If you are awaiting the internship program, there are several major universities in the US who have contacted me since my post about career planning and mentioned they are already (or are about to start) offering DAM courses and interested in an internship program for their students. There is work being done toward spreading the word online as well as at several DAM conferences about these educational programs. Details coming soon.
There are not enough mentors today (in most fields for that matter), so I have made it one of my goals to start this DAM mentor program and remain vendor agnostic.
When will this start? Beginning in January 2010, I will begin offering a DAM mentoring program online on periodic basis (probably twice per month). There is no obligation to meet twice a month. You may choose to participate as often as the conversations are scheduled.
How and where will this mentor program start? Since geography and time zones are what really separates us today, this program will begin as a live voice conversation online (via VOIP) and any visuals can be shared (via screen sharing software). Mentoring can be done as a group or individually. In the future, we will explore in-person conversations, but those are likely to be even more limited in time and location.
What time and day would these online conversations happen? It all depends on your time zone and schedule. We are not bound by any geographic limitations nor travel necessary.
In what language? Individuals in the US and Europe have already contacted me about this and I welcome others globally as long as they speak fluent English.
Who can be a DAM mentee? Any individual working professionally toward the implementation of a DAM solution within an organization. This can also include individuals who already work with a DAM solution within an organization and who want to have a regular conversation about DAM. This is not about DAM for individual use, but about DAM for use within an organization (or even across an organization).
How much will this cost? Free. It will only cost you time for the conversation. I am donating my time and using free software (legally downloaded) to have these mentor/mentee conversations. Think of it as a DAM professional giving back to the DAM community to enrich the knowledge others. As long as the mentee is willing to learn and ask questions, I am willing to give guidance and/or suggestions. It is your responsibility what you do with the guidance or suggestions given. I assume no responsibility for (a) any hurt feelings (shoulder to cry on not included), (b) any action taken based on my guidance, (c) my suggestions and/or (d) any bruised egos. I will guide you as if I were in your shoes, based on the information you provide.
What about the mentee’s identity and affiliation to an organization? The mentee’s identity and affiliation is kept confidential unless they want to reveal it themselves. I will continue to blog about commonly encountered questions about DAM (which you can read about on this blog) in future posts without any organization(s) names nor the names of any individuals listed. Chances are you are not the first to ask those DAM questions.
Tell me where in the world you are located (in order to find a suitable time within your schedule and my schedule).
Note what topics you would like to discuss so I can possibly sync them with others wanting to discuss the same topic in a group discussion. If you need this to be an individual discussion, please specify.
I will send you details on when we can have a live periodic conversation and some free software tools to do so.
Before I mention DAM jobs descriptions themselves, many of these positions require experience, but what are the levels of experience in Digital Asset Management? How do you qualify the experience or even rank experience with DAM?
There are several levels of DAM experience from basic (1) to increasing in complexity (7). These levels include:
Simple DAM user (this is often the majority of DAM users)
Understanding the relationship of DAM system options, implications of the decisions made and configuring those system options to best suit business/workflow needs
Testing configurations to make sure they work the way they are intended to
Identify and understand what is missing from the system which your organization may need
Explaining what is missing from the system with written documentation
Explaining the value of adding the customization since it will cost extra (time and/or money)
Possibly draft a vision what the customization may look like and how it could work
Possibly even coding the solution
Thorough testing of solution
Ultimately, the best would be to have experience in all of these hands-on experience at one point or another. If this is not an option, try to experience the most number of levels available. This way, you have experienced what it is like to do this work, know what is involved and ultimately train others in future on how to do this work more efficiently and effectively. As a Digital Asset Manager, I have experienced all listed above at point or another over the years. This helps me when I need to write documentation for a specific role (audience) or when I give training so I know what is involved in whatthat user needs to do with DAM. I try to not over complicate any explanation to any particular person unless they really need more detail, so I try to keep information at a high enough level to minimize confusion.
