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Another DAM Podcast interview with Mark Leslie on Digital Asset Management

Transcript:

Henrik de Gyor: This is Another DAM Podcast about Digital Asset Management. I’m Henrik de Gyor.

Today, I’m speaking with Mark Leslie.

Mark, how are you?

Mark Leslie: I’m wonderful. How about yourself, how are you doing today?

Henrik de Gyor: Great. Mark, how are you involved with Digital Asset Management?

Mark Leslie: I’ve been in the graphic design space for just a little bit over 20 years now. And I go all the way back to when working even in a small design shop or an ad agency, how you would complete a project and things would get archived of onto a floppy or a zip disk, and you wanted to be able to locate those things after the fact. So building some kind of an index or having some kind of a cataloging program where at least you could find things that were offline was very important. Just as things have progressed in my career, and I’ve worked in larger volume environments, that DAM has become more and more important. That’s what DAM is all about right?

Find what you’re looking for, find the exact file at the right time, and the longer we go and the more digital anything that we have, the more important it is to be able to put your finger directly on something. Another thing that I’ve done in the last couple of years with DAM is being more involved in the community itself where I’ve been a speaker, a presenter a couple of times for Henry Stewart. DAM is an excellent opportunity, especially for companies that are looking at a challenge that they are not sure how to solve, it’s a great place to start. And I’ve also spoken and done a case study presentation at Adobe Summit this past spring. Just writing articles, and blog posts and spending a lot of time thinking about what this space can do, where we are right now, and what’s coming next.

Henrik de Gyor: Mark, how does one of the largest sportswear manufacturers use Digital Asset Management?

Mark Leslie: Well basically our company was responsible for apparel and headwear. A lot of it was for what we call licensed properties or a professional sport. So it’s things worn by the fans to celebrate their teams. And even at times, authentic apparel worn on the field. The way our DAM was used is basically as a collaboration platform throughout our product creation process, end to end. It basically sorts out into two large buckets. On one side you have the kind of technical specification documents that drive our manufacturing processes, and on the other side you have product photography. So all these things that get provided to retail partners and business to business that allow demand creation, and we literally would see it on a retailer’s website or in a print ad.

So we’re basically looking at that in a way, kind of almost like a closed circuit TV. It’s not necessarily driving any kind of public visibility, it does downstream of us, but we’re providing all that content and generating all that content so that it can be used to drive a couple of processes. I’ll tell you one of the things about DAM that we picked up early on in my time with the company that was actually a great side effect of DAM. For one professional sports league, we were putting together presentation boards that would serve a couple of purposes. One would be to take any given style and show for that product season what it would look like in all teams, and then we would have another type of presentation that would say, “For this team,” these are all the styles that are offered in the season and how they would all look together as a collection.

And we were new to our DAM implementation at that time, this was many years ago. There was something about that process, which by the way was entirely manual. So we were taking images from DAM and placing them into a document, and doing this by hand, things would be stable, and it would be great, and you’d come back maybe a week or two later and something about the way those images were being placed that it just wasn’t being honored. So we ended up having to recreate those documents several times during that season. It didn’t affect our ability to deliver. We still hit all of our deadlines, but in the back of my mind I kept thinking, “There’s got to be a better way.” So as a result coming out of that, we did internal development for automation tools and client-side automation that was able to eventually assist creation of all of those technical documents that go out to the factories. It was able to populate pages and catalogs that we used for our sales and marketing materials, and all those things are very, very embedded in the environment.

It’s something that when you’re working at scale, you worry about how long something takes, even if it’s just a short amount of time, you’re doing it a lot of times. And when you do something a lot, is there a way to not have to do it manually? And that was a great learning coming out of having a very powerful DAM at our disposal. I’ll give you an example of some of things that we in addition to the product photography and the technical specification documents that we save in the DAM, we also, because we’re dealing with professional sports leagues and teams, we have a lot of partner identity or logo information that’s stored in there as well. That’s used by all of the design and production teams to go through, pull out what they need as a raw material or a source image to start a design or to complete work on a design.

