What specifically is your organization going to do with Digital Asset Management?
For those of you who have not read this blog before or did not realize it, I am and remain vendor agnostic. Everyone should realize there is no one DAM fits all solution. Many DAM vendors will claim their solution is the best for you and they may try to sell you a solution even if it does not meet your needs.
I have looked at 90 DAM solutions in the past. Someone claimed there are as many as 150. Which solution is right for your organization?
The right DAM solution for your organization will depend on the following:
Again, there is no one-size-fits-all DAM solution. There is not one DAM system that could monopolize the whole field of Digital Asset Management. Of course, there are bigger vendors than others, vendors that only do DAM, some open source solutions and some systems which will work together with other systems you may have.
Each DAM system and solution is different. Some upload differently. Some handle file names differently. Some have more strengths in some areas than others. Some have more weakness because they are less developed or updated less often. Some DAM systems are constantly updated, versioned, changed and/or bug fixed. While others are not so much.
What is the best DAM solution? There is no one answer. It depends. What are you going to do with it?
First, research within your organization what your organization has in place now and what it really needs going forward. Where are the gaps? This includes researching the people, processes and technologies you have now. In case your organization has no idea how to do this, look into using a consultant. Select a consultant that is not tied to any specific DAM vendor(s) unless you have already made a decision on using a particular system. Hopefully, it will meet your organization’s needs.
What are the goals of the organization (not just one person) for the DAM? Which systems meet those goals?
Which system meets the business needs as described early on?
Which DAM system is scalable? (scalable for your assets, metadata, users and workflow)
Which DAM vendor and system can your organization work with? Is it too complex with too many features? Is it too simplified with not enough features? Is the vendor available before and after the commitment to using their system/services? Or is all outsourced?
Which DAM system make no sense to your engineers nor IT department?
Which DAM system can work with your organization’s use cases?
Which DAM vendor can tell you how it would work and then show you a working example from start to finish using your assets?
Which DAM vendor is friendly to you just for your business, but has no existing support for you after you sign up?
Which DAM vendor can not show you anything that works, but will promise you the moon and stars? Which DAM vendor should you run (do not walk) away from?
Which DAM vendor, integrator and system will deliver what you need? Which will/can not?
Which DAM vendors will offer you a white paper to download and have 5 different reps call you about the exact, same thing? (This would require them using a CRM system properly)
Which vendors will invite you to a webinar which you attend and you ask some questions by typing them in (which can be captured), but they ignore them and then call you a month later asking if you had any questions? Then, you ask what was the topic of the webinar, but the person calling you does not even know. (If you only knew how many webinars I attend per month)
Which DAM vendor is financially stable? Many DAM vendors are private companies while some are large publicly traded companies which have DAM as part of their available offerings.
Which DAM systems has had so many owners and different names and different development teams that barely anyone knows how to manage it or use it even on the vendor’s side?
Would you pick a DAM solution without consulting your IT department first? Not a good idea.
Would you pick a DAM solution based on a game of golf with rep or sitting in a sauna with them? What does either of these have to do with selecting technology that meets your organization’s needs? Analyst Theresa Regli warns us about this. Heed that warning.
Did you really think I was going to mention one vendor? One product? One service? Seriously? No.
Be wary of any vendor (or anyone for that matter) saying they have the right solution for you without them knowing anything about your organization, the people, the technology you use, your use cases and your specific reasons for seeking a DAM solution.
A reader asked the question ‘how long does it take to upload assets to a DAM with metadata?’ Project Managers (among others) love to know the answer to this question in a clear and concise manner so they can estimate time since this helps them create a schedule. The simple answer is upload times will vary based on several factors:
Upload Process
How simple or complex is the upload process with the DAM system you are using? This is worth looking at when evaluating any DAM system from any vendor while shopping around. Bring a set of your own assets and have them show you how to upload step-by-step, start to finish. Then you try doing it yourself. No ‘wizard behind the curtains‘ need apply. Just reality, thank you. This way you know what is involved upfront when it comes to adding new assets. And adding metadata. This may not be for the faint of heart (sometimes due to the technical nature), but it should not involve any hocus pocus in the user nor admin perspective. The upload process may be possible in volume if needed, but what are the limits?
