Another DAM Blog

Blog about Digital Asset Management

Tag Archives: Digital Asset Management


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How is Another DAM podcast created?

Since September 2010, I regularly create Another DAM podcast and release it weekly. Most of these podcasts are interviews of Digital Asset Management (DAM) Professionals from anywhere in the world. Sometimes I will create an audio version of some of my most popular blog posts.

Equipment

If I am interviewing someone in person, I find a quiet room and use my smart phone to record the conversation. I find this to be the easiest method to record audio. Testing the audio with myself with the person I am interviewing, I can position the smart phone/microphone for the best results. Several podcasts have been recorded at conferences, hotels and offices very successfully using this method.

If I am doing an interview over the phone, I use Google Hangout or Skype to make the call. As a courtesy, I call the person I am interviewing directly whether they have a Skype account or they just use their phone. Using Callburner (PC) or WireTap Studio  Call Recorder (Apple) allows me to record both sides of the conversation directly from Skype. Of course, I tell the person I am interviewing when I am recording the audio conversation (many areas require this by law).

Audio Quality

Skype or Google Hangouts is best audio quality when using headphones with a microphone. Fair audio quality are with landline phones and the worst audio quality are mobile phones.

Editing

Using Audacity (PC/Apple) or Garageband (Apple), editing and formatting the audio file is relatively easy to learn and accomplish. If you don’t want to edit the audio yourself, there are a number of services you can send the audio for editing as long as you listen to the audio yourself first and then list exactly what you want the edited with time codes.

Who do I interview

I interview men and women involved in Digital Asset Management from all over the world. Yes, I look for new people to interview all the time. I do not interview DAM vendors since I am vendor neutral.

Scheduling an interview

Most often, I find the people to interview in the field based on my contacts and their contacts. Yes, networking helps a lot. I often send the person an email with the following information:

  • The intent of the podcast interview
  • A listing the questions I plan to ask them during the interview so they can ponder the questions ahead of time
  • A link to my earlier podcasts for them to review if they want to
  • My contact information

Since some of the people I interview work for an organization which may need a PR/media relations/communication person to give prior approval, I leave them time to do so. Once I find a person online or in person who agrees to be interviewed (and gets approval, if needed), it is a matter of finding a good time for both their schedule and mine. This often means dealing with different time zones (which can be an advantage sometimes). Most people prefer to schedule an interview during their weekday working hours.  I often try to schedule the interview early in the morning or in the late afternoon to not conflict with my schedule.

Time

Aside from finding the scheduled time to do the interview and the edit the audio, it takes me (after the initial learning curve) about one hour to record and edit a 5 to 15 minute podcast. This is why I send the audio to someone for editing at minimal cost and sparing my effort.

Approval after the interview

After the interview has occurred and audio has been edited (by myself) to the desired content, volume and format, I apply metadata to it. After editing, I send the person I interviewed a link to download and review the audio. I  give them the choice of either accepting the audio as I first edited it or tell me specifically what needs to be edits. Many approve of the audio as-is. Some go through several rounds of audio edits with me. Some re-record the podcast again. Occasionally, they edit the audio themselves and send me back another audio file with approval.

Release of the podcast

Once the podcast is approved in writing, I add it to a queue of podcasts to be released. I release a new podcast on Thursdays. When the podcast is released, it is aggregated to multiple channels. The release is also publicized on LinkedIn and Twitter among other locations.

Measure what you manage

In order to see what content works best, what are the most popular topics and measure what means of publicizing brings the most traffic, I watch analytics weekly and adjust accordingly.

Why I do not record video (yet)

I do not record video podcasts because I do not see the value of talking heads (including mine). Editing video takes much more time than audio alone. A finalized video is often a larger file size and takes longer to download. If I ever needed to record video (from Skype or even as a screencast), Vodburner is available among other tools.

Listening

You can find, stream, download and even subscribe to this podcast which can be heard on your computer or MP3 player.

The podcast is available here:

Why this is free

Well, it is a podcast. Who pays for podcasts today? Simple answer: no one.  Earlier, I covered why I do all this free of charge.

Enjoy Another DAM Podcast.


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What is the best DAM solution?


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:

  • Your business needs
  • Your organization’s particular use cases
  • The types of assets you are dealing with in the past, present and near future (Are they all supported?)
  • The file size of the assets (can that solution deliver your assets or is there a bandwidth issue using one model versus another?)
  • Usability of the DAM system
  • Your potential users, their geographic location(s) and their available bandwidth
  • What features you need, want and/or would like to have (not just because it is shiny or sounds cool, but is proven to work)
  • How many users, number of assets and fields of metadata can the solution scale to
  • Internal IT support (Got any?)
  • Your budget (Cost is not the only factor, unless you only want to pay for something that does not meet your needs)
  • Your schedule (make room)
  • Your organization’s adoption of change
  • And many other factors

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.


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How long does it take to upload assets to a DAM with metadata?

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.

  • Applying/Embedding Metadata to Assets

How do you apply metadata to the asset(s) in the DAM? Yes, applying metadata is part of the upload process whether metadata is:

  • Embedded into assets before upload to DAM
  • 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:

So let’s review…

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)
  • Access to the DAM with permissions to upload
  • Metadata (information about the assets)
  • Assets (yes, the assets usually have to exist first. There are rare exceptions)

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?


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Another DAM podcast now available on Blubrry and Tech Podcast Network

You can now listen, download and subscribe to Another DAM podcast on any of the following channels:

Same weekly DAM podcast series. Same DAM audio podcasts. Now with more options depending on your preferred listening device and personal preference to listen, consume and enjoy. Yes, you can even listen to them on Facebook. Really.