Pete Chamberlain 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 Pete Chamberlain. Pete, how are you?

Pete Chamberlain:  [0:09] Good. How are you, Henrik?

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

Pete:  [0:14] I work for a global software company and I am the director of marketing content infrastructure. I manage the Digital Asset Management system for our marketing organization through marketing operations.

Henrik:  [0:26] Pete, how does a global software company use Digital Asset Management?

Pete:  [0:31] We use our Digital Asset Management system as a central repository that allows us to provide global syndication of marketing content and provides us with the ability to maintain asset versioning and branding control.

Henrik:  [0:44] Pete, what are the successes and challenges with Digital Asset Management?

Pete:  [0:49] From a success standpoint, been fortunate that there’s been a pretty strong vision in terms of how we’re moving forward. The strategic vision that has led us down the path to being a centralized repository, being centrally managed, being centrally governed.

[1:04] One of the things that has really been successful for us is our ability to act as an internal service organization to the marketing department, and understanding how to work with people. It’s really all about a people business. People think in different ways. They search in different ways. They learn at different paces, different skill sets.

[1:30] We spend a tremendous amount of time in terms of overcoming any challenges to adoption that you might have for the system. We have an extensive enablement program help desk support. The first line of help desk support is actually managed by the business and not IT.

[1:46] One of the things that we found early on that was a challenge for our users was that they would send a note to the technical resources saying, “I’ve got a complication. I don’t understand how to do X, Y, or Z. I can’t get at my asset.” They would get a note back that may say something like “Works as designed.” And it’s just not helpful.

[2:09] What we did was we separated that and created a help desk that comprises basically us on the business side as business administrators to be able to work directly with, one‑on‑one, our end users so that we were sure that they had any of the training they need, any of the tips that they need.

[2:28] We’re really looking at how we could help them do their job more efficiently, more effectively, so that they would enjoy the benefits of a DAM system. One of the things that we look at, at all times, when we’re dealing with our end users. We get end users who can get pretty upset. They’ve got tight deadlines to meet.

[2:47] If they can’t find something, they can’t seem to perform a function they want, those are the people that we like to work with the most.

[2:54] They present an opportunity for success for the system and success for us as a team, because typically you can turn that person to not only an ambassador for your system, amongst their peers, but more importantly, those are the people that are passionate about the function of digital asset management.

[3:10] Those are the people that can find us with a road map of how to support the organization better. It’s their daily functions of their jobs that we’re trying to make more efficient. At the end of the day, that’s what it’s all about.

[3:23] I really get back to the point that I think it’s, the technology that’s nice and slick. It still is really about people.

[3:30] We’ve had a significant amount of success with the adoption. We anticipate that will continue. We have a department that’s fairly small, but we do some work with 3,000 users in our end user community.

[3:42] One of the other success we’ve experienced with are Digital Asset Management system is we have a member of our team who has over 20 years of experience and expertise in master data management.

[3:54] Where this has come in useful is in managing metadata and data quality around metadata. We have the ability to monitor the quality of the metadata instantly. It’s a self-service for our administrators. They can look at the different parameters around the metadata, understand where there are gaps, make assessments, be proactive in managing it and really they’ve taken a process that’s typically very manual.

[4:25] We’ve been able to somewhat automate that and create a baseline of quality around the metadata. This is really important when you start thinking about if you start to connect your applications to your DAM and you’re serving content across multi‑channels making sure that it’s accurate so, that it serve in a proper way.

[4:44] Whether it’s across the organization or externally is key to the success of some of the upcoming programs that we have like market automation.

Henrik:  [4:53] What information would you like to share with DAM, the professionals and the people inspiring to be DAM professionals?

Pete:  [4:58] The key point that I’d like to share is that if you’re aspiring to be a DAM professional, whether you’re our DAM professional not to lose track of the fact that it really is a people business.

[5:10] Understand that it’s about relationships. It’s about working with people. It’s about enabling them for success. When all of those things go into place and you’re able to provide them with a solid operational foundation that efficient, and effective for them, look at the fact that in marketing operations specifically what we do great operations becomes great marketing.

[5:36] If we focus on the fact that it really is all about people, we’d be very successful in what we gonna do. Technology is almost secondary at that point.

Henrik:  [5:46] Thanks, Pete.

For more information on Digital Asset Management, log onto AnotherDAMblog.com.

Another DAM Podcast is available on AudioBoom and iTunes.

If you have any comments or questions, please feel free to email me at anotherdamblog@gmail.com.

Thanks again.

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