‘Tis the Season...
…to try to remember where you put all of your holiday decorations, figure out which box (or boxes) you put your Christmas lights in, and untangle said lights over and over and over again as you hang them. I know, I know, it really takes some of the glamor out of such a joy-filled season, but we can’t all have a Hallmark movie garage.
If you dream of being a person who always knows where your decorations are and stores your lights already attached to a wooden board to easily hang, but that’s just probably never going to be your thing, a Digital Asset Manager (DAM) is for you.
As I hung my lights with “care”, I couldn’t help but think of all the similarities with using a DAM. In the workplace, I WANT to be the most organized resource for my team, but I often find myself “untangling” our Dropbox folders and trying to find that one asset we used for last year’s holiday promos. A good DAM solution removes the daunting task of locating an asset and makes your life easier. The DAM system provides layers of organization for you and your team to use within your company. (Lariat Marketing Hub’s DAM also makes it easy to share outside of your company, but that’s for another blog). So rather than wasting time “untangling” the mess that is your digital asset organization system, add your assets to a DAM and watch your team breathe a sigh of relief.
Here are some organizational hacks I use for my Christmas decorations that can apply directly to managing your digital assets:
1. Organize
- The first part of organizing is deciding on the system of organization you’d like to use. What “buckets” or categories are you going to have? What is the underlying logic that you will use to make finding it and setting it up easier next year? For example, I like to have all of my ornaments and tree accessories (timer, tree skirt, train sent that chugs around the presents under the tree) in one box so I can pull that out when I’m ready to set up the tree.
- When it comes to organizing assets, the tactic is the same. Think about how you use your assets. Is it based on the product or SKUs? Is it by application? Is it by specific usage that splits the products into their relative application? You can even organize your assets to logically line up with how you would search for something in the future. Discuss with your team what tactic makes the most sense to everyone, and execute a clean-up. The organization process will likely feel messy at first, but the end result will be worthwhile.
2. Label
- The key to labeling is making it simple yet specific, making it easy to find for anyone who may need it. Labeling should be done like a funnel, getting more specific the deeper you go. (i.e. trees → glass trees → mercury trees → gold mercury trees)
- We cannot tell you how many times we have seen “FINAL-final_version3”
3. Prioritize
- Now that you have all of your decor and assets in order you’ll want to further separate your organized items and assets in order of priority. Go through your decor/assets and prioritize what needs to be most accessible and easily found by anyone who might need it, whether that be family members or colleagues
- This is where one of my favorite features of our DAM comes into play. Once you have organized your assets and labeled them for easy finding, you can build out the front page for your organization on your DAM. On this page, you can create specific shortcuts (we call them “tiles”) that highlight the most important and frequently used assets right there, front and center, when users log on to your DAM. You can customize the tile name, the image used, and the order in which they appear.
4. Archive
In the midst of organizing, you’ll want to determine what needs to stay and what needs to be thrown out. You don’t have to keep all of the ornaments with a reindeer missing a leg or two, or the one with baby Jesus duct taped to the manager. As you organize, don’t just keep all the broken items that you don’t have a use for. It’s time to get rid of it and make room for new additions.
If you’re just beginning to use a DAM, chances are you’ll have multiples of many of your digital assets. Determine which asset is most up-to-date and throw the others out. If there’s a chance you may need it again, but it’s currently cluttering your space, the Lariat DAM has an archive feature that will remove it and put it in a folder that is not available to the general public accessing your DAM. That way you can resurrect it whenever the time is right.
Getting organized doesn’t have to be difficult, but if we don’t take the time up front to create a manageable system, it will be like tying a hand behind our back and we’ll never get into a place of thriving. Although it seems like a daunting task in the beginning, if you block out time to figure out your system and organize your assets (and decor), the time saved and headaches spared will far outweigh the work you put in now.
So, as you start closing out your year and before you put away those holiday decorations, schedule a demo with us to see how we can make your coming year a bit more organized and a lot less frustrating.
Contact us now for a personalized demo!
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