Now, if you want to discern between individuals who have similar experience in many of these roles, then start by asking:
How many different DAM solutions have they worked on?
How many different organizations have they worked with using DAM solutions?
How long did they use the DAM and how often?
How many DAM solutions were successfully implemented and are still used today?
How many users did the DAM solution serve?
How many assets were managed?
How do they measure ROI using DAM?
You could use these questions in a DAM job interview too. What levels of experience do you have with DAM?
Most of us did not go to college nor university knowing we would be working on Digital Asset Management (DAM) today. Many might even say ‘DAM picked me. I did not pick to work on DAM.’ Those of us who are working on DAM come from diverse career backgrounds, which may include:
Archives and records management
Business Management
Design
Education
Engineering
Film
History
Journalism
Library Science
Marketing
Photography
Project Management
Sales
Video
And many other career paths
Is a career in DAM really planned at all? It may be fair to say that at the time of this blog post and according to a recent poll, most people did not plan on a career in DAM, but rather volunteered for it or were volunteered for it. Either way, that is okay. Allow me to explain why…
Growth in DAM means growth in careers which manage information (Has your organization stopped accumulating digital assets? This is not likely to happen anytime soon)
Part of running a DAM can lead to better record keeping and Rights Management which reduces liability within the organization (aka not getting sued for unauthorized use)
There are more and more DAMjobs waiting to be filled
There are not enough DAM professionals available with the needed experience, some even say there is a shortage of qualified individuals
More education about DAM is coming soon to help reduce this shortage and further the knowledge of people who find themselves newly involved in DAM
DAM internship and mentorship programs are being explored in order to share the knowledge and hands-on experience needed
It takes a certain type of individual to work on DAM and not everyone can do this type of work. You may be that person and not realize it. Do not expect overnight change, but rather baby steps of progress
Some organizations are still scratching their heads wondering why there is a low adoption of their systems, while their own people don’t understand how to use them and there is no one to help them internally. As soon as it dawns on them, they will begin seeing the value of a DAM professional who can assist them within their organization whether it is an internal resource who knows their processes (is that you?) and/or an external resource (such as a consultant) if you are not sure where to start or how to move forward in a phased approach. Yes, I will be blogging about the phases of DAM too.
There are courses available in DAM from:
CMSWatch (also offered by AIIM) offer an online certificate education course on the Fundamentals of Digital Asset Management Technologies
King’s College London to offer a Master of Arts in Digital Asset Management (MADAM) in late 2010. This is being offered not because we needed more acronyms in this field, but because we need more education about DAM.
Of course, DAM vendors offer documentation and support for their specific DAM systems, but it is not enough. Who will drive the adoption, implementation, operations, support and workflow of the DAM within your organization? Enter the DAM Professional.
Anyone can supplement their DAM education and experience with:
Books (take note of their publish dates though because technology changes rapidly)
During one of my presentations at a recent DAM conference, the audience made a request for a DAM internship or mentorship program. This poll is meant to find out how many people are interested in an internship program and/or mentorship program, specifically about Digital Asset Management. This program would be led by DAM professionals who use DAM and are willing to mentor. Please vote so we can publicly gauge the need for such a program. You may also email me directly if you are interested in this type of opportunity.
In order to have an easier URL to remember and share, you can now access this blog by simple using http://anotherdamblog.com
If you want to see a stream of all the latest blog posts as they become available, you may subscribe to the free RSS feed. They are also posted at the bottom right of my blog.
Based on the past polls posted earlier, I thought it would be interesting to find out how many people are dedicated to Digital Asset Management (DAM) operations within your organization? The DAM vendor should be able to support the DAM system based on your SLA and may suggest workflows on how to use the DAM, but who manages the daily operations within your organization? Who is doing your uploading and metatagging? Who trains all new DAM users as well as power users? Who helps establish and govern workflows and process with your DAM? Who is your go-to person inside your organization for your DAM? Does your organization have multiple people doing these tasks? Please answer this quick anonymous poll:
After gauging the level of interest in podcasts about Digital Asset Management (DAM) with a poll I posted earlier, I thought I would share the different series of active podcasts which I have been enjoying and participating in.
