Here are the questions asked:

• How are you involved with Digital Asset Management?
• Why does a University 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: This is Another DAM Podcast about Digital Asset
Management. I’m Henrik de Gyor. Today I’m speaking with Louis King. Louis,
how are you?
Louis King: [0:09] I’m great.
Henrik: [0:10] Louis, how are you involved with Digital Asset Management?
Louis: [0:13] I’m at Yale University. I’m the Digital Information Architect for the
Office of Digital Assets and Infrastructure. [0:21] Our focus is working on Digital
Asset Management at the enterprise level for the institution. This really means
looking across all the disciplines and the activities of the university, how digital
media is being used and how Digital Asset Management could be applied.
[0:39] What we’ve found over the years is that digital media is actually embedded
in every aspect of the institution. This involves our research endeavors in
which we have rich media artifacts coming in from the field. It involves teaching
and learning activities, and our dissemination of knowledge in publication.
[1:01] As we looked across the terrain and saw so many people using digital
media, we also found that there are a lot of silos of digital media and that we
couldn’t fluently move our content from one endeavor into the others.
[1:18] For instance, we might grab field activities some digital recordings of
indigenous languages being spoken from native speakers, and we bring them
into the research environment but we then couldn’t use them immediately in the
classroom environment either.
[1:37] As we looked at those silos, we really came to work on this idea of
being able to have data flow fluidly and in particular, digital media. Digital
Asset Management became an obvious piece of infrastructure to look at. As
we looked at infrastructure, it also became clear that it was not just a technical
solution.
[2:00] One of the things that we have to understand is a construct that we’ve
built around infrastructure and core infrastructure, which is actually it’s intersection
of a particular community of practice that contents that I think work with
policy and shared practices that are required to facilitate at work, then, finally,
the technology.
[2:25] Our work in Digital Asset Management is to work with all members of the
institution to understand where that intersection is for that type of work they’re
doing. When we looked at Digital Asset Management, we looked at people who
had a compelling need, a particular community of practice that was ready to
move into a more managed approached to their media production and dissemination
and stewardship.
[2:54] It turned out that our museums were working on similar solutions independently,
and we started there to bring people together around Digital Asset
Management. Shortly after, we also brought in the Yale University Library.
[3:12] This group of cultural heritage stewards of people who maintain a presence
of our cultural heritage for our use today in advancing our work had a
practical set of purposes that needed to be supported.
[3:28] They had identified content to work with. We were able to identify policies
and refined and shared in common practice. Then, we were able to configure a
technical solution in a Digital Asset Management environment that would meet
those needs.
[3:45] As we moved forward, we begin to look at what are other communities of
practice. We’re beginning to bring in other communities of practice. We have
the communication teams coming on board to start looking at how we advance
communications work. This is digital media production all the way through to
Web communications. Also, since we already have cultural heritage people on
board, it’s when those are valuable communications that we want to maintain
them for a long time. How do they move into the more archival and stewardship
arena of digital media?
[4:21] In the future phase, we’re looking at bringing more of the research community
and the teaching and learning community into the environment.
Henrik: [4:29] Why does the university use Digital Asset Management?
Louis: [4:31] The university is focusing on using Digital Asset Management to
meet its core mission. In the areas that I touched on, the research, teaching,
and learning, dissemination and publication. Those are core to what the institution
does. [4:46] The ability to have a mechanism that makes us more fluid. That
makes us be able to connect pieces of content together in order to enhance
discovery.
[5:01] To enhance dissemination. To enhance the learning experience becomes
fundamental to our work. We look at this technology to facilitate that.
[5:11] In addition, what we’re finding is that it’s a complex production environment
because of our many disciplines. By being able to put a shared and
common approach to media management in place, we’re actually able to develop
some basic efficiencies.
[5:28] We’re able to aggregate our storage positioning. We’re able to aggregate
our content. We’re able to do training that moves from one discipline
to the next.
[5:39] As staff moves, they bring the skills necessary to do the same kind of work
applied to a different discipline. These become fundamental to the everyday
working on the institution.
Henrik: [5:48] What advice would you like to share with DAM professionals and
people aspiring to become DAM professionals?
Louis: [5:53] It’s a great field. It’s really exciting to work in media management.
You get to span all kinds of creative works that are going on. You bring value
to the institution or the organization that you’re working for. That’s fascinating.
[6:13] I would suggest that you not expect to live in a comfort zone, at all. These
are very complex issues for complex environments. They have complex legalities
and practice issues to them.
[6:29] They are all at the center of various types of organizational change.
Change in the way that we do things. Where there’s change, there’s a certain
amount of pain.
[6:40] We work with people whose roles are threatened and other people who
we can’t move fast enough for. There’s a bit of volatility in the field. You should
want that kind of excitement in your life.
[6:54] The bottom line on this is that it’s really an area where we’re building,
where we’re constructing and we’re discovering new ways of doing work. A lot
of that work is very compelling and has tremendous opportunities associated
with it. It’s very exciting.
Henrik: [7:15] Thank you, Louis.
Louis: [7:16] You’re welcome. My pleasure.
Henrik: [7:17] For more on Digital Asset Management log on to
AnotherDAMblog.com. Another DAM Podcast is now available on Audioboom,
iTunes and the Tech Podcast Network. Thanks again.

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