A bit later than usual, here’s the Digital Asset Management articles from February which had a lasting impression on me – picked from the constant stream of blog posts you can see float by on Planet DAM. For more curated DAM links, see the weekly Digital Asset Management.com Links.

DAM News runs a batch of interesting articles in its “Improving DAM in 2017” series that offers perspectives beyond the usual DAM vendor content marketing material. Most articles are written by guest authors, with an introduction by DAM News host Ralph Windsor which is always worth a read, too:

• Better Ways To Engage With Your Vendor by Ricky Patten / Engaging With Vendors by Ralph Windsor
• Creating The Right Conditions For Innovation by Martin Wilson / Creating The Conditions For DAM Innovation by Ralph Windsor
• Should DAM Be More Like Facebook? by Denzil Ford / Should Social Media In DAM Be More Like Facebook? by Ralph Windsor
• Digital Assets From IoT To Blockchain by Medhat Mahmoud / The Expanding Universe Of Digital Assets by Ralph Windsor

If you’re interested in DAM innovation, make sure to read David Diamond’s excellent interviews with Picturepark employees Olivia Schütt, Rethinking Digital Asset Management, and Stefan Seidl: An API-first Approach to Content Creation, Management and Routing.

“Mobile” seems to become a hot topic again, with posts about mobile DAM access via the MediaValet mobile app and the “responsive”, mobile-optimized Web interfaces of Flight by Canto and MerlinOne. Brandfolder’s Meg Prater writes about DAM support for your mobile strategy, and there’s a similar piece on the Flight blog.

Widen’s Brooke Emley gives practical, detailed advice to DAM administrators: How often should a DAM Admin..., Handy tips for better user engagement with email, and Sample questions for DAM user feedback survey.

I enjoyed the peeks into DAM vendor company history offered in the 40-year history of Eloquent Systems, and Why I left the company I founded by Webdam founder Jody Vandergriff. Kai Pradel announces the MediaSilo and Wiredrive merger.

On AI: Bynder and Anjali Yakkundi recorded a 30-minute webinar on Artificial Intelligence and DAM. WoodWing’s Dayve Talbot does a good summary of five ways AI can make life easier for DAM users. Emily Kolvitz asks whether AI could pull DAM into the mainstream, while Jeff Fried tries to separate AI search hype from reality. Developers might enjoy Assembling a field worker application using Box, Clarifai, and the Kony Visualizer by Ross McKegney.

Another tech-heavy article: Nick Trogh’s Microsoft Technical Case Study Using DevOps practices with ADAM Software to accelerate developer ramp-up.

Heather Hedden writes about mistakes in taxonomy hierarchical relationships – I’ve come across those more than once. Rights metadata is a complex topic, see video rights management by Blue Lucy’s Julian Wright.

I’ve only watched parts of them so far, but the webinars The right way to select DAM technology by Theresa Regli and Does my company need a DAM? by the New Jersey DAM meetup seem to be very good.

In community news, the DAM Guru program joins forces with content-related meetups, and Ian Matzen proposes a DAM Code of Ethics. There’s a fun interview with Jenny Benevento, Etsy.com taxonomist. Brian Kavanaugh tells how Bynder hosted a group of 7th and 8th graders. Tracy Wolfe asks 10 challenging questions in her request for help – can you answer some of them?

Fun DAM case studies: Dog images powered by Fotoware, airline photos in MediaValet, and 100,000 pieces of content a day at OpenText customer News UK.

DAM screencasts / screenshot fans, check out the Brandworkz overview video, NetX 8.6, Widen Workflow 2 and What’s new in ADAM.