So there’s a lot of that information stored in there as well. And to put some numbers around things, if you think just in terms of the product photography, every week there’s something between 2500 and 4500 new product photos generated that all come into the DAM, need to have the proper meta-data associated with them, they need to be reviewed and approved and be pushed off to where they can be published and available to our downstream audience, to our retail partners. So a lot of files moving through that system. And if it wasn’t for DAM I just don’t know at that volume how we would be able to accomplish what we do.

Henrik de Gyor: What are the biggest challenges and successes you’ve seen with Digital Asset Management?

Mark Leslie: I think one of the biggest challenges is looking at DAM … let’s say that you’ve got an established platform and you know what your capabilities are, there will come the time where your challenged with … the DAM will enable us to do, say fill in the blank, this example. And what that may require is some kind of sweeping change in the way that the business process is conducted or at least just the way that steps the order that work is done. Sometimes it can eliminate steps, it can eliminate several steps in a process. You might actually even be able to automate a large chunk of the work. But it’s being able to raise that awareness and to get the business to commit to the significant change that might have to happen in order to get that payback on the other side.

And just that human element of being able to walk everybody through that landscape and help them to understand. Another thing that’s a challenge is being able to look at the type of assets that are generated throughout a full life cycle of something. Let me step back and talk about full lifecycle. There is an originally an idea for something that’s going to be eventually created as an asset. Someone somewhere says, “You know what I need? I need a visual that is,” again fill in the blank. Somebody writes a creative brief, there is a marketing plan, whatever it is, something creates the need for an asset. Assets just don’t show up on their own. Somebody asked for it, there was a need, there was an ask.

So from the moment that that work begins on that asset, it’s life cycle has started. And all the way out the point where it gets used for the last time, those are the two goal posts. And in between that is the full life cycle of the asset. The temptation can be a lot of times for a business process to combine several things together into a document and you end up with maybe the need later to try to extract things back out of that document because you need just this piece or just this element. And you can actually stop that from being a problem if you go back and say, “What are the kind of things that typically we might extract now, and is there a way to save that as a component or an element so that I could just pull that up on-demand?” And even better, it’s not me pulling it up on-demand, it’s an automated process pulling that up on demand and providing it for whatever the appropriate situation is. As far as a success with DAM.

There was a period here a couple years back where we had been in a previous DAM platform for many years. The need had come to modernize. So we went through the process of evaluating what was available in the market, vendor selection and all of that stuff. But knowing that we were such a high volume art operation, we basically had to … it’s kind of like doing engine work on a helicopter while it’s flying. We had to continue being able to fly, we had to continue to deliver product. We could not stop, land and wait. And we went through that process even though we had a very tight timeline, we were able to extract an export what we needed from the old system to configure the new system, bring the assets in and get up and running with very little disruption in the business. And I would consider that to be a very large success.

Henrik de Gyor: And what advice would you like to share with DAM professionals and people aspiring to become DAM professionals?

Mark Leslie: I think the biggest thing about wanting to get into this space, and it may not just apply to DAM but it certainly applies directly to DAM, is that you want to be curious. Your curiosity and wanting to know how things work, and wanting to know why things are a certain way, and then asking more questions after that will take you a long way. Because, one of the temptations especially when you’re dealing with technology or a software platform, is to look at features, or to say, “Oh that, shiny.” And you want to be able to take advantage of what you see, “Oh, imagine what we could do with that tool” That’s actually the 180 degrees from where you need to be. First of all, you really need to understand your business. You need to understand where those assets come from, how they get brought into being, what’s being done to them throughout their life cycle, and who the audience is downstream, who needs access, who shouldn’t have access? And if you understand the business, the next step is to say, “Now what’s the problem that we’re trying to solve?”

And if you really understand the business, you ask a lot of questions because you’re curious, and you’ve looked at the key problems that you want to be able to solve, and what it’s going to look like when they are solved, then kind of figure out what technology solutions fit into that to make that happen is easy. If you go about it the other way it’s going to be very hard and it’s probably not going to work very well. So if you’re a curious person, and you ask a lot of questions and you use the discoveries from those questions to drive you to new discoveries, you’re already set up.

Henrik de Gyor: Well thanks, Mark.

Mark Leslie: Thank you.

Henrik de Gyor: For more on this, visit anotherdampodcast.com. If you have any comments or questions, please send me an email at anotherdamblog@gmail.com. Thanks again.


