If you are interested in a great conference, I strongly recommend the India STC conference in December. I’ve not been (yet), but hope to at some point. Apparently, the energy of the conference is amazing.

From their email

The 13th Annual Conference of the STC India Chapter will be held in Chennai on December 1, 2, and 3, 2011. Please send us a proposal with an abstract of about 250 words. Request you to include information about your profile in the proposal. If you have experience presenting at conferences, including STC, mention that in the profile. The best of the paper proposals stands a chance of winning a prize!

For information about paper proposal categories, visit: http://www.stc-india.org/conferences/2011/?page_id=18

Mail your proposal in .DOC, .TXT, or .PDF format to conferences@stc-india.org on or before August 5, 2011.

For more information regarding sponsorships and conference, drop a line to Saravanan Manoharan: treasurer@stc-india.org.

We look forward to meeting you at the Chennai conference.

Sometimes my personal life and my Author-it professional life collide. It feels like this is happening this week. The two stories are related – just stay with me on this.

Personal life first

We have owned a Leonberger dog for the last 2+ years, originally gotten to keep the Aussie company and be his best friend. She was about 6 months old when we got her and for about 18 months, all was well in my house. The dogs played together and liked each other very much.

And then something happened.

We don’t know why but the Leonberger no longer likes the Aussie and attacks him given half a chance. This has resulted in several massive scary dog fights. Because combined, they weigh more than I do, the fights were also hard to stop. And someone is going to get badly hurt.

So we hired the trainer we’ve worked with before and did everything she suggested – kept them separate, encouraged happy interactions, etc. All of it. Right down the line. We love these dogs and want to help them be friends again.

Seven months later, it’s not working. The Leo doesn’t like the Aussie. Period. The Leo likes other dogs very much but not the Aussie. The trainer says it’s personal. And personal means we are very limited with what we can do.

After thinking about what’s best for both dogs, we’ve come to the devastating conclusion that one of them has to find a new home. Because we had the Aussie first and because he has health issues, we decided to keep him and turn the Leo over to the local Leonberger Rescue.

The hand-over happens this weekend. There is a lot of sadness and crying in our house. But it’s the right decision, regardless of what we want or how much we love the dog. And we do love her.

Professional life

In the world of content development, we acquire tools and then often fall in love with them. Which is fine – it’s a happy place to love the tools you work with day in and day out.

But sometimes, the situation changes. Perhaps we discover the tool we love very much is not scalable and we’re growing. Perhaps we need a new output format and it’s really hard to get it, using this tool.

Things can change over time.

A new tool may be needed, But it’s hard because you really like the tool you have and it was such a good fit until things changed. You almost feel like a bad tool owner by changing tools.

But a smart professional understands the limits of what they are doing and recognizes sometimes you really do need to get new tools. It’s in the best interest of your content and your users to do so. It’s a hard decision to make but it’s the right decision in the end.

To help you make the decision, you may hire a consultant to advise you. If you do so, take them seriously. If you thought enough of them to hire them, then pay attention to what they recommend.

Why are these stories related?

In the end, you have to make decisions that are best for the situation, which may be very different than what you want.

I want my Leonberger to be best friends again with my Aussie. But that’s not going to happen, in the very experienced opinion of my trusted trainer (my consultant). As a result, both dogs are stressed and potentially I or the dogs are going to be badly hurt.

You may want your tool to work for your group after you add 10 more people. But if the tool was never designed for what you need now, then it’s the wrong tool. You can pretend this is all going to be OK or you can face the facts and make the right decisions.

It’s up to you.

I recently posted about how much I like Variants in the new version. I thought I’d take a few minutes and point out another thing I like about Author-it, although it’s not new in 5.5.

I like that I can swap out a static graphic for an AVI video when I go to online publishing.  This lets me support my users appropriately for the output without any manual effort. I set it up and forget it. The more that can happen automatically, the more time we have to add value to our content instead of fussing with our tools.

Here’s how

You may need to create a new template for this kind of object before you start. If you need help doing this, refer to the online help in Author-it.

1. Add a graphic to your library or select an existing graphic. Open the Graphic Properties dialog box.
2. On the General tab, select the template you want to use. Make sure you select one that has both Print and Web selected in the Include Object In area AND has the video play options you want for the Web output.
3. On the Print tab, select the graphic you want to use in the print output.
   
4. On the Web tab, browse and select the avi file you want to use.
   
5. Click Apply and then click OK.
6. If you haven’t already, place the graphic object in a topic.
7. Publish each output and test.

See why I like it?

Regardless of what you exactly do in the field of creating or producing information, you spend time developing content. For most of us, that means writing but some of you do screen videos, or make illustrations.

I’ve come to realize in the last 2 or so years, we need to stop calling this writing, or drawing, or what ever and refer to this process as “developing content”.  And I have some good reasons.

Developing content

There is the thought out in the business world that “anyone can write – we were all taught in school how to do it.” And that’s a silly idea. In school, we were given the tools and shown how to use them.

• We got a hammer and learned to pound on things.
• We got a screwdriver and learned to turn things.
• We got a wrench and learned how to wrench things.

But very few of us left school knowing how to build things. So why does the business world think we all did? For some reason, the business world thinks that all you needed was an introduction to the tools and you’ve got the skill.

They don’t think that about managing their financial books. We all can basically manage a household budget but probably none of us are suited to be a CFO.

Writing is a skill and a gift

Most of us professional writers started with a gift and spent a long time learning our craft. We improve and improve to the end of our lives.

Much like a carpenter (to continue my metaphor) who starts with a gift and learns more and more over the course of his or her life. The work of a master craftsperson is breath-taking in its beauty.

So, if the business world thinks that what we do is essentially unskilled apprentice labor and that anyone can do it, we need to reframe the discussion.

Developers make stuff

My reasoning for content development is that developers make stuff. Perhaps in your company, they develop code.

We make stuff, too. And our stuff is as important and needed as the code is. After all, if you can’t use the product, what good is it?

Therefore, we’re content developers. We develop content, regardless of writing, illustrating, or anything else we’re creating to support people in what they are doing.

Try it out

Try it out in your workplace. Start quietly calling what you do “developing content”. Don’t make a company announcement or anything. Just start using the phrase. I bet in 6 months, it’ll come back to you from someone else.

Do you agree there is value or do you think this is silly semantics?