Digital Asset Management

Advice: Look for Variable Options

2008-09-07T01:14:00.000-07:00

Look for a vendor which can provide a variety of pricing models, including a pay-as-you-go contract or a licensed software option with managed services. This allows a company to begin with a small pilot project to refine requirements and processes before launching the deployment on a large scale. Corbis, which acquired eMotion, offers an ASP DAM model that consists of a set up price and then a monthly per user free. ClearStory provides a subscription DAM pricing model but, because it has built-in scalability as part of its infrastructure, the company can also offer to host enterprise-licensed software and deliver managed services. MediaBin and Northplains offer installed software as their core business and a third party subscription model if users want a hosted solution.

Look for a vendor that has extensive expertise in providing both hosted and non-hosted applications. For hosted services, ask the vendor about their hosting facility, its security measures and infrastructure and confirm their commitment to the model.

Look for a vendor that can customize the solution. Their system should be able to handle a full spectrum of media – from video to Photoshop, Quark and other graphic file types.

Look for a vendor that can provide 24/7 service wherever you need it – worldwide.

Insist on scalability, which is important not only for storage and user licenses, but also for the ability of the system to adjust to the growing needs of the organization.

And, finally, look for ease of use. You want a solution that embodies all the technical attributes but that can be easily and efficiently managed by all end users.

Secure, Flexible, Scalable And Available DAM Solution

2008-09-07T01:12:00.000-07:00

Hosted DAM services should be available as a standalone, or able to be integrated with existing enterprise applications, either inside or outside network firewalls. Hosting facilities should feature high-level security including 24/7 monitoring, CCTV surveillance systems, and even biometric entry scanning to ensure maximum protection for valuable customer data. Considering that rich media files are often very large in size, it is important to confirm that the vendor has technology to support high bandwidth for maximum performance, including redundant lines and multiple points of entry.

At NGCI multiple point connectivity is critical for the worldwide group. Their system provides high speed, redundant internet connections. “If there’s an issue with one service provider, service can be seamlessly picked up by another,” Grossman said.

Vendors should be able to provide uptime guarantees and offer an infrastructure with redundancy at every key level to ensure automatic recovery in the event of a component or software failure. The provider should also offer a level of redundancy that provides additional protection in the event of a regional disaster or other catastrophic event. Although this level of redundancy, availability, and security would exceed those of a typical in-house implementation, they can be a big benefit of a hosted service.

Digital Asset Management Functionality Without Difficulty

2008-09-07T01:08:00.000-07:00

When it comes to hosted services, it’s critical for the DAM solution to pass every test of functionality, security, scalability and performance. When we took a closer look at Corbis, Interwoven, Media Bin, Northplains and ClearStory, all had good functionality and security although ClearStory seems to have a leg up on scalability and performance as a result of its significant investments over the past few years to improve and expand its underlying architecture.

Like most companies that consider a hosted service, National Geographic sought quick deployment, persistent performance and rapid ROI. More importantly, NGCI needed round-the-clock availability for its global constituency. They required a digital asset management service provider they could trust to provide high-availability and that would assume the burden of maintaining and upgrading the system as well as provide the management and operational expertise. These functions require real labor investments, which NGCI preferred not to make themselves. For this reason, they selected a vendor who was dedicated to sustaining a state-of-the-art hosting facility and which has a demonstrated commitment to delivering hosted services long-term.

Yet even if a company ultimately wants to have the solution in-house, opting to start with a hosted service still has numerous advantages. For one, it can help companies build the business case for resource allocation by demonstrating the effectiveness and ROI potential of the solution. This prevents the delays that can occur while struggling to achieve buy-in, which can result in significant losses and missed opportunities.

Once implemented, the customer should have complete control of the system through a non-technical, web-based interface. The system should easily accommodate the addition of new users, metadata definitions, other rich media assets, expanded storage, and other administrative changes. And internal system administrators should be able to make these changes independent of the hosted service provider.

Right Digital Asset Management Solution

2008-09-07T00:59:00.000-07:00

Seeking a Digital Asset Management(DAM) solution, users are faced with three basic choices:

installed software/in-house management option;
a hosted solution;
a combination of the two.

Organizations that have a sophisticated IT operation are most likely to choose an in-house solution. They have the hardware, software, budget and network infrastructure to support an internal system.

A hosted solution offers significant advantages to companies with constrained IT resources – staff and budget – or companies whose use-case requires maximum uptime with the failover and redundancy that a hosted solution can provide.

