In this webcast recording, guest presenter Peter Lubbers gives a fast-paced overview of HTML5 with a focus on how it affects the tech comm field. He covers what exactly HTML5 is, why you should care, and how you can develop with HTML5. The session covers which browsers support which features, and how you can make the new features work in older browsers so you can start using HTML5 today.
Archive for the ‘Webinars’ Category
Webcast: HTML5 and its impact on technical communication
February 16th, 2012 by ScriptoriumTech
Webcast: The Changing Role of the Professional Technical Communicator: What’s Next?
February 15th, 2012 by Sarah O'Keefe
In this webcast recording, Scott Abel, The Content Wrangler, and Val Swisher, CEO of Content Rules, host a lively discussion with technical communication industry professionals Jack Molisani and Sarah O’Keefe. The four discuss the impact of globalization, outsourcing, off-shoring, technological advances, and mobile devices on the technical communication landscape.
Webcast: Trends in technical communication, 2012
February 1st, 2012 by Sarah O'Keefe
In this webcast recording, Sarah O’Keefe and guest presenter Char James-Tanny discuss tech comm trends for the upcoming year and beyond. Topics include use of the cloud, help authoring tool innovation, business value, adoption of standards, shift to mobile, and more.
(more…)
Webcast: Content strategy in technical communication
January 20th, 2012 by Sarah O'Keefe
In this webcast recording, Sarah O’Keefe explores how to develop a content strategy specifically for technical content. That means stepping back from the temptation to focus on tools and instead taking a hard look at what the users need and how best to deliver it.
(more…)
Webcast: The economics of information
November 3rd, 2011 by Sarah O'Keefe
In this webcast recording, Sarah O’Keefe discusses how the cost of developing content affects what is actually created. She leads with a discussion of Gutenberg and how we went from gorgeous, unaffordable, artistic books that took years to produce to more plebeian but affordable books. Then she considers today’s situation, with particular attention to the possibilities of video, information apps, and a look at what has NOT changed. (more…)
Webcast: Content strategy for software development (with Ray Gallon)
September 29th, 2011 by ScriptoriumTech
Content strategy is usually thought of in the context of web development. But today’s software is increasingly information-rich. Software is a content vector, and we need to manage the life cycle of that content. This webcast from guest speaker Ray Gallon adapts content life cycle management principles, taken from web-oriented content strategy, to software development cycles. Some examples from real experiences illustrate this adaptation. (more…)
Webcast: Localization and the DITA Open Toolkit
September 14th, 2011 by Simon Bate
Out of the box, the DITA Open Toolkit (OT) looks like it’s localization-ready. It handles the XML attribute xml:lang. It contains strings for more than 50 localizations. So it would seem that all you have to do is specify the language in your DITA files and maps and you’re good to go…or are you? In this webcast, I’ll discuss some of the issues Scriptorium has encountered while generating localized output from the DITA Open Toolkit—and how we solved them. (more…)
Webcast: DITA OT essentials
July 27th, 2011 by Simon Bate
In this webcast, Simon Bate provides a “gentle introduction” to the DITA Open Toolkit (OT), the standard way to generate deliverables from DITA documents. This presentation shows how anyone can install the OT. A tour of the contents and how the plugin architecture works is included. (more…)
Webcast: Crafting Clarity in a Climate of Chaos
April 27th, 2011 by ScriptoriumTech
Scriptorium hosts Tristan Bishop of Symantec as he discusses what technical writers need to do to keep up with transforming communication methods and rapid advances in global, mobile, and social dialog.
(more…)
Webcast: DITA Best Practices
March 11th, 2011 by ScriptoriumTech
In this webcast hosted by Scriptorium, author Tony Self discusses his new book, The DITA Style Guide, and how it fits into a DITA workflow.
(more…)
Webcast: Discussion forum: STC vice president candidates
March 2nd, 2011 by ScriptoriumTech
Alan Houser and Vici Koster-Lenhardt are running for the office of Vice President of the Society for Technical Communication. If you missed the live webcast, watch this recording to get to know the candidates. (more…)
Discussion forum: STC vice president candidates
February 17th, 2011 by Sarah O'Keefe
Alan Houser and Vici Koster-Lenhardt are running for the office of Vice President of the Society for Technical Communication.
