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Another DAM Podcast interview with Joel Warwick on Digital Asset Management

Here are the questions asked:

  • How are you involved with Digital Asset Management?
  • How long does it take to implement Digital Asset Management within an organization?
  • Why does it take this long to get it working within the organization? What is involved?
  • 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’m Henrik de Gyor. Today, I’m speaking with Joel Warwick. Joel,
how are you?
Joel Warwick: [0:09] I’m good, and how are you?
Henrik: [0:11] I’m good. Joel, how are you involved with Digital Asset
Management?
Joel: [0:14] I’ve been consulting in this field for almost 10 years now. Primarily,
I’ve done most of my work with end-use firms, firms that are implementing DAM
in one way or another. I’ve also done some work for the technology vendors,
both in DAM and in the auxiliary space, helping them with their strategy. [0:32]
Especially as the proliferation of SAAS-based services have come out there,
DAM vendors have had a challenge figuring out how to meet the needs of hosted type
implementations while still serving firms that are looking for the on site,
enterprise implementation.
Henrik: [0:49] How long does it take to implement Digital Asset Management
within an organization?
Joel: [0:53] That’s a loaded question. It depends on how you look at what
implementation means. If we’re just talking about implementing the software,
some organizations, it can happen in a few weeks. [1:06] I would argue when I
talk about implementation, the goal that I propose with my clients is, “When are
you going to actually be able to take advantage of new and improved business
processes?”
[1:20] What I mean by that is, “Why do we implement enterprise systems in the
first place?” It’s not because of some feature or function that they have. It’s because
we want to change our business processes in some way that benefits us,
whether it’s cost savings or lighting up a new revenue channel, what have you.
[1:36] In order to change those business processes, there are a lot of other
pieces, other than just implementing the software. Most of my work has been
helping clients through that. That takes a lot longer than just implementing the
software and training users on it.
[1:53] There are a lot of pieces that really have very little to do with the software.
These are issues of what I call “operational design,” which is a big catchall that
covers everything from organizational alignment, to detailed workflow planning.
[2:09] It really depends on the size and complexity of the organization. I would
argue that you’re looking at, at a minimum, a few months to be up and running,
where you say, “We used to do it this way. Now we do it this other way, with the
benefit of this new technology.”
[2:27] The technology itself doesn’t make that change happen. That’s a misconception
that a lot of people fall into. Even after doing this for a long time, I still
tend to fall into that, too. It’s so attractive to think, “We get this thing installed,
then we’ll be able to do this, this new way and it’s going to be great.”…
[2:45] Unfortunately, that change has to be programmatically implemented.
There’s a lot of upfront work that has to happen before the software actually
gets implemented. In some organizations, honestly, it takes years.
[2:59] That’s not to say that they don’t get benefit earlier on. They might get
benefit after three months or six months. But, the real change that they’re looking
for, and the ROI that they’re looking for when they decide to implement
DAM, may be a couple years out.
Henrik: [3:15] Why does it take this long to get it working within an organization?
What’s involved?
Joel: [3:23] When I talk about operational design…I’ve presented about this
quite a bit, as you know, and written articles about it as well. I’ll throw out some
components that are what people, especially an IT group, wouldn’t typically
think of as part of an enterprise system implementation. [3:41] Things like standards,
workflow design, digital rights models, organizational alignment, all the
capture and migration that have to go on, capturing assets and migrating them
from existing systems. Also, the appropriate scoping can be a real challenge in
figuring out, “What content are we going to put in this thing? What users and
what workflows are going to be included?”
[4:06] People oftentimes don’t have that much patience, especially executive
sponsors. You want to show value right up front, so you want to try to figure out,
“What content do we get in this thing now?” and, “What workflows do we light
up using this new system that are going to show some benefit, but at the same
time isn’t everything under the sun?”
[4:25] That’s how most organizations look at this. They go, “We’re going to throw
everything in here and we’re going to use it for everything.” Unfortunately,
you can’t do that all at once. Just the disruption it would cause makes business
