#35421
Authoring in an Agile Environment 
It's a simple fact of life. Developing products in today's world requires shorter cycles, sensitivity to customer needs, and a focus on deliverables that breaks the old waterfall development paradigm. More and more there is a need for teams to focus on the entire development process and deliver precisely what customers need with little or no fluff. As products move towards the user-centric model of product development the push is for more intuitive interfaces with little need for documentation -- or does it really?
Vazquez, Julio J. SDI Global Solutions (2009). Articles>Documentation>Collaboration>Agile
#35431
Concept, Task, Reference: A Practical Guide to Choosing the Right Topic Type
This presentation is for beginning to intermediate users of DITA. It's based on my experience with projects on which I'm project manager, information architect, and writer.
Kunz, Lawrence D. SDI Global Solutions (2009). Presentations>Information Design>XML>DITA
#35432
How DITA Changed the Tech Comm Landscape
Before DITA, we told readers how things worked. After DITA, we tell users how to use things. Before, we wrote information linearly. After, we write individual units as needed.
SDI Global Solutions (2009). Presentations>TC>XML>DITA
#35433
DITA is useful for helping writers create small units of organized information that can be used in multiple contexts. Of course, the reader's problem then becomes locating the information they want in a quick, reasonable timeframe. Although DITA provides enough metadata to simplify searching, or even to present information the reader needs based on a profile, there are some media that cannot make use of those facilities. To bridge that gap, you can use the tried and true index.
Vazquez, Julio J. SDI Global Solutions (2009). Articles>Information Design>Indexing>DITA
#35434
Managing Documentation Projects: Keeping the Plates Spinning
A product is only as good as its information. With good information, customers can use the product--be it a piece of software, a hand-held electronic device, or a supersonic aircraft--and are more likely to hold a good opinion of its manufacturer. Without good information, no matter how good the product is, customers will be frustrated and will probably look elsewhere. It's not a stretch to say that the documentation project manager is instrumental in determining whether a product succeeds.
Kunz, Lawrence D. SDI Global Solutions (2009). Articles>Documentation>Project Management
#35435
What does structured authoring mean to you? Structured authoring is a publishing workflow that lets you define and enforce consistent organization of information in documents, whether printed or online. What it means to me: defining a goal and assembling architected topics to help the reader achieve that goal.
Vazquez, Julio J. SDI Global Solutions (2009). Presentations>Documentation>Information Design>DITA
#36121
Technical Communication Trends in the 2010s
The years 2000 to 2009 have seen big, fundamental changes in our technical communication profession. Content is increasingly being designed for single-sourcing and reuse. Audiences look for information in other places besides the user manual and the company website. Practitioners struggle to demonstrate their value as the job market tightens. The next ten years figure to be just as eventful. Here are a few trends that I see in technical communication in the 2010s.
Kunz, Lawrence D. SDI Global Solutions (2010). Articles>TC>Planning
#37642
What Content Strategy Is and Isn't
Some of us have been making content strategy into more than it really is. We've painted it as something that encompasses everything remotely connected with content, including output channels. Rahel is right to pull us back and to draw a boundary around what content strategy really is.
Kunz, Lawrence D. SDI Global Solutions (2010). Articles>Content Management>Content Strategy
