Any project to implement good asset management will begin with consolidating the material as much as possible. This means you’ll want to create central storage, and bring as much of the relevant material together as possible.
Consolidating the files will also help you to tag the files in a universal manner. Tagging from within a single environment, such as one catalog, allows you to be consistent in the keywords and other metadata you use.
Consolidating all your media begins with a discovery process to understand how much space all your stuff takes up. Once you have a good idea of that, you’ll need to get enough unified storage so that you can bring it all together. This is typically true, even if you expect to use a cloud-based tool for your primary user access. In most cases it’s faster, easier, cheaper and better to do this locally before uploading to the cloud.
addition to bringing everything together in one place, it’s also advantageous to unify your DAM practices as much as possible. This includes consistent use of metadata, standardizing media formats, having a consistent naming convention, and normalization of rights information. All of these unifications will pay off in the medium and long term, and some will give dividends in the short term as well.
Unifying your existing collection will also help you build practices for the future. It’s hard to get your policies exactly right until you have road tested them. And there’s no better road test than one you actually have to drive on (in the car you’ll be driving).
At the opening stage of consolidation, it’s best to make sure you are gathering at least one of everything, and not to worry too much about duplication. If there is duplication that is easy to identify, you can fix it as you go along, but you’ll also have the opportunity to fix it later, once your collection has been consolidated and cataloged.
you consolidate, it’s good to keep the 80-20 rule in mind. In most cases, there is a large percentage of media that can be gathered easily (80% perhaps) and a smaller percentage that will be hard to find (20% perhaps). Don’t let “perfect be the enemy of good” by delaying until 100% of media has been consolidated. Make a good faith effort to gather as much as you can, and get to work.