The upload process does take people to upload at some point. No one is born with the knowledge of how uploading is done regardless of how easy or complex it really is. Some vendors will do the uploading for you for a fee. It all depends on how reliant you want to be on external groups to complete this work and, of course, how much it costs for one group to upload vs. another group to complete. The core competency of a group may be another factor to strongly consider along with cost, time and convenience.
Who is doing the uploading to the DAM? How much experience do they have doing it? The more experience often means the more efficiently and accurately they can complete the upload. If this is true, little or no corrections should be necessary. Doing it right the first time helps a lot. Adding additional metadata later should be an option as well…in bulk as well as on a per asset basis.
Metadata available
When it comes to core competency and institutional knowledge, metadata is one of the most contested subjects when it comes to implementing a Digital Asset Management solution. Who will create the metadata and where will it come from? If you want to know something about your asset, that is the purpose of metadata. If you want to know about the asset’s content, that is metadata. If you want to find assets again (not visually), you search the values within the metadata fields that exist (even if you have a Google-like search). All to often, it is left to the last person standing around to work on the metadata because few professionals actually want to describe the assets in detail that is needed. Not everyone has the background, subject knowledge nor institutional knowledge needed to apply the required metadata to assets with any particular consistency in order to make those assets searchable. Finding something you did not necessarily work on is the end goal. A DAM is only as good as its metadata. Without metadata, a DAM is just another digital dumping ground. Metadata is in part what makes assets valuable and make the asset ROI go up by finding it again, then reusing or re-purposing the asset repeatedly. The more metadata fields you have, the longer it will take to fill them in and the longer the upload process. The fewer fields of metadata, the less information you have about your asset. What matters is having a manageable number of metadata fields for the information you need for each asset. No metadata means less time uploading, but no searchability either.
Associated/embedded to assets during upload to DAM
Associated with assets after they are uploaded to DAM
How long the process takes will depend on how many metadata fields do you have/need and how complex the metadata is to acquire/apply/associate/embed. Obviously, the more metadata fields you need (yes, need) should reflect the amount information the organization needs to know about those assets for the long term. Not just the short term. Metadata is not necessarily for those who apply it, but the assets should be usable and searchable for all who can access the assets.
If embedding the metadata is not an option (not all assets can have embedded metadata), I am a fan of uploading assets and applying metadata upon upload in bulk. Every asset must have metadata. Making some metadata fields required in order to upload is one way of making sure it actually happens.
Assets ready
It helps to have assets ready to upload. Having a delivery schedule to know when assets will be ready for upload could help to instead of uploading one asset at a time. Assets with larger file sizes (example: 1 GB) will obviously take longer to upload than smaller assets (example: 300 kB). The number of assets uploaded at a time will also determine the total upload time. Uploading in volume can save time.
Lastly, just because an asset has been uploaded to a DAM does not necessarily mean it will be instantly available. This delay (of seconds to minutes) in availability can depend on the processes happening in the background such as:
In order to bake a pie, I mean upload assets to a DAM, you need the following ingredients:
Time (which can be measured and analyzed to create a metric)
Training (explaining and demonstrating how to upload assets properly with the needed metadata) with documentation (in case they don’t remember everything)
If you don’t have the time for any of this, good luck in finding assets acquired/created/uploaded by others.
Let us say you have trained people who will upload to the DAM and provided documentation to reference when needed. The number of assets which are uploaded to a DAM by any individual can be counted within a specific time frame. The total number of minutes/hours spent on that person’s particular set of assets uploaded from start to finish can be counted as well. Once you count the number of assets and time spent uploading those assets, you will be able to create a time metric, average time and even performance goals for uploads. As mentioned before, I have issued DAM awards on a monthly basis for the most number of assets uploaded by the roles who do the actual uploading of assets regularly. Consider how much praise you get at your job on a regular basis. Now imagine how excited, motivated, even competitive they become when a DAM award is issued without bias to the top performing person who uploads. Uploading rates can be measured. There is a poll for this as well.
How long does it take to upload assets to a DAM with metadata?
