Listen to Jennifer Anna speak about Digital Asset Management
Here are the questions asked:
How are you involved with Digital Asset Management?
How does an independent conservation organization use Digital Asset Management?
What are the biggest challenges and successes you’ve seen with 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 Jennifer Anna. Jennifer, how are you?
Jennifer Anna 0:08 I’m great. Thank you for having me.
Henrik de Gyor 0:11 Jennifer, how are you involved with Digital Asset Management?
Jennifer Anna 0:14 Right now, I’m serving as the Digital Asset Manager for World Wildlife Fund. And my responsibilities actually encompass several different roles ranging from, say, contract manager, librarian, photo editor to product owner, so kind of a jack of all trades, if you will. And throughout my, I guess, 10 plus year career, I would say that the majority of my roles have been as product owner in some capacity.
Henrik de Gyor 0:52 Jennifer, how does an independent conservation organization use Digital Asset Management?
Jennifer Anna 0:57 So our Digital Asset Management platform is accessible by our entire network. We are a network of approximately 100 offices spanning from Columbia to Myanmar to US to UK. And at this point in time, our library is of photography and video that tells the story of the work that WWF or World Wildlife Fund does. So the way that we work, the DAM team are very small, but I’ll say DAM team works might be a little bit different than how maybe other DAM teams work, in that, we tend to be kind of involved with the full pre-production to kind of post-production processes as well as like the DAM processes of ingestion, cataloging, and distribution.
Jennifer Anna 2:08 What our library contains is the commissions, the trips that we send photographers, or filmmakers out into the field, again, to sort of tell the story of World Wildlife Fund’s work. So we actually have commissioned shoots in the library. We also have staff photography, because a lot of our colleagues are working in program science. And so they’re actually out in the field. And part of their research work is to actually document it. So we also have staff photography, in the system as well. Another thing that we have, to a lesser extent, are what we called camera traps. And this is the way that our science folk capture the actions of animals to sort of understand better how we can help conserve their landscapes, and also kind of like, yeah, conserve their landscapes conserve wildlife. So those are sort of and then we also, of course, have licensed images from stock agencies like nature picture library, we used to license from National Geographic or National Geographic Creative, even though they’re I think they’re no longer licensing. So it’s kind of those like, I think four or five buckets of imagery that we’re kind of pulling in from a global network.
Jennifer Anna 3:39 There’s different sort of like talents and expertise across the network, the DAM team, and also certain production teams across the network, kind of assist with different processes. And that can be helping with the contract process to make sure that we’re getting the right deliverables from our photographers and filmmakers to kind of helping with the editing process when those assets have been delivered, creating B roll packages, and then of course, and then the processes of actually getting them into the hive or which we call our DAM the hive and getting them distributed. So again, it’s a little bit different in that our DAM work actually extends sort of beyond the management of the DAM into said, like contract processes working with photographers and filmmakers, doing edits, and again, like getting them to the system and then getting them distributed. And the way that our DAM is actually used, for the most part, our DAM is accessible by again, our entire network. If you have a WWF employee, you have access to our DAM so we have approximately 4000 users And so, again, our DAM may be a bit different in that it’s not just utilized by marketing and communications teams across a network. Program staff use it. Science staff use it. Our accounting teams probably use it for if they’re working on something. So it’s very far reaching like our DAM definitely serves our users sort of beyond the marketing and tech teams at WWF.
Henrik de Gyor 5:34 Jennifer, what are the biggest challenges and successes you’ve seen with Digital Asset Management?
Jennifer Anna 5:39 So let’s start with successes. I think what I’ve seen in my time in DAM is that we’ve been rethinking DAM as part of a larger marketing technology ecosystem, which I think that’s been a very positive step for the industry. I think we are thinking about DAM more holistically. And understanding they are programs requiring long term management versus standalone platforms or products, which was more the philosophy when I got started, as I said over 10 years ago, I think we understand more now. I think the industry understands more now that it’s a kind of a people first, technology second initiative, and that it can take a village to make these Digital Asset Management platforms run. And I think that’s all very positive.
