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Change management DITA DITA XML—authors Structured content

XML overview for executives

Over the past year or two, our typical XML customer has changed. Until recently, most XML publishing efforts were driven by marketing communications, technical publications, or IT, usually by a technical expert. But today’s customer is much more likely to be an executive who understands the potential business benefits of XML publishing but not the technical details. This article provides an XML overview for executives. What do you need to know before you decide to lead your organization into an XML world?

Sarah O'Keefe
January 20, 2015
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DITA

The politics of DITA

Deciding on a content model is a critical step in many of our projects. Should it be DITA or something else? The answer, it seems, often has more to do with our client’s corporate culture than with actual technical requirements.

Sarah O'Keefe
March 6, 2013
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Structured content

Managing implementation of structured authoring


An updated version of this white paper is in Content Strategy 101. Read the entire book free online, or download the free EPUB edition.

Moving a desktop publishing–based workgroup into structured authoring requires authors to master new concepts, such as hierarchical content organization, information chunking with elements, and metadata labeling with attributes. In addition to these technical challenges, the implementation itself presents significant difficulties. This paper describes Scriptorium Publishing’s methodology for implementing structured authoring environments. This document is intended primarily as a roadmap for our clients, but it could be used as a starting point for any implementation.

ScriptoriumTech
December 31, 2009
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AI Structured content Webinar

Why Cheap Content Is Expensive and How to Fix It, featuring Dawn Stevens

Will cheap content cost your organization more in the long run? In this webinar, host Sarah O’Keefe and guest Dawn Stevens share how poor workflows, inaccurate source data, and the commoditization race can undermine both product quality and brand trust. Sarah and Dawn also discuss why strategic staffing and mature content ops create the foundation your AI initiatives need to deliver reliable content at scale.

Sarah O’Keefe: I write content that’s great for today. Tomorrow, a new development occurs, and my content is now wrong. We’re down the road of “entropy always wins.” We’re heading towards chaos, and if we don’t care for the content, it’ll fall apart. So what does it look like to have a well-functioning organization with an appropriate balance of automation, AI, and staffing?

Dawn Stevens: I think that goes back to the age-old question of, “What are the skills that we really think are valuable?” We have to see technical documentation as part of the product, not just supporting the product. That means that we, as writers, are involved in all of the design. As we design the documentation, we’re helping design the UX.

Sarah O'Keefe
November 24, 2025
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AI Content pitfalls Podcasts Structured content

Futureproof your content ops for the coming knowledge collapse

What happens when AI accelerates faster than your content can keep up? In this podcast, host Sarah O’Keefe and guest Michael Iantosca break down the current state of AI in content operations and what it means for documentation teams and executives. Together, they offer a forward-thinking look at how professionals can respond, adapt, and lead in a rapidly shifting landscape.

Sarah O’Keefe: How do you talk to executives about this? How do you find that balance between the promise of what these new tool sets can do for us, what automation looks like, and the risk that is introduced by the limitations of the technology? What’s the roadmap for somebody that’s trying to navigate this with people that are all-in on just getting the AI to do it?

Michael Iantosca: We need to remind them that the current state of AI still carries with it a probabilistic nature. And no matter what we do, unless we add more deterministic structural methods to guardrail it, things are going to be wrong even when all the input is right.

Sarah O'Keefe
November 17, 2025
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