This has been a very busy week for the technical content world.

Author-it 5.5 is released

As you know by now, we released the latest version of Author-it 5.5 to great excitement in the industry. Once again, we’ve redefined the possible in the content authoring and managing world. For more details about what this release includes, click here and then sign up for the free webinar that shows you how the Author-it Reviewer works.

June 1st at 2pm Pacific. As always, if the time or date don’t work for you, sign up anyway to get a link to the recording the next day.

This hour long webinar is a don’t-miss event. We strongly recommend inviting your boss as well. S/he’s going to want to see this. Author-it Reviewer is changing collaborative work forever.

Author-it Learning Center

If you’ve been interested in learning Author-it, we have an option you’re going to love: free, on-demand training.

The Author-it Learning Center includes videos to help you understand the basics of Author-it. You learn what objects are, how to import and author content, and how to customize your outputs.

It’s all online, ready for you to view when you’re ready to learn. Each session is under 15 minutes, making is easy to find the time to learn something new.

Even if you know Author-it, it’s a great way to refresh your skills or review something you may have forgotten. What a great way to get the information you need and move on with your day.

The STC Summit Conference

And finally, this week was the STC Summit Conference. We want to thank the many many people who came by the Author-it booth to find out how our products can make life easier.

150 people wore Author-it tee shirts for the special Apple iPad give away. We talked until we had no voice, gave out chocolate Kiwi Fish, and awarded the iPad to Andrea Wenger.

A great time was had by all, as you can see in the picture below.

Fast update before I get ready for the conference today.

Opening night

Last night, the STC Summit officially opened. The show floor was crazy busy and I think I met nearly everyone who is at the conference. Our booth was flooded with people!

We explained the iPad give away and handed out flyers. Today, I expect we’ll be flooded again. I can’t wait.

The iPad give away

While STC is giving away an iPad, so are we. Here’s how you get in the drawing:

1. About 11am today, come to our booth and watch the demo of the new Reviewer.
2. Get a limited edition t-shirt. We only have 150 of them – far fewer than the conference attendees.
3. Wear your shirt during the conference.
4. At some point, we’ll grab someone wearing the shirt and they win the iPad on the spot.

That’s it! That’s all you have to do.

So, we’ll see you all in the booth!

It’s that magical time of the year, when STC holds its international conference. This year the conference is in Sacramento, California, a short drive from the lovely city of San Francisco. A slightly longer drive from Southern California, where I live, but I’m driving up, nonetheless. I have family there and I’m spending a little time with them before I come home.

If you are at the STC conference and want to talk, stop by the booth. We will be doing in-booth demonstrations during the breaks, so if you want to see some new stuff, this is your chance. If you want to talk about what Author-it can do for you, several of us will be there to do just that. Paul Trotter and Steve Davis will also be there to talk about what we’re doing and what’s coming.

Do you want to win an iPad?

This year, we’re giving away an iPad. You know you want one – I certainly do. To get in the drawing for the iPad, we’re doing something special. Late morning Monday, we’re giving out special, limited edition, Author-it shirts in the Author-it booth. You want one of these.

We only have 150 of these shirts, many fewer than conference attendees. To be eligible for the iPad, you need the special shirt. Then you wear the shirt during the conference. At some point, we’ll select a person wearing the shirt and give them the iPad. You don’t know when we’ll do that, so it’s important to always have your shirt on.

Other prizes

If you miss the shirt, we have other prizes we’re giving away, including a free copy of each of the new Author-it books. You could win Author-it Success in 12 Easy steps by John Hedtke, or Learning Author-it by Char James-Tanny. We’re very excited about these books and think you will be too.

Blogging from the conference

I’m hoping – internet connection willing – to be blogging from the conference. We’re certainly tweeting and posting to FaceBook and Tumblr. Watch our social media for what’s happening at the booth, who is winning prizes, and more.

Good luck on the iPad!

This is a short post, as I’m getting ready to visit with a client next week and need to wrap up projects before I do that. It’s been a rather frantic week.

But if you’re in Spokane, Washington and want to have evening drinks, send contact me and we’ll make a date.

Good news 1

Two new books are coming out about Author-it! I have specific information about the first book now and will share more about the second book in a week or two.

Learning Author-it by Char James-Tanny from XML Press is available this month. Char is a long time user of Author-it, Author-it consultant, and an all around smart person so this book should be very helpful as a reference to learning and using Author-it. I’ve not seen a copy yet, but we’re all very excited about this book.

Good news 2

This week, Paul Trotter gave a free webinar about his vision of the future of content development. We had nearly 300 people sign up, despite the day being Easter Monday holiday for much of the world. We knew the day might not be the best, but with Paul’s travel schedule, it was the only day we could get his attention for an hour.

If you missed this interesting webinar, click here to view the recording.

Lastly

I really hope to see you at the STC Summit in 2 weeks or so. We’ll have New Zealand chocolate fish to give out Monday and Tuesday, as well as interesting and informative activities in the booth.

Don’t forget the special Facebook giveaway – go to our Facebook page (Author-it) and “Like” the page to be entered into a special drawing. We have something very Kiwi to give away to the winner. You don’t have to be at the STC Summit to win.

As I’ve stated before, I’m not a strong visual learner. I like words and getting my hands on things. But many people are strong visual learners and I need to accomodate them in any content I develop. So, since I like words, I found a book that helps me with visual information. I thought I’d share some highlights with you in case you’re also not a strong visual learner.

By the way, to find out your learning strengths, take the VARK quiz.

