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Another DAM Podcast interview with Ron Gill on Digital Asset Management

Listen to Ron Gill discuss Digital Asset Management

Transcript:

Henrik de Gyor:  This is Another DAM Podcast about Digital Asset Management.  I’m Henrik de Gyor. Today I’m speaking with Ron Gill. Ron, how are you?

Ron Gill:  Hey, how is it going, Henrik?

Henrik de Gyor:  Good. Ron, how are you involved with Digital Asset Management?

Ron Gill:  That’s a good question. Like lot of my colleagues, Digital Asset Management was something that you kind of wander into. So in my case, I started out as a graphic designer with a fine arts painting background and throughout my career as a graphic designer all the way up to art director, I was always involved with the management of large archives of assets, whether it be for the architectural firms that I was working for, the advertising firms that I was working for throughout the cycle. And this is before Digital Asset Management and even became a industry, let alone a descriptor for what it is that we do. It was a series of organizing and making these assets useful within the company. So as the tools got better and as the systems got more elaborate, I basically had a trial by fire, a learning experience from the ground up. It was learning about how these systems are being used and how I could best implement them in the company’s workflow. So as I progressed, I became more and more involved and roughly around 2008 I became more heavily vested in Digital Asset Management. I kind of a made that my focus over design. So that’s how I got involved in Digital Asset Management, in the Digital Asset Management space.

Henrik de Gyor:  What are the biggest challenges and successes you’ve seen with Digital Asset Management?

Ron Gill:  They are quite a few challenges. And there are also a number of successes that I’ve seen and I had. The challenges I think are, they’re varied actually. So silos, information stored in silos and teams not being up to cooperate with each other are some of the biggest challenges because in each, in each silo you have system, a subject matter experts that understand the content for their silos and they don’t necessarily communicate too well even though, for example, if you’re doing or you’re working for a marketing organization and the company is large enough so you’ll have different wings or different teams working on different aspects. They all might be doing different things, but in the same industry or sharing the same goal. So getting all these silos together is one of the biggest challenges and getting people to recognize that I think is the biggest challenge for Digital Asset Management. In the beginning, it’s getting a company sign on and higher-ups to pay for the system because it’s not something that you can get overnight.

Ron Gill:  It’s not something that’s going to happen, you know, by pulling the software off the shelf and then plugging it into your system. It’s something that takes thorough investigation. It takes an understanding of how the company is using assets and it’s understanding the needs of the end user. So those are the biggest challenges that, I think in Digital Asset Management. Of course, there’s a number of splinter challenges that come up from that way, you know, adding metadata and who gets to add metadata, adoption, so on, so forth. In the beginning, the biggest challenge is getting everybody on board and understanding the baseline workflow that needs to happen inside the Digital Asset Management system.

Ron Gill:  Now, so far, successes, successes wouldn’t be obviously getting that challenge, taking care of, so being able to find what the company would need in so far as their workflow is the biggest success I think you can have initially. Finding the system that is going to work for multiple teams and the system that will best make their output and workflow more efficient is the biggest success. Once you have a working DAM in place, those successes will come.

Henrik de Gyor:  What advice would you like to share with DAM professionals and people aspiring to become DAM professionals?

Ron Gill:  Advice I’d like to share with people aspiring to become professionals. There’s not too much information online or anything that you can glean through the Internet. There is some resources that you can, forums. I think Deb Fanslow has a great one, DAM Peeps. This is for non-vendors. It is a invite only Google group or forum and it’s a good resource that just came up. And it’s good to learn as much as you possibly can and there’s so many industries that DAM touches. So obviously going to big events like Henry Stewart or going to DAM Meetups will expose you to different areas, different industries. I mean I’m still talking to people that are also Digital Asset Managers, but I’ve never met before or I have, I didn’t know that industry was using DAM in that fashion. So getting out there and, and meeting new people and seeing how they’re using DAM to help their company and help their workflows is a vital resource. I mean, it’ll help you tremendously in, in what you’re doing and you’re trying to achieve.

Henrik de Gyor:  Well, Thanks, Ron.

Ron Gill:  All right. Excellent. Thank you.

Henrik de Gyor:  For more on this, visit anotherdampodcast.com. If you have any comments or questions, please email me at anotherdamblog@gmail.com. Thanks again.

 

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Another DAM Podcast interview with Jan Delos Santos on Digital Asset Management

Transcript:

Henrik de Gyor: This is Another DAM podcast about Digital Asset Management. I’m Henrik de Gyor. Today I’m speaking with Jan Delos Santos. How are you involved with the Digital Asset Management?

