LEAD STORIES:
Component Content Management: Overlooked By Analysts; Required By Technical Publications Departments

Using 21st Century Tech to Preserve Ancient Ways (Part 3): High Tech in Klawock, Alaska

DITA Writing Survey: Lack of Standards among Authors is Serious Issue

EXTRA:
Upcoming conferences

OTHER NEWS:
Top Ten Predictions for XML in 2007

How Best-in-Class Companies Meet Product Launch Dates 100% of the Time - Aberdeen Study

OASIS Opens DITA/S1000D Discussion List

Wake Up to the 'Daylight-Saving' Bug

Yet One More Attack on the Notorious "Doctor's Handwriting"

ASIDES:
"To Convert, or Not to Convert: That is the Question"

Understanding the Semantic Web

FAVORITES:
Popular articles from recent issues

QUOTE OF THE MONTH

LEAD STORIES

Component Content Management: Overlooked By Analysts; Required By Technical Publications Departments

Selecting the right content management system (CMS) can be critical. Too often, CMS shoppers skip critical steps in a mad rush to get their projects started. They jump into the purchasing cycle without having analyzed organizational needs nor having performed a content audit. Often, they mistakenly rely on marketing materials and analyst reports to help them decide which system to purchase. In this quick read article, Ann Rockley and Steve Manning of The Rockley Group explore why it's important to manage components (i.e., single topics, concepts or assets) of your documentation, rather than just managing whole documents, in order to create greater consistency and accuracy, and reduce creation, delivery, and translation costs. They use a recent analyst report as an example and define a much-needed category of content management that is more-often-than-not overlooked by analysts.

More...

Using 21st Century Tech to Preserve Ancient Ways (Part 3): High Tech in Klawock, Alaska

"There'll be new billion-dollar businesses on the Web in 2007, and most of them will use XML," says Elliotte Rusty Harold at IBM developerWorks as he looks into his XML crystal ball and makes his predictions for 2007. "The question that must be answered is no longer 'Why XML?' but 'Why not XML?'. On his radar screen are improvements to search, new publishing protocols, web forms, Open Document Format, browser wars, and the Semantic Web.

More...

How Best-in-Class Companies Meet Product Launch Dates 100% of the Time - Aberdeen Study

The Aberdeen Group recently released a benchmark study, "Next-Generation Product Documentation: Getting Past the 'Throw It over the Wall' Approach", aimed at identifying the strategic documentation management approaches used by "best in class" organizations.

According to the findings, 83% of best-in-class companies -- those that meet product launch dates 100% of the time -- use structured XML authoring to produce documentation content, are 51% more likely to use translation memory tools (to interactively find and suggest already translated text and close matches to technical writers), and are twice as likely to use 3D graphics and Web-based 3D visualization tools (to reduce the amount of text requiring translation).

More...

OASIS Opens DITA/S1000D Discussion List

OASIS has opened a new discussion list intended to facilitate an effort to graft S1000D type modules onto the DITA type hierarchy. The result would support content that's completely interoperable and provides a relatively good transform target (because of similar semantics and structure). This approach will have significant long-term benefits toward interoperability of content and authoring tools between the two standards.

OASIS members and non-members alike may subscribe to the list and join the conversation. To subscribe, send a message to: dita-s1000d-discuss-subscribe@lists.oasis-open.org.

More...

Wake Up to the 'Daylight-Saving' Bug

Starting Daylight Savings Time (DST) early used to be so simple - newspapers would just print the reminder on a different day. These days, an act of Congress to move DST, creates a world-wide scramble for software patches to adjust computers, phones, alarm systems, airline schedules … and probably a few more things no one's thought of.

More...

Yet One More Attack on the Notorious "Doctor's Handwriting"

Among all the sparkling automation, doctors still write orders by hand, and technicians still manually transcribe instrument readings into patient books. An Austin, TX tablet PC maker teamed with Intel to create the C5 MCA (mobile clinical assistant) to get past all that. Also new industry standards are coming along to help the process.

Automating the transcription process, and increased access to information, promises to reduce errors and lower costs - both critical elements to the health care industry. While this technology is already successfully used in such diverse areas as engineering, airplane maintenance, and overnight delivery services, it’s been more difficult to implement in the health care industry due to such issues as government regulation, the widely varying sources of information, and concerns about litigation.

More...

Further helping the process will be additional standards in the industry. A health IT standards group released a new, more-comprehensive standard for electronic health records on Feb. 21. The standard, released by Health Level Seven, is the first that specifies functional requirements for electronic health-records systems to win approval from the American National Standards Institute, a key standard-setting body.

More...

ASIDES

Shakespeare: "To convert, or not to convert: That is the question"

Discover what Shakespeare would have to say about converting PDFs.

More...

Understanding the Semantic Web

A Kansas State University professor has created an excellent YouTube video designed to demonstrate how the web is changing the way we create, manage, and consume content. This is definitely one of the best explanations of the new publish/subscribe model at the heart of the Semantic Web and its relation to HTML, XML, and structured content.