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Another DAM Podcast interview with Adolfo Chavez and Francisco Vergaray on Digital Asset Management

Adolfo Chavez and Francisco Vergaray discuss Digital Asset Management

Transcript:

Henrik de Gyor:  [0:02] This is Another DAM Podcast about Digital Asset Management. I’m Henrik de Gyor. Today I’m speaking with Adolfo Chavez and Francisco Vergaray. How are you guys?

Adolfo Chavez:  [0:12] Doing good.

Francisco Vergaray:  [0:13] Doing well, thank you.

Henrik:  [0:15] Great. How are you involved with Digital Asset Management?

Francisco:  [0:17] Well, I think I’ll go first. This is Francisco. Basically, I am the system administrator for the digital asset management system that we have here in the institution. We have a system of 24 catalogs and over a million digital assets that are served throughout the institution.

[0:36] We have several clients that use the system including doctors and our regular staff. We have anything from patient images to images that I use for diagnostics, and also stock art that we use.

Adolfo:  [0:53] I’m Adolfo. I’m in a different department from Francisco. I work in Communications, and I basically manage four catalogs within our digital asset management system, which is Cumulus.

[1:04] All total, I believe, we have about 200,000 images, mainly editorial in nature, again, I’m in Communications, so a lot of images are for publications. I don’t keep any clinically relevant images in there.

[1:16] A lot of portraits of doctors, doctors and patients, and stuff for marketing and communications purposes. I call myself a dummy user of Cumulus, where Francisco is more on the administration side.

Henrik:  [1:28] How does a comprehensive cancer center use Digital Asset Management?

Francisco:  [1:32] Cumulus that we use is actually a fairly robust system. Unfortunately, we only use the work group edition. We do not have the full enterprise version of the system.

[1:43] We cannot take full advantage of the capabilities of this system, however, we are pushing the system to it’s limit right now trying to get more catalogs and more digital assets into the system while we transition to possibly a future more robust system.

[2:02] At this point, we have been using Cumulus for over 10 years, and it’s come to the attention of the higher ups here in the institution. They are looking for a more robust system to replace Cumulus.

[2:16] Basically, it is used for many things. We have people for example in the skin center, they use it for comparing melanoma patients. They can look at skin lesions, making sure that there are differences between appointments. We have people that use it for just general stock photography or editorial. That’s basically there for run of how we’re using it.

[2:40] We have an Internet client, and we have several desktop clients. The desktop clients are actually what allow you to add visual assets today to the system.

Adolfo:  [2:50] We’re having the DAM in place and actually using the DAM, because the DAM has been in place of a while. But, when I came on board about three and a half years ago, it was in place and there were assets in there, but there was no metadata attached to any of the images, so image retrieval was still kind of a chore.

[3:09] Now, since I’ve been there, I’ve kind of taken on the task of adding in that metadata so that when any media outlet calls and say, “When you have a photo of doctor so and so,” enter in doctor so and so, we have a whole treasure trove of images.

Henrik:  [3:25] What are the biggest challenges and successes you’ve seen with Digital Asset Management?

Adolfo:  [3:29] The biggest success we’ve had is image retrieval, essentially. Previously, which I’m sure many of your listeners are probably familiar with. When images are kept on someone else’s computer, usually the designer, whoever was working on the project.

[3:44] If somebody had an image request, went to one person who is like, “Oh, I think that person worked on it.” Then it went to that person, who happen to be out that day. So then it had to wait for the next day. When they got in, they’re like, “Oh, yeah, let me go back and look at that project.” So an image request took a day, two days. That was kind of ridiculous.

[4:02] Now, image requests take two minutes, literally. It actually takes two seconds, but because we vet each of the images, some of the images have patients in them. We have to make sure that we have patients that have been consented properly. That we have permission to use the image. That the employees depicted in photos are still working here, stuff like that. So yeah, that’s been a huge success.