impossible. Staging it appropriately by getting the right user and asset scope,
that’s an exercise in and of itself.
[4:44] In terms of where a lot of the time is, I would actually say that the organizational
alignment piece is the trickiest piece. That can be for a number of reasons.
It could be because you have an organization that’s very fragmented, and
you have groups that have been fairly autonomous up until this point.
[5:03] The model is, “We’re all going to start sharing stuff. We’ll be able to reuse
content.” If those groups aren’t already oriented towards that type kind of work,
there’s going to be a challenge redesigning those business processes.
[5:16] Sometimes it’s not political, at all. It’s just that the groups don’t know that
much about each other, or they’re sharing very little content and there’s an
expectation that that’s going to change overnight. We know how organizations
are. It doesn’t matter what the change is, that type of fundamental operational
change isn’t going to happen overnight.
[5:35] But the most important piece is actually having people working on that
specific problem, going in and understanding the workflows of both groups,
looking at where they interact, designing those interaction points and in particular
the standards, the policies, and the practices that have to change.
[5:51] Just to give you a very specific example, a lot of times let’s say that there’s
a print group, some kind of print publications, whether it’s marketing or publishing,
and there’s the web group. They say, “Why doesn’t the web group have
access to all the images that the print group has? They might as well. We’ll
figure out the rights issues and whatnot.”
[6:13] But the thing is, the web group has not been acquiring their content.
Suddenly, they’re being told, “You have to go look at the print group’s images
first before you go off and buy your other images.” What’s the policy going to
be? This is where you could get into a political issue. Even if it’s not political, you
still could just get into an issue of, “This isn’t the right content for us.”
[6:33] Someone actually has to do an assessment of whether that policy is going
to work. Then, once you’ve established it, there’s the actual enforcement of the
policies. Is this going to be a really hard rule where they really can’t go off and
buy new images as they have been? Or is it going to be more flexible as they
figure out how to do it? It’s just one specific example, but you can imagine in a
lot of organizations that that’s not a minor issue.
[6:59] Because it can get political, it involves people in those organizations at
more senior levels than just what you would look at normally for an implementation.
The head of the business unit, the print business unit for instance, probably
has to talk to the head of the web operations or the online unit to figure out
where that balance is going to be.
[7:20] That’s one of the reasons that involving the right people upfront in getting
that organizational support is really, really important because when you’re
way down the road in a project and you’re trying to figure out the metadata
model so you can get the system turned on in two months, that’s not the time
to run into that snag and say, “Uh-oh. We have to involve all these more senior
people” because you know what happens then.
[7:42] It goes into a bucket of conflict resolution. The solution that comes out of
it may not be the best one for the system or for the operations. It may just be
that someone’s trying to put out this fire so to speak. So getting them engaged
upfront is really important.
Henrik: [7:57] What advice would you like to share with DAM professionals and
people aspiring to become DAM professionals?
Joel: [8:00] I think the challenges right now is that the space is so fragmented
and complex, even in nature. When people say “digital media,” that’s all over
the map right now. I think that’s the real trick, is to understand the space, who
the players are both in terms of the technology but also firms that can help
organizations whether it’s consulting firms or system integration firms or a professional
services group from the vendors themselves. [8:29] Then, understanding
how to leverage those without just dumping tons and tons of money into it
because that model just doesn’t work anymore. The big consulting firms come
in and say, “We’re going to hang out with you for two years, and it’s going to
cost $2 million.” Nobody has budgets for that kind of thing anymore, which is
probably all for the better.
[8:47] There are a lot of opportunities for people that have some experience like
yourself, managing content operations if you want to call it that, or digital media
services organizations to go out again to help other firms if that’s what they’re
looking to do.
Henrik: [9:01] Thanks, Joel. For more on Digital Asset Management log onto
AnotherDAMblog.com. Another DAM Podcast is available on Audioboom,
iTunes and Tech Podcast Network. Thanks again.

