changing the conversation: gaining buy-in for sharing content across functional areas - joan...

Changing the Conversation: Gaining Buy-in for Sharing Content Across

Functional Areas Joan Lasselle and Amber Swope

October 23, 2014

Who we are

Lasselle-Ramsay helps companies develop and deliver critical business information that ensures success

DITA Strategies helps teams design and deploy DITA to meet current delivery needs and future- enable content

Challenge: today’s users…

Have diverse goals

Want content in different contexts

Want content in their native language

Want to have confidence in the content

Want to find it quickly

Change the conversation

Start with the unique value of each organization

Leverage strengths

More than technology

Information strategy and architecture

Structured content

Metadata

XML/DITA

Translation

Information design

Know what works

Identify what is not working

Define user requirements

Align information with business goals

Structured content

Modular not linear

Standardized

Stand-alone topics

Topic types

Multiple outputs

Metadata

Structural and descriptive

Improves the user experience

Faster searches

Needs structure

Sharing common source

XML for flexibility

Localization

Multi-channel publishing

Context-specific delivery

What is DITA?

Darwin Information Typing Architecture

Modular structure

Open-source standard

Global popularity

DITA Maturity Model

Information design for all content creators

Analyze your content structure

Verify content applicability with users

Verify content delivery success

Design content to support business goals

Template Documentation 10/23/2014

Structured content

Task topic

Structured steps

Semantically identified items

Metadata

Taxonomy

Conditions

Data

Metadata: audience source

Metadata: audience output

DITA as common source

Map references

Topic references

Content references

Key references

Conditions

Reused content

Translation sample source

Same structure

Same elements

Localized content

Summary

Focus on your expertise

Leverage a single source of content

Meet user needs

Questions

Joan Lasselle Lasselle-Ramsay joan.lasselle@LR.com

Amber Swope DITA Strategies amber@ditastrategies.com