New Year’s Resolutions: Get Your Corporate Assets in Shape

A new year is upon us once again, and everyone is making their New Year’s resolutions. Topping the list is usually to get fit by eating better and exercising more. This year, resolve to get your organization’s content assets in shape, too.

Content is one of the most important assets a corporation owns. But many companies don’t give it the attention it deserves. Allocating only small budgets for technical communications, many teams are forced to work in a very manual way, causing duplicate efforts, inconsistencies in content, longer cycle times, and bloated production and translation costs – all of which negatively affect the organization’s bottom line.

So, start your year off by taking the first steps to get your content in top condition and begin to exercise a content management strategy:

Work that management team.
Warm up support from your management team for a new process and tools that will help to strengthen your content. Show them how structured authoring and a content management system will build savings for the organization. Without management’s backing, your resolution won’t go far – just as many people’s resolutions to get healthy fizzle out by the end of January.

Build the financial muscles.
Get money allocated for your new content strategy. A budget will give you the stamina you need to keep your resolution going.

Burn the fat from your content.
While you’re working on management’s support and a budget, you can take steps to get your content in better shape. Start working towards a structured environment by cleaning up your content. Standardize similar content, enforce rules and standards, use templates…do anything you can to prepare your content for a clean conversion.

Start a training regimen.
Build a training program for your staff and begin to get them familiar with structured authoring and content management concepts. Ongoing training can help to alter their habits to new writing methods and healthy content reuse strategies.

Call us at 717-764-9720 or visit our website for help in getting started with your content management strategy.

Getting a Little Respect for Technical Writing

Technical writers sometimes feel like the ugly step-child. They have too much work, and there’s never enough staff to do everything that must be done. And, the work was needed yesterday! In some organizations, the focus is placed on the engineering and marketing of the product, but the technical documentation is merely perceived as an afterthought. Since technical documentation is a cost of doing business rather than a revenue generator, it tends to get the small end of the budget stick.

But you can raise awareness for the importance of having clear, accurate documentation and eliminate the disrespect for technical communications by making sure that your documentation is indeed up to snuff. Tools like content management systems (CMSs) can help to improve the quality and consistency of your documentation by single sourcing and reusing content. Then, you can work on building metrics that prove the value of good documentation. Use these metrics to change the perceptions about technical documentation and the writers who work hard to perfect it. Here’s what you can do to show your technical documentation team‘s worth:

Count your calls.
Quality documentation allows consumers to understand how to use your products. If the documentation is clear and accurate, then the volume of calls to your help center will diminish, saving the organization money in the support department. Track the number of complaints that result from poor documentation. One of our clients saved over $1 million/year in support efforts after implementing a CMS and polishing their documentation.

Measure your brand.
Is your brand considered top tier? Or are you lingering lower on the list with the average brands? There is a direct correlation between quality documentation and the amount of trust a user has in a company’s brand. If the documentation is poor, consumers might assume the brand is of lesser quality, too. Once consumers think your brand is inadequate, this perception will spread like wildfire through word of mouth. With the help of a CMS, good documentation can build trust with your consumers and improve your branding.

Monitor the sales.
Is your messaging to the consumer clear and consistent? If your labeling or advertising says one thing about your product, but the documentation says something different, then consumers might become confused and simply return (or never purchase) your product. Inconsistent messaging can push consumers away, and result in increased sales—for your competition. A CMS can manage your entire content base to ensure your messaging is consistent across the board and increase your sales.

Call us at 717-764-9720 or email us for help in getting started with your content management strategy.

Tips for Finding the Best CMS for Single Sourcing Your Content

When thinking about moving your content into a content management system (CMS), there are a few key principles to consider. The first principle is single sourcing. A CMS is a great place to store one copy of your content so that it can be shared with many users. By single sourcing your content, you eliminate all duplicate copies of the content and consolidate your content base down to one trusted source of content. Now, all users who access the content will always get the most current version, and older copies won’t be floating around anymore. In addition, single sourcing your content leads to higher quality documents since the content that is being reused across your publications is current and consistent.