Webcast: Attractive DITA: it is possible!
February 8th, 2011 by Sarah O'Keefe
In this webcast, Sarah O’Keefe discusses the challenges of getting attractive output from DITA and demonstrates Scriptorium’s approach to web-based help and PDF. (more…)
Webcast: Calculating the ROI for XML and DITA topic-based authoring
January 10th, 2011 by Sarah O'Keefe
In this webcast, Sarah O’Keefe discusses how to calculate the return on investment of an XML/DITA implementation for technical content.
If you are considering XML and DITA, but are trying to figure out whether you can justify the cost and effort, this session is for you. (more…)
Webcast: Content strategy analysis for technical communication
November 10th, 2010 by Sarah O'Keefe
In this webcast, Sarah O’Keefe of Scriptorium offers an overview of content strategy analysis with an eye toward the implications and business case for your organization.
(more…)
Webcast: Extracting deliverables from DITA
August 18th, 2010 by Sarah O'Keefe
In this webcast, Sarah O’Keefe of Scriptorium surveys DITA’s publishing options and weighs their practical implications.
Webcast: Knowledge integration: The future of technical communication
July 16th, 2010 by ScriptoriumTech
Scriptorium hosts Tristan Bishop of Symantec as he muses on technical communicators’ evolving roles.
Is tech comm management different in an XML environment?
June 16th, 2010 by Sarah O'Keefe
I think so. Read the white paper and see if you agree.
Or, if you prefer, you can watch the webcast version:
Managing technical communicators in an XML environment
View more presentations from Scriptorium Publishing.
Executive summary: When you transition a department or workgroup to XML-based authoring, you will need to change how you manage that department, particularly in the areas of accountability, transparency, metrics, skill sets, and collaboration.
I look forward to your comments.
PS Upon reviewing the audio, I noticed that, um, I say “um” a lot. You’ll be happy to know that I edited the audio to remove the worst of it.
Trends in technical communication webcast
May 26th, 2010 by Sarah O'Keefe
After some “interesting” technical challenges, the recording of our Trends in technical communication webcast is now available on Slideshare:
Trends in technical communication for 2010
View more webcasts from Scriptorium Publishing.
Note that I synched up the audio to the slides, but it does not appear to be synching correctly, so there’s a possibility you might need to advance the slides yourself.
Rise of the machines (news from the STC Summit, #stc10)
May 6th, 2010 by Sarah O'Keefe
First, a disclaimer. Between time spent at our trade show booth, my own presentations, and important social events, I managed to attend exactly ONE session where I wasn’t presenting. That was Erin McKean‘s keynote, which was fantastic. Her STC session isn’t available online (yet), but here is a TED talk she did on redefining the dictionary:
All twitter, all the time
The conference hashtag, #stc10, was busy and I mean BUSY. There were tweets with soundbites, social event announcements, comments, discussion, and some really important stuff from Bill Swallow, aka @techcommdood:
Who’s got room at their lunch tables??? #stc10
Bill Swallow
techcommdood
I think that problem got solved by analog means, but nonetheless.
My sessions
There were only a couple of tweets out of my managing XML session. Not sure whether this is because everyone was asleep or I had the non-tweeting audience. I suppose I will find out when I see my official evaluations.
Meanwhile, I will be repeating that session as a webcast on June 15, 1–2 p.m. The event is free, but registration is required. (There’s also a session on Trends in Technical Communication later this month if you’re interested.)
Looking for conference feedback
If you attended the conference, please remember to fill out session evaluations. I was the track manager for Design, Architecture, and Publishing this year (and perhaps for 2011 as well), so I am especially interested in those results.
Are there speakers that you particularly want to see (or not) next year? I can’t speak for all of the conference organizers, but I paid close attention to any available speaker ratings from prior years in evaluating new proposals.
