Project Primer: Taking Inventory of Your AssetsBy Baselinemag | Posted 2003-02-12 Email Print
Not a company exists that doesn't rely on words, numbers or pictures. But how do they manage all of them?
Not a company exists that doesn't rely on words, numbers or pictures. The goal of asset management is to organize these items into electronic formeither directly or through metadata (see "What Is A Digital Asset"). Here are some of the kinds of information that more than likely exist in your organization.
|The data used to run the enterprise. Usually data in its most basic sense: text, numbers||Any worker who interacts with a shared repository of information; includes those at external partners||Databases, data warehouses, structured reports and analyses|
|Knowledge||Unstructured digital data, as well as physical data, such as paper documents, statistical models or sculptural models||Any worker who creates information to be shared with another||Design files, e-mail, spreadsheets and other office documents, Web pages;
artwork, faxes, manuscripts, maps, film
|Education||Online courseware optimized for students and employees; mostly unstructured||Teachers, subject-matter experts, courseware developers||Database-backed Web pages, streaming media, digital drawings and images, group discussions such as newsgroups, chat, teleconferences|
|Media||Includes primary publications such as books, newspapers, songs and video, as well as secondary, marketing "collateral," such as ads, brochures, and Web sites||Designers, writers, marketing and sales staff, media developers and producers||Online, broadcast and print ads; physical media sources such as cassettes or CDs; online and print documents and publications|
|Technology||Software and systems; information about hardware and software configurations||Technology staff and vendors of technology services||Applications, source code, hardware|