but that DAM becomes even more valuable to everyone who uses it as soon as the organization shares assets across departments and throughout the organization.