Jennifer Anna 6:45 That said, DAM program still continue to be undervalued and misunderstood by companies, and therefore, I think they’re still being under resourced. I see large companies, fully resourcing their CMS, their CRM, their social media departments, and other marketing comms tech platforms with teams and budgets. But then they only employ one person to manage all the aspects of the DAM platform. And just to reiterate, these DAM programs take a village to succeed. So I would really like to see the industry help companies set these programs, and the people required to manage them up to succeed.
Henrik de Gyor 7:36 Jennifer, what advice we’d like to share with DAM professionals and people aspiring to become DAM professionals?
Jennifer Anna 7:42 I would say a few things, I would say learn about the larger marketing communications technology ecosystem, and approach DAM holistically as part of a larger system of processes and people. I would also say you need to be prepared to speak to different stakeholders in their own language about DAM. Change management is a big part of making a DAM program succeed.
Jennifer Anna 8:20 That said, I would also say it’s important to set boundaries and expectations. Many DAM jobs, depending on what they are, are actually several jobs in one and you will need to be able to educate your stakeholders about what is possible. Many times when you are coming into a new workplace, you will be the expert. No one else in the organization or company will understand DAM the way that you do. And then I would say the final thing is with that said, know that you don’t need to know everything. Technology changes so fast that we are just really running along with it.
Henrik de Gyor 9:08 Well, thanks, Jennifer.
Jennifer Anna 9:09 Thank you so much. This is really a pleasure.
Listen to Susan Wamsley speak about Digital Asset Management
Here are the questions asked:
How are you involved with Digital Asset Management?
How does a Museum where radical Arts and Architecture meet Digital Asset Management?
What are the biggest challenges and successes you’ve seen with 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 Susan Wamsley.
Henrik de Gyor 0:09 Susan, how are you involved with Digital Asset Management?
Susan Wamsley 0:13 Hi, Henrik. I am currently the Digital Asset Manager at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum here in New York. And previously, I’ve worked as a Digital Asset Manager, and Photo Archivist for civil engineering firms and architecture firms in New York City. And I was thinking, what the differences between those those days of yore and now and previously, there was more of a focus on kind of a mass digitization of photography collections, and then making them accessible. And now we have the undercurrent of mass digitization of archives. But on top of that, we have the proliferation of born digital assets, photography, as well as audio and video these days. So that’s what we’re dealing with at the Guggenheim.
Henrik de Gyor 1:04 Susan, how does a Museum where radical Arts and Architecture meet Digital Asset Management?
Susan Wamsley 1:11 We use the DAM in many different ways. One, we organize and reuse our assets for our public facing projects. These would be marketing projects, our website, social media, our app, any educational programs, virtual tours, publishing, licensing, that sort of thing.
Susan Wamsley 1:33 We also use it for documentation of the collection. We have our condition documentation for our artworks. We have treatment documentation, install and de-install photographs. And we also have documentation of our beautiful building, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The architect was Frank Lloyd Wright. And we have going back to the construction of the building, William Short, was the project manager, I believe, for the construction, and he photographed the building, as it was being built. So that’s fascinating information. And then we also, of course, document the building to this day, that that up to our Wayfinding signs that relate to our pandemic preparedness. So we document all different kinds of things in there.
Susan Wamsley 2:26 And then also be capture our institutional knowledge with the DAMs for Museum, it just sort of grows and grows. The lifecycle of a digital asset is essentially forever in there, because we just build on it. So if you have an old photograph of a painting, maybe you don’t use it for marketing anymore, but maybe your conservation department’s interested in what the colors looked like in a particular year. So we just sort of build our institutional knowledge in the DAMs. Use it as sort of a small a archive, we also have capital A Archives. But this is a place where you can learn about our objects. You can look at the exhibition history, how it’s been shown and exhibitions through the years, you can look at the conservation history and determine the copyright information.
Susan Wamsley 3:18 And one good example of how we’re using our DAM to capture knowledge is in our recently, almost completed project, the Panza Collection Initiative. That was a 10 year research project that was funded by the Mellon Foundation grants. And it was a look at our conceptual, minimal and post minimal artworks in the Panza collection. And this is very complex material. And it needed to be researched very carefully from lots of different sources.