Related Articles

Listen to Another DAM Podcast on Apple Podcasts, AudioBoom, CastBox, Google Podcasts, RadioPublic, Spotify, TuneIn, and wherever you find podcasts.

Need Digital Asset Management advice and assistance?

Another DAM Consultancy can help. Schedule a call today


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Another DAM Podcast interview with James Chan on Digital Asset Management

Here are the questions asked:

  • How are you involved with Digital Asset Management?
  • Why would an organization focused around Architecture and Planning 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: [0:00] This is Another DAM Podcast about Digital Asset
Management. I’m Henrik de Gyor. Today I’m speaking with James Chan. James,
how are you?

James Chan: [0:08] I’m great. I’m very good. How are you?

Henrik: [0:11] Good. James, how are you involved with Digital Asset
Management?

James: [0:17] Firstly, I can tell you very quickly about what we do here at the
studio. We’re an architectural visualization studio. Very quickly, what that means
is that we create photorealistic images of architecture before it gets built. My
role in that is that I help the artists to produce their renderings. What happens
is that the artist will get a 3D model and do their wizardry on it, their 3D
thing, and render out a 2D image of the building. [0:46] That’s when the things
I do come into play. What they do then is, with the render, they bring it into
Photoshop and add 2D assets into that. Assets could be photographs of trees,
people, plants, you name it. Whatever you need to do in order to make the
image look photorealistic. Sometimes it’s a whole image, like a photograph of
the site where the building’s going to go, and they literally just drop the building
into that photograph.
[1:17] Other times, it’s a complete render. What they do then is just add elements,
like people and trees, into the image. What I do is I have to maintain a
library of these images, of these assets. It’s a quite crucial role within the studio.
Because time is money. To be able to produce high quality illustrations or
images that you need to be able to find exactly what you need and be able to
put it into the image straight away.
[1:43] The artist doesn’t want to waste their time looking for things. They just
want to do a quick keyword search, browse a folder or whatnot, within the asset
management system, and find exactly what they want straight away. Quite
often, we get some artists who work with other studios. They come in here, start
fresh and are absolutely overjoyed that they have a really nicely organized and
curated library of images they can just dig into and get what they need.

Henrik: [2:07] Why does an organization focused on architecture and planning
use Digital Asset Management, beyond what you just said?

James: [2:13] Architecture is a very visual discipline. Historically, designs for buildings have started off as sketches. Even current buildings, such as Renzo Piano’s The Shard of Glass which is a great big building being built in London.
It’s a very striking building. It is literally a shard of glass going into the sky. That
started out as a sketch on a napkin.

[2:36] From then, it was put into a CAD drawing. Then, we produced a photorealistic rendering from that. With architecture, they really do communicate in images. I know that in dedicated, proper architectural firms, they use asset management systems. Because that’s how they communicate with each other. They have drawings. They have site photography.

[2:57] They have model shots of models they made themselves. Architecture is
awash with images. It’s crucial for an architectural firm to be able to organize
all their images very effectively. For planning, they use images as well. But it’s
more of a 3D thing. They use a lot of 3D techniques to do their work. But again,
you have to find the images first. It’s really just about finding your images. If you
can’t find them, we all know, it’s not going to be much good to anyone.
[3:33] The artists are fantastic at producing great renderings and 3D files. But
they’re terrible when it comes to the metadata. That’s where I come in. If you
don’t have good metadata, it’s going to be a nightmare to find anything. I provide
the structure and then I also provide the oversight, to make sure things are
keyworded properly and named correctly and organized in a way that makes it
very easy to find it.
[3:57] Architects often are very creative people. Quite often, organization isn’t
necessarily part of the creative process. I know a lot of architects are very well
organized. But it’s quite common for them to lose their images and to have to
come back to us, to say, “We need those images you rendered for us three
years ago,” or whatever. “Because we’re going to have to make some amendments
to it.” Or, “Planning has come around again. We can’t find them anywhere.
Please send them to us.”
[4:24] We really are able to find the images in moments. Whenever we can do
that and we send it to them, they’re overjoyed. They can’t believe how quickly
we can pull out even ancient photographs in moments. It really does help our
client relations.