[4:25] The biggest challenge, at least on my end, has been getting people to use it, which I think is universal challenge to everyone in digital asset management. I get emails everyday, “Hey do we have an image of doctor so and so?” “Yeah, it’s in Cumulus. You just got to search for it. That’s all you got to do.” [laughs] That’s the most difficult part, obviously.

Francisco:  [4:48] Yeah, I think one of the biggest challenges that we had when we initiated this project years ago was coming up with a naming convention for our digital assets. I think that was what really we had to go around several times until we came up with something solid that at the time, we couldn’t search for metadata when we first started with this.

[5:11] We were looking at searching by the names of the files, but now we were able to add metadata to the file so the naming convention is not…We’re still using the naming convention, but it is not as important as adding the metadata. Still, we use both of them as just as a backup to double check, make sure things are named correctly.

[5:32] That’s what’s been also one of the biggest successes for us because we were able to locate patient images. For example, they’re going into the electronic medical record, and when the doctor comes in and looks at the medical record, they can pull their patient’s images that comes from our Cumulus system.

Henrik:  [5:52] What advice would you like to share with DAM professionals and people who aspired to become DAM professionals?

Adolfo:  [5:57] I think this is something Francisco eluded to when we first started talking, is that really fully invest in the proper software. One of the big challenges that we’ve had is that we’re trying to…

Francisco:  [6:10] We’re using a work group version of the system, rather than the enterprise version which we can’t really take full advantage of the capability of this system. It’s just having the proper budget.

Adolfo: [6:22] We have over 20,000 employees at this institution. Digital asset management is becoming more and more important everyday. There are new people calling for catalogs and they wanted catalog images, they want to do this, and it’s taxing on this particular version of the software we’re running.

[6:39] As far as, that’s for DAM professionals, as far as for people aspiring to become DAM professionals, I have a book called The Accidental Taxonomist which is the book that I got to do a little bit of research on digital asset management when I got into the position.

[6:53] That’s really the way I feel. I don’t feel I can actually give advice to anyone who’s trying to become a digital asset management person, but I’m accidentally fell into this position by nature of what it is that I do, which is photography and content creation, essentially.

Francisco:  [7:09] I think one suggestion that I would give is you need to have…You heard of it, the phrase ‘too many cooks in the kitchen’?

Henrik:  [7:17] Mm‑hmm.

Francisco:  [7:18] You need to make sure that you have a specific group of people assigned to add digital images or digital assets to the catalog. That way, you keep consistency throughout your naming conventions, throughout the way things are organized in the catalog.

[7:32] The other thing I would suggest is make sure that you have people that have very good attention to detail. Just minimal things such as a space, or a comma, or just a period in the wrong place, what would throw things off. Just people that understand how complicated this can be and frustrating sometimes.

Adolfo:  [7:55] It takes a special kind of person, I guess. Digital Asset Management, it’s a tedious gig. It takes a certain mind, I guess.

Francisco:  [8:03] Yes.

Henrik:  [8:04] That’s great advice. I would strongly recommend having a gatekeeper to your point.

Francisco:  [8:08] We actually have a, at least from the photography people, we have several gatekeepers, we have about two or three of them.

[8:14] You go for one person, the photographer, they will need their files. Then they go to the manager, who double checks them. Then they go to the person that actually catalogs them, so there’s three people that actually make sure that these images, especially the ones that go into the patient chart, are named properly.

Adolfo:  [8:32] I’m the only one in communications. There’s me, then I have an assistant now. That means that I get to make sure everything is cool, but I also get blamed for all the problems.

Francisco:  [8:45] But nobody is perfect, so even three people can miss something.

Henrik:  [8:49] That happens. Thank you, guys.

Francisco:  [8:52] Thank you.

Adolfo:  [8:52] Thank you.

Henrik:  [8:53] For more on this and other digital asset management topics, go to AnotherDAMblog.com. For this and 160 other podcast episodes, go to AnotherDAMpodcast.com. If you have any comments of questions, please feel free to email me at anotherdamblog@gmail.com.

[9:10] Thanks, again.