Susan Wamsley 3:53 And our researchers were able to capture what they found about the objects. I’m just gonna use as an example. We have four exhibition copies of one Bruce Nauman neon work, and these kind of holdings you need to look at and determine Is there something that would be considered an original? Are there any they’re considered wrong? Are they the wrong colors or something, for example? So our researchers interviewed the artists, interviewed artists estates, looked carefully at what we have looked at other archives, pulled all this information together, and then they’re able to determine, for example, in this or that exhibition photo, which artwork is in there is this exhibition copy, that exhibition copy. So that kind of material, which is very complex and has lots of nuance is perfect, actually for the DAM because you can get a lot of description in there. You can get a lot of photographs in there, and you can really detail all of the findings. And then ultimately, this is to be sort of available for public research. So this has been a big project and one that I think has really shown what you can do with the Digital Asset Management system.
Henrik de Gyor 5:15 Susan, what are the biggest challenges and successes you’ve seen with Digital Asset Management?
Susan Wamsley 5:20 This was something that, as I thought about, I kind of thought we could answer both questions with the same answer, which would be user adoption. I feel like your biggest success as a digital asset manager is achieving a solid user adoption, because that means you’ve got a good interface, your metadata is good and you’ve have a good rapport with your colleagues and with all the people who are using this [DAM] because you’ve listened to what they need, and you’re responding to also the needs of the company. So you can set up good workflows, as well as have data integrity.
Susan Wamsley 6:02 And I thought this is also really one of the biggest challenges is you have a system that people need lots of different things from and they want different things from. And how do you set something up that can please everybody, or mostly please everybody? So I would say user adoption for both of those.
Henrik de Gyor 6:24 Susan, what advice would you like to share with DAM professionals and people aspiring to become DAM professionals?
Susan Wamsley 6:30 I don’t know if I have a lot of advice for people who are already professionals, because I’m sure we all have similar experiences. I think, currently, one thing that is a big topic, among my colleagues is interoperability with other systems that that’s really a key to your data integrity, and just to making your workflows easier for everybody in the institution, or in the company that you work for. And I would say, people who are coming into this, that, you know, you you find yourself doing a lot of the work on your own. There are a lot of hours to setting things up and determining a taxonomy and coming up with the keywords and all kinds of things, applying metadata. But really, when it comes down to it, while you’re also worried during all this, what you really need to be doing is interacting with your colleagues a lot and really listening to what people need, what they expect, and how your system can respond to kind of the culture that the institution or the company needs. You can reflect their acronyms. You can see how people search you can. Are they looking for something really specific? Are they looking for more browsable topics, that kind of thing, and really build something that responds to the needs of the institution.
Henrik de Gyor 7:59 Well, Thanks Susan.
Susan Wamsley 8:00 Thank you for inviting me to be on your podcast.
Listen to Charles Duncan discuss Digital Asset Management
Here are the questions answered:
How are you involved with Digital Asset Management?
How does a unique destination built around storytelling and immersive experiences use Digital Asset Management?
What are the biggest challenges and successes you’ve seen with 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 Charles Duncan.
Henrik de Gyor 0:07 Charles, how are you?
Charles Duncan 0:09 Great. I appreciate you having me.
Henrik de Gyor 0:12 Charles, how are you involved with Digital Asset Management,
Charles Duncan 0:15 My career has evolved over a lot of media experience. I moved to Los Angeles many, many years ago. Ended up at Disney. Worked on several large enterprise DAM systems. Millions and millions and millions of assets and super complex data models and security models. And I just have a strong affinity for content pipelines. And I’m very drawn to the making of a commercial franchise and all the machinery that goes into a franchise.
Henrik de Gyor 0:50 Charles, how does a unique destination built around storytelling and immersive experiences use Digital Asset Management?
