My name is David Gonzales, and I am the Manager of Photography and Class Projects for the Alumni & Student Class Outreach department at the Stanford Alumni Association. One of my responsibilities is managing the 4000+ select images from Stanford’s Reunion Homecoming weekend, which are used on university websites, social media channels, in print, and by volunteers and internal staff for various projects. My time at the Alumni Association has coincided with the university’s launch of a DAM system, so I will be talking about DAM planning and adoption from a departmental standpoint.
The first thing we had to figure out, given that the university allowed us to utilize a DAM tool at no cost to our department, was how to get started and organized. Keeping in mind the various stakeholders involved, I will briefly focus on four aspects of our launch.
We first thought about who our audience was. Then what to archive and how to organize. Then rolling out and maintaining your system, and finally measuring your success.
We thought about audience in terms of their roles.
Then we thought about the kind of assets we create, own, or would like to organize.
The roll out strategy is an effort undertaken by all interested departments and involves various teams.
While strategy is critical for a solid foundation, the support you offer once the system is launched will be a bigger challenge.
Ultimately, you will need to determine whether managing your assets is worth the investment.