Also, if you have other feedback on the conference, please leave a comment or send me email (or a tweet if it fits!) and I will ensure that the 2011 conference team gets the information.
Certification
I think I might have buried the lede in this post. After decades of debate (not an exaggeration), STC has approved a certification program. Certification will be portfolio-based rather than exam-based.
Finally, the Carolina chapter scored big-time at the event. Congratulations to Michelle Corbin and Ann-Marie Grissino, who were named Fellows. And Larry Kunz (who is already a Fellow) received the President’s Award for his strategic planning work in the past year.
Preview of coming a-QUACK-ions
April 28th, 2010 by Sarah O'Keefe
My presentation for the STC Summit in Dallas is finally done. The session, “Managing in an XML environment,” is scheduled for Tuesday, May 4, at 4 p.m. Central time.
I hope to see you in Dallas, but if you can’t make the conference in person, I will also do a webcast version of this presentation on June 15 at 1 p.m. Eastern time. That event is free but does require registration.
I’m sure you’re wondering about the duck. In my presentation, I will be introducing a formula for measuring documentation quality. It’s based on Quality, Usability, and some other factors that spell out, you guessed it, QUACK.
And if that’s not enough to bring you to the session, I also have several other animals in my slides. Consider yourself warned.
Behold, the power of free
January 11th, 2010 by Sarah O'Keefe
Lately, our webcasts are getting great participation. The December event had 100 people in attendance (the registered number was even higher), and the numbers for the next few months are strong, as well. Previous webcasts had attendance of A Lot Less than 100. What changed? The webcasts are now free. (Missing an event? Check our archives.)
We’re going in a similar direction with white papers. We charge for some content, but we also offer a ton of free information.
The idea is that free (and high-quality) information raises our profile and therefore later brings in new projects. I’m not so sure, though, that we have any evidence that supports this theory yet.
So, I thought I’d ask my readers. Do you evaluate potential vendors based on offerings such as webcasts and white papers? Are there other, more important factors?
PS Upcoming events, including several DITA webcasts, are listed on our events page.
2010: A DITA Odyssey
December 10th, 2009 by Alan Pringle
When you’re considering tools for authoring DITA content and creating output, there are many choices to evaluate. To make your journey toward DITA implementation easier, Scriptorium is offering free webinars in early 2010 to show you how three tools handle DITA-based information.
Odysseus in front of Scylla and Charybdis by Johann Heinrich Füssli (Wikipedia)
On January 19, Sarah O’Keefe will show you how MadCap Flare supports DITA constructs, and on February 16, Simon Bate will demonstrate the DITA features in the oXygen XML editor. On March 16, Scott Prentice of Leximation will demonstrate how the DITA-FMx plugin works with FrameMaker 9.
As an added bonus, attendees can win a free license of the tool shown during each demo! For more information about these sessions and to register, visit our events page.
If there are other topics you’d like to see covered in later free webcasts, please send suggestions to training@scriptorium.com.
Coping with webcast participation
December 9th, 2009 by Sarah O'Keefe
Many thanks to all of the people who attended yesterday’s webcast on coping with user-generated content.
We recorded the webcast, and it is now available:
In a nod to the topic itself—and in an effort to make the event more interesting, I solicited quite a bit of audience participation. As a result, I owe the webcast participants a significant number of links and other resources.
Question: What blogs do you read?
Answer: Lots.
Better answer: Here is a link to my Google Reader subscriptions in the Publishing category. Many thanks to the attendee who recommended sharing them this way. (If you’d like full credit by name, send me email or put a note in the comments; I don’t want to do that without permission.) I’ve also listed the blogs at the bottom of this post.
In addition to the publishing blogs, I specifically mentioned Punk Rock HR, Dooce, and Mark Logic CEO blog. (Don’t read the first two if you are offended by a word that starts with F.)
Question: Are there any guides to legal issues in social media, such as libel?
Answer: I found a few interesting resources, but not a definitive guide.
