CMS Watch Launches Online Education Program

October 29, 2008 Blog No Comments

CMS Watch, an independent analyst firm that evaluates content technologies, has developed a series of online courses to help business and technology managers become more informed customers and decision-makers. At a time when digital content doubles every three years, there is a worldwide shortage of expertise in how content technologies work. “Much of that expertise lies with vendors or integrators who have a vested interest in a particular solution,” noted CMS Watch principal, Theresa Regli, “and therefore enterprise technology selection and strategy teams have to work hard to find trusted …

[Member Profile] Meet Rock Armstrong

October 29, 2008 Blog No Comments

Rock Armstrong is a Portland, Oregon-based marketing professional with extensive experience in market research and strategic planning, including public and media relations, publicity, advertising creation, media buying, publications, and collateral design and creation. Armstrong, a member of The Content Wrangler Community, writes and produces television, radio and print advertising, Internet and direct mail marketing collateral. Learn more about Rock.

Information Visualization: A Look At U.S. Newspapers And Their Picks For President

October 29, 2008 Blog No Comments

This interactive map from the folks at 1000 Words is a collective representation of the endorsements made by US newspapers for the 2008 presidential candidates. As of the date of this posting, Senator Barack Obama (D) leads Senator John McCain (R) in the number of endorsements he has received from major newspapers. To view individual newspaper endorsements, click on the corresponding red or blue balloons. Use the zoom feature to target the papers you’re interested in viewing in markets in which multiple major papers exist. According to 1000 Words, the …

Eight Slides Explain DITA Topics, Maps, Specialization

October 29, 2008 Blog No Comments

From the DITA Newsletter: ”Download a zipped folder with eight explanatory slides that you can use to educate your tech pubs group about DITA. Feel free to use these in your own presentations on DITA. They combine ideas from some of the best slides in use over the past few years by DITA evangelists. Or listen to the 5-minute Flash tutorial that uses animated versions of these slides to describe the core functionality of DITA.”

[Member Profile] Meet Jenn Hall

October 27, 2008 Blog No Comments

Jenn Hall is a freelance content specialist and copywriter who resides in Hopewell, NJ. Hall, a member of The Content Wrangler Community, enjoys “matching the right message and content with the given aim and information source.” “Writing, to me, is like a math problem,” Hall says. “Take a marketing of information-transmission goal, add copy, then delete until everything balances. From PNC Bank to Peterson’s and K. Hovnanian, every account is a new and welcome challenge.” Learn more about Jenn Hall.

Content Reuse: Is It Harmful?

October 27, 2008 Blog 8 Comments

By Richard Hamilton, special to The Content Wrangler A place for everything and everything in its place—Isabella Mary Beeton, The Book of Household Management, 1861 For a number of years it has been a matter of faith that the more content a technical documentation team reuses, the more efficient they are presumed to be. Vasont Systems, a content management system (CMS) vendor, claims its users average 71% content reuse. That is a bold claim, but I suspect that if you could show even 30% or 40% content reuse, you would …

Economic Woes Signal Content Industry Job Losses: It Could Happen To You!

October 21, 2008 Blog 8 Comments

By Maxwell Hoffmann, special to The Content Wrangler It was just another beautiful autumn day in Portland, Oregon. Since it was October 1st, I swiped my credit card and bought my monthly MAX train pass for $86. If I’d been psychic, I could have bought the $4.75 one day pass. I wouldn’t need the train for awhile. I had barely put my bag down in my office when my boss told me we needed to meet privately. After leading me into the conference room he placed papers on the table …

Effective Content Reuse: Storing Paragraphs, Not Topics, Is Key to Content Management Success

October 17, 2008 Blog 2 Comments

By Paul Trotter, CEO, Author-it Software Corporation Various reports have shown that knowledge workers spend about 30% of their time looking for content that has already been created. If that sounds like a colossal waste of time and money, it is. But in terms of waste, time and money is only the tip of the iceberg. The more pressing problem is that by continually creating corporate documents from scratch, companies run the risk of producing external and internal communications that are inconsistent in style, appearance, and – even worse – …

[Member Profile] Calvin Hendryx-Parker

October 15, 2008 Blog No Comments

Meet Calvin Hendryx-Parker, Directory of Engineering at Six Feet Up, Inc., and a member of The Content Wrangler Community. As co-founder and Director of Engineering for Six Feet Up, Inc., Calvin oversees open source content management systems implemented in Plone, CMF and Zope. He is a proponent of web standards to ensure interoperability with other platforms.

Peer Review Now Accepting Applications

October 14, 2008 Blog No Comments

The Puget Sound Society for Technical Communication (STC) is now accepting applications to review the work of technical communication professionals. Dubbed the Peer Review, this activity is your chance to have your work reviewed by your peers in a safe and productive manner. The Peer Review is open to anyone. There are no geographic limitations. You do not need to be an STC member to apply. Learn more.