Content-tious Strategy

It’s an open secret in our daily work how often the challenges posed by content elude our collective talents and acumen. We’ve all been there. For me, lorem ipsum makes it personal. It personifies the proposition at the heart of what content specialists do and mocks how often the manifold complexities of content can get the better of all of us. It’s happening because we haven’t been talking.

Macintyre, Jeffrey. List Apart, A (2008). Articles>Content Management>Writing

Convergence Technical Communication: Strategies for Incorporating Web 2.0

"Convergence Technical Communication" (CTC) is technical communication that provides information in several forms, including Web 2.0 delivery mechanisms, to improve the user experience. Most of the content is generated by technical communicators; a portion by users. Web 2.0 makes it possible to create additional deliverables that enhance the user experience several different ways. First, it engages the different learning styles of our audience. Second, it improves user satisfaction with your product by creating communities of practice that allow users to participate in the conversation. Finally, any feedback and suggestions obtained can be used to improve the core deliverable set.

Bleiel, Nicky. Content Wrangler, The (2009). Articles>TC>Content Management>Social Networking

Caught in the Current of Writer River: Building and Participating in Community-Driven Websites    

When hundreds of people engage in content-generation and exchange, impressive results can happen — namely, you find a lot of interesting, accurate content. Writer River doesn’t have nearly enough community to be on par with these sites, but it’s a step in the right direction.

Johnson, Tom H. Intercom (2009). Articles>Content Management>Community Building>Taxonomy

Your Wiki Isn’t Wikipedia: How to Use It for Technical Communication    

Learn how to use a wiki as an organizational tool within your company.

Mader, Stewart. Intercom (2009). Articles>Content Management>Wikis>Organizational Communication

Web 2.0, Wikis, and Books    

The founder of FLOSS manuals discusses the intersection of books and Web 2.0 and the continuing evolution of publishing and technology.

Hyde, Adam. Intercom (2009). Articles>Documentation>Content Management>Wikis

Well Formed XML

Business integration is at the heart of many of today's industry trends. As businesses consolidate infrastructure, and look at rolling out service-oriented architectures, they are finding they need to link previously isolated applications. It's not easy. You can't link applications without some form of middleware, an extra application layer that lets their various systems communicate. Whether you use web services, or a message-based solution, there's one key feature that's at the heart of modern integration technologies: XML.

Bisson, Simon. Guardian Unlimited, The (2003). Articles>Content Management>Information Design>XML

You Got Your Technology in My Typography!!!

What is it about XML, and the technical publishing solutions that storing content in XML enables, that makes non-technical, design-oriented people in publishing want to run for the hills while screaming “You just don’t get it!”, leaving the technical people in publishing in the dust, wondering why no one understands all the wonderful benefits that can be reaped through publishing automated by XML-enabled technologies.

Kaplansky, Jean. Content Wrangler, The (2009). Articles>Content Management>Typography>Visual Rhetoric

Does Single Sourcing Content Work?

One of the more popular posts on this blog is titled DITA is not the answer and, whilst things are certainly moving forward, it’s a little sad that it is still valid. A recent comment on that post suggested that it’s not just DITA that is lacking, it’s the working realities of single source that is flawed.

McLean, Gordon. One Man Writes (2009). Articles>Content Management>Single Sourcing>DITA

A Five-Click Solution to Publishing and Uploading Screen Videos to SharePoint

The quickest video solution for uploading Jing videos to a SharePoint directory. This process requires a few minutes of setup, but once you set it up, it literally takes just five clicks to initiate, capture, and publish a video to SharePoint.

Johnson, Tom H. I'd Rather Be Writing (2009). Articles>Content Management>Microsoft SharePoint>Screen Captures

Scott Abel Explains Content Management Concepts  

Scott Abel is a content management strategist and structured-XML evangelist who helps organizations improve the way they author, maintain and deliver their information assets. He also maintains The Content Wrangler (www.thecontentwrangler.com), a blog for technical writers. More importantly, perhaps, he has a tendency to explain run-of-the-mill business practice in an honest and engaging way.

