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Which way do you like it–Top down, or bottom up?

Image from Nestler.com

Okay, first of all, get your mind out of the gutter. It’s not that kind of discussion.

But it is a discussion about content strategy–because, you know, this is a tech comm blog.

Here’s where I’m going with this.  I had a situation at work that prompted my thinking and further discussion with several other people about this topic, because I’m trying to explore how content strategists approach, well, content strategy.

For me, the way that I approach content strategy is starting with the big picture.  You need to start with what are you trying to achieve as the end goal. Then, I look at the “adverb” questions to determine if that end goal answers them. What I mean by the “adverb” questions are:

  • Who is your audience? Who needs this content/information? Who is going to use it?
  • What content needs to be included? What is the goal of the person who wants to use it? What are they looking for?
  • Where are they going to find the content?
  • Why do they need the content? Why would they come to this site for that content?
  • When would they need this content?
  • How would they obtain this content/information?
  • How much content do they need to absorb to be satisfied? How much content is actually necessary for their needs to be remedied?

This doesn’t just apply to marketing content, which is usually the “model” for this. When working for my last job, I worked on a lot of repository-type sites for departments that weren’t internally selling anything. They just needed that right-info-right-here-right-now experience. That’s what all websites–or any content that’s put out there–needs to address.

But I slightly digress. So anyway, at work, we’re in the process of figuring out how to deliver some internal content that’s not really been formally organized, at least by modern standards. There’s lots of internal documentation, but for one topic I was researching, there were distinctly four pieces of content on the same topic, all written within the last two years, all of them correct, but no cohesion or indication that perhaps one was based off of another. When looking at the big picture beyond my own project, I realized that this would be a great project to apply DITA XML and create content chunks to start reusing information, provide consistency, easy updating, multiple outputs, etc. If you know about DITA stuff, you know why DITA is good for certain kinds of documentation, and I saw this as an opportunity.

Speaking with my colleagues, there have been two trains of thought. The first way would be to look at things the way I’ve usually looked at creating a content strategy–looking at the big picture, and breaking down things until you got it down to granular level, retrofitting current content as appropriate, weeding out what’s not needed anymore, reworking items, and doing a gap analysis to identify what additional content is needed. It makes sense, right?

The alternative view is approaching the strategy from the bottom up. Other colleagues suggested that we need to create and reconfigure all the detailed, smaller pieces of content, and build upwards towards that “big picture”, creating the “buckets” as we create and reconfigure the content we have. And if we happen to identify a content gap along the way? We’ll compensate or fill in the gap as appropriate.

Somehow, that latter just hasn’t sat with me very well. The latter, while it could be done, is a short term answer, in my opinion. It’s putting a bandaid on a wound rather than treating a condition that needs better control and having a long term treatment plan. The long term plan is “remission” and maintenance that can be sustainable and controllable. That’s only done when understanding the big picture and drilling down.

But maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I’m not seeing things clearly for that other perspective. For now, we’re working with the short term, bottom up strategy, with the goal that once we can get past the short term stuff, we can try to concentrate on the long term stuff (top down). Now, I understand that there are circumstances where the bottom up approach does work. For example, in knitting, it’s usually pretty common to knit a sweater from the bottom and work your way up. But even then, it’s about building the foundation.  So, in my content top down, we start with the foundation, and figure out all the details.

I don’t know. My brain is topsy-turvy over this in trying to sort this out and make some sense out of the best approach.  What does the tech comm and content strategy hive mind think? Include your comments below. Let’s discuss!

 

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TaxoDiary – Taxonomies in Information Science

TaxoDiary – Taxonomies in Information Science
— Read on taxodiary.com/2018/08/taxonomies-in-information-science/

Thanks to CJ Walker for posting this on LinkedIn.

This is a big part of my job right now, and this is an excellent way to clarify the difference between what a thesaurus is and taxonomy is. Taxonomy really is about the organization of the content so that the hierarchy makes sense.

Another analogy that I’ve used–which I got long ago from Val Swisher of Content Rules is how one can organize a closet. You can put the pants together, the shirts together, and the jackets together, but you could put all the red clothing together, all the blue clothing together, etc. Neither way is wrong, as long as it makes sense and others can follow the flow.

Except with me these days, it’s more about pharmaceutical departments and procedures. Still, even with those topics, we need to scale it back all the way to what are the objectives of the website we’re building, and how do we structure the website so that users can find what they need quickly and easily. Start with the foundational basics, and build from there.

I highly recommended this article if taxonomy isn’t your strength. It shows that it’s not as hard as it seems.

