Converting to XML - Some Point-form Pros and Cons

I have recently converted some user documents from MS Word to XML for a medical device company with the intent that they would be looking at authoring their future end-user documentation (printed, embedded, and online) in XML. I want to share with you some of the triumphs and challenges we had met along the way.

Pros

• Reuse becomes so much easier - The same 15 steps to 'prep' a patient were used in four different manuals and all we had to do was point to the content. When a change got made in the one manual, it was automatically updated in the other three.

• Editing process is shorter - Chapters or pieces of chapters that are shared between the different models are only edited once reducing the cost for editing.

• Updating for global changes are a snap - when content like product name, revisions, corporate names, logos, styles, etc. are saved as separate XML files that are referenced instead of embedded they can be updated in one place and changed in all documents that point to it.

  Imagine how valuable your company becomes as a salable entity when the purchasing company can re-brand all documentation in less than a few minutes and then republish everything with the new corporate image.
  

• Consistency is easier to enforce - If you are using an editor that validates DITA it becomes easier to uphold standard in authoring. Authors that must validate their content are more likely to follow the standards set by DITA and validated by the software. Note - Most authors know there are ways to work around validation error that do not fit a standard, but it is usually more difficult then following the standard in the first place.

• OASIS and DITA bring down the costs of using XML - A few years ago I wouldn't even consider suggesting to my clients to tackle XML unless they just happen to have an expert on staff with nothing better to do then write XSL and play with the DITA Open Toolkit or invest upwards of $100k for a great publisher and editor.

  With the advances in DITA, the general acceptance of the standard, the specializations that are constantly being improved on, and the new tools hitting the market that are priced for the SMEs the benefits of implementing XML can often outweigh the costs and time it takes to embrace the technology.

• Future cost saving - Once you have your XLST developed, your authoring standards in place, the process for authoring and editing understood, etc. there are so many cost savings that can be realized over MS Word authoring that it makes all the Cons worth the effort.

  When the client said they wanted one manual that had only common content in it, created from the four vertical market manuals, we returned to our publisher, set the conditions to remove all product specific conditions, added a short description to the introduction to describe the manual and then published. This took a total of 11 minutes and we had a reasonable manual. Try to do that with four 170 page manuals in MS Word.
  

Cons

• Painful - No matter how prepared you are there is going to be some pain. There are new processes, now tools, and new ways of thinking that must be embraced not only by the person looking after or authoring the documentation but also by all the people in the company that will touch the content as it moves to publication.

  Half way through the project the DITA standard for chapter books was released with DITA 1.1 and we had to go through a software upgrade for our editor and publisher as well as a second review of the manual styles, a second quote for style customization, and issues that were associated with any release of new software.
  

  DITA is by no means a mature standard and there will be many interations that will cause pain.

• Editing in PDF format was slower - If the content is published to PDF then edited it is very similar to editing each manual separately. There is benefit to having the content edited directly at the XML level in a content management system so that changes can be tracked and accepted or rejected. The problem with this is the person editing must have the ability to edit XML code or have the tools to view XML in a WYSIWYG environment.

• Tools add to costs - Yes there are loads of free products out there and many are feature rich and easy to use but if you were thinking you would publish using DITA open source easily you might be in for a programing ride. I had a software engineer look at the implementation for DITA Open Toolkit and claim he had "flashbacks to his Unix coding days", where only the people closest to the program could use the application.

• XSLT coding required - The XML authoring is the easy part and if you have determined how you will publish your content, the publishing is quite painless as well, but the styling can be very complex and somewhat expensive if you decide that the DITA standard for style does not suit your branded corporate image.

• DITA standards don't apply to all - If you are like most good companies you have a brand and image to uphold. Until just recently (August 2007) DITA did not provide chapter numbering as a standard in book publications. There are other features that your company may require for publishing a book or help file that are not part of the DITA standards.

Good to Great - Jim Collins

I have decided that I am not cheating when I listen to a book instead of reading it and that's what I have done with Good to Great. I consider this book a great 'listen' for the insight it gives into the core reasons why a business makes the transition from being 'Good' to becoming 'Great'.

Jim Collins starts by defining his 5 years of research, how they determined what good was, what great is and what factors were used to identify the companies that were in the study. This is not a book based on assumptions, this is the result of 5 years of research and the support and input from a group of associates and business leaders. It also is not based on a sampling of the great companies, it uses the entire set of businesses that fulfill the requirements of 15 years as a good company and 15 years consistently surpassing the market. Because of this long time frame there are surely other companies that are great, but they had to be clear on their requirements. It lends credibility to the assumptions they make about the findings on these companies.

Everything in this book and about these great companies revolves around the three circles. Knowing where your competencies, goals, and passions lay will take a company through to greatness. The basics of these three circles are:

1. What you can be the best in the world at and what you cannot be the best in the world at?
2. What drives your economic engine?
3. What you are passionate about?

Collins refers to these three circles throughout the book. I had to go back and listen to several chapters to find the definition of the three circles when I realized that I was going to need it to understand the concepts later on. This is one downfall of listening to a book, it is not easy or quick to scan for a specific word or concept.

Leadership
Although the team originally felt that leadership was not going to be a factor and set out their research to overlook this aspect of business, it turned out the response to their inquiries often lead to great leadership. This book defines a type of leader that is always (100% of the time) found in great companies. They defined this leader as possessing "Level 5 Leadership" skills. If you are a business owner or key leader in a good business (like the CEO) you should check out the attributes of the "Level 5" leader. If you were hoping to take your company to the next tier you will need to have these leadership skills in the leader that will be driving the company forward.