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NYC DAM Meetup on Digital Asset Management and Collaboration with IT

On September 27, NYC DAM Meetup organized a panel discussion on Digital Asset Management and Collaboration with IT with the following panelists:

  • Terrance Knight – Technician III at CDS
  • Rob Tarleton – Chief Technology Officer at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts
  • Roy Walter – Consultant, Digital Media Solutions
  • Jen McGrath – Senior Director Creative Operations
  • Raj Kumar – Enterprise Architect

In case you missed this NYC DAM Meetup or want to review this discussion again, you can download the full, unedited audio recording (Duration:1 hour 32 minutes)

Download MP3 audio recording


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Another DAM Podcast interview with Jan Delos Santos on Digital Asset Management

Transcript:

Henrik de Gyor: This is Another DAM podcast about Digital Asset Management. I’m Henrik de Gyor. Today I’m speaking with Jan Delos Santos. How are you involved with the Digital Asset Management?

Jan Delos Santos: I’ve been involved with Digital Asset Management for over a decade now. Currently, I’m the digital asset manager for RPA, which is Rubin Postaer & Associates. Prior to my stint here, I’ve worked as the Digital Asset Management for Saatchi & Saatchi LA for two years. Prior to that, I was an art producer/digital asset manager at TBWA\CHIAT\DAY for about eight years. Really much of my experience has really been on the agency side of things. Back in 2003, when I first became involved with DAM, I was just starting out as an art producer and was responsible for commissioning various artists for the different campaigns that came through. The agency needed a way to keep track of these assets that were being produced, especially as the amount of digital files grew. Because I was one of the most tech-savvy members of the team, they pretty much charged me with creating the system. I worked with our internal IT department at that time to create an in-house solution.

I was hired by RPA to revamp the system they currently have and just develop their workflow processes for DAM. Prior to my arrival here, there wasn’t anyone devoted solely to the Digital Asset Management who understood the particular needs of an advertising agency. The system was basically being used as file storage. The taxonomy was out of date. There was no overall structure to the system. Since there was no clean ingestion workflow, many of the assets in the DAM were either incorrect or never even made it to the DAM. That’s been my challenge to leverage the technology already in place, to introduce some best practices, and to broaden the agency’s understanding of the benefits of having a DAM. Anytime you’re going through this type of DAM revamp, restructure, and expansion, it’s never a quick fix. It’s been really important to me, through this transition, to work nimbly and have flexibility, but at the same, stick to a well-thought-out roadmap for implementing the new processes, technologies, and operating procedures.

Henrik de Gyor: How does an independent advertising agency use Digital Asset Management?

Jan Delos Santos: As a creative agency, we’re responsible for generating many individual visual assets used. Even though we’re an independent agency, we still have to work with a number of different client partners that rely on the assets we create. Because we have so many different teams, clients, or client partners that need these assets, we use DAM to keep track of the product metadata, usage rights, and to distribute those assets across the network. In that may, being in an independent agency is not that different from working at other agencies. We run into similar issues and have similar needs, so standardizing our workflow and getting users to adopt the system is key. Much of my experience has been with the various automotive clients, so it’s vital that they DAM keeps track of the product information for the vehicles featured in the assets. What’s product correct for one model year could change in the next. Depending upon the nature of the marketing, users may need a vehicle with very specific options. By centralizing and keeping these assets on the DAM, it ensures that users are locating the correct image for their needs. Also, it helps to make the branding consistent across the different media channels, whether it’s print, digital, or social media.

Henrik de Gyor: Great. What are the biggest challenges and successes you’ve seen with Digital Asset Management?

Jan Delos Santos: I think that although awareness is growing, I still find that many companies don’t understand what Digital Asset Management is and what the benefits are for having a DAM system in place, or if they have heard of DAM, they focus all their efforts solely on the technology when really there’s so much more to it than that. You can have the greatest technology in the world, but you still have to adapt it to your needs, especially as they change, and have people behind it to support, maintain, and grow the system. It’s not uncommon for a digital asset manager to be hired onto to clean up a previous situation. Often those responsible for creating the system don’t communicate clearly to all necessary holders involved, so no one utilizes the system either correctly or at all.

