How are you involved with Digital Asset Management?
Why does a national chain of merchandise stores use Digital Asset Management?
What advice would you like to give to 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 William Bitunjac.
William, how are you? William Bitunjac: [0:09] Very good. Henrik: [0:10] William, how are you involved with Digital Asset Management? William: [0:12] At my company, I’m the Program Manager for all content management
tools for a large ecommerce program currently. I actually built the
Digital Asset Management content management strategy for our print marketing
lines prior to this, so converging on an enterprise view of content management
and Digital Asset Management. Picking apart the individual pieces, both
print and online individually, but now with an opportunity to look at converging
into single enterprise vision for it. Really, more heavily on the business side, in
terms of driving out strategy and then some of the delivery team responsibilities
as well. Henrik: [0:52] Why does a national chain of merchandise stores use Digital
Asset Management? William: [0:57] There’s a lot of numbers of reasons. Some of them are very similar.
It’s money savings. You only need to shoot a photo once, and you can reuse
it a lot of times. A lot of the reasons that have always been in the business case
for Digital Asset Management, not reshooting assets, photography that you’ve
lost, not spending time looking for things, some tighter control of brands, so
you’re only working on approved assets, approved content. [1:31] As I’ve looked
at it, beyond the initial benefits of creating libraries, centralization of knowledge,
and sharing, I’ve found incredible opportunity throughout automation. Tying
it with other content so some of the manual production work of getting assets
into layouts or to websites, managing workflows, managing approvals, the act
of centralizing assets and metadata has been an incredible benefit to further
automation.
[2:04] Getting the centralized library offers money savings on the business case
is giving tens of millions of dollars to the organization through asset reuse,
speed to market, and delivery of marketing materials. Instead of spending all of
your time trying to find the things that you need, creating new experiences has
become almost turnkey. The level of effort goes into creating incredible experiences,
not finding the materials that you need. Henrik: [2:32] What advice would you like to give to DAM professionals and
people aspiring to become DAM professionals? William: [2:37] My advice really comes from how I came to the position, into the
industry. I didn’t come as a career technologist. It really wasn’t my vision and my
dream to spend my entire life creating content management platforms. I was an
end user. I was a creative director. I was a photographer. I had a lot of passion
around knowledge management, but I was initially in a position to be one of the
beneficiaries of a system like these. [3:13] Staying close to your users, monitoring
what they’re using, keeping track of the strategic direction of the organization.
Again, the big benefit that I’ve seen has been turnkey generation of incredible
new experiences. If you know, strategy wise, where the business is going,
where the assets are coming from, you can actually turn your asset management
system into an innovation engine.
[3:38] In order to do that, you almost have to be less interested in the technology
and more interested in the business and the business users. The technology
becomes a tool to drive out people’s dreams. For me, my teams come from the
business, I spend my time with the business, and I have really, really, really, good
delivery partners who take care of the technology bits for me.
[4:01] Playing with the technology and learning about as many platforms as
possible is the second piece of advice. There are a lot of different ways to get
things done. The framework in most of the enterprise applications allows you a
lot of different ways to do things. If you know what’s in the toolbox, you can put
together just about any toy you want. Henrik: [4:23] Thanks, William. William: [4:25] Sure. Henrik: [4:25] For more on Digital Asset Management, log onto AnotherDAMblog.com. Thanks, again.
How are you involved with Digital Asset Management?
How does a broadcast media organization use Digital Asset Management?
You are going to be a graduate of the MADAM program at King’s College of London. Is this Master’s Program preparing you for the working world of Digital Asset Management?
What advice would you like to share with DAM Professionals and people aspiring to become DAM Professionals?
Transcript:
Henrik de Gyor: [0:01] This is Another DAM Podcast about Digital Asset
Management. I’m Henrik de Gyor. Today I’m speaking with Romney Whitehead.
Romney, how are you? Romney Whitehead: [0:10] I’m very well, thank you, and thank you for
inviting me. Henrik: [0:12] No problem. Romney, how are you involved with Digital Asset
Management? Romney: [0:17] I began in Digital Asset Management about 10 years ago at
BBC Worldwide. Within there, I was working in the magazines division, focused
on brand management and distribution of magazines globally. My team was
involved in uploading of the assets, rights management, metadata management,
and then distribution of the assets within BBC Worldwide itself, and then
globally out to 53 territories to our licensees and syndication partners. [0:48]
Recently, in the last month, in fact, I’ve joined NET-A-PORTER GROUP. That’s
made up of NET-A-PORTER , MR PORTER , and THE OUTNET. They’re an online
luxury fashion retailer. We’re at the stage there where we’re choosing a solution,
at the moment, to manage a very extensive range of assets, from product photography
to video to print and online magazines, and TV outputs as well. Very
interesting times. Henrik: [1:22] Excellent. How does a broadcast media organization use Digital
Asset Management? Romney: [1:29] In my experience, probably looking at it in two ways, one from
the comment workflows, and then probably from a preservation point of view.
From the workflow perspective, what a DAM solution offers a media company
is the ability to manage the content from the point that it’s created to the point
where it goes out to the consumer. [1:55] You could have the ingestion of content
immediately into a system. You could have multiple editing suites dealing
with that content. You can then have the input of the photography unit, if they’re
sending out stills or they’re sending out merchandise related to a particular
show or a product. Then moving through the life cycle through to the points
where that content goes out to a third party broadcaster or to a consumer.
[2:23] Then from the preservation point of view, especially from the point of view
of public broadcasting, what DAM offers is the ability to preserve their content
but also go back through their archives, perhaps finding a back catalogue of
content there. Some of it may be in technology which is obsolete if it’s been
produced over a very, very long period of time.