First Who, Then What
This chapter is about the people in your company. In every case the right person in the right position is a key factor in the quality and quantity of output for the company. Collins states that "if you feel the requirement to manage someone then you probably need a change. Get the right people on the bus and the wrong people off." I think this clearly sums up the idea of having great associates working for your company.

Confront the Brutal Facts
The brutal facts of business are the truths that we sometimes find hard to look at like: the failures we must diagnose, the market changes that could kill our company, the leadership roles that take us in the wrong direction, and the industry shifts that make us less competitive. The brutal fact is we need to take a good hard look at what it is that affects our company, confront the change, and accept it. Only by accepting that we can no longer sell without specific registrations, keep employees to work on products that are obsolete, accept that studies show our product is not well accepted, tolerated or useful can we move on to doing what will be good for the company.

Collins goes on to spell out that we need leader that accept that they do not know everything and they should admit it. Asking for help and embracing the entrepreneurial spirit of the company will make it stronger and more resilient. The alternative is to force ideas of change creating a "recipe for mediocrity". The best three practices he describes to overcome this trap is to admit "I don't know", look for the best answers and "conduct an autopsy without blame". These three practices scream "Great Company" to me.

The Hedgehog Concept
Collins starts with a tale of the constant struggle between the fox and the hedgehog. It is like a fairy tale but it clearly demonstrates that you must have a deep understanding of your three circles to be able to live the truth of them. Collins shares numerous examples of good companies that missed the mark and never make it to great. He also gives examples of great companies loosing their focus and dropping from their pedestal. He describes how the absence of this concept within those companies was the core reason why they failed to excel or maintain their greatness.

A Culture of Discipline
Collins describes the lack of discipline to stick to the three circles as "the cancer of mediocrity". Bureaucracy being a symptom of incompetence, which drives away the right people forcing a company to attract and keep only the wrong people. As stated in the "First Who then What" chapter you have to "Get the right people on the bus and the wrong people off" if you want to create an environment where the company and the people can grow. To ensure superior performance create a culture of discipline that everyone will aspire to and nourish the "ethic of entrepreneurship".

Technology Accelerators
In this chapter the research is used to show over and over that technology is not the core reason a company succeeds to greatness. When CEO's were asked about technology use they would confess that it was often not even in the top three reasons why they felt they got to where they are. That said, all the great companies are technologically advanced, which showed that it is important but not a key reason.

When determining if technology was right for their companies the great companies would assess if it fit their hedgehog concept. If it did then they would find the most suitable product and way to implement, not necessarily the biggest and newest. If it did not match their hedgehog concept then they didn't implement the technology. They used technology as an accelerator of business not a key component, even when the technology was a key tool in parts of their products.

The Flywheel and The Doom Loop
In this chapter Collins gives us some great examples of a company that strayed way from the three circles and then came back. It is the dedication to the hedgehog concept and the three circles in everything the company does that allows the greatness to shine through. "The more an organization has the discipline to stay within its 3 circles the more it will attract opportunities for growth and contribution." It is just as important to know when to say "no" to an opportunity as it is to say "yes" to the right opportunity. Always focusing on the right opportunities will continue to bring the right opportunities in abundance.

Why be Great?
Finally Collins answers some questions about good to great posed to him. One of these questions asks "Why do I want to be great when I already have a good business". The question seems reasonable but the answer is revealing. What would you think if I were to tell you that Collins and his research group have proven that more effort is required to stay 'good' then to become 'great'? Why would you want to be 'good' when 'great' is easier. You'll have to read this one to understand why.

The One Minute Millionaire, The Enlightened Way to Wealth - Mark Victor Hansen and Robert G. Allen

OK, I cheated a bit with this book. I picked it up on CD and listened to it on my way to client sites, but I can still tell you that this book is worth reading (or listening to).
The One Minute Millionaire by Mark Victor Hansen and Robert G. Allen is a great way to think about your worth and your wealth, differently than you were brought up to think about it. The book is presented in three parts on three disks. Each disk has one part of the book and is delivered like two books, a Non-fiction audio book (for the engineer type learner) and a novel (to engage artists). The non-fiction part of this book is the "How To" with tips on everything from self-enlightenment to property investment. The other is a story about Michelle. Michelle's Story is so compelling, filled with emotion and empathy that I had to stop listening to it when going to my client's sites because I did not want to arrive with tears in my eyes. The authors take turns reading the two styles.
Hansen and Allen talk about the two key requirements to build wealth:

1. A commitment driven by desire and faith
   
2. The ability to take action.

They call this the Millionaire Map. They state that there are only four ways to create wealth.

• Investments - stocks, bonds, funds, etc.
  
• Real estate
• Business - marketing product or service
• Internet

Part One
In Part One the authors talk about the 24 -principles of wealth (or Aha's as they refer to them). These are all inspirational, enlightening views of ourselves and our environment. Some of the Aha's covered are things like "Words Transform". Remember your mother telling you "if you don't have something nice to say don't say anything at all". Well this elaborates on the notion that negative thought and words produce negative results. Another Aha "Clarity is Power" describes how to use your goals to get you to where you want to go. They attribute a success philosopher named Neville for this thought:

• "Don’t think of your goals, think from you goals"

For the entire list of the 24 principles visit:

• www.oneminutemillionaire.com/downloads/misc/24AhaPrintouts.pdf

At the end of Part One they open the story of Michelle and how she looses everything: her husband, her house, her job and her kids all because of a car accident. It takes us through her emotions of disbelief and frustration and into a world of powerlessness. We are left contemplating the parallel between the 24 principles and Michelle's situation. Her situation and her negative reaction to her circumstances really emphasize the power of the 24 principles in a inverse way. We see what happens when we don't apply the principles.

