Anne Gentle vs JoAnn Hackos: Is There a Documentation Wiki In Your Future?

August 31, 2007 Blog 7 Comments

By Anne Gentle, special to TheContentWrangler.com JoAnn Hackos’ recent article titled Is a Documentation Wiki in your Future? struck a chord with me because of my upcoming article about wikis for technical documentation in the September/October issue of STC’s Intercom. I know that many writers have wikis in their present and future. I have talked with people who have acquired a company with a wiki and had to figure out what to do with it in addition to the wiki they had already started. Merge the two? Maintain separate ones? …

Have It Your Way: Dynamic Technical Content Delivery Using DITA

August 31, 2007 Blog No Comments

If you’re just using XML to publish to pre-defined PDF, HTML and Help formats, you are missing the boat. The real promise of XML is in supporting dynamic, personalized content delivery – and you don’t have to change a thing about how you create content now. No, it’s not science fiction. And, no, it’s not something that that we’ll be able to do in the future. It’s possible today. Those organizations that provide dynamic, personalized content will be able to deliver the right information, to the right people, in the …

DITA Test Drive Challenge: A Great Deal If You Ask Us

August 30, 2007 Blog No Comments

Sometimes the sheer volume of information on the internet is overwhelming. Even with the help of Google Alerts and RSS feeds, it’s easy to miss interesting news. That’s likely the reason we failed to notice this especially interesting offer from the folks at Data Conversion Laboratory (DCL). It’s called the DITA Test Drive Challenge, a program that allows content-heavy organizations a shortcut to DITA. For $3000 (okay, $2995, technically), DCL will convert 500 pages of legacy content to DITA and perform a Content Reuse Analysis on 2500 pages of legacy …

Making The Business Case for Web Content Management: First, Admit You Have A Problem

August 27, 2007 Blog No Comments

By Michael Silverman, CEO, Duo Consulting What is Content Management? Businesses and organizations that have large amounts of information to provide to users need a method for guiding that information from creation through editing, approval, publishing and maintenance to archiving. This process is generally referred to as content management. While the concept of content management has been around for a long time—newspapers have been using it for decades—it’s a relatively new term for most people. The rise of digital technology and the proliferation of Web sites have brought content management …

The Rockley Blog: A Handy Online Reference for Content Creators and Managers

August 24, 2007 Blog No Comments

Add another blog to your daily reading list (and by all means subscribe to the the RSS feed). The content management gurus at The Rockley Group have published their first blog, aptly named, The Rockley Blog. Of interest to folks looking for a standard XML schema is the post, DITA: Not Just for Tech Docs, which outlines several reasons why the popular XML authoring standard may also be appropriate for non-technical content, in part because DITA allows for specialization. Keep an eye on this blog! We will.

[Web 2.0] SeeqPod Introduces “Playable Search”

August 23, 2007 Blog No Comments

Ever wish you could search the web for a special song or video and actually find and listen to/view it within seconds? Thanks to the folks at SeeqPod, now you can. The team at SeeqPod is passionate about technology as well as music. So they decided to apply some pretty sophisticated technology to music and video search so that anyone, anywhere can mine the deepest crevices and corners of the Web for media that is publicly available, yet not always easy to find. According to its creators, SeeqPod is a …

Josh Porter on The Psychology of Social Design

August 20, 2007 Blog No Comments

Joshua Porter, a web designer, researcher, and writer from Newburyport, MA, has made available a presentation slide deck and resource list of interest to professional communicators who are keen to better understand the psychology of social design. It’s an interesting look at the potential value of interaction with customers and the impact social design concepts may have on organizations attempting to establish better customer relationships. The concepts Porter discusses in the presentation are regular fodder for his blog, Bokardo, an online publication we find particularly useful. Download this presentation as …

Behind the Scenes: 10 Best Support Websites

August 16, 2007 Blog No Comments

In this exclusive interview with Jeffrey Tarter, executive director of the Association of Support Professionals (ASP), you’ll discover what it means to be one of the “10 Best Support Websites” and learn how the Association of Support Professionals can provide you with a free evaluation of your current support website. Find out what you’re doing well—and what you can improve with a little help. TCW: Jeffrey, thanks for agreeing to chat with us today. For our readers who don’t know who you are, tell us a little about yourself and …

Volumizing: Good For Hair, Bad For Content

August 16, 2007 Blog No Comments

Life in the 21st Century centers around information. In practically every waking moment, we create it, we receive it, we process it, we pass it on, we ignore it, but most of all, we need it. Those who process information for a living have developed a relentless informational imperative: If it can be written, it must be written. So, content developers fall into “volumizing” their content instead of preparing if for the global workflow and end users. In this article, I’ll examine why content volumization occurs, what its effects are, …

Ann Rockley on EMC Acquisition of X-Hive

August 15, 2007 Blog No Comments

We asked content management maven Ann Rockley of The Rockley Group to share her thoughts about EMC Documentum’s acquisition of X-Hive. This is what she had to say. TCW: How significant do you feel the acquisition of X-Hive by EMC is? Ann Rockley Very. As Peter O’Kelly of the Burton Group stated in the original eWeek announcement, “X-Hive will ultimately provide the foundation for EMC’s future content management products and services, focusing on XML content components rather than documents at the center of the architecture.” This is a major shift …