Charles Duncan 0:58 Well, when we talk about our experience, we’re talking about content. And when we’re talking about a product, you’re talking about organization. And so in order to be organized, you have to have some sort of managerial governance oversight of your content. So really, it’s about how can we organize our content, and use it in a way that immerses our customer into our brand and in our experience.
Charles Duncan 1:28 The interesting thing about where we’re at today, is that the experience portion is really becoming a formal thing. So we have, you know, experience officers, people who are working and their title has experience in it, no matter whether you’re going to theme park, or you’re going to a movie or you’re on your app, shopping, you know, shopping and e commerce, there’s an experience. So a lot of the leading companies nowadays understand that that is an experience and understand that, you know, they need to be reaching towards their customers with, you know, a consistent brand that immerses them. So, you know, we’ve talked a little bit about personalizations… personalization in some of these conferences. And it’s just, it hasn’t moved quite as much as I had hoped. But, but where we’re at now is I think we’re very conscious of the experience. And then that requires, you know, obviously, a pipeline that can support that.
Henrik de Gyor 2:33 Charles, what are the biggest challenges and successes you’ve seen with Digital Asset Management?
Charles Duncan 2:39 Well, on the challenge side, you really have, you know, stylistic time to market, like, when you’re talking about, you know, a large commercial franchise that you’re trying to get to in front of your customers as an experience, it’s how quickly can you get there. So the challenge really is time. Because if it takes too long, you’re talking about risk, because the market can change. And so sadly, a lot of the huge challenges right now is our ability to get from the production to the consumer. So I’ve been talking a lot about stylistic time to market, we’ve seen some advances on the business enrichment side. And for those of you who are wondering, in my perspective, business enrichment is, you know, when you take something from the DAM, so you have an image and you want to do a banner, and you want to do hero. So there, you know, there are certain breakthroughs that are happening to automate that process, but I look at that as business enrichment. It’s like, we want to pound out various ratios, and various layouts for different contexts. What I think is the number one challenge right now is actually upstream from that. It’s the style portion. It’s like, well, you know, when we’re making the image pretty and we’re making it within the context of the brand. So that’s where I think a lot of the success is coming. You know, very soon, it’s all about how you rapidly decrease your stylistic time to market.
Charles Duncan 4:20 So on the successes side, I think the, sadly, the COVID situation really put us, you know, full throttle into virtual experience, and virtual context. And so we saw a lot of acceleration in the digital space in the commerce online space, there’s tremendous acceleration going on there. And so DAM is really suited to support that. It’s just a matter of us actually putting DAM in the larger context of the pipeline, because it’s one piece of a very large pipeline. And so that’s where I think there’s a lot of things that are exciting now. I think the time is super exciting now because we’re finally able to start looking at data lakes, looking at big data, leveraging the information of our customers, and putting all that together to have a streamlined accelerant across the pipeline.
Henrik de Gyor 5:20 Charles, what advice would you like to share with DAM professionals and people aspiring to become DAM professionals?
Charles Duncan5:25 What a great question. What I would say, is start looking at DAM as a creative tool. So many times in the industry, the talks around DAM, or the mindset around DAM is really business enrichment. As much as people may not consciously realize that they’re looking at DAM from the perspective of how do I take something from the you know, the art space, and organize it and distribute it, when you’re looking at it that way, you’re looking at it from a business enrichment standpoint. It is a very clear line, where it’s handed over from the artist, and then starts to be consumed as some sort of product or experience. So for those people who really want to excel in this space, I would say start to look at it from the creative perspective. Many artists that I have interfaced with really don’t have a great feel for DAM. They don’t really care about it, because they view it as some sort of commercial piece that is just business. However, if you pivot that, and you start to look at it from the creative perspective, DAM becomes a very large, powerful tool.