Henrik: [4:41] What advice would you like to share with DAM professionals and
people aspiring to become DAM professionals?

James: [4:45] With the DAM professionals, the two main things I’ve been thinking
about is, understand the users and understand the business needs and
problems. Because Digital Asset Management is really just about problem solving.
You have to understand the problem that exists. Quite often, people don’t
realize that there is a problem or that there’s a better way of doing things. Think
about how to make it as easy as possible.

[5:11] You do that by understanding everything about the business and how people interact with their assets. Also, once you understand that, you need to understand the technology. Once you have a good understanding of the technology, you can come up with solutions, creative solutions. It’s like Photoshop. The more you know about how to use Photoshop, the more ways you can fix a certain problem. You can do the same thing, address the same problem, in Photoshop, in one way, but in many different ways.

[5:47] In an individual situation, you might need a different technique. That’s the
same for Digital Asset Management, the same for metadata. You have to know
your technology inside out, in order to get the most out of it. There are my two
tips for the DAM professional. Also, another thing is, always look for the most
simple and elegant solution. That’s really hard to do. It’s easy to make a very
complicated solution to a problem.
[6:14] Anyone can do that. [laughs] It’s trying to find the most simple, elegant
solution that, when you actually come up with it, you wonder why you haven’t
come up with that 10 days before, or a month before, or a year before. When
you have that kind of a solution, that’s when you know you’ve hit on the gold
dust. Gold dust is simplicity in all Digital Asset Management things. Anything
that makes things more complicated, more time consuming, takes more time to
teach someone, then you really have to go back to the drawing board. Because
it’s a waste of effort.
[6:46] The effort should always go into finding the most simple, elegant solutions.
As for people who want to become Digital Asset Managers, how I came
into it was that I was working in a sports photography agency. We’d be processing,
in a team of 10 people, a thousand images or so. Whether it be live images,
coming in live from the football field, or taking the orders from the photographers,
when they have a couple of hundred photographers coming through.
[7:17] The way the images would flow from the photographer, through the production
department, into the archive and onto the website got me thinking
about workflow. That got me thinking onto Digital Asset Management. That’s
where I found Peter Krogh’s book. I can’t pronounce his surname.

Henrik: [7:34] Peter Krogh, yeah.

James: [7:36] That’s the one, The DAM Book. I found that book. That really
inspired me to look more and more into things. That’s how I got my current job.
I found problems which I found interesting. I wanted to find solutions to that. I
did some research. I discovered a whole field called Digital Asset Management.
It’s still a very young field. I got to where I am now just by being inquisitive and
trying to understand the problems other people or organizations might have
and try to think of ways I could solve them for them.

[8:09] Luckily, I found this job here at the studio where they literally did advertise the job as a job for a Digital Asset Manager. That was certainly easy for me to find this place. It was
a very nice fit. I went straight in there. I said some few key things, which were
metadata, control vocabulary, Digital Asset Management systems. I mentioned
a few blogs or a few people who talk about Digital Asset Management. I got the
job within the first 10 minutes.

[8:36] They’d been advertising the job for more than two months, and interviewed
over 30 or so people. I was the only person that actually understood the
job. It was a bit of a no-brainer for them, and it was a no-brainer for me. It was a
perfect match. To anyone who wants to become a Digital Asset Manager, they
have to do the research. Understand that you need to be a problem solver and
come up with creative solutions to problems.

