Tag Archives: Linkedin
Why should we keep our assets in a DAM?
Some people actually ask themselves this question and wonder why they can’t go back to their old ways of doing business.
Sure, you can. You can also do the following…
- “We can find all my final assets really easily because I have them all right here on my desktop.”
We have:
- Final1
- Final02
- FinalFinal
- FinalFinalFinal
- ReallyFinal
- LastFinal
- Extrafinal
- Superfinal
- SuperduperFinal
- ExtraLargeFinal
- Final_with_cheese
- AlmostFinished_really_Iswear
Ok. I might have a little problem with version control and file naming conventions.
Yes, a DAM can have version control to take care of this little problem a few of us might have.
- “We store all our files on our own desktops.”
A desktop is just another silo. Who else can see your assets on your desktop? Can you find all your assets on your own desktop? What happens to these assets when you lose your laptop or get a new computer?
- “We can keep all our assets on shared drives.” Yeah, those are so searchable, right? As long as your perfectly crafted file names say everything about every asset you’ll ever need to know. Oh, wait. Shared drives are not truly searchable to the asset level beyond a so-called unique filename.
- “We have unique file names for every asset.” File names are created by humans and meant for humans outside of a DAM. Many DAM systems do not care what your file names are as long as they are not 250 characters long, filled with spaces and special characters. Scary sounding, huh? Some organizations prior to having a DAM have some of these “unique file names“. You know who you are. Some DAM solutions assign unique identifiers to each and every asset uploaded/imported to the DAM and these make file names into metadata for the DAM.
- “We can keep assets on CDs or external drives so we can share them easily.” You must like burning money if you are still using CDs or DVDs today. Where is the latest version? Which CD is that on again? Or do you need to burn another set of CDs for the latest version of assets? External drives (regardless of how big or small) can get lost, dropped or corrupt very easily. External drives have the same version control issue as CDs, even if backed-up regularly. How often is new version created by someone else? How do you ship these to external clients? That’s free, right?
- “I will just email the asset around to everyone.” Are you planning to fill up every one of those people’s email inbox with high volumes of data? And each one will back up that data multiplied by how many people? What is the file size limitations for your email attachments? 5MB? 10 MB? Some email accounts do not even accept attachments, in fear of viruses. Will you continue to email this asset for each person who needs to see this each time they need to see this asset? Will you repeat this every time they need to see an asset again? Wow, that is a lot of email data repeated over and over again, isn’t it? With a DAM, you could simply send a link to the asset (not email the whole asset) to whomever needs the asset, whether they need just preview it or download the asset, based on permission set by the sender, through the DAM. Let us weigh this option again. Email attachments over and over again vs. email link to asset in DAM which can be updated as needed in DAM.
- “We’ll just FTP the assets to the person who needs it.” That is secure, right? No one else can see the FTP server nor add to the FTP server either, right? And where is the version control on a FTP server? Oops.
What have we learned so far?
- Use a DAM for assets
- Associate metadata to each asset in a DAM so you can search and find it again
- Version control with a DAM
- Distribute assets with a DAM
- Prosper and save some money with a DAM.
Let me know if you have any other brilliant ideas on why you should not store assets in a DAM. I would love to share them with readers.
Why do I need metadata?
I am often asked “What is metadata?” and explaining this was one of the reasons I started this blog. There are several other blogs and websites which explain the DAM basics. I have listed some them on the right column of this blog under “Blogroll.”
The question reminds me of when I was a college professor. When teaching, it is important to make sure the audience has the basic foundations to understand what will be discussed before diving into the complexities. DAM can be quite complex. As discussed in a earlier blog post, some DAM solutions are very limited in what they can do while others are highly configurable and customizable. Most of my blog posts refer to the highly configurable and customizable DAM solutions for business purposes, but the principles are the same because you still need metadata. Why do you need metadata?
Most businesses in the 21st century have many digital assets whether they are audio, graphics, photographs, text and/or video. The number of digital assets will grow in the coming years, according to Gartner. A DAM can not only archive these assets, but also make them searchable and ease the workflow around using them.
A common misconception is to run out, get a DAM and expect it to automagically:
- Help them find any asset they dump into the DAM without metadata
- Sort the junk from the valued assets for them without metadata
- Make them money by allowing people to somehow find what they are looking for without metadata
Many people need to realize that metadata is a key driver of a DAM. Metadata can be a double-edged sword if it is:
- Not properly applied to the asset (If the metadata is not readable by the DAM or a user)
- Not particularly relevant to the asset (Who is going to refer to this information? What purpose of the metadata aside from finding it?)
