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Tag Archives: User Adoption


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Why should I pay for the DAM when the entire organization uses it?


Someone asked me about this question and remembered I wrote about this briefly in an earlier blog post, but wanted me to ellaborate. So here is blog post to explain it.

Let us say one group or department is the original requester of a DAM solution within an organization. Likely this same department becomes the business owner, stakeholder and/or sponsor of the DAM solution. This same department or group pays to administer and maintain the DAM. They might pay for any monthly/quarterly/annual licensing fees and/or service level agreements (SLA) for the DAM solution as well. Now let us say other departments see the value in using the DAM to keep the organization’s branding, graphics, photographs, publications, presentations, reports, video or other intellectual property (IP). The DAM gets more user adoption by more departments. Now who pays for the DAM within this organization?

Often, what occurs is the original requester, sponsor or stakeholder continues paying for the DAM solution. Because of this, they might say “Wait, I am paying out of my department’s budget for other departments to benefit from this solution as well? What’s in for me? Why should I pay for the DAM when the entire organization uses it?”

Consider this idea “Why am I the only one paying for it? If we share the DAM, share the cost.”

Enter the idea of chargeback or simply charging the department who requests to acquire/create/use something with the actual expense in resources used by refunding it. This idea is likely a change for many companies in how they deal with budgets and how departments are accountable for the resources they use. This also keeps a department which may overtax another department’s resources in check. So, with this idea every department or group has their own budget as usual, but since every DAM user should have a unique login (right?) and possible different collections of assets they can access or share, why not split the total cost of these expenses based on actual usage of the DAM solution per department? Charge each department based on usage of the DAM solution.

If one department uses the DAM more than another department by a measurable amount or percentage, should they pay a larger share of the cost each month/quarter/year? Should each department be able to share this cost evenly or should each department pay for what they use based on a percentage? Or have one department pay for it all?

How do you measure usage of the DAM? With usage reports from the DAM which could list:

  • Who are the DAM users (by individual login) accessed the DAM? (keeping individual user accountability)
  • Who has the most active DAM users within a given period of time?
  • Who wants/needs/asks for the most time in administration, maintenance, support and/or training?
  • When did they access the DAM? (keeping time accountability)
  • How often did those users or group of users access the DAM? (time based usage)
  • How long did they access the DAM over a period of time? (number of minutes or hours)
  • How much was downloaded/exported from the DAM? (by the number of assets and/or file size if bandwidth is measured)
  • How much was uploaded/imported to the DAM? (by the number of assets and/or if bandwidth is measured)

I would recommend looking what you are paying for internally and externally to gauge what are the costs of doing business.

Some DAM vendors charge for bandwidth (how many GB is uploaded/downloaded to/from DAM within a given period). Some don’t.

Server space costs money regardless of whether it under your own IT department’s domain, a vendor’s domain or in the cloud. Who is using the storage space?

Is the data deduplicated? Do you want to dedupe the DAM data to minimize duplicate assets?

Some DAM vendors charge per DAM login or per concurrent user. Some DAM systems limit how many users you can have or the total users at one time. Can your organization add/remove DAM users without the vendor’s help?

How much does it cost to administer, support, maintain a DAM and train the DAM users? How much does it cost in errors and problems when you don’t?

Why should I pay for the DAM when the entire organization uses it?

Are these costs of doing business worth sharing as you share business tools such as a DAM solution?


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How do I create use cases for DAM?

A blog reader asked about how to create use cases for DAM.  I gave a presentation about this topic during a DAM conference.

What use cases did you have before DAM was part of the equation? Before you had a DAM, were your workflows documented?

All too often, use cases are not documented. In fact, they may be locked in multiple silos where each person (even within the same group ) do things differently.  Therefore, migrating to a workflow with DAM becomes a mystery. Without use cases, the user adoption of the DAM is often lower if users do not know why nor how nor when to use the DAM.   Where does DAM fit in the users’ daily workflow? Use cases can also affect the choice of a DAM solution.

Use cases need to be documented and shared.

Another reason for having use cases is training for new people. How do newly hired people find out how to do their job? Are they born with this knowledge? Should an employer expect everyone to know how to use all the tools and policies of the organization to get their job done?  Not likely.

Enter a new person (new hire) to the organization. What are they supposed to do? What tools are involved? When do they use the DAM and for what purposes?  Should new people operate differently than people doing the same tasks for years within the same organization? Not likely, but they often do. Does each person who coaches a new person give their own version of how to do things (plus or minus a few steps)? Is this standardized? This is often not only due to a particular level of experience, but lack of documentation and poor training. And we expect consistency. Somehow. Maybe by mind reading? That is not likely going to happen.

When you start researching a DAM for your organization, instead of looking at shiny features, see if it would work well with your use cases by presenting them to the vendor during a demo. Have real assets you would likely be working with along with real use cases. Ask the vendor to demo their solution for your use cases with your assets with metadata from start to finish in front of you.