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Another DAM Podcast interview with Jamie Litchfield on Digital Asset Management

Jamie Litchfield discusses Digital Asset Management

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 Jamie Litchfield.

[0:08] Jamie, how are you?

Jamie Litchfield:  [0:09] I’m good. How are you?

Henrik:  [0:11] Great. Jamie, how are you involved with Digital Asset Management?

Jamie:  [0:14] I work at a full‑service ad agency. I’ve been here for almost seven years. It’ll be seven years this summer. I was originally hired to manage one of our clients third-party digital asset management system, which I do still currently do for them.

[0:31] I’m an admin, so I manage all of their users. I manage the assets. Mostly the assets that my agency creates, but then I also do work with some of our partner agencies and their assets as well.

[0:43] Through the time that I have been doing that, I started getting involved with our agencies internal system. I’m currently working to make some improvements with that system, and kind of rebranding for a new launch stock this summer to all of our internal employees.

Henrik:  [0:58] Jamie, how does a full‑service marketing and communications agency use digital assets management?

Jamie:  [1:03] At my agency, Digital Asset Management has been fully growing over the time I’ve been here. I came on board again seven years ago when there was a legacy system in place. It’s been in place for a very long time, before I started.

[1:18] That system was never really fully utilized to its fullest potential. It’s functioning kind of as a server that people can mount locally to their machine and browse through on that side. There are practically no users who log into and use the web interface that links over the repository.

[1:37] We definitely use the solution that we purchased a while back kind of as that functional server side, but not to the fullest extent of an asset management system that it really could be. That’s what I’m working on now with my team is overhauling the system, making improvements, doing some upgrades and things like that to make it a functional and usable system.

[1:58] We’re hoping to launch it this summer in phases to various departments at our agency. It’s still the same legacy system, so basically our end goal is to increase user adoption. Awareness is going to be a huge part of that. A lot of people don’t even realize we have a system like this.

“…our end goal is to increase user adoption. Awareness is going to be a huge part of that. A lot of people don’t even realize we have a system like this.”

[2:15] We’re doing all these things. We did the improvements on increased functionality and the user interface and things like that, so that when we do launch it this summer, hopefully we’ll have some great adoption, because it will really easy to use.

Henrik:  [2:26] What are the biggest challenges and successes you’ve seen with digital asset management?

Jamie:  [2:30] At our agency, probably the biggest one is just simple lack of knowledge about the system that I just mentioned, because it’s been utilized just people think of it as a server, which has the very basic. You log in and mount the server on your desktop and you click through folders and your finder window. There is no smartness to the system. You just have to manually click through things.

[2:51] Sometimes they don’t even know that we have a librarian, like myself at the agency who is tagging files and making things easier for people to find our assets and things like that. That’s one of the biggest challenges, is just teaching people that across the agency.

[3:05] Once people know about it, they get really excited and they really see the value. When we roll out this summer, we’re hoping to partner with our human resources department and launch some training sessions.

[3:16] Get in when we have new hire sessions so we can get even 10 minutes intro with those new groups coming in to tell them about the system and get them log in from the beginning and things like that.

[3:29] Another challenge that I mentioned earlier was that this is a legacy system. We did look into a few years ago purchasing the new system, we did the whole use cases and things like that, but just couldn’t really get the dollars to spend the money from our financial team.

[3:46] We do have this system, and it was set up so long ago and no one has ever updated it since then, so we have out of date processes in place and out of date user profiles and things like that. We’re working hard to overhaul that and really bring it up to 2015. How we work now, it’s very different than how we worked when we first purchased the system and set it up.

[4:08] As far as successes go, right now we are in a very exciting time at the agency. We are working with our IT department, and we’ve got some buy in from higher up people to make some upgrades and enhancements for our user interface and increase some functionalities.

[4:26] We are excited to re‑brand and re‑launch our asset management system as a tool to our agency. People are pretty excited, there are some buzz going on, because they are starting to see the value of a digital asset management tool.

