Many institutions who have systems that were implemented over 4 years ago are now facing the challenges of an over-accumulation of content, poorly defined DAM scopes and ones that are no longer meeting the needs of the staff. First and foremost DAM systems should be a means to efficiently and effectively transmit ‘valuable’ and high-use assets throughout an organization. Some of these complications arose out of the transition from analog to digital with no change in staffing. Old staff were just ‘transitioned’ into working in the digital realm without any real training or professional development requirements. The skills used in managing analog materials were not the same as those necessary for the effective management and creation of digital materials. Analog workflows do not cleanly transition into digital ones, nor should they, there are better ways of doing things now. So many institutions had to ‘make-do’ as there were no other options that didn’t involve sweeping the human resource slate clean and starting over again.

Digital asset management is not just the system (i.e The DAM), but a combination of content management related professional disciplines. These disciplines include, but are not limited to: business management, information architecture, library and information science, software engineering/development, content creation and publications development. So who or what are these most integral roles at the bare minimum of the resource chain to make a DAM project successful? What follows is a summary of 4 essential DAM roles, some of which originate from the epic work The Content Management Bible by Bob Boiko. However, many folks will never get around to reading this most essential work, so I’ve made it easier for you. If you don’t have at least these three roles present in a dedicated DAM team, you’re not doing it right.

Business Analyst:
They need to fully understand the discipline, concepts and execution of digital asset management. They are the business representative for the digital asset management project to the rest of the organization and the outside world. They understand how digital asset management fits into the overall strategy of the institution. The business analyst will negotiate support and cooperation from the institution in regard to digital asset management initiatives on behalf of the DAM team. They perform business analytics on all processes and workflows that are effected by digital asset management. They will then help the team to apply these analytics to the creation of new processes and workflows to meet organizational needs.

Content Analyst:
They need to gather content requirements and determine the value of assets to be managed in the DAM. They create standardization documentation for polices surrounding the cataloging and management of rich media assets. Design the framework for the architecture of the information (metadata schemas, folder architecture). They will need to establish a asset lifecycle schedule from the birth or creation of digital assets to their retirement. They will need to have a strong background in cataloging and standardization skills. The content analyst determines project plans for the ingestion of new rich media into the DAM system, workflows and surrounding processes. In leaner times the content analyst also performs the role of a content metator for the DAM (digital librarian). This entails the review of incoming assets to make sure they adhere to written standards, add metadata where needed, perform training in all aspects of DAM (end-user to admistrator). Information Science professionals are often ideal candidates as content analysts, however not all library science professionals are good fits for the role. The library and information science professional should be well rounded and come from various environments (for-profit and not-for-profit), have experience in working with digital creative agencies and in more traditional archives.

Rights & Usage Analyst:
The focus of digital asset management is on the distribution of valuable assets both within and outside the organization. The rights and usage expert will evaluate the the organizations rights and usage approach and workflow. They will streamline the distribution process of assets both within and outside the organization, standardize the rights associated with assets, and increase the amount of assets available for use. They will work closely with the Digital Asset Manager/content Analyst to asses the collection based on rights and usage. They will have advanced experience with creative commons, PLUS and other rights management initiatives, workflows and tools.

Programmer/Developer:
This person will implement necessary changes, enhancements and extensions to the digital asset management system or chose the development environment for new DAM projects. They are able to automate acquisition routines, create and run system diagnostics and provide system intelligence to the DAM team. They have expertise in database and XML technologies. They need to be a SQL ninja as some DAM systems do not provide an easy front-end for doing analytics.

Along with these four roles you may have some borrowed talent such as a administrators, project managers, usability/user-experience professionals, production mangers or even a CIO. Some of the roles above may even overlap into a general Digital Asset Manager role depending on the project. In the short run if you do not have at least these 4 professional roles (this does not mean you can lump them all into one person), your DAM might survive, but its success over time depends with the inclusion of these individual professionals in your project budget. If you want more on this topic as I have really glazed over what takes many pages to describe into a few short paragraphs please read The Content Management Bible by Bob Boiko, specifically chapters 12-14 and 33. In short, Digital Asset Management is too big to saddle on the shoulders of any one person and requires at minimum a team of 4 dedicated, experienced professionals to be effective.

I recently had a colleague return from an Archives Conference abroad that focused on Digital Asset Management and to put it lightly her mind was blown. She’s not an archivist, she’s not a digital asset manager, but she is an administrative assistant in a cultural institution. Her reactions to what she learned further confirmed some of my own feelings I had after recently speaking at both a Digital Asset Management conference and an Archives conference. Which is that, technology has changed our work environments and roles more than most people are aware. It is no longer acceptable to operate in a silo and remain unaware of how other professions cross-over into your own. You might be saying “that’s great, but what do you mean by this?”.

