5 Revolutionary Technologies Technical Communicators Can't Afford to Ignore.
Scott Abel, aka The Content Wrangler, opened the morning on the role of The Technical Communication Futurist, in a talk titled 5 Revolutionary Technologies Technical Communicators Can't Afford to Ignore.
Before he started, Scott did an interesting thing. He handed out cards he called "Twitter cheat sheets." It was a card listing the Twitter IDs of all the speakers. Interesting.
Scott noted we treat the "World" Wide Web like the "American Web, and this has to change. We have to be prepared to change. Consumers expect our content to work like the new devices they are used to.
We need to solve our problem with precision, guided by math & science. But we also need to shop these ideas around.
Automated translation is a "killer app." Facebook has a billion members, and still many of them can't communicate. The "World" Wide Web is the land of opportunity. In a global market, reaching customers previously viewed as "out of scope" is the goal. 96% of consumers on Earth don't live in the U.S.
In America, the average reading level is 6th grade. And less then 6% of the world's population speaks English well. But understanding spoken English doesn't mean the capability to read English. In many countries and cultures, women aren't afforded to learn to read at all.
More than 6000 languages spoken on Earth.
Recognize you write for both humans and machines.
The writing rules you learned in grade school Language Arts classes are no longer sufficient for a world where Language Science is needed.
Look at our content from the vantage point of a rules processing engine. If you don't write for the machines, many people just won't get your information.
For video--very popular these days--you need transcription files.
Terminology management is also important. I controls the words you use and stores them in a central place, accompanied by rules for their uses. Make sure the words you used, for products, for services, for branding, are used consistently. Otherwise, findability suffers. And it needs to be available to everyone in the organization. If they don't use the same words for the same things, you introduce unnecessary challenges. This also helps in translation and regulatory compliance.
Finally, adaptive content . More than cosmetics, it's about substance. And that's more than just adapting to devices, but to the needs of users. For example, a "click" on a laptop would be "touch: on a tablet and "say" on an automotive GPS.
Customers are demanding an exceptional experience. Responsive design is not enough. Responsive designers are the new webmasters. (And we all know what happened to them). Of course, content should adapt layouts. It must adapt to the experience.
Consistently structured content provides a better experience. Adaptive content is content separated from formatting. It makes content findable and usable.
The way to do this? A component content management system. They store content components that are used to assemble documents. Component content management is about managing content, not files.
When you combine structured content with CCMS, you get personalized content and targeted marketing.
All customers are not the same.
The copy-paste-reuse method is the most costly and error-prone.
The Technical Communicator withing the Integral Product Lifestyle
The next speaker at Adobe Day is Joe Gollner. He riffed on the theme of gears, the theme of his presentation, and how it also means how we all work together. We need to adapt as a community because the demand for integration are so strong.Thee are business life facts, that include continuous process improvement. increasing automation, dynamically tailored products, and localized delivery. For this, you need standardized parts and flexible and dynamic assembly. Turns out, that's not only for products and services, but for content too.
It comes down to portability and processability of content. How? XML.
It Starts with the Source - English Terminology in a Multi-Channel Global World
Val Swisher was next on this subject In summary, terminology is important. Be consistent. Technology leads to faster, cheaper, and better translation. It enables global mobile responsive design.There's no such thing as too simple. If you can explain a complex technology in simple terms and simple sentences, you increase the chances of your readers, especially if English is their second language, understanding your content. I reject the notion of a company with complex technology needing to use complex content.
Even if you think you're not translating, your customers are.
Producing Rich Media Output from DITA.XML
Matt Sullivan was the next speaker before the panel. The focus here is about rich media within documentation. Of course, it's being done with Adobe products, largely Adobe FrameMaker.Panel Discussion: Preparing Your Content for Multi-Lingual, Multi-Channel Global Delivery
Scott Abel hosted the panel to identify challenges and opportunities.What does it mean to be global ready?
Make sure content is structured, readable. Say the same thing every time you say it. The product has to be global ready. Not all concepts are easily translated.
What is the single largest challenge in preventing us from reaching global audiences?
We don't think strategically. The cheeky funny content can be offensive in other cultures. Think about the entire product lifecycle. How is your content going to get from the very first character you type to the consumer on the other side of the world.
Is it possible to create a consistent tone and voice that will translate well across cultures?
Can't say it is always possible, but take a ready, fire, aim approach. Every page is Page One. Have to try, have to start somewhere.
What is multi-channel publishing?
Making maximum use of automation to deliver across all channels, including ones we do not yet know of. Content engineering, thinking and extracting the structure. Can be too granular, which can go beyond the capabilities of a management system.
What are the biggest challenges for organizations seeking to publish content to multiple channels?
This is what I'm comfortable with. My audience likes PDFs. Audiences change. The ones consuming content today are not the same ones five years ago. Have to think about re-use. Management is a challenge. The writers. The content that we create isn't necessarily the content customers consume. The content we create has to be on Google. Multi-channel isn't interpreted by customers like we think. We think about putting docs together in certain ways, but when people look on Google, they get hits based on SEO. One of the best things you can do is search on Google using terms your customers would use. Googleability affects context. Search results can drop customers in the middle of your content. Keywords are managed post-publish. Do it during the authoring process, and content becomes more findable.
What are the not-s-obvious opportunities of multi-channel delivery?
Graphics. Screen sizes change. People think video is the solution. Easy to skip in a document, but not in a video. Put a TOC in or by the video. When you go from device to device and pick up in the same place.
What's the biggest mistake an organization can make when moving to multi-channel content delivery?
Organizations turn internally, which brings the same solutions they have already had from the same people. Conferences such as LavaCon bring in new ideas, and bring huge value add. The Americanization of the idea of multi-0channel authoring. Will be different in other parts of the world. We have to think globally ourselves. Imbalance: pouring too many resources in just one part of the solution. If you don't test, you don't know.
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