–TechCommGeekMom

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Music is the ultimate single-sourcing resource

A few years ago, I wrote an article for someone else about how music was used in remixes and mashups, but it never got published. Even so, I was reminded of how music has a lot of reuse due to two events that happened to me over this past weekend.

First, I went to a concert given by the Princeton Symphony Orchestra. The pieces that were played were Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture and Beethoven’s Ninth “Choral” Symphony. About an hour before the concert, the maestro/conductor held a little talk about the pieces, giving some history and other notes about the pieces. He mentioned that both pieces were reflections of the times, in that the music reflected the turmoil that was going on in Europe during the early 19th century. But what also struck me–and what I listened for–was the reuse of music to reflect some of the action or feelings of the time. In the 1812 Overture, for example, they played the original Russian version, which begins with a Russian Orthodox chant. Later, you hear the French National Anthem several times repeated over and over to reflect Russian and French forces at odds. Beethoven also used bits of well-known (at the time) country songs that were reflected in each movement.

Second, I started to watch an excellent program on television about the Beatles. It was on very late, and my husband and I–who are big Beatles fans–got drawn in, but had to turn it off as we needed to get to sleep. But when we did see was fascinating, and it put an interesting spin on their music. The episode was concentrating on how revolutionary the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album was. It was the first time any musicians purposely made a studio album that wasn’t meant to be played for touring. This allowed the Beatles a lot of freedom to experiment with sounds that were either repurposes or found a new place. Sometimes it was the instrumentation that was new; sometimes it was the hybridization of two or more different styles. The one piece that they broke apart that captured my attention was “Penny Lane”. “Penny Lane” is about observations around the area where Paul McCartney and John Lennon grew up. Musically, it captured the old vaudeville sound yet at the same time had a pop/rock sound to it, with overtones of baroque as well. The final track included 4 separate tracks of piano, and a host of other instruments like a special piccolo trumpet (I think that’s what it was called, but correct me if I’m wrong), which wasn’t an instrument used often in modern pop music! Another example, although not part of the album but part of the recording period, is “Strawberry Fields Forever”. Did you ever think that the vocal track sounded a little weird, even though it worked? That’s because the main music background track was made on one day at one speed, and the voice was recorded at a different speed on a different day. John Lennon wanted to use both tracks, but they didn’t synchronize well. Because the technology wasn’t there electronically like it is now, sound engineers had to figure out how to change the variable speed on both recordings so that they could get them to synch. That sort of thing didn’t exist until then! Fascinating stuff.

So what does this have to do with content strategy? Everything. Here’s why.

A big part of content strategy is knowing what to keep and what not to keep. Content strategists are always promoting reuse of content to be used in new ways. By mixing and matching content appropriately, you can get a hybrid that is something new and unique to itself. Nowadays, copyright laws can get in the ways, but if they are heeded appropriately, something new and wonderful can be produced. The music world really started to notice when rap and hip-hop started sampling and reusing music, a practice that’s still used today for new music, remixes, and mashups.

What do you think? Did musicians have this figured out well before writers by almost 200 years? Include your comments below.

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Adobe Tech Comm Suite 2017 is better than ever!

technical_communication_suite_2017Recently, Adobe held a virtual press conference for the 2017 Release of the Adobe Technical Communications Suite, which launched on 31 January 2017. While the Suite continues to include the latest versions of Captivate, Acrobat, and Presenter, it’s RoboHelp (RH), the XML documentation add-on for Adobe Experience Manager (AEM), and its flagship product in the suite, FrameMaker (FM) and its related FrameMaker Server that have all received updates with this newest release.

FrameMaker itself has been around for thirty years now, but it’s been especially in the last few years that significant changes has been made to accommodate DITA support,  multi-channel and mobile publishing, and support from right-to-left (RTL) languages.

With the 2017 Release, Adobe’s main objective was to provide new features while simplifying current features that would help with productivity and keep the end users in mind.

I found that now that I have a better understanding of the structured authoring views from my recent DITA course, I could see these products with a fresher perspective while I attended this virtual press conference, and better appreciate the upgrades.

The main attraction for the virtual press conference was FrameMaker, as the product has had some major overhauls, including new features centered around the authoring experience.  I won’t go into all of the features, as there’s too much to review, but several of them made a big impression on me. FM has been a complicated tool to use for many years, but it seems to me that with each new release, the tool becomes more user-friendly for those who aren’t as deeply entrenched with all the bells and whistles. The new interface is more modern and usable, and there’s easier access to recent items through the Browse Computer or repository feature.  This gives you access to all resources like tutorials, guides, and online help. It also allows you to access structured and unstructured items in one page. Even within the Search function, there is better auto-complete functionality which shows predictive results based on user typing through responsive HTML5 output.