One of the best examples is that Digital Asset Management, which is a product of the “corporate” world, now exists within libraries, archives and museums. However, many people involved in those projects at those institutions are unaware of the existence of the profession of digital asset managers or the world of digital asset management. From the start they are cut off from both those networks and the resources available to those working in the field of DAM. So, they are forced to reinvent the wheel when it comes to DAM within their institution and tend to only source other “like” institutions for help cause that’s all they know.

Also, many corporate digital asset managers and their years of experience do not work for cultural institutions. Therefore, the person who ends up being the digital asset manager, for all intents and purposes, at the institution is not trained in that profession. Yet they are being asked to take on that role as well as its responsibilities They then begin to apply their analog collections management practices to a digital process that already has rules and standards and often times do not understand the repercussions of certain decisions. This causes the inexperienced to use applications outside of their intended purpose and warp the scope of what certain applications are meant to do, creating a bastardized implementation. These types of technology implementations will never solve the problems they were intended to, because the products have been implemented outside their scope.

When I gave my talk to the New York Archives Conference, I spoke about interface design. Crazy topic to bring to a forum where most people don’t even think about design or just thought I was giving a talk on “websites”. However, it was relevant. The people in that room are the same people that are being tasked with choosing a digital asset management system and even designing the “look and feel” of websites used to expose their digital collections to the world. Yet, some of them don’t even know basic design heuristics or that such a thing even exists. Not to mention there is a whole profession of people out there doing usability and interface design specifically for information retrieval applications. They don’t understand the differences between applications, websites, software, webapps etc. They also miss the mark on understanding searching and how the semantic web plays an integral role in how they should structure information. There are fundamental concepts here that cannot be ignored.

These less savvy folks, working in their professional silos, are then forced to approach a project with little to no training and absolutely no scope on how giant of a task they are actually being asked to do. Sure, you can stay up to date and read blogs, but not having the years of experience that digital media and digital asset management professionals have behind in order to successfully execute those types of projects is a VERY tall order. Bravo to those that do it well, but have you visited a Library or archives website lately? There are so few elegantly executed ones to pick from. Aren’t librarians and archivists supposed to be information retrieval/representation professionals? It’s shocking how so many miss the mark completely. Blaming it on available resources is a cop-out. It’s the result of not staffing your institution appropriately and recognizing when some roles cease to be relevant, then making those hard decisions. Luckily, for some folks CMS systems came along (WordPress, Drupal etc) and some brave souls (probably operating alone and against much resistance) rescued their institutions websites from the world of geocitites-esque design and architecture.

Library Science Education isn’t doing much to lessen this professional divide. So often I’ve seen curriculum trapped in the “working in a library” scenario, when that barely even scrapes the surface at what Information Science covers and the applications of Library Science to the outside world. One exciting development is the addition of digital asset management and interface design courses to Library Science programs. However, this is not enough. Unless the christened “digital asset manager” sees beyond the professional silos the project will undoubtedly fail due to implementation issues and poorly specked out scopes. Harsh yes, but realistic.

One thing that will help them get there is EDUCATION. I can’t stress this enough. Education is needed in order to help people understand technology and its touch points within their professional realm and where those touch point cross over into other professions. Without this “awareness” the wrong solution will be implemented to solve a particular need. This is dangerous, as once something is implemented it is very hard to turn back the clock and do it properly.

Another repercussion to being unaware is this. Folks, the implementation of technology is not an opportunity to mirror that analog workflow or analog collections structure and replace it with an exact digital copy. You have to entirely revisit your workflows and collections and determine the new way to implement and represent them. “Going digital” isn’t just an intensive scanning project with some metadata in a database thrown in. “Going digital” requires an entire shift in thinking and a complete overhaul of institutional processes. There is no digital “paperclip” holding those relevant materials together. Nor do you need one, there are better tools for that now. Don’t approach your digital projects thinking its just a representation of the analog. Don’t implement technology just for the sake of doing so. You must have a really clear strategy and understand the relationship between the information and its digital representations as well as your users in order to execute a project well.

“Going digital” also requires a shift in business process and professional roles. You need to hire different people with skills sets you’ve never worked with before (professional photographers, digital technicians, usability and design people). Your programmer is not a designer, please don’t make him/her do it. Don’t ask your 20 year veteran archivist, to now completely shift and become a “digital archivist”. It just won’t work, they don’t have the time to catch up. That period is over. They may have vast institutional knowledge, but that does not make them the right fit for taking on a role that requires specific technical skill sets. Leverage this person in other ways, but don’t expect them to deliver you great digital content. The professionals that have resided in libraries, archives, cultural collections for years, now have completely different demands placed upon them and need to be able to perform tasks involving technology effectively, not just adequately. Last time I checked, the responsibility of the institution is not to create an oasis of job security, but deliver content to the public and their constituents. Otherwise, the burden is placed on that one lone staffer who “gets it” (if they even exist) to solve all the institutions digital woes.

