How are you involved with Digital Asset Management?
How does a global organization use Digital Asset Management?
What are the biggest challenges and successes you have seen with DAM?
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 am Henrik de Gyor. Today I am speaking with Miles Rohan.
Miles, how are you? Miles Rohan: [0:10] I am well, Henrik. Thank you for having me. Henrik: [0:12] Miles, how are you involved with Digital Asset Management? Miles: [0:15] : I am Director of Digital Asset Management at Nickelodeon, specifically
for non-broadcast assets. I generally say things that do not move. We
do not deal with video assets. That is a whole separate can of worms. Henrik: [0:29] How does a global organization use Digital Asset Management? Miles: [0:32] The need for Digital Asset Management at Nickelodeon grew out
of a need to securely distribute digital assets to licensing partners, marketing
partners, as well as internally, to various departments around the world. It grew
out of that. Essentially they are organized by different properties or brands.
Different people can access them. Henrik: [0:58] Miles, what are the biggest challenges and successes with Digital
Asset Management? Miles: [1:02] One of the biggest challenges was user adoption. In the early days,
at least, there was a real reluctance to using it. People like having assets on the
desktop or on their server. But over the years we have overcome that. [1:14] I
think, also, security has always been a challenge. We have a lot of different use
cases for a very robust security, a very nimble security, so those are certainly
challenges.
[1:26] As far as successes, well, it was a challenge. I think user adoption was also
a success, because we went from printing physical guides and mailing them
around the world to ceasing, essentially, printing and no longer shipping guides
around the world. Everything was purely digital. I think getting people into a
mindset of sharing assets because they can be securely shared, has also been
a success. Henrik: [1:52] Great. What advice would you like to share with DAM professionals
and people aspiring to be DAM professionals? Miles: [1:57] I think it is important to realize that, I think, DAM is really around us
at all times now, whereas 10 years ago that may not have been the case. Now, I
think DAM is…if you are on iTunes or Netflix or Amazon, these are all examples
of DAM that I think aspiring people should be paying attention to, the because
in a lot of cases, they are doing DAM well. [2:23] I think those types of systems
will certainly influence non-consumer-facing, internal-only DAM. I tell everyone,
and then I am also, obviously, metadata is key in consistency and controlled
vocabularies. Never underestimate the text view. Henrik: [2:42] Thanks, Miles. Miles: [2:44] Thank you. Henrik: [2:45] For more on this and other Digital Asset Management topics, logon to AnotherDAMblog.com. Another DAM Podcast is available on Audioboom and iTunes. If you have any comments or questions, please feel free to email me at anotherdamblog@gmail.com. Thanks again.
How are you involved with Digital Asset Management?
How does an auto insurance use Digital Asset Management?
You recently upgraded the DAM at your organization. Why was it important to upgrade and what was the most complex part you had to do in the upgrade process?
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 as Another DAM Podcast about Digital Asset
Management. I’m Henrik de Gyor. Today, I’m speaking with Julie Everett. Julie,
how are you? Julie Everett: [0:10] I’m good. Thanks. Henrik: [0:12] Julie, how are you involved with Digital Asset Management? Julie: [0:14] I am the Digital Asset Manager for the fourth largest auto insurance
company in the US. Just a little bit of background. In 2002, Progressive installed
our Digital Asset Management system in order to create a repository of assets
to share. Very unfortunately, user adoption at that point failed, because we did
not have a DAM, Digital Asset Manager, no one really overseeing and having
responsibility for the adoption of use. [0:39] In 2010, they hired me for the newly
created role of Digital Asset Manager. I came into this role with 23 years of
experience at Progressive Insurance, most of my experience being in private
management and marketing. I’m a photographer as well. This job at this point in
my career was like a perfect storm.
[0:59] I’ve spent the last year negotiating contracts with vendors, creating metadata
schemas, and doing company-wide inventory of assets, doing interviewing
of end-users and creating guidelines, interviewing stack houses, reviewing contracts.
The list goes on and on. In May of this year in 2011, we just installed our
new software and we have been very busy testing the system and are beginning
to ingest assets. Henrik: [1:26] How does an auto insurance company use Digital Asset
Management? Julie: [1:31] We use our DAM to build a repository of assets, like Flow. Flow’s
pretty well-known in commercials and print ads. We use our assets on the web,
in print, in training materials, customer communications, Internet, social media.
The list goes on and on. We also use it as a source to keep an inventory of our
marketing materials, like our commercials, our print ads, and radio spots. So we
use it for a multitude of things. Henrik: [1:58] Great. You recently upgraded your DAM at your organization.
