Createasphere’s Digital Asset Management Conference in New York City is September 21, 22 and 23, 2011 at the New Yorker Hotel. Among the events during these three days are many presentations, panel discussions and seminars including:
Understanding the Connection of Digital Assets with Metadata: Filtering Data into Information into Knowledge
Reflecting on the Knowledge Pyramid, once we realize the amount of data there is available, and filter it to select the information we need as metadata, we learn how this data can help use assets with other content in the proper context. Hear how our panel of experts tackle best practices for metadata that empowers your organization.
This will be with the following panelists:
Sarah Berndt, NASA
Skiff Wager, SEW Consulting
John Dougherty, Hearst Corporation
Philip Spiegel, LAC Group on Assignment at ABC News
How quickly can your system scale…as your organization scales in size?
How far back in history are you going to go in order to find/add/migrate legacy assets to the DAM?
What are the rights and permissions behind each asset for reuse? Were they acquired externally or created internally? Does your organization own them outright?
How much volume is being migrated:
Assets
Metadata (often a new challenge, but depends on how great of a challenge)
Processes
With this in mind, it may take typically between 6 to 24 months to get the DAM running with your assets, your metadata and start getting real user adoption. This time is based on the vendor, implementation/integration group (whomever that comprises of internally and/or externally) and the organization working together to get the Digital Asset Management solution ready and working. The responsibility is not all on one of these groups since they are reliant on each other to get the DAM actually working within the organization. It is not just “I turned it on. I am done.” As you see, it is not just about the technology if this will actually be used properly within your organization.
Taking ‘baby steps’ is the best method to gain small wins regularly to show steady progress.
What will also help is having realistic:
Expectations (with both sponsors and stakeholders)
Specifications (documented requirements)
Schedules (with a scope and time line)
Budgets (for the people and the technology)
Use cases (with expectations and actual testing by users)
What will not help is if you ask to boil the ocean (unrealistic expectation and requirement) by close of businesstoday (unrealistic schedule) using just one match (unrealistic requirement and budget). That would simply lead to disappointment and failure. Keep it simple. Then grow on top of your successes.
How long does it take to get a DAM working within your organization?
Are you collecting Digital Asset Management (DAM) solutions?
Every DAM solution available has its strengths and weaknesses, but the best solutions are fully scalable and flexible in order to meet business needs. If you can not find a DAM solution that does what you need it to, customize the best DAM solution you can find to mean those business needs.
In speaking with DAM professionals at a few past venues, I have encountered organizations that literally accumulate DAM systems. Some have 3 DAM solutions. Others has 5 DAM solutions. One even has over 50 separate DAM solutions. So, I ask the obvious question which no one seems to want to ask for some odd reason, “Why do you have so many DAM solutions within the same organization?”
The replies I typically get include:
“Our departments don’t like to share.” (Should have learned how to share in Kindergarten)
“Different budgets, different DAMs.” (Likely weak and wasteful reason to inflate budgets across the organization)
“Well, some are old DAM solutions and some really old DAM solutions, but we have never bothered to upgrade nor consolidate any of them.”
“Each solution serves a different group and different purpose.” (Should learn how to use a DAM)
So I ask again, WHY?
You work for the same organization. Start acting like it. Share. Stop building silos. Stop hoarding piles of DAM solutions. Start consolidating that pile of DAM solutions.
If you do not like working together, resolve that issue first. Work together and adapt. If you can not, there is a door and retirement is available, if needed.
If your a stakeholder or sponsor in any of these organizations, demand a full report on each and every DAM solution within the organization including the:
Audit every DAM system within the organization (Accountability is not just for Finance, but your digital assets and data as well.)
Exact purpose of each DAM (No, they are not all supposed to have exactly the same purpose. Otherwise, why do you have multiple DAM systems?)
Number of assets in each DAM (We do have some assets in there, right?)
Type of assets in each DAM (How many still image collections do you have? What about Video? Audio? Graphics? Other media?)
Activity logs (uploads, downloads, etc) for the past year (These solutions are actively being used, right? Prove it.)
Documentation from the day someone signed off to acquire the DAM system to how much it costs to run today. (Finances still matter and so does responsibility. Who is responsible for your organization’s DAM system?)
If you have too many DAM solutions, assign a team to plan to consolidate the solutions to a minimum (preferably around one DAM solution, but definitely no more than the fingers on one hand if they each have a real, viable reason to exist.) There will likely be some whining at first, but this is possible to do. The idea is not simply cost cutting, but requiring groups to use Digital Asset Management as intended. No additional dumping grounds. No additional silos. If the DAM can support collections, then role-based permissions can restrict who can see what collections (folders) and assets within those collections. Remapping of metadata will likely be needed between DAM solutions (if metadata even exists for the assets in each of those systems). There is no logical reason why any organization, regardless of their size nor scope along with their assets, would need to use, maintain nor pay for 50 DAM solutions. Well…aside from complacency. They must love silos because they use a tool (DAM) that is meant to break them down, but instead created more silos by acquiring more separate DAM solutions. FAIL.
Start over.
How many DAM solutions does your organization have?
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?
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