Libel and Social Media (blog post)
IBM Social Computing Guidelines (these have been in the news as a template for a well-crafted policy)
The revolution will not be authorized
November 23rd, 2009 by Sarah O'Keefe
In the past few days, STC has been sending out acceptance notices for presentations at next May’s STC Summit. There’s been a small flurry of announcements, mostly on Twitter. (I live in North Carolina where two flakes are a flurry. 10 flakes are a school-closing, bread-and-milk-buying emergency.)
For instance, we have this on Friday, November 20:
Tweets related to STC acceptances
Side note: I’ll be presenting on managing in an XML environment.
In the pre-Twitter Era, acceptances were sent by mail, and then conference organizers could post the full program more or less at their convenience. But now, the leaks start almost immediately.
This may not be a bad thing. The happy tweets raise awareness of the event. For an organizer, however, it means that notifications need to be carefully synchronized or perhaps staggered on a formal schedule (SxSW does this quite well; they announce program decisions in batches).
It seems like another case where unofficial community content is eroding the ability of the content owner to control the messaging. Coincidentally (!), that’s the topic of a webcast I’m doing on December 8.
Strategies for coping with user-generated content
Tuesday, December 8, 11 a.m. Eastern time
We are offering this webcast for free; you just need to register.
This is a new presentation that I first delivered at LavaCon in New Orleans this year.
Free the webcast!
October 28th, 2009 by Sarah O'Keefe
In addition to our November event on localization, we are adding another webcast in December. I’ll be presenting Strategies for coping with user-generated content on December 8 at 11 a.m. Eastern time via GoToWebinar. This event is free but registration is required.
Here’s the description:
The rise of Web 2.0 technology provides a platform for user-generated content. Publishing is no longer restricted to a few technical writers—any user can now contribute information. But the information coming from users tends to be highly specific.
The two types of information can coexist and improve the overall user experience. User-generated content also offers an opportunity for technical writers to participate as “curators”—by evaluating and organizing the information provided by end users.
Remember, there’s no charge to attend, but you do need to register.
Date: December 8, 2009
Time: 11 a.m. Eastern
Topic: Strategies for coping with user-generated content
Registration: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/583647346
PS Depending on the response to this event, we are going to consider additional free events.
Coming attractions for October and November
October 7th, 2009 by Sarah O'Keefe
October 22nd, join Simon Bate for a session on delivering multiple versions of a help set without making multiple copies of the help:
We needed to generate a help set from DITA sources that applied to multiple products. However, serious space constraints prevent us from using standard DITA conditional processing to create multiple, product-specific versions of the help; there was only room for one copy of the help. Our solution was to create a single help set in which select content would be displayed when the help was opened.In this webcast, we’ll show you how we used the DITA Open Toolkit to create a help set with dynamic text display. The webcast introduces some minor DITA Open Toolkit modifications and several client-side JavaScript techniques that you can use to implement dynamic text display in HTML files. Minimal programming skills necessary.
Register for dynamic text display webcast
I will be visiting New Orleans for LavaCon. This event, organized by Jack Molisani, is always a highlight of the conference year. I will be offering sessions on XML and on user-generated content. You can see the complete program here. In addition to my sessions, I will be bringing along a limited number of copies of our newest publication, The Compass. Find me at the event to get your free copy while supplies last. (Otherwise, you can order online Real Soon Now for $15.95.)
Register for LavaCon (note, early registration has been extended until October 12)
And last but certainly not least, we have our much-anticipated session on translation workflows. Nick Rosenthal, Managing Director, Salford Translations Ltd., will deliver a webcast on cost-effective document design for a translation workflow on November 19 at 11 a.m . Eastern time:
In this webcast, Nick Rosenthal discusses the challenges companies face when translating their content and offers some best practices to managing your localization budget effectively, including XML-based workflows and ways to integrate localized screen shots into translated user guides or help systems.
Register for the translation workflow webcast
As always, webcasts are $20. LavaCon is just a bit more. Hope to see you at all of these events.
Converting MS Word to DITA
August 31st, 2009 by Simon Bate
This is a short reminder that it’s not too late to sign up for our webinar on converting documents from Microsoft Word to DITA. This webinar is the second in our series of webinars co-presented with JustSystems on “Things to Consider When Moving to DITA.”
