It’s a new year, and we have launched our new online training schedule for 2010.
This year we have a number of exciting courses ranging from 1 hour through to multi-sessions spread over 4 days.

We are also introducing something new for this year and will be holding YouChoose training sessions. We think it’s important to understand the training requirements of our Author-it users, so now you have the opportunity to tell us what type of training you would like. Dates haven’t been confirmed yet, but we’ll contact you well in advance to gain your input.

Also feel free to email us anytime if there is specific training you are wanting to attend. All types of feedback is appreciated.

Below is the online training schedule for January, February and March 2010. We will also be sending reminders throughout the year. Our courses were very popular last year so book your spot now to avoid disappointment by contacting your Account Manager, or email us on sales@author-it.com

Reuse Management – Jan 27
This course introduces you to the features of Author-it that allow your content to be created once and reused in many different places. More…
2 hours
13:00 PST
16:00 EST

Author-it Core – Feb 23-26
This course is essential to learning the major features of Author-it, and shows you how to maximize use of the product. More…
4 days
4 x 3 hour
10:00 PST
13:00 EST

Localization – Mar 30
Using Author-it Localization Manager. This course introduces the concepts of Localization. More…
2 hours
10:00 PST
13:00 EST

Customizing Print – Mar 30
This course introduces you to ways of customizing your printed output. More…
1 hour
13:00 PST
16:00 EST

Customizing HTML – Mar 31
This course introduces you to ways of customizing your HTML outputs. More…
1 hour
10:00 PST
13:00 EST

Structured Authoring – Mar 31
This course introduces you to how your organization can utilize structured authoring to create valid content using these rules. More…
2 hours
13:00 PST
16:00 EST

So whether you’re a beginner and wanting to learn more about the Author-it suite of products or you are an experienced user wanting a refresher course, register your training requirements now to avoid disappointment.

For further details on any of these courses, or for pricing, contact your Account Manager or sales@author-it.com

Places are strictly first-in, first-served, so register now.

Prerequisites
- An intermediate/expert knowledge of Author-it.
- Access to a copy of Author-it 5.3 and a machine that meets the minimum recommended system requirements.

Want more information?
Click here for full course details and training schedule.

Posted by Michael Lai, Marketing Executive, Author-it Software Corporation

Visit us at the 18th annual WritersUA Conference for Software User Assistance.
The event takes place March 21-24, 2010, in Seattle, Washington.
We will be exhibiting at booth # 5 and will be showcasing:

• Dynamic Assistance Platform (DAP) -the new release of Author-it Aspect - Content from your perspective

• Enterprise Authoring Platform (EAP) – the full authoring, content management, localization and multi-channel publishing suite

There will also be a number of Author-it Peer Showcases run by our clients and partners during the conference.

Using Author-it and Sajan to Improve the Efficiency of Localizing WebEx Support Content into Ten Languages. Presented by Felicia Wu, Cisco WebEx, Milpitas, California
“Cisco WebEx has increased the number of languages from seven to 10 and decreased the cost of localization by more than 60%”. Read more..

Supporting a Diverse Audience by Employing Author-it “Variants” to Embed Client-Specific Content on Demand. Presented by Chip Jones, ADP Comprehensive Outsourcing Services, Roswell, Georgia
“With variants, we can create one-off topics that retain and reuse the core content but also include the unique content as fully formatted, embedded objects”. Read more..

Improving Support for Multiple Web-based UA Deliverables and Translations Using Author-it. Presented by Cindy Stephens, RWD Technologies, Baltimore, Maryland
“Author-it has allowed us to build more than two weeks into our three-month production schedule that we did not have before. The greatest achievement? We are able to create accurate, user-focused documentation and translated content to our customers faster and better. The lesson learned? Why didn’t we do it sooner!” Read more..

Working with Author-it and FastHelp to Create Windows Mobile Help in a Single-Source Environment. Presented by Sue Heim, PGP Corporation, San Diego, California
“We could take output from Author-it that was single-sourced from the user’s guide, and import it into FastHelp. Because we also use Author-it Xtend, we could easily reuse smaller fragments and thereby reduce localization costs”. Read more..

About the conference
The conference goal is to continue to provide an event with the most comprehensive and timely information specifically designed for user assistance professionals. It features over seventy cutting-edge topics from over forty experts, project demonstrations from other user assistance developers, plus an exhibition of products and services, certificate programs, and networking events.
For further information, see http://www.writersua.com/ohc/index.html.

