MM: I want to again thank you very much for the interview. Any last comments you’d like to say about our interview today?

BG: To expand on that last comment about the Henry Stewart Symposium. Since those two Henry Stewart conferences, I have spoke with many people from Fortune 500 companies who still after attending the shows can’t figure out how to start their DAM system. They are at the stage I was at a few years ago but they can’t even figure out where to begin to build their asset management system. I still feel that the conferences are really good technically however they could even be more helpful if they take it back a notch, to my level. Not so technical, and the give them small steps to follow for starting.

People want to go out and wrap their arms around every part of their business, and get everybody involved and onboard with DAM. Then it just gets confusing because everybody has different needs, different people they want to work with. Right? You get stuck on how to start, where to start and who to use. You just can’t get it off the ground. At that point, they probably think they need IT. Yikes!

If I would’ve gone out and tried to get the Direct channel onboard with me it would have been really confusing. Our uses, needs and workflow are different. I never would’ve gotten this off the ground. Now, it is easier to loop them in, layer on their needs and workflow after our channel is up and functioning.

I stay in touch with those companies that have not started yet and although I’m not technically savvy, what I’m saying to them helps. I think that those shows need a couple of courses more for people that are coming there to want to know how to get it started.

MM: In the course of specifying the system, IT says, “Oh—we’re going to build it ourselves.”

That’s the last thing that you want: an IT person or department creating a rich media DAM. Of course, they don’t believe in anything called Macintoshes. So everything gets dumbed down to Soviet-quality media-production standards. Then they’re surprised that nobody uses it.

That was the perfect lead-in to what we’ll be launching in 2009. It’s a social media portal called, “Masters of Digital Assets.” It’s going to have an academy section to it of certified consultants. It’ll also be a place that we’ll be able to append interviews like this, or portions of them, anyway. So as to tell the journey of DAM, from the point of view of a practitioner such as yourself, as opposed to reading it from a journalist’s point of view.

BG: Yes. That would be fantastic

MM: Well, let’s wrap it up, here. Thank you very much BJ, and Andrew.

Author Bio: BJ Gray

Marketing Resource Management Specialist with 15+ years’ production and operations experience. Expertise in producing 2-D and 3-D projects, developing workflow solutions and managing complex and multifaceted projects. Known for process innovation, creative integrity and value engineering, skilled in leading multifunctional and cross-cultural teams, leveraging large budgets and delivering profit optimization for leading industry players such as Victoria’s Secret, Oracle, and Saatchi & Saatchi.

MM: With respect to the Henry Stuart DAM Symposia… I take it you’ve been there before.

BG: Yes. To the New York one last year, and to the LA one in November.

MM: What was your experience of being there as an industry peer?

BG: New York, I really went to observe, listen and meet people. So I got a lot out of the New York show. I thought it was great. I met some really interesting people from MRMLogiQ, which is a marketing resource management company over in Europe.

The LA show, I came in just to speak on Andrew Salop’s panel. I think my whole energy was just focused on being on that panel and getting out. But I did hear the LA show was really interesting and went well, from friends of mine that had attended and had booths there.

MM: What would’ve been a couple of takeaway, “Ah-ha” insights that you would’ve gotten from either of the shows?

BG: Well, I am not very technical. That New York conference on DAM was heavily weighted in the technical realm of building a DAM. So I’ve met companies that have explained more about the technology of DAM and not as much about how you go about getting one started.

There were a few sessions I attended where they were actually too technical and I didn’t understand. And a few sessions where they discussed a little how they got their DAM systems off the ground. I took away a few tools to use to get mine off the ground, and to do it under the radar. Those are my biggest “A-has.”

MM: Ideation is really kind of about workspaces for instant ad hoc collaboration. Then the next piece is scheduling. That’s, “How do we manage a whole bunch of different conversations with our supply chain?” That goes into the editorial copywriting workflow management system.

If you do it right—which is to say, if you think about it as tagged XML data or tagged XML content… so the content is going… all the copyrighting is happening as tagged XML content within a database or a data structure. Then you also get the delicious opportunity of being able to pour liquefied editorial content into print, online and POP formats, as well as being able to speed the localization—which is the translation and regionalization of stuff.

BG: Yes, essentially we are flowing the copy from Adtrax into designer layouts. But as you mentioned we are not making catalogs full of copy.

