Another DAM Blog

Blog about Digital Asset Management

Tag Archives: 2012


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How much do Digital Asset Management professionals earn?

What to pay a Digital Asset Management (DAM) professional, especially a position your organization may not have had before, is a frequently asked question (FAQ). It is asked even more frequently as the DAM community continues to grow year over year. As a Digital Asset Management (DAM) professional myself,  the goal of this blog post is not to state what I earn per year nor start ‘salary fixing’ what it costs an organization to employ one or more DAM professionals. Instead, I would like to encourage everyone in the global DAM community to take the anonymous survey which is gathering this specific salary data.

Yes, there is a such a survey started by the DAM Foundation which is collecting salary data. The DAM Foundation’s Human Resources and Talent (HR & T) Committee is requesting more Digital Asset Management professionals to please take this survey so this data set can grow and everyone can get a better understanding of this growing market.

Job Market

There are quite a few jobs in the ‘Digital Asset Management’ job market and there will be even more coming soon. Interest in DAM is growing rapidly. This is shown by the increasing number of people attending DAM webinars and DAM conferences this year. Even more so by the number of organizations looking into, implementing and using DAM to their benefit.

Some DAM vendors pride themselves in the number of new clients they have. Some DAM vendors and consultants suggest specific roles to be established within an organization to support ongoing DAM initiatives and well after implementation.

New to many organizations

Digital Asset Management is new to many organizations. Since technology (the DAM system) is only part of the solution, it still needs people and processes as well. These specific people, processes and technology often do not yet exist within an organization or are not formally organized. When it comes to people, this is part of the job market that most people did not specifically go to school for nor did these jobs widely exist before. Fear, uncertainty and doubt often stall timelines and roadmaps for DAM implementations. Getting an experienced professional to help walk an organization through many of the common pain points of DAM is an option before you pick out a solution.

Supply and Demand

The number of experienced DAM professionals who are available in the job market may currently be low in many areas at the time of this blog post, but this number is increasing due to rising interest. Anyone hiring for such positions will find this out as soon as they filter to the experienced and qualified candidates.

Since there is a low supply and high demand for these experienced DAM professionals, guess what happens to the cost to the organization needing these professionals to manage their digital assets? It goes up.

Digital Experience Required

When it comes to education, I did speak with one person who has a Master in the Arts of Digital Asset Management (MADAM) named Romney Whitehead. While many of DAM professionals (including myself) do not have a degree in DAM,  Library nor Information Sciences, one option is look for graduates with a MLIS degree who have real digital experience. Organizing physical materials vs. managing digital collections are quite different, so keep this in mind when hiring. Note that most library schools and i-schools (i is for information) do not teach about the process nor the technology of DAM with a few exceptions, however some of the DAM fundamentals and categorization are better understood by MLIS graduates with experience organizing digital collections and use of metadata.

DAM is not just about photography. Knowing how to manage digital photography (after use of the camera) is a good start to DAM.

Staff or Contract

There is multitude of reasons for having either staff and/or contractors, however Digital Asset Management is not a temporary task. DAM is an ongoing task. Keep this in mind since the organization will need consistency in how digital assets are managed in order to find them again. Your organization is likely accumulating more and trying to manage more assets than ever before. Who will do this continually within your organization?

Having a DAM professional is a mutual commitment by the people and the organization.

Job descriptions vary based on many factors including the experience of candidate, the organization and their needs for the position.

Trust but verify

Since DAM professionals are new to many organizations, people often do not understand what they are supposed to do within their role once hired nor how they do it.

Digital assets have a value (known or perceived) to acquire them, create them and use these assets. The organization may need to search, find, use, reuse and re-purpose them legally and with ease to get the best ROI. How a DAM professional gets this work done may take some level of feedback and trust, but they should be able to produce reports with measurable results in meaningful numbers which can be verified. Professionals should be able to communicate who, what, where, when, why and how something is getting done with these assets, with enough relevant context and content for any audience.