An important upgrade in this 2017 release is that menus have been optimized and reorganized, with more commands to improve discover-ability.  My favorite new feature within these new menu changes is that the “Special” menu is gone, and the much more logical “Insert” menu has been added. This is something that has sorely been needed for a long time to be more user-friendly interface! Why, just today I was in a different Adobe tool, and I looked to insert an image, and that particular app (a Creative Cloud app) didn’t have an “Insert” menu at all! Insert menus are commonly used in apps almost universally now, that this was a long time coming. It makes inserting objects more intuitive for an app that’s not always that intuitive. It’s one of those “DUH!” things that I’m glad Adobe has fixed for FrameMaker. The Insert menu provides one stop for inserting images, files, variables, elements, equations…you name it! For example, all that needs to be done to insert an image into a document is to go to Insert-> Image and it’s done! You don’t need DPI settings change, as the DPI settings are retained, but they can be changed. You can also do a “drag and drop” of an image into a document easily. All you do is add to your project, then drag the image into the page, and it adapts to the page. You can still adjust the size in object properties if needed. The object properties dialog is improved, as there is an option to maintain aspect ration, DPI can be set inline, and apply a check inline. The “Element” menu is also enhanced. New options have been added to insert, wrap, and change. The Insert drop down is great! It has everything you need, and will likely be heavily used.

Shortcuts for productivity got a boost, as there is a new Command Search feature that is accessed through the <F7> button and very easy to use. All shortcuts are also now listed next to menu commands so that power users can learn them more easily. <CTRL-1> provides a list of where you are within the structure of your structured authoring, which is rather convenient.  Commands that are applicable globally,  such as borders, text symbols, rulers, grid lines, and hotspot indicators that impact all open docs both structured and unstructured are viewable now, although there are some limitations with structured views.

PODS have also has some upgrades as well. A new paragraph designer table allows you to create new styles easily in the pod. Styling icons in table and paragraph designers have been replaced with labeled buttons, configurable options have been reorganized and relabeled, and redundant command operations have been removed. Additionally, adding or editing a conditional tag now happens thru a dialog. The former “Select” drop down list has been replaced by Filter icon. Color and background columns have been removed. Conditional takes are listed with their close to final formatting, with tooltips displayed for conditional tags listed in the pod.  Several catalog PODS are also redesigned, with old buttons replaced with icons. Deletion has been made intuitive by removing extra options.

These changes have allowed the project management of a given project much easier, as now it’s easier to organize content such as a DITA map, book, topic, image, TOC, or index files related to a project in a single place whereby you can drag and drop files from Windows Explorer.

Structured Authoring gets some boosts as well. The Status bar now provides information about the exact path of the current element in your structured document. You can show or hide content from the structure view for a cleaner view as you work. Some of the new Insert menu options have been added for structured authoring, such as the Insert>Cross-Reference function, which should be very handy. There is also an improved DITA Keyspace Manager, whereby  if any DITA map is opened,  it gets populated automatically in drop down. The ability to search for a keyspace by entering the 1st few characters.

To keep up with the rapid changes in technology, high resolutions displays are supported now! Support for 4K resolution is now available, and allows the application to scale automatically. No separate setting is required to adjust resolution, so icons are now more sharp and size will scale automatically with the screen resolution.

Publishing features have not been forgotten, as they include brand new responsive HTML5 layouts that are modern, frameless layouts with a redefined browsing experience, are fully customizable, and can easily match the look and feel of your corporate website template. The navigation is search driven, and you also have the ability to add favorites while still being fully accessible (508 compliant).

New publishing features include the introduction of basic HTML5 formatting without any JavaScript or layout, with the look and feel controlled by CSS. This makes publishing lightweight and easy to share.  Text searches within searchable vector graphics (SVG) can now be done, and supported in HTML5, as the information in the SVG files can be read and displayed as part of search results. Multimedia files are managed in assets folder in published output. Inline styles have been cleaned up, including the introduction of a setting for Excel inline styles from published output. You can publish topics to a single folder–an important organization feature. Content personalization has been improved with DITA attribute support in dynamic content filters in the indexes, and a new dialog has been introduced to select conditional attributes.

Wow, that’s a lot right there!

All these changes are great for the FrameMaker app, but what about the FrameMaker Publishing Server? No worries! The 2017 release of the FrameMaker manage remote publishing, and can publish bi-directional content across formats and devices, so it can integrate with any CMS.

