DAM New York 2026

What's Next in Your DAM Journey?

Wednesday September 30, 10.15am-1.15pm

Most organizations have a DAM system, but far fewer have a DAM strategy. This tutorial bridges that gap.

DAM Industry Analyst, Jarrod Gingras leads a practical, hands-on session designed to help you honestly assess where your DAM program stands today and chart a clear path toward where it needs to go. Whether you've been running DAM for two months or twenty years, this tutorial will challenge how you think about content maturity, organizational readiness, and what it truly means to be prepared for the AI era.

What You'll Work Through

The tutorial is built around the DAM Assessment Framework. You'll spend time applying the framework to your own organization: diagnosing your current maturity stage, identifying the specific friction points holding you back, and building a prioritized roadmap for what comes next.

Sessions will cover:

• Where Are You Really? Using the four-stage DAM maturity model to honestly evaluate your current capabilities and why most organizations overestimate their stage
• Why You're Stuck The most common reasons DAM programs plateau: misaligned governance, workflow dysfunction, metadata debt, premature automation, and weak vendor relationships
• The Road to DAM 4.0 What the shift from content warehouse to intelligent responder actually requires: technically, organizationally, and culturally
• Selecting the Right Partners How to evaluate DAM vendors and systems integrators for where you're going, not just where you are today
• Your Roadmap A working session where you'll leave with a prioritized, realistic plan tailored to your organization's next phase

Who Should Attend

This tutorial is designed for everyone (DAM managers, MarTech leaders, content operations leaders, digital strategists, digital librarians, enterprise architects) who are past the basics and ready to think seriously about what comes next. It's equally relevant if you're planning a platform migration, expanding DAM capabilities across your organization, or trying to make the case internally for a more strategic approach to content infrastructure.

Tutorial Leader: 

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Jarrod Gingras, Managing Director & Analyst, Real Story Group

Jarrod is Real Story Group’s Managing Director and Analyst covering Omnichannel Digital Marketing technologies including Digital Asset Management (DAM), Omnichannel Content Platforms (OCP), Web Content Management (Web CMS), E-mail & Marketing Automation, Social & Collaboration, Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Journey Orchestration Engines (JOE), and Customer Data Platforms (CDP) technologies. He is co-author of the book The Right Way to Select Technology, published in 2017 by Rosenfeld Media.

Jarrod is a more than 20-year veteran of the content technology industry, starting his career as a web developer and information architect. Prior to joining Real Story Group in 2007, Jarrod worked as a user interface designer at a systems integration firm, where he developed user-focused content management strategies and solutions for clients in the financial services, retail, healthcare, insurance, and manufacturing industries.

Since joining Real Story Group, Jarrod has contributed to research across the MarTech landscape. He has also advised clients such as Delta Air Lines, Coca-Cola, Ford Motor Company, Harvard Business School, Campbell’s Soup Company, Abbott Laboratories, McKesson, Penn Medicine, The Mayo Clinic, Children's Hospital Colorado, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Norman Rockwell Museum, and Rhode Island School of Design Museum on their MarTech challenges.