[4:39] Obviously, which a lot of listeners are going to be familiar with, but especially I think at ad agencies the time to market is so quick and creative and project managers in various departments are stretched so thin and doing so much. I consider anything we can do as our jobs as librarians to help them find the best assets in the quickest amount of time.

[5:01] They can really save hours, if not days off of a complete schedule, especially if we can find something that might have already been retouched and approved asset, we can save all of that retouching time and approval routing time and get that right out of their schedule and save them days. It’s definitely going to be a powerful tool.

[5:20] People from the feedback I’ve heard are very excited to have it launched. We’re also just starting to work and ingest new kinds of assets into our system. Up until now, we had been working just with static print assets, but we are going to be working to ingest our broadcast team video files, and potentially our digital teams’ digital banner files, and website files and things like that.

[5:47] It’s pretty exciting to be broadening up our horizon into those different mediums as well.

Henrik:  [5:54] What advice would you like to share with DAM professionals and people aspiring to become DAM professionals?

Jamie:  [5:59] This is a good question. When I first started at the agency, I didn’t even know what digital asset management was. I was just out of college and I was excited to have a job at a great agency. Over the years as I’ve learned, I think it’s important to be your own advocate, to be an asset management advocate.

[6:16] If you’re lucky enough to be in an environment where there is already an established asset management system in process, that’s great, but if you’re one of the many people I have a feeling who have a pretty small group and it’s not well known, I think you definitely can’t be afraid to do research and come up with ideas to push your asset management system forward.

[6:38] Especially if asset management isn’t established at your company, no one else is going to do it for you. You have to definitely be your own advocate.

[6:47] The other thing I would say, I think it’s great to participate in any opportunities you can. I do webinars and Webex all the time with vendors that aren’t our own vendors, but just to familiarize myself with what else is out there, other services. You make contacts that way.

[7:04] I think conferences are also great. I’ve been lucky enough to go to the Henry Stewart Conference in New York City two or three times now. I think that’s a wonderful conference. There are so many vendors there. It’s a great place to walk around and you can get a demo of pretty much every big system in the space, all in one day, which is a great opportunity.

[7:24] I think it’s just great information, the sessions are great and it’s very eye‑opening and informative. It’s a great couple days. I always find it very inspiring and exciting.

Henrik:  [7:34] Thanks Jamie.

Jamie:  [7:35] Thank you.

Henrik:  [7:36] For more on this and other digital asset management topics, log onto anotherDAMblog.com. Another DAM podcast is available at anotherDAMpodcast.com to find 150 other podcast episodes, including transcripts of every interview.

[7:54] If you have any comments or question, please feel free to email me at anotherdamblog@gmail.com.

[8:00] Thanks again.

Listen to Another DAM Podcast on Apple Podcasts, AudioBoom, CastBox, Google Podcasts,  RadioPublic, RSS, Spotify or TuneIn

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Another DAM Podcast interview with Lauren Philson on Digital Asset Management

Lauren Philson discusses Digital Asset Management

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 Lauren Philson.

Lauren, how are you?

Lauren Philson:  [0:11] I’m great, Henrik. Thanks for having me.

Henrik:  [0:13] Lauren, how are you involved with Digital Asset Management?

Lauren:  [0:16] I am involved, typically, with the implementation of new technology in an organization or a company. A lot of that involves analyzing current processes and systems, and then working with the staff and individuals on optimizing those. Taking the organization through vendor selection, building out specs for integration and potential tools, and working with them in terms of change management.

[0:44] I currently am with The Rockefeller Foundation, working with them to upgrade their current system. In the past, I’ve worked in production environments and had a little bit of experience with broadcast as well. Varying ranges.

Henrik:  [1:00] How does one of America’s oldest private Foundations use Digital Asset Management?

Lauren:  [1:07] The Rockefeller Foundation, as you can imagine, has a very wide reach ‑‑ global organization. We have thousands of grant recipients and external partners that we are working with around the world.

[1:19] A lot of our media traffic centralizes around the acquisition of photography, video that’s coming in, and also making that content available for the creation with our external partners in terms of publication on the work that we’re doing.