Localization Comes Next

MM: I’m not sure that localization is a big deal for Victoria’s Secret now, but I’m sure it’s something that will be.

BG: It will be, we are expanding next year internationally.

It’s very, very interesting how we work here. It’s like no other place I’ve ever been. What you just mapped out in is something I could see happening at other companies I’ve worked at. CKS—a design firm—or Apple or Oracle. I can easily see that. Especially Oracle because it’s marketing is localized in so many countries. They have a more traditional set up for the marketing department.

MM: I understand. And it’s retail.

MM: It seems to me that the route to that integrated system will be through your catalog and web team. That’s because the point of integration oftentimes starts with editorial and copyrighting workflow that precedes the actual publishing process—be it print or online.

So the point of integration would answer the question, “How do we have one Marcom editorial platform, copy database and project management platform?

At least in large global brands that we’ve either interviewed, they tell us that the editorial workflow becomes the critical handoff of marketing plan and the creative brief to content execution. Not surprisingly, this editorial and copyrighting workflow represents one of the messiest and most inefficient part of that whole Marcom operation—copywriting become the beat-up go-between of poorly defined strategy and you’re-always-late creative execution.

BG: It is here too. It’s the messiest part.

MM: What makes strategy execution messy is that it’s circular and iterative–not linear and sequential. It has a fundamentally different kind of focus in terms of knowledge worker interactions. Its primary focus entails discovery. “Ah! That’s what we need to do!” We speak of it generically as Ideation.

So there’s a whole bunch of communication, interaction and collaboration that goes into the big, “Ah-hah!” Then “Ah-hah” crystallizes into a strategy and the basis of a marketing plan that bridge to scheduling and a marketing calendar. Project management comes still later.

The best way to think about the scheduling piece is like an air traffic control system. You’ve seen these on CNN or one of the cable news networks, where you see 20,000 airplanes in the sky. Somebody’s keeping track of all of those, and keeping them in their own kind of traffic lanes.

They’re coordinating their landing at any number of airports. Think of airports as vendors and/or operation groups. There needs to be a certain number of landing gates with ground crew to be able to deplane folks. Those are all the worker bees in various operating groups that do stuff.

Part of an overall planning or scheduling tool is to make sure that as we launch new products and/or launch and/or create new material, throughout the entire supply chain, there are people ready, willing and able to do something with that. To do their job within a particular set of time and financial constraints.

Those tend to be the big issues, when you move upstream.

BG: Agreed. We have a different department outside of marketing that manages that entire process holistically called Business Strategy and Execution. They map the project from product design, to testing, determine time of year to launch, to planning sales and merchandise orders, then to marketing strategy and creative. So you are saying that the challenge is getting those discoveries upstream communicated or cascaded to all the other teams working on the launch. How so we keep the them informed? Is there a central portal with all this information?

Hmm, we are not there yet on the retail channel side.

MM: A couple of last questions. To what degree have your creative teams integrated their desktop tools—Creative Suite or Photoshop or whatever—to the DAM directly? Or are they working through a browser?

BG: They’re working through the browser.

AS: Is this an integration you’d like to see BJ? Or is the browser enough?

BG: I would have to understand better what the benefits are to having the tools connect to the DAM. If it changes the way the creative team builds their files and disrupts their routine with no benefits then I would think working as we do today is fine.

AS: You might see, though, that the metadata in the Creative Suite is the same metadata framework as in your DAM system. So you do have an entrée at the asset level.

BG: Right, but I wonder what the benefits are. I see having that technology available is new and interesting. But what is the pay off or win?

MM: Another question I have with respect to your system. You really talk about an image library and an image workflow where photograph is king. Clearly, in a marketing operation, there are things like documents—be they catalog pages or sales sheets or direct mail pieces, video, etc.

MM: How have you integrated, if at all, the document publishing workflow into this Global Edit workflow that you have today?

BG: I have a two-part answer to that. The first part of the answer is how we are doing it right now, and the second part is where I’d like the system to evolve and the challenges with that vision.

First, we currently store final marketing documents in the DAM project folder, JPEGs of the final in-store signs, advertisements, CRM, PR.  I definitely wanted to capture all the marketing materials that we created with these images and post them to the DAM system so everyone could reference what was done from our end with those images—a comprehensive library of the project.

Second, we do more of the publishing workflow and project tracking in a software application called Adtrax. The creative job jackets are here where the copy team writes in the system, schedules are kept, email notifications are sent with updates, and we keep legal boilerplates here. The system works really well.

