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Another DAM Podcast interview with Jay O’Brien on Digital Asset Management

Jay O’Brien 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 Jay O’Brien.

Jay, how are you?

Jay O’Brien:  [0:09] I’m doing great. How are you?

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

Jay:  [0:14] In my role at the Baltimore Ravens, I’m the director of broadcasting and stadium productions. I fell into the Digital Asset Management role here. I started 11 years ago here as an intern, just logging tape, doing tape‑to‑tape editing and logging tape in the…I think it was AVID media logger.

[0:35] I got very good at Digital Asset Management in terms of typing out every single play of every single Ravens’ game. That’s how I became a stickler for asset management and also became a football fan.

[0:47] I say I fell into it, because Digital Asset Management, as I’ve advanced through the Ravens and now I’m in charge of the broadcasting department, we were faced with a situation where we basically had to make a move. The previous system we’re on was at its end of life and it was, of course, going to be a big investment to upgrade.

[1:06] I took on the role of learning as much as I could about all the new asset management systems that were out there. It’s pretty exciting. It’s not something I thought I would be interested in but I’ve been working with some great people at other teams, and with our consulting group that we used to implement this new system that we’re on.

[1:24] I’ve really learned a lot and there are some great people in the field like yourself who’ve been very, I guess, instrumental in helping me to learn as much as I can about this. Now, I wouldn’t in any respect call myself an expert. I’m an intermediate novice in this whole thing and learning more about it every day.

[1:38] Our primary objective here is to create great content. When we made this change, I guess more involved in automating our Digital Asset Management, helped us to get away from the tedious typing out every player’s name and to actually editing content.

Henrik:  [1:53] How does a football team use Digital Asset Management?

Jay:  [1:57] It’s pretty interesting. For an NFL team, there are actually two different video departments that are using Digital Asset Management for two completely different purposes.

[2:06] We have a coaching video department which is using Digital Asset Management to record every play from practice and every play from the games so that our coaches can then go through to analyze the plays for teaching and to get ready for future opponents and that type of thing.

[2:22] What my department does is more on the entertainment side. We create television shows that air in our local market here in Baltimore and Washington, DC, also on our team’s website and mobile app and iPad app and all that kind of good stuff. Then, we also create all the entertainment at our home games on our big screens and our ancillary video boards.

[2:47] What we’re using Digital Asset Management for is to capture all the footage that we shoot at practice, at games, off the field with our players doing work in the community and that sort of thing. We’re using Digital Asset Management to capture and tag all that media so that it’s very easily searchable for us.

[3:11] You don’t know that you need a shot until you need a shot. We were working on a feature this past season about our old national anthem singer who sang national anthem for the first 18 years of our franchise. We had logged the first game that he sang the national anthem.

[3:29] While you’re logging and tagging that asset, you’re probably thinking to yourself “When am I ever going to need this?” But you eventually do. I’m sure that the people that are for us doing a lot of loggings sometimes are thinking “Wow, they’re never going to use this clip.” Surprisingly, we often do.

[3:45] With a team that’s now in our 20th season of existence like the Baltimore Ravens, we’re getting to the point now where we’re doing a lot of look backs and in‑a‑moment‑in‑time of the most famous plays and players in our history. Without a robust Digital Asset Management system, we wouldn’t be able to create the content and the quality that our fans demand.

Henrik:  [4:06] Jay, what are the biggest challenges and successes you’ve seen with Digital Asset Management?

Jay:  [4:10] For us, the biggest challenge is, with this new system that we have, we’re utilizing the Levels Beyond Reach engine. But it gives you the chance to create as many metadata fields and as many metadata keywords as you want.

[4:24] That’s the challenge and the success of the new system. You want to be able to search by all sorts of different tags. You also don’t want to create too many that you get bogged down with it or that the tagging process takes such a long time that it becomes not very worthwhile.

[4:43] That was our big challenge with this new system. Now going back in time, before you were able to tag metadata using drop down menus and things like that, everything was manual. You were typing everything out. At least, we were.

[4:58] For example, we had someone logging for us back 10 years ago who spelt a certain player’s name wrong for the entire season and nobody caught it. That’s a big challenge because when we’re searching for that player’s name and we’re thinking, “We know this player had good plays during the year. Why aren’t any of them showing up in our asset manager?” It was all just because of a misspelling.

[5:19] That’s a challenge that we’ve certainly overcome now with this new system where we can easily load an Excel roster of our players and then you type in the first letter or two letters of the player’s name and you move on. This new system has saved us a lot of time.

[5:32] At the same time, when we were first establishing the system and determining what fields and what key words we wanted, I think at first we may have gotten too overly ambitious of creating so many different fields that it was taking longer for the first few weeks of our season to log our games and not less time, which is what we anticipated going into the season.

