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Another DAM Podcast interview with Kenneth Wilson on Digital Asset Management

Kenneth Wilson discusses Digital Asset Management

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 Kenneth Wilson. Kenneth, how are you?

Kenneth Wilson:  [0:10] I’m good today. How are you?

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

Kenneth:  [0:15] I orchestrate the operation of Kohler companies’ digital supply chain, the center of which is the company’s DAM system, and I’ve also recently taken ownership of the communications resource library. That’s how I’m involved in Digital Asset Management.

Henrik:  [0:33] How does an American manufacturing company use Digital Asset Management?

Kenneth:  [0:36] Kohler is a multinational manufacturing company. We have a very diversified group of businesses that are part of the Kohler company, that make up the company. Most people know very well in the plumbing, kitchen, and bath businesses.

[0:52] We also have a hospitality group that has The American Club, which is a five‑diamond hotel, that is in Kohler Wisconsin, along with many golf courses that make up Destination Kohler, along with golf courses in Kohler… Whistling Straits, Blackwolf Run… along with a golf course in Scotland, the Old Course hotel. That makes up the hospitality group.

[1:17] We also have an interior section headquartered out of Chicago, where we have furniture businesses… Baker, McGuire. A custom tile manufacturing company called Ann Sacks in Portland, along with… can’t forget our global power group, who has a number of companies they operate throughout the world.

[1:38] All those companies make up the Kohler businesses and we handle a lot of the communications for all of those different businesses. Right now, we use our DAM system to store a lot of the final marketing images, and the graphic layouts for most of our North American businesses.

[1:56] The global businesses also use the system to some extent. A lot of the products are US SKUs that are also sold in other places but some of our global businesses have SKUs that are specific to them. We’re actually trying to work to encourage them to supply our system with those unique‑to‑their‑location assets.

[2:21] The DAM system that I manage will house the packaging images, the web images that are used for the catalog, as well as the layouts for printed literature, catalogs, the sell sheets that go to our showrooms and also archives digital imagery that serves to document the history and happenings of the company. This documentary and archived footage is mainly captured digitally now.

[2:51] We’ve begun efforts to digitize years’ worth of the history that was not digital, both still and video, and that will all make its way into the system as well. At the digital supply chain, if we look at it as a whole, the front end of it we’ve got a lot of different content creators. We have our own photo studio.

[3:14] We’ve got photographers, who create content, and at the front end of that supply chain, you’re not trying to shape the standards for file formats and making sure things are consistent there. While we have our own staff photographers for the different businesses, globally, we’ll use a variety of photographers, so trying to make sure everything comes in in a consistent form.

[3:37] On the back end, assets from our DAM system are syndicated to a content delivery network (CDN), so that they can be published to our websites and to the web catalogs, and also manage that practice.

Henrik:  [3:52] Kenneth, what are the biggest challenges and successes you’ve seen with DAM?

Kenneth:  [3:58] Personally, one of the biggest current pain points that I have comes around tracking renditions of assets that are headed for both digital and print destinations. It’s tricky to figure out what should be a version when changes are made, or what should really turn into a derivative asset. That’s probably one of the biggest pain points that I currently have.

[4:24] It’s really about educating the art directors on what it means when they version something versus what it means when they create a brand new asset. With all those businesses, we’ve got a lot of printed stuff that we still do, but there’s also a really big focus on digital, of course, using the web. A lot of our businesses are starting to do website redesigns, so that’ll continue to frustrate me this next year.

[4:53] That’s one of our biggest challenges right now. It’s trying to make sure that we don’t have a lot of duplicate content that varies so slightly that people couldn’t really do a search and be confident in the results they find within the DAM, and not really have to sort through, oh, this one’s slightly brighter, this one’s slightly darker.

[5:18] One of the biggest successes that I’ve seen in DAM lately is starting to overcome the notion of simply being a storage repository for the organizations that adopt it, more than a search tool to find things that already exist.

[5:34] One way we’re trying to get over that is the reuse of things we’ve already shot. An image that was shot for our hospitality businesses could be reused in marketing materials for the power businesses.

[5:50] So, that return on investment there. One of the bigger successes is DAM’s ability to shape workflows. One of my major initiatives this year is to implement a review on an approval workflow that we call creative review. In a digital form, it’s something that our creative groups already do, and it’s largely on paper. Trying to move that into a digital space is the big win.

[6:22] One of the major benefits we can get out of it is being able to inform content creators, our photographers, how successful they are shooting to a shot list, by having those discussions by art directors around the images and content they’re creating.

