I have heard Digital Asset Management (DAM) vendors use a lot of words to describe their technology, their components, those configurations, the possible customizations and the variable functionality of their systems. What some DAM vendors are lacking when they use these exciting (and sometimes confusing) words is a concise, glossary of terms. In writing.
In a world with clarity, these words would mean the same thing between vendor X and vendor Y, but they sometimes mean something different. It sometimes depends on the vendor. Or the individual explaining it.
Some vendors like to confuse clients, but they will never publicly admit this. Why would any vendor (or anyone for that matter) want to confuse a client with special words to describe their systems?
They simply do not know nor ever bothered to ask
They forgot or simply missed that hour of training
They are too embarrassed to ask
They may have not been explained how to use the DAM themselves. Ever. (As mind numbing as this may seem, this actually does happen)
They are guessing and hope you do not notice
They come up with their own way of explaining it (which becomes a different explanation each time)
They will continue billing you as a client because the confusion is continually not clarified (yes, please do note the lack of ethics from some people. They know who they are. Shame on them.)
Since there is a DAM Foundation and DAM Coalition out there, maybe we could all work together on creating “…a global community of best standards of practice for Digital Asset Management.” This community (that could involve everyone in DAM) that “…brings together…” the best could create a global glossary of terms and definitions we could all use and understand in a vendor neutral sense. A compendium of DAM terms which is industry wide. This could help “…provide the best qualified advice and guidance for best practice and standards within the Digital Asset Management space.” How does that sound? Do I see any takers on creating such a free and open glossary of terms without any pop-up ads?
Some vendors can produce a short list of terms either online or upon request, but I dare them to have a complete compendium of all industry terms and acronyms even if they do not have that option or feature. I believe it would only be fair for each vendor to include a list of all terms they may use months down the road from their first canned demo, through contract negotiation, through implementation, through user acceptance testing, past go live and even past the final sign off of the system because that is just the starting point. It would only be acceptable to clearly define terms not listed on Wikipedia nor commonly used dictionaries with an understandable definition of what they are actually talking about. Anyone up for this challenge?
In the meantime, ask for the glossary. When you see terms missing, point them out and ask for clarity. In writing.
Whether you are a potential DAM user, a current DAM user, a business stakeholder, an analyst, a vendor, an implementer or anyone else involved in the DAM community, we might be able to know exactly what all these terms mean if they were clearly defined.
Of course, we can find a handful of existing DAM glossaries online (created by a few vendors), but these are unfortunately incomplete and occasionally use words in their definitions that are not clearly defined. Having a question which leads to confusion to end up with a lack to clarity is not the answer. Verbal definitions are not good enough by today’s standard. Instant clarity would be. A compendium of terms should be readily available online at all times, updated regularly (not on paper) and free of charge for everyone to use. Open disclosure as a standard.
Let us know when you are ready for some vendor neutral consulting on Digital Asset Management.
Someone recently asked me again questions about finding some DAM interns. I have gotten repeated emails asking where organizations can find Digital Asset Management (DAM) interns for a while now, so here is my answer in the form of a blog post openly shared with all.
First, let us look at the question from the organization’s perspective. An organization wants an intern (or a few) to help them do some work with their DAM.
What will the intern do for your organization specifically?
An organization commonly wants an intern to upload assets and/or apply metadata to those assets in their DAM. Sometimes, an employer wants interns to do the work they do not want to do.
On occasion, interns may do the work the organization does not know how to do themselves, but that is rare (good luck guiding the intern to do that and still understand what they are doing…good or otherwise for the organization. Note the switch in roles of teacher and student).
The organization may also need someone to organize, sort and structure their folders and files.
This could involve working on a taxonomy and expanding it. We need to understand the needs of the organization to find who best fits this situation. An intern is an intern is an intern, right? Not really. If a marketing department of an organization needs some help managing information and metadata with some files, that does not call for another marketing intern. Why? That it is not their core competency. What is the competency of the intern? Hopefully, you are seeking an intern that is more than just a pair of hands and eyes to the organization.
