Not a lot of blogging this week, as we’re at WritersUA in Long Beach.

Sunday, we did the Author-it Morning and had a great time. People got a lot of value out of the 4 or so hours we were together and it was fun.

Today, the booth is very busy and the show attendees are full of excitement.

Watch Twitter for the #writersua keyword to find out what’s going on.

And if you’re at the show, stop by the booth and see what the buzz is all about.

You know we’re attending several shows in the next few months. But did you know you have other ways to learn about Author-it?

Webinars

Not only are we attending several trade shows in the near future, we have online webinars available for you to attend.

Author-it Morning at WritersUA

If you are interested in seeing some useful tips, talk to Author-it people, and have some coffee and you’re either in So Cal or at WritersUA in March, you want to jump on the Author-it Morning event March 12 2011, 9am to Noon.

If you’re interested in attending this event, send me an email at sharon.burton@author-it.com with Author-it Morning in the subject line. We’re charging $49 US for the event but I can get that waived. Since I’m organizing the event, I have some sway!

See you then!

If your life is anything like everyone I know, this is the time of year where there’s too much to get done and nothing close to enough time. The holidays are upon us, work wants stuff done by the end of the calendar year, the house needs to be cleaned, the dogs need to be walked.

It can all be overwhelming.

Take a break

What you need is a break, a place to quiet your mind. Of course, I think you can do that by taking our survey, signing up for one of our webinars, or joining our new group on LinkedIn.

But maybe that’s not what you are looking for. Maybe you should sign up for a conference?

Coming up

The upcoming trade shows for Author-it are:

Intelligent Content, Feb 16-18 Palm Springs CA.

WritersUA, March 13-16 Long Beach CA

STC, May 15-18 Sacramento CA

I’m going to be at all of these and would love to see you there. Think of our booth as a quiet spot to come and chat about nothing in particular or about our products. I’m fine with both. We can show you what’s going on, we can knit together, or you can just sit quietly. It’s really up to you.

What ever you decide, take a few moments for yourself this holiday season.

You deserve it and your sanity will be intact in the new year.

If you are from the US, this week kicks off the US holiday season. We have our national day of thanks this week, where we gather with friends and family to eat large quantities of food. Because we eat so much food, the US shuts down Thursday and Friday to recover. And go shopping.

My husband and I will go to his mother’s house Thursday to eat and see his family. He comes from a large family and all the siblings live in So Cal. Many of them will gather, with their adult kids.

My mother-in-law will have children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren at her table. There will be lots of noise and commotion as the next group arrives, and lots of good food to eat. Everyone is welcome.

Because I come from a smaller family, now spread all over the US, gathering with my family is hard. Both my parents and one brother are no longer here to celebrate with. For my next birthday, I hope to get everyone together to celebrate but it won’t be for another 7 months. We’ll see.

Family

I like to think of the people who are interested in the Author-it products as family too. If you got us all in one room, there would probably be lots of noise and commotion as the next group arrives, and lots of good food to eat. Everyone would be welcome.

Towards that end, I’ve created a LinkedIn group for people who are interested in Author-it products. Most of our staff has joined and a lot of other people. I think of it as a large table where you can meet new people, talk about things that interest you even if it’s not directly related to Author-it and our products. You can post jobs, contact others, and just get to know more people.

To find the group, go to LinkedIn and search for Author-it Friends. Or click here.

Pull up a chair, have some food. I look forward to seeing you there.

I’ve spent the last 2 weeks very focused on creating screen videos for our YouTube channel. While this isn’t hard, I thought I’d share how I do it, in case it’s useful information to you.

But first, a related tangent.

Learning styles

Adult learning theory says that adults learn in four modes:

• Visual
• Auditory
• Read/write
• Kinesthetic

Because humans are wonderful, individuals typically prefer one of more of these modes to consume information. This is called a mixed strategy.

People tend to be stronger in some of these modes and weaker in others. Personally, I’m very weak in Visual. I really struggle to consume information when it’s presented in only a visual mode.

