teaching old dogs new tricks: how to move your word authors to xml
DESCRIPTION
TITLE Teaching Old Dogs New Tricks: How to Move Your Word Authors to XML Do you need your Word authors writing in structured XML? Old dogs can learn new tricks! This session provides a fun but helpful take on a serious topic. Here are some of Doug Gorman’s big ideas: Assess the situation and know what to look for: Do you have little problems or big problems? You can’t move forward until you know the basic information. Leashes—and the importance of structured content. It’s a dog’s world: Set your authors up for success by using their familiar environment. Dachshunds vs. Great Danes: Know your users. Evaluate the different options and decide which is the best fit for your team. Start with one trick—and get value immediately. Working with a dog whisperer: Learn from the experience of those who have traveled this path before. Give a dog a bone: Keeping your team motivated and other key tips. ABOUT THE AUTHOR/PRESENTER Doug is the CEO of Simply XML. He brings years of relevant information industry experience to Simply XML and its customers. Throughout his career, Doug has found that honesty, hard work, and good communication lead to financial rewards and satisfaction for all who are involved. Simply XML’s philosophy underlies our services offering because it works. Doug has worked directly and indirectly for some of the world’s leading technology companies. He sees XML as the enabling architecture to make content management, single source publishing, and multichannel publishing ubiquitous. Doug has been instrumental in implementing technology and the related change management initiatives at large companies around the globe. He was responsible for major implementations at organizations as large and diverse as Marathon Oil, NSA, Abbott Labs, Nestle, the Department of Veteran’s Affairs, Bank of America, and Dow Chemical.TRANSCRIPT
Copyright © 2014 Simply XML, LLC. All rights reserved. www.simplyxml.com
@SimplyXML @LavaCon
Teaching Old Dogs New Tricks: How to Move Your Word Authors to XML
Speaker: Doug Gorman
Copyright © 2014 Simply XML, LLC. All rights reserved. www.simplyxml.com
Old Dogs CAN Learn New Tricks
…to this
Need your Word Authors writing in XML?
We’ll show you how to go from this…
Copyright © 2014 Simply XML, LLC. All rights reserved. www.simplyxml.com
The Big Ideas
1. Assess the Situation
2. Unleashed
3. Dachshunds vs. Great Danes
4. It’s a Dog’s World
5. One Trick at a Time
6. Working with a Dog Whisperer
7. Give the Dog a Bone
Copyright © 2014 Simply XML, LLC. All rights reserved. www.simplyxml.com
Assess the Situation
Do you have little problems
What’s driving the need for change?
It’s not just about Tech Pubs!
Mistakes
Inefficiency
Out of Date Content
Poor User Experience
Compliance Issues
Out of Date Brand
or BIG problems?
Copyright © 2014 Simply XML, LLC. All rights reserved. www.simplyxml.com
Assess the Situation
Are your problems related to:
Get to the bottom of it!
• Diverse Audiences
• Poor Grammar
• Translation Issues
• Bad structure
• Legacy conversion Issues
• Duplication
• Inconsistency
• Internal Silos
You can’t get help until you have know the cause and a solution.
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Bad Dog -- MS Word
I change the font size to make Word Heading Styles look the same.
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Bad Dog -- MS Word
I am really quite creative and talented with my desktop publishing.
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Bad Dog -- MS Word
The tables I create are far superior to everyone else’s.
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Bad Dog -- MS Word
I like Word because it can do anything.
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Bad Dog -- MS Word
I really like how my documents look in Helvetica Font.
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Bad Dog -- MS Word
I’m a professional writer and no one is going to tell me how to write.
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Bad Dog -- MS Word
You can’t play with me unless you are sophisticated and perfect
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Unleashed
Move to Structured Content
• Easy to read
• Chunked for comprehension and reuse
• Tagged for search and reuse
• Fits to a standard
• Controlled publishing
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Dachshunds vs. Great Danes
Know your teams
Audience, products, templates, workflows, metadata,
publishing, and more.
Evaluate the different options and decide which is the
best.
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So, where do your dogs sleep?
It’s a Dog’s World
Choose one (and be honest!)
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Considerations • Real Needs • Authority • Authoring tools • Repository • Training • Language • Workflow • Publishing
It’s a Dog’s World
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• Reader access and comprehension
• Chaos to control • Word and XML • Reuse • Flexible publishing • Modern processes for all
It’s a Dog’s World
Word to XML
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One Trick at a Time
Information Architecture
• Keep it general, not specialized
• Responsibility by Manual? Product? Department?
• Topics can be rearranged to make a variety of published products
• Top down or bottom up
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More Tricks
Content Reuse
• Topics/components
• Templates
• Fragments
• Tables
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More Tricks
• Keep it
• Fix it
• Toss it
• Convert it
Legacy Content
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Working with a Dog Whisperer
Work with a professional – don’t go it alone.
Learn from the experience of those who have traveled this path before.
Copyright © 2014 Simply XML, LLC. All rights reserved. www.simplyxml.com
Give the Dog a Bone
Don’t forget the treats!
• Plan for pit stops: Start with a small pilot, then one department…
• Discipline
• Keep It Simple, Smart-person
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Life in the Dog Park…
will be great!
Give the Dog a Bone
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Thank You!
Woof Woof! Bow Wow!
Any questions?