Content: What is it and Why Should You Manage It?

A unified content strategy can help your organization to avoid the Content Silo Trap, reducing the cost of creating, managing, and distributing content, and ensuring that content effectively supports your organizational and customer needs. A unified content strategy is a repeatable method of identifying all content requirements up front, creating consistently structured content for reuse, managing that content in a definitive source, and assembling content on demand to meet your customers' needs.

Kostur, Pamela. STC Chicago (2005). Articles>Content Management

The Content Wrangler

The Content Wrangler contains a variety of resources and information for technical communicators interested in single-sourcing, content management, structured authoring, XML and more. Registered users gain access to "members only" content, user profiles, and special offers from vendors, publishers and trade associations.

Abel, Scott. Content Wrangler, The (2004). Resources>Content Management>Single Sourcing>Blogs

Content-Management

Content Management (abgekürzt CM) ist die Zusammenfassung aller Tätigkeiten, Prozesse und Hilfsmittel, die den Lebenszyklus digitaler Informationen in Form von Unterlagen und Dokumenten unterstützen. Die digitalen Informationen werden oft als Content (Inhalt) bezeichnet, sie können als Dateien vorliegen, die einzeln verarbeitet werden oder auch als zusammenhängende Dateisysteme, wie z.B. Webseiten.

Wikipedia (2006). (German) Articles>Content Management

Contentology

While shared knowledge increases exponentially, our intellectual capacity remains essentially the same. Meta-knowledge (external intelligence) will be the tool of the highly specialized professionals in the future. The most educated among will say 'I don't know; but I know how to know.'

Contentology. Resources>Content Management>Single Sourcing>Blogs

Controlled Vocabulary.com

A controlled vocabulary makes a database easier to search. Since we have many different ways of describing concepts, drawing all of these terms together under a single word or phrase in a database makes searching the database more efficient as it eliminates guess work. However, arriving at this efficiency requires consistency on the part of the individual indexing the database and the use of pre-determined terms.

ControlledVocabulary.com. Resources>Content Management>Metadata>Controlled Vocabulary

Converting from Paper to Online  

This demonstration describes the process and pitfalls encountered during the conversion of paper documents to online, CD-ROM documents that occurred at Cisco Systems, Inc.

Altemus, Desiree L. STC Proceedings (1994). Articles>Content Management>Single Sourcing

CoRR: A Computing Research Repository    

This paper describes the decisions by which the Association for Computing Machinery integrated good features from the Los Alamos e-print (physics) archive and from Cornell University's Networked Computer Science Technical Reference Library to form their own open, permanent, online “computing research repository” (CoRR). Submitted papers are not refereed and anyone can browse and extract CoRR material for free, so CoRR's eventual success could revolutionize computer science publishing. But several serious challenges remain: some journals forbid online preprints, the CoRR user interface is cumbersome, submissions are only self-indexed, (no professional library staff manages the archive) and long-term funding is uncertain.

Halpern, Joseph Y. Journal of Computer Documentation (2000). Articles>Content Management>Web Design

Create XML Structure in an InCopy Document

Use XML in Adobe® InCopy 2.0, to apply tags to parts of a document, and then export the document as an XML file.

Adobe (2003). Articles>Content Management>Software>XML

Creating a Corporate Electronic Information Delivery Solution  

Tandem Computers Incorporated developed a new electronic information delivery system and changed internal publishing processes to achieve greater eficiency and customer satisfaction. We were able to move over 1,000 manuals and 11,000 pieces of support documentation along with education material from two different CD-ROM delivery products to one corporate viewer that supports publishing on both CD-ROM and the World Wide Web. The project included creating a new viewer using industry-standard components, creating new publishing tools, and establishing new corporate relationships and processes.

Fingold, Sharon. STC Proceedings (1997). Design>Content Management>Single Sourcing

Creating An Information Model

An Information Model provides the framework for organizing your content so that it can be delivered and reused in a variety of innovative ways. Once you have created an Information Model for your content repository, you will be able to label information in ways that will enhance search and retrieval, making it possible for authors and users to find the information resources they need quickly and easily.

Hackos, JoAnn T. WebRef (2002). Design>Content Management>Single Sourcing>Web Design

Creating Single Source Documents with FrameMaker  

A discussion of how to think about FrameMaker templates for single source documents.

Knopf, David A. Knopf Online (2001). Presentations>Content Management>Single Sourcing>Adobe FrameMaker

Creating Single-Sourced Information Products  

Until recently, single sourcing has been limited to the process of putting identical information into multiple information products. However, the results of a singlesourced approach need not be identical. You can customize the outputs to contain only the information that is appropriate for the specific situation. This presentation provides a high-level overview to the advantages of single sourcing and how to implement and maintain such a solution.

Stevens, Dawn M. STC Proceedings (1999). Articles>Content Management>Single Sourcing

Curing Publishing Woes with a Content Management System  

Mescan's article helps technical communication managers determine which content management solutions are best for their particular goals and problems.