[9:04] Also, I view my role as being a communicator between the technical side
of things and of the creative side of things. Often, the end users of Digital Asset
Management systems are creative people. Sometimes they don’t understand
technical things. So you really do need to be able to have the ability to translate
technical things into lay person speak. On that note, don’t worry if you come
across, for example on Twitter, I see a lot of people talking about pretty technical
things, things that go over the top of my head.
[9:40] It got me a little bit bothered, to think that maybe I’m at a very low level in
my career. But I got over that very quickly because I realized that you don’t need
to be an IT professional to work in Digital Asset Management. You just have to
know how the software works and can always learn. It’s a process of learning.
That’s why you have IT departments. [laughs] That’s why you have people who
are IT professionals.
[10:06] They don’t necessarily understand how the software or the technology
would work for the end user. That’s where you come in. You need to be the
translator between the IT professionals and the end users. Once you understand
how that works, you can find yourself in a very rewarding career. That’s
that. That’s me. That’s my rant. [laughs]

Henrik: [10:23] Excellent. Thanks, James. For more on this and other
Digital Asset Management topics, log onto AnotherDAMblog.com.
Another DAM Podcast is available on Audioboom, Blubrry, iTunes and the Tech
Podcast Network. Thanks again.

Related Articles

Listen to Another DAM Podcast on Apple Podcasts, AudioBoom, CastBox, Google Podcasts, RadioPublic, Spotify, TuneIn, and wherever you find podcasts.

Need Digital Asset Management advice and assistance?

Another DAM Consultancy can help. Schedule a call today


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Another DAM Podcast interview with David Barron on Digital Asset Management

Here are the questions asked:

  • How are you involved with Digital Asset Management?
  • Why does a organization focused on sporting goods use Digital Asset Management?
  • What is the big idea behind using master images in a DAM workflow?
  • What advice would you like to share with DAM Professionals and people aspiring to become DAM Professionals?

Transcript:

Henrik de Gyor: [0:02] This is Another DAM Podcast about Digital Asset
Management. I’m Henrik de Gyor. Today I’m speaking with David Barron. David,
how are you?

David Barron: [0:10] Hey, Henrik. I’m doing great.

Henrik: [0:13] David, how are you involved with Digital Asset Management?

David: [0:16] I’ve been in production most of my career, since I got out of college
in 1989. I managed a service bureau for about three years in the early ‘90s,
which gave me most of my troubleshooting capabilities. Then I worked in advertising
and marketing throughout the rest of that 20 years, where I worked at
places like CAPS Digital and Leo Burnett. I worked at a HBO startup company.
[0:46] I worked at The Marketing Store, the Integer Group and SM Marketing,
and several other places that I started to do a little consulting with. I was a production
artist who also did photo retouching and design. But always doing tech
support, too. Probably because, as a Macintosh user, the IT departments don’t
always fully support the Macintosh platform. So there was always a lot of technical
stuff that had to go on.
[1:21] I started thinking about Digital Asset Management while I was working
at The Marketing Store and trying to get a system in there that would help
us to manage our digital assets. That’s where I fell in love with Digital Asset
Management, and all the capabilities that you can have with Digital Asset
Management. Although I was a production artist at that time, I had to assume
the role of a Digital Asset Manager and technologist.
[1:55] I started here at Wilson Sporting Goods, two years ago, as a Digital Asset
Management Consultant, for their Xinet system that they put in. I had purchased
the exact same system at The Marketing Store, five years prior. I started to
consult on that system because I had known it really well. After about a year of
being here, they hired me full time, where I administered the asset management
system. I can still consult the designers on best practices as I continue to oversee
things from the front end, all the way to the back end of the system.

Henrik: [2:42] Why does an organization focused on sporting goods use Digital
Asset Management?

David: [2:47] I would argue that every company that creates digital artwork and
videos needs some level of Digital Asset Management. Once you have one file,
you have the need for Digital Asset Management, and you have some level of
managing that. So much is being created digitally. At Wilson Sporting Goods,
they create a dizzying amount of graphics per year. Small, 20 some creative
services, employees crank out work like crazy, every day.

[3:22] We have our own staff photographer who’s been working tirelessly here for 27 years. Just taking product shots. There’s terabytes of data, images and tons of people who need them. So wrangling these assets for internal use alone could be considered valuable.
But there’s offices worldwide, partners and dealers that all want to have an
image of “The Duke”, or whatever product they’re trying to sell for their website,
for their own catalogs.

