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Write On: Exploring New Directions in Technical Communications

5 Posts tagged with the dita tag

Conference round-up

Posted by mmarques Oct 30, 2009

- By Michele Marques, Lead Information Developer, ITSM

 

Wow, what a week for conferences! Yesterday I dropped by the BMC virtual conference, and earlier this week I attended Lavacon.

 

BMC Virtual Conference: Simplify & Automate IT

The BMC virtual conference was a really cool way to check out information on a variety of IT topics without leaving my desk. I watched the presentation on The Future of IT Management. Then I dropped by the Dell booth in the exhibit hall, to see what they had to say about their experiences with BMC Remedy IT Service Management.

 

I didn't get into any conversations, but I scrolled through the conversations in the networking lounge and in some of the exhibit booths. People were talking about BMC products and everyone was excited about the virtual conference.

 

Although the conference took place on October 29, you can still drop by. You can view any of the presentations on demand, pick up literature from the exhibit hall, and see what people were talking about

 

Lavacon

Lavacon is a professional development conference for senior, lead, and management technical communicators - and for the past few years has been paired with a regional Project Management Institute conference. It's a great conference that includes sessions and workshops that I wouldn't get at other technical communications conferences.

 

Sessions that I attended included:

  • Introduction to Strategic Planning by Alexandra Piacenza - There's only so much that she could cover in this brief session. Planning for innovation was especially interesting.
  • Creativity session and Leadership workshop by Lisa DiTullio - Interesting ideas about promoting creativity. Lots of discussion about the difference between Management and Leadership.
  • Zen and the Art of Managing Up by Emma Hamer - How many times do you run around in a tizzy, because your boss has an urgent request for information, and you have to figure out how to get the information? Emma had some great suggestions for ways to be proactive that can prevent these sort of disruptions.
  • Strategies for Coping with User-Generated Content by Sarah O'Keefe - Sarah opened with the video United Breaks Guitars as the ultimate in user-generated content that a company wouldn't want and then moved on to talk about strategies to involve users in a positive way in your community.
  • Influencing without Authority by Andrea Ames - Andrea has achieved a high level of influence that extends beyond technical communication.
  • Critical Thinking Skills for Conflict Resolution by Bonni Graham - We played a conflict role-playing game that helped show how personal biases and personal goals affect how people act in conflict. I'm not sure yet whether this knowledge will help me deal with conflict. I was really bad at picking up on people's hidden agendas.
  • Management Challenges with DITA by Jim Smith and Vivian Aschwandan - Whether you're a manager or a writer, some of the biggest challenges with DITA are knowing "what is a topic" and dealing with what they called "stealth topics" (such as tasks hidden in concepts).
  • DITA 1.2 and the DITA Open Toolkit by Robert Andersonand Leigh White - Although this workshop was fraught with hardware challenges, I'm now eagerly awaiting some of the new features of DITA 1.2, especially the conref extensions.

 

The postings in this blog are my own and don't necessarily represent BMC's opinion or position.
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0 Comments Permalink Tags: itsm, virtual_conference, conferences, bmc_software, dita, technical_writing, lavacon

- By Michele Marques, Lead Information Developer, ITSM

 

Some of you technical communicators have been working for years in XML and DITA. However, until recently, I wrote all of my product documentation in Adobe FrameMaker. Sure, you can write XML documents in FrameMaker. But I had been using "unstructured" mode, which doesn't enforce structure.

 

I just wrote a doc for an upcoming release using an XML editor and the DITA DTD. I was nervous starting out - after all, I've been using the same tools for years, and XML involves a new paradigm. But I also knew that this was a great time for me to move ahead in the new direction. I was about to reorganize the manual that I was working on.

 

Some things are easier in an XML authoring environment

Have you ever tried to reorganize a manual? Cutting and pasting between chapters isn't pretty - especially if you end up changing the hierarchy.

 

In XML, all my topics were separate files. All I had to do was edit (or create)  component and book maps. DITA uses component maps and book maps to determine the sequence and hierarchy of topics. Did I mention sequence and hierarchy? Each of the topics is a separate object in the component map; I can move the object up, down, left, and right. Within the topic, I have a title, and maybe one or more headings. The headings are relative to the topic title. But the overall hierarchy (which titles are chapter titles, which are heading1, which are heading2, and so on) is determined by the topic's placement in the hierarchy.

 

Actually, the titles aren't really chapter titles, heading1, and heading2 - that's a relic of paragraph styles from unstructured FrameMaker or Microsoft Word. Transforms give the visual appearance in the output (such as a PDF) that mark chapter titles and help readers differentiate between heading levels in the hierarchy.

 

But, enough of the technical digression. The point is that it was really easy to reorganize this material in the XML authoring environment!  If I had still been working in unstructured FrameMaker, I would be cutting and pasting.... and changing paragraph styles for the headings. And, somewhere along the line, I'd probably make a mistake or two, and maybe lose track of where I was in the hierarchy.

 

What about the pain?

OK, I didn't move into a fairytale when I started writing in XML. I'm new to this environment, so I'm still coming up to speed. As I learn the new tags and the new processes, I'm getting faster.

 

The most frustrating part was editing my index. I'm used to FrameMaker, where I have a tool (IXGEN) that will pull all of my index entries into one editable table - even sort them alphabetically. Then, I edit the entries in one place, and can push the changes back out to my FrameMaker files. And without this tool, I was able to generate an index, click with a special key combination on the index entry, and get to my index marker.

 

In the XML authoring environment, I can only see the generated index in my output (in this case, a PDF). I can see index entries as plain text within the XML topic files, but most of my index editing happens when I see the entire index together and realize that I need to modify some terms to be more consistent with others.