In one case, I had to cull down the required meta data fields from 140. After meeting with different stakeholders, I quickly realized that none of the users ingesting assets had the time nor were there a need for this huge set of data. I was able to pare it down to the essentials, and I reduced the number to 38. By doing this, it made the process significantly more efficient and made the option of this step less of a concern for others. Because I was focused on their needs and valued their input, those stakeholders became more willing to work with me and through me to solve future problems and eliminate future technical roadblocks.

I think that success for me happens as our user adoption grows. I love it when the light bulb clicks on for people when they work with their DAM and realize how it can make their work life easier. They’re no longer bogged down by spending so much time digging for files, and they can find what they need quickly and can move on to the more important stuff.

Henrik de Gyor: Great. Sounds like a great investment. What advice would you like to share with DAM professionals and people aspiring to become DAM professionals?

Jan Delos Santos: As much as the industry is growing, I still think it’s a niche area that even some long-time agency veterans aren’t aware of. There’s certainly not a lot of information to new, prospective candidates unless they have been in this type of role previously. Most digital asset managers don’t start out as such, and they’re coming into the field from very diverse disciplines. I think that it’s important for someone aspiring to work in DAM to always be curious. You never know what experiences will help you along the way, so you have to be open to a variety of challenges. It’s not just learning about new innovations and technology. You have to be proactive and get to know your users and their needs. Also, never underestimate the value of the human part of DAM. The more you’re able to connect with people, the more successful you’ll be.

Henrik de Gyor: Great. Thanks, Jan.

Jan Delos Santos: Thanks for having me.

Henrik de Gyor: 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.


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Another DAM Podcast interview with Liana Cave on Digital Asset Management

Transcript:

Henrik de Gyor: This is Another DAM Podcast about digital asset management. I’m Henrik de Gyor. Today, I’m speaking with Liana Cave. Liana, how are you?

Liana Cave: I’m great. How are you today?

Henrik: Good. Liana, how are you involved with digital asset management?

Liana: I work for KFC global in the marketing department. I am in charge of our digital assets. I’ve been in this role for almost 2 years.

Henrik: How does the world’s largest restaurant company use digital asset management?

Liana: [01:00] That’s a great question. I can only speak to KFC and our journey. Currently, we’re in the middle of implementation. We are about a month out from Go Live. This is going to be our first global digital asset management system. This will serve as the single global resource for all of our offices. I want to give you a little bit of a scope for some people who might not know KFC outside of the US, because a lot of time that seems to be quite a big surprise is that we have over 19,000 stores, and that we are in 125 countries. Like I said, we are in the middle of implementation. I’m really excited about it. I wanted to share the name with you, because it just got approved, which is “The Bucket.”

Henrik: Liana, what are the biggest challenges and successes you’ve seen with digital asset management?

Liana: I think one of our biggest challenges has been managing the project. Luckily, we’ve had immense executive support, and a lot of the different functions are really wanting to get involved. Just the manage expectations has been a big challenge, and also to not try to do everything all at once. I really try to develop the scope in phases. I think that’s going to be what is going to lead to our success, is just taking the elephant one bite at a time, as they say.

We have had such immense support and excitement from the world. I think that often times that you’re implementing a DAM, you are faced with a challenge of the change. Right now, I have felt nothing but the outpouring of support from all of our markets excited for this, which just leads to me being excited myself.

Henrik: [02:00] What advice would you like to share with DAM professionals and people aspiring to become DAM professionals?

Liana: I think the DAM journey is a different one for each individual. I’ve always joked that it’s my accidental career. You know, when I first started in this, I didn’t know what I was doing. Here I am, 15 years later, and still working digital asset management. I think that we all just got here a different way. I think each way that each person got here is just as well respected in the community that we have. I think that it’s an exciting profession to be in. I think it’s great to always connect through podcasts, through conferences, and all these different ways that I think it’s so helpful to not be isolated, because a lot of us are often the only person who are doing it in the company. I think the DAM community is a strong one. I suggest being involved in it.

Henrik: Well, thanks Liana.

Liana: Well, thank you.

Henrik: [03:00] For more on this, visit anotherdamblog.com. For this and 185 podcast episodes, visit anotherdampodcast.com. If you have any comments or questions, please feel free to email me at anotherdamblog@gmail.com. Thanks again.