Another DAM Podcast

Audio about Digital Asset Management

Category Archives: Reuse


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Another DAM Podcast interview with Magan Arthur on Digital Asset Management

Magan Arthur discusses Digital Asset Management

Here are the questions asked:

  • How are you involved with Digital Asset Management?
  • You wrote an article titled “…Just what is a DAM?” Is this definition static or changing? Why?
  • What advice would you like to give 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 Magan Arthur.
Magan, how are you?
Magan Arthur: [0:11] I’m doing very well. Thank you.
Henrik: [0:13] Magan, how are you involved in Digital Asset Management?
Magan: [0:16] I’ve been involved for a very, very long time going back now over
10 years to one of the startup companies in California. We were at the front lines
when Digital Asset Management was an acronym that was created. [0:34] The
claim to fame there was they produced the first really Web based Digital Asset
Management tool. It was around 2000 when client server and VOI P was the big
change over.
Henrik: [0:51] Magan, you wrote an article entitled, “Just What is DAM?” Is this
definition static or changing, and why?
Magan: [1:00] Yeah, I think that it’s still quite relevant. I do notice that [laughs]
on Wikipedia that article is still referenced. I believe that we still see confusion
out there between what is traditional content management and the CMS software
world. [1:25] Often Digital Asset Management is used in such a broad way
that it encompasses everything, including even the document management
systems, nowadays rarely referenced.
[1:38] By the time that I wrote the article, document management was still also
a big piece of the content management pie. I believe that the article still holds
value and that it really differentiates DAM from all these other tools, focusing
on management media rich libraries versus templates for publication versus
documents.
[2:06] I think there’s still a value in defining DAM in comparison to those
other tools.
Henrik: [2:12] What advice would you like to give DAM professionals and
people aspiring to become DAM professionals?
Magan: [2:19] I’ve been thinking about that ever since you sent me those questions
up front. I would say, for DAM professionals, I have the similar advice I
would give to most of the clients that I speak to when we speak about DAM.
[2:39] DAM means so much to so many people. To be an expert in all of them is
probably impossible.
[2:48] If you look at Digital Asset Management as this core capability of managing
in which media in libraries is mostly geared for reuse of content much more
so than for direct publishing and consumption by end users, that again would
differentiate here the CMS versus a DAM.
[3:11] Even in that moment, we have now the wide spread acceptance of Digital
Asset Management technologies in broadcast and in parts of Hollywood in
movie production. I would say that we see very specific requirements and needs
around just that specific area.
[3:32] The news organization would have very different needs and uses for DAM
than the newspaper photo archive.
[3:41] I would say that one advice I could give to DAM professionals is be sure
what your specialty should be, because setting up these very different systems
for different user types and different asset types really bears specific requirement
and requires knowledge that not everybody has readily at hand.
[4:05] The other aspect, one of the questions that I mostly ponder with many of
my larger clients, is the overall Digital Asset Management and reuse strategy.
Looking at large marketing organizations that often touch all kinds of assets, be
it video, be it banner ads, and content that is more geared towards that use or
be it still print.
[4:36] Photo libraries always come into play. I think that one really has to be clear
about what type of skills and services one wants to provide. Is it the very specific
implementation and skills around a very specific content type?
[4:53] Is it more the strategic aspect of looking at a larger ecosystem of many
different content types that come together? Here I would say the complexity of
consolidating taxonomies enterprises and so on, come into play.
[5:11] I’m not sure if I’m clear or not in my answer but I think the long and short
of it is, be clear what it is that you want to offer, and where you want to specialize.
Are you a strategist? Or are you an expert in a specific arena?
[5:25] There’s so much work out there that any expert in any one arena will probably
have plenty of work. Specifically, if they do a good job. I believe that you
can only do a good job, if you start specializing.
Henrik: [5:38] Excellent. Thank you very much.
Magan: [5:38] My pleasure.
Henrik: [5:39] For more on Digital Asset Management, log onto
anotherdamblog.com. Thanks again.

