Yes, You Can Do DITA With Microsoft Office and SharePoint!

June 1, 2011 Blog 2 Comments

By Scott Abel, The Content Wrangler Over the years, I’ve been quoted as saying, “You can’t do that with Microsoft Word and SharePoint”. More specifically, I usually said something like “If you want to move to the Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA), then Microsoft Word and SharePoint are absolutely the wrong tools for the job.” But, that’s not true any more. With a little help from DITA Exchange, ”Yes, you can move to DITA using Microsoft Word and SharePoint.” This article seeks to explain, at a very high level, with Read the full article…

Noz Urbina Interviews Ann Rockley About Content Integration

April 15, 2011 Blog No Comments

Intelligent content guru (and the “Mother of Content Management”) Ann Rockley will be one of the featured presenters at Congility 2011, May 24-26 in Gatwick, UK. The theme of this year’s event is Content Integration: Leveraging Standards to Improve Customer Experience. Content strategist Noz Urbina talks to Ann about the need for content standards and a content strategy in order to create positive customer experiences.

Congility 2011: An Interview with Noz Urbina

March 8, 2011 Blog No Comments

By Scott Abel, The Content Wrangler TCW: Noz, thanks for taking time to chat with us today. Tell our readers a little bit about yourself — where you work, what you do? NU: I’m a content strategy and management consultant for a boutique consultancy based out of London called Mekon Ltd. We’ve been in the content business for 20 years now. We have always focused around solutions, automation and efficiency. So content strategy, single sourcing solutions, and content management are our main activities today. I specialize in being “first on Read the full article…

How A Taste Of Kindle Reader For Blackberry Made Me Hunger For More (And More, And More)

March 17, 2010 Blog 4 Comments

by Maxwell Hoffmann, Desktop Publishing, Localization, Globalization and Sales Training Veteran A few weeks ago I got a Tweet that sent me straight to downloads-ville. A “free” Kindle Reader app for my Blackberry! As a used-book store addicted Baby Boomer who color codes all of his hard copy books with highlighter pens, might I be the perfect guinea pig for this latest content delivery platform? Could an old school guy like me get used to reading literature or technical manuals in chunks smaller than 3×5 cards? The answer surprised even Read the full article…

Reuse: Today’s Best Practice [Free Chapter From "DITA 101: Fundamentals of DITA for Authors and Managers"]

January 12, 2010 Blog No Comments

If you’re in the process of implementing the Darwin Information Typing Architecture, expect to do so in the future, or just want to learn more about it without having to wade through technical specifications, this is the book for you. DITA 101: Fundamentals of DITA for Authors and Managers is, as it’s name implies, designed for authors and managers. The content experts at The Rockley Group have distilled all of their experience helping and training organizations to move to DITA into an easy-to-read and understand book. It covers everything you Read the full article…

DITA, Metadata Maturity and the Case for Taxonomy

January 7, 2010 Blog 1 Comment

By Paul Wlodarczyk, Director, Solutions Consulting and Stephanie Lemieux, Taxonomy Practice Lead, Earley and Associates, Inc. Many organizations have turned to component-oriented content creation to create more sophisticated knowledge products, in more languages, and at lower cost. Our research shows that organizations that use XML authoring are more mature than their peers with respect to the adoption of best practices for search and metadata. However, the use of native DITA metadata capabilities is rare, and many are also missing out on opportunities to use taxonomy for content reuse and improved Read the full article…

New Book Aims To Help Newbies Understand DITA Basics

June 23, 2009 Blog No Comments

The pace at which technological innovation occurs is amazing. The last 20 years have been jam-packed with paradigm-shifting technological advances that have altered forever the way we create, manage, and deliver information. The personal computer, the World Wide Web, desktop publishing, touch-screen mobile phones, interactive television, social networks, and wireless connectivity have transformed not only the way consumers interact with content, but these advances have also altered the way professional communicators work. Nowhere are these changes more evident that in the world of technical communication. Technical writers and editors have Read the full article…

Making The Move To Creating Structured XML: An Interview with Thomas Aldous

March 1, 2009 Blog 1 Comment

Scott: Thomas, thanks for agreeing to chat with us a little today about making the move to structured XML. For those readers who don’t yet know who you are, tell us a little about yourself and your experience in the content industry. Thomas: Thanks, Scott. I am a principal owner of a company called Integrated Technologies, better known as InTech. We began as a UNIX training company back in 1989. Within a few years, we made major inroads in the Engineering, Financial and Telecom industries. One of our first financial Read the full article…

The Power of the Crowd: Finding DITA Resources and Information

December 1, 2008 Blog No Comments

You can find a wide variety of groups that focus on DITA on The Content Wrangler Community, the global network for content professionals. Membership is free and requires online registration. Each group is moderated by an industry expert. Some of the most popular groups include: DITA Metrics—The purpose of this group is to promote the discussion and education of metrics for DITA. DITA in FrameMaker—A forum to discuss DITA-based authoring in Adobe FrameMaker. DITA Users—A meeting place for existing DITA Users. DITA for Training and eLearning—A forum to discuss DITA Read the full article…

DITA Metrics: Developing Cost Metrics

November 19, 2008 Blog 12 Comments

By Mark Lewis, special to The Content Wrangler Table of Contents Introduction Cost of Metrics Overview Cost of a Project Cost of a Topic Cost of User Guides Without Topic Reuse Cost of User Guides With Topic Reuse Cost Comparison: User Guides With and Without Topic Reuse Cost of a Reusable Master Topic Cost of User Guides With Reusable Master Topics Cost Comparison: Topic Reuse Versus Reusable Master Topics Conclusion About the author Introduction You’ve read all the papers (and attended all the webinars) on return on investment (ROI) for Read the full article…

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.”

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 – Read the full article…

[Case Study] How Our DITA Conversion Saved Us $100,000, For Starters

September 26, 2008 Blog No Comments

Ever wonder how converting to a DITA/XML content management system would play out in real life? What if we added globalization? What if it showed nearly $100,000 savings for the first two deliverables (in 9 languages)? This step-by-step plan, by Jennifer Linton of CaridianBCT (formerly Gambro BCT), tells us exactly how it played out for them. Read the article in Data Conversion Labs newsletter.

DITA Maturity Model Contest – Win an iPod Touch, Free Tickets To DocTrain East

August 18, 2008 Blog No Comments

Submit your quality contributions to the newly launched DITA Maturity Model Community (MMC) from 1 June – 31 August 2008, and you could win an 8GB Apple iPod Touch and two tickets to DocTrain East. The DITA MMC (part of the DITA XML.org Wiki Knowledgebase) is an extension of the original white paper developed by Michael Priestley, lead IBM DITA architect, and Amber Swope, principal consultant for JustSystems. The DITA MMC lets you browse, edit, and add to a collaborative knowledgebase of information on using and understanding the DITA Maturity Read the full article…