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Blog about Digital Asset Management

Yearly Archives: 2009


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How can I get more DAM user adoption?


This blog covers many typical issues and questions asked about DAM solutions. One of the big questions is how to increase DAM user adoption (how many people really use the DAM).

Some people believe the DAM will magically be adopted by everyone who is involved and expect everyone to love the changes instantly, especially if it makes sense to management to have a DAM. If it were only that simple. A DAM is rarely a set it and forget it solution. A DAM can grow with the organization,  but the assets don’t automagically get uploaded and used. That takes user involvement. Change in many places is often met with the excuse “we’ve always done it this old way and it works. So why change now?”

Here are a few things to consider regarding user adoption:

It is a change in mindset to begin using a DAM as a centralized repository for assets which can be searched thoroughly instead of using any prior asset storage methods.  Why do I need a DAM? This involves explaining to users exactly how and why the DAM will make their lives and work easier.

It is a change in workflow to use a DAM. In order to change the workflow to use a DAM, the users  pre-DAM workflows first need to be understood and documented for each role by interviewing people who will potentially use the DAM in the future. Genuinely ask users for their assistance and feedback on a regular basis. Ask them to be open, but respectful with their comments/suggestions, use candor and discuss the workflow thoroughly from beginning to end. Ask senior employees as well as junior employees because their perspectives may vary as well as their ideas for improvement. Listen to the critics you interview with a grain of salt and see what valid points they make. You may find that mind sets may be stronger with some people than others. Early user involvement will help user adoption. This is particularly true if the DAM and its workflows directly help the users in their daily operations and resolves some of their previous workflow issues. If users see the DAM and the new workflows using the DAM as beneficial and easier in the long run than what they used to do in their previous workflows, user adoption will occur.

  • What are their current issues with the workflow without a DAM?
  • How do they search and find assets without a DAM?
  • How long does it take them?
  • Can they find what they are looking for most of the time?
  • Does everyone understand their role in the workflow?
  • Do they have any ideas on what could be done to improve the workflow?
  • What are the workflow variables? How can they be minimized or handled better?
  • What is missing?

How will the DAM be rolled out to users? Will it be rolled out by:

  • Date
  • Project
  • Department/Group
  • User/organizational role

Make sure to have a lot of patience. User adoption, acceptance and understanding will not happen overnight.

Users will need some training depending on their role and involvement with the DAM. No one will come out of the womb with this knowledge, but try to keep it simple. If you need a software engineering degree to use the DAM, you might need to have some engineers make it easier to use. Hopefully, the DAM has an easy-to-use GUI (Graphical user interface).

Threats of firing employees who do not “accept” generally do not go over very well and are rarely fruitful. Some employees may have great difficulty changing their workflow and if they clearly “don’t get it” after numerous training attempts and some time to adjust to the changes, they may need to be reassigned to something else or possibly dismissed if they can not perform the new workflow tasks.

Have some type of support for the DAM users and the workflow in person as well as documented in writing. This can include a service level agreement from the DAM vendor, but an administrator who knows the organization and workflows around how the DAM is used is recommended. Having step-by-step instructions with screen shots can help the documentation.  Any documentation should be kept up-to-date whenever the organization and workflow evolves.

What is the best use the skills and institutional knowledge of the users and roles in the new workflow with a DAM? What will need to change and what will remain the same for each user/organizational role?

How will  metadata be acquired or created for assets to be uploaded/imported to the DAM?

If you are missing some people with a particular set of skills for this new workflow, some people may need additional training or hire some with these new talents. This may include skills to deal with metadata, taxonomy and various scripting to automate parts of the workflow when possible.

Having a contest to help name the DAM may help give users an increased sense of ownership. Eventually, many of the assets the users create, acquire or use on a daily basis may be uploaded to the DAM. The more the organization recognizes the DAM as a resource where users know they can find what they need, the quicker the user adoption will often occur.

As more assets get uploaded to the DAM, promote the existence of assets available in the DAM to users and potential users to increase awareness. This will build the DAM as known resource which will increase in popularity and increase user adoption.

What are you doing to increase user adoption?


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Is there a real benefit to implementing a DAM?


This was a question posed in a comment received on this blog by a new reader. Obviously, they had not read anything I had written before, but I wanted to answer their question rather than having them believe that a DAM is simply a justification for:

  • Another project just to keep people busy and employed
  • Another application for the collection of ‘shelf babies’ within an organization that does not use the tools which have been developed for them
  • A higher budget to burn on something

Unfortunately, many IT projects are wrongly considered in one or more of these categories listed above because people simply don’t understand them. So, now I will lead you back to the logical business world where people actually want to improve their organization as a whole. I will keep most of this rather simple to understand too.