For example, when I was in Graduate school, getting my degree in Cultural Anthropology, I struggled with archeological site maps. These line drawings that showed the monumental architecture and distribution of artifacts seemed flat and uninteresting to me. I just couldn’t “see” why the other students were so excited about them.

I’m not a visual learner.

But other people are.

Good user assistance

Good user assistance supports all four learning modes. And because we have the web, it’s easier today to support all four.

Screen videos are a great way to support visual and auditory learners. And they are not my best ways of learning, because they are so visual.

Delivering information in a visual way means this is hard for me. And yet, my customers need this support.

Worse, my boss is a visual learner. I know this because he prefers to video conference when we have our weekly meeting. He says he feels better when he can see who he’s talking to, that it feels flat otherwise.

So, my users need this support and my boss prefers to consume information this way.

Looks like I’ll be making screen videos!

How to make a visual process less visual

Now that we’ve established that we’re not pitching to my strengths and I need to do it anyway, I thought I’d share some ways I’ve found to make this easier for me. It may help you as well.

Step 1: Decide the small thing I’m going to show

This may sound obvious but it’s an important step. The videos must be no longer than five to seven minutes or it’s going to seem complicated, even if it’s not. So, short is good.

I look for a small thing I can show in less than seven minutes, understanding that eventually, I’ll have lots of small things which will be a large thing.

Step 2: Write the script

Because I’m a word oriented, kinesthetic learner, I want a written script that includes what I need to be doing on the screen. Think of it as the plan.

So I write out what I’m going to be saying and what’s generally happening on the screen. I don’t need to include what to click, for example, because I’m fairly confident of the product.

As a rough guide, my scripts work out to about 3 minutes per page, single spaced. I use that as my first measurement of Step 1. If I’m at the middle of the second page and I’m no where near the end, I’ve got issues and I need to edit what I’m doing.

Step 3: Walk the application with the script

When I’m done with the script, I walk the application, doing what I think I’m going to be doing to check issues:

• Do dialog boxes appear where I think they’ll appear on the screen? I need to adjust and relocate these to appear where I want them.
• Is there anywhere where things are going to take too long? This may be a spot I can cut frames or speed up the video in post processing.
• Is this the easiest way to do this? I may discover an easier way as I walk the application.
• Is there a place where things are happening on the screen and I can talk about a best practice while we wait? If it’s short, I’ll add that to the script.

Then I edit the script, making notes and changing things until I have a better feel for this.

When I’m done, it’s time to start recording.

Next week

Next week, I’ll take you thru the actual recording and post processing steps I’m using to get good videos.

I just thought I’d pass this along to you all:

Interesting read in the blog article from Bob Chapman. Most of it basic on topic-based authoring and multi-output publishing.

http://blog.rrchapman.us/2010/10/using-author-it/

We have a guest post and a fast tip for you:

Using chapter numbering and mini TOCs

I’m currently in the process of customising an Author-it Library for one of my clients.

One of the things that I always get stuck on is how to remove the Chapter number and the mini TOC from the printed output. So as I need to document it for myself, for future reference, I thought I’d share my quick tip with others who might find it useful. At least then I’ll know where to find my tip when I need it next time!

How do I remove the Chapter number and the mini TOC from my Word output?

If you don’t want to include the Chapter number and the ‘In This Chapter’ mini TOC in your Word output, here’s what you need to do in Author-it:

1. In the Chapter Template and First Chapter Template
   Object Templates > Properties > Print tab – Remove the word Chapter and set the list option to (none).
2. In the Chapter Template and First Chapter Template
   Object Templates > Properties > Related Topics tab – Select In This Chapter and on the Appearance tab, clear the Print option.

Posted by Amanda Caley, Content Chameleon, Author-it Certified Consultant

We have an SDK available that lets you (or a developer) create plugins and other wonderful things. If you know what an SDK is and why you want to use it, head over to devhub.author-it.com and get your hands on it.

But not all of us know what an SDK is or why we should care. In a nutshell, it’s a way for your developers to make your applications work automatically with our application.

For example, if your sales team uses Salesforce, you can use our products to create custom sales proposals and Powerpoint presentations and have those connected automatically to the customer info in SalesForce.