The challenge for Industrial Color to come up with a way that GLOBALedit and Adtrax share information or link. I would like it to be either by job number or some sort of code that makes them link. So if you’re in a job folder in Adtrax you will be able to connect to GLOBALedit and see the images that are being used for that project.

There is not only appetite to have the two be able to link, but even further than that is “Can Industrial Color build out a project-management tracking system to work with the image asset workflow system?” It would be interesting to be in one big system that is web-based. I have to give it more thought to see if it makes sense because if it’s not their expertise then I don’t want to go down that path. We won’t get the best product.

BG: Sad to say, but we want to keep IT out of our projects, and we want to keep our executives out of our budgets.

MM: BJ, that really underscores the whole value proposition of “software as a service.” That’s, “I don’t have to deploy anything.” You call it a web service, but it’s hosted on the web. It’s not just hosted on the web, but hosted to multiple clients from the same code base.

BG: Yes.

MM: That means that if I make an improvement here, then everybody that’s using the system gets the improvement.

BG: Yes. Just how life should be!

MM: Well, increasingly, that’s going to be how life is.

BG: Right.

MM: One of the things that’s really given you the ability to fly under the radar has been taking this software as a service route, trusting that your vendor would manage these assets in a way that was trusted and secure and certain.

Generally, that’s the hump or hurdle through which a lot of people need to go—called, “Can I really trust a company to manage these assets?”

It seems that the other critical element of trusting these companies is that the company hosting the system is really an independent service provider, as opposed to part of your print supply chain.

BG: Agree.

MM: Then all of a sudden if it’s simply a service as part of the print supply chain, you’re kind of locked into a transaction model that can get expensive.

BG: Yes. Unless they’re flexible with how you run your system. If they don’t feel threatened by other competitors working in their system.

MM: I suspect that was one of the primary reasons printing firms spun off a hosted DAM—to lock in their customers, and to create an emotional if not physical barrier to switching.

BG: Yes. Correct.

MM: So I think your choice was spot-on by going to an independent DAM services company that wasn’t trying to make money as a function of selling printing or color retouch or any of the other prepress services.

BG: Yes. It’s been a great choice for staying flexible with the people I want to work with.

MM: You have more than your hands full just bringing your whole direct group into the system. Anything else on your wish list?

BG: Yes. Oh, a few other things that we are looking at including in the DAM workflow is being able to send someone or a vendor a collection of images, and them being be able to download them in bulk versus one at a time. Our vendors are getting 8 or 9 images at a time to retouch. It’d be nice if they didn’t have to download them file-by-file. Even though they have the high-speed file transfer with Aspera to make it fast, it would be nice to be able to download that folder in bulk. That’s something that we’re looking at developing now.

MM: We have just begun seeing that function in DAMs, staging and provisioning particular assets with its metadata and workflow information into a hot folder. At which point in time, when the vendor logs on, they see the stuff in their hot folder.

It looks like it’s a scripting function on the DAM side. But it uses a zipping or Stuff-it application, where it takes those high-resolution files and compresses them all into one nice package. That also seems to make it a little less prone to getting corrupted in the file transfer process.

BG: Not being the most technically savvy about all that, I don’t know if we need to do that, zip them up and put them into some “hot” folder. We create the folder in the DAM and then e-mail the link to the suppliers.

MM: It’s the same idea, but the point is that by putting all these assets in a folder and zipping it into a package, you’ve reduced the size of the package considerably, and you’ve also done essentially the bulk transfer in terms of being able to move 5 or 6 or 10 really large files economically in one transaction or one interaction.

BG: I wouldn’t even think about that kind of integrated technology. I know that Industrial Color is fantastic. I think they would probably already be looking at that if it were going to make the GLOBALedit system full proof and not lose data. I’m sure that they’d be zipping that up.

MM: In the grand scheme of things, it’s a pretty trivial technical problem to solve. They should probably have an easy fix to that.

BG: Ok, good. Some further challenges for the having an integrated DAM with the Direct Channel is if there is an image we both used. Let’s say we picked up from their photo shoot, then we would have different image rights usage for that one image. Usage rights for the Direct Channel may be 6 months, and we may only buy it for 2 months. So now, what do we put in the metadata as the expiration date? Can the metadata track on two levels? Which one is it going to refer to when it expires an image? I don’t even think we know how to tackle that yet.