 

If any of you know about great tools for developing and editing index entries in XML topics, please let me know!

 

Was it worth the pain?

Yes! There are lots of benefits of working in small topic files. It's easier to reorganize material. And it's easier to divide parts of the document between writers. I'm looking forward to the next steps, when more people join me in this environment, and we can start sharing content.

 

The postings in this blog are my own and don't necessarily represent BMC's opinion or position.

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0 Comments Permalink Tags: dita, xml, technical_writing, documentation
- By Michele Marques, Lead Information Developer, ITSM

Still think DITA is just for technical writing? The standard might be expanding to include enterprise business documents.

It looks like DITA will continue to evolve... this time, to include an open standard specialization to handle enterprise business documents.

 

I read at The Content Wrangler that a new OASIS committee is being formed to explore this use of DITA. Apparently, they're looking for committee members, so if you'd like to get involved, check out the article for more information.

 

As a technical writer, this could be pretty cool. Imagine if all business documents were written with DITA specializations. Perhaps I could pull planning and design topics into technical documentation. People throughout the organization could pull topics from manuals into their documents.

 

The postings in this blog are my own and don't necessarily represent BMC's opinion or position.
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0 Comments Permalink Tags: dita, dita_specialization

DITA round-up

Posted by Alena Hitzemann Oct 14, 2007
- By Michele Marques, Lead Information Developer, ITSM

This week, I saw a presentation by Michael Priestley, one of the editors of the DITA standard. He talked about some cool new directions for DITA and pointed out a bunch of useful links.

 

DITA was designed for modular information, such as technical publications, help systems, or web sites. But now, more people are trying to use DITA to fit their needs.

 

New and cool things are happening with DITA

Apparently, lots of people are creating specializations. It's not so surprising that companies are creating their own specializations, which allows them to use DITA in a way that better fits their needs.

What was surprising was seeing how a large number of organizations and other groups are working together to create specializations that are available for others to use. For example, there are specializations being developed for the manufacturing industry, for the pharmaceutical industry, and for learning and training.

The learning and training specialization gives me hope that information topics developed by IDD could be reused by instructional designers.

 

Link round-up

I checked out the links that Michael Priestley mentioned. They're a great source for more information about DITA.

  • OASIS DITA Technical Committee - This is where the work behind DITA as an open standard is happening. If you're new to DITA, check out their DITA FAQ. You can find out what's happening with the DITA standard, and with the subcommittees for specializations that might become standards. And, of course, more links.
  • DITA Open Toolkit - This toolkit is a free open source implementation of DITA in Java. I've heard that it's not trivial to implement, so this is probably only for those serious about trying DITA without a commercial product.
  • DITA online community - This community is hosted by OASIS. It lists news and events, includes a wiki, and even tutorials. It also includes blogs about DITA.
  • DITA Users Yahoo group - If you have questions about using DITA, this is a place to pose questions, and possibly get answers.
  • DITA Users.org - This is a well-organized one-stop site for resources, tools, tutorials, and examples. Members get file storage space, access to the web-based XML editor DITA Storm, and other services.

 

The postings in this blog are my own and don't necessarily represent BMC's opinion or position.
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0 Comments Permalink Tags: dita, dita_usergroups, oasis, dita_specialization, dita_open_toolkit
- By Michele Marques, Lead Information Developer, ITSM

Today is Thanksgiving in Canada. As in the U.S., it's a time to gather together with extended family, eat a big turkey dinner, and renew acquaintance with people you don't always see so often. My family celebrated yesterday. Today, with my belly still full of turkey and sweet potato, I think about how October will be like a month-long professional Thanksgiving.

 

This month, I'll be renewing acquaintances with technical communications professionals, and meeting more people in the communications family. It will be a time to fill my head with new ideas, and to have meaty conversation.

 

DITA

On October 9, I'll attend the monthly meeting of the Toronto chapter of the Society for Technical Communications (STC). Michael Priestley, will be speaking about the adoption of DITA in a wide range of contexts, and about DITA 1.1. I've heard Michael Priestley about the basics of DITA. I'm interested to find out how various organizations are adapting DITA to their needs.

 

Social Media Club

About a month or so ago, Ynema Magnum invited me (along with other talk.bmc bloggers) to a meeting of the Social Media Club. Unfortunately, I couldn't attend, as the meeting was in Austin, but Ynema pointed out that there are chapters of the Social Media Club all over. The Toronto chapter hasn't taken off yet, but we do have a mailing list. Robin (one of the other members of the mailing list) and I are planning a meeting later this month, to help get the Toronto chapter started. By the way, if you're in Toronto and interested in social media (such as blogging, and social networks, such as LinkedIn and Facebook), consider joining the mailing list, so that you can find out about the October and future meetings.

 

Advanced technical communication and project management

At the end of this month, I'll head out to New Orleans for Lavacon, the conference for advanced technical communication and project management. I'm looking forward to meeting in-person with technical communications professionals whom I've mostly dealt with on-line, and sharing great ideas on managing technical communications projects.

 

What about you?

If you'll be at any of these events, please do say hello. I love meeting people in the professional communications family. If these events don't work for you:

 

The postings in this blog are my own and don't necessarily represent BMC's opinion or position.
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0 Comments Permalink Tags: bmc_userworld, stc, social_media_club, communication, dita, facebook, linkedin, social_media
mmarques

mmarques

 Member since: Sep 10, 2007

At BMC Software, I'm a Lead Information Developer for ITSM. In this blog, I explore ideas about communication, especially regarding software documentation. Please leave a comment to add your thoughts to the discussion.

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