Sharepoint: Towing the Company Line

Yesterday's post proved that a little ingenuity can help to make Sharepoint a viable option for creative workflows. Today, feast your eyes on this informational page from Microsoft on managing digital assets. Does it make your eyes cross? Me too.

The most interesting section is actually this one, on planning the digital asset library. The steps listed here actually could apply to any kind of DAM project and are oddly simple and sensible.

Here is a quick Mod Librarian summary for the attention deficit:

1. Who creates and uses the assets?
2. What kinds of assets and how will they be used?
3. Organizational decisions - where to store assets, how to organize, dare I say taxonomy?
4. Fixed or collaborative? Fixed is read only, collaborative allows versioned read and write.
5. Define content types (i.e. video, audio, images).
6. Plan workflows and policies.

Wow, that really boils it down. That last point is a good one too. Workflows and policies must be developed as any DAM is incapable of running itself. In any DAM implementation, some rules and guidelines, a little training, and people actually talking to each other go a long way towards the long term success of the resource.