AI, replatforming, and penguins?
The tcworld/tekom conference took place in Stuttgart, Germany, from November 5–7. The event is the largest technical communication conference in the world, typically with 2,500–3,500 attendees.
Cutting technical debt with replatforming (podcast)
When organizations replatform from one content management system to another, unchecked technical debt can weigh down the new system. In contrast, strategic replatforming can be a tool for reducing technical debt. In episode 172 of The Content Strategy Experts podcast, Sarah O’Keefe and Bill Swallow share how to set your replatforming project up for success.
Here’s the real question I think you have to ask before replatforming—is the platform actually the problem? Is it legitimately broken? As Bill said, has it evolved away from the business requirements to a point where it no longer meet your needs? Or there are some other questions to ask, such as, what are your processes around that platform? Do you have weird, annoying, and inefficient processes?
— Sarah O’Keefe
Your tech expertise + our CCMS knowledge = replatforming success
Is your team skilled in navigating your current CCMS, but unfamiliar with the system you plan to adopt? During a recent replatforming project, we worked with a team of in-house experts to build out a new CCMS. The combination of their domain expertise and our replatforming experience was a big success. The client is now self-sufficient and thriving in their new CCMS environment.
Replatforming an early DITA implementation
Bill Swallow, Director of Operations at Scriptorium, and Emilie Herman, Director of Publishing at the Financial Accounting Foundation (FAF), shared lessons learned from a DITA implementation project.
What did we want to accomplish with our project? One was to develop a single source of truth for our content, a single system to host all of it. Secondly, we wanted to modernize our information architecture and our content models and document all of it clearly. Lastly, we wanted to futureproof our content operations and go to a digital-first workflow.
— Emilie Herman
The challenges of replatforming content (podcast)
In episode 130 of The Content Strategy Experts podcast, Bill Swallow and Sarah O’Keefe talk about the challenges of replatforming content from one system to another.
Links are always a problem, especially cross-document links. Reusable content tends to be handled differently in different systems, or almost the same, but not quite, which is almost worse.
—Sarah O’Keefe
Replatforming with localization in mind
A wise woman recently said, “replatforming structured content is annoying and expensive.” This is doubly so when it comes to localization.
Replatforming nearly always involves content change—the new system may store content differently or require a different format or structure. Although the changes may affect your existing localization process, some of these changes may be for the better.
Replatforming your structured content into a new CCMS (podcast)
In episode 128 of The Content Strategy Experts podcast, Sarah O’Keefe talks with guest Chip Gettinger of RWS about why companies are replatforming structured content by moving it into a new component content management system (CCMS).
I find there’s some business change that’s happened to spark this replatforming. One is mergers and acquisitions, where two companies get together, there are two CCMSs, and one basically is chosen.
—Chip Gettinger, RWS
Replatforming structured content
Scriptorium is doing a lot of replatforming projects. We have customers with existing structured content—custom XML, DocBook, and DITA—who need to move their content operations from their existing CCMS to a new system.
These transitions, even DITA to DITA, require a solid business justification. Replatforming structured content is annoying and expensive. Most often, the organization’s needs have changed, and the current platform is no longer a good fit.
Note: This post focuses on transitions into DITA. There are surely DITA to not-DITA projects out there, but they are not in our current portfolio.
Our top four topics for 2024
Did you miss a podcast, blog post, or webinar? We get it–there’s too much content and not enough time, but we’ve got you covered. Here’s a collection of our biggest topics from this year.
MEGAComm 2025
February 12th-13th
Jerusalem, Isreal and online
We’re excited to kick off 2025 with MEGAComm!
During this conference, Sarah O’Keefe and Bill Swallow will both return as speakers for the online version of the event.
Futureproofing Your Content
Every now and then, it’s helpful to look up from the content grind and think about the future. Are you producing content that will stand the test of time, or are you making choices under pressure that incur content debt for the future? In this presentation, Sarah O’Keefe looks at the content lifecycle and discusses what you can do today to make things better for Future You.
Modernizing your content management system: The challenges of replatforming
Many technical communication organizations have established processes inside a content management system (CMS), and a single source of truth for their content. But over time, the business needs change, and the CMS chosen a decade ago may no longer be a good fit for the organization. At some point, it becomes necessary to change systems and replatform the content onto a new CMS.
Changing systems is a costly proposition, and one that needs to be assessed well. The more customization work that was done to meet your original requirements and the more content you have in the current system, the more complicated and expensive a replatforming transition will be.
In this session, Bill Swallow shares the business justification, the risks, and the benefits of a replatforming project.
