Audio | Another DAM Podcast

July 21, 2011
by Henrik de Gyor

Another DAM Podcast interview with Steven Brier on Digital Asset Management

Here are the questions asked:

How are you involved with Digital Asset Management?
Why does an international hotel chain use Digital Asset Management?
What advice would you like to share with DAM Professionals and people aspiring to become DAM Professionals?

Transcript:

Henrik de Gyor: [0:00] This is Another DAM Podcast about Digital Asset
Management. I’m Henrik de Gyor. Today I’m speaking with Steven Brier. Steven,
how are you?
Steven Brier: [0:10] I’m just fine. How are you?
Henrik: [0:12] Good. Steven, how are you involved with Digital Asset
Management?
Steven: [0:15] I’m the Product Owner, for lack of a better term, of the Marriott
Digital Asset Management System, and several applications that leverage the
DAM to activate brand voice, and automate marketing and sales efforts for 11
different brands worldwide.

[0:34] In this role, I develop a strategy. I prioritize
the development. I manage all the internal and external resources. Whether that
be our development shop, advertising agencies and others. I serve as liaison
between the business and what we call the tools, which includes the DAM and
any of the other applications that link into the DAM. I also project manage any
integration efforts between other applications in the DAM which is extremely
important.
[1:05] We’ve made the DAM accessible through an API. That makes it much
easier for other applications to tap into those assets that live there, further
gleaning and pulling value out of those assets.
Henrik: [1:23] Why does an international hotel chain use Digital Asset
Management?
Steven: [1:28] Marriott uses it to secure the investment that’s made in digital
assets from a property standpoint and also, from a corporate standpoint.
Whether we have assets for brand and brand marketing, human resources, internal
communications, we use the DAM to secure that investment. Also, to glean
the maximum value we can out of those assets.

[1:56] Before we actually had this
thing, assets were stored on servers in hard drives and disks. You really couldn’t
access them, not in a global fashion, and certainly not even a cross department
way. This now allows people to use these assets, and to actually get them out
to people.
[2:18] The reason why we initially built it was to help build our brands. We were
going to a strategy of brand distinction. We really needed to categorize assets
that would be used specifically for each brand and not cross pollinate, if you will,
so that we could get a distinction.
[2:40] I guess the final thing you could say is just to save money, because they’re
specific. We collapsed nine different databases around the world, and I wouldn’t
even say that was all of them.
[2:56] We did that in a formalized way, but then I think there have been other
teams, groups, and organizations throughout Marriott who have since found our
tool and added their assets to the system, as well.
Henrik: [3:12] What advice would you like to share with DAM professionals and
people aspiring to become DAM professionals?
Steven: [3:18] The first thing is, if you’re going to be taking something on like
this, you’ve got to have some thick skin, [laughs] because it’s very sensitive.
Everyone has their own ideas how it should be done, and then they’re very
protective as to their assets and the control of those assets.

[3:38] In large corporations like Marriott it is, as I like to say, a house to house battle. It’s pretty rare that you see a company that scopes out to centrally fund an enterprise like
solution, because many times it’s millions of dollars, you have to fight through all
of the systems, and there are misunderstandings.
[4:00] A way that we were able to do it was we built small. We proved it out, the
concept to do a certain set of tasks, or to solve certain problems. Then, as we
proved that out, we started to evangelize the system to build that support and
get others to take ownership of their slice of the pie.
[4:24] In a sense, I guess you should be a salesperson, too. That’s not always
something that people in this position really aspire to or have the skillset to do,
but it’s just a matter of getting out, talking to people, and helping paint the picture
for them so they can see what the Digital Asset Management System can
do for their group, and what centralization of that, the value of centralization,
can have to their organization.
[4:57] The other thing is just to be open and solicit feedback, even criticism and
complaints. This is somewhere all the good ideas for our system have come. I
always like to say that, when people stop complaining, [laughs] I don’t have a
healthy system, because it means people are starting to disengage.
[5:15] I have really fostered this open door policy so that people understand that
if they have an issue with the system, if it can be solved. We’re perfectly willing
to do that.
Henrik: [5:28] Allowing people to complain, but taking those complaints and
seeing what challenges can be resolved to make the system better. That’s a
great piece of advice there as well.
Steven: [5:36] Right.
Henrik: [5:38] Thanks Steven.
Steven: [5:39] You are quite welcome.
Henrik: [5:42] 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.