Charles Duncan 6:53 So for those people who are getting in, I would say, open up your context a little bit, take yourself from, I have a brand, I have an experience, I have a product, and I’m trying to get it to the consumer. And so then you start to look at the creative supply chain. And then inside the creative supply chain is the DAM. And there’s definitely ins and outs to that component. And if you can understand those ins and outs very clearly, you will massively accelerate in the space. One of the things I think that that we talk about as DAM enthusiasts is metadata. People love, I mean, there’s talks on metadata. And I love metadata as much as anybody but the art, the art side, they don’t care about metadata at all. The other thing I would say, is, metadata can transcend DAM. Metadata really belongs across the organization. And therefore, it’s really across the content supply chain. So when we’re talking about a creative pipeline, a metadata facet on that really needs to have the context of the entire pipeline, from conception to delivery, it happens to be that in DAM, because we were forced to organize creative content, we have a very, you know, good footing inside of metadata, but metadata really doesn’t just reside in the DAM.
Charles Duncan 8:29 So for those people wanting to get in, open up your perspective. Understand the entire pipeline, then start traversing down and looking how you can organize it.
Henrik de Gyor 8:40 Well, thanks, Charles.
Charles Duncan 8:41 Absolutely, absolutely. I appreciate you reaching out, I appreciate this. You know, this medium, I love it, that you’re doing this, this is wonderful. So where I think we’re at now, which is super exciting, is that we’re finally starting to see innovation emerge on the landscape. So at the Henry Stewart event, this year, I was able to unveil how there’s a very distinct inflection point in the content pipeline. And it’s the handoff where we go from the creative world, into the business world. And so if you put picture it on a linear, any on a linear line, there is a, you know, margin on the horizon, where we go from the creative world to the business world. And all that we have seen for years has been about that business point onward.
Charles Duncan 9:34 You’re talking about CMS, you’re talking about content delivery networks [CDN], we’re talking about layouts and how we enrich the content for delivery. But up until this year, we weren’t really seeing anything upstream being innovated on the creative side. So that’s where this year we were finally able to unleash a wave of interest. That starts looking at DAM purely from the artists perspective, imagine putting yourself in the artists’ seat through their creative tool. And they’re now able to start thinking that the the creative strokes that they’re making, the textures they’re making, the branded palettes they’re making are just seamlessly flowing all the way out into the experience, like literally from their desktop, they can now start to draw. And it just flows entirely through the pipeline. Where DAM is just like this conduit that’s taking us from the artistic world, into the business world. And so for the artists, this is fantastic. Because really, the artists get to now connect with their customer in a way that they haven’t connected before. Because what they’re doing is they’re able to go into their creative tool, make changes and see it immediately materialize as they’re coming in doing their comp… composition. And this is the first time you know they’ve ever been able to see this. So it’s fantastic that we are looking at it from the creative perspective, from the experience of where the experience where it manifests from, that they are able to then touch that piece of art and watch it flow in real time all the way out to the consumer.
Listen to Denise Bastien talk about Digital Asset Management
Here are the questions answered:
How are you involved with Digital Asset Management?
How does a Museum of Art and Design use Digital Asset Management?
What are the biggest challenges and successes you’ve seen with 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 Denise Bastien.
Henrik de Gyor (0:07): Denise, how are you involved with Digital Asset Management?
Denise Bastien (0:11): Thank you, Henrik for having me speak with you today and I’m excited about our podcast. Let me tell you a little bit about my background. I am the registrar for collection information at the RISD Museum also known as the Museum of Art at the Rhode Island School of Design. And in that capacity, I administer the museum’s collection information and oversee the Digital Asset Management in the integration of assets and information into our museum operations. And in this capacity, I ensure that digital documentation on the collection meets appropriate collection management, legal, security, cataloguing, publication and preservation standards and requirements. And I’m just going to give you a little brief intro to the RISD Museum in case our listeners aren’t familiar. We were established in 1877 as part of a vibrant community of stewards represented in art from diverse cultures from ancient time to the present. Because of our deep connection to the Rhode Island School of Design, one of the most highly regarded schools of Art and Design in the country, we offer a unique approach to experiencing art, whether it be through our gallery interpretations, our talks, our hands on activities, our workshops, the RISD museum visitor not only observes the significant objects of Art and Design, but they learn about the process and techniques of making art from the hand and the mind of the artist. So our philosophy is a driving force is that our approach to our partnership, our programmings in exhibitions, we also aspire to create an accessible and inclusive environment that fosters meaningful relationships across all of our communities. And the RISD Museum is committed to deliberately, consistently and compassionately confronting racism and injustice in any form. We are a midsize Museum, we employ about 100 staff members along with numerous docents, freelance artist educators, and we serve approximately 125,000 visitors a year. And we roughly hold about 100,000 objects in this comprehensive collection of Art and Design. We also provide free access to our digital images of public domain works in the collection for any purpose. We want our collection, obviously, and our scholarship and interpretive content to be accessed and distributed and reused by everyone.
