The best of 2019
As 2019 comes to a close, let’s take a look at some of the most popular posts and podcasts from the year.
All of the 2020 LearningDITA Live sessions were recorded and uploaded to a YouTube playlist for your convenience!
If you had to miss this year’s conference for some reason, or missed a session you were interested in, you can go back and watch.
Thank you for being a part of LearningDITA Live. We hope you enjoy the 2020 sessions!
In episode 69 of The Content Strategy Experts podcast, Bill Swallow and Stephani Clark of Jorsek talk about using a scaled approach with DITA projects.
“The desktop publishing and single user tools are always going to have a much lower price tag than a DITA CCMS will, but there’s a trade off for what you’re getting.”
—Stephani Clark
In episode 68 of The Content Strategy Experts podcast, Gretyl Kinsey and Simon Bate talk about unusual outputs from DITA sources.
” With DITA, it’s incredibly flexible. We can generate almost any type of output that we want to with it.”
—Simon Bate
In episode 67 of The Content Strategy Experts podcast, Kaitlyn Heath and Sarah O’Keefe continue their discussion on measuring content value based on accounting principles.
“Language evolves. Your content actually needs maintenance, just like your house.”
—Sarah O’Keefe
As 2019 comes to a close, let’s take a look at some of the most popular posts and podcasts from the year.
In episode 66 of The Content Strategy Experts podcast, Kaitlyn Heath and Sarah O’Keefe discuss measuring content value based on accounting principles.
Do your customers know the right words to search for? Does marketing refer to your product one way while the tech team refers to it another? Inconsistent word use causes confusion within your company and negatively affects customers’ perception of your brand. So what causes the inconsistencies, and how do you fix them?
In episode 65 of The Content Strategy Experts podcast, Elizabeth Patterson and Bill Swallow talk about the need for a localization strategy.
“There may be things you’re writing in your source content that you don’t want literally translated. In many cases, there are stark cultural differences between one location and another. Writing something at all may be inappropriate for another audience.”
—Bill Swallow
In episode 64 of The Content Strategy Experts podcast, Gretyl Kinsey and Alan Pringle talk about content strategies that have a limited or smaller scope.
“When you are limited it may slow you down, but at least you’re moving forward. It’s baby steps. It’s increments. It’s important to realize, yes it’s limiting, but you can take that and make it an advantage.”
—Alan Pringle
Content value is a hot topic in marketing and technical communication. In the publishing industry, the connection between content and value is clear. A publisher sells a book (or film or other piece of content) and gets book sales, ticket revenue, or streaming subscriptions in return. But what if your content is a part of the product (like user documentation) or used to sell the product (like a marketing white paper)? In these cases, measuring content value is much more challenging.
It is tempting to fall back on measuring cost instead of value. The cost of content development can be a trap, though. Eliminating wasted effort and optimizing content workflows is sensible, but too much focus on cost leads us toward content as a commodity.