Jan Delos Santos: I’ve been involved with Digital Asset Management for over a decade now. Currently, I’m the digital asset manager for RPA, which is Rubin Postaer & Associates. Prior to my stint here, I’ve worked as the Digital Asset Management for Saatchi & Saatchi LA for two years. Prior to that, I was an art producer/digital asset manager at TBWA\CHIAT\DAY for about eight years. Really much of my experience has really been on the agency side of things. Back in 2003, when I first became involved with DAM, I was just starting out as an art producer and was responsible for commissioning various artists for the different campaigns that came through. The agency needed a way to keep track of these assets that were being produced, especially as the amount of digital files grew. Because I was one of the most tech-savvy members of the team, they pretty much charged me with creating the system. I worked with our internal IT department at that time to create an in-house solution.

I was hired by RPA to revamp the system they currently have and just develop their workflow processes for DAM. Prior to my arrival here, there wasn’t anyone devoted solely to the Digital Asset Management who understood the particular needs of an advertising agency. The system was basically being used as file storage. The taxonomy was out of date. There was no overall structure to the system. Since there was no clean ingestion workflow, many of the assets in the DAM were either incorrect or never even made it to the DAM. That’s been my challenge to leverage the technology already in place, to introduce some best practices, and to broaden the agency’s understanding of the benefits of having a DAM. Anytime you’re going through this type of DAM revamp, restructure, and expansion, it’s never a quick fix. It’s been really important to me, through this transition, to work nimbly and have flexibility, but at the same, stick to a well-thought-out roadmap for implementing the new processes, technologies, and operating procedures.

Henrik de Gyor: How does an independent advertising agency use Digital Asset Management?

Jan Delos Santos: As a creative agency, we’re responsible for generating many individual visual assets used. Even though we’re an independent agency, we still have to work with a number of different client partners that rely on the assets we create. Because we have so many different teams, clients, or client partners that need these assets, we use DAM to keep track of the product metadata, usage rights, and to distribute those assets across the network. In that may, being in an independent agency is not that different from working at other agencies. We run into similar issues and have similar needs, so standardizing our workflow and getting users to adopt the system is key. Much of my experience has been with the various automotive clients, so it’s vital that they DAM keeps track of the product information for the vehicles featured in the assets. What’s product correct for one model year could change in the next. Depending upon the nature of the marketing, users may need a vehicle with very specific options. By centralizing and keeping these assets on the DAM, it ensures that users are locating the correct image for their needs. Also, it helps to make the branding consistent across the different media channels, whether it’s print, digital, or social media.

Henrik de Gyor: Great. What are the biggest challenges and successes you’ve seen with Digital Asset Management?

Jan Delos Santos: I think that although awareness is growing, I still find that many companies don’t understand what Digital Asset Management is and what the benefits are for having a DAM system in place, or if they have heard of DAM, they focus all their efforts solely on the technology when really there’s so much more to it than that. You can have the greatest technology in the world, but you still have to adapt it to your needs, especially as they change, and have people behind it to support, maintain, and grow the system. It’s not uncommon for a digital asset manager to be hired onto to clean up a previous situation. Often those responsible for creating the system don’t communicate clearly to all necessary holders involved, so no one utilizes the system either correctly or at all.

In one case, I had to cull down the required meta data fields from 140. After meeting with different stakeholders, I quickly realized that none of the users ingesting assets had the time nor were there a need for this huge set of data. I was able to pare it down to the essentials, and I reduced the number to 38. By doing this, it made the process significantly more efficient and made the option of this step less of a concern for others. Because I was focused on their needs and valued their input, those stakeholders became more willing to work with me and through me to solve future problems and eliminate future technical roadblocks.

I think that success for me happens as our user adoption grows. I love it when the light bulb clicks on for people when they work with their DAM and realize how it can make their work life easier. They’re no longer bogged down by spending so much time digging for files, and they can find what they need quickly and can move on to the more important stuff.

Henrik de Gyor: Great. Sounds like a great investment. What advice would you like to share with DAM professionals and people aspiring to become DAM professionals?

Jan Delos Santos: As much as the industry is growing, I still think it’s a niche area that even some long-time agency veterans aren’t aware of. There’s certainly not a lot of information to new, prospective candidates unless they have been in this type of role previously. Most digital asset managers don’t start out as such, and they’re coming into the field from very diverse disciplines. I think that it’s important for someone aspiring to work in DAM to always be curious. You never know what experiences will help you along the way, so you have to be open to a variety of challenges. It’s not just learning about new innovations and technology. You have to be proactive and get to know your users and their needs. Also, never underestimate the value of the human part of DAM. The more you’re able to connect with people, the more successful you’ll be.

