We all like to think that we work hard, most of the time that is true, but we certainly like to play hard as well. I don’t think that this is a bad thing, we all need to relax. If we kept working/programming our fingers to the bone, we would more than likely be dead before we hit 40, and that is definitely not my idea of fun. Also, I think that you learn more about work mates when you get them outside the work environment.

When I heard that this years Author-it Conference involved caving, rock climbing, adventure racing and partying, all with with the coolest bunch of people I have ever worked with, I was well pleased, to say the least!

Welcome to the Author-it Software Corporation Conference 2008 , which only lasted 2 hours (well the ‘work’ part of it anyway ).   We’ve had an amazing year so far and it was nice to celebrate it together.  All credit to Paul (CEO) and Steve (President) for acknowledging that this weekend was all about fun.

The first activity was the caving/blackwater rafting. Think icy cold water with a bit of mud and clay mixed in just for fun. Everyone took part, from Gung ho leaders and people of all ages and sizes from the very demure Kendra (Implementation) and Olinka (Quality Assurance) to front-rowers (for those not familiar with Rugby, think big, strong and built like a fridge!) like Adrian (Training and Implementation), Colin (IT administrator) and myself (Support Analyst).

Charging through the darkness we were positive we heard Smeagol, or was it Gollum? We could never be to sure but we felt the ‘power of the ring’, but search as we might we had eventually to settle for a chocolate fish and a hot cup of coffee.

Tracey (Office Administrator) did a fantastic job organizing the outdoor activities and the venue ably assisted by Julia (Office Aministrator) and the dinner later that evening was fantastic. I can’t remember the exact details of dinner. All I can say is what do you expect when there is an open bar!!! The evening was merry everyone talked and drank the night away.

As mentioned earlier, it is much easier to get to know people in more relaxed settings, and the night was only just beginning as we found out…

I think the presence of alcoholic refreshment was meant to make the games night harder (or more fun), either way we definitely raised the roof off the hotel! The first ‘game’ was like monopoly, where teams had to compete with each other. I was on Paul’s (the CEO) team and so the pressure was on. We did not disappoint!

We had Deidre (Financial controller) handling our finances, which involved collecting the cash and not paying out a cent, Richard (Business Development Manager) selling his services to the highest bidder, AND John (Development Director) tackling the challenges with highly organized gusto! His driving skills were also brought to the fore. I was the link man, running around directing people. It’s the only role in the game where I could wield power (the influence of the caves earlier perhaps?). And not that the result mattered but We Won!Once the award were handed out (lots of chocolate) we all drifted away to our beds, but not before we paid taxes to Gretchen (Director of User Assistance) and as long as we gave her some chocolate we were safe….. to be continued

Posted by Martin Irawan, Technical Analyst, Author-it Software Corporation

The term ‘double-edged sword’ may have been created with content management systems (CMS) in mind. On one edge, they hold great promise for organisations in terms of their ability to create and manage content that is more accurate, less costly to produce, and more consistent in appearance. On the other, they can present a myriad of challenges in their implementation and acceptance by the people using them – and purchasing them. Let’s examine the challenges that a CMS presents, along with ways those challenges can be overcome…

Challenge #1: Control & Management
Perhaps the primary challenge with managing content (which, for the purposes of this article, is defined as an organisation’s ‘human readable’ information, representing about 80% of a company’s total information base), is that there’s little or no control around creating it in the first place. Content is produced by a range of people at every level of an organisation, with usually no control mechanisms over it.

Another issue is the way content has been managed over the years. A good example is financial information. Years ago people wrote their financials longhand on paper, then in ledgers. This was followed by spreadsheet software, which simulated the written ledger in the way it looked.

Soon thereafter, the 2nd generation of software arrived which allowed users to manipulate the information more creatively, followed by sophisticated financial management software. This evolution of systems for financial information, which took place some 15-20 years ago, has not taken place for other content. In fact the majority of common tools to create content (e.g., Word, Frame, etc.) have never moved from the paper simulation stage.

Word processors essentially replicated the function of typewriters, and while they have become more visual and feature-rich they’re fundamentally still doing the same thing: storing information as linear documents. CMS’s have been instrumental in moving content creation out of the paper simulation phase into the database stage, which can’t be duplicated in a paper format. Basically, it’s a revolution in the way content is managed and mirrors the evolution of financial software.

