A full DAMLA recap coming soon - suffice it to say I had a wonderful time learning, connecting, and (mainly) eating with far-flung DAM friends in Los Angeles.
This week I’m regrouping and wrapping up a busy 1st quarter by doing some Spring cleaning. In my work life: email purging, client contact, wrapping up 1 project, and documenting processes. In my home: prepping Easter baskets, packing for family time, and eating down the freezer - sadly it’s too cold still to swap out the winter clothes yet. Feels good! So, how can we apply Spring cleaning to DAM?
Get it all aired out
Spring is not the time for a little editing - it’s time to empty those cupboards and air them out. For DAMs, we can review our content strategy, metadata schema, permission matrices, and asset structure to see if what we’ve been doing still works for our needs. Go through expired assets and replatform or archive them. Review reports to see which imagery is overused and might need replacing. Check your user activity and remove any defunct users or groups. Start fresh.
Source supplies
Now that you know what you are working with, review the system to see if you need more resources. In a home Spring cleaning, now’s when I hit the Container Store. In the DAM world, ask yourself what is needed to improve the success of your team. Are they trained on the latest functionality? Is your DAM platform upgraded to the latest version? Are there new plugins or integrations to explore? Do you need more time, budget, or other support from your stakeholders? Are there new groups or users that can contribute their talent to your DAM project? Think of HR, communications, design, content, marketing, IT, and more groups who might already have resources to share.
Put it all back together
Now that you’ve cleaned out and gathered resources to organize your DAM people, processes, and technology, don’t lose steam. Those pretty boxes and labels aren’t doing much good in the shopping bag. Prioritize quick wins like a new area of content, better asset search, and improved functionality to highlight what’s new. Set up a plan for continuous improvement (agile sprints for Spring, groundbreaking) with a communication cadence as you roll out more updates.
While some of the changes will take until long past Summer arrives and you’ll still have to do the day-to-day DAM work - laundry and dishes wait for no one - taking the time to freshen up this Spring is worth the effort. You’ll have dusted off your DAM and reflected on what’s worth keeping and what to remove. You’ve reviewed how you have been doing the work and discarded what no longer helps the process. And even if there are minimal upgrades right away, you’ll have made a wish list for next year’s budget. Take the hint from those new petals and leaves flooding the air (and our poor noses) and make the effort to get started and refresh your environment too.