On November 9 and 10, 2009, I will be a guest presenter at DAM LA 2009. This is a two-day DAM conference held in Los Angeles where I am scheduled to present on the following topics:
Dealing with Costs, Budgets and ROI
How do we budget for costs of implementing a DAM solution as well as the ongoing costs of operating a DAM? How can we measure return on investment in a consistent manner and justify the expenditure? We’ll explore real world cases and the pitfalls to avoid.
DAM and Change Management
As soon as we begin implementing a new DAM within an organization,we will need to deal with people, process and technology changes.
What about management issues? How do we evaluate employee competencies and their results?
What do employees need to do differently now than in the past? To whom do they report, when and how?
What skills are needed now more than ever?
DAM Career Planning, Qualifications and Hiring
Can people plan a DAM career? What does it take to be a DAM professional or Digital Asset Manager? We will explore resources available today to enrich our DAM knowledge and skills as well as explore the DAM job market.
If you plan to attend DAM LA 2009 conference:
Henry Stewart Events has offered $150 off using discount code for conference attendees and a discount for hotel guests.
I will tweet during the DAM Los Angeles Conference using #DAMLA09 as the hash tag, which you can search for, use and follow.
I look forward to meeting you if you attend the DAM LA 2009 Conference. If you can’t make it to the conference, feel free to send comments anytime.
I have been fortunate enough to have gone to the Henry Stewart DAM Conference numerous times. I felt it would be beneficial to share my experiences as I go to the DAM New York Conference on June 1 and June 2, 2009.
How big is it?
New York DAM Conference is often the largest and longest Digital Asset Management Conference of the year. The New York DAM Conference is held over two days (instead of just one day as it is held in a few other major cities each year). While economic market conditions can affect the number of attendees, it often has higher attendance than other cities. More people equals more speakers, more panel discussions, more case studies, more presentations and more people from all industries who share the interest of finding out more about Digital Asset Management. However, a lower attendance makes it easier to network with those who do attend the conference.
What is unique about the Henry Stewart DAM Conference is that it is just focused on many aspects of DAM (instead of just mentioning DAM in a few sessions as many other venues do each year). Most importantly, this conference focuses on the DAM user perspective. There is sometimes exciting DAM news too (really). The DAM Conference is not vendor specific (but rather sponsored by several vendors and third party organizations).
What is there to do at a DAM conference?
There is so much to learn about DAM and so many questions. Some DAM newcomers may know what they don’t know about DAM, but ‘they often don’t know what they don’t know’. That is okay too. Even if you aren’t sure what questions to ask (which is sometimes a common challenge for newcomers to DAM) because you can learn about that too and then you can start asking the right questions for your business needs.
While you can not learn all about DAM in two days, you can however get a much better understanding from all the user perspectives and experts you will hear from. You often get to hear the good, the bad and sometimes even the ugly, but true stories of how real organizations implement and use a DAM. You may hear many success stories and best practices people have encountered. You will also learn from others’ previous mistakes which people often freely share so others may avoid those pitfalls. Want to hear more? Ask. DO network with people you see there as much as possible, but attend all the track sessions which have the most relevance to:
What you do professionally (is there someone speaking in the same industry you work in?)
The level of experience you have with DAM (Are you a DAM newcomer? Experienced DAM user returning for enrichment? Are you presenting your experiences at the conference?)
Challenges you want to tackle (what are your goals at this conference aside from getting free meals?)
How open is it?
You will find there is a fair amount of open candor during the conference (unless you are speaking to direct competitor who may be more reserved) and you will notice most people will openly speak with you. Many people are willing to freely give you guidance regardless of whatever phase you happen to be in with the implementation of your DAM (even if you don’t know what your first phase or next phase should be).
I try to engage with many whom I see and meet. Most speakers are often available for questions after their presentation and often even after they step down from the podium to talk more about any topics you wish to discuss offline. I have continued professional relationships with people I have met at DAM conferences using Linkedin which has a large footprint from the DAM community. Contact information is easily traded between everyone since this is a big networking event for professionals.
How do I plan ahead?
There are so many good presentations going on at the same time, it is often hard to decide which to attend. You could go with other people from your organization who can attend one track of presentations as you attend other track, then share what you’ve learned. Luckily, the event planners publish a schedule with descriptions in advance OR this can be planned even the day of the event within a few minutes. I often skim through each track schedule and prioritize which presentations are most important based on my professional interests since I personally attend the conference alone. Another big benefit of the conference is that even if you miss a presentation for whatever reason, the powerpoint slides are posted on a password protected website and they are often automatically made available a few days after the conference ends to attendees, so you don’t even need to ask each speaker for the slides for future reference.
Is there other media available from the conference?