[5:54] We were logging everything from what color jerseys our players were wearing, what the weather was like. It’s really just trying to be ambitious without being overly so where it’s really costing you time and not saving you time.

Henrik:  [6:07] What advice would you like to share with DAM professionals and people aspiring to become DAM professionals?

Jay:  [6:12] When we went through the process of choosing a new asset manager, we demoed as many of the new systems as we could. We also spoke with, in our case, other football teams that we knew had made this transition to a new system or teams that we knew were as robust as we are in terms of the amount of content we produce.

[6:33] Reach out to other people. Demoing is great and that was certainly helpful for us to demo every system we could. It was equally important for us to talk to people who have actually used the system, specific to our needs.

[6:46] We talked to some people who were using the system we went with and other systems but whose objectives are different than ours. What system may work for a sports team may not work for somebody who’s doing news programming or something like that.

[7:02] Reach out to as many people as you can who you think would be using the system for similar purposes. In our case, we leaned heavily on our consultant and integrator during the project to have them connect us to other sports leagues and organizations who we knew would be using the system for somewhat similar purposes.

[7:22] As I said before, as much as you can, figure out in advance what types of fields and key words you would like to use and have that all laid out. In our circumstance, we’re still evolving and we’re still adding metadata fields and key words and we’re removing some too. Don’t be afraid to do that and say, “This one is unimportant. We don’t really need this.”

[7:44] Those would be my two pieces of advice. It’s certainly a learning experience. This will be our sixth game of the season coming up. Just now we’re starting to get really into a flow and using the system in a way that is most beneficial to us.

Henrik:  [8:00] Thanks, Jay.

Jay:  [8:01] Thank you. Anytime.

Henrik:  [8:02] For more on this and other Digital Asset Management topics go to anotherdamblog.com. For this and 170 other podcast episodes, go to anotherdampodcast.com. If you have any comments or questions, please feel free to reach out to 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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Another DAM Podcast interview with Paul Nicholson on Digital Asset Management

Here are the questions asked:

  • How are you involved with Digital Asset Management?
  • How does an organization focused on entertainment television use Digital Asset Management?
  • Congratulations on winning the DAMMY Award for Best Strategy Ease of Use for End-User Interface. Tell us about this strategy.
  • 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’m Henrik de Gyor. Today I’m speaking with Paul Nicholson. Paul,
how are you?
Paul Nicholson: [0:09] Good, how are you doing?
Henrik: [0:10] Good. Paul, how are you involved with Digital Asset
Management?
Paul: [0:14] I am in charge of amongst other things, at Showtime Network, I’m in
charge of Digital Asset Management here for our creative group that we call,
“Red Group.”
Henrik: [0:24] How does an organization focused on entertainment television
use Digital Asset Management?
Paul: [0:29] We use Digital Asset Management in many, many ways here at
Showtime. There are a couple of different systems around the company handling
different kinds of assets, whether it be the long form shows and movies
that we air on our networks or the creative assets that we create to promote
the various shows. The majority of my responsibility falls under the promotion
aspect. [0:52] We create all of the video commercials or promos that run on
our networks. We manage and maintain them in a Digital Asset Management
system so that we can find them, archive them, keep them organized, distribute
them, et cetera.
[1:06] We also manage and maintain all of the print assets, all the advertising, and
marketing materials that we create in-house logos, graphic files, various elements,
lots of photography those types of things.
Henrik: [1:19] Congratulations on winning the DAMMY Award for Best Strategy
Ease of Use for End-User Interface. Tell us about the strategy.
Paul: [1:28] Thanks very much. That’s a very, very important part of what we do
here with Digital Asset Management. We really think about the user interface
and the customer experience, if you will, using our DAM system. Our customers
are other departments around the company, not necessarily outside consumers,
but internal customers. [1:49] It’s very, very important that they’re able to
find things quickly, get to exactly what they need in a moment’s notice, so they
can put together either a presentation or distribute a file to a partner that we’re
using to create something, or just find the assets that they need to create other
assets from those assets.
[2:10] User interface is very important. We take a, what we call here, a Tonka
truck mentality with user interface. It’s got to be real simple, big, clearly laid
out buttons and features that people know exactly what they’re doing. We lead
them down the path to what they’re looking for, as opposed to them having to
hunt and shop for things in confusing ways.
[2:34] I think a lot of people take the other approach. They put lots of features
on the screen, lots of buttons, lots of widgets, lots of tools, and great capabilities,
but that takes away from the user experience because they can’t ultimately
navigate it as quickly. There’s lots of training involved when you do it that way.
We take a very simple approach.
Henrik: [2:54] What advice would you like to share with DAM professionals and
people aspiring to become DAM professionals?
Paul: [2:59] I think the most important part, I always felt, with instituting a DAM
policy, or DAM application, in any organization is that it doesn’t replace the
business process. The business process needs to be there. It needs to be organized,
you need to have good policies and procedures for people to do their
jobs, and then the DAM system can complement that. [3:22] It’s not a replacement.
A lot of people feel like they’re going to buy a piece of software, they’re
going to install it, and that’s going to change and organize their entire operation.
It doesn’t really work that way. It’s just a complement to what you’re already
doing. Of course, it can enhance that, but it’s not going to replace good,
sound business policy and procedure.
Henrik: [3:42] Thank you, Paul.
Paul: [3:43] You’re welcome.
Henrik: [3:44] For more on Digital Asset Management, log onto
AnotherDAMblog.com. Another DAM Podcast is available on Audioboom,
iTunes and the Tech Podcast Network. 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 Michelle Jouan on Digital Asset Management