Part Two
In Part Two the authors talk about the team. This team is part of the lever required to create wealth. A team should consist of 2 or more people with a common purpose and they state that, "Attitude is critical and can make or break your success." Use their H.O.T.S. Survey when building a team to discover your strengths and those of your team members.

• www.oneminutemillionaire.com/tools/hots.asp

H.O.T.S. defines people as four different categories of workers: people that look for solutions, strategies, problems, or results, known as the Hares, the Owls, the Tortoise, and the Squirrels. The four types of workers are needed to have a well rounded team. A tortoise as an example brings attributes like the ability to "make sure a concept is thought through and how it can be improved and implemented". I am a Tortus according to the H.O.T.S. survey and when I read the full description it pretty much describes the qualities I would bring to a team.
Part Two of Michelle's Story continues on in her life, if you can call it that. She is a broken women, spending most of her time blaming her situation on everyone and everything else. She is of course not responsible for the accident that precipitated her current situation, but she was responsible for letting her insurance laps. When she meets Sam, a woman that takes on a mentoring role in Michelle's life, she starts to change. With her desire to reclaim her children and her faith in her abilities Sam helps propel Michelle forward into action. Michelle's first task was to build a team of people as dedicated and driven to getting to a goal as she was, and she succeeds.

Part Three
In part three of the book the authors describe the details for many different models of creating wealth including how to purchase real estate using OPM (Other Peoples Money). Some of the models are quite complex and I found I had to listen to it a couple of times to understand how they arrived at the final values, but the ideas are simply brilliant.
On this CD they conclude Michelle's story with the final tally of her wealth and where her money comes from. It is unbelievable to think that someone could make $600 000 with no money for a down payment or $250 000 in a few minutes giving away a free book, but this is the concept that lead to the creation of The One Minute Millionaire.

I love this book, both for the engineer in me and for the artist. There are plenty of reasons (at least a million) to read or listen to this book and lots of resources on their website to take advantage of.
Enjoy

• www.oneminutemillionaire.com/

Talking to Sarah - A Darwinian Lexicon

As I have said before, I have a very wonderful, fortunate life and in that life I have a fantastic family and many close friends. One friendship that I cherish dearly is with my neighbour Sarah. We are companions in the treacherous sojourn through motherhood, where we motivate each other to exercise, participate in girls-night-out regularly and enjoy a coffee or beer on many occasions.

Sarah is another one of those women. A mother of two and college instructor, she is also getting her degree, as well as working on potential business opportunities.

I love talking to Sarah. We have lots in common: our status in life, our education levels, our family life growing up and our sense of self. I also love her "Darwinian lexicon". I mean that she, although being highly educated and very intelligent, chooses to develop her own words, evolving the English language all by herself.

We know we have a living language when the dictionary gets revised yearly to include new words. These new words come from people like us. We develop these words to describe new products and situations brought about by our quickly changing society and then incorporate them into our technical jargon, marketing, and product description and finally back to the consumer and into common use.

I want to share a couple of Sarah's words with you and I really want you to share with us the words you hear and see being created. If you send me words with a description I will add it to this post.

Word	Meaning or Use
Noon-thirty	Half past noon or 12:30pm
Midnight-thirty	Half past midnight or 12:30am
Side-by-each	Beside each other
Ginormous	When I started drafting this article this word was not in the dictionary. Since the spring of 2007 Merriam-Webster has published their list of new words and ginormous is one of them. Good on you Sarah for being so trend setting. (Note - Websters New Millennium Dictionary shows the etymology of this word dating back to 1948-53 and describes it as a composition of giant + enormous)
re-donkulous	Meaning incredibly ridiculous - Contribution from Amanda
RetroTech	outdated or ephemeral technology which still may elicit a level of fondness. Fads and trends may witness some RetroTech being re-manufactured for consumer sale such as rotary phones, or other modern electronics made to look vintage / classy. - Copy Kowal Portable Typewriters 56K Modem Sound Emulator This one brings back memories - aah!

Send in your words

High Trust Selling, Make More Money in Less Time with Less Stress - Todd Duncan

Overview

Mr. Duncan writes a great "how to" book on becoming a better sales person by becoming a better relationship person. The lessons, tips, ideas, suggestions, and advice are all valid and resonate with the truth of how strong trusting relationships impact how and who we will deal with. Mr. Duncan promises that by applying the fourteen 'Laws' described in the book "your sales business will do more than merely improve-it will explode."

It is definitely a mental shift away from cold calling and into a relationship building process that will increase your income while decreasing the time you spend earning it. The more valuable benefit is the increase in quality of life which is what brought Mr. Duncan to pursue this avenue in the first place.

The Laws

Each 'Law' is a chapter that defines sales in a way that helps us grow and change the way we view sales, our clients, our products, our approach, and ourselves.

Personal Growth

In the first chapter “The Law of the Iceberg", Mr. Duncan describes how a good foundation gives us stability in our relationships. To determine our foundation he walks us through a short exercise to define our purpose at work by answering the questions "What's important to me about being successful".

He builds an excellent understanding of why this foundation is so important in the second chapter "The Law of the Summit", when he talks about our perception of failure and success. He decants the thought that, "You need more than a capacity for psyching yourself up. You need to be inspired at your core." This is so true and he makes you feel it with the stories of personal and professional failure that he faced in his own life.