Henrik de Gyor: Great. Thanks, Jan.

Jan Delos Santos: Thanks for having me.

Henrik de Gyor: For more on this, visit anotherdampodcast.com. If you have any comments or questions, please feel free to email me at anotherdamblog@gmail.com. Thanks again.

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 Victor LeBon on 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 Victor LeBon. Victor, how are you?

Victor LeBon:  [0:10] I’m very well, Henrik, how are you?

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

Victor:  [0:15] Henrik, I’m the Director of Marketing Technology at a company called ICP.

ICP is a company that started in advertising production which is we still do today. That’s my background and why I joined the company.

[0:28] Advertising production relies on the key principle of reusing and repurposing contents. In essence that its core business, but doing so in a way that is compliant and it complies with legal, regulatory, and brand guidelines as well. That’s the key principle of Digital Asset Management as well.

[0:46] I started working on the advertising production side. My first opportunity with DAM, was helping a client with their migration they wanted to have from one system to another. Then, I worked as a Business Director for Unilever ‑‑ one of our key clients in this area ‑‑ supporting their asset management solution.

[1:02] These days, I look after all of our clients here at ICP and any services supporting marketing technology, of course, of which DAM is a central part. My day-to-day role these days focuses around digital transformation. How to integrate asset management effectively within the wider digital transformation ecosystem.

Henrik:  [1:21] How does a marketing communications production company use Digital Asset Management?

Victor:  [1:26] That’s a great question. We use DAM in all aspects of our business, both the advertising production and marketing technology services. For the marketing communications and production side of things it’s essential for the work that we do. We have to ensure we reuse and repurpose the content for our clients. Effectively reuse their assets.

[1:47] We have to be compliant. We have to provide our clients with visibility and transparency both on the creative process, the review and approval process, as well as the final output.

[1:58] Touch points with DAM, is restricting master creatives, downloading those key assets, the whole MRM aspect which is approval and work flow, as well as uploading the adaptations, which we ourselves produce. Then of course, distributing it to the end points.

[2:14] ICP took a slightly different strategic direction from other marketing communication production companies in the sense that we don’t develop our own software. We very much wanted to remain agnostic and ensure we use whatever solutions best suited for our client needs.

Victor:  [2:30] If a client has a solution, a DAM solution which they themselves have chosen, that’s best suited to their needs in our production areas we can also make use of that. We have a solution that we use in‑house but we are not wedded to it. We can make sure that whatever we chose and recommended is aligned to our client needs.

[2:46] For example, for one of our clients Diageo, we offer both production services and marketing technology services. That works really well because we have an overall understanding of the end‑to‑end process for the assets that we work with for our clients and both the creation thereof and the management thereof in the systems as well.

Henrik:  [3:05] Victor, how do you see the role of Digital Asset Management in correlation with digital transformation?

Victor:  [3:10] I think this is something that’s changed very much in recent times where digital transformation initiatives are happening everywhere we see. Prior to digital transformation, asset management was happening. It was really about finding ROI and finding efficiencies in the clients process. The key change now is that DAM, or Digital Asset Management is now no longer really optional.

[3:38] If a company wants to go through a digital transformation program, they really have to have DAM as part of their core pillar of their capabilities. You need to look at the end‑to‑end states, with digital transformation.

[3:50] You have to start off with sometimes what might be a very mature DAM system. Or if you’re starting at this from scratch, you might need to go on and start an new DAM system or consolidate, but you can’t have services that operate in silos. You can’t have technology that operates in silos, as well.

[4:06] No matter what your technology or supplier landscape in, digital transformation is really about bringing those together and providing a consolidated ecosystem, both of services, and technology, and capabilities to offer that seamless experience for the clients and customers.

Henrik:  [4:23] What are the biggest challenges and successes you’ve seen with Digital Asset Management?

Victor:  [4:28] I’ll try not to be too controversial here. One of the biggest challenges that we’ve seen and I think this is probably the same thing for many companies like ourselves, is internal stakeholders at our clients, and working with lots of different parties. Indeed, they all have their different priorities, their different agendas, their different KPIs and the key things they need to try and achieve.

[4:51] That brings different requirements to the party, and different perspectives, I say, as on what is critical for success. I think the bigger the solution, first of all, the more stakeholders you have to involve to ensure success. That brings in itself its own challenges in getting those individual stakeholders to align. Of course, looking at the reward at the end of that is the bigger the solution, the more the stakeholders, the greater the potential benefit.

