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.
Content strategy, applied
Webcast: The Changing Role of the Professional Technical Communicator: What’s Next?
February 15th, 2012 by Sarah O'Keefe
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: 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: 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: Managing technical communicators in an XML environment
June 14th, 2010 by Sarah O'Keefe
In this 41-minute webcast, Sarah explores how XML affects the management of technical communication and proposes a new system for measuring documentation quality.
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Managing technical communicators in an XML environment
June 14th, 2010 by Sarah O'Keefe
To understand how XML changes technical communication, we need to step back and look at how the rise of information technology has changed the content development process. Through the 1970s, most technical communication work had separate writing, layout, and production phases. Authors wrote content, typically in longhand or on typewriters. Typesetters would then rekey the information to transfer it into the publishing system. The dedicated typesetting system would produce camera-ready copy, which was then mechanically reproduced on a printing press.
In a desktop publishing environment, authors could type information directly into a page layout program and set up the document design. This eliminated the inefficient process of re-entering information, and it often shifted the responsibility for document design to technical communicators.
Webcast: Strategies for coping with user generated content
January 4th, 2010 by Sarah O'Keefe
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. (more…)
Structured authoring and XML
December 31st, 2009 by ScriptoriumTech
Structured authoring and XML represent a significant paradigm shift in content creation. Implementing structured authoring with XML allows organizations to enforce content organization requirements. The addition of hierarchy and metadata to content improves reuse and content management. These benefits, however, must be weighed against the effort required to implement a structured authoring approach. The business case is compelling for larger writing organizations; they will be the first to adopt structured authoring. Over time, improvements in available tools will reduce the cost of implementing structured authoring and make it affordable for smaller organizations.
Managing implementation of structured authoring
December 31st, 2009 by ScriptoriumTech
Moving a desktop publishing–based workgroup into structured authoring requires authors to master new concepts, such as hierarchical content organization, information chunking with elements, and metadata labeling with attributes. In addition to these technical challenges, the implementation itself presents significant difficulties. This paper describes Scriptorium Publishing’s methodology for implementing structured authoring environments. This document is intended primarily as a roadmap for our clients, but it could be used as a starting point for any implementation.
Webcast: Documentation as conversation
December 31st, 2009 by ScriptoriumTech
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. (more…)
Webcast: Cost-effective document design for a translation workflow
December 31st, 2009 by ScriptoriumTech
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.
About Nick Rosenthal
Nick is the Managing Director of Salford Translations Ltd and has 20 years of experience in translator training and professional development. He sits on the Translation Subcommittee of the OASIS Committee, is a former member of the ITI Council, and past president of the UK chapter of the Society for Technical Communication.
Building efficient multilingual workflows
April 30th, 2009 by Sarah O'Keefe
STC Intercom, April 2009
A common argument for XML-based workflows is that they automate production and localization tasks. With XML, localization can be reduced to a fraction of its original cost, but how exactly does that happen?
Sarah explores automization in localization and two technology standards used in multilingual workflows: The Extensible Stylesheet Language (XSL) and XML Localization Interchange File Format (XLIFF).
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(125 K)
When is XML the wrong answer?
November 19th, 2007 by Sarah O'Keefe
Originally published in STC Intercom, November 2007
XML can benefit a publishing workflow in many ways: improving content reuse, consistency, and potentially automating much of the process. That all sounds wonderful, but XML is not the logical answer for everyone.
Implementing a structured authoring solution requires a significant change from the familiar desktop publishing routine to new tools, technologies, and processes. Switching to XML is going to cost time and money. Depending on your needs, it may not be the most efficient solution.
Download the PDF (350 K)