Posted by Paul Trotter, CEO, Author-it Software Corporation

If you ever need to make any major structural changes to one of your books then here’s a tip – before you do anything print out the structure of your book as it is, just in case you need to revert back to your original structure!  To print the structure of a book:

1. Open the book in the Book Editor view.
2. Click on the Author-it Button, located in the top left corner of the main window.
3. Select Print > Print Book.

…and now if you get into a real mess with the structure you can always flatten the structure so that everything is at the top level, get the topics in the right order and re-do the structure.”

Amanda Caley, Director, Content Chameleon,
Author-it Certified Consultant.

Recently I’ve noticed that not only within the pages of this blog, but in CMS blog-space in general there are a handful of commonly used acronyms that are bandied about with the assumption that all readers automatically understand what they mean, not only literally but also what technologies and processes they actually represent.

Another twist to this is is that even within the content management community, there isn’t always agreement. Here is my humble attempt at bringing some clarity to the subject.  My thanks go to Wikipedia and Peter Halgopan of Information Week for help with definitions.

CM or CMS – Content Management  or Content Management System.  This a computer application used to create, edit, manage, and publish content in a consistently organized fashion.  CMSs are frequently used for storing, controlling, versioning, and publishing industry-specific documentation such as news articles, operators’ manuals, technical manuals, sales guides, and marketing brochures. The content managed may include computer files, image media, audio files, video files, electronic documents, and Web content.

CCMS – Component Content Management System.  Content Management applications which break down authored content into granular components (‘topics’).  Core components of such content, can then be reused in many content products.  Research shows that as much as half of product support content is redundant and could be reused. For a large organization, reuse can yield significant savings, efficiencies, and quality improvements over time.  A core component can be something as small as a legal copyright statement, the first steps in a process that are shared by many processes, or an key branding message like a product name or tagline. Reuse allows the core component to be edited and maintained from a single source, and then be easily assembled into thousands of documents where it is needed.

WCM or WCMS – Web Content Management or Web Content Management System.  Content management system software, usually implemented as a Web application, for creating and managing HTML content. It is used to manage and control a large, dynamic collection of Web material (HTML documents and their associated images). A WCMS facilitates content creation, content control, editing, and many essential Web maintenance functions. Usually the software provides authoring (and other) tools designed to allow users with little or no knowledge of programming languages to create and manage content with relative ease.. Blogging tools such as WordPress, Blogger and Movable Type are examples of WCM tools.

DM or DMS – Document Management or Document Management System. A computer system (or set of computer programs) used to track and store electronic documents and/or images of paper documents. Some DM systems also have tools to help support workflow. The term has some overlap with the concepts of Content Management Systems and is often viewed as a component of Enterprise Content Management Systems (ECM) and related to Digital Asset Management, Document imaging, Workflow systems and Records Management systems. Contract Management and Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) can be viewed as either components or implementations of ECM. DM systems are particularly good for organizations with a high volume of documentation that needs to be easily searchable, as well as organizations that have to comply with regulatory restrictions.

DAM – Digital Asset Management covers content and files of every type, including images, video and audio files, MS Office files, in fact just about anything that can be digitized. DAM usually refers to a hardware/software system that helps to store and manage these digitized files. The term “Digital Asset Management” also refers to the protocol for downloading, renaming, backing up, rating, grouping, archiving, optimizing, maintaining, thinning, and exporting files.  Occasionally the term “Visual Asset Management” (VAM) is used, especially in the FMCG space.

MAM – The term “Media Asset Management” is sometimes used as a sub-category of “Digital Asset Management”, mainly for audio or video content.

ECM – Enterprise Content Management tends to be a bit of a all-encompassing concept but generally refers to systems that include content management and digital asset management components. ECM systems are usually fairly expensive and hardware intensive, and often require a significant level of IT experience to set up and run. The “official” definitions as set by AIIM (Association for Information and Image Management) is “Enterprise Content Management is the technologies used to Capture, Manage, Store, Preserve, and Deliver content and documents related to organizational processes. ECM tools and strategies allow the management of an organization’s unstructured information, wherever that information exists.”

