Author-it, Comet Communication

The Rhein Main Halle
Wiesbaden
Germany

Join Author-it and our partner Comet Communication on stands 972 & 973, 05 – 07 November 08Tekom – the world’s largest event in the field of technical communications.
For more information please visit the Tekom website.

Clarion Suite getaway
Melbourne, Australia

Join us on Monday 20th October for a FREE information afternoon and learn how to:

• Collaborate across geographically dispersed teams
• Manage your documentation for product and language variations
• Reduce information risk and increase efficiency
• Improve employee effectiveness

Let our industry experts Matt Armstrong and Richard Ashurst show you how many of our US and Australian clients solved these issues with Author-it.

For more information please click here.

Mt Albert Campus
Auckland

The event is intended to allow technical communicators to get together to:

• Attend presentations on topics of interest such as documentation techniques, developments in XML, trends etc.
• Attend training workshops
• Network with other writers
• Hear about case studies of projects
• Hear about new tools, tools they may not be currently using (but could be) and ways of improving their usage of existing tools.

For more information please visit the TCANZ website.

I attended the CIDM Best Practices conference in Santa Fe, NM in September. As a new member of the CMS community, working for Author-it, I could not help but notice the apparent need for an evolutionary advancement in the industry.

During the conference, in practically every discussion I had with potential customers, they described their current CM solution as either:
1) A mixture of various vendors’ solutions that required some effort to integrate; or
2) An incomplete solution that still needs components to automate their processes.In most cases, these people did not seem to know about (or understand/accept) the concept of a true “end-to-end solution”. Most of the conference was focused on developing best practice techniques for persuading the rest of the industry (including their own respective organizations) to embrace content management. This was, after all, the intent of the conference. However, there was very little mention of the taxing requirements of CMS integration.

Many people seem very attached to their current multi-vendor solution as they’ve invested a lot of time, money, and sweat into it. In several cases, CIDM presenters described how they began their CMS deployment with at least one restart before they found a solution that actually addressed their respective requirements.

It seems there is an inherent high level of uncertainty in the final result when launching a new CMS solution. This should not be surprising as there is a corresponding high level of integration effort required to deploy a multi-vendor solution. Yet implementation timing is a significant cost variable in any major project. A timely ROI and clear path of achieving it is key to selling the CMS concept at the executive level.

In my opinion, this market must evolve to a more complete solution-based environment before it can substantially proliferate. Much like the networking device industry today, in general, customers prefer a complete end-to-end solution for procurement, product integration, and after-market service reasons. The industry needs to vigorously emphasize technology AND integration as a means to ramp general acceptance.

Posted by Chris Simoneaux, Senior Sales Executive, Author-it Software Corporation

Now this is a post which probably only a “genuine” German could really understand…

We arrived in New Zealand after a long haul flight from Europe. Stepping out into the arrival area in the airport loaded down with boxes and baggage – my son Jannik cuddling his favorite pet toy, my wife and I looking around for the HR manager from Author-it who had agreed to pick us up at the airport.

It was a great feeling to know that somebody from Author-it was waiting for us. As promised, the HR manager from Author-it was standing there, very patiently because we needed to pass through the New Zealand MAF (Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, the New Zealand Biosecurity Customs), waiting ages whilst they cleaned and disinfected our hiking shoes!

Finally, we made it and were greeted with a big hug from the HR manager. We had been bursting with curiosity about our new home land, and after all the emotional up and downs of the last few weeks, this was a great welcome and just what we needed.

Shortly afterwards we were presented with our official “Author-it survival kit” – two boxes exclusively packed for us:
Box number 1

• Groceries – basically enough food and supplies to get us through the first couple of days.

Box number 2

• A copy of the local yellow pages
• Details of various insurances required in New Zealand
• Street maps of the city
• ‘Tips’ for searching for a house etc.

This was absolutely brilliant for us and has definitely helped us to get organized.
But that’s not all, the HR manager even lent us her private mobile phone! This had never happened to me before in Germany.

A couple of days later she saw how much running around we were doing and told us to borrow her car! She was flying to the south island for two weeks, so we may as well make use of her car she said. We were stunned by the level of generosity we’ve been shown, and we will be eternally grateful for the great support our family received during our challenging “settling-in” period.

Later I have realized that this is a just a part of Kiwi life. In New Zealand you’ll find this not only in your private life, but in business world as well: From the very first day I have felt comfortable at Author-it, and welcomed without any pre-judgement or conditions.

I’m sorry if you think I’m being a little harsh on my country of origin, but in Germany an HR manager would simply never offer to lend his/her car to a new staff member. Or provide a welcome pack with groceries.

I wonder if anyone else has any examples of Kiwi hospitality?

Posted by Ralf Wittgen, Director Global Services, Author-it Software Corporation

If you manage a large number of images in your Author-it Library, you’ll want to hear about a nice little feature we’ve added in Author-it 5.1. Using this new feature couldn’t be easier and the result could save you a huge amount of time.

Creating a file object to store an image in Author-it is a quick and easy process. You’ve probably been in the same situation as me though: you have fifteen images in a folder on your desktop which all must be added to your Author-it library as file objects. Creating the objects individually could be time-consuming and error-prone, there must be a better way.

In Author-it 5.1 there is a better way:

1. Open Author-it 5.1 and log in to your library.
2. Open the folder you wish to import your images into.
3. Select all the images you want to import from your desktop or Windows Explorer (it could be one or it could be one hundred.
4. Drag the selected images and drop them in the Author-it folder listing.
5. Click the “OK” button in the “Create File Objects” window.
6. File objects are created for each image.

There are a few additional points of interest on the “Create File Objects” window that you may find useful:

• The text “<FileTitle>” will be replaced with the images file name in the description field.
• You can choose the folder objects are created in, and the template they’re based on.

Sometimes it’s the small things added in a release can make all the difference.
I hope you find Drag and Drop Images as useful as I do. Check out the release notes for Author-it 5.1 for more features you may have missed.
Posted by John Mikkelsen, Director of Development Author-it Software Corporation