Ground Rules for having an intern
It seems important to set some ground rules when getting an intern to work with you (some of these rules may seem the opposite of what you think, depending on what your expectations are and what you have heard of about interns in the past).
Interns are there to learn. Find out what they want to learn and what you plan to have them do. Hopefully, some of these things will align with each other. If not, expectations will likely be missed as disappointment meets both the organization and the intern. Luckily, a completely unrealistic movie/TV show depicting Digital Asset Management professionals doing highly recognized work has yet to be made, so that will not be problem (unlike the CSI).
Make sure the intern is willing to learn and they are actually teachable. If not, keep looking. Listening is key. Asking questions is another good sign. Communication is very important.
Interns should be interviewed, at least by phone or video conferencing. Resumes, cover letters and intern applications are just a first set of filters for all applicants on an equal basis so there is not bias from the start.
Interns must have a sponsor, mentor or coach within the organization ready to give the intern answers to their questions and give them the needed support. Kind of like a junior employee. Monitor their progress and what work they have completed regularly.
Give them feedback. Not just “good” or “bad”, but rather what/why something is good/bad.
Be specific and detailed enough. Ask them if they have any questions after you explain what is needed in case they need clarifications.
Interns will have many basic questions which may seem obvious after working there for N years, but they need answers because they do not know, might not assume to know and they have not been there for N years. If you do not bother to answer these ‘stupid’ questions, you should expect stupid mistakes to be made. If you answer the interns questions in writing (email), you can recycle the question/answer responses for the next interns that come around and the interns can refer to them as a guide. This can lead to the creation of FAQ pages for interns as well as new employees. Try this unless you like to repeat yourself to each intern.
Interns are not simply free labor nor are they slaves at your beck and call. In fact, interns may be paid a stipend or paid hourly, depending on budgets. Some organization treat interns like contractors for a fixed term and fixed hourly rate. If they are not paid, it is often expected that someone within the organization will assist them with approving some paperwork so the interns can get respective college credits for this internship work. Unpaid interns should pay nothing to work their as a volunteer. Some organizations reimburse the interns’ travel expenses to/from the office if they are unpaid or if they are required to travel. Sometimes, interns get paid and get college credit. Both the intern and organization should value the experience as well as their mutual benefit.
Interns from specific, qualified schools may come with specialized knowledge and skills based on what they are studying. Be sure you are looking for the right skill set (Keep reading. I am getting there.)
Interns are temporary workers. Some internships treat the interns just like regular temporary employees with few benefits and expect just as much from them as other employees or contractors. On rare occasions, IF an intern excels well beyond expectations and IF there is room for them within the organization and IF there is budget for them, the intern may be offered a junior position after their internship. Do not hold your breathe though, but if the intern is interested, they should discuss it toward the end of their internship. The internship can be a stepping stone for the intern. Again, think mutual benefit and value. This is not about adding a line on the resume/CV after watching reruns online or playing games while “working.” You can do that at home on your own time.
Interns are not there to fetch everyone coffee or tea on an hourly basis. If an intern gets any coffee, they should be drinking it themselves. Do not be a lazy, slave driver. Invest in a good coffee machine.
Interns are not there to spend most of their time making photocopies, stuffing envelopes nor fax all day long. Using ancient technology teaches the intern nothing. Not even patience. What is next? Typewriters? Dictating replies to your emails? There is software for that now. Learn how to use resources and interns in a non-wasteful manner.
Bad interns may not show up often nor on time nor will they put much effort into completing any of their work. There is a maturity factor involved here, but it may not all be tied to age alone.
Some people still value having a work ethic for themselves and with their fellow co-workers. This is not overrated and can get noticed.
Signing on a junior, senior or recent college graduate may yield a more experienced, skilled and mature intern, but that is not a guarantee.
Set requirements and expectations early on, before the internship begins (during the interview process) so there are less surprises for all. An intern may come with tremendous energy and excitement toward experiencing the real working world. Encourage them both positively and realistically.
Do not bore the intern. Have enough work for them. Keep them busy with real work. Challenge them. Not with useless busy work.