Another DAM podcast interview with John George (anotherdampodcast.com)
Another DAM podcast interview with Megan Re (anotherdampodcast.com)

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

June 30, 2011
by Henrik de Gyor

Another DAM Podcast interview with Karuana Gatimu on Digital Asset Management

Here are the questions asked:

How are you involved with Digital Asset Management?
Why does a footwear company use Digital Asset Management?
Is it about the technology or strategy when it comes to Digital Asset Management?
What advice would you like to share with 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’m Henrik de Gyor. Today I’m speaking with Karuana Gatimu.
Karuana, how are you?
Karuana Gatimu: [0:11] I’m excellent. Thank you for inviting me.
Henrik: [0:14] Karuana, how are you involved with Digital Asset Management?
Karuana: [0:17] Digital Asset Management came into my life actually as an offshoot
of Enterprise Content Management. I’m an Enterprise Content Certified
Practitioner. I spent about 20 years in the business doing different sorts of
custom apps and helping organizations find their information. As I moved into
the video world and live events and doing web production and print, Digital
Asset Management was a logical offshoot of all of my history.
Henrik: [0:44] Excellent. Why does a footwear company use Digital Asset
Management?
Karuana: [0:49] Skechers USA, which is a global footwear company, needs
Digital Asset Management because we produce literally thousands of product
images. We have commercials. We have archive clips of conferences and events.
[1:02] A lot of content that we used to tell the story of our company, at different
times during the year. Being able to locate that information, put it together to
be able to create new content, and keep people getting to the information efficiently,
is really important to us.
Henrik: [1:19] Sounds like it. Karuana, is it about the technology or the strategy,
when it comes to Digital Asset Management?
Karuana: [1:24] You know that’s my favorite subject.
Henrik: [1:26] Of course.
Karuana: [1:27] I know that’s why you asked me that question. I really feel it is
about the strategy. Every day, I get about 50 vendor voice mails on my line at
work. They’re all telling me about how they can increase my revenue or give
me this wonderful piece of technology that I desperately need for my customer
experience. [1:48] At the end of the day, I’m in charge of knowing what the business
needs actually are. I think that for anybody in the DAM community, it’s very
important for us to be able to separate what are true services and features that
we need to deliver to the enterprise, and what is the fluff.
[2:05] Nobody can define that. A vendor can’t define that for you. A consultant
can help you. A research agency can help you but the vendors themselves, have
their own agenda. It’s very important that you plug those very worthwhile vendors
into your over reaching strategy.
[2:22] For a company like Skechers, for instance, because we don’t have a monetization
model, we’re not a broadcast network. Consequently, the information
and the services I’m trying to deliver are different than if I was A&E or HBO or
somebody like that.
[2:36] I think it’s really important that we have to know our own business. Devise
our strategy based on the needs of business and the evolution of our business
and partner with people out there in the partner ecosystem, that understand
those needs as we articulate them.
[2:53] I think in that, it really gives us a good foundation in which to continue to
build because it’s never done. The work is never done. There’s always more to
do. There’s always more services I can deliver, and the technology is evolving. If
you take a look at what’s happened recently over the last few years with social,
and how that’s changed marketing operations and the needs for assets and
what have you, we can anticipate that more of that is coming.
[3:17] So knowing our strategy is a really good thing.
Henrik: [3:20] What advice would you like to give to DAM professionals and
people aspiring to become DAM professionals?
Karuana: [3:26] If you are an existing DAM professional, keep the faith. We’re
moving. Don’t lose your enthusiasm. This is an iterative process, and we just
have to keep moving forward. Because as more user generated content, corporate
generated content, and social generated content comes to us, it’s going to
become very important for us to build really well thought out systems. [3:50] So
if you’re already here, then stay. Because the people who are coming are going
to need our experience, strength and hope, as we move forward. I think that if
you’re interested into getting into Digital Asset Management, you have to think
about what you are really passionate about.
[4:07] Is it the technology side, in terms of for instance, database architecture or
technological implementations? Is it the strategy side, in terms of how Digital
[4:16] Asset Management affects business and can be used by business? Or is
it the marketing and creative side, or licensing in the sense of the monetization
and reuse and repurpose of creative content?
[4:28] I think it’s really important to know where you fall within the different layers
of DAM, and then develop your expertise as you move forward. It’s a great segment
to be in. It’s growing by leaps and bounds. There’s a tremendous amount
of exciting content, and vendors out there are doing unique things. It’s a real
great time to be involved in DAM.
Henrik: [4:49] Great. Thank you so much.
Karuana: [4:52] I appreciate it. Thank you for inviting me, and we will see
you later.
Henrik: [4:55] Great. For more on Digital Asset Management, log onto
AnotherDAMblog.com. Another DAM Podcast is also available on Audioboom,
~~Blubrry~~, iTunes and the ~~Tech Podcast Network~~. Thanks again.