[6:41] Having some sort of record and being able to say, “It’s done, this set of images, you can do this slightly differently and these images will be able to serve a wider range of uses.”

[6:55] That’s one benefit of that workflow type of creative review and approvals implementations.

Henrik:  [7:02] These are very common issues that many organizations have. Getting collaborative tools to your point, and also getting the tools to not only deduplicate, and control renderings, and version control, but also to know what the single source of truth is for brand consistency.

Kenneth:  [7:18] Absolutely. That single source of truth is another pain point. I attend conferences, and a lot of the organizations that are attending may be in search of just starting the DAM process, as far as finding which software to use and how to set it up, how to govern it, and that’s always a battle with whoever holds the purse strings.

[7:41] I think one of the things I may have to be an advocate for within Kohler may be a greater emphasis on a PIM system, product information management tool, and how it integrates with a DAM system, because we use our DAM to drive that syndication of assets out to our web catalog. All those images have to marry to information about whatever’s pictured.

[8:05] Those catalog images, the data from that should come from a PIM. Right now we’re taking that information and inserting it into our system, manually, per asset. We have an opportunity there to automate that more by establishing a single source of truth for that product information.

[8:32] When product information changes, if something gets discontinued, all that information will flow automatically into the DAM system, and so that metadata is more dynamic, living, breathing kind of metadata.

Henrik:  [8:47] That’s a very popular and hot topic in DAM, is to get to product information management to your point, tying with DAM so you don’t have to reproduce the data from one system to another, and have the master record of your information, your catalog items, and all the SKUs, product codes, et cetera, in your PIM, and sync up with the DAM.

[9:06] Your master record is your PIM and the repository of all the imagery that may or may not be active, to your point, is in your DAM.

[9:14] There are several vendors who are very interested in making that easier for companies. You’re not the only organization out there that has this issue, which is great to hear.

[9:24] Kenneth, what advice would you like to share with DAM professionals and people aspiring to become DAM professionals?

Kenneth:  [9:29] That’s a good question. I can share a little bit of how I got there. Maybe that helps those aspiring to becoming DAM professionals and even inspires those who are. There’s a lot of talk about convergence. One of the topics at a recent DAM conference was, “Are we all becoming each other?” In a way, the convergence helps us push past some of the boundaries we run into.

[10:00] The breadth of knowledge has definitely been a factor in the success that I’ve had with DAM here at Kohler. Before being in this role, I was pursuing a career doing photography professionally.

[10:13] I’ve got an understanding of what the photographers, who are delivering creative content to be stored in this repository, a frame of reference to what they’re thinking or doing. In addition before that, I studied at the University of Michigan.

[10:29] I studied industrial product design, and I was in a school of art and design, and was able to take all the photography requirements as well in my time there.

[10:41] The industrial design thinking, the problem solving, the creative problem solving, those have really been helpful in coming into Kohler, a place that already had an established DAM system, and being able to see what was already happening, and trying to come up with new, more efficient ways to do some of the things they were doing.

[11:06] Our studio’s been digital for probably the last 10 to 12, maybe 15 years. There was a lot of existent content when I got here, but we’re creating more and more images each year than before.

[11:20] The design thinking has really helped to push the boundaries and to come up with creative, new ways of looking at solving the workflow problems, or how content comes into the supply chain, how it moves around and really completes a circle for the asset life cycle, I like to call it, where it may go out to a vendor, but it’s got to come back and it lives in the system. How does that asset end up becoming an archive that we reference back, historically.

[11:49] This year, I’ll be collaborating a lot more with our corporate archivist, as she digitizes a lot of the historical content that she has in her archives. Our history is increasingly becoming captured digitally. We’ll still have physical artifacts in archives in the future.

[12:09] A lot of the speeches that may have been written 60 years ago, that we have a paper‑printed copy, they won’t have a digital equivalent. Trying to preserve some of these things so that they are useful, working assets now, but turn into archives later, that design background has really helped me there. Even before that, I started off pursuing an engineering degree.

[12:37] Coding, computer science, writing code, is also a really good set of skills to have when implementing a system, working with IT to resolve and troubleshoot issues. I think that convergence is something that will really help shape and push the boundaries of the industry. That’s what I would share.

Henrik:  [13:01] Great. Thanks, Kenneth.

Kenneth:  [13:03] Thank you.