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Another DAM Podcast interview with Ron Richardson on Digital Asset Management

Ron Richardson discusses Digital Asset Management

Here are the questions asked:

  • How are you involved with Digital Asset Management?
  • How does an energy company use a DAM?
  • What were the drivers for your organization to get a DAM?
  • What advice would you like to give to DAM professionals and people aspiring to become DAM Professionals?

Transcript:

Henrik de Gyor: [0:02] This is Another DAM Podcast about Digital Asset
Management. I am Henrik de Gyor. Today I’m speaking with Ron Richardson.
Ron, how are you?
Ron Richardson: [0:10] Doing great. It’s nice and warm here in the Bay Area.
Henrik: [0:14] Excellent. Ron, how are you involved with Digital Asset
Management?
Ron: [0:18] I’m a Digital Asset Management Analyst for the Chevron
Corporation, and I have a specific focus on the metadata used in the application
we have.
Henrik: [0:28] Great. How does an energy company use Digital Asset
Management?
Ron: [0:32] Well, we have over 60,000 employees and as you can imagine there
are a lot of images out there, everything from oil rigs to stock images of offices,
and then we’ve got a lot of design pieces and a lot of presentations. So there is
a great need throughout the corporation for images to be used in this collateral
in presentations, and then also there’s a need from specific groups to store it,
manage it, and keep track of it within the application.
Henrik: [1:07] Great. What were the drivers for your organization to get a DAM?
Ron: [1:12] Of course, there’s the attempt to get a good return on their investment
on images that were taken by vendors for Chevron and then also for the
stock images that we were licensing. But a larger image is really around compliance.
[1:29] The obvious is retention, but also risk management. We were trying
to educate people on using images properly, not taking images from the web,
not cannibalizing old presentations where they don’t know the rights.
[1:45] Within our application, we can manage the rights. We have a pretty sophisticated
metadata set up where we can specify the type of rights that each
image has and put in approvals for images, if there are conditions related to
them. Really, trying to mitigate risk and liability so that people aren’t violating
copyright by using images improperly.
Henrik: [2:11] Excellent. What advice would you like to give to DAM professionals
and people aspiring to become DAM professionals?
Ron: [2:20] I can tell you what worked for us in implementing the application for
our company. That’s really to start with core groups within your own company
and build a case. We started with five groups that had an interest in Digital
Asset Management and really built on the success there and then opened it up
to the rest of the company. It’s really scaled well that way. [2:48] Findability is
always an issue for us, for anyone I think, because people expect you to have
Google installed or a Google-like return for results, and that’s just not the way it
is with images. So we have to look at who is tagging, and how they are tagging.
You expect SMEs …
Henrik: [3:12] SMEs, you mean subject matter experts?
Ron: [3:14] Exactly. To really be able to tag images properly, so that they’re
findable, but you don’t always find that is the case. So providing them with
tools so that they can put the right tags, put the right keywords to make things
findable, If that doesn’t work then to have an elite A-Team of librarians there
that can properly tag images and put the descriptions in, and make them really
findable for you. [3:42] Then finally metrics is something that is always going to
be important. We want people to just see the logic of having a good Digital
Asset Management application within a company, but we know that’s not the
way business works.
[3:59] You have to have good metrics, so that the business people, the finance
people, understand what you are trying to accomplish here and how successful
you’re being. So numbers around imagery use, downloads, adoption, the
amount of uploads, they’re going into the application.
[4:17] We’ve estimated that we’ve saved the company on reuse of images alone
about $2 million. So we consider that to be very successful for an application
that’s been around for just over three years. So we’re pretty happy about that.
[4:38] Finally the key is just getting the application in front of the users that need
it most. For us, we are looking at obviously training groups, admins, who might
put together presentations, and then design teams within the company who
would have a use for images and other collateral that we could provide to them.
[5:03] So I think that’s a good way to make it useful.
Henrik: [5:08] Excellent. Well, thank you, Ron.
Ron: [5:11] Thank you.
Henrik: [5:12] For more on Digital Asset Management, log onto
anotherdamblog.com. Thanks again.

