Journal of Digital Asset Management

Michael Moon interviews Daniel Duncan of Zimmer, Inc. on the management and use of DAM as a performance support system for Answer database. The interview explores some little-discussed dimensions of knowledge worker productivity and the maturation of knowledge towards a community of practice.

When traditional assets are lost, the loss is typically considered to be the summation of the purchase price and the costs of labor and material used to put an asset into production, reduced by depreciation charges and insurance recoveries. With digital assets, traditional loss valuation fails to reflect the full loss to the company, as much of a digital asset's value is based on intangibles. Here, the argument is made that without a full valuation of digital assets, managers do not know the true loss they have experienced should the asset be lost. Consequently, optimal managerial decisions cannot be made. Real options analysis using binomial trees are suggested as a means to measure the full value of digital assets, and their resulting losses.

Metadata is an important and highly valuable part of any digital asset management (DAM) system. The metadata turns a digital file into an asset by allowing the digital file to be retrieved from the system, shared between users and reused by the business. Before you start to define the metadata model for your DAM system there are several key business decisions that need to be understood, such as the purpose of your DAM system and the amount of time and money you are willing to spend on metadata capture. The timing of the model definition is critical to the overall success of the DAM system deployment and the model should continue to meet the changing needs of the business-users. What is the best way to create a sustainable metadata model?

The growing number and complexity of digital assets is making it increasingly difficult for organizations to locate and retrieve specific assets using traditional DAM systems. Companies that fail to solve this problem risk the erosion of brand consistency and communications with customers, partners and employees. OTB Solutions Group has developed a new approach to digital asset management that provides a flexible solution, which enables users to locate, retrieve and reuse specific assets more efficiently and with more precision.

Whirlpool Corporation deployed digital asset management through several implementations. The initial thrust was developing skill sets and an understanding of the available technology within its Creative Works group. This led to an implementation that allowed creative production staff to organize digital assets and assure the ability to locate those assets for repurposing. As technology advanced new tools became available that allowed additional functionality and more robust management of assets. This included support of Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) protocols to offer single sign-on, asset-level security to manage assets throughout the lifecycle of the products, and a self-serve environment that allowed creating web services to meet varying needs of a diverse user group. These groups consisted of super users among the creative staff, agencies and marketing department, as well as the more general users of the corporate environment and of our trade partners.

Are you prepared to address transformational challenges that are impacting business today? Do you have fresh perspective about solutions and best practices? The world has changed. Business challenges are more complex. Events and situations that shift markets and demand happen quickly with little or no warning and create strategic opportunities for those who are prepared. Current approaches to problem solving often lack perspective on key issues confronting people, societies, government and business. Answers are often rooted in new ways of thinking that change perspective. Cost/Performance is a discipline (low cost — high performance) designed to improve agility and responsiveness while minimizing risk and exposure. Do you have an effective process for transforming business? Do you have discipline to achieve superior Cost/Performance? This paper introduces concepts, models, frameworks and roadmaps developed from years of intensive research. Insight and know-how presented focuses on changing thinking about talent, practices and capabilities. Consider possibilities created by rethinking investments when greater emphasis is focused on examining business fundamentals and interrelationships between industries, markets, employees, products, services, technologies, systems and states and conditions of practices.

A conversation between Michael Moon (MM) and Matthew Gonnering (MG) discussing marketing, sales, and creative operations and the changing processes as a result of new technologies. Marketing teams become sponsors of the change shaping the behaviors of sales operations and contributing to the creative workflows. Michael and Matthew discuss the roles and trends of sales, marketing and creative teams and the effect Web 2.0 has had on the process. In their conversation, they isolate how Widen has advanced their marketing services and product line to include screen cast video production and expansion into an on-site digital embassy complementing the hosted platform.

For those of us in the Marketing and Advertising space, we have the distinct pleasure of working with a unique colleague known as the “Creative”. BBDO is known as a creative agency and the creative group is responsible for the concepts and ideas that will make or break the company. The client has the ultimate say as to whether a concept will be used or not, but if an ad agency is worth its salt, it will make a strong case so that the client sees that these concepts will work to tell the message they want to get over to the customer. And, I have to say, not self-servingly, that we at BBDO do a remarkable job at that. Considering that influence, what kind of say do the Creatives really have in paving the way for adoption of digital asset management systems that will improve the way the work gets done, and can DAM truly benefit the Creative?

More and more organizations are discovering the value DAM adds to their branding and marketing execution. DAM-based tools such as online brand and house style guides, perhaps with an image library and some downloadable materials, are becoming commonplace. Yet our experience at Randstad is that DAM can be and do so much more when you treat it not as a database or IT system but as a process tool or way of working — a kind of Office Suite for marketeers. By enabling us to implement a single, global brand in a local, decentralized organization, DAM enables us to achieve a higher return on investment than we otherwise could.