For some organizations, a compelling alternative is a hosted solution that can seamlessly transition in-house. This allows the organization to implement a pay-as-you-go pilot, launching the solution immediately – and realizing the benefits - while concurrently building out their infrastructure, staffing, and modifying requirements to prove maximum value before making the commitment to a large investment.

There are several companies providing hosted solutions including Corbis, a solid solution through its acquisition of eMotion, but it cannot readily convert to an in-house application. Interwoven, MediaBin and Northplains are also recognized solution providers although they provide their hosting services through third party providers. ClearStory Systems touts an enterprise-level system that can be delivered as a hosted service or an in-house application. And ClearStory manages the hosting model itself – not through a third party.

When choosing an enterprise Digital Asset Management(DAM) product and vendor, a system that is available on both a hosted and installed basis provides a best of both worlds scenario in terms of flexibility. But this benefit can only be gained if the system is fully browser based, with full user functionality and consistent user experience – whether it’s hosted or installed. Another point to consider is that a system that can seamlessly transition from a hosted service to an in-house solution accommodates changing business models without interruption.

“Hosted services are rapidly gaining in popularity among a variety of end users primarily because of their versatility and ability to be rapidly deployed,” said Mukul Krishna, DAM expert and analyst with Frost & Sullivan. “Hosted systems are managed by experts, which alleviates the necessity for a massive in-house investment in both staff and equipment. It also gives the organization the ability to better focus their resources on core business efforts.”

Worldwide Television Network Chooses Hosted Services

National Geographic Channels International (NGCI) provides award-winning cable television programming to more than 230 million subscribers throughout the world. NGCI chose a hosted solution to simplify management of the thousands of hours of program tapes, photos and marketing materials that need to be accessible to its 29 regional offices around the globe.

The Digital Asset Management (DAM) system serves as a virtual creative services network for NGCI offices worldwide. NGCI uploads promotional and programming content including still photos, videotapes and scripts into a secure central repository. This central resource enables any office to be the creative hub and distribution point for marketing materials on behalf of their particular region – and in some cases, to the global group. Access and usage rights are fully controlled by NGCI headquarters.

According to Abigail Grossman, manager of Operations and Technical Services for NGCI, a hosted DAM system was the only answer. Already responsible for a massive broadcast management system, Grossman knew that her organization didn’t have the resources to manage a complex DAM system. “The solution we chose was quickly implemented and gives us 24/7 technical support just about anywhere in the world any time of the day or night, something we could never have tackled in-house,” said Grossman. “It also seamlessly manages all content, keeps that content updated, and provides accessibility and secure storage.

Hosting allowed Grossman’s organization to get up and running much more quickly than if they had tried to create the same structure in-house. Grossman chose a hosted solution that was not managed by a third party but managed directly by the provider. “We didn’t have to worry about building out the infrastructure and didn’t have to worry about acquiring in-house experts to manage the process. We were up and running is just a few months.”

A hosted solution is clean and efficient, according to Grossman. There’s no software or hardware to buy, no internal maintenance costs, no upgrade or support costs. Patches and upgrades are handled by the hosting vendor. The system can support multiple users in widespread geographic areas and it’s highly scaleable. “Experts configured the system to map to our business model, and they provide support the solution, which has alleviated that pressure from our organization.”

Digital Assets Protection

2008-09-07T00:47:00.000-07:00

Digital Asset Management (DAM) is quickly gaining recognition as a main component of an enterprise content management strategy. The proliferation of digital assets – in multiple formats – is presenting significant challenges to IT departments as organizations are coming to realize that systems to manage these assets are essential, valuable and a best business practice.

Recognizing this growing need to create, store, retrieve and manage rich media files, DAM solution providers are offering a variety of options to manage digital assets, including installed software managed in-house, hosted solutions managed outside the organization or the best of both worlds – systems that begin as hosted solutions and then, as an organization’s IT infrastructure becomes more sophisticated, can be easily converted to an installed solution.

According to Frost and Sullivan, hosted alternatives are rapidly gaining momentum as the solution of choice for the SMB market over installed systems as users look to best manage their financial and human capital. For some companies, hosted DAM services are an end in themselves – a deployment alternative that avoids a major investment in infrastructure or the addition of IT staff necessary to manage an enterprise DAM system. Hosting alternatives also allow companies to gain critical capabilities quickly, while they are building out their infrastructures or developing a proof of concept to help refine requirements and demonstrate ROI.

10 Rules of Effective Information Management

2008-01-27T08:28:00.000-08:00

Effective information management is important and difficult task. There are many systems to integrate, a huge range of business needs to meet, and complex organizational (and cultural) issues to address.