If you use a Digital Asset Management system and you upload (import) assets along with metadata, please answer this one question about how much time it takes.
With at least six Digital Asset Management (DAM) conferences scheduled during 2011, from both Createasphere and Henry Stewart Conferences, there will be many presentations given.
Many of these presentations will be prepared. Some won’t.
Since I have attended and presented at several DAM conferences over the past several years, I thought I would share some thoughts about to how to prepare and present them.
The conference organizers will often ask you to present on a topic, often one you have suggested to them or something related.
Find out how much time you have to give your presentation. If you do not know, ask the organizers.
Find out who the audience is. They could be:
Analysts
Business executives
College students
Consultants
DAM practitioners and professionals
Engineers
Media
Novices
People who are interested in finding out about DAM
Vendors
Any of the above and more
Remember they have different perspectives. Don’t know who your audience is? Ask the organizers. They may have a demographics about the audience.
How big is the audience? Does it matter whether you are talking to 30 people or 300 people. Not really. Present the same way as long as you are provided with a microphone. Scan the audience a few times during your presentation. If looking at the audience makes you nervous, scan above everyone’s heads. Relax. Avoid gripping on the podium. Watch your step as you walk to and from the podium for steps, wires and other not-so-fun tripping hazards.
Prepare the presentation well ahead of time. The last thing you want to do is to start brainstorming an hour before or piece it together over a late, sleepless night (the night before) or minutes before the presentation. Most of us are not in college anymore. Plan ahead. Write it down. Mind map it. There is 168 hours in each week. Find the time and use it wisely.
Simplicity is the key. Do not bury the audience with a thousand words per slide. If you can not understand/digest the slide in 10 seconds, your audience will not either. Summarize with quick (bite size) phrases. Clarify. Do not complicate, even when it is complex. Use understandable analogies, if needed.
Practice giving your presentation by speaking out loud and time yourself. Does your pace of speaking allow the time to fit all of your presentation? The last thing you want is to be kicked off the podium for going over the time limit given and barely scratched the surface on the topic. A moderator should kick a speaker off to give the specific time frame to each speaker including the one after your presentation. Every conference has a schedule to keep.
Imagine you are the audience member. Be your own harshest critic. If that is too challenging for you, give the whole presentation (as you would present it) to someone you know professionally who will give you direct feedback (without sugar-coating it). Family and friends will often be too nice to you. Otherwise, record yourself (with audio or video) giving the presentation (you will learn a lot about how you present).
If you have visuals as part of your presentation, have at least two copies of them in case something happens to one copy such as :
Putting them on cloud storage (but have no connection)
An email (but no connection)
On a mobile device (which is lost or stolen or has a dead battery)
On physical media (which is lost in transit or dog ate it)
On USB memory drive (but lost it)
Loss can happen. Be prepared. Even if you lost all visuals and notes, hopefully you did not lose your own memory.
Avoid large amounts of alcohol before presenting. No one wants to know how sloshed you got last night either. That is not cool nor professional.
Get some sleep the night before. The last thing you want to do is fall asleep before or during the presentation. Note that the microphone does amplify snoring.
Review the presentation the same day. Do not polish it last minute. Do not gold plate it either. Only update it if (rarely) something has changed since the presentation was created.
Show the audience the topic of what you are going to talk about and explain it. Show samples or/and visuals when possible.
Your slides (if any) should support what you say and not be verbatim ‘note cards’ to read to the audience. Your audience can read. Slides are not the place to write the epic novel nor the technical spaceship manual…or your audience may look like they were just taken over by aliens.
Don’t talk much about yourself. The better known you are in your field, the less you should talk about yourself. You will likely be introduced anyhow. Have some contact information displayed at the end of your presentation along with any links you want to share.
Are you presenting with others on a panel? Plan with them. Have at least one conversation (by phone and/or in person) before the presentation to sync up the topic(s) of discussion and make sure everyone understands what is expected. Put people at ease by listening to them and sincerely answering their questions. That is an art if you are a moderator.