Henrik:  [13:04] For more on this and other Digital Asset Management topics, go to AnotherDAMblog.com. Another DAM Podcast has over 150 podcast episodes for you to listen to, including this one. Visit AnotherDAMpodcast.com. If you have any comments or questions, feel free to email me at anotherdamblog@gmail.com. Thanks again.

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Another DAM Podcast interview with Karl Lord, Lovisa Idemyr and Tom De Ridder on Digital Asset Management

Karl Lord, Lovisa Idemyr and Tom De Ridder discuss Digital Asset Management

Here are the questions asked:

    1. How are you involved with Digital Asset Management?
    2. How does a global organization focused on furniture and housewares use Digital Asset Management?
    3. What are the biggest challenges and successes you have seen with Digital Asset Management?
    4. What advice would like to give to 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 Karl Lord, Lovisa
Idemyr and Tom De Ridder. How are you?
Lovisa Idemyr: [0:11] We’re good, thanks.
Tom De Ridder: [0:12] Good, thank you.
Karl Lord: [0:13] We’re very well, thank you.
Henrik: [0:14] How are you involved with Digital Asset Management?
Lovisa: [0:17] Karl and I, we’re working for Inter IKEA Systems, which is the franchise
store of IKEA so for us it’s really important to safeguard all the intellectual
property and the media assets. For me for instance, I’m involved because I was
a project leader for the first Digital Assets Management and rotation with it.
Since then I’ve been working with additional projects related to them and also
the questions that start to pop up once you go into this DAM business.
Karl: [0:44] I work on the IT side so I’m responsible for operations and securing
that the services within the company are working as they should so that the
business has the right availability for the DAM solution.
Tom: [0:56] I am the CTO of a company called Stylelabs and we’re based in
Brussels. We had startups, we started out as a WCMS company but we gradually
moved to the dark side. The back office for marketing solutions and then
DAM is our main thing right now.
Henrik: [1:15] How does a global organization focused on furniture and housewares
use Digital Asset Management?
Lovisa: [1:20] We use it for a lot, and we even have multiple DAMS with them
because we are so many different IKE A companies. We as a franchise to work
we need to protect the brand and also secure intellectual property. We are
making sure that the officially approved assets are available in our DAM so
that we can make additional usage of the assets, so that we can use it for local
marketing, etc. [1:46] We are using it both for the global marketing which is more
about the IKE A catalog, and so on. Then we’re also enabling local marketing activities
because the retailers can click the assets and make additional assets for,
let’s say additional artwork productions based upon that. So we kind of provide
the original assets that have the furniture design, everything is “hunky dory”
and good. Then they can further utilize the assets.
Karl: [2:15] We also use them in addition for the marketing purposes, we use a
lower resolution version for 3D for internal requirements for commercial planning
and store design. We build in 3D complete stores before they’re actually
in the world. The 3D products which we have in the assets as in the DAM will
be used, placing within a 3D model of the store. It’s for the building and design
of the stores and for the retailers. [2:41] So when we go out and deploy a new
store, we’ve already gone through and seen exactly what the flows are. The
passenger, the traffic requirements and so forth, and where the products and
volumes are necessary. Put that all in.
Henrik: [2:52] Excellent. What are the biggest challenges and successes you’ve
seen with Digital Asset Management?
Lovisa: [2:58] Well I would say that when we started this that we were kind of
a bit naive in terms of what DAM meant so it was kind of happily naive [laughs],
because we didn’t really understand what it would take from the business.
Everything from business to IT to infrastructure, and so on. We started off with
this great idea of having [laughs] the possibility to manage all the assets in a
nice way and being able to store and distribute that. [3:23] Then of course we
started a bit small having images, now 3D and product information. During this
roadmap basically getting to learn more about what is DAM all about, what are
the opportunities? A big help there has also been getting good support from
Stylelabs in terms of advising how can we use this technology in a way that fits
us. I would say that having good advisers, that has really helped us in that work.
Henrik: [3:51] Excellent.
Tom: [3:52] Generally speaking for Stylelabs, we’ve done other implementations
also. I can say that next to the technical challenges, the biggest challenge is
user adoption but it’s also the biggest reward. So if your community likes it then
the solution grows and you get back response which is great. So that’s the best
reward and the biggest challenge at the same time.
Lovisa: [4:14] For us for instance, we come from a quite scattered landscape,
having assets available at a dozen number of suppliers. So instead of people
having to find the right person at the right agency or production company, now