[2:50] If they’ve got a DAM system, then they’ve got the ability to go back and
retrieve that content. Preserve it at the same time, and then offer new outputs
to consumers. And also, historical value, massive historical value, especially for
broadcasters that have been running for 60 or 70 years.
[3:12] I think a DAM solution, in that sense, means that they never need to lose
material ever again. Whereas in the past it’s, obviously, been stored in dusty
cupboards and left to really not be looked after, unfortunately. Henrik: [3:27] Romney, you were going to be a graduate of the MADAM
Program, if I understand correctly, at King’s College of London. Is this Master’s
program helping you to prepare for the working world of Digital Asset
Management? Romney: [3:40] I have to say I’m keeping my fingers crossed that everything
goes well for September when I finish my dissertation. Working in the world
of DAM for so many years, you could almost have that thought, “What else is
there to learn?” [3:55] But I’m a great believer in that there’s always something to
learn, especially if you’re approaching a subject from a particular point of view. If
you’re in the commercial world or if you’re in preservation or library or cultural or
heritage, there’s always something to learn from another area.
[4:12] Where this course has been very beneficial, I have to say, is I’ve come
from a commercial background. What I’ve learned from it is the best practices
that certain other areas have, areas like archive or societies, are really very, very
useful for the commercial world.
[4:31] Things like having extremely in-depth metadata, something which isn’t just
focused on your business but is actually focused on a larger scale to allow an
interoperability between what you have and what other libraries have, or what
other institutions have. Things like Linked Data for, first of all, the semantic web,
which has been a long time coming but is really starting to accelerate now.
[4:57] Preservation strategies, which in the commercial world, I feel preservation
is a bit of an afterthought. But actually, it can prove hugely valuable because
you may have content which is sitting in your archives, or sitting in your DAM
system. Nobody knows what somebody is going to want in 20 or 30 years’ time. Henrik: [5:20] True. Romney: [5:21] Rather than just ignoring it, as I feel some commercial institutions
may well do, because it’s costly to keep all that data and to manage all
that data, there needs to be some kind of preservation strategy there which will
allow that content to be opened up in the future if it needs to be, if somebody
wants it. [5:42] I think during the degree, I’ve been very reassured that with every
class and module that I’ve taken, there really was a direct link with what I did on
a day-to-day basis, and what I do on a day-to-day basis. It’s certainly refreshed
my view of the DAM world, and it’s given me some good ideas to take forward.
[6:02] It’s very nice also to have a recognized qualification within DAM, because
I’ve not really seen something out there. You can have people who’ve worked in
this field for a long time, and I can say to people what I do when they look at me
as though I have two heads. Henrik: [chuckles] [6:17] Romney: [6:19] So, it’s nice to be able to say, “Oh, there is this here.” But the
fact that my mother will tease me for being a MADAM, and perhaps I will be at
the end. And that’s perhaps illegal in some countries. Henrik: [laughs] [6:30] Romney: [6:32] But I would most certainly recommend the course, and the
college and the staff have been wonderful. I think it’s really opened my eyes, I’d
have to say. It’s been very, very good. Henrik: [6:43] Excellent. And, just to clarify, we’re speaking of the MADAM
program, which stands for the Master in the Arts of Digital Asset Management
Program at King’s College of London, correct? Romney: [6:50] Yes. [laughs] That’s great, please. Henrik: [6:55] Not any other madams, necessarily. Romney: [6:56] Yes, it doesn’t lead to anything else. Henrik: [laughs] [6:58] Best of luck with that. Romney: [7:01] Thank you. Henrik: [7:02] Let me ask you the last question, of course. What advice would
you like to give to DAM professionals and people aspiring to become DAM
professionals? Romney: [7:10] Well, one would hope that current DAM professionals know
what they’re doing, so I would not profess to be so omnipotent to be able to
give advice to them. But I think people who want to get into the field perhaps
don’t understand what it’s about. It’s a great field to be in, because it involves
a massive range of knowledge and lots of challenges as well. [7:34] As a DAM
manager, I think you need to know what every department in the company
that you’re working in is doing, because DAM will touch every department in
some way. Maybe extensively, it may be very small. Because of that, I think
the key part of DAM is not necessarily the technical solution, but the ability to
communicate.
[7:57] You need to empathize with people. You need to be able to sit down with
an individual and ask them what their pain points are, and understand them. Be
able to reassure them that you know what they’re talking about, and that whatever
solution you’re putting in place is actually going to help them.
[8:15] You have to give people something tangible, because every individual will
use a system differently. So you can’t build a system for one set of users, and
you cannot focus on one set of users, either. You’re not building the system for
just a CEO who wants to save money, or for the clerk who wants to save time in
filing things. You’re building it for everybody in between as well.
[8:38] So, I think the ability to manage people and their expectations, their fear
of change, what their daily stresses are, will make you a good Digital Asset
Manager. The ability to communicate, I think that’s what you need to always
keep in mind, always. Henrik: [8:53] Excellent. Did you want to share your blog that you have as well? Romney: [laughs] [8:58] My blog, which I’ve been very remiss at keeping up, but
it’s damitall.WordPress.com Henrik: [9:08] Excellent. There’s a link to that on my blog at AnotherDAMblog.com. Thank you so much, Romney. Romney: [9:15] Thank you very much. Henrik: [9:16] For more on Digital Asset Management, you can log onto AnotherDAMblog.com.
Another DAM Podcast 