Special Report: IEN Digital Assets & Content Leadership Exchange #IENDAM

Hello! I just participated in a new conference in New York City – the incredibly useful IEN Digital Assets & Content Leadership Exchange.

Here are some Mod Librarian highlights to tide you over until the slides and recordings have been posted.

• From Day 1, the Executive Roundtable on Key Strategies and Innovative Tactics for Optimizing the Value of Your Digital Assets: Howard Koch shared how to calculate the Cost Avoidance for Asset Reuse, ex: the asset production cost minus the cost of customization for localization equals the cost avoidance.
• Ted Ryan, the Director, Archives The Coca-Cola Company gave a fantastic presentation on their historic archive and the systems used to find both physical and digital assets.  And, there was a little Don Draper thrown in.
• From the panel: Managing Rights Data to Get the MOST Out of Content Licensing: great resources like FIAT/IFTA,  CLEAR, and the Rights.tech podcasts. As consultant and panelist Elena Brodie-Kusa said, “provenance equals power.”  Keenan Whitmore recommended the documentary about the happy birthday song rights.
• From panelist Carol Thomas-Knipes, a DAM Guru, tips on how to see the forest for the DAM trees.
• Sadly, I missed the second day of the conference, but Optimity Advisors posted a great recap here including the quote from Peter Krogh, who said “You cannot paraphrase a photo.”
• The keynote on Day 3 was by Ian Wheal of Adstream on elevating the practice of digital asset management into content intelligence.
• From Dell and the University of Texas at Austin, the inimitable Margie Foster on the qualities that make the best Digital Asset Management Librarian. She delineated the issues of DAM astutely, likening it to “being pecked to death by ducks.” But she offered actionable solutions to the complexity, cost, and disregard plaguing the best systems. One big takeaway: user support is crucial, for special snowflakes and everyday users.
• More from Margie’s talk: steps that come naturally to librarian types dealing with DAM: education and user training, investigating, and advocating.
• Random notes from both days that form my own plan of action: “culture first, technology second” – meaning that change averse stakeholders and users need help getting used to technology, metadata, etc. Making content “snackable.”
• From the panel Panel Discussion: Where Do YOU Go from Here?!—Career Path Planning for Asset Managers and Content Stewards, Henrik de Gyor offers advice for continuing DAM education including the San Jose State University SLIS program’s digital services pathway, Columbia’s Information and Knowledge Strategy program, and the University of Texas at Austin iSchool.
• From the panel on Panel Discussion: Increasing Adoption! Educating End-Users and Solving for Their Needs – creating experiences for DAM and CMS that mimic enjoyable activities like online shopping. “Turning stakeholders into caretakers.”
• From the panel  Increasing Adoption! Educating End-Users and Solving for Their Needs, Jennifer Anna from World Wildlife Fund recommended using Facebook Workplace for communication. Lots of talk of training, newsletters, policies, and utilizing user complaints to initiate changes. Also a question from the audience about the intriguing sounding Voguepedia.
• From the panel on  Key Metrics to Analyze the Efficiency of Your DAM and Promote User Satisfaction: use the search logs, and reports of aided and unaided requests, time to find an asset, login numbers (number of users, number of downloads), the Net Promoter Score, and key performance indicators (KPIs). Wisdom from Natalie Daller of Pampered Chef “It’s better to have a number that to say a lot…”
• Finally, a quote to live by Rebecca Schneider, Executive Director, Content at AVENUECX “bad metadata is worse than no data at all.”

Can’t wait til next year’s conference!