Screencast tutorial update

We haven't had much to report as we have been working tirelessly to meet a deadline for a series of screencasts. Tomorrow, we should have one of them ready for the client and then move to the second one. Alas, the only news I've been able to share is screencast related - Using Techsmith's Camtasia and Snagit software for this project has been an enjoyable experience. I was glad to join the screencasting group on Facebook and plan to add some podcasts/screencast when I have some time to do non-client work. We will be presenting a family video for my mother's birthday bash in Greece later next month (shh, I hope she isn't reading my blog before then) and perhaps can include some clips from that.

Will try to join back with you soon with more DITA news. To date, I have received word from a salesperson at Ixiasoft and she has reported that DITA is breaking ground with medium-sized enterprises, even with, and I quote, "documentation teams of 3-4 writers". I will be looking at the finer points of Ixiasoft's CMS (content management system) in the fall. No question that CMS is the way to go to leverage all of DITA's benefits.

DITA specialization tutorial just out

A great new tutorial that explains in detail how to specialize DITA for your company or organization can be found here. This is a useful guide for anyone wanting to learn the practicals of creating specializations for DITA.

Update: Same tutorial in real time from Central Texas DITA users group:

Good to watch if you want to learn more about creating specializations for DITA. Note that without specialization it becomes impossible to use XML on a large scale. Thanks CT DITA users group for this resource!

Lone-DITA offers useful compilation of links

I was beginning to compile a list of links and data related to DITA (Darwin Information Typing Architecture), which is a method of structuring content created by IBM. We believe DITA is useful for those who need a way to maintain consistency and reduce costs with the increased push to publish information about different products in multiple formats and languages. Specifically, we find DITA has the potential to improve the quality and cost-effectiveness of information due in large part to its ability to:

• Publish content in multiple formats from a single source
• Create reusable content
• Create versions for multiple audiences, platforms and products
• Separate content from formatting
• Improve consistency by making changes in one place and the change propagates everywhere
  

Today I discovered the site Lone-DITA. This site is extremely helpful in that it provides a DITA tutorial, which explains DITA and also allows you to see how it functions. The site contains a plethora of useful links to information that will help anyone learn about this methodology and determine whether it is right for their needs. I was randomly collecting links related to DITA, XML and other related technologies but will hold off, seeing that this has already been taken care of by Lone-DITA.

I plan to use Lone-DITA as a resource and am adding it to the right hand side of links for anyone else who would like to delve in and explore. This has saved me time in trying to do this myself and I would like to thank the author of this site and wish her much success. Cheers.

W3 working document on best practices for XML internationalization

A working draft by W3 consortium came out a few days ago on best practices for XML internationalization. This is an important piece of work and something our company will strive to implement.

I have linked to it on my wiki and will be pouring over it in the coming days/weeks. This is key information for me to apply for any of my clients producing or seeking to produce global content. Note the coverage on ITS (internationalization tag set) and DITA in the document. Enjoy.

Update on DITA and Plone progress

I think it will be useful to record my progress in learning DITA over the coming weeks and months, albeit it may be boring for those readers not interested in structured authoring and topic-based writing. The DITA info center is added to the right hand side list of links as it is accelerating the learning process.

Today covered more of DITA and worked on a project at the DITA users group. Also investigated eLearning solutions for a client that is trying to bring their executive team up to speed on recent technology adopted by the company.

Also, the plone site is coming along. We have looked at a few skins and replaced the logo with our own. It does seem like it will be a time-consuming and labour-intensive process though. While there are numerous tutorials and ample reading material about plone, it is quite difficult to find exactly what you need for a specific problem. Perhaps I could help out with the documentation team, if I had more time. I think screencasts are the future in technical communications, especially in an instance like learning plone. Some good plone screencast tutorials are here, here and here. The tutorials are good, but a little basic for my needs. I'd love to see the same kind of thing, but for more advanced topics - must put this on my list of things to do for when I have some time.

DITA users group

I joined the DITA users group a while ago, but have only recently been able to jump in and explore. The group boasted its 200th member yesterday, which is great news. What I like most about this group is the ability to author content online, have a personal workspace where files are stored and collaborate with other users about DITA. It is difficult to contain my excitement about this service, as it meets the needs of the growing population of people who want to learn and master structured authoring. It also provides the benefit of being able to work remotely in a large documentation team, which appeals especially to consultants like myself who work independently most of the time.

Therefore, I'm proud to make a permanent home for a link to the DITA users group in the right column of this blog. Currently, I am using XMLMind for a DITA project, and I will do some work on the DITA users group also. The benefit of the DITA users group is I have a place to ask questions as well as give and receive feedback on DITA (wow). The goal is to speed and enhance the learning curve.

Also, Information Mapping Inc. offered a webinar on Content Mapper for DITA yesterday -- a new product that allows DITA content to be created in Microsoft Word. It looks very user-friendly as the author does not have to see or deal with DITA tags. However, it would be impossible to advance very far with this software without fully understanding topic-based, structured authoring. It might definitely meet some documentation needs for a few of my clients, so I will keep it in mind when proposing content delivery solutions.

ROI and reusable content

A great deal of focus in my business is spent proving the value reusable, topic-based information will have on a company's bottom line. The emerging changes in online marketing, the current need to appear ubiquitous in the market, and the challenge of simultaneously shipping products to numerous locations (with accompanying documentation) can seem insurmountable.

Fortunately, current advancements in information technology are making content delivery and management affordable for all types of businesses. Ranging from free (open source) to very cost-efficient, the combination of these technologies with 'chunkable' data allow companies to quickly produce and maintain accurate information in their desired output.

Consider the enormous changes TV, radio, newspapers, magazines, and advertising have recently experienced with money moving from traditional forms of media to the Web. These marketing channels have always been scrupulously measured to determine their ROI, yet now industry is struggling to determine the performance of web marketing. There are companies who offer tools (Google analytics, Webanlaytics Demystified, Webtrends, etc.) to measure the performance of video, webpages, banner ads, rss feeds and the like, but this is not yet a practice that is clearly understood by most companies. For example, there are not many companies who are able to test the number of pauses, stops or replays on video output and measure that with the number of customers who actually buy a product. RSS feeds and the amount of people who sign up is another performance indicator that needs to be measured. Can you tell how many pdf downloads from your website actually translate into a sale? There are numerous web analytic models to explore. It is inevitable that cross-channel data needs to be measured, but few are there yet.

Delivering information about your product or service in multiple channels is a crucial step to determine the way your customers prefer receiving information about you. How easy is it to manage current and new data at the company? Can changes to content be made to a single source and then delivered across different channels such as websites, pdf output, training guides, and e-Learning scripts? Our goal at knowledgework is to provide information about your product or service that can be rapidly transmitted in your desired output.