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 would’ve been some of the cutting-edge technologies that you wanted to make sure this provider or vendor incorporated in their offering?

BG: One would be that they were using XMP. Building their system with XMP, so that it was open to connect with other systems.

MM: XMP meaning the Extensible Metadata Platform and an open standard championed by Adobe? That’s a way of capturing metadata and putting it into the actual file. So when the file or asset leaves the repository, the metadata travels with it.

BG: Correct. I am not a tech person but I also understand that if it’s built on XMP—and that if another system I have here is built on XMP, it’s an open interface for us to try to figure out how to link them together if they need to share information with each other, maybe link them by project number, or by file number.

AS: Thereby enhancing workflow connectivity by supplementing, or possibly even substituting system integration with file-based metadata interchange. [NOTE: Andrew Salop joins this interview. As a consultant, he worked with BJ Gray in implementing the DAM at Victoria's Secret]

MM: So we’re not just talking about being about to send a file—an asset—from one system to another. XMP also provided the basic architecture for two systems to share metadata and assets in some sort of collaborative or reciprocal process. What other technology did you want to have in terms of considering a state of the art platform?

BG: XMP encompasses part of what is needed for the metadata but the other part was a company that was developing flexibility with the metadata schema. Metadata drives what we are doing, drives the rules of how our system works based on detailed (loaded) search capabilities and image rights expiration. All the importance is in the metadata so we needed to be able to have lots of functionality when updating, changing or viewing the metadata.

The high-speed file transfer technology came about while I was working with the company. I did not think of needing it up front but now I can’t imagine not having it. High Speed file transfer is a huge, huge plus.

MM: Tell us a little bit more about that.

BG: It’s developed by a vendor called Aspera and partner with the company that built our DAM which is Industrial Color. The DAM application is called GLOBALedit. Using Aspera allows the images to upload or download in minutes or seconds versus hours. Like using an FTP site, a big image from an FTP site could take a long time to pull down, and hold up someone’s computer. Aspera’s high-speed file transfer makes images down or upload super fast. It saves so much time on the vendor’s side when they pull massive amounts of images down for retouching or printing. It’s just incredible. An example would be 1 GB file downloads in about 7 seconds with a 20Mbps connection. So it’s really, really fast.