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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.

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