Different CMSs have different ways of single sourcing content. Some CMSs single source the entire document and repurpose it for publishing. Other CMSs single source the content components at a more granular level in order to gain maximum content reuse within and across documents. It’s important to do your homework and ask the right questions to be sure that the CMS you choose will give you the most effective single sourcing solution for your content. Here are some things to look for to find the best single sourcing CMS:

Compare the new to the old.
When new content is added or changed in the CMS, is existing content checked for its prior existence and reused if appropriate? If not, you will end up right back where you started – with a whole lot of duplicate content in your CMS. Then, your “trusted source of content” can no longer be trusted.

Track its use.
Can the system immediately tell you and act upon all the current uses of a given content component? It should. Isn’t that one of the main reasons you are buying a CMS in the first place – to better organize and track your content?

Store pure content.
Can the system show the content components independently of any specific use of that content? Content should be stored in its purest form – with no context tying it down – to get the most effective single sourcing and reuse. Consider the following: Johnny Depp, Johnny Depp, and Johnny Depp might be stored three times in a CMS that stores content with its tags, hence duplicating the actual content in the CMS multiple times. Other CMSs that store pure content would only store “Johnny Depp” once and reuse it in its different contexts. If his name changes to “Jonathan Depp,” CMSs that store the pure content only require one change, whereas the other CMSs require multiple changes. Pure content storage is the ultimate single sourcing of content.

Never duplicate content…ever.
Can the system easily allow the same content to be used in many different views, hierarchies, and configurations without ever duplicating the content? As your CMS usage grows in your organization, you may find that different groups use the same content with different configurations. Make sure the CMS you choose can handle this scenario without duplicating the content to accommodate the differences.

Call us at 717-764-9720 or visit our website for help in getting started with your content management strategy.

Writing Tips to Avoid Confusion in Your Translations

When writers create content that will eventually be translated into many different languages, they must really focus on more than just good grammar, clarity and spelling. There are a lot of things we say in the English language that doesn’t translate well – or doesn’t translate at all – into other languages. For example, acronyms and slang phrases usually don’t work so well when translated. Americans can relate to being out in left field, but people in countries where baseball isn’t popular won’t understand it.

To avoid confusion and eliminate issues in the translation cycle, follow these tips when writing your content:

Say it one way and one way only.
Avoid overusing synonyms. There may not be as many different ways of saying the same thing in other languages. Instead of alternating between small, little, petite and tiny, choose one word and stick with it.

Don’t shift gears.
When a word has more than one meaning, use it in one context only. For example, shift can mean a change in state, a physical movement or a period of work time. Don’t switch back and forth between definitions.

Keep it universal.
Avoid using symbols that may not have a meaning in other languages, such as $, /, or -. Stick with symbols that are more globally accepted. If you’re not sure, don’t use it.

Be complete.
Avoid sentence fragments. Now, connect it. Connect what to what? In your translation memory, this clause may or may not be grammatically correct depending on context.

For more writing tips, download our Quick Reference Card for Authoring for Translation and Localization.

Call us at 717-764-9720 or visit our website for help in getting started with your content management strategy.

Tips for Repurposing Your Content

One of the great things about putting your content in an XML content management system (CMS) is that your content is now ready for anything! Why? Because structured content is portable. You can reuse and repurpose your content into many different deliverables for your consumers. Even if you begin by putting technical documentation into your CMS, you can use this content to create many different publications in all kinds of formats. Here are some ideas for repurposing your content:

Make an app for that.
Apps (applications) can be created for virtually anything, and they can run on smart phones, laptops, desktop or tablet computers. Consider your consumers and see if it makes sense to publish some of your content to an App. For example, create an App for remote or mobile staff such as field service technicians or nurses to look up information while on the job. Consumers of your products might enjoy looking up product instructions through an App as well.

Give them what they need.
If you sell a software product, consider providing context-sensitive help in the software in addition to compiled help. Context-sensitive help will give the users only the information that is appropriate for a specific window. Users can get the information they need when they need it without fumbling through an entire manual.

Educate your consumers.
Consider repurposing your technical documentation to a knowledge base or training website for your internal staff or clients. It’s a great way to provide self-paced, free or fee-based training that’s available 24/7.

Wrap it.
Product packaging and labeling often times contains information that also resides in the documentation, such as features or specifications. Consider reusing this content and publishing your packaging from the CMS too. You will be sure that the information is consistent in all places.

Call us at 717-764-9720 or visit our website for help in getting started with your content management strategy.

