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

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

I was recently sent some information regarding The Center for Information-Development Management that you may find of interest if you are a publications manager. If you’re interested in information about communicating with senior management, building business cases for new initiatives, understanding customer information needs, or confronting the myriad issues and problems faced every day you may wish to consider CIDM membership.
CIDM is an organization of information-development, training, and support managers from around the world who facilitate collaboration regarding information development among skilled managers in the industry. Members include managers, senior managers, directors, and vice presidents of information development and training who are remarkably skilled and happy to share their experiences.
New members join CIDM as a department, which means that all staff members and managers are invited to participate in CIDM activities.
There are two membership types–regular departments and small departments. Member organizations receive one or two complimentary registrations to attend the flagship CIDM conference, Best Practices, each September.
Benefits of membership also include discounted rates for attendance at the Content Management Strategies/DITA North America and the DITA Europe conferences, as well as workshops and seminars held throughout the year. Members receive a subscription to the bimonthly Best Practices journal. They receive the monthly Information Management e-newsletter and a subscription to the management listserv as well as participation in the scheduled teleconferences to share current issues and experiences.
If you are interested in learning more about CIDM or becoming a member, please call to arrange a discussion with Director JoAnn Hackos at +1
(303) 232-7586 or visit the website.
While you’re there, sign up for the monthly e-newsletter for continuing news about the management of information development.

Posted by Kathy Howes, Marketing Manager, Author-it Software Corporation.