[5:16] One other key challenge which we’ve seen as well is technology never moves as quickly as the requirements. Everyone wants something and they want it now. By the time it’s available, they want something different. Looking at change, how technology is implemented, and how support around that technology is implemented, that will stand the test of time.

[5:37] Providing support to the business, and to the various department who uses this technology whilst at the same time continually improving the solution is a big challenge which I think we’ve got a lot of experience in doing. We’re quite excited about delivering that.

[5:52] In terms of successes, again, I’ll be slightly controversial and say that for me the biggest success is when we can get clients to the stage when we can step back and a lot of our core services are no longer required. We will have achieved our goal of embedding that solutions part to business as usual processes.

[6:12] We’ve helped work with software developers and business to make the system more refined or work towards making data gathering process much more efficient. We’re really starting to see success now as when that DAM system achieves a certain level of maturity, that it can really be integrated effectively, within the wider ecosystem.

[6:35] It’s like a well‑oiled machine that operates very effectively on its own sometimes and very independently from us. We’re happy to embrace that because we work almost sometimes to develop ourselves and the services we have into obsolescence because we want to deliver value for our clients at every stage. We know if we deliver value there and demonstrate that to the clients, then they’ll find something else for us to do.

[6:57] That’s something we are quite excited to work in partnership with our clients to deliver.

Henrik:  [7:02] Victor, what advice would you like to share with DAM professionals and people aspiring to become DAM professionals?

Victor:  [7:08] First of all, I’d like to say that this is a really exciting industry. I’m massively passionate about this. I get to quite excited thinking about working in this area. So much is happening in this space and this is going to be so fundamental to the growth and success of organizations everywhere.

[7:24] My advice would be have a passion for what you do and for delivering value and quality. Start by delivering value in your role in your job, in your company or whatever. Whatever area of the DAM industry that you work in, whether you’re on the client side, or the software vendor side, or the services side as we are.

[7:42] Then the opportunities grow. I think taking that approach of doing the job you’re been asked to do. Doing it really well and passionately, then the opportunities come to you because clients and partners can recognize you’ve got a really good investment in getting it right. Then after, you can grow it from there.

[8:03] The other piece of advice I would say is never stop learning. Never stop asking questions and being curious about the world around you. The technologies change, organizations change, the relationship between marketing and customers has fundamentally changed.

[8:19] Big organizations are getting this now, that they need to embrace change and making it part of their day‑to‑day. Embracing change all together, with all the different parties working together and being OK, with that makes for a really exciting journey that we can go on.

Henrik:  [8:34] Excellent, well thanks Victor.

Victor:  [8:36] Thank you Henrik.

Henrik:  [8:38] For more on this and other Digital Asset Management topics, go to anotherdamblog.com. For this and 180 other podcast episodes, go to anotherdampodcast.com. If you have any comments or questions, please feel free to email me at anotherdamblog@gmail.com. Thanks again.

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 Frank DeCarlo on Digital Asset Management

Frank DeCarlo 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 Frank DeCarlo.

Frank, how are you?

Frank DeCarlo:  [0:09] I’m doing well. Henrik, how are you?

Henrik:  [0:10] Great. Frank, how are you involved with Digital Asset Management?

Frank:  [0:14] I was a client of the company and now work for RPR Graphics before actually Digital Asset Management was coined as DAM. It was their answer to having hundreds of identical images, shuffling through their studio every week when they realized there had to be a better way.

[0:29] Years later, the term Digital Asset Management arrived and shortly thereafter, the opportunity to access and distribute images and any asset became available over the Internet.

[0:40] That’s when RPR realized what a viable service DAM could be not only for themselves, but for their clients, to spare our clients the capital expense and bring its 20 plus years of DAM experience as just another service.

Henrik:  [0:53] Frank, how does an organization focused on pre‑media use Digital Asset Management?

Frank:  [0:57] That’s a fair question, Henrik. I know pre‑media isn’t common.

[1:00] Wikipedia states that it has its processes and procedures that occur between the conception of original artwork and the manufacturing of final output channel. It’s a little extreme of explanation, but what we do is we handle everything before it goes to press.

[1:17] Everything before it gets on the web, and anything that needs organization and retouching, imaging manipulation, and trafficking for any marketing and advertising’s needs in distribution.

[1:32] It’s a staple with every one of our clients whether our clients right off the bat come to us wanting a DAM initiative to launch for themselves, or they’re in the early stages of working with us and understanding how we manage and distribute files between us, and the client.

[1:48] We know ultimately that everything we do and working with our clients is showing them the basic foundation of organizing taxonomy and coming up with metadata, whether it would only be a small percentage of their library initially, we continue to provide the service.