The major differences between CMS and ECM? The CMS definition specifically mentions software; it’s a software system (or systems) for a the specific use of managing and publishing content, whereas the ECM definition refers to both tools and strategies.

I’m sure we are just scratching the surface here, so I’d be grateful if anyone can give deeper meaning to any of the above, or indeed add to the list.

Posted by Dunken Francis,  Web Consultant, Author-it Software Corporation

Last nights game was a game of two halves. Yeah, a first half and a second half.  OK, corny jokes aside, of course all the games have two halves

We played another mixed team: Tuckers Luck – and let’s just say that Tucker and his team had just a wee bit more luck than we did.  They also had a bit more skill than they did last season – and a couple of fast young dynamos. I’m pretty sure one of them – who works for a plasterer friend of mine – plays rep grade rugby league.  So any false sense of security we had when we thought we might have been on an equal footing was quickly shot down in a blazing ball of disappointment in the opening minutes.

It’s hard to believe we drew against these guys last year.  I have a theory that Tucker has had them eating steroids like vitamins. Training 7 days and 7 nights a week over winter. And they are all professional athletes, in elaborate “normal people” disguises….  Alright, conspiracy theories aside, maybe they were just a bit more organized and they have played together longer. Remember, this is only our second game and we’ve had absolutely no practice. Many of the team have never played before. Tuckers team have played together for at least 3 years. With a few more games under our belt, we’ll no doubt start to gel together as a team and come up with all sorts of fancy footwork and elaborate plays. Who knows? Maybe we’ll even win a game!

For the benefit of our US friends, and anyone else not familiar with what I’m rambling on about, touch rugby is a derivative of what I’d call ‘normal’ rugby,  that is played over the summer season as opposed to winter, and instead of tackling the opposition, you tag (or touch) them. There’s a good explanation on Wikipedia

The proper draw has only just been sorted and we didn’t get it until we arrived. While we weren’t sure if we had the early or the late game, we certainly weren’t expecting to turn up and find we were scheduled to play twice!  There are nine teams in the module, and instead of giving one of the teams a bye, someone decided (bless his socks) that it was a good idea to give one of the teams 2 games so nobody misses out. It’s kind of ironic when we had floated around the idea of calling our team ‘Bye’ in the hope we might get a night off. Of all the teams that had to get the first 2-game nights, ours was by far the worst choice. Maybe in a few weeks when we’re a little fitter and a little faster. But not right at the start of the season! Excuses were made — and I’m not going to give anybody any grief over that because I was one of the first to say “no way man, you’ve picked the wrong team!” — and a team was scrambled together from some of players from the other early games who were still crazy enough keen to play a second game.  So while I felt a little guilty, at least the other team still got to have a run around. They probably won too.

I’m sad to say I didn’t get a try. Well I’ve already my quota from last season so I’m pretty happy with that. If I get another one, I’ll surprise everyone including myself.

Our star player of the night was Craig with our only given try. Colin came in a very close second, with an awesome sidestep and try. But alas, it was not to be awarded. The other team called touch and the blatant one-eyed ref wouldn’t allow it. OK, maybe I’m the one-eyed one, but allowing it was not exactly going to make a difference.  Special note should also go to Martin – our man of steel – who opted not to sub so he could “direct” the team from the field.  What can I say? Those were interesting directions Martin!

At the end of the evening, touch was the winner, with us a close (well, maybe not quite close) second.

Next week we play the Jokers. I know a lot of these guys, and while many of them still play premiere and reserve grade rugby, they are a great bunch and nowhere near as serious (at least not when it comes to playing touch) as the mixed teams. In my experience, it’s really only the mixed teams that get competitive. The guys teams are generally there to have fun and keep fit in the off-season.  So while we might get our butts kicked again, I think it’ll be a lot more fun.

Until next week,
Gretchen

Breaking News! Our first game and our first win! Will the season continue on such a high? Only time will tell…

The evening got off to a relatively slow start with team members trickling in one by one leaving us wondering if we’d have any subs.  In the end, our numbers reached nine (that’s 2 spares for those of you who don’t know the rules), so I was quite happy to start on the sideline.

