So you’re implementing a DAM solution, and you want to know what sort of person (or people) you should hire (or promote) to ensure the implementation is a success. What types of qualifications define a good DAM manager? It’s a good question, because DAM itself covers so many areas of practice:
- Library Science
- Enterprise Application Architecture
- Database Administration
- Creative Services (in whatever your industry is, so Publishing/Print, Video Production, etc.)
- Workflow Design & Change Management
Where to start? While it is important that the DAM Manager have some visibility into some or all of the list above, there is one attribute which is absolutely vital for the job: knowledge of YOUR specific business and creative processes and reasons for implementing DAM.
Without that vision, the DAM Manager will be implementing the system in a vacuum, and a DAM system, more than any other enterprise application you will ever install, is intimately tied to your creative process. After all, the only way that DAM achieves return-on-investment, is to streamline your creative workflow, and allow your creatives to manage, find and repurpose the content your organization creates.
A corollary, and second important consideration is: flexibility and acceptance of change.
While it is in no way true in every case, the workflows you have in place for your creative services right now may not in all cases be optimal in a DAM-enhanced world. A DAM solution enables new capabilities and new uses for your digital media, and provides a tool set that might make portions of your workflow more efficient (for example, the ability to collaboratively mark up and work together on an image with a customer on-line using the Photo Portal tool, could replace an entire “review/approve” cycle with the customer). So the DAM Manager needs to be able to “think outside the box” with regard to your business and creative processes, to take full advantage of the efficiencies the system offers.
Finally, the most important attribute of all: commitment to the DAM implementation.
By “commitment” I’m not talking about some sort of religious fervor for the system (although that never hurts!), I’m talking about it being that person’s job to manage the system at a corporate level. No enterprise class software, and certainly not a DAM product, can run itself, but with the visibility in the market of desktop and lower-end DAM solutions (Cumulus, Portfolio, etc.), we often run up against the misconception that an enterprise DAM solution falls into the same category. Saddling someone with the management of a large-scale DAM implementation, while they are still on deadline for their “regular” job is a recipe for disaster.
The good news is, that every single successful implementation of DAM that I have participated in, has been successful largely because they had the foresight to recognize these simple rules and put a DAM Manager in place.