RoboHelp has brand-new, responsive HTML5 layouts as well, also incorporating modern, frame-less layouts with a redefined browsing experience that’s fully customizable. The Search autocomplete is also functional here in RoboHelp as well, allowing for search in responsive HTML5 output that shows predictive results based on user typing by segment first–which is a unique feature, gives contextual results, can indicate the number of occurrences of an entered word or phrase which helps in narrowing down the matching results, and can even correct spelling mistakes as you type in the search. The new authoring features include thumbnail support for images, folder imports for baggage files, and variable view toggling.

The Adobe Technical Communications Suite 2017 Release (TCS 2017) includes these latest versions of FrameMaker and RoboHelp, as well as the latest versions of Acrobat Pro, Captivate, and Presenter, which went bought together in the Suite, provide a 58% savings over buying the tools separately.

While not formally part of the Technical Communications Suite, it’s also important to mention that the Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) XML Documentation Add-On 2.0 version has been released.  If you are using AEM as your CMS or CCMS, you can host your tech and marketing content that’s written up in FrameMaker more easily through the integration of this add-on.  This add-on allows for content sharing and reuse which lends itself to consistent user experience and reduced total cost of ownership. Higher content velocity helps to drive enterprise publishing features, such as batch publishing, baseline publishing, and post-publishing workflows. Enhanced review and collaboration capabilities include web-based inline review, web editor enhancements that help with content management capabilities and document life-cycle management.

If you want more information about TCS 2017, you can click on the Adobe advertisement in the right column, or email the Adobe TCS team directly at techcomm@adobe.com.

Additionally, there is a 2017 Release Launch Webinar on 15 February 2017. It’s free! Learn more and register for the event on the Adobe Event website.

 

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2016 TechCommGeekMom Year in Review: Yeah, it could’ve been better.

Bored girl expressing, "Seriously though, do you think it could've been worse?"
Seriously though, do you think it could’ve been worse?

As 2017 gets going, I realized that I haven’t written a whole lot in the past year. Why? Simple–not a whole lot to write about, frankly. 2016 was a rough year in many ways, but there were some good elements, too.

It’s hard to write about things when you feel like nothing is inspiring you or giving you little motivation. I remember feeling excited about tech comm for the first few years, and it was much easier, as I was learning new things constantly. Now, while there is still a lot for me to learn, it’s not quite as much in some instances. It’s probably like anything else, in that movements go in waves, and the mobile wave first took hold right about the time I started to study tech comm and get involved in tech comm. Now, it’s something that we take for granted, like electricity or running water in developed countries. There are still things to discover, but the wave of innovation and adapting to the changes to those innovations–both professionally and socially–have generally passed. We’ve adapted, for the most part.  The use of mobile devices like mobile phones and tablets are common place now. Almost everyone has a smart phone. And many companies–not all, but most–have adapted their content and UX to have responsive design to adapt to different devices.  E-learning has gone back to basics with m-learning by re-adapting chunking and also using responsive design and better UX.

From my view, the initial thrill is over, and we are now settling into the “new normal”.   Things that were new and exciting have now become everyday, or have morphed into what they will be. For example, when social media really started to take off, it was an opportunity to create content that could be shared easily in sound bytes or blurbs in a more viral manner than conventional media. It was an opportunity to use content to incite a two-way conversation to discuss and share. Now, social media strategists don’t use social media for discussion, but rather as another marketing medium. Content strategists have been…shall we say…strongly encouraged to look at content as a marketing asset, and look towards content marketing. Content marketers, however, are not content strategists who have some understanding of marketing, but rather it’s expected that they are full-fledged marketers that have some understanding of content. (Trust me. I’ve read the job descriptions posted for many companies.) Both social media and content marketing are things I looked at doing seriously with my career. But as time went on, it was apparent that corporate expectations were shifting, and that these jobs were really meant for business people who were marketers and trained in marketing, not technical communicators. While I have some good sense about business, marketing, and customer service after many years, I don’t consider myself a business person per se. In other words, I would never get an MBA because business topics bore the hell out of me, and there are others who can look and do that sort of thing better than me.

This past year was a year of experimentation for me. When I got out of grad school almost five years ago, I wanted to be an instructional designer until I found that there was no such position as an entry-level instructional designer. I fell back into doing what I had done for years, but with stronger knowledge and experience, which was content strategy and management. I’d been happy doing that work, but always wanted to expand my skills. When I was released from my long-term contract doing content management in 2015, I saw it as an opportunity to do something different. I could start over, if you will. I was hired to do a knowledge management job, but the position was a misnomer. It really didn’t do anything close to knowledge management, and in the end, the projects they had brought me on board for were cancelled, and my contract ended in early 2016.