Lidi-Ann showed up at the last minute, a little worried as she hadn’t played before and that it all sounded a little “serious”. Serious I asked? Then I guess you haven’t seen us play…  Serious is not a word that could be used to describe the Kamikaze Squad. At least not unless you’re using it with a few other words. Like seriously uncoordinated. Seriously hysterical… Well, you get the picture…

We tried (unsuccessfully) to convince her to play. Her excuse? She was wearing a skirt and dress boots so wasn’t “equipped”. We suggested she play naked. It could be our strategy I said – the opposition would be too scared to touch her. Well, maybe not all of them…  some of those guys would probably be quite keen on catching her! In the end, she opted to be our second cheerleader  – although neither Sarah or Lidi-Ann brought pom-poms, and I didn’t hear any fancy cheers on the sideline. Lots of laughter, but no cheering…

The game kicked off, with plenty of touches and our first try by our newest recruit, Vicki.  Her secret?  Well, remember she was a constable for the Queensland police force so she has had plenty of practice chasing suspects.

Some fantastic moves and our second try by our wonder boy Martin, who was already a little tired due to helping blow up over 300 balloons for Tracey’s farewell (that’s another story), and playing the early game for the ADP team (who helped us last season by providing a few ring-in players when we were short).

Our third and final try by yours truly. An amazing breakaway you ask? Kind of… The other team just sort of stopped and let me through, but I have no shame and will happily take the credit for it!

We did start wondering if it was ever going to end. The problem with the late games, is Stew (who organizes it all), is usually too busy chatting and drinking and forgets the time. Eventually he blew the hooter and we went and enjoyed a nice cold well deserved beer and headed home.
Rock on next week!
Gretchen

PS. The team we were meant to play pulled out at the last minute so we won by default. We played another team Shut The Gate who had already played the early game. You couldn’t tell. They were faster, fitter, and if the score did count it wouldn’t have quite gone our way with 3 tries to the Kamikaze Squad, and a few more to the other team. But who was counting?

As I mentioned before, we are planning to migrate content from FrameMaker to Author-it, staging the migration across two different product sets (and no small amount of time!). I’m in the process of evaluating Author-it for, despite having used it before, it has recently been overhauled with a spiffy new UI and some new features.

Author-it is a single source system, with content stored in a central database, which can publish to most (all?) of the formats that anyone would ever need. It includes an editor, supports multiple users, and has some additional add-ons for localization and so on. Their website is very good if you want more information on their product.

After downloading and installing the trial version, which limits your import and publishing but otherwise has all the features available for use, I fired it up and was greeted with the new interface. Based on the ribbons used in the latest version of Microsoft Office, it is quite a shift away from the previous version and it took me a while to get to grips with. However it is a huge improvement over the old version and once you are used to it, like anything, it’s very nice to use. Yes I know there are still issues being dealt with, but I didn’t run across that many during my testing, so I’m happy.

During my evaluation I spoke to their Business Development Manager who was very helpful in delving into some of the issues I had around versioning and set my mind at rest. I’ll outline how we are going to handle maintaining multiple versions of documents in another post, once I’ve given it a dry run or two.

One issue that cropped up was the location and format of the supporting database. You can run Author-it on a Jet database either locally or on a network drive although that is particularly performant, or run it on a SQL Server. As we are a small team I did consider the Jet database but our situation suggests a server database would be better. Which introduced another problem, price. SQL Server isn’t the cheapest and we don’t have an installation in-house. Thankfully one of our IT guys suggested SQL Express (a limited free version of SQL Server) as a possibility, and after a quick check on the Author-it Yahoo Group, I’ve found that it will run quite happily on that database.

There is a limit of 4GB on the database size but as long as we keep our images elsewhere there is little chance we’ll hit that limit. Our total content at present, including images, tops out under 500MB for one version of the documentation. So we’ll actually be saving space on a server as we won’t be maintaining multiple versions of entire documents. Must remember to point that out to our IT guys!

Aside from versioning the only feature I was unfamiliar with was the batch runner, which allows you to run a batch file (.bat) as a scheduled task. Our current system runs at night, using Webworks to create a Javahelp file which is then included in the software build and Author-it will give us similar functionality.

Why Author-it? Well, quite simply it gives us what we need.