To sign up, follow this link to the registration page.
If you missed last week’s webinar on converting unstructured FrameMaker documents to DITA, you can view a recording by visiting the JustSystems webinars page (at http://na.justsystems.com/webinars.php), then scroll down to the “Archived Webinars” section.
Hope to “see” you tomorrow!
New Webinar Series: Things to consider when moving to DITA
August 12th, 2009 by Simon Bate
Scriptorium and JustSystems are announcing a three-webinar series on preparing to use DITA.
The first two webinars in the series describe the age-old problem of converting legacy content into DITA. Because a great deal of unstructured content is in either Adobe FrameMaker and Microsoft Word, we’re dedicating one webinar to converting Unstructured FrameMaker to DITA and the other to converting Microsoft Word to DITA.
The third webinar describes various re-use strategies you can apply to your DITA content.
The dates and times for the conversion webinars are:
- Converting Unstructured FrameMaker to DITA – August 25, 2:00pm Eastern time.
- Converting Microsoft Word to DITA – September 1, 2:00pm Eastern time.
The date and time for the third webinar (DITA reuse strategies) will be announced toward the end of August.
All of the webinars in the series are free, but you do have to register before attending. To sign up, follow this link to the JustSystems web site:
http://na.justsystems.com/webinars.php
Register now!
Learn DITA and XML at your desk
August 10th, 2009 by Sarah O'Keefe
For August and September, our webinar schedule is as follows:
DITA 101, August 18 at 11 a.m. Eastern time
Participants will learn about basic Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) concepts, the business case for implementing DITA, and some typical uses of DITA. This webinar is ideal for those who are considering a move to structured authoring based on the DITA standard. Register
Demystifying DITA to PDF Publishing, September 10 at 11 a.m. Eastern time
When a company implements a DITA-based workflow, the most difficult technical obstacle is often setting up a PDF/print publishing workflow. This session discusses the advantages and disadvantages of using the DITA Open Toolkit, FrameMaker, InDesign, and other options to create PDF output from DITA content. Basic familiarity with DITA, Extensible Markup Language (XML), and related technologies is helpful but not required. Register
What Do Movable Type and XML Have in Common?, September 22 at 11 a.m. Eastern time
The invention of movable type changed the economics of information by making the process of copying a book by hand obsolete. More than 500 years later, XML seems to be doing the same to desktop publishing. But where movable type changed the economics of a mechanical process—creating printed
copies—XML changes the economics of content authoring, formatting, and customization. This webinar takes a look at how publishing technologies revolutionize the way people consume information and how those technologies affect authors. Register
Each webinar is $20.
During the sessions, you can interact with the presenter and other students through the chat interface or the audio connection. There is a question-and-answer session at the end of each webinar. The Q&A is not included in session recordings, which are available for download later. Participants in the sessions receive a free recording.
To register for these webcasts, or to purchase recordings of past webinars, go to our online store.
Summer webinar theme: Avoiding extinction
July 6th, 2009 by Sarah O'Keefe
Ellis Pratt of Cherryleaf is delivering Beyond Documentation this Thursday, July 9th, at 11 a.m. Eastern (US) time. Ellis gave a similar presentation in Vienna, which was the basis for Tom Johnson’s post, How to Avoid Extinction as a Technical Communicator, and led to a lively discussion in the comments. Join us to see if you agree with Ellis’s point of view.
In the category of “what’s old is new again,” we have Writing to STOP from Tony Self of HyperWrite in Australia.
STOP – Sequential Thematic Organisation of Publications – was developed at Hughes Corporation in the 1960s. The purpose of STOP was to improve the speed of document production, and to allow multiple authors to work simultaneously on the same document. [...]
The STOP approach still resonates in the age of online documentation, as we still have the same needs to reduce document creation times and to work collaboratively. In this session, we will look at how the STOP approach worked, and how it might be re-applied even more effectively in the 21st century.
That presentation is July 15 at 5 p.m. Eastern time. (Note the time change. Our usual 11 a.m. time slot is 1 a.m. in Melbourne, Australia. That seemed impolite to our presenter.)