[1:35] All of the media that we receive just represents a very, very small piece of a rather large puzzle that we are working on and solving some of the world’s biggest problems. For a 100‑year‑old foundation, Rockefeller is highly innovative and is committed to innovation as part of their mission and role.

[1:54] They really value inter‑connectivity. For that reason, they’re currently placing a huge emphasis on story telling that allows us to use media ‑‑ to use words ‑‑ to provide a context. Each of those little bits of the puzzle can later add up and demonstrate what the larger strides that we are making in these initiatives.

[2:16] There’s also the component of archiving and cultural preservation. Rockefeller has a very impressive archive center in upstate New York. We are not fully connected with them. There’s been a chasm as most organizations experience with DAM and with Digital in general.

[2:36] What we’re doing is working and laying the groundwork so that digital files that are important to history and are important to cultural preservation are able to be more easily routed to those archives.

Henrik:  [2:48] What are the biggest challenges and successes you’ve seen with Digital Asset Management?

Lauren:  [2:53] In general, with both of those ‑‑ the challenges and the successes ‑‑ have usually revolved around governance and user adoption. No matter what the end goal of an organization or a company is, we do see common threads of challenges that come up. Often times, I’ve seen DAM go from being a departmental solution to an enterprise solution, literally, overnight.

[3:15] Priorities change pretty rampantly. Managing expectations and being smart about how one scales and on boards. Just, in general, having a very positive campaign around the tool. Without the users, you can have the best metadata schema, you can have the fanciest tools and integration. you can spend a ton of money on top of one system, but without your users, you’re bound to have some issues.

[3:41] It’s really remarkable once you do have all the individuals that will be involved with the system in alignment how quickly you can see a project turn around in terms of success.

Henrik:  [3:53] What advice would you like to share with DAM professionals and people aspiring to become DAM professionals?

Lauren:  [3:59] Particularly for folks that are looking into Digital Asset Management and venturing into this field, my biggest piece of advice would be to tap into the community. I’ve never met a group of individuals that are more willing and helpful to share information and knowledge. The reason for that is that there is no single formula to solving the problems that come with DAM.

[4:22] It’s an ongoing and ever growing puzzle to solve for us. Tapping into that wealth of knowledge, building the network and being able to apply others’ experiences to your current situation is the most valuable tool that you can have.

Tapping into that wealth of knowledge, building the network and being able to apply others’ experiences to your current situation is the most valuable tool that you can have.

Henrik:  [4:37] Thanks, Lauren.

Lauren:  [4:38] Great!

Henrik:  [4:39] For more on this and other Digital Asset Management topics, log on to AnotherDAMblog.com. For this and 150 other podcast [episodes], go to AnotherDAMpodcast.com. If you have any comments or questions about Digital Asset Management, please feel free to email me at anotherdamblog@gmail.com.

Thanks again.

[Note: Lauren Philson is one of the 55+ speakers at the Henry Stewart DAM Conference in New York City in May 2015.]

Listen to Another DAM Podcast on Apple Podcasts, AudioBoom, CastBox, Google Podcasts,  RadioPublic, RSS, Spotify or TuneIn

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Another DAM Podcast interview with Rubyliza Gaba on Digital Asset Management

Rubyliza Gaba discusses Digital Asset Management

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 Rubyliza Gaba. Rubyliza, how are you?

Rubyliza Gaba:  [0:11] I’m good, how are you doing?

Henrik:  [0:13] Great. Rubyliza, how are you involved with digital asset management?

Rubyliza:  [0:17] I am the Digital Asset Archivist at Fossil. Aside from ingesting images and checking out metadata integrity, I also do training and troubleshoot any issues our local and global users encounter.

Henrik:  [0:31] How does an American designer and manufacturer of clothing and accessories use digital asset management?

Rubyliza:  [0:37] Our DAM is used as a centralized archival repository. It houses all of Fossil’s final product images across multiple brands and product categories. Internally, it’s used by multiple departments, both locally and internationally via our regional offices.