Botkin, Katie. Multilingual (2009). Articles>Interviews>Content Management

Anticipating the Impact of Content Convergence  

The nature of content has been undergoing a profound shift in the past several years, beginning with single-sourcing efforts and continues as the need for portable content increases. The portability of content is not a manufactured need, but an extension of the trend to create, manage and deliver content in more efficient ways. In turn, this shift affects content development and delivery, particularly localization, which feels the impact of source-language changes exponentially.

Bailie, Rahel Anne. Multilingual (2009). Articles>Content Management>Single Sourcing>Localization

Intersection of Content and Translation Management  

In today's global economy, multilingual communications are the conduit to multinational revenue profiles and global brand recognition. Buyers in countries large and small are increasingly demanding local language materials as a condition for purchasing products. Laggards that deliver multilingual products and services late to regional markets lose market share and see their global brand fragment and decline in value. Multinational business demands that organizations redefine the value of content to drive global customer experience, increase customer satisfaction, promote brand awareness and consistency, and support time-to-market goals.

Ciarlone, Leonor. Multilingual (2009). Articles>Content Management>Localization>Translation

DITA and Wiki Combo

What are your thoughts on whether wikis could be used for end-user technical documentation? I'd imagine that a more structured wiki based on DITA content (which may have already been created for end-users) might work well for technical documentation. Have you seen any good examples? I'd love to see a well-done example.

Gentle, Anne. BMC Software (2008). Articles>Content Management>Wikis>DITA

DITA: The Mechanics of a Single-Sourcing Project

The Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) is an XML-based, end-to-end architecture for authoring, producing, and delivering technical information. This paper describes how DITA-based documentation was implemented at CEDROM-SNi, one of Canada's leading on-line news content aggregators. The project delivers documentation as diverse as user training materials and Web Services reference guides targeted to programmers. We focus on the benefits, how tos, and lessons learned. Technical documentation has its own unique challenges. Its deliverables range from simple reference guides and educational material to complex, multilingual procedure manuals. Critical success factors of a documentation project are numerous and diverse – usability, deadlines, cost, language, delivery media (paper, online) – all of which have their own purpose and challenges. This paper discusses these issues and provides a framework for future DITA projects.

Baril, France. IDEAlliance (2004). Articles>Content Management>Single Sourcing>DITA

Reporting XML Errors: Optimizing the Workflow

The Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) is an XML-based, end-to-end architecture for authoring, producing, and delivering technical information. This paper describes how DITA-based documentation was implemented at CEDROM-SNi, one of Canada's leading on-line news content aggregators. The project delivers documentation as diverse as user training materials and Web Services reference guides targeted to programmers. We focus on the benefits, how tos, and lessons learned. Technical documentation has its own unique challenges. Its deliverables range from simple reference guides and educational material to complex, multilingual procedure manuals. Critical success factors of a documentation project are numerous and diverse – usability, deadlines, cost, language, delivery media (paper, online) – all of which have their own purpose and challenges. This paper discusses these issues and provides a framework for future DITA projects.

Allen, Sarah. IDEAlliance (2004). Articles>Content Management>Workflow>XML

Enterprise XML in Government Regulatory and Legislative Agencies

This presentation is based on a deployed enterprise system designed and integrated to support over 250 plus users for a west coast legislature. The system includes legislative authoring, legislative processing (Introducing, Amending, Enrolling, and Chaptering Bills), document publishing, and updating the State laws.

Vergottini, Grant. IDEAlliance (2004). Articles>Content Management>Government>XML

Building a Document Delivery System from Off-the-Shelf Standards-Conformant Parts

OK. So you have your documents in XML. How do you deliver them to readers? You've heard great things about separation of form and content, and would like different kinds of readers to see the documents styled in different ways. And in order to make the collection of documents more useful, you would like to have full-text search. The quality assurance people would like some help with tools for checking documents and finding errors and inconsistencies in existing ones. Oh, and by the way, we just took a budget cut, so can you do it without breaking the bank?

Sperberg-McQueen, C.M. IDEAlliance (2004). Articles>Content Management>Information Design>XML

XML and its Emerging Uses Within the Enterprise

In 2000, as one of the first speakers at XML One, Rod discussed the merging of the web, XML, and messaging into the loosely coupled applications that today we call web services. Rod's Emerging Internet Technology team has continued to explore new uses for XML beyond SOA for enterprises. His talk will cover how XML is a cornerstone for new types of web applications - Do It yourself applications - which include applications through dynamic scripting languages and the intersection with other emerging areas such as Rich Interactive Applications.

