Editorial
The Gist:
- Simplified access control. Effective digital asset management enhances user access and allows teams to find relevant content easily without overwhelming choices.
- Streamlined curation process. Curation within DAM systems organizes assets by user roles and permissions, allowing precise access to brand-approved materials.
- Enhanced brand consistency. Proper DAM governance gives users curated, up-to-date assets, minimizing the risk of outdated or low-quality content in campaigns.
Software governance remains a hot topic at digital asset management (DAM) conferences, but the term “governance” has a branding problem. Many DAM users feel like governance is doublespeak for arbitrary rules that limit their access to photos, graphics, videos and templates. When governance is overdone — or done poorly — it can feel that way.
Just as a governor limits the speed of a sports car, poor governance slows DAM users to the point where they’d rather find assets outside the system. These assets might be low-quality or outdated, or they may be accidentally used in violation of image rights. Thus, they pose a risk to the brand.
Done well, though, DAM governance liberates people more than it restricts them. A recruiter doesn’t want to navigate 100,000 images, of which only 200 they can use. They just want to find content at the speed of thought and know that whatever they see in the DAM system is theirs to use. And they want to find great content they didn’t know they already had. For that to happen, governance needs its reputation rehabilitated.
In this article, we’ll look at governance tools that, when wielded well, improve users’ experiences and outcomes.
The Library Model of Digital Asset Management
As with Google, only a tiny percentage of the information in a library is relevant to a given user on a given day. We can find what we need in a library, however, because librarians govern the collection. They set and implement rules for organizing, finding and distributing information, and they set permissions on who can check out material and for how long. While a librarian will help patrons find things, they also try to empower people to navigate the collection on their own. Sounds like a DAM system, doesn’t it?
An unsung part of the librarian’s job is to curate items. Not every piece of content belongs in a library, and not every piece of content should be available to every “user group,” to borrow a DAM term. We don’t want to traumatize eight-year-olds by putting “Game of Thrones” in the kids’ fantasy section. Likewise, “The Magic School Bus Inside the Human Body” doesn’t belong in an asset group made for medical researchers.
“Curate” comes from the Medieval Latin curatus, or "one responsible for the care (of souls)." This seems rather appropriate, since DAM admins are responsible for the “soul” of the business — AKA, its brand. DAM users don’t really want governance; they want governance branded as curation.
Related Article: Examining 24 Enterprise Digital Asset Management Solutions
Key Roles for Organizing Digital Assets
Before we can discuss what curation looks like in a digital asset management system, we need to start with permissions, which, like governance, sound limiting. Instead, think of them as roles or jobs in a library.
Start with four levels of permissions:
- Users
- Contributors
- Business managers
- Global administrators
Each team in an enterprise (i.e., marketing, recruiting, creative and communications) adopts and applies the first three roles.
Users, the library patrons, have permission to view, download and distribute content. They belong to user groups with shared objectives and processes. For instance, email marketers put assets into email campaigns, while ecommerce managers syndicate product assets to ecommerce sites.
Contributors (or editors) upload content and edit metadata. They effectively decide where to shelve content in the library. Contributors often include designers, copywriters, photographers, videographers and producers because they know the who, what, when, where and why of assets and how they’re meant to be used. They are best positioned to put new uploads into the right asset groups.
Business managers resemble the library board of directors that represents the interests of the community. Each is a stakeholder for their business unit, and together they comprise your governance team. They support changes to your DAM system ranging from small updates with metadata fields to workflow and user interface overhauls. They work with the global administrators by suggesting, reviewing and approving these changes.
Global administrators are the head librarians, versed in the theory of digital asset management and library science, keepers of your governance documentation. When a business manager wants a metadata field changed, a global administrator anticipates the upstream and downstream impacts of doing so and makes the call. For bigger changes, they use the same process, culminating with a recommendation to the governance team and a plan for enacting the changes.
The global administrators set up a DAM system such that business managers can give their teams the content they need to pursue company goals. They also make sure contributors can upload assets and apply metadata using a standard taxonomy that makes searching and filtering assets fast, precise and intuitive.
Scaling Curation for Large DAM Systems
Permissions define who does what in the digital asset management system, and some of that work involves curation. The choice to upload (or not upload) certain images into a DAM platform is curation; so is the choice of how to tag it. But as an enterprise and its DAM system grow more complex and global, curators need to get cleverer.
That’s where portals come in. Basically, DAM microsites that are semi-automatically curated based on keywords and metadata fields.
Want the email marketing team in France to see only content tailored for French-speaking audiences in France, rather than for French speakers in Canada, Africa or the Caribbean? Set a portal to ingest content tagged “EU” for region, “French” for language and “email marketing” for user group. What if your stock photo image rights don’t extend to France? Set the French portal to only ingest “royalty-free” imagery. When content is added to your DAM that meets those criteria, the assets are automatically added to the portal.
As opposed to using more and more user groups, the advantage to a portal is the ability to preserve sharing and collaboration across functions in different geographies. It’s probably good for the French email marketing team to see what peers in the US create (and vice versa). They might want to reuse an American asset and give it a French twist. For them, the DAM system is a place to reflect and research, while the portal is the place to get things done.
Related Article: Navigating the Impact of AI on Digital Asset Management Jobs
The Less DAM Users Notice, the Better
Governance is terrible branding for a set of processes that help with branding. Do we need a new term? Not necessarily. Governance makes sense as an internal term, but the less users and partners hear about it and notice it, the better. When the digital asset management system is a well-oiled machine that helps users achieve their goals, governance isn’t a source of conflict.
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Governance takes a position that more choice in content isn’t always better. Does the marketer with access to 5,000 images outperform the one with access to 100? Probably not. The former faces decision paralysis and pressure to pursue more variety, if only to avoid wasting assets. The latter works within creative constraints that simplify decisions and champion quality.
Because it’s 2024, we can’t end this piece without a nod to AI. Research suggests that AI has a lot of promise in tagging metadata to assets. But AI doesn’t reason, think or feel like human beings do. We need curators with discretion, taste and social intelligence. Maybe governance is what we feel when power over DAM goes to someone or something lacking in those qualities.
Governance, though, is crucial to the evolution and continued relevance of your digital asset management strategy and should grow and change to reflect your brand. Governance’s branding problem will resolve itself when stakeholders feel like they have the permissions and curated content they need to do their jobs effectively.
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