The book is a classic: William Horton’s Illustrating Computer Documentation. Wiley Press, 1991. I realize it’s older but the concepts and principles are valid regardless of when it was written. If it’s not on your shelf, I strongly recommend you get it. Mine is dog eared and written in and tagged all over.

Design content for scanning

Since I like words so much, I was delighted to discover that words can be graphical elements, too. Lists and tables are visual and need to be designed as such to support your visual learners.

While tables are inherently a grid, you can make tables harder to read by using horizontal AND vertical lines. Pick one (and you may not even need that) that suits the information and stay with that. Make any lines thin enough to let the eye follow but not thick enough to visually draw the eye.

Since humans are hard wired (because of the rods and cones in our eyes) to see lines, we want the thickness of the line to not overwhelm the visual field.

Lists are always a good thing to use. If you use lists, make sure they are used correctly.

1. Numbered lists imply steps.

• Bulleted lists imply a lack of order.

• Check box (which I can’t figure out how to show you here) lists imply completeness.
  • If you use several levels of lists, use a different bullet for the other levels

Organizing content visually

Screen captures are good and we all use them, assuming you’re developing content for software. But think about how else you can visually show information.

For example, the last time I was documentation manager, I instituted a policy that every chapter (section) must have an introductory paragraph(s) and then a graphic that illustrated the ideas in the paragraph(s). This supported both our word learners and our visual learners. It visually organized the content in that section.

Typically, we had a flowchart, showing information flow through the system but sometimes we showed how parts worked together. It depended on the content in that section. We single-sourced that graphic to the online help to support the different learners there as well. Had we the time and the staff, the graphics might have become animations online.

On a different note

Don’t forget to go to Facebook and Like the Author-it page. At the STC Summit, we’re doing a special drawing from the list of Facebook Likes and giving away something very Kiwi. You want to be in that drawing, even if you’re not at the STC Summit.

There’s a lot going on at Author-it in the near future. We have webinars and are attending conferences. These events provide you an opportunity to learn, ask questions, and meet people.

Product webinars

We have several webinars coming up, some product-specific and some tools-independant.

If you’d like to see what’s coming in Author-it 5.5, we have several webinars available for you over the next several weeks. We also have a webinar in May about importing your legacy content into Author-it.

To sign up for any of these webinars, click here. Remember, we record these webinars and make them available the day after so if the scheduled date or time don’t work for you, sign up anyway and you’ll automatically get a link to the recording the next day.

General webinars

We’re also hosting several tools-independant webinars. If you want to learn more about Component Content Management, we’re offering a webinar on that topic April 28th, 1pm Pacific, 4pm Eastern.

Paul Trotter is sharing his vision for content development April 25 at 1pm Pacific, 4pm Eastern. This is also a good webinar if you’re boss doesn’t quite understand what content development is about and why it’s important in this century.

And May 11 at 1pm Pac, 4pm Eastern, we have the Content Trends Survey Results webinar where we look at the data from the survey and what it means to content development professionals.

To sign up for these webinars, click here. We also record these, so again, sign up even if the time and date don’t work for you to automatically get the recording the next day.

Conferences

Author-it is attending the STC Summit May15-18 in Sacramento CA. We’ll have a booth and several of our staff will be there (including me), ready to meet you and talk about how our products can help your organization. Additionally, Kirsty Taylor is presenting tips and tricks in Author-it Localization Manager at the Summit. This is a good way to see how a real user works in Localization Manager.

If you’re not at the STC Summit in Sacramento, then maybe you’ll be at the STC India Summit May 7-8 in Bangalore, India. This exciting event includes Saurabh Kudesia talking about Planning, Managing and Implementing Content Variations using Author-it.

We’ll see you soon!

The new issue of the journal Technical Communication is out and there’s an article that I found very interesting.

Single Sourcing and Content Management: A Survey of STC members. David Dayton and Keith Hopper.

I’m not going to do a detailed review because you all can read it yourself. But what I found interesting was some of the results.

Results

Of the 276 respondants to the survey, half reported using single sourcing or single sourcing with some sort of content management. I would have expected that number to be higher, since single sourcing has been around since at least 1996. The cost (time) savings alone make the content development method make sense. It’s just not a new technology and I was surprised that not 90% or more are single sourcing.

Drivers of moving to a single source and/or content management development method were unsurprising:

• faster information development
• regulatory or compliance issues
• translation efforts

About half the people using single source and/or content management said there are downsides and tradeoffs, which I found completely unsurprising.

These information development techniques are potentially restricting if you want to just focus on writing. These methods force you to think about how and where your content is going to be used and that can feel restricting. But it’s critical, I think, to consider when you develop information.

A surprise

Apparently, the majority of people are using Word to author and are trying to do some sort of single source and/or content management. Which I think is doomed to failure.

Word is a delightful tool for short documents. But if you’ve written a 400 page book in Word (as I have, several times), you know it’s the wrong tool to try anything like single source and/or content management. They don’t give us numbers for the failed projects that were done in Word, but I’d like to see those.

They do seem to find that more larger companies have moved to single source and/or content management as compared to smaller companies. I have to wonder if larger companies see the business benefits of managing their information the way they do any business asset. Smaller companies may not have reached that point yet.

I’d also like to know how many small companies are using Word, as opposed to the larger companies. Again, smaller companies might be using Word because they are not thinking of information as an asset to be managed.

The summation

The summation was interesting to me – the authors say that a single source and/or content management environment has hit critical mass. This information development method is now into the early majority.

But if you look at just those using a content management system (which should include single sourcing but the authors say it doesn’t have to), then this development method has not quite crossed the chasm.

There are a lot of other pieces of good info and you should look up the entire article. It’s worth it.

What are your thoughts?