Assets to Manage—You Can’t Drink the Ocean

Abstract

It’s very easy to become overwhelmed when you start a digital asset management (DAM) project. Your organization may have years or decades of content that needs organization or consolidation. All or none of this content may have been organized in different ways over the years. It can be difficult to know where to start, so it’s helpful when finding your beginning in DAM to think of your project in terms of moving from a macro (very high level) to a micro (very detailed level) organization. To that end, we’ll start this chapter discussing the types of assets that will go into a DAM, and we’ll end with versioning (the variations of each asset). All the points discussed in this chapter should be thought out before your organization purchases a DAM, as systems vary widely in their treatment of different kinds of assets, their organization ability, and the management of workflows.