Welcome to Volume 6, Issue 6. This has been a great volume for JDAM and, in particular, this issue is filled with inspirational and exciting digital asset management (DAM) writing on SaaS, the web, social media and DAM education to name but a few. We always encourage our readers to provide us feedback and as we close out this volume and begin anew, we ask you again to contact us with your suggestions for content for future issues. Enjoy this issue; it is for you!

Michael Moon enriches us all with a new interview with Michael J. Kräftner, CEO of celum, a leading software company for enterprise DAM solutions. celum products automate and accelerate communication, marketing and sales processes, reducing costs and helping customers achieve greater flexibility in day-to-day operations. The company has been building a strong presence in Europe and now increasingly in the Americas. celum focuses on the enterprise market and brand owners as well as the government market. The interview with Kräftner provides insights into celum's market strategy as well as best practices for successful enterprise DAM implementation.

JDAM is delighted to receive an article from Edgar Asiimwe titled, ‘Social web users’ opinions on privacy and Online Digital Assets Management after death or impairment of a user’. This article explores web user profiles and the sensitivity surrounding that information. Using Facebook as a case study, Asiimwe provides primary research examining social web users’ opinions on privacy and online digital assets management after death or impairment of a user. The study used an online questionnaire to collect opinions from 22 Facebook users. Results show that the majority of respondents consider privacy and online digital assets management to be important issues. On the other hand, other Facebook users think that privacy in social networking websites is a mere illusion.

Matthew Gonnering, CEO of Widen Enterprises, writes a timely article titled, ‘DAM, YouTube is Great for Video. But it is NOT Digital Asset Management’. As you are well aware, YouTube is an awesome destination site for videos – but it is not a digital asset management tool. Gonnering argues that it is important to understand the distinction between video destination sites like YouTube and DAM systems as the central marketing hub. This article examines the key differences between YouTube and DAM and takes a deeper dive into how DAM solutions help marketing organizations best leverage digital assets to build brand equity and increase return on marketing investments.

In his first JDAM appearance, Jordan Gray, Inventor-in-Chief at Quick Square Consulting, provides a fascinating article titled, ‘Extensible Software-as-a-Service: Stability & Agility’.

Gray argues that with DAM being at the core to most all business industries and segments, choosing the wrong technological path could be devastating. He offers an easygoing discussion about the landscape of software options as he discusses fundamental strengths and weaknesses of each. Gray argues that by recognizing limitations of certain types of software will put companies in the best position to choose a solution that will be the most sustainable and least restrictive for years to come.

JDAM is pleased to provide a follow-up article from Marko Hurst, titled ‘Search ROI's Missing Element: Search Analytics’. Hurst continues his discussion from our last issue to show how many organizations have been and are still trying how to prove ROI for their DAM system. This commonly and often only includes employee/customer efficiency and financial hard and soft ROI, which are beneficial, but not enough and often hard to prove as well. What is missing is ROI at the strategic level that can be used to optimize and continually improve upon your ROI. That missing strategic element is Search Analytics, a methodology and the process of analyzing search queries and user behavior within an information retrieval/search system in order to determine the search quality and relevancy of your search system and produce actionable results that can be acted upon.

JDAM is honored to have DAM pioneer, David Lipsey, contribute his article, ‘Managing the fast moving (digital) currents: How DAM can help emerging Rapid Response Media Centers’. This article explores the sources of the growing pressure to de-couple DAM from its typical departmental origins and develop a centralized/enterprise office for Digital Asset Management – a Digital Media Center. The article further explores the role that DAM can play in a ‘Digital Rapid Response Center’, where digital assets are quickly deployed for either fast-paced social media management, or in response to a volatile crisis situation.

In addition, in their first JDAM contribution, Soumitra K. Mallick, Thomas Krichel and Marco Novarese offer their article, ‘Subscription to digital libraries and corresponding journal impact: a value-based approach to demand for digital research data’. This paper finds an explanation for the subscription to the various fields in the REPEC e-library that forms the REPEC reports. Subscription to a particular report is regressed on the value which papers in that field create as measured by the impact factor of the relevant field journal and the ranking. The authors found that both measurements give rise to demand for digital research data, which is explainable by subsequent value created in the form of publication and citations in high-quality journals for the respective fields.

Lisa McIntyre, Information Professional and Account Executive at GSD&M Idea City, provides a great article title, ‘Building a DAM, one brick at a time’. McIntyre argues that implementing a DAM in a creative environment can be a tricky project. Through the telling of our DAM story from discovery to deployment, I share some of the learnings we discovered, learnings that can be put to use in your environment, whether highly structured or not.

Donna Slawsky, DAM educator and metadata/taxonomy consultant, provides an enriching article titled, ‘Teaching Digital Asset Management in a Higher Education Setting’. DAM professionals provide the skills needed to find efficient solutions for storage, retrieval and dissemination of these files. Most learn the profession on the job and through informal education such as webinars, podcasts, blogs, white papers and conferences. There are programs and courses emerging in schools of higher education. This article discusses the development and teaching of a course in digital asset management offered through the Columbia University Information and Digital Resource Management program of the School of Continuing Education. The author describes how the syllabus was developed, content of the course, assignments, readings and the use of collaborative tools to simulate the way that professionals learn from each other within.