[4:02] Trying to find these assets and getting them the correct one, the one
that’s retouched and outlined or whatever, is a big challenge. So Digital Asset
Management is key here.

Henrik: [4:17] What is the big idea behind using master images in a
DAM workflow?

David: [4:24] The master image paradigm is one that I’ve been percolating in
my brain for several years now. While working at marketing agencies, the workflow
as always to see each job as a closed loop, a single entity. All the art created
for that one job remained in a links folder, in a job folder. Even if you were
working on several pieces with the same images, you’d often duplicate those
images into the links folder of the new job, in order to keep a collection of files
current for that single entity. [4:58] If a product or image changed at the 11th
hour, which never happens, I understand. You were up late replicating those
changes to all those separate folders and all those separate files, and derivatives.
The thought came, “Couldn’t we just keep an image library to link to,
instead of all this duplication?”

[5:19] It was always work that nobody wanted to do or had time to work on.
Even though, in the end, it would have saved time. So this master image idea
was born out of this frustration in production. The temptation to collect all
the images into a job folder is pretty strong, but when the files are linked to a
master image in the master image library, the benefits are pretty fierce.

[5:44] That image is what I heard called, at Henry Stuart New York this year, “The
single version of the truth.” The high resolution images come in or are shot,
and they’re tagged with metadata. They get outlined, retouched, and they go
into the master image library, nested into several folders of hierarchy. You might
have a football folder and inside of that, NFL footballs and leather footballs.
They get nested into this library, like digital shelves.

[6:19] So everybody knows where they are. We keep two of them, one for in
progress images and one for published images or files that are ready to go
to the general public. But there’s only one file that is current. So that changes
to that one file, happened on that one file. Any of the work that’s being used,
that’s all they have to do, update the image in that layout.

[6:47] That way, there is no migration at the end of the job, where we take all
those images and then file them accordingly, so that people can see the images
and grab the images from the latest catalog. They’re already there. There’s no
wondering whether or not, “Was it this image, or this one next to it that looks
similar, that was used in this catalog?”

[7:14] Because they’re linked, and the DAM system shows that link. The files are
tagged with the name in that catalog. It’s really been revolutionary when it’s
done properly. The one thing that really makes it work, because a lot of people
have said, “What if I have a Photoshop file that’s got several images composited
in there? I’ve got to make a new file. How do I track what files are being put in
that Photoshop file?”

[7:50] It’s really difficult. You can put it into metadata. I’m really encouraging
people, now with WCS platform, you can do a lot of compositing effects in
InDesign and Illustrator, for that matter. Although I’m sort of against doing any
page layout or major Photoshop compositing in Illustrator. But to do your compositing
within InDesign, it just makes everything so much easier.

[8:28] Because of the transparency effects that you can do, you don’t have to
be afraid of transparency. You just have to work a little bit differently, because
you’re not working with pixels in InDesign, but if you can do your composites in
InDesign, you still maintain that link to the master image. If you need to move
things around, it’s a lot easier to move things around in one program than it is to
have to go back into Photoshop, make those changes, and move it in.

[8:57] Then resizing, if you’re doing a banner for one person and an ad that has
to look the same, your resizes are a lot easier. You don’t have to worry about
making multiple file images. That’s been a challenge to get that through, but
when it’s done, and I’ve seen it done really well, with all kinds of things, like
reflections and drop shadows and set down shadows, color and vignettes, and
everything, all done in InDesign. The time savings alone are worth it. Just in
terms of versatility.

Henrik: [9:33] What advice would you like to share with DAM professionals and
people aspiring to become DAM professionals?

David: [9:39] I would say that if you’re aspiring to be in Digital Asset
Management, some people say that you need to be a student of library sciences.
Sadly, I don’t have that expertise. From my perspective, you really have
to know your users, more than the assets themselves. How they work, and the
needs and the skills of those users who are using the system more than library
sciences.

[10:12] Because you can easily put more than you need to into the
DAM system, or more than what the users need. That’s where your concentration
should be, is do your homework on who’s contributing to the workflow or
to the image library, and who needs to get the stuff out. Then you’ll have all the
answers you need.