Here are the questions asked:

  • How are you involved with Digital Asset Management?
  • How does a worldwide entertainment company use Digital Asset Management?
  • You recently started another DAM meetup group in your area. Tell us more about this.
  • 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’m Henrik de Gyor. Today I’m speaking with Michelle Jouan.
Michelle, how are you?
Michelle Jouan: [0:11] I’m fine, thanks. How are you?
Henrik: [0:13] Good. Michelle, how are you involved with Digital Asset
Management?
Michelle: [0:16] I am the Digital Asset Manager for one of the online departments
of a global entertainment company, and I’m based in London. Like a
lot of other Digital Asset Managers, I stumbled into the field through a background
in photography, and digital imaging, and managing databases, and all
kinds of computer geekery. [0:35] These are skills that I acquired independently,
which suddenly made sense when I saw my first job listing for Digital Asset
Management. The first job that I got in Digital Asset Management, about 10
years ago, was working for a motion picture company as an image archivist.
Since then, I’ve been known as a digital librarian, and now, actually, a Digital
Asset Manager, so the field is progressing a little bit.
[0:57] I’ve been lucky enough to find positions in companies that recognize the
value of Digital Asset Management, and the benefit of having asset managers
that can bring their expertise to improving workflows, because I get the feeling
that a lot of companies that buy asset management systems expect their asset
troubles to just disappear magically.
[1:15] The thing is that these complex systems, they aren’t just merely software.
They’re systems, and without someone to manage them after implementation, I
think they’re much more likely to fail.
[1:27] That’s not to say that every company, or every team, might have the resources
or vision to employ someone solely for this purpose, or that managing
digital management asset systems is something that can’t be learned by your
current staff, but if you’re investing potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars,
or pounds in my case, in digital management asset systems, you’d be really wise
to bring in a professional to get the most out of your investment.
Henrik: [1:51] How does a worldwide entertainment company use
Digital Asset Management?
Michelle: [1:55] Well, my company has more than 30 asset systems, globally actually,
company wide, but this is in the context of a company that has more than
100,000 employees. There are all kinds of digital workflows to manage, and 30
asset systems seems in line with what we need at this point, but all of our departments
operate essentially as different companies. [2:23] One of my biggest
challenges when I started working here was to learn how the company worked
as a whole, and to understand where assets were created and how they were
distributed, but the great thing about being at a company of this size is that
there’s lots of other Digital Asset Managers.
[2:37] It’s been really a joy to connect with them and learn from all of their experiences,
because if you work at a really big company, don’t forget how important
internal networking can be. There’s a wealth of knowledge out there, and you
can tap into that.
Henrik: [2:50] Michelle, you recently started a Meetup group in London. Tell us
more about this.
Michelle: [2:55] Well, after attending a few Henry Stewart DAM Europe conferences,
I really enjoyed meeting up once yearly to talk with other Digital Asset
Managers and basically talk shop with people whose eyes don’t glaze over when
you mention Digital Asset Management. So, kind of following in the lead of the
other meet up groups in New York, D.C., and Los Angeles, I thought it would
be a really good idea to get London Digital Asset Management professionals
together and talk on a regular basis. [3:24] If you’re in the U.K., please search
for London DAM on meetup.com or follow our Twitter account @LondonDAM
with no space.
Henrik: [3:33] What advice would you like to share with DAM professionals and
people aspiring to become DAM professionals?
Michelle: [3:37] Well, if you’re already a DAM professional, I’d say just be nosy,
be curious, and learn about business processes, and seek allies within your
company and in the professional community. Get a better understanding of
user experience design, service design. There are lots of other fields that are
complimentary to Digital Asset Management that can help you in your role.
[4:00] Also, don’t be afraid to talk to the software developers and other asset
managers. We’re really lucky to be living in an age where the Internet allows you
to easily connect with others who are really far away, so make the most of that.
[4:13] If you’re aspiring to become a DAM professional, I’d say ask yourself, do
you spend your Saturday nights organizing your iTunes catalog or rearranging
your Google+ circles, does the thought of downloading and editing holiday
photos give you a spark of excitement. If so, find yourself a job in Digital Asset
Management right away.
Henrik: [4:31] Well, thanks, Michelle.
Michelle: [4:32] Thank you very much.
Henrik: [4:33] 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.

