Digital Asset Management System Research Articles

Digital asset management at 3M

3M is a diverse and complex company, hence the journey to digital asset management (DAM) within the company as a system and as business process is a constant work in progress. The combination of technology, change management, business process and policies and guidelines drives the company forward in this endeavour. 3M’s journey into DAM began in 1997. The company has implemented three generations of DAM over the past 18 years. The conceptual model of ‘e’ at 3M is highly dependent on the connection of DAM to its product information management system. Because of the complexity of 3M as a company, and because it has so many subsidiaries around the world using its DAM solution, 3M has many interesting requirements that must be fulfilled. As can be imagined, 3M has a diverse user base, product categories and business units. This necessitates that the team take the time to understand those needs, as well as look after the needs of the larger corporation as the DAM system is implemented and as any improvements or requirements for future upgrades are gathered and eventually the system is upgraded.

Using DAM to protect and empower the UPS brand

What is the value of protecting a brand? It is critical for any company today to ensure that its brand is protected while investigating solutions to help build and strengthen brand equity. This paper details how UPS leverages its digital asset management (DAM) system as a crucial component of brand management. DAM delivers a solution to help protect the UPS brand through controlled accessibility and provides brand consistency globally. By engaging users, both external and internal, DAM allows UPS to control who has access to its brand, how it is leveraged and its exposure.

The SIMP Tool: Facilitating Digital Library, Metadata, and Preservation Workflow at the University of Utah's J. Willard Marriott Library

This article presents a case study of the Submission Information Metadata Packaging (SIMP) tool developed at the University of Utah's J. Willard Marriott Library. The Library designed this platform-independent tool to facilitate the deposit of descriptive metadata and derivative formats into CONTENTdm, the Library's current digital asset management system. It also supports the submission of technical metadata and archival content into the Ex Libris Rosetta digital preservation system. The Marriott Library deliberately developed the SIMP tool to accommodate multiple workflows and ingestion processes in a modular fashion, which allows the Library to easily modify the tool to extend its functionality to other digital asset management and preservation systems or enterprise repositories.

Integrating DAM systems and processes within an organisation

Integrating digital asset management (DAM) systems and processes within an organisation requires caution and skill. Experience with large asset creation has taught everyone the need for a highly integrated system that manages the whole content created by an organisation. Change management techniques are needed to introduce new technology to an organisation. Restructuring the workflow to unify content can cause problems for users who are not familiar with up-to-date DAM processes. Unifying the team during implementation is just as important as unifying the content in a DAM system. Creating a rapport with all the leaders in an organisation is essential to set realistic project goals.

DAMification: The implications for users and vendors

Companies everywhere are realising that Digital Asset Management (DAM) is a powerful and necessary tool for their organisations to run efficiently and scale effectively. The implementation of DAM solutions is fast becoming a commodity item. DAM systems can now be found in every industry and sector. Once you have implemented a DAM system, the next question is “now what do I do?” This paper covers how DAM clients and DAM vendors can benefit from implementing the principles of DAMification. Organisations will need to focus on being technology agnostic to leverage best in-breed solutions in the market. Also, one must have a service-oriented architecture (SOA) based approach to easily integrate these solutions into existing environments. This allows the focus to be on building out the core event and message oriented architecture to handle all the communications between these various technologies. The combination of these factors can help a company to build powerful automated workflows that truly benefit the business, and support future growth and change.

Single source multi-channel marketing at Vitra

The days in which companies competed solely on products alone are long since gone. This presents providers with numerous competitive challenges: products and offerings must continue to appeal and convince, while their customer communications and marketing have become critically important — across all types of media and channels. Vitra is a Swiss family-owned furniture manufacturer that relies on an integrated global marketing and communication system enabling its digital assets to be designed, customised and individualised simply, quickly and efficiently before being distributed efficiently across all channels. In order to achieve these objectives Vitra has opted for censhare’s digital asset management (DAM) system. This paper describes the requirements and the aims of the company, the criteria of the selection process, its DAM partners and the main data of the implementation, while also quantifying the benefits for the company.

Rights management for a global magazine business: Strategy, standardisation and simplification

This paper looks at how a global magazine publisher approached rights management of its content for a large-scale digital asset management system. By standardising contracts and simplifying its rights model, Hearst has built a database that automates rights clearances for much of its content.