Henrik: [10:40] Putting people first. That’s a great idea.

David: [10:41] Thanks.

Henrik: [10:43] Thanks, David.

David: [10:44] Henrik, it’s been a pleasure.

Henrik: [10:46] For more on Digital Asset Management, log onto
AnotherDAMblog.com. Another DAM Podcast is available on Audioboom,
Blubrry, iTunes and the Tech Podcast Network. Thanks again.

Related Articles

Listen to Another DAM Podcast on Apple Podcasts, AudioBoom, CastBox, Google Podcasts, RadioPublic, Spotify, TuneIn, and wherever you find podcasts.

Need Digital Asset Management advice and assistance?

Another DAM Consultancy can help. Schedule a call today


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Another DAM Podcast interview with Philip Guiliano on Digital Asset Management

Here are the questions asked:

  • How are you involved with Digital Asset Management?
  • How do you use Digital Asset Management when it comes to Brand Change and Brand Management?
  • What advice would you like to share with DAM Professionals and people aspiring to become DAM Professionals?

Transcript:

Henrik de Gyor: [0:02] This is Another DAM Podcast about Digital Asset
Management. I’m Henrik de Gyor. Today I’m speaking with Philip Guiliano.
Philip [0:10] , how are you?
Philip Guiliano: [0:12] I’m very good, thank you.
Henrik: [0:14] Philip, how are you involved with Digital Asset Management?
Philip: [0:16] BrandActive is a brand implementation and management company.
This means that we get involved in large scale mergers, acquisitions, large
scale rebranding programs, and managements of brands that currently exist in
the market. [0:31] Our role is to be involved in the transition and management
of every single asset that a company has, from signage to vehicles to branded
environments, retail locations, documents, forms, uniforms, IT systems anything
that you can think of that is a physical or digital asset that carries the name,
logo, colors, any identity element of a brand.
[0:52] Our role is not to create the brand strategy or design. We don’t do any
of that creative development work. Our role is truly the implementation and
management.
[1:01] What that means is, through our process of scoping out the brand change,
through doing a detailed inventory of what are all of these assets around the
globe that the company controls. How do they manage that transition? What
are they going to do with each individual asset? What’s the project organization
look like, and how do you manage that process?
[1:22] Through that process, we gather tons of pictures, tons of examples, tons
of video, all of their current assets, as they exist today templates, files, all of
that. We gather a lot of robust data around the inventory, the cost elements, all
of that stuff that is related to those assets how they’re produced, how they’re
designed, how they’re procured.
[1:46] We put that into database systems. We then work with our clients to create
the workflows, drive those workflows through implementation and on through
brand management.
[1:59] As an organization, when it comes down to the system side, we use systems
internally, for ourselves. We also use systems that are client facing. We do
what we call a “brand implementation and brand management platform” that
drives the implementation of the brand across all these assets.
[2:19] So that’s location rollouts, things of that nature, all of their template refinements
around the globe empowering their employees with templates and processes
that they can use to rebrand their assets as well, or manage their brand
assets as they exist. We get involved in the creation of platforms like that.
[2:38] We also offer a Software as a Service Digital Asset Management platform,
built on the ADAM platform for small-scale and medium-scale clients that want
to get experience and exposure with how Digital Asset Management works,
what it’s capable of, what’s the value in it. We do a pilot test.
[2:55] That platform’s also available for large clients. Some of our larger clients
that are more global will use that platform to do a pilot program for a certain division
within the company or a certain department within the company. From a
systems basis, we do the brand implementation platforms and we do Softwareas-
a-Service DAM.
[3:17] We also do vendor agnostic consulting services, where we will go into a
company and define their requirements, look for a business case for systemization,
lead vendor selection programs, and project manage their implementation.
That’s how BrandActive’s involved.
Henrik: [3:35] How you use Digital Asset Management when it comes to brand
change and brand management.
Philip: [3:40] The way in which we use it is to empower our clients and empower
their employees with managing the very complex assortment of digital
and physical assets that they have. [3:55] I’ll use an example. When we’re going
through a brand implementation with a client that, say, has 60 manufacturing
facilities, 1,000 retail locations, and corporate offices and sales facilities around