Unfortunately, there are no audio nor video recordings available from the DAM conference presentations. No podcasts are available before, during nor after the conference unlike some venues which promote their upcoming sessions with this type of media. I would hope this could happen in the future.
If you plan to attend the DAM New York conference
I will be:
Presenting a case study on the role of the Digital Asset Manager
Participating in a panel discussion on DAM Procurement
Attending both days of the DAM New York Conference
Blogging on both days on the DAM New York Conference
Tweeting during the DAM New York Conference using #damny as the hash tag which you can search for and follow
I look forward to meeting you if you attend the DAM New York Conference this year. If you can’t make it to the conference, feel free to send me comments anytime.
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.
With special arrangements from Henry Stewart Events, readers of this blog can sign up to attend and save an additional $150 off the conference fee using discount code. There are more discounts if more than one person from your organization plans to attend. If you sign up early, you also qualify for a discounted hotel rate too.
Many organizations license Rights Managed (RM) assets such as photographs from vendors like Corbis or Getty Images. Many organizations do not manage these licensed assets well nor keep track of when they expire.
Many of these ‘unauthorized uses’ involve Rights Managed assets.
This is a legal liability for many businesses and there is very little done about this issue today. There is little awareness about this issue and the widespread education about Rights Management is abysmal. There are a handful of associations who try, but have such as limited audience and even less people listening to what they have to say about Rights Management.
Digital Rights Management (DRM) solutions try, but do not resolve these issues. Why? Rights Management is about knowing:
Can you use/reuse this asset?
What rights do you have to the asset?
Where can you use the asset?
How long can you use the asset?
How can you use the asset with the license(s) you acquire?
DRM attempts to do this by simply trying to limit the use of the asset.
There are so many ways DRM often fails to work. For starters, DRM technology rarely remains intact when an asset is copied, renamed or reformatted. Creators of content such as movies, music and photographs are the most common victims to suffer from this type of theft and result in huge losses in sales. This is because DRM technologies are fighting an almost fruitless battle. The money it costs to pursue offenders must vastly out weight the possible royalties and money to be regained in a law suit.
Very few DRM track the use of the assets. A few technologies track the illegal uses of the assets after the fact and report this back to the content owners. Then again, do the owners of the content and licensors even know where these assets are supposed to appear? Good record keeping on all sides is part of the solution here.
Rights Management can be quite complex. Many people simply do not understand rights management. Anyone ordering rights managed assets from a vendor must understand licensing and copyright. Otherwise, this is a liability to the organization and ignorance is not an excuse.
Rights Managed (RM) assets are negotiated and licensed, not purchased, with finite terms which may include:
Where the asset can be distributed (geographically)?
How the asset can be distributed (in what media)?
How can the asset be used (on the home page, cover of a book, inside,etc)?
Where will the asset be used in the media?
How many people will receive or see the asset?
How long will the asset be used?
What size will the asset be used?
How much of the asset will be used?
Who can access the asset?
Is this exclusive or non-exclusive to the organization?
Are there other restrictions from the creator, licensor or vendor?
Are there any third party rights?
Can a DAM handle Rights Managed assets? This is far more than simply an issue of storing Rights Managed assets in a DAM and associating some metadata which state the terms of the asset. Most Rights Managed assets can not even be archived if they are not currently licensed. A few vendors do not even want you to archive the asset at all, so check with the vendor/licensor directly. If you have Rights Managed assets, what system do you have in place which will:
Warn you before the license expires?
Tell you who contact when you renew the license?
What are the licensing terms are/were?
How much you paid and when?
Track how and where an asset has been used?
This is part of good record keeping.
What if you have multiple licenses for the same asset used different ways? This is getting complex, isn’t it? A highly customized DAM could do this for your organization. Or you could have another system to handle just the licensing separate from the assets themselves. I would recommend one centralized system instead of separate systems do each task which can be even more costly and time consuming.
It is possible to store licensed Rights Managed (RM) assets in a DAM, but major customizations are often required.
In order to use a DAM for this, the DAM would need to track every use of every RM asset ordered out of the DAM. If an asset can be ordered from the DAM, it can be tracked by the DAM with a record of what has been used where. Some DAMs can apply licensing information into the embedded metadata. There are a few DAM systems which can even apply DRM to an outbound asset (we talked about DRM though). The idea is the DAM order must include how and where the asset will be used. The DAM can act as a central repository for all assets as well as the rights management information. This information can be relayed to the vendor for the proper licensing each and every time. There are workflows to accomplish this.
The good news is that in the past years, more of the market has become Royalty Free and DRM-free. That does not directly affect what you have licensed to date though. Much of historic content that is not public domain hangs on to the Rights Managed model of doing business. After all , it is a bit hard to recreate history after it happened.
So how is your organization handling the licenses of Rights Managed assets today?
Another DAM Blog 