SAMRO
2014
Data Security & Web Development
SAMRO, the Southern African Music Rights Organisation, is a copyright asset management society. It was established by the South African Copyright Act and aims to protect the intellectual property of music creators by licensing music users, collecting licence fees and distributing royalties to music creators. SAMRO represents more than 15,000 Southern African music composers, lyricists/authors, and music publishers. The organisation administers performing rights.
With the organisation’s relaunch of the flagship Wawela Music Awards, it became evident that their existing information system and website were not adequately supporting the Wawela Awards and their growth strategy. It was inevitable that senior management finally made the decision to incur the expense and implement a new Intranet system for SAMRO Members who were eligible to participate in the awards as paid-up members with a SAMRO number. As Rami Nhlapho, the organisation’s Content Specialist put it, “Our biggest problem is managing information relating to the Wawela Awards, storing multimedia content submitted in previous awards and the ability for members to submit that information into the system and the system to pick them up as active members of the organisation and enabling Wawela Awards Judges to log in and access the content”.
SAMRO selected Maverick Mind to plan, develop, and implement a new Awards information system and Website. Maverick Mind would be responsible for building the new Intranet, the Website as well as managing the transition from the existing system. Among the challenges of the transition process was Content Migration, transferring the existing content on their old system to the new Wawela Intranet.
Challenges faced by SAMRO
- Massive storage and database query speeds needed to store and access massive amounts of Multimedia data.
- SAMRO’s IT team did not have the capacity to carry out the content migration from the previous system
- The Wawela Awards’ daily activities leading up the Awards evening revolved around accessing files and uploading files, so any down time would impair business
- Ensuring the proper permissions were in place, so that authorized employees and members would be able to access files
- Coordinating the timing of the content migration with the launch of the new Intranet
Maverick Mind’s Content Migration Process
In choosing Maverick Mind, SAMRO did not have to resort to hiring expensive migration vendors. Maverick Mind’s Intranet implementation already included Content Migration services. Maverick Mind used consulting work to develop a deep understanding of the company’s technology and information architecture, and a comprehensive knowledge of the nature of the content being transferred. This integrated end-to-end approach was invaluable to a successful Content Migration process.
Assessment: Understanding Existing Content & Goals
SAMRO’s Wawela content was stored on shared drives that would have to be e-mailed, printed, or handed out if anyone else around the company wanted to access the information.
Audit: Data Classification & Migration Decisions
Across the Wawela function, SAMRO began working within the Communications and IT teams to better manage their content. The Communications team explained that their information was out of control, and therefore asked their employees to take inventory of the files they needed and didn’t need for Wawela.
With the guidance of Maverick Mind, The Wawela team at SAMRO systematically went through all of the files to determine the nature of the data and metadata, and applied classifications (i.e., the SAMRO members, security levels, sub-classes, Awards Categories, locations, expired membership etc) to this data. They went through their shared drives and analysed the nature of the content (i.e. types of files and data) to be transferred.
Mapping: Determining Where Content Resides within the Information Architecture
SAMRO utilized Maverick Mind’s data management capabilities to document their existing files and decide on the proper destinations within the new structure.
They asked:
- What is the file?
- Where should it be stored?
- Who should have access to it?
Maverick Mind decided to migrate all their data to destinations based on the permissions that were defined by the Maverick Mind team.
Governance: Determining Ownership, Permissions & Change Management
The ownership of information and permissions, the idea that some people are in control of information and information flow, needed to be openly communicated and appreciated by all employees and SAMRO members.
When migrating data, it is absolutely essential that only the right employees have access to authorized data. For example, SAMRO members should not be able to see information reserved for judges. Moving forward SAMRO had a site administrator who is responsible for the day-to-day administration of the site. A governance team within the Communications function was also established.
Content Preparation: Review, Re-write & Re-format Data
Maverick Mind put new processes and procedures in place to rewrite and reform certain types of content, making certain that the files being transferred were compatible with the new system. The old system had some content that needed to be changed for it to work properly within the new environment. Maverick Mind linked the access databases and the access files. SAMRO implemented these changes and carried out these procedures based on Maverick Mind’s recommendations.
Process & Execution: How to Execute Migration & Augmentation Tools / Techniques
3 Part Migration Execution:
- The Dry Run – Estimate the time, based on number of files and size
- Run the Migration (on the staging environment) – Ensure the migration strategy is successful
- Run the Content Migration (on the production environment)
SAMRO did not have to resort to costly commercial Migration software licensing and additional customisation
Validation: Verifying Data / Metadata Integrity to Ensure Success
SBI made sure all of the files from the shared drives were properly migrated over to the assigned locations within the site. For example, SAMRO shared drive ‘2014 award winners’ was successfully migrated to the site.
Adoption: Ensuring Users Can Find & Use Content
SAMRO members, Awards Judges and the SAMRO team began using the new Intranet and became acclimated to the new environment.
By utilising the results of Maverick Mind’s preliminary consultation, which assessed different migration possibilities and helped determine the solution that would work best for SAMRO, Maverick Mind helped to safely and securely transition the SAMRO to a superior information platform to support their Wawela Awards business.
Maverick Mind provided an end-to-end solution that kept SAMRO secure and operational throughout the entire process. After the implementation, the results were as follows:
- There was a 8% increase in engagement by publisher members
- A 12% increase in engagement by Composer Members
- A 16% increase in engagement from the Writes Category
The growth was from a base of 1231 paid up SAMRO members with a SAMRO number.
