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.