"The Law of the Shareholder" defines the characteristics of an owner or CEO. As a high trust sales person you must take responsibility for your relationship with your clients and this means that you are alone in charge of your client's experience, not your assistant or your boss. To take on this type of responsibility, especially if you work for someone else, is difficult, but once past the "it’s not my company" mentality into a "these are my clients" we start to see the value of investing in our position. This kind of investment will not necessarily require more time, but most likely dollars and definitely passion. Mr. Duncan lists 10 key investments you can make in our future:

1. Invest in your relationships with those you love
2. Invest in a long-term personal-development program
3. Invest in a sales coach
4. Invest in a competent right-hand assistant
5. Invest in your personal image
6. Invest in a personal financial plan
7. Invest time in an exercise program
8. Invest in a client-retention program
9. Invest in a library
10. Invest in technology
    

When I read these it was like getting permission to do the things I knew should be done but was afraid to pursue because it was not work that was "in my business". It is very true the more we invest in ourselves the more we will get out of ourselves and we may all fundamentally understand this but still we ignore our health, pass on the contact management software, stop learning, and thus stop growing.

The Business Foundation

The next four chapters ("The Law of the Ladder", "The law of Leverage, "The Law of the Hourglass", and "The Law of the Broom") talk about how to establish a strong business foundation. He lays the groundwork for defining our High Trust Plan by having us thoroughly investigate "The Core Four", which consist of a life plan, a business plan, a time plan, and a client plan.

An effective sales strategy uses "The Core Four" and applies a three-level leverage approach to reach these goals (personal leverage, associate leverage, and professional leverage).

The Law of the Hourglass and the Broom both deal with the effective way to manage time. If you have ever had a sales coach, or any coach at all, you will have no doubt run into many of these ideas and exercises in the past, (like time blocking). These exercises are so valuable, that it is worth the time to revisit them regularly to ensure we have not forgotten.

Sales Processes

In these next five chapters (“The Law of the Dress Rehearsal”, “The Law of the Bull’s-Eye”, “The Law of the Scale”, “The Law of Courtship”, and “The Law of the Hook”) Mr. Duncan compares the sales relationship to a marriage and the process of getting there as a great performance. It takes a great deal of practice and dedication to put on a world-class performance. Our best performances should not go wasted on prospects that are not our core target. He helps us define our target or bull’s-eye so that we are performing to the people that want to watch. Mr. Duncan says, “It doesn’t matter how many prospects you see. It matters how you see the right prospects.” It’s easier to sell when we are talking to the right person from the start. Follow his advice to reduce the number of prospects and focus solely on the ones that will bring us the exact match to our core service or product offering.

Mr Duncan details how to create the scripts we need and how to practice these scripts to ensure we earn our prospects trust. By rehearsing a well scripted interview, which includes knowing how to address objections we captivate our audience so that they will continue to listen, ask questions, and then buy from us.

This process will save us money, time, and anxiety as we build our businesses.

The High Trust Relationship

In these last two chapters (“The Law of Incubation”, and “The Law of the Encore”) Mr. Duncan encourages us to give back to our clients. Like any good relationship, trust is won and keep because there is value, even when there is no request to purchase. Incubate the trust that was earned by implementing a genuine customer service process to continue to see the relationship grow. The cost of a good customer service program will result in more purchasing and more referrals from our clients to other prospects. Mr. Duncan quotes some statistics on the indirect cost of poor service, which I think we have all seen, and it can be devastating to a company. If we are genuine about wanting to give good service and we make a mistake then Mr. Duncan advises to apologize in a meaningful way and he demonstrates this through several stories of good and bad service.

Conclusion

This book is a MUST read and not just for the sales person in a company. It covers everything about sales that is important to the sales professional that wants to excel in their business and live a quality life. I honestly believe that if a company wants to give the best service, have the best clients, provide the best product, and operate as a world-class corporation that every person in a management, sales, and customer support position should read and understand this book . Todd Duncan really defines everything required to build the most successful sales relationship possible.

Count me in.

What they're saying about CMS and XML

The geeks saw it coming years ago. XML is the next wave in documentation yet we have been waiting for ten years for the tools to catch up. What is the Content Management System (CMS) our corporate leaders want and does it come with easy to use structured authoring tools. After
attending the DocTrain UX conference I may have some answers.

I am a technical communicator that has moved to the corporate side of business. I am not a CM or XML expert so this perspective is from the point of view of a technically intelligent person with a business vision that includes CMS and XML. Ever since I took up HTML, XHTML coding 7 years ago for help design and accessibility for web functionality I have been interested in single sourcing. I've heard Anne Rockley speak numerous times on live webinars, and each time after hearing her and others speak I would return to my desk to attempt to write a proposal that would win the support of the lords that ruled over the purses. Content management and XML made so much sense but I never worked for a company that could justify owning the tools to implement it.

In the past XML tools have been hard to use and required coding knowledge. The cost for the tools to do XML is much less that the CMS and range from free, in the form of open source or Notepad, up to the price of good publishing software. The CM systems had a price point that only appealed to larger enterprise companies. The price for the software or system is just the tip of the iceberg there where all kinds of additional costs like training, implementation, legacy documentation transition, as well as the costs involved in implementing a corporate shift to structured authoring. Although the price point to enter the CMS world has changed the cost of the additional processes still exists today.

What Tools are Now Available?
Well obviously I have not seen or worked with many of the tools that are available, and there are plenty. I am going to talk about a select few that I have either worked with or have interest in working with.

XML Authoring Tools
Sometimes the path to complete enlightenment (or structured authoring) must be taken in small steps and sometimes its "all in" or nothing. I am organizing these authoring tools from least to most functional in the sense of true structured authoring. This way you will be able to see where you are on the path and how far you need to go, because not all of us need to go the whole way. (How to determine where you need to be is another article).

Microsoft Word
Word can produce XML files but the problem with the code it creates is that the formatting elements are all embedded in the XML making the final product not truly structured (and huge). Remember, structured authoring separates the content from the format. This provides little if any savings when it comes to reuse and translation.