Denise Bastien (2:39): So where am I on this journey? I began my DAMS journey at the Museum about 18 years ago, when we made the transition from shooting film, to direct digital capture. And at that time, it was the first time when the semi-professional cameras were digital capture cameras were in the marketplace. And but it was also at a time when there was no Digital Asset Management systems really in the marketplace. So at that time, and still today, the museum photographers fall under my management. And we also at that time, had a collection system that was capable of associating JPEGs of our objects, our exhibitions, our conservation publication, and event records in the system. So we quietly built a critical mass of high resolution professionally shot digital images, looking at emerging standards that were coming out of the National Institute for Standards (NIST) and some of best practices that were coming out of these really early initiatives at creating and digitizing from a direct digital capture. So as we began to introduce these digital files into our collection system, we are also able to bring in the work of our registrar’s, our three curators, our conservation and our art handlers, all being now able to use our images of our collection and their daily work, as well as being able to distribute them for print publication primarily. And that’s how we quickly expanded our user base into the educators, our marketing staff and our graphic designers. So now we’re like 15 years later. We’ve also gone through two previous migrations of our collection information system. We’ve designed and relaunched our webs platform three times. And once again, we’re taking on another migration, funded largely in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services, is a federal program which offers grants to museums to build capacity, increased public service, and public access.
Henrik de Gyor (4:51): Denise, how does a Museum of Art and Design use Digital Asset Management?
Denise Bastien (4:56): So this is in this iteration, we’re tackling our biggest and most ambitious technology project today, we will be incorporating select information from each of these three systems, our collection information system, the Digital Asset Management system, and our web platform. And we’re going to use these, what we’re really envision is creating a almost like a triad or a triangle, that each system will be using be used for what it does best. And that we will be pushing and pulling data between each system that’s common and needed in each system. For example, all of our we are having to done that we had to create an integration concept. So all of our collection centric information is administered and stored, entered, shared through that collection information system. All the digital assets will be administered, entered, stored and shared through the Digital Asset Management system. So what happens is, it’s not just you go to one system for your digital asset, you go to the other system for your information about the object, or on the object. In this case, we’re engineering with our vendors, through our API’s, because all of these three systems will be web platforms, we are using API to be able to take the content about and of the object that would be sent to the digital asset itself that represents as a surrogate of that object, and would embed all of the identification information that’s needed there. And then some select technical information, and rights information will come back to the record in the collection information system. And then the data for that object, let’s say it either is going to go to our website directly, or it’s going to a path. We’re going to have a path coming from the Digital Asset Management system and a path coming from the collection information system.
Denise Bastien (7:06): So that’s where we are. And then once we committed to this concept, we identified, as I said, all these fields, and by and push and pull between systems, with the ultimate goal of making sure that we are we have the most accurate information, and we are reducing redundant work. And it allows people to work in the systems that they primarily work in.
Denise Bastien (7:31): So our first goal, in that in this new iteration, was to begin the process of transferring and migrating our older SQL based database, that is a collection information system, we had to select a Digital Asset Management system. And in that selection process, we had to have make sure that we could do this concept that we want it.
Denise Bastien (7:59): So right now we’ve managed for years, for almost 18 years, we’ve managed the assets using strict control over metadata. We keep it in a foldering system on a network shared drive. And so you can imagine now that we’re into, you know, 18 to 19 terabytes worth of assets, we can no longer do it in this sort of manual method. So that’s where the Digital Asset Management System came in.
Denise Bastien (8:30): Plus, we were also being hindered by the fact that we didn’t have an API platform for our collection management system. So that’s what put us here today.
