tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-123174462008-06-26T11:23:49.628-04:00Sarahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17421161092895537932noreply@blogger.comBlogger374125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12317446.post-69969066555829702972008-06-26T11:21:00.001-04:002008-06-26T11:23:50.005-04:00

My presentation at X-Pubs was about the impact of Web 2.0 or user-generated content on technical communication. (You can view the presentation at the bottom of this post.) A phrase I heard repeatedly in reference to professional content was "a single version of the truth," which alludes to the idea that you should only have one instance of any given piece of content. And that got me thinking.

Sarahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17421161092895537932noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12317446.post-51008847980915702302008-06-25T10:35:00.008-04:002008-06-25T15:08:50.970-04:00

O'Reilly has announced it will start selling some titles as ebook bundles free of digital rights management (DRM) in July. I'm sure a lot discussion went into that decision because we have grappled with this very issue for our Scriptorium Press titles. When we decided to release our FrameMaker workbooks in PDF format in February 2006, we opted not to use DRM restrictions that prevent printing or

Alanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16841584007406072471noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12317446.post-26708012313778611022008-06-25T04:26:00.005-04:002008-06-25T04:53:09.617-04:00

I'm at London's Heathrow airport, getting ready to return home. Many thanks to the organizers of the STC UK and X-Pubs events for wonderful hospitality (special thanks to Ant Davey who picked me up at the airport when I arrived at 6:30 in the morning). Some observations about my week in the UK: During conference sessions, you can expect that participants will not ask any questions until the end

Sarahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17421161092895537932noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12317446.post-35083911271096415122008-06-24T16:12:00.007-04:002008-06-25T10:50:29.616-04:00

Day 2 at Gilbane: Continuing in the Social Computing trackCase studies in collaborative computing Frank D'Angese - EarthKnowledge.net Mark Yolton - SAP Communities Kym Harrington - Sales Edge Social communities in Web 2.0: Work best when they are orchestrated, rather than moderated. Rating and ranking of contributers increases quality of the contributions. SAP encourages quality by

ToolSmithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12560407383215463343noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12317446.post-64666252246701822022008-06-24T08:43:00.003-04:002008-06-24T09:15:21.619-04:00

Chris Wood BAE Systems Tech pubs managers at BAE, contributor to S1000D standard. Electronic maintenance (interactive electronic technical manual, or IETM) has been shown to deliver increase in fault finding success, reduction in troubleshooting time, and reduction in maintenance errors. "Fairly comforting" Market drivers for integrated information...output-based contracts. The Royal Air Force

Sarahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17421161092895537932noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12317446.post-74439582047869718972008-06-23T17:41:00.004-04:002008-06-24T10:00:01.751-04:00

Today, a few traveling coworkers missed out on Georgina's fragrant garlic rolls. Simon and Sarah, here's a photo for your viewing pleasure: On our last visit, a few of us were a bit cranky when our waitress didn't serve the rolls. And in the lunch rush, we had no time to demand the greasy little delights. This time, thank you very much, the basket was delivered shortly after we ordered. It's

Loringhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13787382812519405742noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12317446.post-51502311605628547992008-06-23T09:14:00.002-04:002008-06-23T10:04:54.414-04:00

Chris Hadley of Micro Focus Noz Urbin of Mekon Micro Focus 12 writers in four locations rapidly growing team, but also 20-year company veterans Content is in XML, written using XMetaL, stored in CVS, DTDs and XSLT developed in-house. Acquired companies have content in FrameMaker and Word. Delivery in CHM, HTML, Help 2. Lots of reuse in places; none in others. No localization. Problem very

Sarahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17421161092895537932noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12317446.post-25465349529423534942008-06-23T07:50:00.000-04:002008-06-23T07:50:54.712-04:00

Mike Miller, Antenna House For starters, XSL-FO is an XML standard. XSL-FO is "a pagination markup language describing a rendering vocabulary capturing the semantics of formatting information for paginated presentation." (Ken Holman) Or, as I like to say, "A document layout described in a text file." XSL-FO is black box formatting. Can't go back and "tweak" the files to fix them. With FO,

Sarahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17421161092895537932noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12317446.post-40895784358067925832008-06-23T07:39:00.000-04:002008-06-23T07:39:37.103-04:00

Brief introduction from Noz Urbina and an overview of the conference from Julian Murfitt. Some X-Pubs housekeeping items, including a flight announcement... "Should a presentation be boring and sleep deprivation set in, oxygen masks will drop from the ceiling. Please put on your own mask before assisting others."Hehe. On to the keynote...John Sheridan, Head of e-Services at the Office of Public

Sarahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17421161092895537932noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12317446.post-47627301837462202982008-06-23T06:51:00.002-04:002008-06-26T10:05:54.687-04:00

Ant Davey, Rail Standards Safety Board (RSSB) Another excellent session. Ant provided a discussion of change management with quite a lot of references to more detailed resources. Knowledge is being lost. Information has value. Web is changing search methods and expectations. Web is changing ability to contribute and review content. Findable information requires chunking. Chunks are potentially

Sarahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17421161092895537932noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12317446.post-6245553185334581912008-06-22T16:52:00.003-04:002008-06-25T17:14:56.058-04:00

[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

Sarahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17421161092895537932noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12317446.post-79092768119350975962008-06-20T12:24:00.003-04:002008-06-20T12:30:07.070-04:00

A delivery person is stacking boxes of Publishing Fundamentals: Unstructured FrameMaker 8 in our back room as I type this. If you've ordered the printed version, your shipment will go out today or tomorrow.

Alanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16841584007406072471noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12317446.post-16168793528181632332008-06-19T10:41:00.003-04:002008-06-19T15:44:11.887-04:00

Tom Johnson's post about the STC conference has sparked a lot of great discussion. You should read it and the comments if you haven't already. All done? It seems that the STC conference is getting mixed reviews, and people's experiences seem to diverge quite a bit. The reports from DocTrain West (Vancouver, May) and WritersUA (Portland, March) are much more positive. Why is this? What makes

Sarahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17421161092895537932noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12317446.post-50936084755755687192008-06-19T10:00:00.000-04:002008-06-19T10:04:09.219-04:00

A few weeks ago at the STC conference, we were distributing printed copies of our latest white paper, Friend or Foe? Web 2.0 in Technical Communication. We had some really good feedback from attendees; one person made a point of coming by the booth a second time to tell us she had enjoyed reading the paper. Another reader with whom I had a lengthy discussion also returned to let us know that she

Alanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16841584007406072471noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12317446.post-72516235440998254522008-06-18T22:06:00.003-04:002008-06-19T10:39:51.857-04:00

Summarizing an interesting day at Gilbane San Francisco 2008. The Gilbane conference focuses on Enterprise and Web Content Management. Not necessarily something directly in Scriptorium's business, but there are many, many tie-ins with what we do do. In particular, structured documentation and XML are golden to Enterprise Content Management Systems. The keynote address was delivered by Udi

ToolSmithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12560407383215463343noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12317446.post-7478543313107773292008-06-05T14:24:00.002-04:002008-06-05T15:03:42.621-04:00

A few years ago, I glimpsed a wicked little painting by the artist Sean W. Byrne called Evil Bad Luck Kitties. I longed for the original, but I had to settle for a print. (To see the Kitties, click the second thumbnail on this page. Today the proofs came back for the Publishing Fundamentals: Unstructured FrameMaker 8 book. And guess who did the cover artwork? Yes! The very same Sean Byrne who

Terryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02942486158161419463noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12317446.post-24039956263789017422008-06-05T13:44:00.000-04:002008-06-05T13:44:47.389-04:00

The STC conference in Philadelphia just flew by. I think I managed to attend only two sessions other than the ones where I was participating. Many thanks to those of you who stopped by the booth to meet us. We especially appreciate visitors who tell us that they read and enjoy our content, whether books, white papers, or this blog. I had numerous requests for my paradigm shift presentation

Sarahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17421161092895537932noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12317446.post-180587565793543922008-06-03T09:27:00.004-04:002008-06-05T13:46:18.348-04:00

[Update: I forgot to identify the presenter, Jane Faraola of Palm.] (Palm is a client of ours.) The problem Palm faced was outright hostility between content development and localization. The origin of this was conflict because of late-breaking changes after the "declared" UI freeze. The content hand-off to localization might have to be repeated up to eight times after repeated UI freezes.

Sarahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17421161092895537932noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12317446.post-48720392313444076372008-06-02T23:38:00.000-04:002008-06-02T23:38:12.100-04:00

I attended a bit of the opening session, but then got sucked into BoothLand and never got out into any sessions today. But never fear, for there are quite a few other places to get STC conference coverage this year. We have: Twitter: Follow the #stc2008 tag at twemes.com Tom Johnson notes that Twitter participation is abysmally low at under 1%. I was excited because there was any at all. I

Sarahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17421161092895537932noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12317446.post-85689260005533000042008-06-02T13:27:00.009-04:002008-06-03T11:13:29.823-04:00

This post assumes that you are a hard-core FrameMaker user. You've been warned. Okay, so I've been creating production-quality PDFs for years, and I'm well versed in the contortions that are sometimes required to produce a pristine PDF file from a FrameMaker book. Even so, I struggled to make PDF files for Publishing Fundamentals: Unstructured FrameMaker 8. The irony. (I am running Windows XP,

Terryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02942486158161419463noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12317446.post-5656217843721703622008-05-30T15:41:00.004-04:002008-05-30T16:11:59.641-04:00

As of a few minutes ago, you can buy our latest book, Publishing Fundamentals: Unstructured FrameMaker 8 from our online store. You can purchase the printed book and PDF file combination for $49.99, or you can buy just the PDF file for $29.99. You get instant access to the PDF file--available exclusively through our online store--with either option. (Printed books will be shipped in the middle

Alanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16841584007406072471noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12317446.post-35387775339186432152008-05-19T15:36:00.000-04:002008-05-19T15:36:33.610-04:00

Tom Johnson did a series of interviews at DocTrain West, which are now posted as podcasts. You can find them at his site. Tom and I did a podcast in which he asked me about the implications of Flash and XSL for technical writers. You can find that podcast here. It was an interesting session -- Tom has a knack for asking questions that require (at least in my view) very long answers.

Sarahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17421161092895537932noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12317446.post-19501735514919010862008-05-13T14:55:00.000-04:002008-05-13T14:57:11.828-04:00

Recently, Quark has announced their new dynamic publishing concept and/or solution. Where to start? Although traditional publishing allows each author to hand-craft the appearance of each page, the limitation is that it ties information to the way it is presented. This means that if you want to publish the same information in print, Web, and electronic formats, then you have to create an

Sarahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17421161092895537932noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12317446.post-57274554797694618202008-05-10T18:20:00.003-04:002008-05-10T18:25:12.653-04:00

I greatly enjoyed my time in Vancouver for DocTrain West. Unfortunately, the process of getting to and from Vancouver is shaping up to be one of the "typical" travel nightmares. Outbound, I missed a connection (because of weather) by a few minutes, which resulted in a six-hour penalty in travel time. Inbound back to RDU, I'm writing this on the Vancouver to Dallas plane, which is currently

Sarahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17421161092895537932noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12317446.post-73902221477728983852008-05-08T18:30:00.002-04:002008-05-08T19:47:57.170-04:00

Michael Boses, CTO Invision Research (www.invisionresearch.com) Yes, Virginia, you can author XML in Word. Company founded in 1996. Xpress Author for Word launched in 2002. Early markets were defense intelligence, central government, and pharmaceutical industry. Focused on enabling Web 2.0 technologies with structured authoring. In.vision provides structured authoring interface inside Word.

Loringhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13787382812519405742noreply@blogger.com