Another DAM Podcast

Audio about Digital Asset Management

Tag Archives: Digital Media


by

Another DAM Podcast interview with Philip Spiegel on Digital Asset Management

Here are the questions asked:

  • How are you involved with Digital Asset Management?
  • How does an information management and consulting company help a major news organization with DAM?
  • What advice would you like to give to DAM professionals and people aspiring to become DAM Professionals?

Transcript:

Henrik de Gyor: This is Another DAM Podcast about Digital Asset
Management. I’m Henrik de Gyor. Today I’m speaking with Philip Spiegel. Philip,
how are you?
Philip Spiegel: Good, Henrik. How are you?
Henrik: Good. Philip, how are you involved with Digital Asset Management?
Philip: I’ve come out of the stock footage and film archive world, and have
been doing Digital Asset Management before it even had that cool title. We
used to call it getting our house in order and being as smart about our assets
as possible. As this world has evolved to be more robust and more ingrained in
other businesses, it’s grown around me and taken off in lots of ways. Most recently,
I’ve been involved in media archives and their relationship to DAMS, previously
at Getty Images, as well as National Geographic in getting their archive
in order, and getting the house in order to be able to officially get things into
the DAM system so it can be retrieved and used and repurposed and re-content
monetized as need be.
Henrik: How does information management and consulting company help in a
major new organization with DAM?
Philip: Well, I think that the funny thing about with Net Now is we get to really
apply our specialty environment that is brilliant at what they do but not necessarily
focused on the Albert Fritz type projects like archive management and
DAM management and being really masters of their fate. It is not their core
competency. It’s our core competency. It’s a great opportunity for us to bring
in our specialty and offer a great service to free up the energies to focus on
what they do best. It makes a lot of sense. It’s really an exciting opportunity for
both of us.
We’re embedded here, and really it’s seamless and transparent. If you didn’t
know, other than the back-end being slightly different, it’s really irrelevant. But
behind the scenes at the management level, they’ll be able to really apply good
best practices and get into the weeds far deeper than could have happened
before because frankly, again, it wasn’t their core competency.
Henrik: What advice would you give DAM professionals or people aspiring to
become a DAM professional?
Philip: I think there’s two different sets of advice I would give DAM professionals
that are already in the business and already working on projects. I
always lean towards being technology agnostic. Not preconceiving an idea of
how a particular device or product may make your life easier but instead really
make more organically from the, what am I trying to achieve? What is my core
business need?
Who are my key clients and users, and how do they interact with the system
they have now? How would they reinteract with the system going forward? Then
build the plan around that. Then find the technology that makes the most sense
on those particular requirements once they are identified.
It’s really easy for all of us to be geeky, like kids in a candy store, and get real
excited about the different gadgets but we have to fight the temptation, and remember
that we are all trying to solve a basic work flow process questions and
problems. We can’t lose sight of that.
That’s a huge one that I advocate on. I’ve spoken before about how technology
can be our savior, it’s not the only thing that makes things different.
There have been plenty of instances where I’ve been in new environments
where money spent on technology solution could have easily gone toward
something not necessarily technology driven, and we would have gotten just as
good, if not the same, result. It’s really important not to pick out the car before
you really know how to drive.
People who are aspiring to be in this profession, I think that it’s important to
really get your hands dirty. I’m a big fan of experience, on the job training.
Recently, I was excited to attend a conference here in New York.
There were so many people there from programs either at Columbia or at Pratt.
They’re getting better, there was an opportunity for them to be exposed where
I think when I was younger and that age, it was more just organic.
Again, it didn’t really have this formal umbrella industry around it. But again, I
think it’s important to just get your hands dirty, and really just to intern or volunteer
or work part time but try to get into a real world situation.
It’s going to be the most valuable experience. It’s great to have theory. It’s great
to be able to talk to others and to participate in different events, but until you
really are thrown into the deep end of the pool, you may not have as much as
you could otherwise.
Henrik: It does make sense. Thanks Philip.
Philip: Thank you, Henrik. Good to talk to you.
Henrik: You too. For more on Digital Asset Management log on to
AnotherDAMblog.com. Thanks again.

Related Articles

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


by

Have I heard all the DAM jokes yet?

Based on the blog post from Another DAM blog:

Written and read by Henrik de Gyor

Related Articles

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


by

Another DAM Podcast interview with Judy Colbert on Digital Asset Management

Judy Colbert discusses Digital Asset Management

Here are the questions asked:

  • 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.

