Everyone who uses the DAM should take pride in sharing their work in their DAM with other users. The organization owns the DAM and they are responsible for it. When it comes to having a go-to person, it comes down to the:
Stakeholder (or sponsor)
Lead who runs the system based on the needs of organization
Of course, there is a stakeholder in your organization who:
Champions the idea and clear vision of having a DAM in use
Funds the project of acquiring and implementing a DAM within the organization
Requests the DAM to meet specific high level business needs and use cases for at least one group/department in the beginning
Approves the scaling and fosters sharing the DAM and its assets across departments in the organization
Requisites a small team to be assembled and work on DAM
Stops the bickering between groups. Everyone works within the same organization with similar goals set by stakeholders when it comes to digital assets and can share what they have
Budgets for the DAM continually to meet the business needs of each fiscal period
Owns the DAM as an ongoing business solution
It is up to your organization to decide who that person happens to be and where the accountability lies. It could be a C-level executive, a Vice President, a Managing Director or whomever has the authority/approval to do this for the benefit of the organization and its clients. They should understand the value of a DAM and, in turn, be shown this value (in a report or dashboard) as the DAM is used within the organization.
At least one person manages the DAM and often reports directly to the stakeholder. They would oversee the daily operations, train and support users. They are not simply a database administrator, but someone who understands the use cases for the DAM solution, how users should use the DAM and help meet the organization’s business needs involving digital assets.
Some people believe Digital Asset Management (DAM) is a temporary task. However, I would caution them with the following questions to truly answer this for themselves.
Are you only accumulating digital assets on a temporary basis? (did you stop accumulating, creating, using, reusing and/or re-purposing digital assets?)
Are you seeing any less digital assets over the past few years? (regardless of whether you outsource some of these tasks or not)
Are you finding it easier to locate all the digital assets created or acquired by your organization over the past few years? (Research shows that is not the case)
Have you seen a complete stop in the production or acquisition of digital assets for any purpose? (while you still have a job and your organization is not bankrupt yet)
Is the rest of the work on your organization’s Enterprise Content Management (ECM) solution a temporary task as well?
The answers to these questions are likely the same. What is the word I am looking for? No.
There are exceptions, of course:
You could live in cave with no internet connectivity(and happen to read this blog on printed paper)
More likely, you really did not stop to think about it that way.(And that’s okay because this blog was written to help inform you.)
Those results are quite clear as well. Since most people answered daily or weekly, it seems DAM is an ongoing task. Sometimes, it is even a constant business need.
If we have multiple projects with several production cycles creating or acquiring more digital assets and this is ongoing on fairly regular basis, where does the temporary task of digital asset management fall in the equation?
And this was budgeted (with time and money) as a temporary task, right?
Oh, forgot to do that again so the next project will pick up the slack?
Wait, we need some of those assets NOW (in the middle of this project or another project), but they are nowhere to be found because we have not uploaded/ingested them to the DAM yet. That’s okay, we’ll get to it as soon as we get through the other temporary tasks. Meanwhile we’ll burn more time and money recreating/reacquiring the same assets repeatedly.
We have over-inflated budgets for a reason. We will always have over-inflated budgets for every projects, but we don’t get to those temporary tasks. This is a cyclical pattern, even for temporary tasks. And that is why we have temporary positions for temporary tasks because we don’t want consistency or accountability (these are very long words rarely followed).
Wait a second, how would other project teams know these digital assets already exist?
How would project teams search and find what digital assets were created or completed or cleared for use if that temporary task is not accomplished.
How will we volunteer someone to do this temporary task. Repeatedly. And they will know what to do based on all that documentation available, right?
If you answered ‘DAM is not a temporary task,’ you are ahead of the class. Congratulations. You likely understand that DAM involves a regular set of tasks which are part of the production/archival process today. DAM is often an ongoing task.Why would you hire temporary help to do these regular, ongoing tasks?
Is it because you can’t find anyone experienced enough, skilled enough and/or willing enough to do this type work? Where are you looking?
Is it budget issue? (Are you really expecting your budgets to get better “soon” and then make it a priority “someday”?)
Is it a time issue? (Keep waiting so it will only get worse and cost more to fix.)
That will change as soon as the mindset and training of your organization does. It should start with the top of the organization mandating this going forward.
Don’t believe me? Want to continue ignoring the issues? Be forewarned. There will have a rude awakening in the coming future if you do. Here is a refresher in case you forgot why you may need a DAM. It helps to use a DAM properly too.
Let us know when you are ready for some vendor neutral consulting on Digital Asset Management.
This is first line from an actual Digital Asset Management (DAM) job description posted this year. More on that later.
Aside from asking where to post and find DAM jobs, several people are asking what are typical DAM job descriptions. After presenting this information during a DAM Conference, here are parts of actual DAM job descriptions and knowledge shared by several DAM professionals on the job market today.
This is part of the equation that involves people along with process and technology for DAM.
While some people may use Digital Asset Management (DAM) sometimes within an organization, there is an increase in the need for people who may work full-time on DAM within an organization. We’ll explore several of these positions so you can have an idea of what some organizations have for talent and resources for those who do this type of work.
Here is a part of a job description for a Digital Asset Manager:
Responsible for leading overall strategy, implementation and workflow of the Digital Asset Management system for [organization]
Acts as primary liaison between [organization] and various photo studios with regard to image names, new photography and archiving
Responsible for assigning appropriate metadata for assets to ensure accurate usage rights
Manages the Digital Asset system and facilitate the uploading of assets as well as maintaining and upgrading the system
Registers internal and external users to the Digital Asset Management system based on permissions
Facilitates retrieval of previously cataloged images/shoots
Processes raw images using the appropriate software
Archive assets as necessary
Generates asset download reports
Maintains accurate procedures and records for the system
Keeps informed of latest Digital Asset Management technology trends and innovations
Other duties as identified and assigned
What are we looking for when filling the human resources gap with people needed to help manage your organization’s digital assets? There are no hard and fast rules, but rather guidelines. Any of these could be staff or contractual positions:
Temporary position (more on this in a future blog post)
Willingness to:
Learn about DAM
Work on metadata and taxonomy
Upload assets
Librarian
With Digital, not just analog (print/physical cataloging) experience
Metatagger (aka Metator, Cyberian)
Project Manager
Sales
Taxonomist
What we call the position (job title) is less important than what they actually do.
DAM professionals who communicate with management need to have an understanding of high level business needs and how DAM can meet those needs. Why? Because it is important to quantify:
Yes, Digital Asset Management is a business need, not just a technology or another database.
If you are looking to hire a DAM professional, such as Digital Asset Manager, have potential candidates include their answers to the following questions as part of the job application:
Have you worked with a Digital Asset Management System? Where? How long?
How much experience do you have creating Metadata Schema?
Aric Allen of Createasphere interviewed the author of this blog post about what companies need to think about when implementing Digital Asset Management (DAM) and what will be presented at the Createasphere Digital Asset Management Conference in New York in late September 2010.
Another DAM Blog 