we actually know that we have at least one copy in our DAM, and we have a
good support organization for that. [4:38] It’s also a security from a corporate
point of view that all the assets are safeguarded, and it’s not so dependent on
only one person knowing who to call and so on. So that has been quite a reward
I would say because it’s actually working. People are more happy with getting
access to the assets and now it’s getting more popular also to talk about DAM
and intellectual property.
[5:04] Everyone is quite happy that the basics are in place because that’s the
biggest hurdle I would say, getting commitment, getting buy in, getting investments
and so on.
Henrik: [5:12] Of course.
Tom: [5:13] Doing it one step at a time is actually the way to overcome this. Take
it easy, the maturity of the client or the customer plays a big role in how much
we, as an integrator, allow in a first phase. We always try to say, take it easy because
big bang solutions are ready to fail. You shouldn’t try too much at once.
Henrik: [5:34] Makes sense. Baby steps.
Karl: [5:36] Yes.
Lovisa: [5:37] It is a lot to cope with in Germany, within IT, within business. So
many things that are popping up. So basically when you’re doing those kind
of questions, you have to drive additional question marks within the company
that no one has addressed so far. So you’re getting into taxonomy, archiving,
lifecycle management, you name it, search tags. [6:01] All the kind of things that
make sense to put together in a nice harmonized way but no one has really had
the chance to do that in the past. So I would say stepping into DAM that’s also
stepping into all those open, let’s say small silos. [laughs] Getting that into one
big you know [laughs] .
Henrik: [6:20] And what advice would you like to share with DAM professionals
and people aspiring to become DAM professionals.
Lovisa: [6:24] I would say, I went to one of the global DAM events four years
ago as a kind of “DAM for dummies” for me. It was totally new to me. That I
found really good because I got quite a broad input because you had the business
track, you had the technology track, and so on. Also being able to speak to
the people behind the project. Both the successful ones and also the failures.
Henrik: [6:49] Exactly.
Lovisa: [laughs] [6:50] Which was even more interesting. Basically getting to
know people, also being able to listen to, what were the pitfalls. Can we avoid
doing the same mistakes? Are there people there that can help us with certain,
let’s say parts that we cannot manage within our organization? So I think a kind
of mixture of trying to understand what you want to do. [7:13] Having good advisers
on board and having a good network of people that you can call and say,
“How do we manage this? How do you do that?”
Henrik: [7:21] Excellent.
Karl: [7:22] Yes, having that advisory board and being able to get that feedback
about the good and the bad. What’s good about being here now this time
around is that we’re now able to present our success and our discoveries back
and contribute now to the other people working with DAM. Having had the
access to the information now being able to contribute information back is a
good thing.
Henrik: [7:44] Excellent.
Tom: [7:45] I think what’s interesting also in this DAM space is that it’s almost in
between marketing and IT. An impossible bridge to make most of the time but
that’s the beauty of it that you open up your eyes and you hear the stories from
both sides which I think is a rich experience for anybody to have.
Henrik: [8:08] Excellent.
Karl: [8:09] If you’re going into practical requirements, for example, I would say
preparation, preparation, and preparation to go into a project. Really know exactly
what exactly it is that you want to accomplish, and what the requirements
from the users are. Don’t just build a DAM because it’s cool to have DAM. If
there’s a need, use case, take that, establish and use that as your grounds for
going forward.
Henrik: [8:30] Great points.
Lovisa: [8:31] I think also, in terms of a rise or looking into what we can gain
from it. I think not only calculating what does it cost or what do we gain, but
also say that it’s not really a choice, it’s really necessary. There isn’t really a, “No
we can’t do this.” So it’s more about saying, “What can we gain over time?”
[8:53] So there’s a basic implementation first, and then you can do anything to
gain leverage based upon that so the more you add, of course, the more return
on your investment you will get. It’s really nice to have the foundation in place
and now everything we add to that will just be beneficial to the business.
Henrik: [9:11] Excellent.
Tom: [9:12] I could add something about technology if you want. So technology-wise
I would advise to be open for anything and pick the best in breed of specific
use cases. Don’t try to go just with one silo big thing. Just open your eyes,
talk to a mixologist, and he or she will help you get your solution together.
Henrik: [9:37] Thank you.
Lovisa: [9:38] Thanks.
Karl: [9:38] Thank you.
Henrik: [9:39] For more on this and other Digital Asset Management topics, log
on to AnotherDAMblog.com. Another DAM Podcast is available on Audioboom
and iTunes. If you have any comments or questions please feel free to email me
at anotherdamblog@gmail.com. Thanks again.

