Today, electronic media is more then just on-line text. Organizations are using images, video, and audio files and other digital formats within organizations that need to be managed as well. Digital assets are often time consuming to create, but they are valuable to organizations because digital assets attract the attention of clients, whether internal or external to the organization.

Digital assets require a format and management process that enables re-use. When looking for a solution, one question that faces organizations is whether a DM system is capable of supporting their needs or if a digital asset management (DAM) solution it more appropriate.

To determine this answer, an organization must understand the difference between the two solutions. This is a difficult task because there is confusion in the market between DM and DAM solutions. This article will investigate what is unique to a DAM solution and why organizations need a DAM to manage other types of data instead of just text documents.

Document Management

Organizations use document management to assist with the management, creation, workflow, and the storage of documents within different departments. A DM solution uses databases for storage, and workflow engines to design and support workflows, including business rules and metadata.

Document management systems are often used in industries where there are high volumes of documents, such as in the insurance, health care and government industries. Increasingly DM solutions are evolving into Web content management (CM) systems.

Digital Asset Management

Digital asset management (DAM) solutions are also referred to as media asset management (MAM), entertainment media asset management (EMAM), brand resource management (BRM), marketing content management (MCM), and asset management (AM). DAM focuses on organizations specifically with digital assets, such as the entertainment or advertising industry, and is used in situations where asset reproduction is important. Often organizations combine a DAM solution with a CM solution to maintain their web site. Consequently, DAM and CM vendors acquire one or the other to combine their solutions into an integrated solution.

Different Views on DM and DAM

Even though there is a variety of acronyms for DAM, and there are slight differences in functionality for each category. This article, however, will focus mainly on regular DAM functionality, including rich media files and types.

Magan Arthur of Arthur Consulting Group, explains that organizations can take three different approaches when contrasting DM and DAM:

* Tools and processes
* File and content types
* Business use

This article will leverage these approaches to explore the difference between DM and DAM.

Tools and Processes

Both DM and DAM use functionality common to content management solutions. These functionalities include the repository, metadata indexing, search capabilities, user- and role-defined accessibility, and workflow.

The repository stores the content and can either be a relational database or a simple file system. It includes standard features, such as check in and check out, versioning, and taxonomy. It will also allow metadata to be defined, so it includes all relevant descriptions of the different documents and files. This metadata then can be used by the search engine for indexing. The workflow takes care of the different tasks and roles that are involved within the process, whether serial or parallel.

Besides these similarities, there are essential differences in the respective tools and processes of DM and DAM.

DM, on one hand, focuses on capturing text content through optical character recognition (OCR), it is integrated with text processing tools, and is able to define different elements within a document as content. DM is capable of reusing this content either in parts or as the whole document. In the repository, DM can store document elements in different formats, such as extensible markup language (XML).

DAM, on the other hand, integrates with applications that focus on the creative design of assets, such as Quark, AutoCAD, Flash, and three dimensional animation. DAM solutions are capable of linking, disassembling, and reassembling complex and combined assets. DAM is also able to change images directly by either resizing or changing colors, and can handle large files, especially video files. Its search capabilities extend beyond standard search to permit visual searches using image recognition. Besides text indexing, which DM solutions also provide, DAM is able to index speech-to-text videos, closed caption videos, and more.

Today, electronic media is more then just on-line text. Organizations are using images, video, and audio files and other digital formats within organizations that need to be managed as well. Digital assets are often time consuming to create, but they are valuable to organizations because digital assets attract the attention of clients, whether internal or external to the organization.

Digital assets require a format and management process that enables re-use. When looking for a solution, one question that faces organizations is whether a DM system is capable of supporting their needs or if a digital asset management (DAM) solution it more appropriate.

To determine this answer, an organization must understand the difference between the two solutions. This is a difficult task because there is confusion in the market between DM and DAM solutions. This article will investigate what is unique to a DAM solution and why organizations need a DAM to manage other types of data instead of just text documents.

Document Management

Organizations use document management to assist with the management, creation, workflow, and the storage of documents within different departments. A DM solution uses databases for storage, and workflow engines to design and support workflows, including business rules and metadata.

Document management systems are often used in industries where there are high volumes of documents, such as in the insurance, health care and government industries. Increasingly DM solutions are evolving into Web content management (CM) systems.

Digital Asset Management

Digital asset management (DAM) solutions are also referred to as media asset management (MAM), entertainment media asset management (EMAM), brand resource management (BRM), marketing content management (MCM), and asset management (AM). DAM focuses on organizations specifically with digital assets, such as the entertainment or advertising industry, and is used in situations where asset reproduction is important. Often organizations combine a DAM solution with a CM solution to maintain their web site. Consequently, DAM and CM vendors acquire one or the other to combine their solutions into an integrated solution.

Different Views on DM and DAM

Even though there is a variety of acronyms for DAM, and there are slight differences in functionality for each category. This article, however, will focus mainly on regular DAM functionality, including rich media files and types.

Magan Arthur of Arthur Consulting Group, explains that organizations can take three different approaches when contrasting DM and DAM:

* Tools and processes
* File and content types
* Business use

This article will leverage these approaches to explore the difference between DM and DAM.

Tools and Processes

Both DM and DAM use functionality common to content management solutions. These functionalities include the repository, metadata indexing, search capabilities, user- and role-defined accessibility, and workflow.

The repository stores the content and can either be a relational database or a simple file system. It includes standard features, such as check in and check out, versioning, and taxonomy. It will also allow metadata to be defined, so it includes all relevant descriptions of the different documents and files. This metadata then can be used by the search engine for indexing. The workflow takes care of the different tasks and roles that are involved within the process, whether serial or parallel.

Besides these similarities, there are essential differences in the respective tools and processes of DM and DAM.

DM, on one hand, focuses on capturing text content through optical character recognition (OCR), it is integrated with text processing tools, and is able to define different elements within a document as content. DM is capable of reusing this content either in parts or as the whole document. In the repository, DM can store document elements in different formats, such as extensible markup language (XML).

DAM, on the other hand, integrates with applications that focus on the creative design of assets, such as Quark, AutoCAD, Flash, and three dimensional animation. DAM solutions are capable of linking, disassembling, and reassembling complex and combined assets. DAM is also able to change images directly by either resizing or changing colors, and can handle large files, especially video files. Its search capabilities extend beyond standard search to permit visual searches using image recognition. Besides text indexing, which DM solutions also provide, DAM is able to index speech-to-text videos, closed caption videos, and more.