These days, I generally avoid fast food, but it’s hard to pass up good French fries every now and then. Look beyond those yummy fries, and you can learn some valuable lessons that apply to content strategy.
It’s a new year, which means it’s time for Scriptorium to discuss—and wildly speculate about—the latest trends in content. Here’s what Bill Swallow, Gretyl Kinsey, and I had to say about 2015 content trends.
Yes, you need another “best of 2014” list to round out the year. Without further ado, here are Scriptorium’s top 2014 blog posts on content strategy, DITA, and localization.
Your industrial products become part of well-oiled machines. Unfortunately, your workflow for developing product literature may not be as well-oiled.
When developing a content strategy, you consider marcom, techcomm, and other groups whose primary role is creating content.
But don’t forget about engineering. Just ask the NASA Mohawk Guy.
The novels of Italian author Elena Ferrante are getting a lot of attention, but “Elena Ferrante” doesn’t actually exist. The writer behind the pen name prefers anonymity and shies away from publicity. Creators of corporate content should take a few pointers from the author when seeking recognition for their work.
If you’re about to revamp your content strategy, repeat after me:
Engage before change.
When remodeling your kitchen, would you replace 1980s almond melamine cabinets with the same thing? Probably not. (I certainly wouldn’t!) Then why make the content strategy mistake of using new tools to re-create the old formatting in your content?
Your content strategy is approved. Your tools are in place. Now it’s time to crank up—your pilot project, that is.
Consider these tips when mapping out your content strategy pilot project.
A DITA implementation isn’t merely a matter of picking tools. Several factors, including wrangling the different groups affected by an implementation, are critical to successfully managing DITA projects.
Note: This post assumes you have already done a content strategy analysis, which determined the DITA standard supports your company’s business goals.