If you the moderator of a panel, do not spend 90% of the whole time talking nor introducing people extensively. Do not read a bio that is 1 to 2 pages long that is meant to be on a conference website. Introduce a speaker with: “Our next speaker is…” OR “Our panel includes (from left to right)…
First and Last Name (unless Bono or Cher is speaking)
Title
Organization
What they are going to talk about (briefly)
Factoid (if you really have have one worth mentioning)
Get the audience’s perspective by sitting in the audience before you give the presentation or stand in the back of the room. Can you see the podium? Can you see the presentation slides? Can you hear what is being said clearly? You should no matter where you sit or stand in the room.
Save your audience from the agony of boredom. You don’t want to hear crickets nor see only tumbleweeds pass through in the room as you speak. Worse yet, put people to sleep. Vary your tone of voice because monotone is very dull to listen to. Engage your audience. Make them laugh/cry/enjoy the presentation. Make them drool in envy, not boredom.
Give the audience something they can use. Provide something useful to them. I have seen a ‘subway map‘ do this. I have seen laser pens given out to the whole audience to use during a presentation to take a survey (by pointing their laser into a quadrant, corresponding to an answer) which did this as well. I could easily see codes/links to free ebooks do this as well.
If you mention a particular organization during your presentation, realize that someone from that organization may likely be there in the room listening. Do not let that stop you. Share openly.
Know what you are talking about. Really. Do not memorize lines. Write key phases if you need to remind yourself of specific things to talk about and keep yourself on topic. I can talk about Digital Asset Management for eight hours straight. Really. I have. I also watched people cycle in and out of the discussion in a rotation pattern to keep up. Most people can listen to a DAM discussion for one to two hours max, then they need a break. That does not mean anyone should ramble on for that long.
Keep it fresh. Try not to recycle the same presentation you gave over and over again. It gets old fast. People quickly memorize what comes up next and the punchline to each of the old jokes. Remember the part about boredom.
Keep it real. If you don’t know what you are talking about, you should not be presenting about it. The audience (particularly the more experienced practitioners) will know. They may (rightfully) start quizzing you about it and ask you questions to clarify for the audience. If you do not have the answers…well, take a guess how you would feel.
Keep it fun if you can. I like to keep it light-hearted. Most technology involves a love/hate relationship.
Don’t over complicate. It is okay to show some technical stuff to a technical audience. Do not try to slip in some garbage to pretend you know better than the rest of the world and attempt to confuse the experts. You will not only lose the train of thought of your audience, but people will simply walk out. And they will have choice words for this over complication. Remember the part about simplicity.
Share your knowledge and experience. It does not have to be about how perfect your world is. Your audience may learn a lot more from the mistakes and challenges you have dealt with or are presently dealing with. Some of the audience may have solutions specific to your needs to discuss after your presentation or during question time. Do not be afraid to ask your audience to start a dialogue with some questions/poll/survey of raised hands, but depending on the audience and topic, you may not have many answers.
Leave the last few minutes of your presentation to answer some questions from the audience. Your audience will most likely have some questions, unless:
the audience is in absolute awe of your presence
you have clarified all the world’s DAM issues in that short amount of time
everyone is lost and/or is too shy to ask for clarification about anything you just said
the room is empty when you finally stopped talking
Don’t give up.People want to hear what you have to say or you would not have been asked to give the presentation in the first place.
Ignore what the audience does as you give your presentation. Mobile devices will likely be present and be in use. Let them. Do not take it personally. That does not mean they are ignoring you. Chances are they can listen to you just fine, but work does not stop just because we are at a conference. They may be taking notes as well. Audience members are normally reminded early on about muting their devices or putting them on vibrate. If you have to stop your own presentation to remind the audience of this after a mobile device rings, you will be understood very quickly as the embarrassed mobile device owner cowers in their seat or runs off. Just remember to turn off your own mobile devices before going in the room for your own presentation as well as other presentations.
Want to present on a topic about Digital Asset Management? Conference organizers look months ahead, sometimes the year before for speakers with ‘a call for papers’ with your topic already written out or ‘a call for speakers’ by submitting topic ideas, all by email. Submit early and note your experience in the field in this email with your contact info.
Before you leave a conference, submit feedback. It may even get you invited back next time.
How do you give a presentation at a DAM conference?
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