- Not applied as soon as the asset is available in the DAM (Don’t paint yourself any illusions that the metadata fairy will come visit your assets in the DAM and add the metadata for you weeks/months later.)
Metadata is any information about the asset and its content. Metadata can make assets searchable because that is what you are often using to search beyond the file name. The most common error in digital asset management is applying little or no metadata to assets! A DAM is only as good as the metadata associated to the assets, its ability to facilitate the searching and move assets into a workflow. Without metadata, a DAM has very limited search capabilities and the problem will only get worse as more assets get added over time.
Consider this: If you had to find one asset out of a million assets in one minute, which of these options would you pick? Google ain’t there to save you.
- Search using metadata
- Visually search for that one asset
Most people would pick the metadata option as long as:
- They are aware of metadata and what it can do for them
- They know how to use metadata
- Proper metadata is applied to assets
I discussed in an earlier blog post that most people don’t like to create metadata and there are some ways around doing it yourself in some cases.
Like with many investments, you get what you put into it and with some effort, you can get significant gains from this too. Those gains are often seen as time savings in searching and workflow as well as the ability to find, use, reuse and re-purpose assets you already have in the DAM.
Sadly, many organizations don’t consider reusing or re-purposing assets they already have created because they simply don’t even know what they have created over the past years. As soon as an asset is created and reviewed by one or more employees, it should be archived in order for a wider audience within the organization will know about it for the future. How will they find it? Add metadata when adding (import/upload) the asset to the DAM so they may find it in the future. Metadata is not simply meant to be used by the creator of the asset, but for others to find it and know something about the asset too.
There are many types of metadata and it often depends on the file type of the asset. Some metadata may embedded into the asset and/or some may be associated to the asset in the DAM. In a future blog post, I will discuss the various types of metadata, their advantages, disadvantages and how metadata can be applied to assets.
Who is using your DAM?
Once an organization recognizes the value of what a DAM could do for them and decide they will get a DAM, they should ask themselves “Who will use the DAM?“, then “Who should use the DAM?“. Once they had the DAM for a while, the question should evolve to “Who else should use the DAM?”” to maximize ROI.
Let us start with before you get a DAM and get a segment of potential users involved in the process.
Prior to having a DAM, you could interview potential users by asking them:
- What is their workflow without a DAM?
- How do they search for assets without a DAM? (Some methods you may hear described may seem archaic because they are)
- Where do they search for assets without a DAM? (How many silos did hear about?)
- What assets do they commonly search for? (You might realize the DAM could be used for a lot more than just photography and video)
- What could they do with a DAM?
- How would they like to search with a DAM? (What metadata might they need to find these assets?)
- How would they like their workflow to be simplified with a DAM?
Give the users brief examples from case studies of how others have used a DAM, but do listen carefully to your users because they will give you a glimpse to what could be streamlined and simplified in their workflow. Some feedback will need to be taken with a grain (or a bag) of salt. By asking the potential users for feedback early on, it makes them part of the solution and makes them feel involved in the process of implementing the DAM which they will want/need to use.
Once you get a DAM, you need metadata for your assets:
Who will add metadata to assets for the DAM?
Depending on how quickly you need to add assets to your DAM, you will need to evaluate whether you should/can outsource the metatagging of assets based on turn around time compared to doing this in-house.
Once you have metadata and assets:
Who will add assets to the DAM? These people will be your power users.
Depending on how technically inclined your power users are and how complex your DAM is it use, you may be able to reassign people to import assets into the DAM.
Who will your regular DAM users be?
- How many users will you have?
- What assets will they want/need to access?
- What will be their workflow?
- Do they all work for your organization?
- How are you mitigating the security concerns with outsiders accessing your DAM?
- Who has limited access to the DAM?
- Who has full access to the DAM?
In order for users to adopt the DAM, someone needs to demonstrate the value of the DAM to the users, support and train users regularly:
Who will implement and administer the DAM in your group, department and/or whole organization?
Of course, all these people are human too:
Who will be their backup in case something happens to them?
If you don’t make decisions about who will be doing these tasks, you risk making the DAM a ‘shelf baby’ and wasting an invaluable resource.
What is a ‘shelf baby’? Any product which the organization has spent money on, spoke about for countless hours, tried to rush the implementation early on and finally shelved it as something that was a nice idea with lots of potential, but it did not get adopted by users. So off it goes to a shelf just like a book where it sits there for years…collecting dust in its infancy stage (hence the name). Every organization has at least a few ‘shelf babies’, but the idea is to avoid collecting them unless you need deep holes to throw money in.
Ultimately, everyone will benefit from user involvement and feedback throughout the evolution of your organization’s DAM.
Another DAM Blog 