The realm of Digital Asset Management is starting to look toward Library and Information Science for help (metadata/taxonomies being one of those areas), but Library Science is not looking enough to Digital Asset Management or any other professions for that matter (Usability, Design, Business Analytics, Information Architecture). What gets me is, many cultural collections are far more complicated to scope and manage than any corporate asset management project! The tools that librarians and archivists are now using are the tools that have been developed and in use for some time in other professions. Want to know who uses Digital Media well? Advertising/Marketing folks! Dearest Librarians, why not ask someone in advertising and marketing about “Tweeting” and what it can do for your institution? They know better than anyone else. I would caution taking advice from anyone about how to use social media (please stop calling it “web 2.0″, it’s beyond that now) who isn’t in touch with or came from those worlds.

Library Science as a profession has outgrown its original scope some time ago and its time we start catching up. Unfortunately, that’s easier said than done as there is a chasm of knowledge separating those in-the-know from those that are not. If you are working outside your scope, save time and just admit it. Give yourself the opportunity to learn, and concentrate on what you’re good at. Then hire someone to fill in the knowledge gaps, the reality is that it might require letting go of someone else. Technology costs real money, therefore every seat must be filled with skilled professionals or you are losing money. Spending money without accountability is irresponsible. Furthermore, give that skilled hire the freedom they need to do their job. Trust them and give your talent the space they need to make things great, not just good. Finally, my best advice, reach outside the walls of your profession and see the common threads that tie all of us together. You will find that thread looks remarkably familiar.

1. About me and the Rutgers MLIS program: Since I had already been working in the field for 6 years (digital archives and digital asset management) when I entered the program, my advisor let me take whatever classes I wanted. He told me to get in and then get out. I honestly can’t even remember what classes I took. Since I was in the process of transitioning from non-profit digital archives work back to advertising (corporate knowledge management) work, much of the curriculum was either a repeat of what I had been practicing in the field or I took the course just to get the credits. I do recall taking metadata, records management, interface design, information visualization and a class on web 2.0 (which was pretty funny). The North Carolina program is probably the most innovative for the kind of work I do now, or at least the most applicable.

2. Certification for Archivists: There is a lot of argument in the field right now about certification and are you “really” an archivist if you aren’t certified. This is one of the reasons I am happy I don’t work in that field anymore, more emphasis on academic credentials than if you can “really” do the job or not.

3. Program Innovation: I think as far as innovation goes, it was in comparison to the other two programs (Pratt & NYU/Palmer). Mainly, because the RU program has a course in information visualization and interface design as well as trying to get people exposed to web 2.0 (can’t believe there are people that by this time aren’t). However, I haven’t checked either programs in some time so they may have added some new courses.

4. LIS Program Overall: I didn’t like that I felt as though I was on “Library Island” the whole time. The program is short sighted in that the main focus is on working in a library and only draws from the world of libraries. Even though the information science field is so much broader than that, you can do almost anything with this degree!

5. Human Information Behavior Coursework: I detested the curriculum for the course, I am not a big fan of papers that really say nothing at all or when they do have an important point to make its buried in a bunch of “academic speak”. I also felt as though it was a bunch of librarians practicing “armchair psychology”. I’m sorry, but I really can’t respect someone who did their undergraduate work in English Literature who thinks they can now discuss at length the psychology of human beings in their search for information. It was very unfortunate that the curriculum only drew from the world of libraries and they never pulled from, or exposed the students to, the worlds of: usability, user experience design, advertising, information architecture, business analytics. I firmly believe that a user experience designer knows more about human behavior in relationship to information than any librarian any day. All the papers weren’t horrific, however they just seemed like old approaches and not very fresh. I think they should rename the class to “Library Science Classics” and then we would be getting somewhere useful. Who doesn’t like the classics?

6. Q. What do I do now?: A. Now I work in creative technology, more specifically digital asset or content management, which is a combination of lots of skills learned in the field. I do sometimes come into contact with archives when I do consulting work it’s usually about software choices (digital asset management applications), standards (metadata schemas, controlled vocabularies, taxonomies) and digitization best practices. The MLIS program really just gave me the slip of paper to move forward. The only thing I can suggest is you find a really talented archivist to work under for some time, who is involved in a digitization program.

