How to oversee a DAM initiative:

• Archive
• Rights
• Metadata
• IT/Technology
• Staff

Five Easy Pieces…. courtesy Philip Spiegel, via Rahel Bailie.

1. Expectation rationality. Too many projects are doomed from the start because the expectations were set too high. It is often useful to have a third party assess whether the project was oversold or if it under-delivered.

2. Platform suitability. Choosing the wrong CMS product also puts the project in jeopardy. The platform should support your requirements, feel intuitive to your users, be maintainable by your team, and be supported by a well run company that can be a compatible partner.

3. Project execution. The project to implement the solution should be appropriately scoped and phased to achieve short term results quickly and work toward long term goals. You need to select a competent integration partner internal or external that you can trust and collaborate with to make good decisions. Your users need to be well supported with training and coaching.

via Seth Gottlieb, Dimensions of Success or Ways to Fail « Content Here.

• Technical migration
• Visual redesign
• Strategic redesign

Three types of web content management projects – The CMS Myth.

Digital assets come in a seemingly limitless variety of flavors. Some intrinsic metadata comes along for the ride with particular formats, but without a robust metadata system and workflow in place, many assets will be “left behind” in any digital asset management (DAM) system. Use a systematic approach to naming: reduce the burden on users who need to open assets to determine contents, get those assets appearing in search results, and prevent misplaced files and data extinction down the road.

via Top Tips on Naming Conventions for Digital Assets | Earley & Associates.

If you’ve created an elaborate criteria driven scoring system, it will inevitably be time-consuming to read each long proposal. Naturally, usability is critical, but how will you score it? And how about intangibles, such as having a local office. The answer to that is either a yes or a no, so how will that count?

via Janus Boye, » No scoring methodology for CMS selections – J. Boye » Blog.

After collecting requirements, the second most difficult component of a CMS selection is taking all the information that was gathered during the evaluation phase and using it to make a decision. This is where people get crazy with spreadsheets and scoring in the hopes that math will somehow heroically make a complicated and confusing (and, lets face it, subjective) decision obvious and irrefutable.

via Seth Gottlieb, Doubt « Content Here.

Bonus link: Check out this great template on a suggested RFP email template.