Metadata Automation Webinar Recording From New Jersey DAM Meetup Group

The New Jersey DAM Meetup Group held a webinar last week on metadata automation which they posted a recording of to YouTube.  The discussion is lead by Frank A. DeCarlo and Deb Fanslow.  The panel is David Riecks, Spencer Harris, Mark Walter and Peter Parker.  The recording is about an hour long and can be accessed here: https://youtu.be/SFW9_Myn1AM.  The topics covered include:

• Metadata tips & tricks
• Folder structures
• Spreadsheets
• Custom XMP panels
• Scripting
• Metadata capture
• Artificial Intelligence

Metadata automation is a complex subject because it is concerned with leveraging the time of those staff in an organisation who are responsible for cataloguing assets (or at least supplying metadata to be used with them).  As such, the potential productivity advantages have to be accompanied by a very robust set of risk management policies so the automation does not destroy the value of digital assets by introducing all kinds of unsuitable metadata that renders them unfit for purpose.  This is a point that is made during the webinar and it’s one many vendors play down, I suspect quite a few consultants don’t really fully understand it either (or they fear raising it with clients for one reason or another).  This is the reality of DAM: every benefit comes with a trade-off and it is the responsibility of the digital asset manager to control the process in a manner that maximises the former while limiting the impact of the latter.  The webinar gives some very good pointers on how to get to grips with the issues and devise some practical strategies for properly risk-managed metadata automation.

This is one of the best sessions about DAM metadata that I have seen for some time.  I have sat through numerous presentations about this subject and quite a few are either over-simplistic and tell DAM users basic stuff they can work out themselves in a few minutes, or (less typically) they go too in-depth and you need information science expertise to understand them.  This one is pitched about right; there is some rudimentary material for anyone unfamiliar with certain aspects of the subject, but they cover this off quickly and efficiently, then move on to some actual examples of how DAM users can tackle metadata automation challenges.  The panel (and hosts) are all credible and sound like they have genuine experience of the issues discussed, there isn’t anyone who gives the impression they are just making up the numbers.

I will certainly be looking out for other recorded webinars from the New Jersey DAM meetup, as well as the high quality nature of the material, it’s refreshing not to have to contend with ‘and now a message from our media sponsor’ filler material that often accompanies other examples of these recordings.  I hope they run more like this one in 2017.

For anyone else planning a DAM-related webinar, this offers a pretty good template of how you should deliver these things.  Even if you are not charging money, you are still asking people to give up their time which (as discussed earlier) is usually of equivalent or higher value.

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