Why was it important to upgrade, and what was the most complex part of what
you had to do in that upgrade process? Julie: [2:09] It was important for us to upgrade our old system. It was almost 10
years old at this point. Unfortunately because there was nobody in charge of
DAM, it never went through an upgrade. It was very outdated, and the assets
unfortunately were very outdated as well. Over the past several years, because
user adoption failed, everyone had gone off and created their own mini DAMs
on a variety of servers over the years. [2:35] We ended up having about 94,000
assets across the company on many different servers that we had to reign in.
[2:44] I think the most difficult part has been…I’ve been involved in the selection
of the vendor leading the IT portion of the project designing security, folders
and permissions, around security, metadata schemas, keyboarding guidelines,
the enterprise usage guidelines, copyright management and discovery, centralizing
the procurement of assets going forward. I had to wear many hats. At
times it could be very challenging.
[3:09] I think the most complex part, however, has been getting the inventory
organized, and doing the copyright discovery and then metadata attachment.
We had nothing tagged. We have a lot of assets that have little or no metadata
that we are in the process, now, of attaching metadata to as we’re adjusting and
getting things organized in the new DAM. Henrik: [3:33] What advice would you like to give to DAM professionals and
people aspiring to become DAM professionals? Julie: [3:38] I think having a passion for this is really important. I think those who
are, maybe, just starting off in their career, should consider degrees in library
science, or information science technology. I would also advise folks to join
LinkedIn, and other organizations and groups that share information on DAM.
[3:54] Introduce yourself to other Digital Asset Managers. Attend conferences,
like Henry Stewart and Createasphere, and other places where you can network
with folks in the industry. I spend a considerable amount of time talking to other
DAM professionals across the United States. We help each other with a variety
of issues. We meet regularly to discuss challenges and offer advice and solutions
to one another.
[4:16] I think in this type of role, there is a huge amount of satisfaction that you
can get when you make someone much more productive by delivering assets
quickly, so they can move on and finish the task that they need to complete. A
smooth running DAM will impact our productivity, immeasurably. It will save a
company a lot of money in the long run.
[4:35] I think it’s a great profession. I love what I do. I would highly recommend it
for those that may have an interest in it. Henrik: [4:45] Thanks Julie. Julie: [4:46] You’re welcome. It’s been a pleasure. Henrik: [4:49] For more on Digital Asset Management, log onto anotherdamblog.com. Another DAM Podcast is available on Audioboom, Blubrry, iTunes and the Tech Podcast Network. Thanks, again.
How are you involved with Digital Asset Management?
How does an organization focused on gems use a DAM?
What do you do to encourage user adoption of the DAM?
What advice would you like to give to 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 Judy Colbert.
[0:08] Judy, how are you? Judy Colbert: [0:10] Hi. I’m fine, thanks, Henrik. Henrik: [0:12] Judy, how are you involved with Digital Asset Management? Judy: [0:15] Well, I’m administrator of GIA’s DAM system. I deal with the daily
operation for the system on the front end. The technical side is handled by our
IT department. [0:26] My team, the visual resources library, consists of two catalogers,
a digital resources specialist, a visual resources librarian and me.
[0:36] When we began our DAM project around 2002, I was co-project manager.
With the involvement of committee members from various departments, we
decided on a vendor, came up with policies and procedures in using the DAM.
We, also, developed our property models and taxonomy at that time.
[0:56] After implementation, the visual resources library took over as caretakers
of DAM. I had a smaller staff in the beginning and did much more of the importing
of assets and editing of metadata. But as my team grew, more of my time’s
spent in management. Henrik: [1:13] How is an organization focused on gems use a DAM? Judy: [1:18] One of the more important things we do at GIA is teach gemology,
and the jewelry manufacturing arts. It’s very visual and you need a lot of images
to teach students about the large variety of gemstones, how to identify them
and how to determine their quality. [1:34] The Gemological Institute of America
develops its own courses in print and, more recently, in eLearning. We have staff
and freelance photographers who produce a lot of images. They need to be
organized and made accessible, not only to our education department, but to
marketing, PR, the laboratory, and the research departments, too.
[1:57] They all use images for a variety of uses, such as for scientific journals, education
catalogs, lectures and instructional use. Henrik: [2:06] Great. What do you do to encourage user adoption of the DAM? Judy: [2:11] That’s a good question and one we continually ask ourselves how to
do. One thing we start off with is to provide training to new users. At first, because
it was a larger number, we held group training sessions. Now, we mostly
have one on one training. [2:28] It’s really important to get users to feel comfortable
in using DAM, especially if they’ve never used it before. We try to simplify
and not overwhelm them right away with all the features that are available in
DAM. We show them what they need to do to get started, and if they want to
know more or have a higher level of access, we can instruct them more then.