Start building use cases with what you have and how you do things today.

  • What do you do today?
  • How do you do it?
  • Who does what?
  • When does it happen?
  • Why is it done that way?
  • What is the process?
  • What tools are used?
  • How could this improve?
  • How can this be done more consistently?

Be sure to consider the people, process and technology (in that order) which are involved from start to finish. Not sure who/how/what is involved? Ask by using…

  • Surveys
    • Online or paper form, with long answer questions, not simply ratings
    • All roles (don’t expect 100% return, even with a prize)
    • Send to everyone including decision makers and potential DAM users doing the daily work
  • Group workshops
    • Be aware of who is talking and who is not
    • Include all group members
    • In case extroverts have all the say while introverts remain quiet in the corner getting frustrated, have people take turns talking so everyone contributes
  • Individual interviews of:
    • Not just senior staff, but junior staff for a varying perspective
    • Both computer literate and those who prefer analog
    • All roles

When reviewing who is working, consider their role in the organization, not just their name so you can build and scale these job functions as needed.

Who makes the initial request? Who/What takes the request? Who handles/processes the request? Where does the request go after that? and after that? and after that? (note a pattern to fill the gaps)

How many other people do the same task(s)? Is this redundancy to handle volume or act as a backup? Can this scale up or down today based on the amount of work to do?

What is the volume of requests? Where do the requests get filled/completed? Who does this? Who/What delivers the end product/service?

Consider the whole life cycle of typical project from idea to delivery. And walk through all the steps.

How much communication is involved in all this? Likely not enough.  It is not enough to lock decision makers in a room. As discussed earlier, there are different points of view to keep in mind.

Keep the communication channels open among all differing points of view.

Stay positive. When negative points need focusing, laugh about it, then find a resolution.

Create roles. Envision the end result. Have a goal. Make it clear. Try even mind mapping. Simplify when in doubt. Follow through. Measure the results.

Avoid jargon and acronyms (so anyone can understand it). Be open to feedback, but have a schedule with deadlines and accountability.

However you create use cases, write them down and share it within your organization.

Let us know when you are ready for vendor neutral consulting on Digital Asset Management. We can also help you create your use cases.

How do you create use cases for DAM?


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Can I manage a DAM on a mobile device?


As a Digital Asset Manager, one of the things to keep in mind is that a Digital Asset Management (DAM) system can be used 24 hours a day,  seven days a week and almost every day of every year. But these are not my regular business hours. With that level of demand, I don’t live at the office nor would my employer want me to. Nor would my family.

As much as my laptop looks like an extra limb, I do put it down (sometimes). Of course, when you most need it, you don’t have it available or you can not get a connection.

What to do when you are away from the computer and the office, but you get a critical email/phone call? Waiting until you return is not an option. You can assess how critical the need is by talking the person or emailing them, but sometimes the solution may involve using the DAM remotely. Ignoring users or having them ‘wait until I am available ‘ in front of a computer again is not realistic today, particularly in a high production environment. Ignoring users or delaying assistance does not help user adoption.

If you can not access the DAM on the web, this limits the abilities of mobile users and admins alike. If that is the case, you should have trained people (as your backup) to cover the DAM duties if you leave (vacation, sick leave or otherwise) for the purpose of continuity as well as limiting delays in production. If you work in an environment with shifts covering the work 24 hours a day on a regular basis, you may need people on each shift who are knowledgeable in DAM to support the business needs and have them sync online by documenting the work done. Otherwise, your Digital Asset Manager or DAM admin is stuck working during alleged vacation time and sick leave. This should simply be a matter of unplugging because you can, need to and want to.

Now returning to the computer unavailable with critical issue pending assistance. I have a popular smart phone which actually displays the web properly (yes, I tested several smart phones before acquiring one), but almost every phone does not display Adobe Flash NOR Flex (yet). Luckily, the DAM I use does not currently use Flex. Flex has gained popularity in DAM space because it provides a flexible GUI display. And Flex looks cool…or at least gray. Flex is Flash-based and that remains troublesome for almost every mobile user…among others…since Flash requires special players and/or plugins to display properly.

It is possible to have a mobile version of a DAM User Interface (UI) as well, which is different from the regular DAM UI, but I have not seen many yet. So yes, admins as well as all registered DAM users should be able to access and use the DAM via mobile device.

Whether we like it or not, it is not a secret that mobile access has been and continues to be a growing need for mobile workers, but how many are ready to do this now?

Can you manage your DAM on a mobile device?


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Do you train and support your DAM users?


Some organizations choose to train, support and even provide written documentation on how to use the Digital Asset Management solution with their workflows. Does your organization train and provide ongoing support to their own DAM users? Take the poll