Interview Questions

There is quite a few levels of experience when it comes to Digital Asset Management. If you want to discern between individuals who have similar DAM experience, a hiring manager could ask:

  • How many different DAM solutions have they worked on?
  • How many different organizations using DAM solutions have they worked with?
  • How long did they use the DAM and how often?
  • How many DAM solutions were successfully implemented and are still in use today?
  • How many users does the DAM solution serve?
  • How many assets are managed? What kind?
  • How do they measure ROI using DAM?

The answers will vary per person, but you will quickly find out how knowledgeable that person is in terms of Digital Asset Management. Now let us figure out how DAM professionals are valued.

Let us know when you are ready for some vendor neutral consulting on Digital Asset Management and if you need to find some talent for your DAM system.


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100th episode of Another DAM podcast

Less than two years after I started this, I have recorded, edited and released 100 episodes of Another DAM podcast. It is still the only weekly podcast about Digital Asset Management (DAM) in the world.

Another DAM podcast has:

  • The most podcasts of any DAM series
  • No ads
  • No budget
  • 66 interviews of professionals
  • Over 30 of the most read blog posts from Another DAM blog read by the author himself

Time spent to record, edit and release: About one  hour per episode (sometimes more)

Earlier, I wrote about why and how I do this.

What would you like to hear about in the next 100 episodes of Another DAM podcast?

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Does Your Digital Asset Management Solution Scale?

One thing many people do not think about enough is whether something will scale (up, out, in and/or down) as needed. Scalability is critical for any organization to consider if they plan to grow and thrive, not just survive. Otherwise, staying with decisions made in the short term will affect the organization rapidly in the long term.

What is Scale?

Ever seen a scale model car or train? It is usually smaller, less functional, less powerful and less expensive than the real thing. The same principle applies to the number of people working, the processes followed and technology in use.

Digital Asset Management is a business tool to search, find, use, reuse and repurpose digital assets quickly. That still takes people following good process empowered by technology.

Unless we archive offline at the end of an established digital asset life cycle or purge (due to regulations), we will only accumulate digital assets. The rate of growth is likely increasing and likely even multiplying regularly. We can measure and track this growth based on asset count over given periods of time. Measure what you manage. Otherwise, we better plan on increasing storage space exponentially and very often.

Specific to technology, scalability is more important than ever. Nowadays, increasingly more of our assets are intangible, digital assets which require more of everything, including:

  • bandwidth
  • storage
  • hardware
  • software (that scales up)
  • concurrent users
  • processing power
  • languages (not just in the user interface, but the assets themselves if you truly have an international audience going beyond one language)
  • metadata
  • version control (of assets and metadata separately)
  • access (including mobile)
  • security vs. openness
  • rights and permissions (clearly explained)
  • collaboration
  • workflow
  • user adoption
  • delivery portals to various channels/vehicles
  • reducing silos and exact duplicates
  • analytics (to measure and track usage)

As David Klee mentioned on Another DAM podcast, there is a careful balance to weigh within your organization between:

  • long term cataloging vs. short term workflow
  • speed vs. safety
  • flexibility vs. consistency
  • usability vs. quality

How to Scale Search from the Beginning

Digital Asset Management is not a problem to solve, but rather a process that needs to be managed regularly. Stop re-adjusting your blinders and simply remove them. Start thinking about your organization’s growth globally and how it manages digital assets as it grows (and needs to scale) even if you are not a media company.

If you shortcut your process by skipping metadata while your organization grows and accumulates more assets, the issue of not being able to search (often driven in large part by metadata) will multiply, the DAM becomes less effective and scales in (limits) your organization’s growth.

If you cannot search, you cannot find. If you cannot find, you cannot use, reuse nor repurpose.

Imagine the reality behind having 10,000 assets without usable metadata. Now imagine that number increasing to 100,000 assets with the same issue. That is scaling in the negative way due to short sighted thinking.

