Another DAM Blog

Blog about Digital Asset Management

Tag Archives: Linkedin


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What is a DAM webinar?

Webinars are a form of web conferencing used to conduct live meetings, training, or presentations via the Internet. Every month, there are plenty of webinars offered in a variety of topics including Digital Asset Management (DAM).

Often, webinars are offered free of charge in order to inform people who join to watch. Typically, the webinars are open to questions via built-in text messaging during the session and the questions are addressed verbally at the end.

A free 4-part webinar series dedicated to optimizing Digital Asset Management processes and technologies is being offered. It is called Digital Asset Management Jumpstart (2010).

I am one of the speakers discussing Practical Asset Reuse – The Role of Taxonomy and Metadata on January 28, 2010.

In the interest of full disclosure, webinars are often sponsored, but I volunteer my time as a speaker. I do not get paid to speak/present and I do not accept money from any vendors since I remain vendor agnostic, so I do not endorse any specific DAM vendor. I do list events I attend/present under my events tab on the right side of my blog.

Registering for webinars is quite common and the organizers often send you an online calendar invite to remind you of the webinar after your registration is complete. I listen, watch and/or present webinars weekly.

On the day of the webinar, you should:

  • Login a few minutes before the start time (check for your local start time based on your time zone)
  • Listen to speakers
  • Watch a series of slides to illustrate the speakers’ points
  • Ask questions during the session via built-in text messaging window provided. Questions are often addressed verbally at the end of the webinar.

To listen and watch a webinar, all you usually need is

  1. Time (often 1 to 2 hours)
  2. A fast, reliable internet connection
  3. A computer with audio output (headphones or load speaker).

No travel required to attend any webinar regardless of your location nor the presenters’ location. Some webinars are recorded for future viewing in case you miss them or find them later on. Some DAM vendors as well as third party vendors offer webinars on a regular basis.

Webinars do offer:

  • Knowledge enrichment (or knowledge reinforcement)
  • Good learning and research opportunities
  • Sometimes different perspectives
  • Contact information to speakers

Do you watch and listen to webinars?


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Another DAM blog’s 1st year anniversary

Yes, it is true. Another DAM blog is officially one year old with posts year round (just look at the archive). It all started with an idea about sharing experiences and knowledge about DAM. And DAM is all about sharing…assets.

I knew I was doing something right when after my second blog post I was asked to guest blog about DAM. I am very happy to report that the interest in my blog is still growing strong. I want to thank all the readers for your continued support. Please keep your comments and questions coming. And I will:

  • remain vendor agnostic
  • keep writing posts (yes, I write these all myself)
  • continue to blog about DAM in the user and administrator perspective
  • continue to give presentations
  • continue mentoring

And there are a lot more exciting projects coming this year.

Thank you.

Henrik


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Where can I find a DAM mentor?

During one of my presentations at a recent Digital Asset Management (DAM) conference, the audience made a request for a DAM mentorship program. A recent poll shows growing interest in such a program and some of you have already contacted me about this program. I welcome others to contact me about being mentored (being a mentee). If you have experience as a DAM professional (preferably at all levels of experience listed in my earlier blog post) and are also interested in being a mentor, let me know.

If you are awaiting the internship program, there are several major universities in the US who have contacted me since my post about career planning and mentioned they are already (or are about to start) offering DAM courses and interested in an internship program for their students. There is work being done toward spreading the word online as well as at several DAM conferences about these educational programs. Details coming soon.

There are not enough mentors today (in most fields for that matter), so I have made it one of my goals to start this DAM mentor program and remain vendor agnostic.

When will this start? Beginning in January 2010, I will begin offering a DAM mentoring program online on periodic basis (probably twice per month). There is no obligation to meet twice a month. You may choose to participate as often as the conversations are scheduled.

How and where will this mentor program start? Since geography and time zones are what really separates us today, this program will begin as a live voice conversation online (via VOIP) and any visuals can be shared (via screen sharing software). Mentoring can be done as a group or individually. In the future, we will explore in-person conversations, but those are likely to be even more limited in time and location.

