Brand portals, DAM and the vendor side

This episode introduces Ashantè Fray, onboarding manager at Air, and explores how brand portals fit into digital asset management. Lisa Grimm and Elizabeth Keathley use the conversation to unpack when a brand portal is useful, how it differs from a traditional DAM, and why the human side of vendor relationships matters as much as the software. We discuss creative workflows, governance, raw files versus finals, and the career paths available on the vendor side. It is especially useful for DAM managers, marketers, and anyone trying to understand how brand assets should be shared, controlled, and maintained over time. Also, Canada!

Resources & Links:

• Practical Digital Asset Management: A Guide for Students and Practitioners
• Practical DAM
• 2026 DAM Salary Survey
• Elizabeth Keathley's LinkedIn
• Lisa Grimm's website
• Ashantè Fray's LinkedIn
• Original music for podcast by Steve Serra

Migration, metadata, and why DAM never ends

Lisa Grimm and Elizabeth Keathley are joined by Jacqueline Yu for a practical conversation about DAM migration, metadata cleanup, governance, and the realities of integrating DAM with the rest of an enterprise stack. Jack brings firsthand experience from a major move off an old OpenText system into a new SaaS environment, plus a wider perspective shaped by library science, hospitality, and opera .In this episode, the group focuses on what migration really means once you move past the slogan of “lift and shift” and into content audits, rights management, security modeling, change management, and cleanup after launch. They also dig into how DAM sits inside a broader information architecture with CMS, PIM, MDM, CDNs, and other systems.

Notable quotes

“There is no done. There is only next.”

“It’s people. It’s the people.”

“If you want to save money start unpublishing things.”

Resources & Links:

• Practical Digital Asset Management: A Guide for Students and Practitioners
• Practical DAM
• 2026 DAM Salary Survey
• Elizabeth Keathley's LinkedIn
• Lisa Grimm's website
• Jacq Yu's LinkedIn
• Original music for podcast by Steve Serra

Workflows, governance, and maturity in DAM

Lisa Grimm and E Keathley are joined by Celine Millinder to unpack how workflows actually work in digital asset management, where they break down, and why governance matters as much as the technology. The conversation moves from Celine’s career path across photography, museums, charity, and commercial DAM work into a practical discussion of workflow maturity, interoperability, and documentation. If you are setting up DAM workflows, trying to improve messy approvals, or figuring out whether a process should even be automated, this episode is a useful reality check.

Resources & Links:

• Practical Digital Asset Management: A Guide for Students and Practitioners
• Practical DAM
• 2026 DAM Salary Survey
• Elizabeth Keathley's LinkedIn
• Lisa Grimm's website
• Celine Millender's LinkedIn
• Original music for podcast by Steve Serra

DAM Metrics That Work

Lisa Grimm and Elizabeth Keathley are joined by Fred Rascoe to rethink what metrics should do in digital asset management (DAM) and library systems. Rather than chasing vanity numbers or default vendor reports, they focus on how to measure real use, prove value, and connect reporting to the decisions an organization actually makes. They also dig into the overlap between library land and DAM: custodial versus post-custodial collections, licensing, discovery, preservation, and why the language you use can shape both the data you collect and how leadership interprets it.

Resources & Links:

• Practical Digital Asset Management: A Guide for Students and Practitioners
• Practical DAM
• 2026 DAM Salary Survey
• Elizabeth Keathley's LinkedIn
• Lisa Grimm's website
• Fred Rascoe's LinkedIn
• Lost in the Stacks
• Original music for podcast by Steve Serra

Finding Assets with Clemency Wright

In this episode, Clemency Wright, an expert in search and metadata, shares her extensive experience with keywording, metadata strategies, and how these elements are essential to effective digital asset management. Whether you’re managing a small library or a large digital archive, her insights help demystify the process and emphasize the strategic importance of metadata.

Resources & Links:

• The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI by Corey Dotrow
• Practical Digital Asset Management: A Guide for Students and Practitioners
• Practical DAM
• Elizabeth Keathley's LinkedIn
• Lisa Grimm's website
• Clemency Wright's LinkedIn
• Clemency Wright's website
• Original music for podcast by Steve Serra

Lisa Grimm and Elizabeth Keathley are joined by Meg Morrissey for a practical conversation about what makes a digital asset management system usable in the real world. They focus on the operational foundations behind successful DAM programs, from ownership and metadata modeling to governance, training, and change management. Meg brings a broad practitioner perspective as a librarian, taxonomist, archivist, consultant, vendor-side collaborator, and former DAM manager. The discussion stays grounded in what it takes to make a DAM work for users, leadership, and the people maintaining it.

Resources & Links:

• Practical Digital Asset Management: A Guide for Students and Practitioners
• Practical DAM
• Elizabeth Keathley's LinkedIn
• Lisa Grimm's website
• Meg Morrissey's website
• DAM Salary Survey 2024
• Original music for podcast by Steve Serra.

Episode 6: Assets to Manage

Lisa Grimm and E Keathley are joined by Eric Reber, whose background spans libraries, archives, media, and corporate DAM implementations. This episode breaks down what “assets to manage” really means when your content includes physical objects, layered design files, decades of legacy media, and systems that were never built to talk to each other. In this episode, the conversation gets practical fast: what makes an asset “complex,” why metadata choices matter, and why timelines for DAM implementations are usually fantasy. Eric shares hard-earned lessons from CNN, Carter’s, and his current work helping a company stand up Adobe Experience Manager while sorting through massive content sprawl.

Resources & Links:

• Practical Digital Asset Management: A Guide for Students and Practitioners
• Practical DAM
• Elizabeth Keathley's LinkedIn
• Lisa Grimm's website
• Eric Reber's LinkedIn
• DAM Salary Survey 2024
• Original music for podcast by Steve Serra.

Lisa Grimm and Elizabeth Keathley are joined by Alison King for a practical conversation about career pivots, transferable skills, and how librarians and other information professionals can move into digital asset management and related fields. They break down what counts as relevant experience, why so many people underestimate their own value, and how to spot job postings that are badly written, underpaid, or just plain unrealistic. In this episode, they explore the real language of DAM hiring, the impact of vocational awe on career decisions, and the keywords that can help candidates find roles that fit their experience.

Resources & Links:

• Practical Digital Asset Management: A Guide for Students and Practitioners
• Practical DAM
• Elizabeth Keathley's LinkedIn
• Lisa Grimm's website
• Alison King's LinkedIn
• Original music for podcast by Steve Serra.