The aim of this article is to give a number of essential success factors for information management projects. These do not provide an comprehensive list, but offer a series of rules that can be used to guide the planning and implementation of information management activities.

recognize (and manage) complexity
focus on adoption
deliver tangible & visible benefits
prioritize according to business needs
take a journey of a thousand steps
provide strong leadership
mitigate risks
communicate extensively
aim to deliver a seamless user experience
choose the first project very carefully

Information Management

2008-01-27T08:11:00.000-08:00

Improving effectiveness of information management practices is a main focus for many organizations, through both the public and private sectors. In many cases, the term "information management" has a meaning of new technology solutions deployment, such as content or document management systems, data warehousing or portal applications.
Information management' is an umbrella term that encompasses all the systems and processes within an organization for the creation and use of corporate information.

In terms of technology, information management contains the following systems:

web content management (CM)
document management (DM)
records management (RM)
digital asset management (DAM)
learning management systems (LM)
learning content management systems (LCM)
collaboration
enterprise search
etc.

Metadata Types in Digital Asset Management

2008-01-27T07:38:00.000-08:00

There are many different types of metadata, some of which may have a formal structure and content, and some informal with no structure or consistency. From the file size or date of modification displayed by Windows, through the information about a book held in a library catalogue, to the statement of copyright (©) denoting ownership, people are accustomed to the idea of information about an object being associated with it.

In the context of a digital asset management strategy, metadata contains the fundamental information components of asset retrieval and management. It is the record about the asset and its contents.

"Metadata: Data about other data, commonly divided into descriptive metadata such as bibliographic information, structural metadata about formats and structures, and administrative metadata, which is used to manage information." From the 1999 manuscript of Digital Libraries, by William Arms, ©2000 M.I.T. Press.

There are a variety of types of metadata:

Bibliographic (e.g. "a picture of the Eiffel tower taken by Bob")
Administrative (e.g. "taken on 19/04/2005")
Legal (e.g. "all rights reserved")
Preservational (e.g. "requirement to view as jpeg")
Technical (e.g. "jpeg format" ; "85.8kb file")
Educational (e.g. "an illustration of construction using cast iron"; "UK Education Level 11")
Structural (e.g. "single file")

Within the development of a digital asset management strategy there has to be an assessment of what metadata are required to achieve the proposed purpose of the system, how these requirements can be supported by the use of, or interaction with, common standards, and how the quality of this metadata can be assessed and improved. The decisions around generation of metadata tie in with the wider questions of workflows for asset management and the interoperability of the system with other systems and services.

Security of Digital Asset Management

2007-12-30T11:19:00.000-08:00

Digital Asset Management should be secure. Since such a system will be continuously connected to the network or Internet, no one should penetrate the system from outside. In addition, the system should address Digital Rights Management issues like rights and permissions, usage tracking, and trusted versioning.

Digital Asset Management over the internet today requires Digital Rights Management technologies for:

Asserting intellectual property rights;
Managing the intellectual property value chain;
Verifying the source of the assets (authentification) ;
Secure distribution of digital assets to end users;
Effective distribution of digital assets to end users.

Some info you can find here: Asset Management Software - Asset Management Software Forum, blogs, articles, TV channel, Maps …

Digital Asset Management Strategy Considerations. Part 2

2007-12-30T10:22:00.000-08:00

With an eye on return on investment, your internal business processes and workflows have to be optimized for profitability. There's no point in automating every workflow or digitizing, meta-tagging and indexing every content object available. An asset by definition is something of value. The degree of agility of an asset too needs to be examined as part of the optimization and return on investment analysis.

A Digital Asset Management system must enable content providers to add value by adding context, quality and usability to content objects. The four main activities involved namely:

Content creation,
Processing
Archival and Retrieval
Content distribution and access by end user

must be enabled to deliver content to the customer and their context, preferences, and intended use.

A Digital Asset Management solution should make it possible to store large archives with precise classification and categorization of their content so they can be managed more easily.

A Digital Asset Management system provides selective retrieval of any particular data. This is made possible if all data that is to be stored is broken down to units that can be parameterized individually. Then, large archives become manageable.

In addition, taking into consideration that such a system will have many users, a Digital Asset Management system should be able to create a user-personalized view that is always up-to-date and can be tailored towards the user's preferences. Two facets are to be considered:

The business process/transaction workflow that is determined by the desired end user control functions (interactivity) requirements
The technology considerations that enable the content to be controlled.

Digital Asset Management systems typically enable all the above mentioned functionality by marking the digital asset repository as the center of all workflows.
Read the first part of Digital Asset Management Strategy Considerations article.