Make Your Content Matter

How many people really read an entire user guide from beginning to end? Or even one chapter? The purpose of technical documentation is to provide the consumer with useful, action-oriented tasks that can be read and understood quickly. But many times the documentation is filled with lots of redundant or useless information that is meaningless to the consumer.

With much of the technical documentation in electronic form, it’s easier than ever for users to search for a specific instruction or topic. That topic might be the only content they read. As writers, we need to make each word of content matter to the user. To pare down the clutter in your documentation, follow these tips:

Trash the fluff.
Is it necessary to have a chapter outline when you already have a table of contents? Are those descriptive paragraphs that go on and on really valuable to a user who is only looking for information on how to use your product? If the answer is No, get rid of it.

Name that task in 10 words or less.
Use a minimal amount of words to convey the steps needed to use your products. Make it easy to understand and quick to read. You can slash pages of content from your documentation just by rewording sentences to the bare minimum. For example:

“In order to activate the laptop for use, the user must press the Power (PWR) button and hold it for a period of 2 seconds. Then the button is released.”

could simply be stated as
“Press and hold PWR until the Windows logo appears.”

30 words vs. 9 words…which would you read? Keep it simple and to the point.
(Source for example: JoAnn Hackos)

Don’t let users hang.
In addition to providing the tasks for the user to do, tell them what the most frequent pitfalls are and how to recover from them. If you hit the wrong button and launch a process that you didn’t intend to run, how do you stop it? Provide information on how to avoid common errors and mistakes – this is useful information too.

Track FAQs.
If you track the questions that are often asked by your consumers, use that information to refine your documentation and clear up any vague or misleading instructions. Put a process in place with your support team to capture this information and provide it to the communications team for analysis and action.

Call us at 717-764-9720 or visit our website for help in getting started with your content management strategy.

Deciding When to Do DITA

The DITA standard has gotten a lot of press in the last few years, making lots of people wonder if DITA is something they should pursue. There are many organizations who have successfully implemented DITA, and many tools support this new standard. But is it right for you? Here are some things to consider when deciding if you should use DITA:

Research your industry’s requirements.
Must your organization conform to an industry standard in order to share information? If you are in an industry that uses a specific standard like S1000D or Milspec, then DITA is not an option for you.

Find the fit.
Does your content fit a topic-based writing model? If so, that’s a start. Does your content fit the DITA model of tasks, references, and concepts? If you are producing instructional content – e.g., user guides – then DITA might be a good choice. However, using DITA with your marketing material might be like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. Do your homework; research DITA’s spec and make sure DITA is a fit for your content.

Check the wallet.
What is your budget? Some organizations will select DITA because it is a canned, ready-to-use DTD and it has a free publishing engine (the DITA Open Toolkit), so it minimizes the investment to get started. However, DITA will only be cost-effective if your content fits the model (see tip 2: Find the fit) and if the output from the DITA Open Toolkit is acceptable for your content.

Beware of the buzz.
If you already have structured content and a DTD that works well for you, should you switch to DITA? The answer is no – stick with what you have unless you can find a really compelling reason to make the switch. Otherwise, you may end up spending a lot of time and money for no added benefit.

Call us at 717-764-9720 or visit our website for help in getting started with your content management strategy.

How to Keep Your Content Management Strategy Moving in the Right Direction

You’ve put a lot of work into implementing your content management strategy and got it just the way you want it! The momentum is high and everyone is still excited about the positive results they are seeing. Better quality! Faster cycles! Lower costs!

Now what do you do? How do you maintain these results? Or improve them? Here are some things you can do to ensure you continue to move forward with your content management strategy:

Mold your vision continuously.
As you become more experienced with your CMS, you may feel like you’ve found that comfortable place in which everything is working well. Remember, there’s always room for improvement, especially as the CMS is enhanced with new features that can help you work more effectively. Additionally, keep looking into the future, think about what you might need, and focus on how you will get there.

Build expertise in-house.
Continue to train your staff on more advanced concepts and skills. Even a good refresher course every once in a while can be a beneficial reminder to keep the staff’s capabilities honed. And don’t forget to cross-train employees to give your staff more flexibility when workloads shift or when someone calls in sick.

