"DITAWriter" Will Be the Keynote Speaker at Content ... - DITA Writer

Keith Schengili-Roberts (aka "DITAWriter") Speaking {Photo credit: Mr. Fung}

I?ve known about this for a while now, but it has now been officially announced: I will be giving the keynote presentation at the upcoming Content Management Strategies/DITA North America conference happening April 23-25, 2012 in La Jolla, California.

My presentation is called ?The Rainmaker, The Cloud and The Downspout: Keeping Your Content Relevant in an Information Deluge?. Here?s the abstract:

Structured technical writing has become the most efficient way of producing content for users, but how sure are we that they are getting information where and when they need it? When information is pervasive, users can either walk *in* a cloud of scattered data, or happily *on* a cloud if they find what they want. Keith Schengili-Roberts will talk about the challenges of producing useful content for your users wherever they are, ensuring that your content doesn?t get lost and spiral down the drain.

The idea behind this came out of the initial talk I had with Bill and JoAnn Hackos when they asked me whether or not I would be interested in doing the keynote back in late November 2011. One of the subjects I have been actively exploring is how technical writing organizations at various firms and organizations can ensure that the content they produce is still relevant to their supposed target audience. Certainly ideas like minimalism and structured authoring have helped streamline existing documentation processes, changing technical writing from a cottage industry involving isolated craftspeople producing documentation of varying standards to that of a more collaborative, easily-repeatable process whose product is of higher utility to end-users.

But that doesn?t mean that users will read your docs. Or even be able to find them.

Google Image Search for Kenmore Series 80 Washing Machines

One of things that got me thinking about this was a problem I had with our clothes-washing machine. When my Kenmore 80 washing machine no longer drained and stopped spinning its load of wet clothes, a simple Google search on ?Kenmore 80 series washer not spinning? helped me find the problem, and a YouTube video even told me how to access the faulty part and fix it.

If you are looking for the actual Kenmore manual for this washing machine, you?d think that doing a Google search on ?kenmore series 80 washer manual? would turn it up on the first page of the search results, but you?d be wrong. When I was eventually able to track down the manual, it was of little help. So in my situation user-created help was not only directly useful in helping me to fix our washing machine, but I couldn?t even easily find the documentation for my washer online. When I was able to track it down, it wasn?t useful. It made we think about the relevancy of the documentation that I was working on, and how I could make it more better suited to the situations in which our users find themselves.

So while we as technical writers may become more efficient in how we do things, it doesn?t necessary follow that what we produce actually meets the needs of our audience. Social media clearly has a role to play, but I don?t think it is a panacea, as there are some situations that don?t necessarily lend themselves well to social interactions. Better engagement with customers is clearly key though, and this is what I intend to focus on during my talk at the conference.

Hope to see you there!

(For more information on the conference, see: cm-strategies.com/2012/, and be sure to check out the Center for Information Development group on LinkedIn at: linkedin.com/groups?home=&gid=1853169).

Bill Hackos ? Content Management Strategies ? DITA North America 2012 ? DITAWriter ? JoAnn Hackos ? Keith Schengili-Roberts ? keynote ? Social Media in Documentation ? speaker ? The Rainmaker The Cloud and The Downspout

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