What time and day would these online conversations happen? It all depends on your time zone and schedule. We are not bound by any geographic limitations nor travel necessary.

In what language? Individuals in the US and Europe have already contacted me about this and I welcome others globally as long as they speak fluent English.

Who can be a DAM mentee? Any individual working professionally toward the implementation of a DAM solution within an organization. This can also include individuals who already work with a DAM solution within an organization and who want to have a regular conversation about DAM. This is not about DAM for individual use, but about DAM for use within an organization (or even across an organization).

How much will this cost? Free. It will only cost you time for the conversation. I am donating my time and using free software (legally downloaded) to have these mentor/mentee conversations. Think of it as a DAM professional giving back to the DAM community to enrich the knowledge others. As long as the mentee is willing to learn and ask questions, I am willing to give guidance and/or suggestions. It is your responsibility what you do with the guidance or suggestions given. I assume not responsibility for (a) any hurt feelings (shoulder to cry on not included), (b) any action taken based on my guidance, (c) my suggestions and/or (d) any bruised egos. I will guide you as if I were in your shoes, based on the information you provide.

What about the mentee’s identity and affiliation to an organization? The mentee’s identity and affiliation is kept confidential unless they want to reveal it themselves. I will continue to blog about commonly encountered questions about DAM (which you can read about on this blog) in future posts without any organization(s) names nor the names of any individuals listed. Chances are you are not the first to ask those DAM questions.

Interested in being a DAM mentee?

  1. Contact me directly
  2. Tell me where in the world you are located (in order to find a suitable time within your schedule and my schedule).
  3. Note what topics you would like to discuss so I can possibly sync them with others wanting to discuss the same topic in a group discussion. If you need this to be an individual discussion, please specify.
  4. I will send you details on when we can have a live periodic conversation and some free software tools to do so.

Where can you find your DAM mentor?


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What are the levels of DAM experience?

Before I mention DAM jobs descriptions themselves, many of these positions require experience, but what are the levels of experience in Digital Asset Management? How do you qualify the experience or even rank experience with DAM?

There are several levels of DAM experience from basic (1) to increasing in complexity (7). These levels include:

  1. Simple DAM user (this is often the majority of DAM users)
  2. Power user(aka Super users)
  3. Practitioner in DAM Operations
  4. DAM Administrator
    • Possibly network maintenance
    • Possibly maintaining servers
    • Maintaining database(s)
    • Working with API and Web Services
    • Running reports from DAM
  5. Configuration
    • Understanding the relationship of DAM system options, implications of the decisions made and configuring those system options to best suit business/workflow needs
    • Testing configurations to make sure they work the way they are intended to
    • Setting up roles
    • Setting permissions per role
    • Setting users within those roles
  6. Implementation
  7. Customization
    • Identify and understand what is missing from the system which your organization may need
    • Explaining what is missing from the system with written documentation
    • Explaining the value of adding the customization since it will cost extra (time and/or money)
    • Drafting the vision of what the customization may look like and how it could work with a written end result.
    • Possibly coding the solution
    • Thorough testing of solution

Ultimately, the best would be to have experience in all of  these hands-on experience at one point or another. If this is not an option, try to experience the most number of levels available. This way, you have experienced what it is like to do this work, know what is involved and ultimately train others in the future on how to do this work more efficiently and effectively. As a Digital Asset Manager, I have experienced all listed above at some point or another over the years. This helps me when I need to write documentation for a specific role (audience) or when I give training so I know what is involved in what that user needs to do with the DAM. I try to not over complicate any explanation to any particular person unless they really need more detail, so I try to keep information at a high enough level to minimize confusion.

Now, if you want to discern between individuals who have similar experience in these roles, then start by asking:

  • How many different DAM solutions have they worked with?
  • How many different organizations using DAM solutions have they worked on?
  • 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?
  • How do they measure ROI using DAM?

You could use these questions in a DAM job interview as well. What levels of experience do you have with DAM?

There is plenty to learn.