Related Articles

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Another DAM Podcast interview with Roger Howard on Digital Asset Management

Here are the questions asked:

  • How are you involved with Digital Asset Management?
  • How does an entertainment software company use a DAM?
  • You recently started a Digital Asset Management meetup group in Southern California. Tell me more about this meetup group.
  • What advice would you like to give for 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 Roger Howard.
Roger, how are you?
Roger Howard: [0:09] I’m good. How are you today?
Henrik: [0:10] Roger, how are you involved with Digital Asset Management?
Roger: [0:13] I’ve been involved on just about every level with Digital Asset
Management as a developer, as a systems administrator doing metadata taxonomy
design, designing work flow, building applications. I’ve gone through
vendor selections with about 10 different projects over the past 10 or 12 years.
Henrik: [0:32] Excellent. Roger, how does an entertainment software company
use DAM?
Roger: [0:37] Digital Asset Management means a lot of different things to a lot
of different people. In entertainment companies like video game developers, we
have Digital Asset Management systems involved in the production pipelines
for developing the actual games, the assets that go into the games, the source
code repository management. There is, of course, the marketing DAMs that
manage marketing assets, distribution for sales channels. [1:05] My involvement
is particularly focused on archiving valuable assets, so things like concept art,
and also in providing workflow applications for marketing, PR, and web teams.
Henrik: [1:22] You recently started a DAM Meetup group in Southern California,
along with Lilly. Tell me about this Meetup group.
Roger: [1:30] Well, inspired a couple of other groups around the country, we
thought that, given how dispersed people are in Southern California, but also
how many Southern Californians are involved, in one way or another, in Digital
Asset Management, it’d be a great opportunity to get people together in
person, maybe have a few drinks, talk, share war stories. [1:50] We just had our
first event, in fact, two days ago at the Henry Stewart conference in LA, the
night before the opening day, and it was fantastic. We had a lot of people. We
had maybe 20, 25 people show up. It was a good time, a couple of hours of
hanging out with colleagues, and we hope to keep repeating the event.
[2:11] We’re shooting for another event in maybe a month or two, after the beginning
of the year, and then we’re going to try to keep it going every two to
three months going forward.
Henrik: [2:21] What advice would you like to give to DAM professionals, or
people aspiring to become DAM professionals?
Roger: [2:25] Well, I think it’s actually a great career. I think that there’s a lot
of different opportunities. There’s a lot of different roles people can play that
all are kind of lumped under DAM, but I think my best advice is to go after as
broad and diverse a set of skills as you can possibly manage for yourself, so
both communications and business skills, but also technical skills, I think, are
incredibly important in many DAM careers. [2:59] Myself, I have a very technical
background, but I also have a background in creative production. I’ve done a lot
of production management. Now working mostly on the administration, design,
development, planning aspects of Digital Asset Management systems, having
that background both in technical skills that allow me to work with developers
and IT folks but also having an understanding and background in creative production
and, to some extent, in the business issues around content production
and distribution.
[3:30] It really gives you a much better insight into why it is that people might
want to take advantage of what you have to offer. My advice is not to pigeon
hole yourself into a very limited set of skills. If you can build up a basic understanding
at least of database management, get some basic Sequel skills that are
incredibly handy. XML skills can be incredibly handy, basic scripting tools.
[3:58] So if you’re working in a primarily Mac oriented creative shop, learn a little
bit of Apple script, learn a bit of Python. Learn some web development skills so
you can at least do basic html, a little bit of Java script, a little bit of CSS .
[4:12] Ultimately I think the most important think you can do is spend time kind
of living and walking in other people’s shoes, the people whose jobs you touch
as a Digital Asset Management expert. If you work in a creative environment,
spend some time with the designers, with the artists, with the production managers
that you work with.
[4:33] Try to see if you can book time and work as an intern for a day or a week.
Likewise, if your Digital Asset Management system is heavy on cataloging and
data entry, spend time frequently as a cataloger in your environment so you
understand not only the application of the taxonomy and metadata models
that you develop but the limitations of the tools that may be frustrating your
users. Live and breathe and walk a few miles in your user’s shoes. That will go
a long way.
Henrik: [5:04] Great idea. Thank you, Roger.
Roger: [5:06] Thank you.
Henrik: [5:07] 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?

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