What is the point of a Digital Asset Management solution that you cannot search and that does not scale properly? That is not management. That is simply a digital dumping ground. Consider what metadata you need based on standards before you add any assets to the DAM.

Long Term, Short Term Thinking on Scale

Look at the technology being used and how it is used to be sure it can scale. Do not think short term unless you enjoy frequent database migrations. As mentioned by Jennifer Tyner on Another DAM podcast, database migrations are not much fun, but sometimes need to happen.

If the tools and processes do not scale, these will not grow with the organization and even risk restricting current growth.

A common misconception heard is “we will just stand up another duplicate system to do the same thing.” The primary issues with this short sighted point of view (again) of scaling out (vs. up) is syncing and latency between the two (or more) systems together to search, find, use, reuse and repurpose digital assets. How many places do you plan to search for one asset? Syncing and latency are often overlooked until patience and the real expectations of users are revisited.

How many DAM solutions do you need to manage within an organization? There are plenty of weak reasons why multiple DAM solutions are needed.

Does your organization’s Digital Asset Management solution scale?

This blog post was originally authored for CMSWire


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What do you know about your integrator?

Recently, some people asked me to look into software integrators because they were having issues with their present one. Sadly, this is far too common. A client saw the integrator at a conference. They had a good relationship with their preferred vendor. Integration and implementation of a solution like Digital Asset Management (DAM) was not the clients’ core competency. Why not leave it up to experts to do this work? Hear this story before?

The integrator said they were experts in the integration and implementation for this specific DAM system. They would not lie for the business, would they? Salespeople lie? Misrepresentation? Say it ain’t true.  Hear this one before?

Turns out the “experts” in question had not completed a single implementation nor integration with this DAM system. Ever. Guinea pig client number one getting billed for the integrator to learn about that DAM system on the client’s dime. Sadly, the client learned this after the most basic of all DAM implementations was running late. A project running late is not a new story for most people either, but remember to ask why.

A DAM is a DAM is a DAM, right? Wrong. The DAM concepts are the same. The DAM systems are different. There are many subtle difference in how different DAM systems are architected, how they handle assets with  metadata and how they integrate with other systems. Or not.

Here is what you need to look for in a DAM integrator:

  • How many solutions have they completed for other clients? With these systems? Be specific.
  • What kind of assets did they work with? Does that match the asset types you work with? DAM is not just about photography.
  • How did they handle use cases for their client?  What about metadata? workflow? Rights and permissions? Whose eyes are glazing over now?
  • Is there an SDK along with a clear set of updated documentation provided by the vendor for the integrator(s) in order to work with their tool? Is there a certification process by the DAM vendor for integrators? Are the integrators certified for this solution or are they partners with vendors? Or do we need to reverse engineer a solution to figure out how it works?
  • Can you see real case studies of real organizations with real people’s names stating satisfaction with that integrator and vendor combination? Why is that page blank on their website? If there isn’t anything posted, you might know why. “We have not had time to post it yet” is a very poor excuse for the often more truthful “we do not have anything to post yet.” Care to guess why?
  • If this is too much for you to handle, hire a DAM consultant that is truly independent of all vendors and integrators. Not one that just recommends the same one or two vendors each time. Those are the ones that often do the “recommendation” for a nice, fat hidden commission from the vendor and/or integrator. Then, they collect from the client as well. Impartiality is not part of the available vocabulary when it needs to be.
  • Word of mouth by the user community. Anyone heard of them?
  • Just because the vendor recommends an integrator or they hang out with the vendor means…nothing. Someone is expecting a check someday though.
  • Do the Project Managers have a clue? Can they keep the project on budget, on schedule and within specifications in a phased approach?
  • Will you have weekly meetings with the parties to discuss clarifications,  decisions, expectations, issues and progress? This is called staying informed. Are you?

If you need vendor neutral assistance or advice on integrators with Digital Asset Management, let us know.

What do you know about your integrator?