[0:57] Actually, Fossil’s DAM is fairly young, only being launched in early 2014. So Pre‑DAM it was a bit of a challenge to locate images after they were worked on and finalized. Images were housed in multiple locations, including internal file shares and external FTP servers. We also have an archive system where images were actually burnt onto physical CDs and DVDs for archival purposes. Of course, this process was plagued with issues such as media being mislabeled, or maybe being checked out and never returned.

[1:32] Now that the DAM is in place, our users simply search for the images that they need, and they download them in the format that they require.

Henrik:  [1:42] What are the biggest challenges and successes you’ve seen with DAM?

Rubyliza:  [1:45] I think the biggest challenge I’ve seen with the DAM system was change management. I can figure out system issues, but trying to introduce a new piece of technology to people, and convincing them that this system will actually help them was a bit tough.

[2:01] I completely understand that change is difficult sometimes. People are set in their own ways. They want to continue doing something that they’ve been doing for a while, because they know it works for them.

[2:13] When we were in the beginning stages of our implementation, we knew that user experience is the key to a successful DAM system. We wanted to make sure that our DAM would be easy for anyone to use, and in turn maybe ease any nervousness that they had for using a new system.

[2:32] What we did, my team and I, we set up meetings with our future users to discuss what they needed to be housed in the DAM, what functionality was required around that content, what pieces of metadata needed to be captured and how and when to capture it, and also the folder structure of the system.

[2:52] The final result is an interface that’s very sleek, and a search function that’s super simple to use. We found that with the proper training, users became more comfortable using our DAM.

[3:06] To us, user adoption is hugely important. We didn’t want to be to set in our own ways. We work with so many brands that are all individually unique. If something doesn’t work for a team, we’re always happy to discuss what needs to be done to provide the experience they expect from us.

[3:28] As for successes, I would have to say it’s knowing that people use our system. We’ve been getting pretty positive responses to it. Also, another success is seeing our user count grow. When we originally rolled out our DAM, it was only to a small group of users in our local offices. Now, our user number is in the thousands and span a global community.

[3:55] It’s really a great feeling to see something you’ve worked on so hard on it, just positively impact other people’s daily work processes. It’s been an amazing experience to be involved from day one, to be a part of the process and to watch our system grow into what it is today. It’s increased productivity across the board, and I really look forward to the future of our DAM.

Henrik:  [4:19] Excellent. Rubyliza, what advice would you like to share with DAM professionals and people aspiring to become DAM professionals?

Rubyliza:  [4:25] My advice is to network. That was the biggest advice given to me when I was in school. Networking is key, whether you are already a DAM professional or aspiring to be one. It’s always great to talk to others in our field. You can go to conferences, join organizations, and just meet each other face to face. We have a fantastic and supportive community out there, through my experiences.

[4:50] As for aspiring DAM professionals in school, I would get involved in volunteer work or internships. To me, you can have all the education in the world, but it’s that hands‑on training that helps. Also, it’s a good step towards building a network too. Also, work on that LinkedIn profile. LinkedIn, I think, is an amazing tool that not too many people are using, surprisingly.

“Always remember to be flexible.”

[5:15] Finally, remember when you do get the job, don’t get discouraged if you find yourself doing things that maybe aren’t always related to digital asset management. Always remember to be flexible.

Henrik:  [5:28] Great advice. Thanks, Rubyliza.

Rubyliza:  [5:30] Thank you. It was a pleasure to be a part of your podcast.

Henrik:  [5:33] For more on this and other digital asset management topics, log on to anotherdamblog.com. If you have any comments or questions about digital asset management, feel free to email me at anotherdamblog@gmail.com. For 150 other digital asset management podcast episodes, go to anotherdampodcast.com.

Thanks again.

Listen to Another DAM Podcast on Apple Podcasts, AudioBoom, CastBox, Google Podcasts,  RadioPublic, RSS, Spotify or TuneIn

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