Allow them to learn. They will not get everything right. Point out these learning experiences calmly (as needed) in case they miss those points. Yes, they could fix their errors themselves with some guidance.
Be flexible when using the interns’ skill sets/knowledge to help your organization.
When should I start looking for an intern?
The best time to look for a summer intern is the beginning of the year. Yes, six months ahead of time would be planning ahead so you have the time to actually get applicants, review applications and interview potential candidates for the internship(s). Fall or Winter internships are not unheard of either, but start looking for them early. DAM interns do not grow on trees.
Have them commit to a specific time frame, such as 3 months. Within that time frame, set a minimum number of days per week and a minimum number of hours per day, otherwise the internship will be more trouble than it is worth for all parties involved. If an intern comes in 1 or 2 hours per week, this hardly justifies your time spent finding them nor their commute. On occasion, you may even need to set a maximum time commitment as well or they may start living in your offices seven days a week. Real world experience is what they crave, so do not deprive interns from this if they made the cut to stay and learn.
Where to find that Who
While some job boards have some internships posted, this is not necessarily the best place to get interns with a particular educational background. I would recommend researching the top schools/colleges/universities which have the right programs. In the case of Digital Asset Management, the top schools with digital librarianship and information science programs can yield the basic skill set you are looking for. Why? Because they love to catalog and sort things like digital assets. That is likely a need for your organization and a want from them. Name me another group who gets excited about that. Not many. Who else are you going to find whose heart rate increases in excitement when you tell them there is metadata to find, sort and match to respective digital assets. This is not a bad trait to have. Be careful not to mistaken physical cataloging like traditional librarians with digital cataloging of assets. Many librarians who are paying attention to the job market are noticing the shift from physical cataloging to digital cataloging, but they need to learn new digital skills. Those in schools where they teach them these things are key. Otherwise, it requires enrichment outside of school which is highly recommended to move beyond the theory and into practice itself. The fact that many library schools do not teach digital librarianship and information science today is a really big issue which I hear many students complaining about, but that will be addressed later in a future blog post.
Here are the best places to post internships to actually find interns you may want and need:
Some professional associations have online job information banks available which may take internship postings as well.
LinkedIn Groups with specific interest in “Digital Asset Management” are a great places to post if they have a large member base.
Post internships within the networks of the top schools in your region or in the country. Contact the school itself and find out how to post internships on their listserv or online internship database.
Some Meetup groups have internship postings, but this only works if there are many members
What NOT to use an intern for
There have been a few postings for internships at a couple organizations who were looking for unpaid interns to implement their Digital Asset Management system. I could write a novel on how many ways that will fail. Common sense will tell you that A) I do not need to write much more about this provided you are thinking beyond a budget discussion and B) realize what you are asking them to do.
Even if you have the most talented intern ever seen, how long will they be there? 10-12 weeks or about 3 months is common for many internships because they are temporary workers. They are often far less experienced as well. As mentioned before, DAM is not a temporary task. It should not be a temporary, unscalable solution either. DAM is far more than software and storage.
Consistency and continuity are key things to remember when implementing a DAM, but these are not really options when using interns. Especially, if they are cycled in and out every few months.
When implementing a DAM, it takes a large effort from many parties within an organization to understand and decide across multiple layers of options. There is no ‘out-of-the-box’ COTS DAM for an entire department or organization ready to use as soon as you pay for it. If you think you found an off-the-shelf DAM, you are likely looking at an image/video/audio browser. Not a DAM. Otherwise, someone is lying to you.
Having an intern (who is usually at the absolute bottom of the organizational chart, as if they were even plotted) try to focus the scope, work on requirements/expectations, keep schedules, maintain budgets and discuss this with the highest ranks within the organization to get sign off for decisions is not likely going to happen. Decisions need to come from top down, not bottom up, anyhow. Otherwise, we invite scope creep with open arms, instead of any completed project.
Feedback on DAM is needed as well, but if an intern is there for 12 weeks, there will be little time to collect, process, analyze or do anything useful with this feedback or testing.
