Recognition for going above and beyond the ‘call of duty’ is not often rewarded. Sometimes not even mentioned in the workplace. While we do not need a ticker tape parade or gold medals for ‘just doing our job’, mentioning and/or rewarding real achievements is one way to recognize individual overachievers and your organization’s top performers. Anyone who has worked with Digital Asset Management (DAM) knows it is not as easy as pie.

A DAM Award can  recognize your organization’s top DAM users and top performers. How do you find these top performers?

By using reports directly from the DAM on a periodic basis (weekly/monthly/yearly) in a objective, predefined, quantifiable manner, it is possible to find out:

• Who uploaded the most number of assets (not garbage, without metadata, just to boost your numbers)
• Who metatagged the most number of assets (while following the established guidelines as to what metadata is needed within your organization)
• Who downloaded the most number of assets for a specific project (and used those assets)
• Who ordered the most assets from the DAM for projects (if you use an ordering system within your DAM)
• Who created the most downloaded asset(s) in the DAM (it may not even be your organization’s logo)

You could even find out who uploaded milestone assets such as the:

• ten thousandth asset
• hundred thousandth asset
• millionth asset to the DAM
• and so on…

It is recommended to establish ground rules and fair prizes for the DAM Award. These awards could be issued to the top performing individual per group or department. DAM administrators should not be eligible to win a DAM Award. Since patterns of heavy use may occur depending on the role of the individual or project they happen to be working with the DAM, all winners may need to be limited to a specific number of times they may win the award in a row. If you have the number of DAM users which can be counted on one hand, you may want to consider adding more users to increase ROI before issuing DAM Awards.

A DAM Award can quickly establish itself as a welcome surprise since  it is fair recognition for a job well done if it is:

• Measured and issued objectively
• Openly documented
• Quantifiable with numbers

The award also invites friendly competition to beat each others’  achievement every period of time. Individual winners have been known to add the fact that they are a DAM Award winner to their internal email signature line.  It often evokes a sense of pride. Yes. Pride in the individual’s achievement, due to the recognition of hard work and encouragement to continue on. DAM Awards are often prominently displayed in the individual’s workspace.

As a tangible award, create an official certificate (from a uniformed template) to hand out to winners of the DAM Award.  This award could also be emailed as a PDF to remote users. Check before issuing tangible monetary awards in case it is considered taxable compensation.

The official DAM award certificate could include:

• Individual’s name
• Individual’s title
• Group/Department
• Award date
• What was their achievement
• Period of time when achievement occurred
• Quantifiable measure (numbers) to back up the achievement/milestone

Consider using the organization’s logo to make it even more official (if permitted by the organization). Otherwise, consider using a graphic element of a DAM mascot…the beaver, for example, to add as a sense of fun.

To date, I have not seen any DAM vendors create DAM Awards for their clients to use.

The recognition could also include an email to their department/group and their management to advise everyone of their achievement. Being a recipient of an objective, quantifiable award can be favorable in an annual performance review.

Various organizations use DAM Awards as a supplement to:

• Ongoing support
• Training
• Written documentation
• Promoting the use of the DAM
• Increasing user adoption
• Peer-to-peer encouragement to use the DAM

Do you issue DAM awards to recognize your top DAM performers?