I spent some time at the X-Pubs conference last year, and throughout the presentations the underlying message was “get your requirements sorted before hunting for a system”. The premise is obvious enough, if you decide on a system first, you end up shoe-horning your processes around how it works rather than getting a system that works you way YOU work.

I also spent some time considering DITA but ultimately switching to an XML-based system is still too cost-prohibitive. Author-it is a compromise, allowing us to work how we want to work, whilst giving us single source benefits. We will use DITA as a framework for how we plan and write the content, but the simple fact is that Author-it is a much better value proposition than a bespoke system, both in monetary and resource terms. This makes the business case much easier to sell.

If you are considering single sourcing your content, then I’d strongly suggest you investigate Author-it as a possibility. It has limitations, including the oft-cited reliance on Word as a publishing engine, but for me the advantages outweight those.

And no, I am not being paid to endorse Author-it.

Published with permission from Gordon McLean’s “OneManWrites” blog

One of the recent enhancements to Author-it is the ability to use Quick Tables – a nifty little feature that enables you to quickly insert a table by choosing from a selection of already preformatted tables.
A quick table is simply a regular Author-it topic containing a preformatted table, with or without standard text. If you frequently use tables with specific formatting you can create a separate topic for each quick table, and then save that topic to your Quick Tables folder so that you don’t need to recreate the table each time that you want to use it.

Step One: Create the Quick Tables:

1. Create a folder to store your Quick Tables.
2. Create a new topic in the folder (using any standard topic template).
3. Insert a new table with the required number of columns, rows and formatting. You can set things such as the borders that are applied, the cell background color, text used inside the table (such as row headings), and the styles that are applied to the text.
4. Save the topic.

After creating the quick tables you need to tell Author-it which folder they are stored in.
Step 2: Assign the Quick Tables Folder:

1. Open a topic and under the Edit tab, select Table > Quick Tables then choose Change Folder for Quick Tables…
2. Select the folder you created a moment ago, and choose OK.

Once the folder has been assigned you are ready to insert the tables into your topics.
Step 3: Insert a Table Using Quick Tables:

1. Open a  topic and click where you want to insert a table.
2. Under the Edit tab, select Table > Quick Tables. A preview of each table is displayed.
3. Click on a table from the preview to insert it in your topic.

Voila! The table is added and already formatted as you want, ready for you to add additional data as needed.

Posted by Gretchen Rogers, Author-it Software Corporation

Welcome to the Author-it Blog.

It’s been an interesting journey working with our team to conceive, create and now deliver the Author-it Blog.  I previously thought of Blogs as the ramblings of people who ‘didn’t have a life’. They filled this void through endless hours of musing on subjects of great interest to themselves but of little interest to anyone else. So I did a bit of research; I looked at some blogs both within and outside our industry and ended up at the ‘source of all knowledge’… Wikipedia.

A few things stood out to me in the Wikipedia definition… commentary, online diary, network, and community. The ‘community’ aspect in particular tweaked my interest.

For many years the Author-it User Group has formed a fabulous part of what we are to the marketplace.  It provides an invaluable link between users. A place where they could share ideas, ask questions, provide tips to users and feedback to us.  It really is a community.

I see the Author-it Blog extending this community aspect by providing a medium for greater participation by our Author-it team.

The vision is a vehicle to open the doors of the company. To allow our clients, partners and prospects the chance to look inside Author-it, to meet us, ask questions and share ideas.

Commercial reality dictates that some of the amazing ideas and creativity that flows through Author-it sometimes have to be restrained, but I’d like the Author-it Blog to be a place where we can post our opinions, ask questions, solicit feedback and share our perspective with you.

While we are obviously biased, our perspective is born of more than a decade in the industry, tens of thousands of prospect meetings and over 3,500 client implementations all around the world.

I expect that we will challenge some of the general thinking out there.  Author-it has never been afraid to be different where we believe we are right.  We seek to solve business problems, not the symptoms.  To us the solution is always more important than specific technology fads or standards purported to be the only way to solve the problem.  In this, I hope we are able to stimulate debate and debunk some of the myths we believe exist in the market.

A blog is nothing if not read, thought about and responded to.  Your feedback is important to us and will help us improve this blog and its value to all.  Please comment on our posts, and if you feel the need, contact me personally with any additional thoughts.

Thanks and best regards,