Where do you find your Digital Asset Management interns?
With the advent of more technology to help add metadata to digital assets, it would good to review a few tagging options available aside from what may already be done within an organization. Some DAM systems do not make it easy to apply a controlled vocabulary, taxonomy or any list for users to pick from when it comes to applying tags in the process. Keep in mind tags are just one form (and often one field) of metadata out of many possible options.
What is tagging?
We are not talking about vandalizing walls nor subway trains with ‘artwork’. The act of applying tags (keywords or key phrases) is tagging. We are however making a mark in an organization or community by making its digital assets more searchable, more findable (within finite results) and possibly better monetized. If you can search for digital assets, you should find the relevant digital assets you need and these digital assets could easily be distributed if this happens. If a client can not find the digital asset they need, they can not buy/license/use this digital asset. A number of photo agencies have found this out the hard way after sometime, but this effort extends to all media including audio, video, text, graphics and photos. A few large sporting organizations have massive archives of their sports history waiting to be tagged. How could this be done for them as well as your organization?
What is auto-tagging?
Auto-tagging is tagging (adding metadata) in an automated fashion via computer with complex algorithms. Often, these algorithms work by analyzing the content (often visual images) to match shapes and patterns such as faces.
More tools now have facial recognition based on the position of an eye, nose and mouth. Advanced facial recognition also looks at the forehead, cheeks, chin and sometimes ears. If you apply the name of someone to some images of this person, the software will do the rest with reasonable accuracy. Just make sure you do not smile. Kind of like with your passport and driver’s license. I dare you to smile at airport customs or the motor vehicle administrator’s office while waiting in line and see how long that smile stays on your face. We know that smile will not stay long on anyone’s face unless you want to be profiled.
Beyond faces, common shapes and patterns yield mixed results dependent on the image content, quality of the image, resolution and focus.
At a meetup, I spoke with someone who works for a company which offered auto-tagging. A few large social networks may be using these services as well.
I have reviewed some DAM and MAM systems with similar auto-tagging tools, but I was not amazed with the results (yet). When auto-tagging was used on images, results came back as trees for a photograph of grass (both green and vertical, but not close enough). When a photo of strawberry was auto-tagged, the results returned with cherry (both red, round-ish and fruit, but the texture is visibly different between the two).
One service I did see was auto-tagging for video which did quite well. I was asked to review this tool. As a test to have them prove themselves, I sent them an early silent film posted online and some music videos to see what the tool could do. The quality issues of the silent film as well as the abstract nature of the music video would be a challenge. The test yielded very good results based on the tool analyzing what patterns and shapes could be found frame by frame. If the pattern appeared within a number of video frames within a given period of time, the tool produced tags for this pattern.
Crowdsourcing work done for you
At a recent lecture, I listened to a few experts explaining some new services where there are some mechanical turks (people doing repetitive micro tasks remotely) doing some tagging. There now some new players on the field of crowdsourcing metadata. A few of these services are very big, while most are still small. Many have big potential.
Many of these services are cloud based are now, while a few are in-house installs which could be integrated with other systems. Most of these groups are using global resources. Some of these services are gamified just like the early beginning of some university projects to help a community tag their digital assets and get a high score as another personal bonus.
There are some news reports about these services as well as word of mouth within some communities of some archivist groups, digital asset management groups, humanities groups, information management groups, librarians and metadata management groups.
Micro-tasks for micropayments with error checking process
These crowdsourced micro-tasks (tag a few images) are often paying individuals who are nationally or internationally distributed around the globe just a few pennies per task (tag an image with N number of keywords or key phrases based on a controlled vocabulary). The question arises why would anyone really care to apply relevant tags in an accurate manner for payment of just a few pennies per image? You have multiple people doing the same task completely independent of each other. With a nice automated process, if the tags appear multiple times in three to five people’s results per task, those tags are likely relevant and accurate. Each individual should not see the results of the next person. For example, if five different people in five different geographic areas, using five different IP addresses, at five different times during the day enter matching tags, these tags is likely accurate and verified. The client should likely review the results to see how relevant these are for the organization’s purposes when the results are delivered.