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Another DAM Podcast interview with David Fuda on Digital Asset Management

Here are the questions asked:

  • How are you involved with Digital Asset Management?
  • How does an organization focused on furniture use Digital Asset Management?
  • Tell me about your title.
  • What advice would you like to provide vendors when trying to approach and sell to a potential client?
  • 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 Darth, Lord of the
DAM. I mean, David Fuda.
David [0:12] , how are you?
David Fuda: [0:13] Very good this morning, how are you?
Henrik: [0:15] Good. David, how are you involved with Digital Asset
Management?
David: [0:19] I’m Digital Asset Manager for Ethan Allen Global. Ethan Allen is a
home furnishings company. We’re based in Connecticut. It’s a worldwide operation.
Out of our headquarters area is where the Digital Asset Management
system is based.
Henrik: [0:34] David, how does an organization focused on furniture use Digital
Asset Management?
David: [0:40] Many ways. Its key function right now is in the Style and
Advertising Departments. Digital photography was introduced in Ethan Allen
about three, four years ago. At the time, we realized, suddenly the volume of
images that was being photographed went up 10fold over what it was in film.
We had to get a handle on the amount of images that were being done. [1:07]
Digital Asset Management is what we needed to wrangle in what turned in from
a year’s shooting of 10,000 images to 100, 000 images.
Henrik: [1:14] Wow.
David: [1:15] Yes. At the time I was Senior Staff Photographer. I had been so
with Ethan Allen for 11 years. When they started talking about Digital Asset
Management, it peaked my interest as some type of field that would be something
new, and exciting and different, and definitely growing. So, I took on the
position as Digital Asset Manager. [1:36] I found one of the most useful ways,
once the DAM was up and running, was its ability to allow users and groups
that before had no access to print or web ready artwork, for instance, our PR
Department, Training Department, Merchandising Department.
[1:55] Before, if they had the need for a print or web ready image, they would
have to open a job ticket with Production, and go through a process of asking
them. Say, for instance, there was a particular sofa that a print magazine required
a shot of in the living room. It could start to involve two, three people to
look for a particular image.
[2:17] Nowadays, the PR individual can jump right into the DAM, do a search,
and find a multitude of room images featuring a particular sofa that was required
to be seen. They can draw their own print or web rendition right from
the DAM, and not involve the production department. It’s very quick, very easy.
They simply love it.
Henrik: [2:37] That’s a great example of self-service.
David: [2:39] Yes, it is. It’s a wonderful thing.
Henrik: [2:42] Tell me about your title.
David: [2:45] I came up with the title Darth, Lord of the DAM, because at the
time when the DAM was introduced, it was a totally new concept, at least to
Ethan Allen and all the departments. No one was really certain what a DAM
was. To make people look up from their desk and their daily task, when I would
walk into someone’s office and introduce myself, as opposed to Digital Asset
Manager, Darth Lord of the DAM, seemed to really make them look away from
their computer desktop and, “What? Excuse me, who are you?” [laughs] [3:18] It
was a nickname I chose to make people notice there was something new on the
block, and it happened to be the DAM.
Henrik: [3:27] What advice would you like to give to vendors when trying to
approach and sell to potential clients?
David: [3:33] I would like to say, as far as the vendors go, when approaching
a client, I noticed a couple of things that seemed to be a constant as we were
looking at different DAM systems offered by different vendors. They came in
with a preset presentation, a PowerPoint or whatever the case may be, of what
they envisioned a typical user might be for their product. [4:00] I’ve come to
learn that users for the DAM are as varied as the clients are. They would make
a presentation with, “OK , Ethan Allen’s in photography, they make a magazine.
Let’s show them something like a fashion magazine.” It was completely unrelated
to how we would use the DAM.
[4:18] I think it would be best if the vendor took some elements that a potential
client may be using as assets in their DAM, then mocked up some type
of, “This is what your DAM could look like,” as opposed to presenting something
generic.
[4:36] Of course on the other hand, looking back, hindsight, Ethan Allen could
have presented each vendor with a collection of images, mockups, and magazines,
saying “These are the type of assets we would be putting in a DAM. Show
us how we can make them relate.” So, a little advice for both.
[4:57] I had one particular vendor who had that had a very fine looking product,
we were very impressed with the user interface. It seemed like something that
was really designed more towards images, rather than documents, and really
wanted to succeed.
[5:12] But they failed, not once, but twice in the presentation. They insisted on