Adobe FrameMaker (unstructured)
"Ok, this is not structured writing, where am I going with this?" you might ask. FrameMaker has always been much better than Word at keeping the formatting elements separate from the content. Although the elements are embedded, they are not visible to the translators, ensuring that they do not change the way a document looks just by changing the content in the document. Imagine the time you would save if you didn't have to fix section breaks, footers, pagination, and reference links because they are broken when someone added content to the wrong place. FrameMaker is just a better product for producing larger technical documents.

Adobe FrameMaker (structured authoring)
Although Adobe uses their own DTD-type file called an EDD, you are not tied to it. Your content embedded tags for the EDD rules but can be saved as pure XML. You can even convert the EDD to a DTD. This means that you can have the best of both worlds, structured XML authoring and FrameMaker's powerful formatting abilities. This product is an addon to FrameMaker, but is included in the price. Their next version 8.0 promises to have a lot more features.

JustSystems XMetal (XML authoring tool)
This is a great front end for a solid CMS. It follows the DITA structure which ensures that your content is going to be valid (assuming you follow the DITA rules when authoring).

As an extra note, for all you Word folks (which includes me, although reluctantly) there is a plug-in from In.Vision called Xpress Author for Microsoft Word. This intrigued me when I was at the DocTrain UX conference last week but unfortunately they had two computers 'keg' on them leaving us without a presentation and them without a demo.

CMS Tools
Again there are a lot of tools to look at. Two companies that I found interesting both host the CMS system so the business does not have to implement the network architecture to do this.

Inmedius has a whole suite of product for different industries.
Bluestream XDoc is a smaller very function CMS at a price point most small and medium sized business (SMB) could afford.

Anne Rockley the premier expert on content management and president 2005 of the international content management community of practice is the person you want to learn from. She has some wise advice about moving to structured authoring and content management. One article she wrote gives some prudent advice to not start with the tools (Don't start with the technology).

So where is the value?
Assuming the tools are now within the range of an average SMB and all the other costs associated with implementation are still there, what incentive is there for a business to want to change?

My clients are medical device manufacturers. They are required by law in almost every country they distribute in to conform to some type of regulation. In Canada it is ISO 13485 and Health Canada, in the USA it is the FDA, in Japan it is PAL, and so on. If you have ever written for any ISO standard for any industry you are familiar with the intricacies of the required documentation process. Every work procedure in every department, from admin to shipping, must be documented. The spin off is that the procedure defines weather or not there are other documents required to ensure the quality of the product: For example, the ISO regulation does not state they have to have a specification, but when my clients write their design and development procedures they state they will design and build based on the specifications they have defined for the product, which requires a specification document. They may also need marketing requirements, service requirements, validation procedures, etc.

All this information is a gold mine when it comes to preparing the end user material. With my current client I have received 15 of these types of documents of which I have used pieces of each to write the operator's guide. Can you imagine the time that would have been saved if I could just reuse the chucks of information I needed?

Next, they will have to send the manual for translation. Max Hoffman of Enlaso (www.translate.com) has a presentation that talks about the ROI of using structured authoring and estimates that making a small change like using FrameMaker (unstructured) over MS Word alone can save about $1000 per language to translate a 350 page manual. If you implement structured XML the savings go way up.

After that they want to use some of the information as part of the GUI, displaying relevant tips depending where you are in the interface. Then they want a service manual, installation instructions, help files, etc. Each time this gets rewritten from scratch in MS Word is a loss of profit for them. Although I do make more money this way, I am not doing my clients any justice by providing them with a system that costs them more than they need to spend.

As a bonus (insert sarcasm here) there is a decrease in consistency and accuracy when not using structured authoring. When the auditor comes and reviews their systems and finds inconsistencies, they can be flagged or written up with a non-compliance. When they are in the middle of a project and they have limited time to get their product to market, the last thing they want to be doing is checking all the documentation they have already signed off. Worst case scenario is that they lose their license to sell their product in a particular country. If ISO registration is lost the opportunity to sell in many countries is also lost. It is definitely more costly not to use structured authoring than to purchase some software, set up a structure authoring environment, and do it right from the beginning.

Another potential bonus is your company becomes more appealing to venture capitalists. With content that can be ported into any other company, the value of your documentation system goes up.

Conclusion
Start by implementing the structured authoring attitude. Ann Rockley's advises companies to "understand their business needs, information life cycle and content" before investing in technology. Then add pieces as you need them or can afford them and you will always be more efficient and more effective than just writing and saving.

DocTrain UX Conference Review (April 18-21, 2007 in Vancouver BC)

I was just in lovely Vancouver BC for five days to attend the annual DocTrain UX (user's experience) conference. My experience was very positive and for my business very valuable. Let me tell you why.
First, my company provides information management and content creation primarily for the medical device manufacturing industry. Our secondary industry is documenting software applications. Currently we enter our client's work cycle just before they are ready to release and ship their product. Since they have had no support when first setting up their documentation system they are almost always writing their content in MS Word using few if any styles. ClearComm is often involved as early as their pre-beta development stage, to help with validation documents and build procedures. Many times they have not thought about their information until they need user documents. At this stage all we can do is offer to create their content or design their manual layout. After this is complete they will want the information ported to other documents for distribution like help systems, installation guides, FAQ's, training, or service manuals.
My poor editor feels like she is editing the same content over and over. Consistency is lost, cost for writing and editing is higher and the potential for error goes up. It is frustrating.
I went to this conference looking for some answers. I want to give my client's more than a simple fix to complete their project.

What did it look like?
The conference was very well organized by Eileen Savary and Scott Abel. The location was beautiful. The Marriott Pinnacle was a very hospitable hotel with excellent staff. There was continental breakfast, a wonderful lunch and coffee, lots and lots of coffee each day. There was also tea and water.
Every workshop or seminar started and ended on time, which I always appreciate. The presenters where interesting and the vendors where friendly and helpful. There was lots of opportunity to network and get to know others within our own community and there was quite a diverse community represented at this conference. There was even a cocktail reception on Wednesday evening to encourage networking and get people meeting each other. The whole event was very well thought out and orchestrated.