Audio transcription and speech-to-text
There are several transcription services which still use humans transcribe audio files into text which are crowdsourced services. With even smartphones, speech-to-text technology is getting much better because some technologies are “learning” based speech patterns when a word is spoken (including with accents) and the acceptance rate of users continue to learn with what they said to their mobile device and the usefulness of the result. It can be a challenge for a machine to transcribe spoken audio into text while music is playing, cars are driving by and other ambient noise is audible in the background. Speech to text technology has gotten better, but is still subject to ambient noise which can give it a higher error rate. While we take it for granted, noise canceling microphones can filter out a lot of unwanted ambient noise to get spoken words into an audible sound file sent out to be processed in the cloud and this returns a text prompt or an audio prompt to the mobile device.
As seen in one demo of auto-tagged audio from a video, I would hardly call the re-purposing closed captioned text taken from a widely distributed blockbuster movie and turning it into searchable text as an astonishing feat. It is smart though. Of course, that is an easier solution since most of that work is already done and audio does not have to be transcribed again since it may come from the movie script (unless ad lib applies).
Photography
Some auto-tagging services for photos claim to be able to tag a million photos in 24-48 hours if you have an established taxonomy.
When we license stock photography, we could get most metadata embedded in the photograph once acquired but this varies based on the vendor, the age of the digitized image in the collection and its popularity. Much of the well-known stock photography is done by various keywording services with established taxonomies for consistency. Tagging of stock photography is still mostly done the “old school” method by humans, even if they crowdsourced. The reason they remain old school (at least for 2012) is the error-rate for some artificial intelligence is still too high. Fixing the errors can take more time than a human tagging it in the first place. This may change over time as the technology matures.
Free crowdsourcing efforts
A large museum group has a few efforts where they are posting digital photographs on their website and asking the public to come visit, browse through the image collections and apply tags (and/or descriptions) to these individual images with the belief that this effort could aggregate the public’s time and knowledge. Results vary and so does consistency. The results should be able to cull through the tags and weed out the “meta crap” from relevant metadata. This still requires time.
I will point out that even some of the most advanced (publicly released) artificial intelligence relies on humans to check and tune the accuracy of its algorithms. Even Watson was taking a text prompted clue only while the human competitors received a text and verbal prompted clue during a televised game show where humans competed against the machine. It does not take a genius to figure out who won based on “who” can process text faster with a high rate of accuracy, more memory and provided human engineers are close behind to tailor parameters so they can improve accuracy.
Crowdsourcing all of us
Captcha is a code you may be familiar with. Often seen as a security measure because so far only humans can decipher these “codes”. We are prompted to re-enter this code and this is verified by a number of other people to aggregate the correct answer of what the code says. A very large newspaper company was able to digitize about 150 years of their archive into searchable text using captcha technology when optical character recognition (OCR) failed to complete this digitization task. Why would OCR fail you ask? When printed text needs to digitized into searchable text, there are a number of challenges. Fonts change over years and some are no longer recognized. Printing quality and preservation are variables over long periods of time. That code may look like a captcha by default. Cool, dark, dry storage is not the case sometimes.
So back to the question of how could a sports organization tag millions of their photographs. I would recommend crowdsourcing fans to tag these photographs. You can post watermarked, lower resolution photographs (proxies) to see and have others tag them. Then, offer the fans a significant discount on prints if they tag a given number of digital assets.
Should I test these services?
There is no guarantee that any institutional knowledge nor necessarily any subject matter expertise will ‘automagically’ show up in your results for tags. Let us return to reality, clear out any smoke screen of unrealistic expectations and remember what is the source of these tags and what does the source know. Even if you are skeptical (and I am until a service can prove themselves usable), try before you buy. Give these services a fair tryout and analyse the end results you get back. Most of these services will give you a free trial, so take advantage of this for a reality check. Do not simply take my word for it. Do your own homework and judge for yourself after seeing if these are viable services for your own organization’s purposes. This is called due diligence on your part.
