Metadata: The Context Of Everything And The Definitive Source Of Value For Organisations
John Horodyski has recently written an article entitled: Metadata Matters … it’s everything which explains the business justification for investing in metadata analysis and management:
“There has never been a more important time to make data a priority and to have a road map for delivering value from it for data will only continue to grow. New platforms provide great opportunities for communication, engagement, and risk management. Data sharing and collaboration will play an important part in growth as business rules and policies will govern the ability to collect and analyze internal and external data. More importantly, business rules will govern an organization’s ability to generate knowledge, and ultimately value.” [Read More]
One point that stood out for me in this item is John’s use of the word ‘value’. There has been some debate on DAM News (and elsewhere) about whether ‘Digital Asset Management’ remains a suitable term or not, based on the increased usage of the phrase from other fields not historically associated with it. I don’t propose to co-opt John into my position on this matter, however, I will note that the reason they’re called ‘digital assets’ is because they have a value. They have a value because they have meaning. Meaning implies you can see the context of an asset and make value-oriented decisions about whether it is useful to your or not. This is the crux of why Digital Asset Management is a far better term than when it first appeared 20-25 years ago. The case in favour of it is entirely predicated on metadata, because (exactly as John says) metadata is everything.
When those who have no prior experience of information management or library science first encounter DAM, they almost always discount metadata and focus on the intrinsic value for the task at-hand (or ‘the file’ as it often erroneously referred to). I hold the view that many in DAM (including some who have years of experience) do not really understand the value of metadata either, other than in-relation to some task like finding assets (the value of which is also dismissed until they can’t do it successfully). The point is that the contextualisation increases the value of not only each asset, but the whole collection as well. I believe this is the point you need to get from it: by diligently and skilfully managing metadata or the extrinsic value of your digital assets, you increase not only their value, but the whole collection thereof and (by-proxy) your organisation as well. The most successful businesses have the best metadata and relentlessly look for what further value they can leverage out of it.
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