I was able to pick myself up quickly, taking a copywriting technical writer position. While I definitely had the ability to do the job, I found that my best writing abilities and UX/UI skills couldn’t be used to their fullest potential. I’m used to writing more than two sentences at a time, or re-labeling a button using a single word. I knew I had more to offer than what was required with no opportunities to contribute more than that, so I let that contract expire.

After trying those two other avenues, I found a short-term job doing content strategy and management again. Oh, it was exciting for me! I felt so comfortable doing that kind of work, and I felt confident again in my abilities. I was right to trust my instincts–that there was more to me than writing two sentences at a time, and doing something that I like doing. That, in itself, was a big discovery.

So, through this period of self-discovery, it was rough. I was unhappy with the work I was doing, unhappy with my lack of progress in a positive direction professionally, began to doubt my professional self-worth, and felt conflicted about next steps. Okay, so I’m still working through some of it, but I think the worst is (hopefully) over.

This isn’t to say that it’s all been bad. From those events, I can say that I learned what I’m good at, and what I’m not good at. I learned what I like and don’t like. I started to have a better understanding of my self-worth, at least professionally. Those are big realizations in themselves.

There were also other good things that happened that proved to be positive challenges. I had post-weight loss surgery, and recovered from that well. I’d never had major surgery in my life (and will be avoiding it in every way possible in the future), and found strength within myself to recover quickly and push myself.  I attended three conferences in 2016, namely CONDUIT, TC Camp – East, and the STC Summit. All went well, and it gave me a chance to learn and reaffirm my passion for tech comm, meet and network with old and new colleagues, and remind me that this is the profession where I belong.  I got more involved in my local STC chapter, and now I’m the vice-president of the chapter, and working my way up the STC food chain, as one might say. I’ve been in charge of STC-Philadelphia Metro Chapter’s programming this year, and I’m also co-chair of their conference, CONDUIT, so it’s been very busy for me that way as well, as I gain some new soft skills–and enhance ones I already had.

The election outcome put me in a very bad funk for the latter part of 2016. Dealing with my teenage autistic son has been more challenging than ever. End of the year holidays also don’t put me in a happy mood, usually. It’s usually a stressful time on a number of levels, and I couldn’t wait for the year to be over.

While in many respects, the start of 2017 is a chance to start fresh again, it’s an artificial starting point. I say that because we can start over fresh anytime we want to, if you think about it. It could be in the middle of August, or the end of March, or anytime, really. But with the stress of the holidays and year-end activities, January 1st was as good a date as any to start over, and it’s not something that is only on one day.  Fresh starts can take days, weeks, or months. I’ve made some big decisions going forward that will take some time. I will need to be more patient with myself in achieving those goals. I am going to have many challenges, but I have support from my family and my colleagues to move forward in the direction I am intending.

The number one thing that I’ve decided that I need to do in 2017 is I have to get to a place in my life where I can be happy with what I do, and do what I enjoy.  That’s easier said than done. To that end, I’m going to focus more on building up my independent consulting business, which I had intended to start after that long-term contract ended in 2015. I got majorly side-tracked in 2016, so 2017 is going to be focused on getting back on track with that. No agency contract distractions like in the past year. I’m going to do it on my own, using entrepreneurship and networking skills. It may be slow going to start, but I have a few good leads so far. Time will tell if they work out successfully. I know I’ll put my full efforts into any projects I do get. I’ll also be learning, both independently and with help, how to run a successful business.  Hopefully, this will encourage the spark for me to write here more often about things that are going on that I see in tech comm, and how I view things that I’m learning in the process. I had a recent head-start with my adventures in learning DITA. My initial plans are to continue to train and practice using DITA. I’m also going to be learning Drupal next month, as that seems to be a widely used CMS in my area with some of the leading employers in the area. I’m hoping that adding DITA and Drupal to my “arsenal” of skills will be helpful for my business. I’ll attending CONDUIT and the STC Summit for sure this year, strengthening my professional ties and knowledge. I’ll be working hard still for the STC-PMC, as I intend to run for President of the group this year (we’ll see how that goes!).

Outside of my professional life, there are some hurdles along the way as well, but my goal this year is, well, to get through this year unscathed, or better off than I am now. I don’t mean just financially or professionally, but personally as well. It’s going to be a rebuilding year, and I hope that this time next year, I’ll be a little more upbeat about things, and I will have been able to share more with you over the course of the year.

What are your professional goals this year? Include your comments below.
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