As more people and organizations accumulate digital assets, they need to:

  • Manage the assets they keep
  • Know what assets they have
  • Know the contents of these assets
  • Know who acquired/created the assets for accountability and sometimes even crediting purposes
  • Know where and how to find the assets
  • Find assets in a timely manner using metadata
  • Know when the assets were acquired/created for the life cycle of the asset and any rights management issues
  • Know what versions/renditions are available of any asset (there is better way than just using so-called unique file names)
  • Enable the use, reuse and re-purposing of assets (how do you spell ROI?)
  • Preview assets from one central repository (let us see what we have)
  • Be organized (really, it is possible)
  • Grow with the organization (rather than against it)
  • Have permission-based access for all users and roles
  • Enable more people throughout the organization to access assets they should have as they need them
  • Enable access to assets 24 hours a day/7 days a week/365 days a year/ from anywhere with internet access/worldwide

These were a few real benefits to implementing a DAM.

Now, who wants to name and count the number of systems that can do all that today, aside from a DAM?


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Do you add your own metadata for DAM assets?



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Why should we keep our assets in a DAM?


Some people actually ask themselves this question and wonder why they can’t go back to their old ways of doing business.

Sure, you can. You can also do the following…

  • “We can find all my final assets really easily because I have them all right here on my desktop.”

We have:

  • Final1
  • Final02
  • FinalFinal
  • FinalFinalFinal
  • ReallyFinal
  • LastFinal
  • Extrafinal
  • Superfinal
  • SuperduperFinal
  • ExtraLargeFinal
  • Final_with_cheese
  • AlmostFinished_really_Iswear

Ok. I might have a little problem with version control and file naming conventions.

Yes, a DAM can have version control to take care of this little problem a few of us might have.

  • “We store all our files on our own desktops.”

A desktop is just another silo. Who else can see your assets on your desktop? Can you find all your assets on your own desktop? What happens to these assets when you lose your laptop or get a new computer?

  • “We can keep all our assets on shared drives.” Yeah, those are so searchable, right? As long as your perfectly crafted file names say everything about every asset you’ll ever need to know. Oh, wait. Shared drives are not truly searchable to the asset level beyond a so-called unique filename.
  • “We have unique file names for every asset.” File names are created by humans and meant for humans outside of a DAM. Many DAM systems do not care what your file names are as long as they are not 250 characters long, filled with spaces and special characters. Scary sounding, huh? Some organizations prior to having a DAM have some of these “unique file names“. You know who you are. Some DAM solutions assign unique identifiers to each and every asset uploaded/imported to the DAM and these make file names into metadata for the DAM.
  • “We can keep assets on CDs or external drives so we can share them easily.” You must like burning money if you are still using CDs or DVDs today. Where is the latest version? Which CD is that on again? Or do you need to burn another set of CDs for the latest version of assets? External drives (regardless of how big or small) can get lost, dropped or corrupt very easily. External drives have the same version control issue as CDs, even if backed-up regularly. How often is new version created by someone else? How do you ship these to external clients? That’s free, right?
  • “I will just email the asset around to everyone.” Are you planning to fill up every one of those people’s email inbox with high volumes of data? And each one will back up that data multiplied by how many people? What is the file size limitations for your email attachments? 5MB? 10 MB? Some email accounts do not even accept attachments, in fear of viruses. Will you continue to email this asset for each person who needs to see this each time they need to see this asset? Will you repeat this every time they need to see an asset again? Wow, that is a lot of email data repeated over and over again, isn’t it? With a DAM, you could simply send a link to the asset (not email the whole asset) to whomever needs the asset, whether they need just preview it or download the asset, based on permission set by the sender, through the DAM. Let us weigh this option again. Email attachments over and over again vs. email link to asset in DAM which can be updated as needed in DAM.
  • “We’ll just FTP the assets to the person who needs it.” That is secure, right? No one else can see the FTP server nor add to the FTP server either, right? And where is the version control on a FTP server? Oops.

What have we learned so far?

  • Use a DAM for assets
  • Associate metadata to each asset in a DAM so you can search and find it again
  • Version control with a DAM
  • Distribute assets with a DAM
  • Prosper and save some money with a DAM.

Let me know if you have any other brilliant ideas on why you should not store assets in a DAM. I would love to share them with readers.