At the NYC Digital Asset Managers Meetup tonight, the speakers gave some great advice for dealing with DAM Users.
The speakers were Leala Abbott, Senior Analyst for Enterprise Content Management and blogger and Henrik de Gyor, Digital Asset Manager at K12 Inc. and blogger at Another DAM Blog. Here are a few quick takeaways:
It Doesn’t Matter What System You Buy – You Need Process!!
Leala started by talking about the human element of a digital asset management system, saying “It doesn’t matter what system you buy – you need process!” She said she started by taking a survey of the users to try and find out why only 1 department was using the system and why users were dissatisfied. The technology wasn’t the problem – it was the user interface.
The UI Matters
Leala said for most DAM systems, you are “throwing a regular user in front of a administrator system.” She claims that most users really only need 5 functions or features. She discussed possibly integrating DAM with other databases through a single Google-like simple search interface on top of it.
Cater to the Users
Henrik suggests creating use cases for each type of user, and publicly document their role. Find out what do they do today and how do they do it. He created video training for each user role, documented every field, and put it on a wiki. Now if a user has a question, he sends them the link.
Sorry, No Metadata Fairies
The speakers commented that they wished the metadata fairies would come in and add metadata to the assets. Since users need to be encouraged to input metadata properly, Henrik shared his success at giving out “DAM Awards” – They measure uploads and track quality and then give certificates monthly and yearly. He says, “it shows appreciation to all the people who are doing DAM in addition to their other work.” He e-mails the recognition to the user’s boss, and their whole group, and they use it in performance reviews. Users frame the certificates, and some users have even put the fact that they are this month’s winner in their e-mail signature line!