7. Q. How does a digital arts/design background mesh with digital archives?: A. For how digital archives overlaps with digital media backgrounds just have a look at this and it will become clearer: http://dpbestflow.org/. Doesn’t this all seem so familiar? As digital media folks we already posses the knowledge on how to get archives from point A to point B when it comes to digitizing their collections. Many of the skills you need are skills we used everyday in our digital design work:

* Knowledge of file formats, applications (graphic design and web design), copyrights, management of digital materials (related to content management), how to scan and use digital cameras, color management, just to name a few.
* Also, if you did design you have a pretty good understanding of the importance of description, keywords, tags etc as you had to search online photography/image/art databases to locate specific assets that fit your needs. For example “boy with umbrella”. So you have a good idea what people look for and how they search.
* The stuff that people like us need to pickup is all the archives specific stuff, such as dealing with online collections, digital asset management (which if you work in media today you’ve been in contact with regularly).
* We also need to know taxonomies and metadata schemas like the back of our hands.
* Combine that with some solid programming skills, which if you did website design you can easily pickup EAD, XML and other information management specific syntax’s.
* The other biggie, which is harder for more creative folks to pickup, is information architecture and semantic web stuff. These skills help us to choose good, flexible and forward thinking applications as well as innovative ways to manage digital collections and their associated information.

8. Q. I have no digital/technology background work what classes can I take to do what you do?: A. I love this question [scarcasm]. A good place (don’t take this the wrong way) to start is to look up (wikipedia, google etc) common terms that appear such as “content management” “digital asset management” etc and learn more about them and their many facets. Unfortunately, there aren’t just some classes you can take or some applications you can learn, there are a zillion! Also, all this is dependent on factors such as the chosen work environment (non-profit, corporate, educational etc) and even those differ individually. Another factor is the type and amount of data/information you are to manage and a zillion other things that align to form the scope of the work. Oh and don’t forget the years of experience that you will need doing each any every one of these individual facets (see Q&A #9) in order to be a proficient Digital Asset or Content Manager.

9. Q. What kind of experience do I need to do what you do?: A. Its essential to have several years experience doing digital delivery: website development, application development, digital imaging etc. to pursue work in this area. I have 6 years of experience as both a web and graphic designer. I also have an 8 year background touching on all the little bits and pieces that make for a good digital asset or content manager: traditional archives work (collections processing), digitization best practices, digital imaging, metadata, taxonomy development, digital and content management systems, UX, IA, data analytics and HCI. Some of these which obviously overlap and came from experience in the design world.

10. Q. Can you tell me some good resources for information about being a digital asset manager/digital archivist?: You can always check out my delicious links to see all the various topics that I keep track of and read up on daily: My Delicious Links or stuff I follow on Google Reader . There are also a few good DAM blogs: Another DAM Blog and Digital Asset Management. Its a pretty HUGE profession with lots of little nooks and crannies to explore and specialize in.

In order to really see something clearly you have to get rid of all the crud thats surrounding it. I (others included) call this simple method “getting rid of the R.O.T”.

Nothing is worse than finding the same digital asset in over a zillion places in one system, it devalues the original and is a headache to seek out and destroy all existing versions. For the next point, nothing makes information more irrelevant that when it is outdated. Outdated information can not be leveraged nor can you receive any ROI on it being available, the best thing to do is just get rid of it! Trivial content is just that, it’s trivial and unnecessary. For example if you have a system that can generate a particular file type on demand, let’s say it’s one that can generate a JPG from any type of supplied file be it a TIFF or a PSD or whatever you throw at it. Is it necessary to then also keep copies of JPGs versions of everything in your system as a “just in case”? Nope, no way! Get rid of it.

So, for every asset that makes its way across you desk you need to ask yourself, “is this R.O.T?” You will find that if you start approaching all your projects with “getting rid of the ROT” in your mind, you will start to clear away the cobwebs weighing down your system and overall make it more usable (and your life a bit easier) in the end.

Date: Monday, November 10th, 2008
Time: 12:00 PM – 4:00 PM
Place: NYU Kimmel Center
60 Washington Square South, Room 405, New York, NY 10012

You can find resources to my presentation posted below including my keynote deck as a PDF here which includes my offbeat speech notes. I will say that its probably not fascinating reading compared to actually attending one of my talks. My deck style is a bit unconventional, it’s heavy on imagery and short on text. I am a big fan of Edward Tufte and I take his minimal stance when it comes to creating PowerPoint presentations. In fact I even prefer Keynote over PowerPoint all together.

Here is a list of some of my go-to resources:

Metadata Working Group, boxesandarrows, AIIM: Infonomics Magazine, AIIM: Blog, KMWorld, 37 Signals: Signal vs. Noise Weblog, Digital Curation Center: Tools, XMP Open: The Idea Exchange, Adobe XMP, Adobe XMP: Developers Center, ReadWriteWeb

…for more links please follow me on Del.icio.us

Hope you enjoyed the presentation and feel free to send me any questions you may have.

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