Who did I meet?
Day 1
I went to Alan Houser's workshop on "Task analysis and information modeling for DITA". I've had the pleasure of hearing Alan speak at our STC chapter before and I knew I was going to leave with something worth while. This was a beginner's look at the structure of DITA. Because the audience was not all beginners the questions where compelling and thought provoking. It was an excellent introduction to the conference, starting me on the path to thinking not just how content gets used but why it gets reused and the value of both.

Day2
The keynote speaker was Salim Ismail and I really enjoyed his look at "The Future of XML Publishing: Understanding Web 2.0 | Internet 3.0". Salim is a great presenter. He got me thinking about documentation in a whole new way. Content is moving towards open, available usage. He says, "ownership of data is not the key" and I believe he is right. The more we open up our content to other authors the more valuable it becomes. If the resolution of issues for our FAQ's are being written by the customers then we give back real-life solutions to our audience. His tie in with XML and its realtime searchability made these solutions seem very powerful.

The first morning session was in a question and answer format. Kit Brown, Brenda Huettner and Char James-Tanny spoke about "Keeping your Sanity While Managing Virtual Teams". There was no shortage of questions for them and their insight into working with people all over the country was valuable.

The second morning session I went to see the tool snapshots. This presentation followed a very strict timeline, each vendor got 25 minutes to demonstrate the value of their application. What an opportunity to see different companies' products side-by-side.

Robert Rose was the first presenter I saw in the afternoon of Day 2. He was probably the best presenter of the conference, and that is saying a lot since there were some very good speakers. Robert has a great sense of humour that he is able to work smoothly into his topics. His presentation, "From Chaos to Clarity: How Web 2.0 Delivers on the Promise of Content Control" was just as it promised. It helped add one more layer of clarity to the puzzle I was trying to put together. Every presentation got me closer to a solution for my clients.

I decided I wanted to hear Salim Ismail speak again. In the second afternoon presentation Salim presented "Creating Structured Content With Blogs: How to Leverage Syndication on the Web.... - He was well worth listening to a gain and I am taking his advice to heart. There is so much more I can do, but one step at a time.

The Cocktail Reception and Technology Showcase ran from 5pm - 7pm. Most people attended. It was a great networking event. After the reception one of the venders had a special dinner for their clients and those that had attended their session in the morning. It was another fabulous opportunity to get to speak to so many people working in the industry, both as software vendors and as technical writers. Although it was only 11pm when I got to bed, it felt more like 2pm Toronto time, which was the time my internal clock was still set to. It was a late night. But I was still up at 4am the next morning.

Day 3
I started the day with "Metadata, Taxonomies, and Information Architecture: Putting the Pieces Together to Create an Effective User Experience", being presented by Seth Earley. This was one of those seminars that you really need to be awake for. I was running on 3 nights of 6 hours or less and I found it very hard to concentrate on the technical nature of this topic.

Before lunch I sat in on "The XML Word Processor: Moving the Masses to Structured XML Authoring", presented by Michael Boses. Unfortunately his presentation and backup presentation where riddled with technical difficulties. It was hard to listen to and follow his distracted fumblings so I cut out on that presentation. I was interested in seeing how clean the XML was when created in Word, if it was at all... maybe next time.

At lunch I watched a presentation by FrameMaker Evangelist RJ Jacquez. RJ promised to do a short introduction to the power of FrameMaker before allowing his colleague (sorry I did not get his card) to spend most of the time discussing how to create structured and XML documents as well as DTD's. RJ got a little carried away and spent most of their allotted time discussing important but elementary FrameMaker functions which left his colleague with little more than enough time to rush through the most interesting part of the presentation. Luckily he was very quick and thorough. I got a lot out of this demonstration.

I think this is the key to how I can help my clients. They are too small to be able to afford a complete CMS / single sourcing system, but they need to begin by creating structured documents. By starting them with FrameMaker I can get them headed down the path of structured authoring, while saving them money immediately on translation costs. As they grow, the transformation of legacy documents to a fully structured XML system will be less painful than it would coming from a Word environment. Brilliant!

I had met some very wonderful people at this meeting. We had a second opportunity to spend some time together at the art gallery and get to know each other better, which was a fabulous bonus of the conference.

Day 4
Today was a half day workshop. I chose to listen to Bernard Aschwanden speak on "Demystifying DITA: An Introduction to the Darwin Information Typing Architecture". Bernard has an interesting perspective on the industry. He has a lot of experience with many of the vendors and applications. He spoke about structured writing with reference to all the applications he has used.

Bernard is very intense, filling every possible moment from 8:00am to 12:00pm with information, allowing only two very short regimented breaks. Overall an interesting perspective on applications and lots of solid information on DITA, well worth the time.


What did I take away?
I want to increase the value of my clients' companies by providing them with a system that will give them more control of the information they are sharing internally and externally, provide more accountability for their regulatory audits and save them time and money in product development and translation.

Remember I only had the opportunity of seeing 1/3 of the presenters at this meeting. There was so much to choose from it was sometimes disappointing to know you had missed something that also had value.

I give this conference a 5 out of 5.

Belinda, The Political and Private Life of Belinda Stronach (Don Martin)

So how does a young single mother of two, with no university education and no political experience bring 130 000 new voting party members into politics, help establish a new political party, and be the touchstone for improving Canadian politics in a way not seen since Pierre Elliott Trudeau days? Why money of course and an undaunted determination to see everything she starts through to the end.