Denise Bastien (8:42): So that’s how we’re going to use it. It’s going to be considered like part of the ecosystem of our work. As many of your listeners may know, museum work largely is collaborative. People often think of the front of the house, the curator who’s acquiring objects, or the educator who’s running a program or teaching a class. But there is this whole orchestra of players in the background. And the idea here is to make sure that our Digital Asset Management requirements fit into the way people need to use their work. So largely, what the Digital Asset Management system will do for us, is give an extension to the information that we already have in the collection information system. However, there’s features and functions that the Digital Asset Management system can do that our content management system can do, such as gathering assets, collecting them being able to output them in different other kinds of software.
Denise Bastien (9:47): Searching is different people are going to be searching for what it depicts more than what it is of and so there’s many different reasons why our staff, many different staff members will use the Digital Asset Management system. We also manage all of our event program and marketing tools, and soon to be wrangling in even our graphic design files into the Digital Asset Management system. And and consequently, we’ll have also have a record in our back end, overall information central system. So that’s where we are on our journey today. And it’s very exciting.
Henrik de Gyor (10:29): Denise, what are the biggest challenges and successes you’ve seen with Digital Asset Management?
Denise Bastien (10:34): One of the largest challenges that we’ve had to face was change management. Obviously, you know, one of the things that we’re going to be asking a very high functioning staff to adapt a different workflow. While we’re doing that, we’re also trying to minimize the amount of change that will be required of them. So that’s one of the largest challenges.
Denise Bastien (11:03): And that directs us a lot in the way in which our workflow will be and is being developed and designed. Many decision makers in our institution, and like many others, typically do not use these systems. And because of that, there’s always a risk that the cost to build or implement, can overshadow the value of bringing these workflows into alignment. So that’s one thing we’re also very, has to be very present thing for us. And then beyond building, that initial integration is absorbing the increases to our operating costs for licensing and storage, once the systems are built. And then recognizing really, that these platforms will continue to change. And we must be able to meet these changing dynamics as they arise. So also keeping abreast with whatever new innovations are coming that would really enhance our work.
Denise Bastien (12:03): We also are finding one of the challenges that’s both successful is building relationships with the vendors, who can help you identify your technology solutions. Whenever you find a gap, and help you best deliver that function and capability.
Denise Bastien (12:21): One thing that we had to do, because we don’t have technologists here directly in the museum staff is bringing in outside expertise to help us and especially and for us in the Digital Asset Management system. That was the one area that no one really had any expertise to that particular software.
Denise Bastien (12:43): So we had were very strong on collection information, software knowledge, we’re very strong on web information knowledge, but we had never seen a Digital Asset Management system. So you know, we kind of went through the typical way in which a lot of institutions and agencies approach this.
Denise Bastien (13:02): They start, usually they’ll find like, a checklist of criteria, and they’ll go through and go through this really granular list of everything that they need, and check it off. And so then when you connect with a potential vendor, you’re oftentimes almost always working with a sales staff at that particular vendor. And yes, a lot of times you can see, can it do x? Can it do y? Yep, it can do e x, can it do y? But can it do it in the way that we really need it? The way we work with it every single day? And, and is it really what we expected when we first thought of it?
Denise Bastien (13:45): So again, the biggest challenge, and success is being to be very clear and articulate exactly what we envisioned the systems, the systems to do, and then getting a detailed use case or a scenario what we called it and had each vendor present it and demonstrate that. From that scenario and demonstration, we went to what we call a proof of concept stage, where we then invited the two or three top contenders to actually build a small implementation of this to show us that the system could indeed deliver all the six or seven key work tasks that we needed it to do. That was an incredibly worthwhile opportunity for us. We also had a selection team representing a survey of all of our stakeholders within the institution, and so everyone could see exactly where their work would fit in by these demonstrations. And we had two weeks, and we was called a proof of concept. Basically, it was a sandbox, we had two weeks to go in as and, you know, each user would try to do the type of task that they could do. Now regard, we all understood that there were limitations because this was just a shell that was built. But it was clear from that process where our final vendor merged from. So it was a challenge to put it together, but it was really successful, and bringing us with the confidence to know that we are getting a system that can indeed do everything that we need it to do. So that was that’s really been some of our most challenging but most rewarding work to date.
