Why should we keep our assets in a DAM?

Some people actually ask themselves this question and wonder why they can’t go back to their old ways of doing business.

Sure, you can. You can also do the following…

• “We can find all my final assets really easily because I have them all right here on my desktop“.

We have:

• Final1
• Final02
  
• FinalFinal
• FinalFinalFinal
  
• ReallyFinal
• LastFinal
• Extrafinal
• Superfinal
• SuperduperFinal
• ExtraLargeFinal
• Final_with_cheese
• AlmostFinished_really_Iswear
  

Ok. I might have a little problem with version control and file naming conventions.

Yes, a DAM can have version control to take care of this little problem a few of us might have.

• “We store all our files on our own desktops.”

A desktop is just another silo. Who else can see your assets on your desktop? Can you find all your assets on your own desktop? What happens to these assets when you lose your laptop or get a new computer?

• “We can keep all our assets on shared drives.” Yeah, those are so searchable, right? As long as your perfectly crafted filenames say everything about every asset you’ll ever need to know. Oh, wait. Shared drives are not truly searchable to the asset level beyond a so-called unique filename.

• “We have unique file names for every asset.” File names are created by humans and meant for humans outside a DAM. Many DAMs don’t care what your file names are as long as they are not 250 characters long, filled with spaces and special characters. Scary sounding, huh? Some organizations prior to having a DAM have some of these “unique file names“. You know who you are. Some DAM solutions assign unique identifiers to each and every asset uploaded/imported to the DAM and these make file names irrelevant to the DAM.

• “We can keep assets on CDs or external drives so we can share them easily.” You must like burning money if you are still using CDs or DVDs today. Where is the latest version? Which CD is that on again? Or do you need to burn another set of CDs for the latest version of assets? External drives (regardless of how big or small) can get lost or corrupt very easily. External drives have the same version control issue as CDs, even if backed-up regularly. How often is new version created by someone else? How do you ship these to external clients? That’s free, right?
• “I will just email the asset around to everyone.” Are you planning to fill up every one of those people’s email inbox with volumes of data? And each one will back up that data multiplied by how many people? What is the file size limitations for your email attachments? 5MB? 10 MB? Some email accounts do not accept attachments, in fear of viruses. Will you continue to email this asset for each person who needs to see this each time they need to see this asset? Will you repeat this every time they need to see an asset again? Wow, that is a lot of email data repeated over and over again, isn’t it? With a DAM, you could simply send a link to the asset (not email the whole asset) to whomever needs the asset, whether they need just preview it or download the asset, based on permission set by the sender, through the DAM. Let us weigh this option again. Email attachments over and over again vs. email link to asset in DAM which can be updated as needed in DAM.
• “We’ll just FTP the assets to the person who needs it.” That is secure, right? No one else can see the FTP server nor add to the FTP server either, right? And where is the version control on a FTP server? Oops.

What have we learned so far?

• Use a DAM for assets
• Associate metadata to each asset in a DAM so you can search and find it again
• Version control with a DAM
• Distribute assets with a DAM
• Prosper and save some money with a DAM.

Let me know if you have any other brilliant ideas on why you should not store assets in a DAM. I would love to share them with readers.