This book is an interesting read for a business owner. Here is someone that is in line to inherit one of Canada’s largest corporations. So what could a business owner learn from an heiress?

Belinda Stronach requires no investors and no MBA to one day inhabit the throne of the Magna Empire. She has not always been the ‘heir apparent’. In fact her father’s expectation of her success was to become a good mother and homemaker. What happened, you may ask, to enlighten Frank Stronach so that he would encourage and support Belinda in her rise to power both politically and corporately?

Belinda was a teenager of the eighties, ‘poofy’ hair, tight jeans, and bush parties, does that sound familiar at all? Her teenage life in the public school system was unremarkable. Besides the fact that her family was very wealthy, Belinda was a very average teenager. She walked the halls of the public secondary school with a group of close friends, many of whom are still close with her today. As an academic, her grades where only nominally above average, certainly not what you would expect from the CEO of Magna International. Yet, she possesses a persistence to do things she was not expected to do and go places that her father had only reserved for the male gender.

Belinda is a world class go-getter and also daddy’s litter girl. If she wanted something she would have it but not in the fashion of a spoiled child. Belinda is described in this book and by others as fearless, generous, compassionate, confident, connected, and an exemplary mother and yet she is also described as “rich, a divorcee, spoiled, a socialite, linked to Clinton, running on a whim, buying the leadership…”.

When she realized that the leadership of the newly formed Conservative Party, which she had worked hard to help consolidate, was going to go uncontested to Steven Harper, she decided to throw her hat in the ring. According to those who understood how the electorate worked, she could not win. But, she did not do this on a whim. This candidacy took months of preparation and consultation to decide if it was even worth the effort. Could she pull together a team in time to effectively persuade the membership of the party to elect her as their new leader?

Public speaking was something she had little experience at; some would say a prerequisite for the leader of a country. She could not and would not even attempt to speak French, a leadership downfall in a bilingual country. She knew little or nothing about the issues of the day and of those issues she did know about she had no opinion. It was a long shot, she nearly pulled it off but the race to the election date was full of disappointments and failures on her and her team’s part.

She did win a seat for the Conservative Party under Steven Harper, but was denied over and over any key role in the party. This book makes out Steven as a paranoid monarch, always watching over his shoulder for Belinda, whom he knows is out to take his throne. When she realizes she can no longer support the views of the party she did the unthinkable, at least in Peter MacKay’s mind, she crossed the floor, abandoning their party and their relationship.

Even after all this she had taken her second election in the Newmarket-Aurora riding by a huge margin over the first election changing the riding from a Conservative to a Liberal held riding. It was the only loss of a Conservative seat in Canada and she did it big with the sixth highest voter turnout.

This book is full of anomalies between the “haves” and “have not’s”, the “can’t do” and the “doers” the “academics” and the “self-taught” and they are all playing on the same field. It makes me feel I can play there too because I have lots of what they have and some of what they don’t.

A good read.

Where were you on March 5?

Were you at work? Did you have an appointment? Did you need to make a sales call, a support visit, do training? Did you have to travel at all? No! Lucky you!
I had to visit my client's site to review their new product. It's a 113km mostly highway trek down the 400 to Toronto. "So what", you might ask.

The morning of March 5, 2007 started out quite sunny but the afternoon saw the worst snow storm of the season. White-out conditions were complete, the car that was nicely distanced in front of you was instantly gone and through the blanket of white was their just visible break lights that where closing in quickly. It was a frightening drive. Not only was it a blizzard, it was cold, dipping down to -23 in the evening.

This is the week my husband was away on government training. I am playing single-mommy CEO for the week. I know, it is only a week and there are plenty of people that have to do this every day, all the time. I have great respect for them especially after all the effort I had to go through the make this one day go off without a hitch. So how does a single-mommy CEO prepare to be out of town during the worst snowstorm of the season?

Make Arrangements for the Kids
First you have to make arrangement for the kids in case you make it down to your destination and do not make it back. As it was, the evening school buses where cancelled and many parents could not get to the schools to pick up their kids. We love to blame others for our hardships, but really the contingency plan should have been in place for any day of the school year especially this one that had been was foretold.
I had notified the school and the daycare that both my husband and I where out of town for the day. I arranged for several friends and family to be available if the school called anytime throughout the day. It was a lot of work just to make a 6 hour trip.

Make Arrangements to not get to the client's site
I told you the morning was sunny. On previous days there had been lots of rain. The rain continued on until the temperature dropped and then it changed to freezing rain. Everything was covered in a beautiful shimmering skin, including the roads and the CN Tower. I thought I would save time that day but avoiding the DVP, an infamously over-packed artery to the inner city and go across Lakeshore boulevard. What I didn't know was that the ice on the CN Tower was coming down in sheets large enough to break through windows and cause severe damage. The Gardner Expressway was closed as well as most of downtown, which increased the traffic on Lakeshore. I was going to be late. Luckily I had my client's direct phone number with me and my fully charged cell phone. When I called he had already heard the news and was anticipating the change in time.

Make Arrangements to not get Home
It is important to assume you may not make it home. This scenario is always a possibility with today's traffic, as our highways become more congested every year. In a snow storm the chances of an accident increase. In white-out conditions the number of vehicles involved in an accident can multiply making travel dangerous and stressful.
On this particular day highway 400 witnessed a mind-boggling 70 car pileup. There were some injured but mostly everyone was unscathed. One woman went into labour and made it to the hospital on time. This highway, the main artery for travelling North of Toronto, was closed in both directions for over ten hours, over night, in -23 degree white-out conditions. Many people where stuck idling on the highway, some spent the night in a local mall, and some braved the back roads to attempt to get home.
It is important to always have your emergency kit packed, an extra blanket, some food and water and a full tank of gas. I go to my meetings in business attire so it was also important to bring winter boots and a change of cloths so I wouldn't freeze if I had to be outside for any length of time.

