Lincoln Howell discusses Digital Asset Management

Here are the questions asked:

• How are you involved with Digital Asset Management?
• I understand your organization focuses on end-to-end signal transmission solutions, what does that mean to customers?
• How does an organization focused on end-to-end signal transmission solutions use Digital Asset Management?
• What advice would you like to share with DAM Professionals and people aspiring to become DAM Professionals?

Transcript:

Henrik de Gyor: [0:01] This is Another DAM Podcast about Digital Asset
Management. I am Henrik de Gyor. Today I am speaking with Lincoln Howell.
Lincoln, how are you?
Lincoln Howell: [0:09] I am doing well, thanks.
Henrik: [0:11] Lincoln, how are you involved with Digital Asset Management?
Lincoln: [0:14] I have helped lead the implementation of our current Digital
Asset Management solution, and essentially have two ongoing responsibilities
with it. The first is driving improvements to both the content and the delivery of
those assets. But second of all, I am one of our global administrators. So I provide
some of that administrative oversight to rights management and any ongoing
proposed structural improvements.
Henrik: [0:36] Lincoln, I understand your organization focuses on end-to-end
signal transmission solutions. What does that mean to customers?
Lincoln: [0:42] We live in a world that is filled with signals. You have audio signals,
video signals, data signals, every time we get onto the Internet. These signals
all require an infrastructure of copper, fiber and other networking solutions
to help get them from that point of origin to each of us as a consumer. [1:05]
Now, I work with Belden Incorporated, and Belden provides that infrastructure
that enables those signals to go from that starting point to the ending point.
[1:14] For example, each time you watch a sports event on TV that originates
down on a field somewhere with somebody working the camera. In between
that camera and your television is a whole network of fiber solutions, copper
solutions, networking switches and routers. All of that processes that signal, the
audio and visual signal from the field to your living room. That’s the infrastructure
that’s enabled by these Belden solutions.
[1:46] Additionally, data centers, every time that you’re working with Internet
solutions or cloud based applications, data centers run solutions, also, that
can be provided by Belden on the copper, fiber and other solutions within the
data center.
[2:02] Manufacturing, also, has a significant play within the signal transmission.
Automotive manufacturers, for example, will use robotics, machinery and all
sorts of equipment that requires an interconnectedness that relies on copper,
fiber solutions to keep them running, communicating with each other and
achieving the outputs of that factory.
[2:26] In the end, the Belden copper, fiber and networking solutions make it possible
for all of these signals to get from where they start to where they need to
be and keep the world running.
Henrik: [2:37] How does an organization focused on end-to-end signal transmission
solutions use Digital Asset Management?
Lincoln: [2:45] Building an end-to-end solution with signal transmission has
taken years of growth through a combination of both research and development
as well as some strategic acquisitions. This ongoing journey has resulted in a
very complex organization. [3:00] That complexity is showing up in sells graphs
of varying responsibilities and skillsets, engineering and product management
teams that are scattered across the globe, and marketing staff, too, that are
tasked with consolidating all of the individual components of the signal transmission
solution to a single coherent message for the customers.
[3:18] In the end, without Digital Asset Management, we find ourselves constantly
reinventing the wheel or missing opportunities to win customers by
leveraging materials that we’ve already invested. Our first phase with Digital
Asset Management has been to make significant improvement in our customer
engagement.
[3:34] We’ve been consolidating our assets that can be used in the interaction
with the customer, and we’ve been striving to make them easily accessible
across the globe, opening up channels for sharing these assets across all of the
geographies and across all of these functional themes.
[3:49] Our second phase with the Digital Asset Management is going to be
turning towards more of an internal implementation, where we use it to facilitate
the distribution of corporate standards, other policies and other HR
communications.
Henrik: [4:02] What advice would you like to share with DAM professionals and
people aspiring to become DAM professionals?
Lincoln: [4:06] I think it’s all about the taxonomy. What we’ve found here is that
you can consolidate digital assets on any server. That’s not the hard part. It’s
the retrieval and the consumption of those assets that’s the real goal. You need
those to be consumed by the right people at the right time. [4:25] What was
learned is that setting up and sustaining, sustaining being the key of successful
taxonomy, makes all the difference in the world. That taxonomy is just comprised
of intuitive categories, tagging, and the metadata that really makes your
asset library searchable by its users. Without that taxonomy, it becomes more of
a frustration than a solution.
[4:48] In order to set that up, we found that it’s not just having that technical
competence, being able to understand the system. But it really requires a
keen organizational eye and a lot of people skills. Because as you have various
people participating in and contributing to your digital asset library, you’ve got
to have a lot of one-on-one interactions with them, to insure that standard work
is followed and to insure that that organizational structure, that taxonomy, stays
intact. Because, once again, without that taxonomy, all you’ve got it a pile of
assets on a server somewhere.
[5:21] What you really need is a clean library that people can easily find what
they’re looking for at their fingertips.
Henrik: [5:28] Thanks, Lincoln.
Lincoln: [5:29] You bet.
Henrik: [5:30] For more on this and other Digital Asset Management topics, log
on to AnotherDAMblog.com. Another DAM Podcast is available on Audioboom,
iTunes and the Tech Podcast Network. If you have any comments or questions,
please feel free to email me at AnotherDAMblog@gmail.com. Thanks again.

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