MCN Pro: DAMs 101 for Small Museums
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This document discusses digital asset management (DAM) systems and provides steps for organizations like small museums to implement one. It defines a DAM as allowing ingestion, storage, annotation, organization, cataloging, retrieval and sharing of digital files throughout their lifecycle. It advises assessing current asset management practices and workflows, building support for a DAM, researching options, and communicating the benefits in terms of return on investment to decision makers.
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MCN Pro: DAMs 101 for Small Museums
- 1. Let’s demystify digital asset management, shall we? MCN Pro: DAMs 101 for Small Museums August 16, 2016
- 2. ^This isn’t a DAM.
- 3. An effective DAM allows you to ingest, store, annotate, organize, catalog, find, retrieve and share digital files, throughout their lifecycle. The five phases of the asset lifecycle are: 1. Create 2. Manage 3. Distribute 4. Retrieve 5. Archive
- 4. And remember with assets, comes data!
- 5. ^ We ARE taking about this kind of DAM.
- 7. DAMs eliminate silos that slow down projects.
- 8. DAMs can provide levels of security to your assets
- 9. But first, you should analyze how you are currently managing your assets and workflows for collaboration, sharing, finding, and distributing your organization’s assets, and then follow these steps.
- 10. ASSESS YOUR ASSETS • What types of digital assets do you use? • How are you currently managing those assets? • What are the biggest challenges you or your brand face with your digital assets? • Who will be the primary users of the digital asset management system? • Who should have access to your digital assets? • What are the problems you’re trying to solve? • What business goals will benefit from streamlined DAM capabilities?
- 11. Build a team of DAM supporters.
- 12. DISCLAIMER: No cats were injured in making this presentation. DO ALL THE RESEARCH.
- 13. Translate the DAM benefits into terms that decision-makers understand ROI
- 14. Have any questions? Please contact me. Kelly Carpenter Digital Assets Manager Albright-Knox Art Gallery kcarpenter@albrightknox.org www.albrightknox.org ThanksThank you!
Editor's Notes
- Good afternoon everyone, my name is Kelly Carpenter and I am the Digital Assets Manager at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, New York. This afternoon, in this MCN Pro Session, DAMs 101 for Small Museums, I am going to briefly explore what digital asset management is, as I am sure many of you either have identified some challenges in the way your organization manages media like images, photos, video, presentations, and audio, and have several questions. If you are not here for that, I think you might have stumbled upon the wrong presentation… Before the hour is through, I am going to define what is a digital asset management system and its capabilities, how a DAM can benefit you institution (big or small), share a short understanding of metadata and its importance in a DAM, and some recommendations your institution can think about before you get ready for the implementation of a DAM, if I could do it all over again.
- Up first, what is digital asset management? It is not a desktop folder or a Dropbox account where you dump files. And it’s not a shared drive. Think of a DAM as a technology tool that enables you to connect your digital assets to your end users. As a formal definition, a DAM is the management, organization, and distribution of digital assets from a central repository. Of course, any conversation about managing your assets requires some knowledge of what digital assets are. Digital assets include images, documents, videos, presentations, and audio files, either born digital or digitized from analog materials.
- An effective DAM system allows you to ingest, store, annotate, organize, catalog, find, retrieve and share digital files, throughout their lifecycle. And I note this because understanding the lifecycle of digital assets is essential to understanding why a central location for storing these assets is important. The five phases of the asset lifecycle are: Create - I see create as more than the action of shooting video or capturing an image of an artwork or object. Defining asset needs, generating ideas, planning and development are part of the creative process. Manage - includes the approval, version control, and the logistics of giving people access to view and comment on digital assets Distribute - internal and external groups maybe part of distribution. Internally, an asset might move between departments or vendors Retrieve - make sure an asset can be searched, found, and reused Archive - whether an asset is stored for regular use or is buried deep in the archives, knowing what you have and being able to access your assets is a key part of the digital asset lifecycle.
- And remember with assets, comes data! Metadata is the language of your DAM and is defined as “information that describes and defines an asset,” or “data about data.” Metadata can be descriptive, like title, creator, creation date or keywords; it can be structural, referring to the format or dimensions; or it can be administrative, giving important information on digital asset usage guidelines and copyrights. Metadata is important, period. It contains key information about your digital assets that users need in order to utilize the digital asset properly. Each DAM solution differs in the way it organizes metadata – from text fields, to drop-down menus, to checkboxes, etc. When deciding on a DAM, its important to think about your approach to metadata and how you want to develop a metadata schema in order to evaluate possible DAM vendor offerings. Some solutions come with pre-set metadata fields, while others allow you to customize and create your own. Before you begin the DAM implementation process, I recommend thinking about your metadata schema and what type of information you want embedded into the file before it is uploaded into the new system. Yes, you typically can change this information afterwards, but from my experience, it’s always best to make sure fully correct and complete records go into the system the first time around. For an overview of “standard” metadata fields, I recommend checking out Dublin Core metadata schema.
- Who needs a digital asset management system and how can it benefit you? Everyone, duh! All museums, regardless of their size, can benefit from implementing digital asset management. Mainly because, DAMs are much more than the system you purchase or implement at your organization. A DAM solution can revolutionize the way you do day-to-day work by helping your staff work smarter and drastically improving efficiency by keeping all assets accessible in one central location. If it takes more than a couple minutes to find and share your digital assets, a DAM can help. With innovative tools for organizing and searching, your teams won’t have to spend valuable time hunting for files. The time saved with a DAM can now be used towards other projects.