Digital Asset Management Strategy Considerations. Part 1

2007-12-30T09:44:00.000-08:00

To sum up the issues that will ensure scalability of your Digital Asset Management solution, building your Digital Asset Management architecture around a central asset repository that is accessible to authorized users is the first design principle that we need to examine.

The term "authorized users" can be taken in a broader context to include trusted partners, group companies, and content syndicates. The Digital Asset Management can be designed to have an extranet interface for this. In this case, the Digital Rights Management application portfolio has to be robust to address the royalty and copyright issues of the respective in-house content owners. Digital Rights Management applications vary from encryption of the assets, waremarking of assets, and access control, and tracking of rights enforcement.

The goal of Digital Asset Management solution is the creation of an in-house media exchange environment that is secure and Accountable.

From an asset production viewpoint, automated workflow to enhance the production efficiencies of creative, editing, and other functional departments, around the central asset repository is the next important criterion.

Once Assets are capable of being "Managed" with the employment of appropriate metadata, and indexing tools, asset delivery/ access either through downloadable files (web publishing), or streaming audio and video/ ITV application platforms have to be integrated into your Digital Asset Management infrastructure. This is to enable your customers interact with, and transact for your assets via e-Commerce.

Read the second part of Digital Asset Management Strategy Considerations article.

Media Asset Management

2007-12-30T09:24:00.000-08:00

Media Asset Management (MAM) generally covers the assets like video, images, photographs, etc. that are are used by Media industry. The Media Asset Management term is used in the first category described above, to imply Media Assets specifically, as compared to the more general "digital" assets.
Digital Asset Management systems are intended to help companies' reuse and re-purpose existing text, photos, images, and video in such a way that it will:

Enable mapping of relationship between the various media assets
Enable many different users of the various departments of an organization to have access to a personalized interaction with a particular asset.
Enable many different members to manipulate a particular asset sequentially as part of a single or many workflow processes (as in the case with media companies).

Digital Asset Management solutions are a necessity for any sector or company where
a large volume of ever growing list of images, video, audio, and text are necessary

to be archived, manipulated and re-purposed;
the assets need to be accessed by a large number of widely dispersed users.

Briefly About Digital Asset Management

2007-12-13T12:12:00.000-08:00

The term Digital Asset Management (DAM) arose from the publishing and printing industry, and its variant Media Asset Management (MAM) from the broadcast field. Digital Asset Management remained a niche market until recently, until several factors such as, availability of low-cost of storage to hold rich-media assets, high-speed connectivity making transfer of digital files feasible coincided to drive it toward the mainstream.
Digital Asset Management is an integrated suite of infrastructure components used to capture, catalogue, store, and manage digital assets, and to expose those assets to creative tools for producing video, audio, web, and print content. The imaging and scanning technologies also used to create digital assets as part of the Digital Asset Management infrastructure.

What is digital asset management

2007-12-07T08:38:00.000-08:00

Digital Asset Management refers to technology that helps us to manage lots of data that we deal with in our personal and professional lives.
Digital assets include documents, images, audios, emails, videos, and any other content which we store on a computer.

Tasks of digital asset management

Digital Asset Management applications usually help with such tasks of file management:

Organizing digital assets
Securing digital assets
Searching for a digital asset
Backing up digital assets
Checking the integrity of digital assets
Discovering duplicates of digital assets

Digital Asset Management

2007-12-07T07:46:00.000-08:00

Digital asset management. Definition.

Digital Asset Management (DAM) is a collective term applied to the process of storing, cataloguing, searching and delivering digital files (or digital assets). Digital assets can be video, audio, images, print marketing collateral, office documents, fonts or 3D models. Digital Asset Management (DAM) systems centralize assets and establish a systematic approach to ingesting assets so they can be located more easily and used appropriately. It is sometimes connected with Digital Content Management (DCM).

Digital asset management. General information.

Digital asset management consists of tasks and decisions environing ingesting, annotating, cataloguing, storing and retrieving of digital assets, such as digital photos, animations, movies and music. Digital asset management systems are computer software and/or hardware systems that aid in the process of digital asset management.

The term "digital asset management" (DAM) also refers to the protocol for maintaining, archiving, downloading, renaming, backing up, rating, grouping, optimizing, thinning, and exporting files. "There are two primary types of digital asset management software: browsers and cataloging software. A browser reads information from a file but does not store it separately. Cataloging software stores information in its own separate file, however, the software and the catalog document it makes are distinct from the photos themselves."

Read Digital Asset Management Systems Types article for more information about types of digital asset management systems.