[2:50] Other ways we’ve tried to gain user adoption is by communicating with
our users by way of newsletters and a blog. We’ve also held special events, like
awards ceremonies, to acknowledge our power users. Photo identification socials
to identify unknown people in old photos, and open houses to give demos
and answer some questions. Henrik: [3:13] Excellent. I have a link to your blog on my blog, AnotherDAMblog.com. What is the URL to your blog? Judy: [3:21] It’s dam4gia.blogspot.com. It’s mainly, an internal blog for our own
users, but people from the outside are welcome to view it if they like. Henrik: [3:36] Excellent. There’s a lot of nice imagery on there. Judy: [3:38] Well, thank you. Henrik: [3:39] What advice would you like to give to DAM professionals and
people aspiring to become DAM professionals? Judy: [3:45] Read up, learn from other DAM professionals, and make a project
plan before you take the leap. When we started our project, there wasn’t as
much information available as there is now. Take advantage of learning from
other people’s experiences and mistakes. [3:59] Start small and build up. It can
be very overwhelming to try to do it all at once.
[4:05] Finally, be flexible and willing to adapt. Changes will happen. Henrik: [4:11] Excellent. Well, thank you, Judy. Judy: [4:12] Oh, you’re welcome. Henrik: [4:14] For more on Digital Asset Management, log onto AnotherDAMblog.com. Thanks again.
Jack Van Antwerp discusses Digital Asset Management
Here are the questions asked:
How are you involved with Digital Asset Management?
How do you achieve increasing user adoption of the DAM within your organization?
What advice would you like to share with DAM Professionals or people aspiring to be DAM Professionals?
Transcript:
Henrik de Gyor: [0:01] This is Another DAM Podcast about Digital Asset
Management. I’m Henrik de Gyor. Today, we’re speaking with Jack Van Antwerp.
Jack [0:08] How are you? Jack Van Antwerp: [0:08] I’m doing very well. How are you doing, Henrik? Henrik: [0:10] Good. Jack, how are you involved with Digital Asset
Management? Jack: [0:15] I’m the Director of Photography at The Wall Street Journal and my
involvement was to bring a Digital Asset Management system to our workflow.
Photography is a new thing for the Journal. It required us, from the ground up,
starting a system that would allow the paper and online and other future things
to find, sort and deliver mostly photography for right now. We’re also moving
into some video and other kinds of things. Henrik: [0:49] Awesome. Jack, how have you increased user adoption of the
DAM within your organization? Jack: [0:59] In one respect, it’s been self-activating because we had nothing
and the previous method was pretty much going out hunting and pecking for
photographs on dozens of different websites and photo services. When we had
the model turned upside down and these photo services were pushing to us
the photos and we were bringing them into the system, it was such a leap forward
in the ability to get things fast and to have them easily searchable really
just became very fast. [1:44] There were a few resisters. Some people enjoyed
their own work flow, but it was quite surprising that even just a few months
afterwards…There were areas where we had a few generic logons that we’d had
going for some people and these logons got spread around.
[2:06] When we were going from our test box to our final box, there was some
planned outage. I told the people that needed to know but I didn’t realize that
the greater organization had really taken upon using this thing in other parts of
the world, actually.
[2:22] We started getting these hysterical emails like, “What’s going on with the
system?” Then we realized how wide it had been adopted and how fast it had
been adopted. Henrik: [2:30] It was a positive, “What’s going on?” rather than a, “What’s going
on? Why did you change my system?” Jack: [2:36] Absolutely. We had yanked the candy bar out of the baby’s hand
and people were quite upset. Just us saying, “Hey, you’re going to have to go
back to the old way for just a very short amount of time,” I don’t even think it
was a full day, people were very unhappy. [2:56] We’ve been able to implement,
I think, some workflows that really capitalize on the metadata that come from
the different agencies, that have made finding and sorting pictures in a very
real-time way, with breaking news, even easier. We’ve tried to conform just in
some simple ways things like the word “United States.”
[3:22] If you’ve got eight different agencies, each one of them does it a different
way. One says “US,” one says “USA,” one has the dots, one doesn’t, so we conformed
all that to just the word “domestic,” and just for the ability to then only
look at domestic pictures has been a huge leap forward.
[3:41] The ability to sort out sports photos, the ability to sort out entertainment
photos, whittles down from what our thousands of thousands of pictures that
one might have to wade through to get at that picture they’re looking for, especially
when you’re just going through the wires to just try to find those best
shots of the day.
