Accelerated Authoring™ @ Method M

In the engineering world the need for standards, and for standards compliance, is almost universally accepted. Standards foster efficiencies and synergies. 

In the technical document world, however, there is an almost inexplicable resistance to standards.  Each company makes their own style guide and templates.  And getting tech writers to voluntarily accept DITA?  Hoo, hoo.  Takes considerable persuasive powers (as well as management carrots and sticks).

Let’s try and understand why this is the case by looking at Pete, a typical manager. Pete could make no changes and continue working tomorrow using the same tools and methods (typically authoring in Word, FrameMaker, and/or using WebWorks to convert to Help, and/or editing content in RoboHelp).  Ideally they would be using a good template and toolkit, such as Author Max. 

No change is easy.  No need to convince management, no need to battle for a budget, no need to train writers, no disruption.

If Pete decides to go for DITA, he’ll have to do all of the above. Persuade management, get a budget, train writers and figure out how to manage the transition.  Not easy.  And, if the transition is not smooth, Pete could be penalized.

On the other hand, Pete could get through the transition period to DITA and leverage the same team that he had yesterday to produce more documents, more focused documents, better documents.  Is there risk in the transition?  Of course, but that’s what life is about - adapt or disappear. 

I’m just old enough to remember those dinosaurs at the end of the 80s early 90s who were still using white-out, typewriters and cut and paste — because they didn’t go for transition in time.  You know what, I haven’t met any of those dinosaurs anywhere in the last 15 or 20 years, certainly not on the upwardly mobile, happily-employed career track.

So, Pete, what will it be?
Katriel
P.S.  The participants in this month’s DITA Immersion Workshop, and last month’s, and the one before… are voting with their time. Finding out about DITA and empowering themselves to make informed decisions.

Thanks to Sybil, a careful reader who wrote to comment:

I recently found your Method M blog, and as an experienced technical writer, I had to contact you about the blog subtitle “For People Who Write and Edit Documents Everyday.”"Everyday” is incorrect usage in this context. “Everyday” is an adjective; “every day” is an adverbial phrase which means “daily.”

Sybil, we are humbled. And have corrected the subtitle. Scratch subtitle.   We have corrected the tagline. (See, we are humbled enough to change the tagline; not so humbled that we won’t try to get the last word in here.) 

Back to work getting flags to appear based on conditions in DITA!
Katriel

A lot of the documentation and training that we create is used in a very diffuse way - seminars, user group meetings, ad hoc training for distributors or customersSystemizing this kind of information in a certification/Corporate University serves a dual purpose:
1. Additional revenue stream for corporate, distributors, officeers.
2. Encourages customers, offices and distributors to make “standard” implementations of products (which speeds implementation, lowers support costs and lowers customer TCO).Certification programs are one case where tech writers and trainers can position themselves as a corporate asset, not just as a cost.  Go for it!
Katriel

The promise of SMEs editing DITA content in Word addresses perhaps the biggest obstacle in getting DITA into some workflows, especially where the SMEs are used to reviewing and adding content.  In.vision offers a very promising solution.  More…

My list of the 8 things that must be changed to make Microsoft Word really  productive for knowledge workers. 

1. Automated insertion of front matter.
2. Paste unformatted.
3. Automated settings for headings and footers.
4. Fast, reliable insertion of images and tables with captions.
5. Conditional text.
6. Style repair (e.g. when MyStyle becomes “MyStyle,2 point above,bold”).
7. Pre-flight check (for revision marks, broken cross-references, etc.)
8. Numbered lists.

The good news is that Author Max™ (an add-in for Word) does a pretty good job of handling issues 1-7. (We have a solution for issue 8 too, just not yet built-into Author Max.) What issues are most important to you?

Katriel

Finally.  Our top-secret add-in for Microsoft Word is live and posted on the web - Author Max. The 14-day trial is free.

We would love feedback on what it does — and what functionality you think we need to add. So far we have Conditional Text, Pre-flight check (looks for revision marks, unresolved cross references, etc.), paste unformatted, automatically insert figures and tables with appropriate captions, automatically set headers and footers, insert front matter, and more.

Looking forward to your feedback!
Katriel

Four Flavor Falafel has opened here in Jerusalem, not too far from Method M. Get your falafel spiced to your taste. Cardamon, curry, chili and – ugh – cinnamon flavors. No longer is the falafel maker master of what goes into your pita. And you know what, he looks pretty happy about it. No wonder, he charges more than his competitors.

User manuals, reference guides and the rest of the technical documentation business has been run much like traditional falafel makers manage their stands. Tech writers create and control all content. This top-down paradigm has made us masters of our manuals, but maybe it bears review in light of the success of Four Flavor Falafel and so many “Web 2.0” businesses.

Wikis for technical documentation are one way of inverting the content pyramid. Opening up contributions and editing may make a lot of sense if your product has an active user community. You can harness the power of a wide group to create more content that users want. Do you lose control? To some extent. But remember the falafel maker who opened up his top-down hierarchy and improved his bottom line.
Katriel

One approach to “policies for working with Word” is rely on goodwill (or gentle arm-twisting – see Jawboning). Another approach, less common, is build-in compliance to the authoring/editing process.  My feeling is that once you have more than one or two people opening and editing documents compliance enforcement should be built-in and jawboning is unlikely to work.