- DAMs also eliminate bottlenecks, silos, and other roadblocks that slow down projects. Anytime, anywhere access to your entire digital asset collection eliminates the issues that might delay time-sensitive projects especially when you have several members of project teams in different departments. If your team cannot get to the files or resources they need, recreating assets could possibly push back deadlines and raise issues from duplicate content and brand inconsistencies. A DAM solution will typically ensure that your teams will always have the correct resources they need.
- DAMs can provide some levels of security to your assets. With their ability to assign different levels of access or permissions to users, the system allows you to control what users see and what they can do with the assets. As with most aspects of a DAM system, the user roles you choose and the level of access you give each role will be contingent on your institution’s goals, workflow, and user groups. DAMs protects your brand by simplifying the process for distributing and updating files across various channels and make sure that branded materials are up to date and consistent everywhere. DAMs also save time by automatically converting files to the format, size, and quality need for any project. And with all these reasons, DAMs save you money, because we all know that time and resources (us!) cost money.
- So have I convinced you that DAMs are necessary? Not only for your organization but also for my own job security. If you do and are considering digital asset management, I think you first need to analyze how you are currently managing your assets and workflows for collaboration, sharing, finding, and distributing your organization’s assets. And then I recommend these steps in order to get your institution prepared for a digital asset management system.
- ASSESS YOUR ASSETS. The implementation process must begin internally with an assessment of your asset management needs and users. A good assessment will then help you select a vendor and a DAM that meets the unique challenges of your organization. Because let’s face it, every organization is different and works in different ways. Assessing your assets includes – Know your system requirements and use cases (How many assets do you have, how many users will you have) Identify the key users Discuss all the required features and functionality your key users need AND want, to solve any challenges in their specific workflows. A DAM should be seen as a solution. In order to do that, I created a survey and sent this to all members of the AK staff and had management’s support in getting all staff members to complete the survey and send it back to me. The survey included general to very specific questions and was helpful in letting me know what people needed and would like to see out of the DAM. It also reminded me that a great deal of individuals created their own digital assets. Some questions are: What types of digital assets do you use? How are you currently managing those assets? What are the biggest challenges you or your brand face with your digital assets? Who will be the primary users of the digital asset management system? Who should have access to your digital assets? What are the problems you’re trying to solve? What business goals will benefit from streamlined DAM capabilities?
- BUILD A TEAM of DAM supporters, Build a case for a DAM, and identify real business reasons for the DAM. Gather a wide variety of stakeholders to create a project committee – a DAM support squad, of sorts, to push the project forward. Bring together representatives from different departments to identify and discuss the opportunities and pain points that the DAM would address. Your case will be much stronger and more convincing when you have stakeholders from different areas in the museum seeking the same thing as you. With your team of supporters, make sure to list out the ways operations can be improved and exactly how a DAM system will address these issues and identify every area that a DAM solution will make simpler and more efficient. Depending on your role and the size of your organization, you might start the assessment process yourself and later bring in other contributors. Having an internal decision-making team to determine digital asset management software needs, evaluate options – and assist during implementation and adoption is a big help. Who you include depends on your organization and the key audiences using your system. But don’t forget that every team needs someone to manage the project and drive it forward. There are a lot of moving parts in the selection and implementation process, so as you begin talking with vendors and engage in demos, it will help if you know whom your DAM administrator will be. It might be one person, or divided between multiple individuals.
- Research, research, research, until you feel like this. Don’t just select the first one you find or the first one recommended to you. There is a lot of information out there about DAMs that comes from independent organizations, vendors, and social media platforms, which all provide types of resources. LinkedIn is a great place to connect with a variety of DAM users and potential users. I am not here today to share the best or worst systems out there. But I would spend the time really researching what works best for you. Also, make sure to create a list of important features to check off when you’re speaking with DAM vendors. Consider important factors like security, integrations with other systems (especially your collections management systems), implementation process (how long will this be, how involved will this be, will I get the assistance from the vendor even after the check is signed, etc.), professional services, and what I believe to be the most important factors, customer experiences and user adoption. ALWAYS send a request for a demo and require a request for proposal or a request for information. These three things will provide a great outline for you to get started with the system, but will also be most helpful if tailored to our business needs.
- Develop a justification for the DAM and Translate all of the DAM benefits into terms that decision-makers understand; RETURN ON INVESTMENT. It’s a good idea to consider conservative, moderate and aggressive calculations for DAM ROI. Typically budget decisions are made by individuals who probably won’t use digital asset management in their day-to-day work. It may be hard for them to relate to the complexity of working with hundreds or thousands of digital assets, and they may not be familiar with what it takes to coordinate the development, approval, and distribution of assets with different teams and departments. I recommend spelling out exactly what makes the process time-consuming and inefficient when presenting your argument. It is also likely that budget decision-makers don’t grasp the total cost and value of all the digital assets you work with. And finally, select the best DAM solution that your small museum will benefit from and that your users, both current and future, will easily be able to leverage.
- And in conclusion, I hope all the information that I shared today has given you all a better understanding of digital asset management, as well as a clear idea of what your next steps should be if you choose to start implementing this type of system at your institution. There is a lot to think about as you plan for and configure a DAM. Luckily, the key phases in the DAM journey build on each other, so your efforts pay off every step of the way. If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to me personally.