During the Insight Exchange Network’s DAM Practitioners Summit in January 2019, Carol Thomas-Knipes presented her whitepaper Seeing the Forest – Keys to DAM Sustainability
Henrik de Gyor: [0:01] This is Another DAM Podcast about Digital Asset Management. I’m Henrik de Gyor. Today I’m speaking with Katheryn Gronsbell. Kathryn, how are you?
Kathryn Gronsbell: [0:10] Good, how are you?
Henrik: [0:11] Great. Kathryn, how are you involved with Digital Asset Management?
Kathryn: [0:14] I’m the Digital Asset Manager at Carnegie Hall. I’m responsible for integrating our enterprise Digital Asset Management system into activities that support Carnegie Hall’s retention and use of digital assets.
[0:26] My work ranges from overseeing quality control and managing ingest procedures to helping manage and implement and collaboratively built taxonomy, but also working with staff across all of our departments, to make sure that their needs are being met by the technology that we have, but also by the policies in place to guide that technology.
Henrik: [0:45] How does one of the most prestigious venues in the world, for both classical music and popular music, use Digital Asset Management?
Kathryn: [0:52] To back up a little bit, in 2015 our archives completed a multi‑year digitalization project of legacy materials; so concert programs, flyers, choral workshop recordings, radio broadcasts. Needless to say, the materials in our archives are pretty incredible.
[1:10] Being surrounded by this kind of material has been great and with 125 years of history, there is a lot to see and to share with people. We’ve just moved out of the project phase and into the formalized DAM program, which often includes content that is being currently produced or is in the process of being produced.
[1:29] This more sustainable and integrated approach to Asset Management is taking the requirements identified by Carnegie staff and trying to make them a reality. We expect to roll out our DAM system this summer, and we’ve just wrapped up our initial user testing with select advanced users from target departments. But our continued user testing and configuration will try to make sure that staff see the DAMs as a centralized place to not only deposit and discover content but also engage with it so anything that was created by Carnegie Hall staff or for the Hall.
Henrik: [2:04] What are the biggest challenges and successes you’ve seen with Digital Asset Management?
Kathryn: [2:08] The biggest challenge that I’ve seen so far is trying to have answers before you have questions. [laughs] Requirements gathering and understanding current workflows and pinpoints is really essential. It’s kind of saying, “How can I fix something, if you don’t even understand what’s broken, or not even broken, just could work better.”
[2:29] Part of the way that I tried to play down that challenge is looking at the content producers and asking, “What are they doing? What kind of questions are they asking?” That helps us to fill in the gap between providing a place to manage the version of what’s being produced, but also providing source content for those producers.
[2:47] On a positive note, the success for me has been the result of the mix of perspectives from staff members here. At Carnegie, I have a regular meeting with nearly every department, or at least every department that I can get my hands on.
[3:03] It’s a very close partnership with our IT department, who supports our DAMs initiative from a technical perspective, but also our interactive services, niche strategy, digital media, our education wing, which is called The Weill Music Institute, our PR department and our marketing creative services.
[3:22] As we get closer to staff launch I expect that list of departments to grow, maybe to the chagrin of my calendar and their calendar. Every conversation that I have with these staff members either reveals something new or reinforces a need that’s been expected from our DAM initiative. Without the input of all of these staff members, there would be no Digital Asset Management at Carnegie Hall.
Henrik: [3:45] What advice would you like to share with DAM professionals and people inspiring to become DAM professionals?
Kathryn: [3:49] Definitely look to how either allied fields or established fields are handling some of the same questions that we’re facing computer science, libraries and archives, traditional and emerging practices for conservation and preservation, the museum and gallery world, of course, and also community or grass roots based practices and concepts.
[4:13] One thing which I think is less of a popular opinion, maybe among the archivists and library folks, is looking at the commercial sectors, so broadcast and media entertainment companies. Money follows money, so if we have a finger on the pulse of where a lot of investment is being made in technology or structures or infrastructure, we kind of have a good idea where things are going and I think it puts us in a better position to have those conversations.
[4:43] Again, it’s not really about having the same answers as these communities, but mining their answers for something that would work for us. The additional benefit of that is that the more questions and the more conversations that you have with these communities, the more visible that we become for them, so it opens up the door for more conversation and more communication, which also translates to more inclusion in their decision‑making process, hopefully.
[5:05] There is one last thing that I wish someone had said to me when I started out. For every person who this person is usually in a position of influence that tries to exclude you from a conversation, who tries to make you feel inferior or dumb for asking questions, there are 10 people who have your back and also want to know the answers to those questions.
[5:29] The more questions that we ask, the more voices in our community and the better of we will be. If we’re lucky enough to be a person that’s in a position of power, you have the responsibility to be as inclusive as possible and lead by example. I hope that’s helpful.
Henrik: [5:44] It is. Thanks so much Kathryn.
Kathryn: [5:46] Thank you.
Henrik: [5:47] For more on this and other Digital Asset Management topics, go to anotherdamblog.com. For this and another 180 podcast episodes, 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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