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

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Another DAM Podcast interview with David Price on Digital Asset Management

Here are the questions asked:

  • How are you involved with Digital Asset Management?
  • How does a health care provider use a DAM?
  • What is the difference between an organization that has a DAM where they sell their content versus just manage their content such as marketing material?
  • What advice would you like to give to DAM professionals and people aspiring to become DAM professionals?

Transcript:

Henrik de Gyor: [0:03] This is Another DAM Podcast about Digital Asset
Management. I’m Henrik de Gyor. Today I’m speaking with David Price. David,
how are you?
David Price: [0:10] I’m very good, thank you.
Henrik: [0:12] David, how are you involved with Digital Asset Management?
David: [0:15] I am a applications manager at a healthcare provider. I work within
a marketing and sales group that manages a number of different Digital Asset
Management systems and workflow related project work.
Henrik: [0:29] How does a healthcare provider use a DAM?
David: [0:34] Well, this particular healthcare provider has a large marketing and
sales group. As with any company that has marketing and sales, we have a lot
of marketing and sales collateral. We have posters, brochures, fliers, booklets.
We have rich media. We have TV. We have radio. All of that content needs to
be managed.
Henrik: [0:53] Makes sense. David, what is the difference between an organization
that has a DAM where they sell their content versus just manage their content,
so it’s just marketing material?
David: [1:03] That’s a good question. One of the things that I’ve realized is that
is an important differentiator between DAM users largely because the people
that sell their content who typically are in the entertainment or media business,
TV, radio, music, etc., are much more concerned with the full work flow
process from start to finish because the DAM and the workflow management
and the product management cycle manage their end product. It’s their bread
and butter.
Henrik: [1:37] Sure.
David: [1:39] For that type of company, a DAM implementation is a much more
integral part of what they do if they’re a mature organization. For companies
that only use DAMs to manage marketing materials but don’t sell those materials,
it’s still important, but it’s not as important. [1:56] It’s more difficult to
directly tie it to the bottom line. It’s more difficult to measure the effectiveness
of your marketing materials because they don’t generate direct sales. They only
indirectly affect your sales.
Henrik: [2:12] That makes sense. Sure, yeah.
David: [2:13] That can actually be an impediment to purchasing, implementing,
and supporting DAM systems also. Each one has its pros and cons.
Henrik: [2:25] Sure, I agree. One is certainly more vital than the other if you
actually want to deliver something to be seen and sold.
David: [2:33] Right. Interestingly enough, one of the things that I learned
coming to shows like this and listening to all of the people that are in entertainment
and media is they develop a huge repository of older media that they
reuse and repurpose. [2:50] Often times, you watch TV. If a famous actor dies or
a movie re-released, they’ll go back and pull assets from 10, 20 years ago, repackage
them in some new format and you’ll see them again.
Henrik: [3:07] Smart.
David: [3:09] Our type of DAM user doesn’t do as much.
Henrik: [3:12] Sure, that makes sense, but you can still reuse those marketing
materials.
David: [3:14] Sure, we can, but we probably wouldn’t as much as…
Henrik: [3:19] For a different campaign or…
David: [3:20] Yeah, right.
Henrik: [3:21] OK , fair. What advice would you like to give to DAM professionals
or people aspiring to become DAM professionals?
David: [3:27] That’s a good question. I’d give aspiring DAM professionals the
advice to several things, first off, DAM is a discipline and not a tool. [3:39] Lots of
people who first get into Digital Asset Management think, “We’re going to go
out and buy this wonderful, cool new software, then life will be easy.”
[3:49] You’re chuckling because anyone who’s worked in practically any discipline
for some amount of time knows that a particular tool will do nothing if you
don’t have the business process and agreed upon structure and organizational
processes in place within the business to make it work and to utilize it to its best
advantage.
[4:13] Another statement that summarizes that is “Garbage in, garbage out,”
that’s the advice I’d give.
Henrik: [4:19] Great. Well, thank you, David.
David: [4:21] You’re welcome.
Henrik: [4:22] For more on digital management, log onto
AnotherDAMblog.com, thanks again.

Related Articles

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

Need Digital Asset Management advice and assistance?

Another DAM Consultancy can help. Schedule a call today