Mescan, Suzanne. Intercom (2004). Articles>Content Management>Single Sourcing

Customer-Centric Content Management: Level 3 Building the Customer Relationship

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) relies on both methodologies and technologies to assist an organization with the management of all aspects of interaction a company has with its customer. Companies achieve an effective CRM strategy by centralizing information about their customers, ensuring they have access to effective support channels (e.g., self-service, call centers) and by making a concerted effort to know as much as possible about their customers. Knowledge about the customer makes it possible to closley match customer needs with targeted product plans and offerings, point customers to the right information at the right time, and help them accomplish their tasks.

Rockley Bulletin (2006). Articles>Content Management>Management>CRM

Customizing the Appearance of Your Manual, Help System, and HTML Help System  

Doc-To-Help gives Help authors complete control over the look, feel, and content of a project's printed manual, Windows Help system, HTML files, and HTML Help system. Maintaining different content is controlled using Doc-To-Help's conditional text feature, which allows authors to mark content for print-only, online-only, WinHelp-only, and so on. In this article we discuss how you control the appearance of the printed manuals and Help using Word templates, and HTML output using cascading style.

ComponentOne (1999). Articles>Content Management>Single Sourcing>Documentation

Database-Driven Navigation Bars Using Text and Images

Okay, we've all fiddled with NavBars. In fact, MM's built-in Navigation Bar Builder is pretty sweet for creating NavBars with onMouseOver and onMouseOut behaviors giving your site that professional look. But what if your site changes frequently? One option is to bag the images and stick with a database-driven NavBar that uses a repeat region. We'll look at that approach first. Then we will see how we can replace UltraDev's hardcoded NavBar image behaviors with database-driven links and images.

Princeton University. Design>Content Management>Web Design>Dreamweaver

Dealing with Images in Content Management Systems, Part 1

Most web-based content management systems offer a variety of tools to help contributors enter text. When it comes to graphics, content contributors are usually expected to provide web-ready images to the system. This means that either editorial users needs to know about image optimisation and web image formats, or additional staff are required to make web-ready images out of raw materials. This article demonstrates a technical solution to this problem.

Crane, Tom. Code Project, The (2006). Articles>Content Management>Graphic Design>ASP

Debbie Kennedy on Modular Writing and Reusability

Kennedy's presentation on modular writing and reusability was attended by about 200 people. In her presentation, Debbie explained how to chunk content by first looking at different content types: procedures, processes, facts, principles, and so forth. She also mentions a tool called Content Mapper that writers can use to chunk and reuse information through Microsoft Word.

Kennedy, Debbie. Tech Writer Voices (2007). Articles>Writing>Content Management>Podcasts

Defining 'Value-Adding Work' of In-House Information Development Groups  

Many in-house information development groups are redefining their role (or seeking to justify their existence) around the concept of 'value-adding work.' But which tasks are value-adding? Finding an answer to this question is critical for the survival of information development groups. Unfortunately, there is no easy, 'one size fits all' answer, because the response depends largely on your point of view. Thus, deciding what is and isn't value-adding may require technical communicators to do more project-by-project task, audience, and media analysis than ever before.

Collins, William L. STC Proceedings (1998). Careers>Content Management>Information Design

Definition of Information Management Terms

There is considerable confusion in the marketplace regarding the definition of various information management terms. The scope and role of specific information systems is particularly blurry, in part caused by the lack of consensus between vendors. With the aim of lessening this confusion, this briefing provides an at-a-glance definition of terms for a range of information systems.

Robertson, James. Step Two. Articles>Content Management>Single Sourcing>Glossary

Delivering Content That Makes a Difference  

Local control facilitates informed decision-making by giving users access to highly relevant and timely information.

Trippe, Bill. Gilbane Report (2004). Articles>Content Management

Demonstration of an XML-Based Content Management System Implementation  

The impact of XML and content management on the field of technical communications is no longer just a speck on the horizon. This paper presents techniques and observations from the trenches of a real-world XML-based content management system implementation that is being used to develop and publish print and online documentation at a prominent software company.

Bookless, Jody, Annette Marx and Scott Davis. STC Proceedings (2005). Articles>Content Management>XML

Designing an Information Set for Single-Sourcing  

The single source in a robust single source system is not any one of the outputs that may be created from that source. The single source is an information set from which many outputs may be created. Designing an information set is different from designing a document. Greater structure is required, and that structure must be available to the process that creates information products as output, not simply to the reader. A good information set design involves creating a data model, mapping information relationships, and defining patterns of change.

Baker, Mark. STC Proceedings (1999). Design>Content Management>Single Sourcing

Designing and Planning Modular Content Projects  

Modular writing involves writing, labeling, storing, and assembling content modules. Read about how to design and plan a modular writing project and how this writing system affects traditional roles and responsibilities within a publications team.

O'Connor, Virginia. Intercom (2006). Articles>Content Management>Workflow

Designing for Web Services

Many technology companies, consultants, and academics are hyping the future of Web services. But how will this background transfer of data between applications affect the user experience?

Lombardi, Victor. New Architect (2002). Design>Web Design>Content Management>User Experience