the globe, there are lot of different assets that have to be transitioned. There
are all the locations, all the signage, all the vinyl graphics, all the millwork, all of
the documents, forms, everything.
[4:21] What we will do is collect all of this information, we will put it into a system,
and then we will create the workflows for those clients that will drive the transition
of those assets through to completion, so that they actually hit their target
dates. They have full cost visibility and full cost control, vendor management
control, again, across physical and digital asset creation.
[4:43] Their employees have the tools and the templates that they need to take
what is a final created asset and localize that, customize that, change language,
anything that they need to do. From a multilingual, from an asset integration,
from a data integration, across multiple systems anything they need to do in
that area to manage the creation of their digital and their physical assets.
Henrik: [5:10] What advice would you like to share with DAM professionals and
people aspiring to become DAM professionals?
Philip: [5:13] Take your time. [laughs] That’s probably the best [indecipherable
05:16] . Honestly, I see so many programs and so many clients and prospects
that we’re dealing with that understand that they need a DAM solution or a
MRM solution, a MAM solution. [5:31] They understand what they’re doing
currently without tracking, without reporting, without metrics, without visibility
into how they can get operational improvement, without visibility into how
they’re spending their money, and how they could potentially save that money
by systemization.
[5:50] They understand that they need to change that, and they look into a
solution without truly defining their requirements. By that I mean, “What are the
business drivers? What problems are they trying to solve? What are the political
and cultural issues that are going to impede the program acceptance? What
solutions are really going to address their needs?”
[6:10] There are a lot of people that I’ve seen that have evaluated DAM and
MRM based on what seems like excellent functionality, and it is. It’s fantastic
functionality for companies that need that functionality. But the truth of the
matter is that that functionality would never get implemented at their company.
[6:26] They end up picking a vendor that is not actually going to live up to what
they really need. They may be a client that needs amazing customization across
their user interface and across their workflows. They need workflow automation
or they’re not going to live their business case. They end up picking the solution
that doesn’t allow them to be as flexible as they need to be in that area.
[6:47] Taking time to really define a business case for change, really understanding
the business drivers, the metrics, how you’re going to measure success in
the end program, and what you can measure currently to illustrate that success.
Really define your requirements that’s business, technical, functional, every
requirement that you can nail down so that you know what it is you’re evaluating
a vendor based off of, and that you are actually evaluating them based on
your needs.
[7:14] Engaging internal resources is a big one, throughout the process. As
we take people through business case development, and as we take people
through requirements development, we’re engaging resources across every area
of the organization.
[7:28] I definitely recommend doing that because these are the users of your
platform. These are the people that are really going to drive the success of the
platform. The earlier you engage them, the better the program’s going to be.
[7:38] I guess that brings up considering the cultural dynamics, as well. It’s very
similar for us and our brand implementation program. Really understanding the
culture dynamics, knowing what a solution is going to mean to the various users
within the organization, and what is going to stop them from using it.
[7:59] Having a solution alone definitely does not mean that people are going to
use it. Having the solution that isn’t built around the way people work within the
organization is absolutely going to assure they won’t use it.
[8:08] The engagement, training, and customization to the way people work,
understanding the workflows, and how you want to automate them. Definitely
including tracking and reporting, that’s going to be very key not only for acceptance
of the system at a user level but also executive level acceptance, and your
ability to continue to grow the program within the organization, beyond your
initial deployment.
Henrik: [8:33] Great. Thanks, Philip.
Philip: [8:34] Thank you very much. I appreciate the call and definitely appreciate
the time.
Henrik: [8:39] For more on Digital Asset Management, log onto
AnotherDAMblog.com. Another DAM Podcast is available on Audioboom,
Blubrry, iTunes, and the Tech Podcast Network. Thanks again.

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