Smith, Rod. IDEAlliance (2004). Articles>Content Management>XML>Workplace

Semantic Thumbnails - Summarizing XML Documents and Collections

The concept of thumbnails is common in image representation. A thumbnail is a highly compressed version of an image that provides a small, yet complete visual representation to the human eye. We propose the adaptation of the concept of thumbnails to the domain of documents, whereby a thumbnail of any document can be generated from its semantic content, providing an adequate amount of information about the documents. However, unlike image thumbnails, document thumbnails are mainly for the consumption of software such as search engines, and other content processing systems. With the advent of the semantic web, the requirement for machine processing of documents has become extremely important. We give particular attention to electronic documents in XML and in RDF/XML, with a view towards the processing of documents in the semantic web.

Dalkilic, Mehmet and Arijit Sengupta. IDEAlliance (2004). Articles>Content Management>Metadata>Semantic

How XML is Shrinking The World Through Globalization

With XML, the flow of information and documents around the world has never been greater - with its robust and flexible format that enables sharing of data stored in multiple formats. As a result, XML is shrinking the global marketplace and opening doors to new markets that had previously been hindered by compatibility issues. The last and arguably most important mile in reaching new markets, however, is often in localizing or tailoring communications to fit the particular audience, whether by translating languages to ensuring sensitivity to local nuances and culture.

Seawick, Bill. IDEAlliance (2004). Articles>Content Management>Globalization>XML

Developing a Business Case for XML-Based Content Management Systems

One would think that with the magnitude of XML-based tools into the marketplace it would be easier to justify authoring and storing documents directly in XML. By now most managers have been exposed to the benefits of creating XML content management systems according to some agreed upon set of documentation rules. However, understanding the benefits of this technical approach and being able to justify the expense of implementing it are two different things. Many XML developers are not able to articulate the long-term advantages of converting corporate data repositories to XML in order to build a suitable business case to get such a project off the ground. This session will help business managers articulate the long-term advantages of converting corporate data repositories to XML in order to build a suitable business case to get such projects off the ground by outlining the many cost savings and revenue generation opportunities created by managing enterprise data directly in XML.This session will help business managers articulate the long-term advantages of converting corporate data repositories to XML in order to build a suitable business case to get such projects off the ground by outlining the many cost savings and revenue generation opportunities created by managing enterprise data directly in XML.

Buehling, Brian. IDEAlliance (2005). Articles>Content Management>Business Case>XML

Real World XML: Using Content Management Systems in Higher Education Course Catalogs

CMS is revolutionizing the way higher education handle online content. So why are most universities still managing their course catalogs by hand? Join David Cummings for an in-depth look at how XML can improve a university beyond its website.

Cummings, David. IDEAlliance (2005). Articles>Content Management>Information Design>Education

Trends in Web Design Involving WordPress

This week I caught up with Debbie Campbell, a Colorado web designer and developer and the owner of Red Kite Creative, and asked her about the latest trends in web design. I’ve been following Debbie on Twitter for a while. This week she posted a few tweets about web design and WordPress, so I asked her to share a little more.

Johnson, Tom H. I'd Rather Be Writing (2009). Articles>Interviews>Content Management>Web Design

Seventeen Usability Tips to Make Your CMS Rock

More than likely your content management system (CMS) will have many usability problems if you just use it “out of the box”. Having been involved in a number of projects tasked with implementing a these types of systems—including content management systems for websites, intranets and wikis for knowledge management—I’ve noticed that there are a number of key areas of the user interface that frequently need fixing from a usability point of view.

Kennedy, Patrick. Pat's Point of View (2009). Articles>Content Management>Usability

Why Use A Wiki?

The aim of this paper is to introduce the concept of the Web-based collaborative authoring environment commonly referred to as wikis, and examine how they can be used in a corporate publishing environment. The paper also includes suggested techniques for transferring existing content from native authoring tools into a wiki format for online delivery.

Porter, Alan J. Shortcovers (2009). Articles>Content Management>Wikis>White Papers