Happy Birthday DAM Guru Program
One year later
Today, 21 February, 2014, DAM Guru Program turns one year old. What started out as a lofty ambition of the DAM industry’s lesser known DAM vendors (at the time) has become the world’s largest and most widely recognized database of digital asset management expertise.
Averaging more than one new member application per day, DAM Guru Program has processed more than 400 applications since the program’s launch.
In addition to matching Gurus to Newbies, DAM Guru Program has matched its members with employer prospects too. The entire month of October, 2013 was dedicated to a virtual job fair intended to make connections easier for members and employers. Recognizing the potential the fair offered members, program managers decided to make the job fair a permanent fixture of the program’s website. HR managers who know they need a DAM person but have no idea what that means, now have a place to go to find who they need. “It’s like Amazon.DAM in there,” one person joked.
The program soon thereafter started featuring Guru members in weekly profiles and, most recently, announced it will provide the resources and logistical support to enable members to conduct their own webinars for the DAM community.
Integrity that’s been noticed
Initial skepticism that Picturepark would manage the program in a fair, unbiased way have largely been satisfied. In October, Digital Asset Management News wrote, “Picturepark … have been very good in terms of not using it to push their software product via this channel. It would be quite easy for their sales personnel to start cold-calling either Gurus or Newbies and engage in other ‘trust destruction’ activity. But to their credit, they have not done that and it’s been kept very clean and well behaved.”
DAM Guru Program has turned out to be exactly what it was meant to be: a free resource that connects digital asset management gurus to people who need their help. No strings attached and no hidden agendas.
Superstar membership
DAM Guru Program has been honored to accept as members some of the DAM industry’s most influential leaders, such as David Riecks (controlledvocabulary.com), Heather Hedden (The Accidental Taxonomist), Ralph Windsor (DAM News/ Daydream UK), David Ginsberg (Elegant Workflow) and Dan McGraw (7Dials media)—and those are just some of the “superstar” members that have permitted us to mention them. Membership applications have also come from employees from OpenText, North Plains, Earley & Associates, Celum, Canto, Widen, Oracle, IBM, HP, Chrysler, Merck, Rutgers, Cornell and Marquette Universities, Symantec, The American Red Cross, Freescale Semiconductor, CVS, Starz, Harley-Davidson, Harlequin, MD Anderson Cancer Center, The American Cancer Society, A&E Networks, The Lincoln Center , The Orlando Magic, Landor, Ethan Allen, Verizon, Picturepark and scores more.
Perhaps most importantly, DAM Guru Program has become an ally for many students of Digital Asset Management—people who will tomorrow be working as DAM managers, designers and maybe even vendors.
With appreciation
Picturepark thanks the DAM community for trusting us. We thank DAM Guru Program members for being so cooperative and wonderful. And we thank all those who work so hard to provide quality digital asset management educational resources to others.
The more people learn about and understand DAM, the better off we’ll all be in this community.
— Picturepark
#LearnDAM
Below are some well wishes from DAM Guru Program members.
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Happy birthday DAM Guru program! I’m so glad to be a part of such a great resource!
Kristy Alexander, The Chase Group
Congrats on your first year! It’s nice to know there’s someone who cares about us. A great place to learn too!
— Mars Roberge, Nomad Editing Company
Happy 1st birthday, DAM Guru Program! You’ve already touched many lives, and you’re only a year old. Here’s to many more years of connecting DAM Gurus, DAM newbies, and DAM seekers!
— Debbie Fanslow, Digital Asset Management Student
Happy Birthday DAM Guru Program! What a wonderful resource for both sides of the aisle! It is a great addition to the other non-proprietary resources that Picturepark has provided to the DAM community. Keep up the good work!
— Howard Goldstein, Digital Imaging Strategies
I really appreciate what this program is offering the DAM community. Happy Birthday, DAM Guru Program! Thank you for bringing more attention to the DAM field. You rock!
— Susan Fisher, Director of Content Management, The JCC in Manhattan
Great job in your first year in advancing the DAM community!
Tom Haynes, Department Manager Visual Asset Management, Chrysler
A year old? Congratulations! That’s a year of making connections and working to dispel the confusion about digital asset management. Happy birthday!
— Peter Graham, Head of Digital Strategy, Cambridge Judge Business School
Happy Birthday and long life, DAM Guru Program! Keep growing!
— José Eugênio Grillo, EPYX Soluções Editoriais Ltda.
This is a great service you are all providing over at Picturepark. I wish it was available to me years ago. Happy Birthday, DAM Guru Program!
— Matt Shirley , Digital Asset Manager, Nordstrom
Happy Birthday, DAM Guru Program! Keep up the good work!
— Ryan Lim, Manager Products and Support, Dayang International
Congratulations on your birthday and thanks for your creative input!
— Thomas Schmidt, Firstmover Pro
Happy Birthday, wishing you your best year ever!
— Bill Felter, York Wall Coverings
Many many happy returns of the day, DAM Guru Program
— Chethan Mallikarjun, Infosys Ltd
I’ve never seen metadata that I didn’t like!
David Nguyen, Catalog Specialist, Amazon
Happy Birthday, DAM Guru Program!!! I wish you much more success in 2014.
— Carlos Joven, Onelatam
The first birthday that should already have been a tenth or a twentieth! Happy birthday DAM Guru Program!!
— Roel Van de Water, Catena Company
I wish DAM Guru Program a very happy birthday. In fact, I don’t know how it took a year for me to know about the program!
— Sreejith Jayadevan
Thanks for creating such an innovative and cutting edge program to help the members of the DAM community. This is really great!
— Tony Brooke, Digital Asset Management Student
Thanks for the great DAM Guru program. It’s a great place to explore more about DAM.
— Mandakini Mishra, IBM
What a great service. Thanks so much!
Kim Le, Cal Academy
This is a great program. Thanks for making it work.
Michael MacSween, Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment
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