Related Articles

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


by

Another DAM Podcast interview with Cynthia Hilsinger on Digital Asset Management

Here are the questions asked:

  • How are you involved with Digital Asset Management?
  • How does the Air Force use Digital Asset Management?
  • How do you get unstructured assets under control?
  • How did you develop new metadata panels for use with the Adobe Creative Suite?
  • 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 Cynthia Hilsinger.
Cynthia, how are you?
Cynthia Hilsinger: [0:10] I’m just fine, Henrik.
Henrik: [0:12] Great. Cynthia, how are you involved with Digital Asset
Management?
Cynthia: [0:14] I manage a series of files, images, et cetera, about a terabyte, at
Headquarters Air Force Information Media Management and Graphics.
Henrik: [0:25] Great. How does the Air Force use Digital Asset Management?
Cynthia: [0:28] The Air Force uses Digital Asset Management to control its
unstructured assets. These unstructured assets are kept for remanipulation and
repurposing. Information requests come in for the Air Force. We can pull that
information quickly, serve it up to our customers. [0:48] It all becomes part of
telling the Air Force story. This is what we do and having those assets handy,
findable, discoverable, ready to be pulled, served up, made into a product that
can be consumed by the customer or the public, that’s an important storytelling
point for us and our office.
Henrik: [1:10] How do you get unstructured assets under control?
Cynthia: [1:13] One, you have to deal with people and personalities first, content
makers. That was the most difficult item for me. Making sure people understand
that data is a corporate asset, and it has a very real value, and having
them understand that.
Henrik: [1:36] How do you develop new metadata panels for use with the
Adobe Creative Suite?
Cynthia: [1:42] We were given new governance that we were required to
add a VIRIN number to our Creative Suite files. We use a lot of Illustrator and
Photoshop. In the military, in the DoD in particular, we have what’s called
a VIRIN number. It’s the Visual Information Record Identification Number.
Currently, there was no way to add that VIRIN number into the metadata panel.
The practice had been to rename a file and give it this long VIRIN number. [2:15]
To give you a sample of what a VIRIN number is, think of your car VIN number,
the Vehicle Identification Number, which is a very long number. We have this
very long VIRIN number, important because each data asset, each visual information
product has its own individual VIRIN number. It’s almost like a thumbprint.
How are we going to add that without changing a lot of file names to a
hard to remember VIRIN number?
[2:47] When I was looking at the metadata panels that come incorporated with
Adobe Creative Suite, I realized that they were powered by XMP. I contacted
that company and tried to develop some way to add that information in and
change those panels around. After some time, they said, “Well, you know, it’s a
little bit difficult. We had a few requests from other people in the military wanting
the same item.” So it was a common pain point for everyone in the DoD.
[3:24] I brought it forward to Defense Media Activity, and between developers,
Pound Hill, and Adobe, and Defense Media Activity, and understand, trying to
get the government from many different arms. Defense Media Activity said,
“Well, let us massage this a bit.” And I was keeping the communication lines
open, adding some insight on how we were developing things in our name
schema, and I wanted to keep the file name the same.
[3:55] Well, everybody signed off. Adobe said, “Not a problem.” DMA said,
“We’ll host this. It can be found on a DoD website free to the government
users.” Now we can open up a metadata panel that is named for us. It’s a metadata
panel, and that allows us now to keep the file name the same and add
metadata in the appropriate places and makes a smooth transition.
[4:31] My goal was to make each file smarter. With everyone’s cooperation, it all
came together. So now we have a new metadata panel that can be inserted into
our Adobe software, and Adobe is thrilled with it. They’re out saying to their
federal customers, “Hey, look what we have. Please use that.” Federal users
they’re happy, since they don’t have to go some other place.
Henrik: [4:59] What advice would you like to give to DAM professionals and
people aspiring to become data professionals?
Cynthia: [5:05] I would say to begin with, when you come into any organization,
take a survey of the work processes there, and take the survey of all the data
that is in-house. Learn how your office is ingesting data, how it is being moved
throughout the office, and its work processes how it is being made, held,
and kept.
[5:29] Once you have a baseline of what is and when you know what you’re
currently doing and how to do it, getting a DAM system or building a DAM
system and having metrics is quite critically important. That takes a fair amount
of time to understand, so that’s a first critical step. After you know what your
processes are, the next item that I would say to young DAM professionals is get
a naming system.
[6:02] Make sure that you have a schema for how things are organized. Get a
naming system, making sure that there are no blank spaces, no unusual characters
except hyphen and underscore. That way files become platform agnostic.
We use Macs in our office, but many people have PCs. That way they can be
sent across the Internet without adding extra characters.
[6:28] That would be step two. Naming conventions and getting an understanding
of what things are called, and making sure all files fit that naming convention
and that organizational schema. Step one, know your processes. Step two,
naming conventions and schema development.
Henrik: [6:50] Excellent. Thank you so much, Cynthia.
Cynthia: [6:52] Thank you very much for having me on your blogcast.
Henrik: [6:56] For more on Digital Asset Management, log onto
AnotherDAMblog.com. Thanks again.

Related Articles

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

Need Digital Asset Management advice and assistance?

Another DAM Consultancy can help. Schedule a call today