MM: There are a couple ways you can approach that. You can do it with the facilities of a DAM—to manage multi-class permissions. Or you can then say, “Look. Let’s have the DAM do what it’s really supposed to, which is manage metadata and the workflow.”

We’ll bring in a policy server such as the Adobe LiveCycle or other sorts of policy servers, and that will be the way by which we will be able to link an asset to a policy library or a policy server. Depending on who’s touching the asset, there will be a policy in place to then tell them exactly what they can or can’t do.

Again, while it may not necessarily be cheap, it’s a fairly straightforward, easy thing to do. Especially if you’re already using the XMP. Because XMP will have the ability to put embedded links in it. Specifically an embedded link back to a policy server.

So while conceptually it looms large on your horizon, from a technology perspective, it’s a fairly straightforward integration. It’s a “Do it now—get it done,” sort of thing.

BG: Fantastic. Up until now I have kept this project under the radar and didn’t have to invest a lot of money in developing the DAM, buying software, etc. I want to try to keep it that way for now so I will see if we can figure out something within GLOBALedit or come up with a new internal process between VICTORIA’S SECRET and Victoria’s Secret Direct.

If you say this policy server is quite expensive…

MM: You could rent it, as well. There are ways. The technology is called a “policy server.” There are lots of different ways to get it into your organization. Including going back to your organization Industrial Color, and saying, “Hey—I need a policy server. Go get one, and I’ll rent it from you.”

BG: Exactly. There’s a creative way. Thank you!

MM: Yes.

We are also working and wanting to put custom watermarking on our images, so that we prevent unauthorized reuse of our images.

MM: Is that visible watermarks? Or invisible watermarks?

BG: They are developing a visible ghosted watermark.

MM: Sure. Have you been identifying particular vendors for that? Is it something that you also want to have as a service, or specifically tracking unauthorized uses of images once they leave your website or firewall?

BG: I haven’t thought about it and I haven’t been told that we could track our images after they’ve left the system. At this point, I do not really have a desire to track them. If they were downloading something that was expired, or they didn’t have the rights to the high-res and used the low-res, then this watermark would show up that would be the indicator that they violated the use. That should make them feel bad enough for now.

MM: Kind of a time-sensitive watermarking device that would message or indicate that this image is now expired. In terms of proper use.

BG: Yes. And if PR or somebody put it up on e-Entertainment’s website and there was a ghosted little mark on it, I think that would be a big red flag. I haven’t been told that we could track our images after they’ve left the system. I don’t know if our DAM system has that built in yet.

MM: None of the DAM systems have that built in. Usually it’s an add-on or a bolt-on type of service. For example, a company up in Oregon called DigiMarc offers something like that.

There are other firms—like Cyveillance, that kind of track brand images as a function of a Google-like spider that crawls through all of the websites and blogs and forums and looks for your stuff.

BG: That’s really interesting. I’d possibly be interested in looking at that. I’m not sure how much time we have to be the police of it.

MM: What do you anticipate as the next step of your journey?

BG: It’s like opening Pandora’s box, now.

MM: Why do you think they call it Victoria’s Secret?

BG: I know! I think the next part of the dream would be definitely to get the web and catalog channel’s content posted up to the GLOBALedit DAM.

We have so many images that we actually share between the two channels. I really would like to see them play on the system so that we have quick, easy access to each other’s assets.

MM: Do they have their own system at this point?

BG: They do. And it’s offline. Part of it is at their print vendor. It’s kind of embedded into their print workflow.

MM: That’s over at Quebecor or they are now called Worldcolor. Right?

BG: Yes. It’s built into their publishing. I do not believe they post all of the images from the photo shoots there.

MM: No. They only post production items. Production photography. I think that reflects also on the billing relationship that Quebecor/World Color or what used to be the old World Color Group. That reflects the contractual details of their relationship.

BG: Right. I am 95% sure that they also have an interim DAM system that is on their server up in New York. So they kind of have a two-folded DAM system.

The dream would be to have us all on one. They are looking at it, which is pretty exciting.  They are right now meeting with Industrial Color, and at least talking about letting it be their base library. If they have to connect out to their own asset-management systems at their printer, that’s fine.

The second dream is to have greater metadata functionality. A little more automated workflow for the metadata. If you make a change in the metadata, it would be easier to undo it, have more individual field control. Just a little bit more ease for the library managers to work with the metadata. It’s the tool that we’re basing our whole system on so you want it to be the most robust.