Migrating assets and metadata from a legacy DAM system to a new one at Ubisoft

When renewing digital asset management (DAM), development is not the only action to plan for. Migrating assets and metadata from shared drives or a legacy DAM to a new one is a laborious process that is sometimes not adequately planned for and can tend to be overlooked. This use case represents a practical example of migrating assets and metadata from a legacy DAM system to a new one at Ubisoft, a leading global producer, publisher and distributor of high-quality, cutting-edge video game titles. It encompasses the reasons behind Ubisoft’s choice for renewing its DAM, how the migration was planned for, accomplished and also how metadata values were enhanced during the process.

Establishing and funding a digital asset management system at the University of Chicago

In 2010, the University Communications Department at the University of Chicago began investigating the building of a digital asset management (DAM) system with the potential for university-wide reach. This case study discusses the evolution of this project from the fact-finding first steps to the current state of the DAM system, which was launched in February 2013. The DAM system was set up in University Communications with seed funding for one year, with a mandate to cover its own expenses after the first year. Therefore, in addition to establishing a DAM technological solution, the team developed a cost recovery model that fit the budgets of client departments and helped contribute to the system operations, ultimately creating a sustainable internal service called PhotoStore. The workflows, technology, standards and cost plans have been set up with a solid foundation so that the PhotoStore staff can continually process incoming images and add new users efficiently. This paper will discuss the major components of the PhotoStore service, how the service was established, lessons learned and plans for the future.

The EN 15907 moving image metadata schema standard and its role in a digital asset management infrastructure

This paper describes a metadata schema standard for moving images created to service those in the cultural heritage field. It details the rationale behind a standardisation effort driven by an international community of moving image archives and the benefits of using EN 15907 to manage moving image media assets. A case study from the British Film Institute describes the process of creating a consolidated repository, with their EN 15907-structured database acting as the metadata store and a digital asset management system to manage storage, transcode, delivery, etc of the moving image media assets.

Good cop, bad cop, brand cop: Confessions of a global brand director

This paper is adapted from a presentation given at DAM Europe in June 2013. It describes a corporate user’s perspective on some of the challenges of implementing a digital asset management system. Like others responsible for managing corporate brands, the author’s role has been referred to as that of the ‘brand police’. The brand police, like their uniformed counterparts, play an important role in the community, walking a beat and watching over their neighbourhood. As authority figures they are stewards of the firm’s most valuable asset. But they do more than protect a brand: they enhance its value. The author encourages readers to embrace the role of policeman or policewoman, using digital brand management systems to underpin the authority of their role. He also explains how such systems contribute to the understanding and valuing of brands as strategic assets.

A journey to enable digital end to end using DAM

Digital asset management (DAM) systems continue to evolve with more features and functionality to store, search and publish digital content. But DAM systems do not have all the complete workflow abilities to create a seamless asset life cycle, handling all the disparate workflows and processes for photography. This paper looks at digital end-to-end (DETE) solutions for the photography life cycle. It examines the challenges, tools and standards to leverage DAM as a component of a DETE solution and what other complementary tools and processes companies must put in place to fully maximise a DETE initiative. The paper will explore metadata standards and leveraging metadata from camera through DAM. It will look at what collaboration, job tracking and reporting tools need to be part of the DAM initiative to achieve DETE solutions for photography.

Digital asset management system implementation at American Express Publishing

This paper presents an analysis of the successful implementation of a new digital asset management (DAM) system at American Express Publishing (AEP). At AEP, the DAM team was faced with surprises when the system passed from a theoretical planning stage to the realities of a production workflow. Real-life demands on user groups and system functionality forced the DAM team to quickly adjust course multiple times. Their ability to find successful solutions proved the value of the team’s prior planning, education, and relationship building. Post roll-out, the team learned lessons about enabling a successfully operating system to meet the search and access needs of end users. Detailing the critical decisions and actions that led to that success, the paper defines important best practices applicable to system implementations at any enterprise.

Taking a big data/NoSQL approach to digital asset management

Providing easy, open access to assets and asset information across an organisation is a universal goal for digital asset management systems. When a digital asset management team is charged with delivering access to assets to various teams — all with different requirements — within an organisation where assets and information about the assets are in many different systems, many organisations turn to one of several traditional technology approaches. These all have drawbacks, however, and can be inflexible, complex and time-consuming. For such a complex assignment, a ‘big data’ approach can be taken, as the data being addressed have volume, variety and velocity (constant change). A new generation of database technology, NoSQL, allows a digital asset management team to take advantage of the big data approach and to create in a matter of weeks the actual database and data structures that will be used to power the application. Users of the application, including editorial, product development, management and asset curation teams, are able to see information across the organisation in a single interface and can make decisions based on asset information.