Henrik de Gyor (15:35): Denise, what advice would you like to share with DAM professionals and people aspiring to become DAM professionals?
Denise Bastien (15:41): if I had any advice to share with DAMS professionals, one of the big things, I think, is again, we don’t have an overall digital manager for all these different systems. But what we’ve done is built a team between these three systems, kind of like, we can assign, like a department chair, if you will. So you know, you have the collection management administrator, you’ve got the DAM administrator, and you’ve got the webmaster. And together, we have to keep this concept together, we have to keep informed what each system needs to do and when it needs to change so that we can maintain all of these relationships, these technical relationships, and also concept in intellectual relationships. So just, you know, kind of let down the silo, you bring down the silo you get at the table, because each one of these persons are the ones that actually know what the work that they do.
Denise Bastien (16:46): So bringing it down to like the practitioner level, that people will actually do the work and need to do the work. Having them involved in the process is critical. So I would say that’s one thing.
Denise Bastien (16:59): And I would also not be shied off to change systems. So if you’ve got a system that’s not working, or it’s only working to a particular… only does one thing well, but doesn’t do the other eight things you need very well. You know, it’s work, but it’s not insurmountable work, to change a platform or to change from one system to another. Like I said, we’ve done it numerous times. And then the key to making that successful and not harrowing, is that just having good, consistent metadata, and training your users on metadata, and both the ones that put it in, we separate the ones who put it in from the ones who use it. So you know that the people that are entering, or building records, [they] can learn the real nuances of the system, that a casual user doesn’t always bring. However, the casual user, that we’re always being driven by what they search for, how they want to ask for things, is this the proper information. So you know, the other thing that that does is assure by building to tech, this sort of different user bases is that we can have a balance between what our users need, and then you know, the rigor of keeping your metadata as tight as you can make it.
Denise Bastien (18:24): So if I were going to start in the this business again, now, I’m going to date myself because I started way back when it was only film. And, you know, it exploded when we were able to create digital information that was easily shared, and especially of our artwork, I mean, it’s tremendous for those working in the front end working with the public or public facing audiences. But it’s also a critical collection management tool for our everyday art handlers, conservators, registrar, our staff, our security staff, everyone has some function and some interface with the systems.
Denise Bastien (19:07): And so you know, you can investigate different programs. There are different professional programs emerging now at the higher Ed level. There’s a lot of professional organizations that have Digital Asset Management professionals. There’s a you know, it just is like, Henrik, you’re providing today. There’s different learning tools, webinars, and there’s all kinds of literature articles about becoming a digital asset manager. And the thing I really find exciting about it, it’s the probably one of the largest growth areas in anyone who’s interested in working with any kind of media asset. So you can do it in the commercial world. You can do it in nonprofit world. You know, you can kind of you can do it in the technical area where you can learn to build and, you know, actually use it from computing side. And some of the most exciting things that we’re seeing, and innovations that we’re seeing all surround this idea of the user experience. And largely that’s being thought of and developed as an image based or an imagery based experience. So you know, the work is going to continue to keep growing. And it’s very exciting.
Denise Bastien (20:28): If I were going to go back into museum work again, from the beginning, I would not change a thing. I would stay right in this path of information collection information, and its imagery, and all the imagery that sits aside of it. One not over the other, they really work mesh together, because you can’t have an image or a video with no information, other than, you know, just its essence. Or you can’t have a record that has no metadata. And if it has information about an object, you have nothing you don’t know who made it, you don’t know where it’s from, you don’t know what it’s made of. You don’t know where you got it. It kind of renders that object less useful than those that really have this marriage of image and information. So that’s where we are.
Henrik de Gyor (21:27): For more on this, visit anotherdampodcast.com. If you have any comments or questions, please feel free to email me at anotherdamblog@gmail.com. Thanks again.
Another DAM Podcast 