Seek out opportunities.
Are there other groups, departments or divisions that could benefit from using the CMS? Are there redundancies that could be eliminated somewhere else in the organization by sharing the CMS? Think about other opportunities that could expand your implementation and improve your organization’s processes.

Network with others.
Take advantage of user group meetings, conferences, and online groups in your industry to find out what others are doing or to learn about new industry developments. You might just get some good ideas that you hadn’t thought of yet.

Call us at 717-764-9720 or visit our website for help in getting started with your content management strategy.

Encouraging Your Team to Love Your CMS Strategy

As a manager, you’re excited because your organization is going to buy a content management system (CMS) and implement a new strategy to help streamline your writing and publishing efforts – YEA! Now, you have to get your writers on board with the idea. Hmm. This could be tough, because some writers aren’t real receptive to change, and this will definitely rock their world. They won’t be able to do their jobs the way they have always done it anymore. Now, they might own content modules, but not entire books. They will have to share their content – oh my!

How can you encourage your team to embrace this new strategy? Here are some tips from companies who have lived through the change:

Rah, rah! from the top.
Show a commitment from your management team. If your management team shows support and enthusiasm for this initiative, it will convey its importance to the staff and spread excitement for the project.

Map it out.
Have a plan on when and how the implementation will take place. Present an organized strategy to the staff so they know what to expect. Set goals and milestones with realistic timelines so the staff has targets to shoot for. An organized approach will help to ease their fears.

Talk it up.
Communicate the benefits to your staff early in the process. Help them to understand why this is a good move for the organization as a whole and how it will make their individual jobs better. Then, reiterate the benefits to them often. It’s been proven that repetition increases retention rates!

Be democratic.
Solicit feedback, concerns, and ideas from everyone. The IT guys…the writers…the lawyers…the marketers…everyone will have a completely different perspective on the process. Gather as much information as possible and incorporate the good ideas into the new process. People will accept the change more readily if they have input into the process.

Sell the key peer.
Get the go-to person in the group on board with the plan. There’s always that one person in the group who is respected by the rest of the staff as the peer who can answer questions and give good advice. If this person is a champion of the project, they can persuade the rest of the staff to jump on the bandwagon.

Train, train, train.
Make sure the staff gets all the training they need: concepts and skills training, tools training, and process training. It won’t do them any good if they know what button to push but they don’t understand why they should push it. Training is an ongoing process; continue later with advanced training to broaden the staff’s knowledge and skills.

Call us at 717-764-9720 or visit our website for help in getting started with your content management strategy.

Tips for Following the Content Audit Trail in a CMS

Content audit trails are critical in regulated organizations, but they can also come in handy for any organization that has a need to track down specific content versions or changes. What changes were made to the content? Who made the changes? When were the changes made? Who approved it? Why were the changes made? Unlike file systems or word processing files, all of this detailed information can be easily found if content is stored and maintained in an XML content management system.

Here are a few tips to quickly get the historical information needed about a content component, topic, or document:

Compare the old stuff.
In a content management system, every change made to content automatically creates a new version of historical data. Versions record every change made to content and “whodunit,” and stamps it with a date and time. You can also create a version on demand and label it with a name that will enable you to quickly find that specific version in the future. With these versions, you can easily compare two versions to see the differences and trace the chain of editorial events.

Let the CMS do the talking.
Make use of the system-generated metadata. Using advanced searching, you can find content that: was last edited by a specific user, was last edited on/before a certain date, contains specific terms or phrases, etc. Or, you can use a combination of multiple criteria in your search routine to find content that you’re looking for.

Follow the reuse road.
The CMS keeps track of every reuse instance of a content component or module. Use features such as Where Used and Referenced By to follow the reuse path of any given piece of content. You can also use Branching to trace the reuse and modifications made to similar content.

Track everyone in the process.
A CMS with built-in Collaborative Review tracks the activity in a review cycle. This feature automatically tracks all suggested changes and discussions made by the reviewers, and what was accepted or rejected by the editor in the final content update — all time/date-stamped for future reference. Use this information to trace pertinent actions taken on content.

Go with the flow.
Use the CMS’s built-in workflow and project management capabilities to review the production cycles and find comments and documentation related to the actions taken in the workflow. You may find important notes on reasons why users took certain actions or didn’t perform assigned tasks.

Call us at 717-764-9720 or email us for help in getting started with your content management strategy.