Finally, Jack Molisani of Prospring and Lavacon is delivering How to Build a Business Case on August 4 at 11 a.m. Eastern time.
If you’ve ever submitted a purchase request that was not approved, chances are it lacked one or more of the vital components management looks for when allocating resources.
In this segment, Jack Molisani will present a fun and practical session identifying the components of a successful business case, how to identify what is important to management, how to maximize your chances of approval, and more.
Jack usually rewards questions with chocolate, and I’m going to be impressed if he manages that in a webinar.
Don’t miss your chance to hear from these guys. You can register through our store; recordings of previous webcasts are now available as well.
PS Our presenters are based in England, California, and Australia. Registrants could be anywhere. The sessions are yours for $20. I love the Internet.
Webinar mania!
June 9th, 2009 by Sarah O'Keefe
I have several webinar-related updates to share:
Next week, the State of Structure
You probably know that Scriptorium conducted an industry survey on structured authoring earlier this year. The report, The State of Structure in Technical Communication, is available in our online store for $200.
There is a cheaper option to get the highlights. On Tuesday, June 16, at 1 p.m. Eastern time, I’ll be delivering a one-hour webinar that highlights the most important findings.
Coming in July and August
Expect to see additional webinars in cooperation with our TechComm Alliance partners, Cherryleaf and HyperWrite. We are also welcoming Jack Molisani of ProSpring, who will offer excellent and candid career development advice. Watch this space for details about these upcoming events. Scriptorium consultants will also be offering additional content.
Recorded events
Two of our recent webinars are now available for download:
- Hacking the DITA Open Toolkit
- Documentation as Conversation
Each webinar lasts about one hour and is $20, either live or recorded. You can register for the Tuesday webcast and download recordings in our online store.
(Warning: The recorded webcast files are quite large.)
Webcast: Structured authoring survey results
May 27th, 2009 by Sarah O'Keefe
June 16, 11 a.m. 1 p.m. Eastern time
I will be reprising my STC conference presentation, “The State of Structure in Technical Communication.” This webcast will discuss some of the results from our industry survey on structured authoring.
If you can’t wait that long, the report itself is available in our store.
Register for the webcast
Documentation as conversation webinar
May 22nd, 2009 by Sarah O'Keefe
We have added Documentation as Conversation, presented by Anne Gentle, to our upcoming webinars. Anne is scheduled to present on June 9 at 11 a.m. Eastern time:
Even if your documentation system does not converse with your users, your documentation can help customers talk to each other and make the connections that help them do their jobs well or learn something new as if they were in a classroom with a community for classmates. This talk describes how you can think about documentation and user assistance in a conversational way, with the help of social media technology. I’ll discuss the topics in my new book, Conversation and Community: The Social Web for Documentation. I’ll describe the use of in-person Book Sprints that combine wikis and community events to gather together writers to accomplish documentation goals
Anne is an expert, perhaps the expert, on using wikis and other social media to extend traditional documentation efforts. She’s also an excellent speaker, so I hope you’ll join us for this session.
Register for Documentation as Conversation ($20)
PS We are working on additional topics and looking for more speakers. Do you have topics you would like us to cover? Please let us know. We are working on a couple of sessions on document conversion.
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DITA webinar now available…
February 10th, 2009 by Sarah O'Keefe
If you missed the DITA 101 webinar that I did last week, MadCap Software has made a recording available. This includes audio and the slides. I think you have to register to access the content.
If you just want the slides, they are embedded below via Slideshare.
Essential tools of an XML workflow in the publishing industry
February 2nd, 2009 by ScriptoriumTech
by Sheila Loring
Communications from DMN provided a link to a webcast on Essential Tools of an XML Workflow. The webcast focuses on the book publishing industry. It’s interesting to hear that some publishing houses still allow authors and editors to use Microsoft Word. These folks are often viewed as incapable of learning an XML authoring tool. Many times the Word content is sent to an indexer for tagging.