[2:02] Our experience with DAM not only benefits them in the end, we know that would pay off even more so down the road.

[2:08] The simple concept we all understand in DAM community is how easily an asset can then be found and distributed. We practice with every one of our clients just as, again we do business and it’s our service. We are the central hub and repository for their assets and that for RPR starts with our end user in pre‑media, the marketing, and advertising professionals.

[2:32] We act as an extension of their production departments and by doing so, again we introduce our 60 years of experience in helping streamline maybe their workflows not just with DAM, but saving them time and money in a variety of ways to help improve their time to market.

[2:49] DAM quickly becomes a relatively easier return on investment, once they start using it and evident when working with us, because it’s a vital part of how we been operating our day‑to‑day for over 20 years.

Henrik:  [3:01] What are the biggest challenges and successes you’ve seen with Digital Asset Management?

Frank:  [3:05] It’s an interesting segue in so far as one of the bigger challenge is and has been showing ROI before instituting a DAM. It’s easier now for certain. DAM is becoming a more common phrase, but ten years ago and even older than that, the eyebrows were raised, and it was more inherent when speaking about DAM and its benefits.

[3:28] It hasn’t completely disappeared and we’re still hear, “Well, we just used Dropbox” or “We’re OK with how we’ve always done it”.

[3:35] The other challenge is once it clicks, and a light bulb goes off and everyone is on board, it’s the act of teaching and implementing the governance necessary toward this growing organism.

[3:48] Metadata alone is a living and breathing thing and constantly changing based on the growth of the organization and how their assets relate to their business. Extraneous changes are happening every day within our industry, thus the metatagging is always changing and evolving.

[4:05] An example you take somebody like Donald Trump. A name you don’t hear every day. Years ago his metadata might have been real estate, business, The Art of the Deal, mogul, Atlantic City, Ivanka, those types of things and then what was added was beauty pageants, The Apprentice, television, NBC, blah, blah, blah.

[4:27] Today, [laughs] GOP, presidential candidate, Mexican border… you get the idea. It’s ever changing and it’s added too.

[4:37] Successes that I’ve seen in DAM is when it starts out small and we always start our clients out in baby steps, get them introduced to the basics and show them how it benefits the way they’re already working.

[4:50] Then you start to see it grow and starts to explode, all of a sudden I’m hearing, Frank, well we need another user group, we need to convert images on the fly for our web team or the packaging department, and our company wants to know how we’re flipping the logos over them so quickly, and if we can help them with organizing and distributing between their agencies.

[5:12] Or Frank, my phone is up for ringing anymore, there’s no more CD request and I need to send via FedEx because people are now going in on their own and findings things that they need and putting the owners on the people that need those files rather than having a distribution source.

[5:29] It’s all great stuff for me. That’s the payoff, helping an organization streamline their workflows and improving efficiency, that’s what RPR has been doing for many, many years.

Henrik:  [5:38] What advice would you like to share with DAM professionals and people aspiring to become DAM professionals?

Frank:  [5:43] It’s an exciting time in DAM. Where I see the most growth is with the digital archivists. We at RPR have RPR cybrarian. We’re finding more and more that our clients not only want us to take control of their digital library, but also be responsible, to understand how everything needs to be meta‑tagged.

[6:02] Basically, giving them an entire service, asking us to practice the governance needing to be sure their library stays current, and everything needing can be found based on search requirements relevant to their assets.

[6:16] It only makes sense. Libraries are growing every day, every hour, and how we keep track of them. What we’re spending on those digital assets in some cases could be a great deal of money, which creates these assets. They need to be at your fingertips and if you can’t find them or have to recreate them, it’s a great loss in many ways and sometimes not just monetarily.

[6:39] The more you can contribute helping organize libraries and help cut down on any search is critical, and once you do that, make sure you have a disaster recovery plan in place that make sense for your business.

[6:49] You can spend all the time on the world building a library and DAM that benefits everyone and is working properly, but if it goes down or disappears completely and doesn’t come back up and enough time, that doesn’t cause you a great deal of pain in the process or worse, where are you? I think disaster recovery is becoming more and more critical with our DAM and our extending libraries.

Henrik:  [7:12] Thanks, Frank.

Frank:  [7:13] Absolutely, Henrik. Thank you for the opportunity and I really enjoyed being here today.

Henrik:  [7:16] For more on this and other Digital Asset Management topics, go to AnotherDAMblog.com. For the other podcast episodes, go to AnotherDAMpodcast.com. If you have any comments or questions, please feel free to email me at AnotherDAMblog@Gmail.com. Thanks again.

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

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