Another DAM Blog

Blog about Digital Asset Management

Tag Archives: reDAM


by 2 Comments

What higher education courses are available about DAM?

Since my last post about DAM career planning, a whole host of higher education courses popped up on my radar.  The courses found, researched and listed are located in the US, UK and even China. There were plenty of higher education courses offered which mention DAM within their syllabus, but these courses listed below are focused on DAM.

Since 2003, Rochester Institute of Technology (New York, USA) offers a DAM course three times per year.

Since 2006, San Jose State University (California, USA) offers a graduate elective course on DAM.

Since 2007, Simmons College (Massachusetts, USA) offers a DAM course as an elective to a graduate program.

Since 2008, Zhejiang University (Zhejiang, China) offers an undergraduate course on DAM.

As of January 2010, Columbia University (New York, USA) offers a continuing education course all  about DAM.

As of March 2010, Birmingham City University (Birmingham, UK) offers a module in Media Asset Management (MAM) as part of a certificate program.

As of September 2010, King’s College London (London, UK) offers the first Master’s degree program about DAM (MADAM).

There may be other higher education courses specifically about DAM offered elsewhere which I would love to hear about and I am sure the readers would too.

Special thanks to all the DAM professionals, professors and administrators who helped me compile this list.


by 3 Comments

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?


by 2 Comments

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


by 3 Comments

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.