The companies I’ve worked with don’t give their employees the choice of publishing tools, but if you’re Stephen King, you probably won’t be forced to use an XML tool.
Technical writers, if you know how to work with XML, your skills are portable to publishing houses. Don’t overlook this in a job search.
http://toc.oreilly.com/2009/01/webcast-video-essential-tools.html
Beat the post-holiday blahs
December 3rd, 2008 by Sarah O'Keefe
It’s never too early to start thinking about fun things to do in February.
On Thursday, February 5, 2009, at 9 a.m. Pacific Time (noon Eastern time/5 p.m. London time/etc.), I’ll be offering a webinar in conjunction with Madcap Software. Not sure this qualifies as “fun,” but it’s better than complaining about the weather, which is our major activity here in late winter.
DITA 101: Why the Buzz? DITA, the Darwin Information Typing Architecture, is the new buzzword in technical communication. But why? In this webinar, you’ll learn about DITA concepts, business case, and typical scenarios where DITA is used.
You can then evaluate for yourself whether DITA makes sense for your content. Best of all, the webinar is free, which is the right price in this economic climate.
If you are not at all familiar with DITA and want some introductory information, join me for this session.
The webinar is free, but registration is required here.
Learning the DITA Open Toolkit
September 4th, 2008 by Sarah O'Keefe
(Scriptorium Publishing is a JustSystems Services Partner.)
Simon Bate’s webinar, An Overview of the DITA Open Toolkit, is now available. This event was jointly sponsored by Scriptorium Publishing and JustSystems. The recorded version is available here (registration required).
During the presentation, we did some audience polling.
Are you currently…? (choose one)
- 31%, Using XML
- 32%, Transitioning to XML
- 16%, Planning to transition
- 17%, Considering a transition
- 3%, Not considering it at all
If you answered “using XML” above, what content model do you use? (choose one)
- 59%, DITA
- 0%, DocBook
- 1%, Other publicly available
- 10%, Developed in-house
- 3%, Not considering it at all
Probably not too surprising that DocBook scored 0% in a DITA-specific presentation.
I liked the last poll:
What formats do you currently or plan to publish to?
- 50%, print
- 92%, PDF for download
- 49%, web site
- 79%, online help
- 18%, other
92% are delivering PDF. We very frequently have people tell us that they “don’t need print,” but it nearly always turns out that they do need PDF. We operate on the general assumption that all of our customers are going to need PDF at some point, even if they don’t think so, and I’m happy to see at least one data point that supports this line of thinking.
The problem, from our customers’ point of view, is that producing nice PDF from DITA content is really quite challenging. (From our point of view as consultants, this is not necessarily a bad thing.) What makes PDF so challenging? Basically, you are reverse engineering your layout engine (think FrameMaker or InDesign) in the XSL-FO programming language.
Simon’s presentation provides an excellent introduction to the Open Toolkit, which many find quite intimidating. This was apparent from some of the questions and comments that Simon got:
Is there a GUI for OT that could be used by documentation production staff rather than command line?
I haven’t typed a command into DOS in twenty years.
What’s the difficulty level of using OT to get HTML output that is more professional-looking, like a WebWorks HTML generation?
Can you please define the purpose of ANT files?
It’s worth noting that running the Open Toolkit is vastly less difficult than configuring the Open Toolkit. The person doing the configuration work will need to understand Ant, type DOS commands (!), and rework the default transformation templates to produce the desired output. The person generating output with the configured OT will need to type in one command or just double-click a batch file to start processing.
Many of our customers have turned to us for the Scary Configuration Bits. If you’re looking for help, keep us in mind.
This session was the second in a series of three webinars we are doing jointly with JustSystems. The last session, on September 23, will provide more details on customizing the DITA Open Toolkit. The webinar is free, but advance registration is required here. Hope to see you there.
Surprise! It’s about quality.
August 19th, 2008 by Sarah O'Keefe
(Scriptorium Publishing is a JustSystems Services Partner.)
On Monday, August 18, I delivered a webinar on making the transition from desktop publishing to structured authoring. This event was jointly sponsored by Scriptorium Publishing and JustSystems. The recorded version is available here (registration required).