Let us know when you are ready for vendor neutral consulting on Digital Asset Management and assistance with tagging.
After reading one of my most popular blog posts, a few readers have asked “What does a Digital Asset Manager need to know?”
This is assuming an organization realizes why a Digital Asset Manager is needed who is skilled and experienced in the field.
That said, they will need to know how to work with the following:
People
Be helpful. You should there to help the people, the process, the technology and the information work together. No small feat in many cases nor a temporary effort.
Be resourceful.
Be honest. Brutally honest if needed. Do not hold back much. The truth may require revealing news people do not want to hear, but rather need to hear (if you have read my blog or know me well enough, you will know what I mean).
Be patient. Not everyone will be technical nor understand what is involved.
Listen. To your users. All of them. Not just to yourself talking and repeating yourself.
Be specific. Do not assume people know, even the obvious. Remember, not everyone is technical.
Simplify. Do not overcomplicate unless you like confusion, fixing errors and having delays.
Be an agent of change. Change, not because it is shiny/new/cool, but needed for increased effectiveness and efficiency across the organization.
Know who is responsible for what. If you are not in charge of something, who is? If no one is in charge, take charge. “Initiative isn’t given, you take it”…along with responsibility.
Speak up. Interject as needed. Do not ‘wait your turn’ or your points will be overlooked. Leave your emotions elsewhere. This is business.
Be accountable and hold others accountable for their actions (or lack thereof) when it comes to the DAM and everything else in your purview. It is a ‘two-way street’ whether we realize it or not. Top to bottom and back.
Be proactive as well as reactive as needed. You should not be ‘fire fighting’ issues all day, every day (otherwise, there is a prioritization and process issue).
How and when to say “No.” Contrary to some people’s belief, ‘yes men‘ can hurt the organization as well as themselves especially if a constant “yes” is believed to always be the right answer. It is not. Reality checks are necessary for all.
Do not kill yourself, physically nor mentally. Nor anyone else for that matter. Even if it starts to sound really tempting. Really.
Process
There is at least one process, right? And it is followed?
How do DAM users interact with the Digital Asset Management process and system?
Help establish a process, test the process in the real world, document the process in writing and train users on the process/workflow as needed (especially when lacking). Work one-on-one or with small groups. Why? Large groups and committees are like large ships…they are harder to steer in any direction and slower to start, stop or react in general. Don’t believe me? Try it. Find out yourself.
How does metadata entry occur from sources (owned internally and/or externally) to normalization of the data to entry into the DAM. Then, track the process all the way through to use within system to yield the requested search results.
Manage by assigning, measuring and prioritizing daily. Of what you ask?
There is plenty more to assign, measure and prioritize…
Establish a process of user adoption from the beginning of the selection process of a DAM system to the integration of other systems to the regular operations of the solution. What are you doing to encourage your users?
How to make coffee (or tea) without spilling it nor burning yourself. (Like most things, carefully.)
Technology
Digital Asset Management solution within your organization
Metadata validation and when applicable, metadata automation
How to use and apply the LAMP solution stack (in case you thought there was nothing else to learn to improve your skills)
Java (the programming language as well as the coffee)
Information
Love information and data. Really. It may not love you back, but it is a give and take relationship. You get what you put into it, along with compounding value over time. Of course, I am talking about metadata. You should be one of the information experts within your organization.
Know what is available (and what is not), where it lives, how to get to it, how report on it, how to filter it and analyze it.Explain it. Train people on how to take ownership of it in their role, how to complete their part (metadata), the value of this information and why.
Know the difference between data, information and knowledge.
If you want a baseline to know how mature your DAM solution is now within your organization, start studying the DAM Maturity Model (DAM3), which was based on ECM3 as it continues to mature. Using DAM3, you can plot how mature your DAM solution is within organization today as well as where it could improve.
I write this as I leave my position where I was Digital Asset Manager for over 5 years. I have accepted another position as a Digital Asset Management professional in a different capacity to assist other organizations with DAM.
If you need vendor neutral assistance or advice on Digital Asset Management, let me know.
Another DAM Blog 