lavacon 2013 keynote: the common wisdom

@work_ajt Hashtag @LavaCon

The Common Wisdom:Reality-Based Notes from the DITA Underground

Andrew Thomas

Product Marketing Director

SDL LiveContent

• Father of two teenage boys• Recently adopted a rescue dog• Consumes all forms of media• Writes bad poetry • Implemented DITA at Adobe for

all product documentation• Was Product Manager for

SDL WorldServer• Is Product Marketer for

SDL LiveContent• HUGE NERD

(HUGE)

Email: athomas@sdl.com | Twitter: @work_ajt | LinkedIn: andrewjthomas

Who Am I?

First, Apologies…

CENSORED

Source: Toothpaste For Dinner.com

• Common Sense vs. The Common Wisdom

• Why CXM?

• Why DITA?

• What’s Next?

Why Am I Here?

The Common Wisdom

“In the early years of space flight, both Russians and Americans

used pencils in space. Unfortunately, pencil lead is made of

graphite, a highly conductive material. Snapped graphite leads and

particles in zero gravity are hugely problematic, as they will get

sucked into the air ventilation or electronic equipment, easily

causing shorts or fires in the pure oxygen environment of a capsule.

After the fire in Apollo 1 which killed all the astronauts on board, NASA required a

writing instrument that wasn’t a fire hazard. Fisher spent over a million dollars (of

his own money) creating a pressurized ball point pen, which NASA bought at

$2.95 each. The Russian space program also switched over from pencils shortly

after.

40 years later snide morons on the internet still snigger

about it, because snide morons on the internet never

know what they are talking about.”

But It’s Often Wrong

Source: basilton.tumblr.com

Why CXM?

7

Source: SDL CXM Survey of 700 respondents, 6 regions and languages, conducted in Q2 2013

46% customer satisfaction

33% customer loyalty

28% customer retention

Because Executives Say So!

Source: June 6, 2011, “Competitive Strategy In The Age Of The Customer” Forrester report

Age of Manufacturing

Age of Distribution

Age of Information

Age of the Customer

Because Forrester Says So!

Industry Leaders in Customer Experience

And so does Aberdeen…

Source: AberdeenGroup Analyst Insight Paper, June 2013

4 times more likely to deliver “live” content (e.g. dynamic, contextual)

82% automate content delivery through component-based methodology

13.4% year-over-year increase in revenue

30% tailor technical communications for customers

And so does Aberdeen…

Source: AberdeenGroup Analyst Insight Paper, June 2013

3 times more likely to align content to customer segments

67% are measuring content’s impact on CXM

64% greater customer profit margin

68% year-over-year increase in customer satisfaction

Industry Leaders in Customer Experience

• Consumer experiences are driving business experiences–Limited attention time

–Socially driven

–Omnichannel expectations

–Ubiquitous voice expectations

But Really, Because Your Customers Say So

The Three Pillars of CXM

13

Insights

Orchestration

Contextual Experiences

Insights

14

Your understanding of your audiences’

interests and motivations

Orchestration

15

Your ability to align your organization across channels,

markets, languages and teams

YOUARE

HERE

Contextual Experiences

16

Creating relevant experiences for your

customers regardless of channel

• Flat vs. Dynamic

• Chunking / re-use

• Future proof

Why DITA?

DIRECT VSFLATTENED

CONTENTREUSE

FUTURE PROOF

• XML has been hard up until now–Maybe a little history of XML usage here?

–Maybe some stats on XML growth? (not sure if those even exist)

• Primary roadblock has been the steep learning curve–XML editing tools are complex

–XML is not user friendly

• How do we solve that?

Content Creators are here…

Sales & Marketing

Customer Support

Research & Development

Training & Learning

PRODUCT CONTENT

• XML has been hard up until now–Maybe a little history of XML usage here?

–Maybe some stats on XML growth? (not sure if those even exist)

• Primary roadblock has been the steep learning curve–XML editing tools are complex

–XML is not user friendly

• How do we solve that?

But need to get here

Marketing

Support

Engineering

Field ServicePersonnel

Training& Learning

Partners

PRODUCT CONTENT

The Problem

20

Flat & StaticContent

Locked inSilos

Confusing toCustomers

Not availableon all devices

The Solution

21

Modular Content

Stored Centrally

Formatted to Customer’s Need

Accessible toAll Departments

Sales &Marketing

Research &Development

CustomerSupport

Training &Learning

Recap from Last Year’s Survey

82% Essential to good customer service

79% Improves impression of product & brand

72% More likely to recommend a brand

79% More likely to purchase another product

Source: Golan Harris - Product Information Survey

The Common Wisdom

• SME reviewers

• Webpage analytics

• Multimedia

• Responsive design

• Critical translation

• Broadcast

• SEO

Common Sense

• SME contributors

• Content analytics

• Rich media

• Adaptive design

• Complete localization

• Listen and respond

• Content Discovery

What’s Next?

• Automated quality checks–Style Guides & Terminology

– Integrated with creation tools

• Empower SMEs–WYSIWYG Interface

–Familiar UX

• Streamline Review– Integrated with creation tools

–Centralized feedback loops

Optimization & Collaboration

• Content is both larger and smaller than the page–Publication sets

–Multimedia & sub-topic components (e.g. steps)

• Analyze breadcrumbs–How do your customers traverse

your content?

–Where are they getting lost?

• Search history is crucial–Zero-result searches

–Unused results

–Terminology mining

Rich Data

• YouTube is not enough–Unbranded & uncontrolled

–Negative feedback & competitor ads

• More than video– Infused with metadata

– Integrated with other content

–Modular & reusable

• Context matters–Omnichannel

–Segmented & personalized

Rich Media

• Ubiquitous access–No such thing as one channel

–PDFs are not acceptable!

–Responsive design is not enough

• Adaptive design is the future–Pages & screen sizes are

irrelevant

–Focus on the experience

• Best opportunity to impress– Integrate support

–Take advantage of mobile contexts (GPS, camera)

Be Mobile

• Strategize–Translate 100% of your content

–Manage reusable content

– Integrate machine translation

• Prioritize –Let content analytics drive

decisions

–Quality metrics determine human involvement

• Localize–Determine best channels by region

–Use dynamic multimedia for greater cultural relevance

Be Global

• Listen first–Find customer conversations

–Gain insights from content analytics

• Conversations are two-way–Direct feedback loops

–Channel and language agnostic

• Enable sharing–Build into your content

–Social channels are regional

–Work with Marketing!

Be Social

• Learn SEO–No search results = wasted effort

–Structure helps

• SEO is only the beginning–Faceted search

– Incorporate results from other repositories (e.g. support knowledgebase, marketing)

• Automate recommendations–Retail has revolutionized this

– “See also” based on similar customer behavior

Content Discovery

Thank You!

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