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Author: Bill Swallow

CCMS Change management Content management Podcasts Structured content Training

Challenges of moving from unstructured to structured content with Dipo Ajose-Coker

In episode 158 of The Content Strategy Experts Podcast, Bill Swallow and special guest Dipo Ajose-Coker discuss the challenges of moving from unstructured to structured content.

“I think we could make broad categories of challenges as tools, technology, people, and methodologies, and I think we’ll just dive into these because they’re not necessarily independent—some of them flow one into the other. One of the most complex and challenging parts is implementation. Changing over to a new tool also involves changing processes and training the staff. Basically, some documentation teams struggle with that initial learning curve.”

— Dipo Ajose-Coker

Bill Swallow
December 18, 2023
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DITA DITA XML—authors Industry insights Podcasts Structured content

Adapt to evolving content careers with guest Jack Molisani (podcast)

In episode 151 of The Content Strategy Experts Podcast, Bill Swallow and podcast guest, Jack Molisani discuss how content careers have changed through the pandemic, layoffs, quiet quitting, and AI, and what you should do to stay ahead of the curve.

“Rather than applying for a job […] you want companies to come to you and say, ‘Hey, will you come work for us?’ The only way they’re going to do that is if you write articles, if you’re speaking at conferences, and if you position yourself as an expert in your field.”

— Jack Molisani

Bill Swallow
September 11, 2023
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Podcasts

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

Bill Swallow
October 24, 2022
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Podcasts

Prerequisites for efficient content operations (podcast)

In episode 129 of The Content Strategy Experts podcast, Sarah O’Keefe and Bill Swallow discuss the prerequisites for efficient content operations and the pitfalls from not following them.

Mayhem, chaos, cost overruns, work, rework, delays. I mean, these things, they’re expensive. And they’re not just expensive, they’re soul sucking for everybody involved in the project. And it doesn’t have to be that way if this thing is planned and executed at the right level.

—Sarah O’Keefe

Bill Swallow
October 10, 2022
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Localization Replatforming Structured content

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.

Bill Swallow
October 3, 2022
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Podcasts

Content ops stakeholders: Tech support (podcast)

In episode 118 of The Content Strategy Experts podcast, Bill Swallow and Sarah O’Keefe discuss content ops stakeholders in tech support.

“If you are delivering multi-hundred page PDFs to your tech support people, then I can assure you that your tech support people hate you. Opening a 600 page document and then having to search through it while you’re on the phone under all this pressure is not the experience that you want.”

– Sarah O’Keefe

Bill Swallow
May 2, 2022
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Podcasts

Content ops stakeholders: Localization (podcast)

In episode 115 of The Content Strategy Experts podcast, Bill Swallow and Sarah O’Keefe discuss content ops stakeholders in localization.

“Using baseball examples isn’t going to work well in a country where baseball is not a thing. So you have to think about that. Does your text, does your content, do your examples work and are they appropriate in your target language and culture?”

– Sarah O’Keefe

Bill Swallow
March 28, 2022
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Podcasts

Content scalability (podcast)

In episode 112 of The Content Strategy Experts podcast, Elizabeth Patterson and Bill Swallow discuss content scalability.

“As you start approaching a greater percentage of bells and whistles in your process, the more work it takes to get each bell or whistle in place.”

– Bill Swallow

Bill Swallow
February 21, 2022
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