MM: I take it in the GLOBALedit system that you have today; it has some enabling services for workflow?

BG: Yes. The workflow starts from the very beginning – the photo shoot. We can do image capture at the photo shoot, move the selected images from the photo shoot to retouch vendors with comments attached, and move them back into DAM system into retouched folder, then also, flowing them back out to the end-users or the printers. It has a pretty comprehensive workflow capability.

MM: In that workflow specifically, does your system really support online review and approval of the asset? Or is the review and approval process kind of an overlay to the asset?

BG: The approval and select process is all done in the workflow within the DAM. You can select or kill and use a star rating for the images that are selected. Different designers and creative directors can go in and pick which ones they want to select and then they can be reviewed or approved by the Chief Creative. There is a way to track who selected the images or rated them and then who killed or approved them.

AS: BJ, you might want to talk about the evolution of your vision since the project kickoff, for the central library into how it’s evolved. I think that’s an important point. [NOTE: Andrew Salop joins this interview. As a consultant, he worked with BJ Gray in implementing the DAM at Victoria's Secret]

MM: That was really more of just a basic library function. Right?

BG: True. Very basic library function. My thought at that point was, “Once we get this library up, wouldn’t it be great that everybody can connect to it as cross-functional partners?”

Victoria’s Secret is broken up into different sub-brands. There’s a sub-brand called “Beauty,” and a sub-brand called “PINK.” Then we’ve got several cross-functional partners—a real estate team, another creative team that’s at the Limited Brands level. I was thinking, “Wow! Once I get this library done, I’ll be able to share this library, and everybody will see how useful it is. They can now have access to look themselves for images that Victoria’s Secret specifically—the store channel—had created.

While meeting with Industrial Color about GLOBALedit, I heard more about the GLOBALedit functionality, the workflow capabilities, and then the intent of what I wanted the system to do really evolved.

That’s when we got into creating an online tool for the designers to use for image selects and approval, where they could review the images, approve them or kill them. Having it web-based was a huge plus as many of our creative directors are out of the office, at photo shoots, working from home. Having easy access to review images saved time in getting the images in play to work on.

In addition, many, many requests come from the Victoria’s Secret enterprise for the same high-res images that are completed through retouching because it’s going to be deployed for multiple uses. For instance, each campaign our production team sends the images out to many different print vendors they work with so the same asset might go to 10 different vendors to be printed in a digital format or an offset format. I really wanted a tool where those images could just be moved in and out of so we didn’t have to ask or get charged by the retouchers each time we needed a download of final images. I wanted those final images to be ingested back into the DAM, and then pushed out from the DAM by us.

Then for the front end I wanted the workflow to be in place so that the photographers could easily upload their images from the photo shoots. This would make all the difference in the time it takes to edit and select the images. Because there are thousands of images taken at the photo shoot, editing down the images instantaneously or each night—on GLOBALedit—is just a lifesaver.

We’ve really increased our efficiency in time in getting projects done and images selected. We’re not in the dinosaur ages anymore of moving the images on a hard drive—having the art director upload them onto her screen—picking which ones she likes. It’s really being done instantaneously on GLOBALedit.

As we thought about putting all the images up, the art buyers started getting really nervous about, “Well, then everybody can download these images at any time. They might not have rights to download them. We may not have bought enough usage rights for those images or they are expired.” We needed to build in some sort of image rights approval workflow for all the images. In the XMP compliant metadata, we set the expiration date for that image. So the expiration date would determine if the user gets approval to download or needs to request access to the expired image. Part of the workflow is that the requests are generated in the DAM and sent out via email to the image rights managers who will approve or deny.

This was a big thing that we talked through. It took a long time, processing through how an image would flow through the system automatically to get approved—either via the art buyer or the library manager. This became part of the evolution of developing the DAM.

Which brings up another big thing to figure out: the Metadata Schema. We wanted to create a simple metadata schema that would make sense to the users. How are they going to want to search for images? What key words are they going to use in the search? Let’s make those words part of the metadata and enable the user to search using metadata. That was another evolution that came about. I wanted the metadata to be the working tool for finding the images.

I think that’s about it. Those were the main things that came about, as we started brainstorming. They really enhanced the system from a basic library and actually put a lot more exciting energy into the product.