That DAM Show by Colin Birch and Dan McGraw. This is one of the most entertaining DAM podcasts I have ever heard since they started releasing these back in June 2009.
CMS Weekly by Andrew McCaskey. While focused mostly on Content Management, Andrew remains informative and consistent with his weekly show which mentions DAM from time to time. In the interest of full disclosure, Andrew did a unsolicited plug for Another DAM blog in episode 36 on September 28, 2009.
There were some vendor-specific podcasts earlier this year too, but they don’t seem to be very active any longer which is unfortunate. All the podcasts are packed with great information, you can tell there is a lot of effort put into creating them. I would encourage everyone to listen to their episodes. If you enjoy them as much as I do, subscribe (they are all free of charge) for future episodes. You don’t need even an iPod to listen to them, just a computer with internet access which you obviously have. If you do have an iPod, the first two podcasts listed are available on iTunes to download and listen on the move.
I wish all the producers of these podcasts all the best and look forward to every episode they come out with for the latest news and thoughts on DAM within the podcast medium.
Do you have a podcast about DAM or another favorite DAM related podcast? If so, please do share.
The latest podcast series to be released to date is
Some organizations choose to train, support and even provide written documentation on how to use the Digital Asset Management solution with their workflows. Does your organization train and provide ongoing support to their own DAM users? Take the poll
On a weekly basis, I need to train new DAM users as well as give quick tutorials to current DAM users on specific aspects of the DAM.
There are two ways I can train anyone regardless of where they are in the world as long as they have an internet connection. Neither involves expensive, time-consuming travel. Why should anyone spend a day traveling just to meet for an hour of training?
I regularly get a call, email or instant message with a specific DAM question. I often forward them a link from an intranet wiki with relevant information and supporting documentation to answer their questions. The wiki includes a FAQ page compiled of Frequently Asked Questions which links back to related parts of the DAM manual for details. This can include step by step directions on how to perform a specific task in the DAM. This is my indirect way to train, support and reinforce the ways to use the DAM.
Then, there is the direct way. If they need further assistance, we can setup a quick web conferencing session (a screen sharing conference call). Most people are familiar with the idea of the conference call where many people can call one phone number to collaborate simply by voice. Now, add the component of sharing your computer screen with the people you are speaking with. Pull up the DAM on your computer screen so everyone can follow along, see your cursor and watch step-by-step motions during the training. Note that everyone needs a fast, reliable internet connection to do this and the person sharing their screen will need to really slow down their motions for the cursor to be followed because there is often a small delay between what is said and what is seen when screen sharing. If training involves people outside of my time zone, I am careful to schedule training when it is convenient for the majority, but we are certainly not limited to the 9am to 5pm schedule any longer (that can be good and bad, depending what the priority happens to be).
There are several web conferencing tools available whether they are free or paid, but all . Some of the well-known free web conferencing services are quite good. The main differences I have noticed with the paid versions of web conferencing are often:
Better security
More reliability
More options (like built-in polling and IM)
Allow more users at one time on the same web conference
I have heard of some organizations recording and making available a series of ‘how-to’ videos to supplement their written documentation about how to use the DAM. This can be more time-consuming in the creation of these videos and if your DAM system ever upgrades, those videos may need to be updated to reflect new (often improved) changes to workflow. Luckily, Web conferences can also be recorded and watched on demand at a later date.
Of course, all these tools can be used for so much more than just DAM training and support. As an early adopter to these tools, I have seen many naysayers begin to eventually adopt the same tools (for the same reason$). It is amazing how efficient and effective tools can grow so rapidly in popularly. I hope this gives a helpful glimpse of how training can be done regardless of geographic location.
Some people plan their career in a particular field. If you work/worked in the field of Digital Asset Management (DAM), did you plan on a career in DAM? Please vote.
