Palimpsest: STC UK: Almost live, part one...Lessons on Introducing XML Publishing

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Palimpsest

STC UK: Almost live, part one...Lessons on Introducing XML Publishing

Sunday, June 22, 2008 — posted by Sarah

[updated to correct number of employees]

I attended STC UK's Trends in Technical Communication this weekend. For once, I actually got to be a regular participant in the sessions. And I got to vote on chapter-related matters (as I joined it this year).

Shannon Milsom of Cambridge Silicon Radio delivered an excellent overview of their XML implementation and lessons learned.

When she joined the company eight years ago, she was employee number 69; CSR now employees ~~4,000 people and 1,000 in the UK~~1,000 people. They create chips for Bluetooth (market leader), wireless, GPS, and other radio technologies. Most of their customer base is in Asia.

Development is in the UK and UK; "fabless" manufacturing in East Asia. Sales everywhere.

Their original workflow used Word and had all the usual problems you might expect. Styles were corrupt and style guides were not followed. As the company grew, the problems became worse. Single sourcing was needed for shared content; the copy and paste approach led to a risk of missing changes. Content from SMEs needed heavy editing and fixes of bad Word usage -- they created their own individual styles and made a huge mess -- and that assumes that they actually used the official template.

They had a wide range of content, and they classified it by product status (which is interesting and I don't think I've ever seen before):

Advance information
Pre-production information
Production information

Side note: A slide with the various contributors and roles includes an excellent graphic of the software guy as a hippie California dude with a tie-dyed shirt. Sales and marketing on the beach under the umbrella with a laptop.

Their goal was to have:

Content re-use
Cost-effective translation
Version control
Reviewing

In addition to The Usual, their reasons for moving to XML include the ability to substitute "common text," such as the product name and number, document type, and document status.

Modular authoring results in a workflow where they build documents from common blocks. If a block has been "released" (I think this means reviewed and approved), it can be used as needed.

Benefits they see from XML:

Shorter production cycle
Do more with small staff
Increase throughput
Marketing can build documents from signed-off information modules
Use data direct from source (SMEs)
Ease checking and sign-off
Has taken human confrontation out of review cycles...approved modules are set in stone and it's easier to reject change requests on those modules
educe composition and review time
Version control
Automated system reduces errors -- nothing falls through the cracks
Cost-effective language translation...partial localization to save money over localizing everything

They considered building their own CMS but eventually bought. After a few trials and a false start with a product that didn't work, they ended up with Ovidius TCToolbox, which they are very happy with.

Lessons learned

Understanding XML technologies is much more interesting than working in Word and not that difficult
Choosing freeware, shareware, purchase, or DIY is a big decision
Be sure to choose a mature, well-supported system
May have to re-invent corporate style to accommodate XML publishing [or face huge costs in replicating existing style]
Glossary is generated based on terms actually used in the document and pulls content from a 700-entry master glossary
Solution is still changing
Beware of solutions that are not fully supported
Evaluate service vendors by looking at real-world implementations that they have done.

Issues to consider