I asked one of our sales team fellows, Matt Armstrong, to help me come up with a story that makes sense for those not super technical in the programming area.

This is his story. He’s sticking to it.

Why everyone should be excited about the Author-it SDK…  A colourful metaphor

Imagine you have a model car made out of those truly awesome Lego Technics blocks – it’s fun to use and does many cool things, but the individual blocks have been stuck together so tightly you can’t pull them apart.  And even if you could, there’s no instruction manual to show you which piece does what and how to put it all back together again.  There are lots of other people in your street who also have Lego cars.

Then one day the Lego head office posts every single Lego owner in the world instructions for not only how to pull the car apart and put it back together, but also what each piece does, which other pieces it works with, and how you can make new bits for your model car.

In the parcel, Lego has also included a handful of other Lego models, completely free, that you can use and pull apart and join onto your model car or make into completely new Lego models.  The instructions also tell you how to Lego can connect with fun toys from other manufacturers.

Fun times.

At first, everyone looks at the instructions and the new pieces and puts them on the shelf.  After all, the model car is already pretty cool.

And then one day your next door neighbour’s older brother is playing with a Lego boat he build from the pieces Lego sent him.  Even better, he can tow the boat with his original model car because all the model cars have tow bars, but you’d never noticed that before.

The next day your cousin shows you how he can remote control his Lego car from a cell phone and uses it to walk the dog.  He’s pretty pleased because he still gets pocket money for walking the dog.

A week later your sister shows you the Lego aeroplane she made using the engine out of the original model car.  It’s really cool and everyone in the street thinks so, too.  Your sister writes down how she made the plane and the next day everyone in the street has a Lego aeroplane.

Best of all, every couple of months Lego send everyone in the world a new engine.

So, that’s what an SDK can do

I urge you to point your developers (or you, if you’re good at that) to our website and have them get the download. They can do amazing things with it and make all your lives easier. You may be spending hours every week doing something that your programmers can automate in 30 minutes.

You can also create and release plugins for others to use. So it’s worth checking back occasionally to see what other people have contributed, or contribute yourself!

What things would you like to use a plugin for? What doesn’t Author-it do that you’d like it to do?

When I was documentation manager at a large company in So Cal, we had a lot of sales guys (guys here being gender neutral) who did lots of presentations. They were supposed to use the official Powerpoint templates and approved content but they did what they wanted.

Things got out of synch. They showed product information that was out of date on templates that were no longer the official designs. Worse than this, they also reused a lot of content so there was a lot of copy and paste between presentations but not between sales guys.

It got messy

Additionally, we had a training department that took our user manual FrameMaker files and pulled them apart to create the training manuals and e-learning. The trainers then created their own Powerpoint slides, with the same resulting issues the sales guys had.

This all looked bad to the potential and current customers because we lacked a consistent brand. And for a 300 million dollar company to show customers that we had no real process for ensuring a brand looked very bad. We looked like we were running the whole thing out of someone’s garage.

Worse, there was so much content that people were trying to reuse but the tools didn’t let us. So we brute forced it with the predictable results.

We looked dumb. And we spent a lot of time trying to correct wrong information.

This is where…

This is where I could tell you how wonderful Author-it is and how it would save your day if this is your current workflow. But for that information, read the rest of the site or request a demo from me. I have something small and exciting to tell you about in this post:

Author-it has a free plugin that publishes to Powerpoint.

So, you can write your user docs, reuse that content into your training manuals and e-learning, and get sales and training Powerpoint slides from one library.

No more out of date information or slide designs. No more paying people to waste time finding and changing all the places where you mentioned a feature that got pulled at the last minute. Everyone is working from the right information and the right templates, all the time.

This is a happy thing

This alone makes me very happy. If any of the tasks I listed above are things your group is doing, you need to look into Author-it. If you already use Author-it, get the plugin here.

If you need Author-it to do something that it currently doesn’t do, we have a new SDK that I’ll be talking about in another post later this week. It’s available now if you want to poke at it. Go to devhub.author-it.com.

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.