The conference topics cover a broad range of key tools, processes, technologies, and techniques.

• DITA, XML, Structured Authoring
• User-centered Design & Usability
• eLearning Tools and Techniques
• Hands-on Computer Tutorials
• Mobile UA

We hope to see you at the WritersUA Conference on March 21-24 and discuss your Component Content Management requirements.
We will be exhibiting at booth # 5.
If you have any questions, feel free to contact us on sales@author-it.com

Posted by Michael Lai, Marketing Executive, Author-it Software Corporation

I came across a question today on LinkedIn asking “What’s stopping the wider use of DITA within your company?”.

Some of the responses that were given included reasons like

• I don’t have time right now to do this
• I did this at my last job, and it cost me my job
• Too hard to migrate content to DITA
• Too expensive to buy the tools

What really surprised me was that I don’t think most people really understood the question. I believe the question was asking, what is stopping other departments using DITA, not what is stopping more technical writers on more projects using DITA.

In my experience, which is very broad, the key factor that is “stopping the wider use of DITA within organizations” is that DITA is a content model designed to meet the needs of producing technical product documentation, more specifically software documentation and is not applicable, or even easily adapted outside that use case. DITA was after all designed by IBM to meet their internal requirements and has not changed much since entering the public domain.

The other major factor is that outside professional writers, like technical communicators, users lack the skills, discipline, and desire to be able to understand or use the complex set of technologies and tools required to make DITA work. It’s simply too hard.

To make matters worse, even professional writers struggle with DITA and many organizations are abandoning their DITA (and other XML) implementations in favor of less complex and more user-friendly solutions that can be easily adopted across the organization by users of all skill levels.

Last year we replaced dozens of DITA and XML based implementations with Author-it, in large and small companies alike. I remember meeting with one particular group that had been working with DITA for about a year and was very adamant that it was the only way to do it. During the presentation of Author it we showed them how easily they could migrate their DITA content, do everything they were doing with their XML based tool set, and much more, while continuing to use the DITA content model and validation within Author-it. Needless to say they are now happy Author-it users.

Paul Trotter
Founder and CEO
Author-it Software Corporation

I had a conversation today where I was discussing strategies for content architecture with a Fortune 100 high tech company. The person I was speaking with stated that they wanted to create a strategy where the content was completely independent of the tool set used to create and process it.

I believe his premise was that by making the content tool agnostic, that it enables independence from tools, and allows different parts of the organization to choose different tool sets independently to meet their specific requirements. Provided all the tools can magically inter-operate and just load and save the content in the same model everything will be wonderful.

So my question is. Is this really feasible, or is it just a flight of fancy?

My opinion is that if you are focused on satisfying the actual business requirements of users who are authoring, managing, translating, and publishing that content you cannot practically separate the tools from the content because the requirements themselves are not satisfied by either the content model or the tools, but the combination of both.

This is why you never see this type of separation in other software categories like CRM, Financials, or ERP.

If your organization was looking for a new CRM, would they design an independent data model and strategy around managing client information, then find tools that will use the model? I doubt it.

Instead they would most likely gather their business requirements, which by definition need to be independent of implementation, then go to the market with an RFI or RFP. This enables them to consider all the possible ways and technologies available to solve their problems.

I would love to hear your opinions and feedback on this subject.

Paul Trotter
Founder and CEO
Author-it Software Corporation

Aberdeen’s research has found that organizations pursuing a content reuse strategy manage to reuse 41% of their content on average (The Technical Communicator’s Transformation , October 2008). Compare this to the overall 81% reuse rate achieved by the technical publications team supporting Hewlett-Packard’s Enterprise Storage and Services (ESS) division. The group, responsible for creating support documentation for all of HP’s server hardware, did not arrive at this level of reuse overnight. Tom Erber, Program Manager for HP’s ESS Technical Documentation department points out, “We have 20 different lines of servers, with rather isolated supporting engineering teams. A lot can change between two generations of a product. Even if the product name is the same, the only thing that might stay common between two models is the height. In addition, concurrent product launches makes it difficult to get horizontal visibility into content.”

More…

Posted by Michael Lai, Marketing Executive, Author-it Software Corporation