Was I ready?
After my successful trip to visit my client in downtown Toronto I was at the site of this accident travelling North about 30 km/hr in a 100 km/hr zone as short as 30 minutes before the accident occurred. I could have been one of the hundreds of people that had to spend 4 hours or more traversing the countryside in search of a safe way home. At least if I had ended up behind the accident I know I would have been prepared, with my kids at my neighbour’s house, a blanket, a candle, some food and water, my cell phone and my PDA. Thank God I was not one of the people in the accident. I don't want to have to test my preparedness I just want to be prepared. Spending some time upfront will certainly relieve the stress of a bad situation later on.

XML Tools - less expensive, more abundant and easier to use, I hope

You know, eleven years ago I didn't even know a person could be a technical writer. I had no idea the possibility of performing the best part of every job I had ever had was rolled up in a single career. Since then I have had the opportunity to design, code, create or write many of the types of document known to technical writers. What a blast.

Now, for me, the tides are turning. Single-sourcing is looking like the best fit available for many of my clients. At first I looked at my newest client's documentation with the eyes of an MS purest, how can I write all these manuals and still keep the costs down. They have a 400 page user manual and 5 vertical market manuals that need to be created. The software required help files specific to the market, a training video, and web-based FAQs. I couldn't justify the cost involved in writing all this information in a linear fashion. The only way I could see to produce all these documents, keep the costs down and keep the quality was to reduce the amount of information that had to be written. XML and single-sourcing is where I'm looking to handle the load.

XML (extensible markup language) started as subset to SGML. HTML another very small subset of SGML was not meant to handle formatting and SGML is just too large and complicated for the average non-programming writer. When the buzz about XML started showing up on technical writing listserves and in an STC publication I started to get excited about working with it. I could immediately see the usefulness of single-sourcing, and since I was already maintaining a help system written in SGML the code seemed so elegant to me. Many people praised the ease of use when maintaining a documentation system that had been designed in XML, but as Jim Shaeffer posted to the TechWR-L list, Wednesday March 14, 11:17am, "[Early evangelists] skipped [telling us] all the messy part about writing our own programs or researching esoteric tool chains to get what we wanted."

The tools available to small companies 7 years ago where either too expensive, too complicated, or non-existent. One open-source tool, DocBook, provides DTD and Schema's for XML reducing the amount of coding required to build a system, but small companies where not willing to put out the money to implement a system from the ground up.

So I have tried to use as many of the principles of single sourcing and content managment that a company using only MS Word, without version control, could tolerate. This was a difficult effort.

Now, options seem to be opening up all over the place. Tools are not only becoming less expensive, they are also becoming more functional, with interfaces that are intuitive enough to jump right in. There is also an abundance of applications to choose from. What I need to know more about is where does the Content Management System (CMS) system come in and the XML authoring begin, do you need both and which types go together. In an article "Selecting a Content Management System" [Bob Doyle - Intercom, March 2007, p.9], Mr. Doyle estimates the number of "unique CMSs is now somewhere over 2,000 worldwide". With that kind of variety there is bound to be competition and competition begets choice.

Recently I had the opportunity to participate in two product demonstrations and I liked them both. The first was an XML content management system (CMS) XDoc™ from Bluestream Corp running with XMetal as its editor and the second was a help authoring tool called Flare™ from Madcap Software. The GUIs for both these products were so familiar I could have probably faked my way through a project and ended up with something of value.

They both allow for various publications formats (doc, PDF, HTML, help) and they both allow for security and document ownership. XDoc is better used for entire documentation systems, including marketing documents, internal specifications and procedures as well as end-user documents. XDoc is not an authoring tool but it does integrate easily with many of the most common tools. XDoc provide solutions in technical publications, content management, web content management and E-Learning.

Flare on the other hand is a help authoring tool that can generate help files, printed documents, or a PDF via MS word or FrameMaker.

I am still evaluating the costs and benefits for my clients as well as potential alternatives. All I am sure of at this point is that every new client is a new learning experience. What a great job I have!

An Introduction

First I'll give you the official version:

I have been working in high-tech industries for nearly 20 years now. I started ClearComm Information Design to provide high-tech industries with technical professionals for information management.

At ClearComm our extensive experience is evidenced by our strong knowledge base in several different areas: laboratory applications, research, manufacturing, and service industries. Our varied disciplines include IT, electronics, chromatography, biophysics, chemistry, electrophysiology, GPS technology, ultrasonography, and audiology. The accumulation of transferable skills in software applications, hardware, and instrumentation operation allows ClearComm to quickly learn a client's product and industry.

Now the personal slant:

I can hardly believe I decided to run this business, on the cusp of becoming something very large, so that I could have more time with my family (three kids, Connor, Jack, and Chloe and my husband Brian). I am the idyllic model for the 40-something, business owner, career woman, mother, good wife, and life-time learner/student. Where do the years go?

If you had told me 3 years ago that I would consider myself unemployable because of my love for the visionary freedom of owning my own business, I would have called you crazy. Who in their right mind would give up a regular paycheque for the unpredicatable gamble of self-employment. It turned out it was not as much of a gamble as I first thought, but it definitely required an abundance of tenacity to get where I am today.

Well let me tell you it has been three years of growth that I cannot even begin to explain. I love this life. The more I get into the mindset, the more opportunities open up to me.

I am starting this blog to share information about the dualism of being a mom and a business owner in the seat of the CEO. I love how the two "MEs" are at constant odds and yet most things I learn for one job I can apply to the other. There is a fissure and a completeness that both parilyzes and motivates me at the same time.

What a wonderful, fortunate life I lead.