During the presentation, we did some audience polling. And here, there were some surprises for me. We asked:
How are you authoring content today? (choose any)
- 31%, Word
- 14%, HTML authoring tool (i.e. Dreamweaver)
- 69%, Desktop publishing tool (i.e. unstructured FrameMaker, PageMaker, InDesign)
- 20%, Help authoring tool (i.e. RoboHelp, Flare, AuthorIT)
- 37%, XML authoring tool (i.e. XMetaL or structured FrameMaker)
Nothing too shocking here, although I was a little surprised to see such a high number for XML authoring in a session on how to transition to structure.
In poll 2, things got very interesting:
What is the level of authoring at your organization? (choose one)
9%, #1. Chaos. No consistency
4%, #2. Documents match on paper
16%, #2.5 We have a template and sometimes follow it.
60%, #3. Template-based authoring. Repeatable process for creating consistently formatted documents
10%, #4. Structured authoring. Programmatic enforcement of required organization
When I ask this question a roomful of people, it’s rare to get an admission of level 1. I’ve never seen anything like 10 percent of a live audience choose number 1. Perhaps the relative anonymity of a webinar is a contributor?
We asked some questions about skillsets with nothing of particular interest to report. Finally, we inquired about the business driver for structure implementation:
What is your critical business driver behind looking to improve how you manage content?
(choose one main driver)
10%, Speed up time-to-market
30%, Improve satisfaction with customer-facing documentation
3%, Comply with regulatory requirements
12%, Reduce localization cost
27%, Improve staff productivity
13%, Reduce production cost
4%, Other
The surprise here was that, at least in this group, the most single common response was a quality answer (“improve satisfaction”) rather than a cost-reduction answer.
My session was the first in a series of three webinars we are doing jointly with JustSystems. The next two sessions will focus on the DITA Open Toolkit. Simon Bate, Senior Technical Consultant with Scriptorium, will deliver an overview of the Open Toolkit on August 26 and a session on troubleshooting and customizing the Open Toolkit on September 23. The webinars are free, but advance registration is required here. Hope to see you there.
Time for structured FrameMaker? TrackAccess this Friday
May 31st, 2006 by Sarah O'Keefe
Our next TrackAccess presentation is Friday at 11 a.m. Eastern time.
I’ll be discussing the pros and cons of moving to structured FrameMaker.
Hope to see you there. TrackAccess sessions are 60 to 90 minutes, and are intended for those of you who cannot attend conferences in person. Instead, for $19.95, you get a live presentation over the web. Audio is over the Internet — the quality isn’t perfect, but the price is right!
Conference at your desk?
January 5th, 2006 by Sarah O'Keefe
Conference attendance is expensive and time-consuming. There’s the cost of the conference itself, the travel expenses, and the time away from work, just for starters. These costs are especially high if you live outside the United States and want to attend one of the big conferences, such as STC or WritersUA.
With this in mind, we are introducing TrackAccess–your ticket to conference presentations. Over the next year, we will offer a TrackAccess session approximately once a month. TrackAccess sessions are live webcasts, delivered via streaming audio and video.
Each webcast runs 60-90 minutes and costs only $19.95. To participate, you need a web browser and Flash. You’ll also need audio output through speakers or headphones to listen to the presenter (probably me). You can participate and ask questions via live chat; in some presentations, two-way audio may be enabled.
XML/XSL Technology Overview
January 13, 11 a.m. Eastern time, 60 minutes
In this session, you’ll learn about Extensible Markup Language (XML) and its companion technology, Extensible Stylesheet Language (XSL). For individuals with little or no prior knowledge of XML.
Managing Implementation of Structured Authoring
February 3, 11 a.m. Eastern time, 90 minutes
This session will describe how to plan and manage the process of creating a structured authoring environment for your organization.
DITA: Is It Right for You?
February 21, 11 a.m. Eastern time, 60 minutes
This live webcast provides you with the information you need to make an informed decision about Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) implementation.
Register for a TrackAccess webcast