Another DAM podcast interview with Rob Le Quesne (anotherdampodcast.com)
Another DAM podcast interview with Kyle Hufford (anotherdampodcast.com)

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

June 23, 2011
by Henrik de Gyor

Another DAM Podcast interview with William Bitunjac on Digital Asset Management

Here are the questions asked:

How are you involved with Digital Asset Management?
Why does a national chain of merchandise stores use Digital Asset Management?
What advice would you like to give to DAM professionals and people aspiring to become DAM professionals?

Transcript:

Henrik de Gyor: [0:00] This is Another DAM Podcast about Digital Asset
Management. I’m Henrik de Gyor. Today I’m speaking with William Bitunjac.
William, how are you?
William Bitunjac: [0:09] Very good.
Henrik: [0:10] William, how are you involved with Digital Asset Management?
William: [0:12] At my company, I’m the Program Manager for all content management
tools for a large ecommerce program currently. I actually built the
Digital Asset Management content management strategy for our print marketing
lines prior to this, so converging on an enterprise view of content management
and Digital Asset Management. Picking apart the individual pieces, both
print and online individually, but now with an opportunity to look at converging
into single enterprise vision for it. Really, more heavily on the business side, in
terms of driving out strategy and then some of the delivery team responsibilities
as well.
Henrik: [0:52] Why does a national chain of merchandise stores use Digital
Asset Management?
William: [0:57] There’s a lot of numbers of reasons. Some of them are very similar.
It’s money savings. You only need to shoot a photo once, and you can reuse
it a lot of times. A lot of the reasons that have always been in the business case
for Digital Asset Management, not reshooting assets, photography that you’ve
lost, not spending time looking for things, some tighter control of brands, so
you’re only working on approved assets, approved content. [1:31] As I’ve looked
at it, beyond the initial benefits of creating libraries, centralization of knowledge,
and sharing, I’ve found incredible opportunity throughout automation. Tying
it with other content so some of the manual production work of getting assets
into layouts or to websites, managing workflows, managing approvals, the act
of centralizing assets and metadata has been an incredible benefit to further
automation.
[2:04] Getting the centralized library offers money savings on the business case
is giving tens of millions of dollars to the organization through asset reuse,
speed to market, and delivery of marketing materials. Instead of spending all of
your time trying to find the things that you need, creating new experiences has
become almost turnkey. The level of effort goes into creating incredible experiences,
not finding the materials that you need.
Henrik: [2:32] What advice would you like to give to DAM professionals and
people aspiring to become DAM professionals?
William: [2:37] My advice really comes from how I came to the position, into the
industry. I didn’t come as a career technologist. It really wasn’t my vision and my
dream to spend my entire life creating content management platforms. I was an
end user. I was a creative director. I was a photographer. I had a lot of passion
around knowledge management, but I was initially in a position to be one of the
beneficiaries of a system like these. [3:13] Staying close to your users, monitoring
what they’re using, keeping track of the strategic direction of the organization.
Again, the big benefit that I’ve seen has been turnkey generation of incredible
new experiences. If you know, strategy wise, where the business is going,
where the assets are coming from, you can actually turn your asset management
system into an innovation engine.
[3:38] In order to do that, you almost have to be less interested in the technology
and more interested in the business and the business users. The technology
becomes a tool to drive out people’s dreams. For me, my teams come from the
business, I spend my time with the business, and I have really, really, really, good
delivery partners who take care of the technology bits for me.
[4:01] Playing with the technology and learning about as many platforms as
possible is the second piece of advice. There are a lot of different ways to get
things done. The framework in most of the enterprise applications allows you a
lot of different ways to do things. If you know what’s in the toolbox, you can put
together just about any toy you want.
Henrik: [4:23] Thanks, William.
William: [4:25] Sure.
Henrik: [4:25] For more on Digital Asset Management, log onto
AnotherDAMblog.com. Thanks, again.