[4:01] You can go from thousands and thousands of pictures to maybe only
1,500 or 2,000 that are relevant to you, to the domestic photo editor, or to the
international photo editor, or to the sports photo editor. You can then get to
that a lot quicker, especially when you’re having to browse, where you don’t
know what you’re looking for. There’s no search criteria that says, “Good photo
of the day.” That’s up to the editor’s discretion. Henrik: [4:23] Just to clarify a point that you made earlier, when you meant you
get “pushed photos”, you’re talking about a stream of photography that comes
from different wire services and other agencies. Is that correct? Jack: [4:34] Exactly. They send in to FTP, and our asset management system
picks it up, conforms metadata, puts it into the system, categorizes the high
res, etc. We have two interfaces. We have a thin client and we have a web
application. The thin client is fine when you’re within a state or two of the server,
but in our remote locations, like London and Hong Kong, it just isn’t reactive fast
enough, and they use the web interface. That’s been a great option to have. Henrik: [5:15] Nice. It’s used globally and adopted globally as well? Jack: [5:19] Yes, very much so. Henrik: [5:22] Excellent. Jack: [5:24] We use a system called SCC and they have a great feature where
you are logons and you can create user groups, etc. which has been instrumental
for us because rights for photographs are very much dependent on where
you are in the world. [5:42] A certain agency might be subsold through a special
agency in Japan that has only those rights. Even though we’re buying directly
from the mother ship, that part of the world has its specific problem.
[5:56] We’re able to have people, for instance, in Tokyo have their own logon
group, which would exclude certain libraries or certain wire services that we
don’t have the right to publish in those countries. That’s been a huge help
with just saving money and also not creating problems with misuse of pictures,
so to speak. Henrik: [6:21] That’s a great example of rights management and use of groups
and permissioning that you just described. Jack: [6:27] Yeah, except when one of those users moves from one region to
the other and doesn’t tell us. [laughs] We do need the feedback from the users
to find out where they are in the world. As long as we’ve got that, we can work
better with them. Henrik: [6:42] That makes sense. Jack: [6:43] In the context, also, of figuring out if you don’t have a system already,
what kind of system do you need? I feel that they kind of fall into two
categories, a black box, which is out of turnkey, out of the box. It’s ready to
go. Those are great because you can be up and running and working fast. The
downside is, you work the way the system is made. [7:11] A platform based
asset management system is certainly more complex. It takes a lot longer to get
going, but once you have it going the way you want it, you can continually make
tweaks and make changes that work for you.
[7:27] Neither, I would say, is the right way. It really depends on the resources
you have and how much skill you have or how much time you’re willing to put
into making the asset management system will work the way you want it to work
or whether you are able or willing to just conform to the workflow it has built in. Henrik: [7:46] There is no one DAM fits all solution out there. Jack: [7:51] Yeah, absolutely not. I think of the one we have and how it has
worked for us, which has been good, but there are instances where I see other
one that do certain things in a certain way that would be fantastic. There are a
lot of features and a lot of different systems that are going to be right for whatever
somebody’s trying to do, video, photos, text…A lot of different questions
one has to ask. Henrik: [8:16] Yes, exactly. As described to me in the past, an onion with many
layers that are interlinked and related. Jack: [8:24] Exactly. [laughs] Henrik: [8:26] Jack, what advice would you like to share with Digital Asset
Management professionals or people aspiring to be DAM professionals? Jack: [8:36] I have become kind of a DAM professional, if I am one, by
happenstance. Henrik: [8:43] That’s pretty common. [laughs] Jack: [8:47] It was really something into the driver seat because didn’t know
had their hands on the wheels. I guess my advice would be to really think what
I would kind of say, backwards. Think from the usage and the user, the editor
whatever’s happening in your organization the person who’s touching the asset
last. Then build and conceive your workflows from that place backwards. [9:19]
I think, a lot of times, we are immediately thinking of, “Here are the wire service.
We’re worried about the intake of how it comes in”, as opposed to, “OK ,
let’s start with the editor. What do they need and then how can we affect that
through what we’re getting in?”
[9:41] Just the few things we’ve been able to do with massaging data and
making it click for editors to find exactly what they need have made it fast
adoption and deep adoption. You just do not take this away from you. It’s now
become a core part of our workflow.
[10:00] Really think about the user. I find it interesting that a lot of times, people
will be like, “We’ve got 10 million assets or a billion assets or whatever.” It’s certainly
important that a system is able to handle infinite amount of records. You
don’t want to have it limited. But how many records you have is a little bit inconsequential
to finding the one record you need.
[10:29] It’s hard to stand up and wave a flag with excitement for 1 record, as opposed
to having a 100 million records. But really thinking about how can somebody
find that one piece of information they’re looking for. Not, “Oh, we have a
bazillion pieces of information.”
[10:53] Thinking about what can we do to the metadata? How are people looking
for things? What are they actually trying to find and what can we do then
within our keywording or our indexing or whatnot, to make that really efficient
for people? Henrik: [11:09] That makes sense. Jack: [11:10] That would be my advice. Henrik: [11:12] Excellent. Thank you, Jack. [11:14] For more on Digital Asset
Management, log onto anotherdamblog.com. Thanks again
Another DAM Podcast 