WHAT EXACTLY IS DAM?

A Digital Asset Management (DAM) system is a one-stop solution that helps you manage and manipulate your digital assets — like documents, images, videos and audio files — and improve the efficiency of your creative team.

The right DAM solution can help your organization efficiently upload new assets, organize and use existing ones and even reduce duplicative work by uncovering assets you didn’t realize you had.

WHY THE RIGHT DAM SOLUTION MATTERS MORE THAN EVER

Simply put, DAMs are key to making remote creative work possible (a topic you probably know all about after the past year). A DAM makes it possible for employees to find the digital assets they need, no matter where they’re working from, while automating workflows and access control. All of this is essential to encouraging creative collaboration while preventing bottlenecks and delays in the virtual office space.

The secret sauce to a DAM is the additional information about an asset beyond the actual media file. This additional information is known as metadata, and it’s what powers a DAM. According to the Content Marketing Institute, content only becomes a usable asset when metadata is associated with it, because it provides context to make assets manageable, accessible and searchable. Beyond that, metadata can also be used to manage usage rights and power automated workflows to streamline your creative team’s work.

HOW IT ALL WORKS

Some of the specifics of your DAM system will depend on whether you use an on-premise DAM or a cloud-based solution. While an on-prem DAM can have advantages in some scenarios, a cloud-based DAM will be ideal for enabling the most benefits across a remote or hybrid workforce.

For creative teams, "Work From Home" can feel like "Wait For Downloads" when working with large assets. By allowing creatives to link assets and work with them directly within their cloud-based DAM, they aren’t held back by having to wait for unwieldy downloads.

No matter what kind of DAM solution you’re working with, each new asset will begin in the ingestion stage. Ingestion is the process through which new assets are uploaded to a DAM. The ideal solution not only adds new assets with a short turnaround time but it also simplifies or even automates the process of adding metadata.

Just as importantly, assets in the DAM can have usage permissions modified to ensure the right employees are using it and nobody is using expired assets. This can help streamline processes and increase organizational efficiency. Plus, any changes to an asset, such as resolution, dimensions, color or file format — known as either a rendition, transformation or transcoding — can be associated with the original asset to help keep assets organized and easy to find.

FEATURES TO LOOK FOR

Not all DAMs are created equal. In addition to deciding whether you’re looking for an on-prem or cloud-based solution you’ll need to consider the features your solution will need. This will vary depending on the kind of assets you’re primarily working with. Some critical features include:

  • Interactive PDF: This feature allows you to dynamically link to assets in the DAM, directly from a PDF document, making it easier to find and change component assets within the PDF.
  • Annotations: Centralized markup and annotations directly within the DAM will speed up the approval process and give all stakeholders a complete view of progress and revisions.
  • Asset timer: Not all of your assets can stay available in perpetuity. An asset timer makes it possible to set an expiration date for an asset, after which time users will need permission from the asset owner to gain access.
  • Versioning: Collaborate on documents without fear. Automated versioning eliminates the need for complex naming conventions and prevents incorrect usage.
  • Picture wrangler: This feature automatically relinks from low- to high-resolution images in complex page layouts, meaning you don’t have to locate and manually relink each image yourself when making changes.

Whatever you need out of your DAM, the right solution can revolutionize your organization's creative workflow.  

Related Posts

Are AI users happier and more creative?

Jul 22, 2024

Are AI users happier and more creative?

Explore the intriguing connection between AI use and workplace satisfaction. This blog explores recent research that suggests that people who regularly interact with AI tools report higher levels of happiness and increased creative output in their jobs. We'll examine the data, discuss real-world examples, and consider the broader implications for the future of work. Whether you're an AI enthusiast or skeptic, join us as we unpack how this technology might be reshaping our professional lives and potentially boosting our overall well-being.

Read more...
Ask, don’t click: a new way to navigate IgniteTech’s website

Jul 17, 2024

Ask, don’t click: a new way to navigate IgniteTech’s website

Whether you are looking for product details or trying to understand how our services can help your business, AI NAV cuts through the complexity, delivering precise answers tailored to your needs. It transforms how you access knowledge, turning a potentially time-consuming search into a quick, insightful conversation. With AI NAV, finding the right information becomes as easy as asking a question.

Read more...
The Path to Artificial General Intelligence

Jul 3, 2024

The Path to Artificial General Intelligence

From sci-fi dreams to silicon reality, this post explores AGI's evolution, current breakthroughs, and future potential. AGI could revolutionize scientific research, healthcare, education, and many other fields. However, it also raises concerns about job displacement, privacy, and the long-term implications of creating superintelligent machines. As we stand on the brink of this technological frontier, understanding AGI's capabilities, risks, and potential impacts on society becomes increasingly crucial.

Read more...
Unlocking the Potential of Unsupervised Learning in Business

Jun 25, 2024

Unlocking the Potential of Unsupervised Learning in Business

Unsupervised learning is revolutionizing how businesses extract value from data. This powerful AI technique uncovers hidden patterns, driving innovation across industries. From customer segmentation to fraud detection and predictive maintenance, unsupervised learning is shaping the future of data-driven decision-making. Explore its transformative potential in this blog post.

Read more...
Data Privacy in an AI-Driven World: Balancing Innovation and Security

Jun 20, 2024

Data Privacy in an AI-Driven World: Balancing Innovation and Security

Dive into the crucial balance between AI innovation and data privacy. This post examines the critical intersection of AI innovation and data privacy in today's digital landscape. It highlights emerging technologies and industry best practices that enable businesses to leverage AI's capabilities while protecting sensitive information.

Read more...
New Year, New Updates for Xinet 2023.1

Jan 13, 2023

New Year, New Updates for Xinet 2023.1

You wanted, we delivered - find out what's new in Xinet and what you can expect from your DAM this year. There are PHP and RHEL updates, an improved search function, and much more in Xinet 2023.1.

Read more...