having a presentation given to us via remote desktop. Both times the remote
desktop connection failed. It’s kind of hard to sell a product to people holding
the checkbook on something that won’t function. We had to pass on them.
[5:33] From the buyer end, if I could offer a little advice. Not only in presenting
particular types of assets to them to make a mockup for you, I’d also like to
suggest to any particular buyer to go ahead and look at the vendors’ service
department. Once the DAM is installed, the techs at the their customer service
are going to be your best friends for many months to come.
[6:02] We were fortunate, the product we chose, the tech support is outstanding.
I would suggest, possibly, if you’re in the market for a DAM, look at a
vendor, ask to talk to probably one or two if you could, of their users. Talk directly
to their IT department, if possible.
Henrik: [6:24] You mean the customer facing technical people?
David: [6:28] Yes, definitely.
Henrik: [6:29] From the vendor? As well as the customer service under
their VSLA?
David: [6:38] Yes, because if you’re not familiar with a DAM at all and once you
install it, it’s a big piece of software. It’s going to be something intimidating to
some people, some of your users. Other users are going to dive right in and
love it. [6:52] Also a piece of advice to buyers, once you purchase the DAM,
it’s not going to be set and you can walk away from it. Your DAM will always
be morphing, changing as new groups are added. As the needs of your users
expand, there’s going to be meta fields constantly be added. Others that are
now irrelevant, you might as well pull.
[7:16] The DAM’s never, “Build it and there it is and walk away.” It’s going to
be changing with your business needs. As far as that goes, our particular DAM
software, speaking of morphing, it’s only been installed three, four years. We’re
going to be facing an issue, coming up, with its compatibility with web browsers.
Most of our users are using a web based client.
[7:48] Regrettably, the version of our DAM software is already a version or two
old, being only four years old. It’s no longer updated and supported. Well, it is
supported, but it’s no longer updated to match and function with new, current
browsers coming out.
Henrik: [8:11] Hmm. There’s a lot of them.
David: [8:12] Yep, it’s all of them. Any new machines we install, or OS upgrades
that are done to users’ computers, all have to be backstepped with the browsers
to make sure they function with the DAM.
Henrik: [8:25] Hopefully they can support that by supporting back versions and
updating, as you suggested.
David: [8:32] Yeah, it would be nice. I suspect there are many customers of
there that are out there with a back version like we have.
Henrik: [8:40] What advice would you like to share with DAM professionals and
people aspiring to become DAM professionals.
David: [8:45] As far as aspiring to be DAM professional, I can relate Ethan
Allen’s experience with it. When our exploratory committee was first looking
into software and the idea of building a DAM, they thought it was more important
to have an individual that knew the company, knew the departments
that would be involved in the DAM, being Photo Studio, Style Department,
Production Departments are the three key departments, and someone who
Another D 174 AM Podcast Transcribed
knew the product and the business model of the company. [9:18] So, as opposed
to looking for someone with the tech experience, they looked inside. I
seemed to fit the bill, they offered the position to me. I had been with the company
10, 11 years at the time. I went for it because of my knowledge of the individuals
that would be introduced to this new software, the DAM, how it would
be deployed, and its needs would be to meet our requirements as a company.
[9:47] I think it was a good choice on their part to choose from within, someone
who knew their business model, as opposed to someone who was formally
trained in the DAM aspect and introducing them to the company.
[9:59] It may be a good piece of advice to the company to look for their DAM
administrator, or the Lord of the DAM from within, as opposed from without,
because that individual may be with your company already.
[10:09] In addition, I’d like to offer a piece of advice that didn’t handicap us,
but it was an error on our part when we first started investigating a DAM. The
exploratory committee looked at the DAM as a piece of software that would
be used by the members of the departments, again the Style Department,
Photo Studio.
[10:34] They didn’t realize just how intertwined the software of the DAM would
be with the servers. The IT department wasn’t consulted until the project was
well underway. It was simply because of our unfamiliarity with the DAM, and not
realizing that it was such a database and application driven piece of software,
completely based on the servers.
[11:05] So, for anyone looking for a DAM, bring your IT boys right to the
first meeting.
Henrik: [11:09] Thanks David.
David: [11:10] OK .
Henrik: [11:12] For more on Digital Asset Management log onto
AnotherDAMblog.com. [11:16] Another DAM Podcast is available on Audioboom,
Blubrry, iTunes, and Tech Podcast Network. Thanks again.

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