Our systems are a reflection of us—flawed in ways that are uniquely human, reflecting our own biases. A digital asset management (DAM) system is no different—it reflects the values and decisions of the people who create and contribute to it. And just like people, our systems have to evolve and grow.

Making sure we adapt to change responsibly is where diversity, equity, and inclusion come in. By applying a DEI lens to your DAM, you can better understand how your content reflects the diversity of your company, customers, and partners. And how your systems affect the people who interact with them—ideally, avoiding causing anyone harm. If that intimidates you, I’m here to put your mind at ease. 

If you take away one thing from this guide, it should be this—
DEI work is absolutely worth doing and positive change is achievable. 

This process is about putting people first and making your DAM a more diverse, equitable, and respectful system. Not only will your metadata be more inclusive, but this process will also make your data more accurate, better represent how people actually search and tag assets, and create a better DAM experience for all your users. 

This process is about putting people first and making your DAM a more diverse, equitable, and respectful system. Not only will your metadata be more inclusive, but this process will also make your data more accurate, better represent how people actually search and tag assets, and create a better DAM experience for all your users. 

Let’s start this process by identifying the foundational principles for this work. If you’re not sure what to do at any point in this journey, return to these core ideas and ask yourself: Does my next course of action align with these principles? They will be your North Star.

1 – Be Proactive Now, Not Reactive Later

Many companies use their DAM as an archive of all their assets over the years. Your content and metadata have changed with the times, but older assets may reflect attitudes and values that are now outdated or offensive. Hopefully, a wayward freelancer never stumbles upon a sexist ad campaign in your DAM or a model is never misgendered in an asset’s metadata—if you’re proactive in managing your DAM and learning about DEI, you can prevent most harmful incidents.

Establish inclusive processes, like collecting metadata during asset production and instituting protocols to flag harmful content and update old tags. Make sure your data standards require inclusive language and provide clear guidelines for sourcing and recording it. If a retail partner discovers an offensive tag in your DAM, you won’t panic because you’ll already know your process for initiating an inquiry, contacting the asset’s manager, and working towards a reparative solution.

By proactively learning about diversity, equity, and inclusion and how your organization can make metadata more inclusive in your DAM, your internal DEI efforts prove just as important as your public ones. 

2 – Develop Cultural Humility and Bravery

You may not know how various identities, expressions, and cultures should be represented and how to accurately record them. No one expects you to know it all, but they do expect you to be curious enough to find out. Embrace a little discomfort, be brave. Most people recognize when a brand is making the effort, and while you won’t get it perfect right away or every time, responding with humility and openness is better than not trying at all. 

Aim to address all issues with empathy and thoughtfulness—try not to be defensive and not to hastily remove assets from your DAM. Acknowledge and take responsibility for any mistakes of the past and make a genuine effort to correct them. Your philosophy should be to apply humility, curiosity, and bravery to each issue as they arise. This attitude will go a long way toward fostering goodwill and a spirit of collaboration among your users.

3 – Acknowledge Your “Why”

Your context is your cause—we exist in racist, sexist, ableist, homophobic cultures, structures, and systems. You and your organization may not be responsible for creating those structures, but deciding how you want to operate within them will have an impact on the people who work with, work for, or otherwise engage with your brand.

Simply put, you need to be clear about why you’re doing this work, why it matters to your organization, and use that “why” to inform how your DAM should change. For companies that have been focused on public-facing DEI work, maybe you’re bringing your internal processes up to snuff. For multinational media companies, maybe your staff and partners access your DAM across borders, languages, and cultures and you want your metadata to reflect people in accurate ways.

Maybe you want your DAM to reflect your company’s current values. You are applying DEI to your DAM for a reason. Know your why and let that guide you.

4 – Care for Your DAM Community

Everyone expects a baseline of safety when they open the DAM. They don’t expect to be met with harmful language or offensive images, especially without content warnings or editorial context. Providing a content warning or harmful language statement lets users know that you are aware of problematic assets or metadata in your collection, and that you are doing what you can to mitigate harm while preserving an accurate record of the past. Streaming service Disney+ now displays this message before certain older films:

“This program includes negative depictions and/or mistreatment of people or cultures. These stereotypes were wrong then and are wrong now. Rather than remove this content, we want to acknowledge its harmful impact, learn from it and spark conversation to create a more inclusive future together.”

You may not have content as extreme as in this example, but a simple warning like this lets DAM users know that you’re considering them and their safety. This example also works as an outward-facing statement, especially if the content could be published. Use a content warning for publishing, like “Requires content warning” or “Contains [sexist/ableist/racist/etc.] content.”

The Digital Public Library of America has an excellent statement on potentially harmful content they encourage others to modify for their own use. Cataloging Lab also has a list of statements on bias in archives description—you may not find DAM-specific guidance on these topics, but don’t be afraid to use these resources and adapt their inclusive language for your industry. 

When we step back from the data and remember that we’re managing a tool for people, we can apply the care needed to support those people, their assets, and their processes. 

For many on this journey, there is an inciting event. Perhaps you’ve noticed some harmful content in your DAM, your search terms and tags no longer reflect the way people wish to search, or you’re in the midst of internal DEI efforts and your DAM is next on the list.

The first step is to assemble your team. This committee exists to support the DAM manager as they find and rectify missing information, outdated metadata, or harmful content in the DAM. This committee should have a representative from each of the responsible parties—someone from your leadership, the DAM manager, a subject matter expert or DEI consultant, a representative from your end users, and your content creators.

From there, invite a DEI metadata consultant or DEI consultant (if they aren’t already part of your committee) to conduct an audit of your DAM. They will conduct targeted searching for outdated terms, review how complete your descriptions are, and determine how you’ll begin this reparative process. At the end of the audit, they will provide an overview of where the problem areas are and determine what you can tackle in the short and long term.

Thank you for reading the first chapter of our guide on inclusive metadata and DEI in digital asset management. You can access all the remaining chapters by downloading the full guide.
Those chapters are:

1) Introduction

2) Four Core DEI Principles to Apply to Your DAM

3) Where Should You Start?

4) Three Common DEI Issues In Your Metadata

5) Who Is Responsible for a DEI Approach to DAM?

6) Best Practices

7) Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Work Is an Ongoing Process