Digital Asset Management: Where to Start

AbstractThe creation of a comprehensive digital asset management strategy for a museum can seem like a daunting or even impossible task, but it need not be. This paper will show how the creation of a comprehensive digital asset management strategy document, outlining the administrative principles, policies, technical specifications, and operating guidelines for digital initiatives, can be accomplished in discrete, manageable tasks. Once created, such a document can form the backbone of an institution's digital activities and provide the basis for an RFP for a digital asset management system. This paper proposes a model framework for institutional digital asset management plans, including standards, tasks, and decisions. Each of the elements in the framework is discussed in both general, best‐practice terms and also specifically, presenting case studies and lessons learned from Corning Museum of Glass.

Here be dragons/ Navigating the uncharted waters of digital initiatives in cultural institutions

Many cultural institutions are implementing digital asset management (DAM) systems to fulfil internal needs or to meet patrons’ demands. The native metadata schema for most DAM systems do not accommodate the needs of cultural institutions and prevailing literature fails to address implementation planning needs in non-profit environments. This paper presents a case study of such an implementation and concludes by suggesting that in order to smooth the implementation of future digital initiatives, organisations should centralise potential assets, assess the collection, document information about the assets and standardise naming conventions and workflow before beginning the planning process.

‘Hey, can I use this?’ Simplifying rights management for creative agency DAM systems

Clear communication of rights associated with creative assets in a self-service digital asset management (DAM) system can be challenging owing to varied user knowledge, inconsistency in metadata entry, a wide range of usage and licensing parameters, and system features and limitations. Creative end users such as designers, art directors and art buyers require simplicity, clarity and ease of discovery in terms of rights management information. Understanding the user, the needs of the organisation and clients if applicable, as well as the digital asset management system employed, is paramount to the success of any DAM administrator in planning, presenting and managing the application of rights metadata. This paper discusses the inherent challenges of adding rights-managed assets to a DAM; governance features of DAM systems and examples of proper implementation; and suggestions for educating users to get the most out of the DAM experience without incurring risk of copyright infringement.

Power to the people/ Cues, cravings, rewards and habit loops

Changing user behaviour to encourage positive attitudes towards adopting new workflows and digital asset management (DAM) systems can make or break the success of the DAM in any organisation. This paper aims to focus on the art of interpersonal communication via heuristic models, which reflect the dirt in the trenches of everyday work in a real-life corporate setting. References will be drawn from popular publications as examples of highly accessible resources that can be easily understood and accepted by non-academics performing the daily functions with DAM, and by people who use assets managed in a DAM. Understanding the power and ubiquity of habits is key to breaking through the barrier of DAM user adoption. This paper also aims to inspire DAM administrators and decision makers to focus on the people (users) first, technology (DAM) second, and with the realisation that change is an ever-evolving process, which requires patience and time.

Qualifying cost savings of a DAM department

There are numerous means to measure the success of a digital asset management system. Asset reuse and the resulting savings or cost avoidance are among the important measures. To properly gauge the size of the savings, one needs to know the media and extent in which the originally requested assets were used. Normally scheduled reporting, while very important, cannot always reveal answers to new questions that an ad hoc report or survey can provide. This paper presents a methodology for calculating the potential cost avoidance of visual assets as used in different media. A partial list of topics reviewed includes seasonality, scope and data cleansing. Signs of potential audits are discussed and the methods to address them are shown. Provided are the results of a recent survey using requests for visual assets from Chrysler Group’s visual asset management department. This paper is an elaboration of a presentation made by the author at the Henry Stewart Conference in Los Angeles on 2nd November, 2012.

Partially compressed-encrypted domain robust JPEG image watermarking

Digital media is often handled in a compressed and encrypted form in Digital Asset Management Systems. And watermarking of the compressed encrypted media items in the compressed-encrypted domain itself is required sometimes for copyright violation detection or other purposes. In this paper, we propose a robust image watermarking technique for partially compressed-encrypted JPEG images. However, arbitrary embedding of a watermark in a partially compressed encrypted image can cause drastic degradation of the quality as the underlying change may result in random decrypted values. In addition, due to the encryption the compression efficiency may become very low. Thus the challenge is to design a watermarking technique that provides good watermarked image quality and at the same time gives good compression efficiency. While the proposed technique embeds watermark in the partially compressed-encrypted domain, the extraction of watermark can be done in the encrypted or decrypted domains. The experiments show that the watermarked image quality is good and the reduction in compression efficiency is low. The proposed watermarking technique is robust to common signal processing attacks. The watermark detection performance of the proposed scheme is better than the existing encrypted domain watermarking techniques.