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 in 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? (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 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 you 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 have them tell their story as a DAM user so everyone could learn from them on 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.
Depending on the DAM, the process to upload (import) assets and metadata to the DAM may vary. While a DAM is only as good as the metadata associated to its assets, someone will need to upload assets and metadata to the DAM at some point, maybe on a frequent basis. Realistically, you will need to upload assets and link the metadata to the assets at some point so these assets become searchable (not just visually). How you upload assets to the DAM is something you need to seriously think about when selecting the DAM solution right for your organization.
Do you need to upload one asset at a time and apply/associate metadata after the upload?
Do you need to upload one asset at a time with embedded metadata which needs to be recognized within the DAM?
Do you need to upload multiple assets and metadata to the DAM at the same time?
Do you need to upload multiple assets at a time, all with embedded metadata which needs recognized within the DAM?
Do you need several or all of these methods to upload to the DAM?
What tools or interface do you need to use in order to upload assets and metadata to the DAM?
Is the process so complex that you would rather pay the DAM vendor every time you need to upload assets to the DAM? Some vendors offer this service, but do you need this? If you do need this, what are the fees? Do you want to be at the mercy of their schedule rather than yours when it comes to uploading? It all depends on your business needs and how time sensitive uploading assets along with metadata are in your business cases.
The answer will vary based on the DAM solution you choose. Just as different DAM solutions serve different purposes, there is no single right way to upload assets because it depends on:
What kind of assets will be uploaded?
How many assets are being uploaded?
How often are assets being uploaded?
What is the maximum number of assets that can be uploaded at one time?
Are there minimum or maximum file size restrictions for assets being uploaded?
Is there a need to upload compound assets? If so, how is that handled by the DAM?
Is there a need to upload many assets with the same metadata? (such as a photo shoot)? If so, how is that handled by the DAM? Can you apply the same metadata once to all the assets easily in these cases?
Is there a need to upload many different assets with different metadata? (such as completely different presentations for different purposes) If so, how is that best handled by the DAM? What tools are available to speed up this process in these cases?
Are there multiple methods to upload to the DAM? What are the best practices behind each method?
Can you version assets in the DAM? Can you version metadata in the DAM? Can you version both assets and metadata at the same time in the DAM?
Does the DAM vendor provide documentation and support when it comes to uploading assets and metadata to the DAM?
The metadata can be embedded into the asset itself and/or associated separately to the asset in the DAM. You will need to weigh the need for embedded metadata versus having metadata just associated to the assets in the DAM for both reference and search purposes. There are various ways which metadata can be embedded into assets since many types of assets can support embedded metadata. It also depends what types of metadata the DAM recognizes for its functions such as search, which are critically important.
There are advantages and even some disadvantages to embedding metadata to the asset itself. The main advantage to embedded metadata is that the information (metadata) travels with the asset wherever it goes, inside or outside the DAM. The disadvantage to embedded metadata is that it may be outdated information traveling within the asset, such as credits. This is a common issue when discussing Royalty-Free or Rights Managed photographs which occasionally change representation when photography vendors merge and the credit may change along with this new representation or ownership. Hopefully, most of your metadata is timeless and this will not be much of an issue.
How do you upload assets and metadata to your DAM?
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