PHILIP SPIEGEL - DAM Ideas

What We’ve Got Here is a Failure to Communicate

I hope you are hearing that infamous line from Cool Hand Luke with Strother Martin's sweaty, smarmy, southern drawl.  It needs to be heard that way to get the full dramatic effect.

 

This may be a bigger problem organizationally than any shortcomings you may have in DAM and the state of your respective physical and digital assets.  You may not even fully recognize the true scope and impact of this failure.

 

One of the key steps in getting to the (previously mentioned) DAMsta's paradise is to effectively communicate...and then of course, effectively listen.  Business needs to foster a free and open exchange of information and ideas that helps get to the core of problems and ultimately make things better.  It's all about teamwork.

 

While this seems simple it can be frustratingly difficult.  The conflict in styles between the left-brained techies and the right-brained creatives can exacerbate the problem.  Add this to the daily challenges of supporting business goals, disconnected silos, company politics, personalities, etc....and it can get well-intentioned, but ugly.

 

Poor communication can undermine the perception of value.  You need to market your efforts within the organization (not shamelessly...but don't be shy).  For example, if you are dealing with fire drills to fix critical problems preventing the company from meeting critical deadlines...just doing it isn't enough.

 

If a tree falls in the woods and no one is around to hear it does it make a sound?  I dunno...but I do know that if you drop everything to feverishly work to fix a critical problem and no one knows about it...then no matter how hard you worked on it people will always be complaining about the lack of support.  Bad communication or no communication can be the enemy of productivity and create the perception of bad support EVEN when that is far from the truth.

 

So what do you do?   Proactive communication, simple proactive steps will go a long way toward disarming negativity...knowledge is power and in this case knowledge is comfort.

 

A quick update to confirm acknowledgment of the problem, followed by an action plan and timeline and then by a status update will go long way.  These don't need to be novels; a sentence or phrase will in most cases be plenty and they can be standardized or auto generated.  The value is that it tells the person or group that is stuck in deadline hell that someone is on it and there is a supportive partner now vested in the solution and helping to assure you meet deadline.

 

Let's not forget,  we are all on the same team.   Can we tawk?

 

It's Not as Easy as it Sounds...

Trust me, a successful DAM requires some special ingredients and if it was easy you'd have already done it.

 

Business managers are quick to recognize the logistical, financial and operational benefits that can come out of a successful DAM implementation.  Smart processes, competitive and efficient operations and the potential for new revenue opportunities are just some of the easy concepts to agree on.

 

But what can be lost in pursuit of the DAMsta's paradise is that it will take the talents of people with the unique skills, expertise, experience and passion to lead you down the right path.  This, along with commitment and support of key stakeholders will really help get things done.  You may already have all the right people on staff but odds are ... you don't.

 

So why is it so hard?

 

First of all, most don't have the luxury of closing up shop while going about this endeavor.  So, you are zooming along the highway at 65mph while you are also changing the tires.  The reality is that you have to plan for where you are going but also how you will move to carefully get there while you are living in both the old and new worlds.

 

Second, you need to have the right people involved.   Be it current staff, DAM consultants, vendors, project managers, metadata specialists, content managers, IT managers, or a team from all of the above.  The thing is someone needs to drive, have final word and; most importantly; balance all the information from these respective positions against the business needs to make the right choices for keeping the project on track.  Someone has to own the vision...the buck HAS to stop somewhere.

 

Third, you need to have committed senior management. The DAM exercise will force a hard look at the overall operation.  Things will shift / evolve beyond the boundaries of the project as they are needed to support the new operation.  The overall workflow and org chart may look very different after a project like this and that's "OK."

 

Fourth, scope - creep....we've all done it in some form or another. It's the old, "hey, while your fixing the plumbing in the bathroom may as well look at the water heater."  It can seem like a reasonable thing but it can consume DAM projects.  There has to be the flexibility to react to new information throughout the course of the project and adjust accordingly.  You just can't know everything up front but you need to avoid scope creep that can veer you far off course.

 

Lastly (well at least for this post) is the time and resources issues. It may (in some cases) be better to partner with a vendor (or series of vendors) to drive the project.  It may also make sense to contract out aspects of the processes to get things done quickly or just because they are outside the native expertise and core competency.   You may not want to be in the business of owning the expertise for the particular tasks involved.  For example, you may find it cheaper and faster to have companies that specialize in scanning, encoding, cataloging, transcoding, etc. do all the heavy lifting to get your assets prepped and into the new system rather than try to get it done on your own. 

 

The bottom-line is that a DAM is an easy idea tied around a complicated solution and getting the right people involved (early) will be the first step toward a successful project.

 

 

But What About The Exceptions?

Odds are, you are trying to find ways to manage and merge metadata structure from one or many different legacy systems into a unified structure in your new DAM system.    One of the major problems can be dealing with the exceptions and most importantly not letting them command more attention or effort than they merit.   George Carlin had an old bit about catholic school students trying to find chinks in the armor around the rules of eating meat on Fridays…by the end of the joke, students are outlining all sorts of crazy scenarios including one that has them on a boat, on the pacific, about to cross the international date line and trying to figure out what to do.  

 

The point is that THERE ARE ALWAYS GOING TO BE EXCEPTIONS.   Be at peace with this reality and then move on.  The focus should be designing a metadata structure and strategy that can effectively address the RULES and have the capacity to manage, support and attend to the EXCEPTIONS. 

 

This is almost a mantra and something that you need to continually remind yourself of throughout the design process in order to remain on track. It’s just too easy and frankly too human to get sidetracked into the weeds on a major tangent because someone or some group involved in the discussion has proclaimed the need of the exception paramount.    

 

Ask yourself, is this something that most users will need and if so how often?   What are the risks of moving away from this?  Will this be available in some way and be searchable?  Will there be the capacity within the new structure to address most of the need going forward?  Will there be a new way to retrieve the exception info in different way?  Remember, you DAM isn’t a digital replica of your old systems and workflow…there may be new ways to service less common needs or they may be usurped by the way the new tools deliver and report on their assets and data. 

 

Design and create support for the rules, build in the capacity for the exceptions and make everything flexible enough to evolve as things change…and trust me, they will.