content strategy – Page 7 – TechCommGeekMom

TechCommGeekMom, where have you been? The Delta Quadrant?

Posted on April 19, 2017 by TechCommGeekMom

I know you haven’t been in the Delta Quadrant. So where have you been?

OK, so it’s been a while. I know. While I wish I could say that I’ve been on an Intrepid-class Federation starship named the U.S.S. Voyager, sadly that is not the case.

It’s a little hard to be writing blog posts when a) you don’t know exactly what to say after having written hundreds of posts before, and b) you’re just REALLY busy.

2016 was a rough year, but 2017 has also had its challenges so far. You know that I’m always in some sort of work search mode, and that’s already had its ups and downs for the past few months. I was excited to get my first independent contract. It was an opportunity to finally flex my e-learning muscles, and do it on my terms. I started to create a curriculum matrix, to make storyboards, to write transcripts, test questions, and study guides, and created video training–21 completed videos in about a month. But the contract ended before the full project was completed, and I don’t know what will be happening going forward. There was a big learning curve involved, and after the fact, I’ve realized where I made some wrong moves, but I also learned where I made many right moves as well. I’ve been mastering TechSmith’s Camtasia during this time, and feel pretty comfortable with it now. I sometimes feel I missed out on one of my many callings as a video editor (although you never know–that might change going forward). I know that I was producing good content, if I say so myself, so I have to be satisfied with that for now.

I also was the co-chair of the STC-Philadelphia Metro Chapter (STC-PMC)’s annual CONDUIT conference. Thankfully, that came off with few hitches, and it was well received by everyone I heard from. Some people hadn’t been to the conference in years, and it was a great opportunity for them to see how our conference has grown! Next year, at this point, it looks like I’ll be the main chair for the event, so it’s going to feel a little overwhelming, I’m sure. Just being co-chair felt overwhelming at times, while trying to work with client deadlines. It stressed me out enough that I even got physically sick for a while. For CONDUIT, the payoff is worth it, and I hope that everyone who is reading this considers coming as a presenter or attendee for next year.

Oh, and I can’t forget that I’ve been studying my DITA by helping someone who is writing a book about it, and I was asked to contribute edits as a beginner who wanted to ensure that they understood the author’s instructions. That was cool, and helpful.

Kim: Is she kidding us? Overwhelming?
Paris: That’s what she claims. Who am I to argue?

All through this time, as I said, it’s been a bit overwhelming. I realized some missteps with all of it the hard way, as I usually do, but thankfully I have a lot of good people who help me get back up and fight another day. (Photon torpedos are loaded, Captain.)

I spoke to veteran tech comm consultants at CONDUIT and through Single-Sourcing Solutions’ TC Conclave, as well as just talking to other technical communicators when I had the opportunity offline. All have provided me with advice about how to move forward in the future as an independent consultant, and massaged my ego just enough, knowing how battered and bruised I felt at times. For that, thanks to all of you. You know who you are. This is why I get involved with the STC and with other technical communicators. Five years of networking is finally paying off–you know me, I know you, and I can learn more about things that they don’t teach you in grad school. I benefit from your experiences and I’m grateful.

Kim: I think we should take a ship-wide survey or start a betting pool on what she’ll do next. Who’s in?

So now the question is…what do I do going forward? I’m in limbo once again with timing, figuring out what to do next. At this writing, I’ve decided to lay low for a couple of weeks. I’m concentrating on my VP duties for the STC-PMC for the rest of this program year (two more main events to go right now!), reworking my consultancy’s website (a project temporarily postponed when I started my contract in February), and doing a little bit of project hunting, but nothing too deep just yet. I have a few leads on things, but I’ve always been hesitant to “count my chickens before they are hatched,” as the saying goes. I’m looking forward to attending the STC Summit in a few weeks in Washington, DC. I’m getting excited about going, because I realize that it’ll be nonstop tech comm for me almost from the moment I get there! I’ll be with my tribe! I plan to take advantage of seeing all my STC friends–and making new ones as well–in the hopes that my continued networking will help me build my business. I’m looking at things through a slightly different perspective now.

In some ways, I’m still scared to death being “on my own”. Having survived through my first experience without an agency, though, was exhilarating, and I liked being my own boss and calling most of the shots, and determining how things should be done. I was able to validate that in many ways, I’m still on the right track, even if things are slow-going right now.

Kim: Captain, there’s something out there!
Janeway: I need a better description than that, Mr. Kim!

I still have a very long way to go, but I’ll find my way eventually. Sometimes I feel like the very green Ensign Kim, who has some knowledge, but still finding my place while trying to make a difference. Sometimes I feel like Captain Janeway, where I feel like I can lead and figure out what needs to be done. There will be Borg, Kazon, Vidiians, and Hirogen to battle along the way, I’m sure. Hopefully my persistence moving forward will get me where I need to go, even if it takes a while.

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Adobe Tech Comm Suite 2017 is better than ever!

Posted on February 14, 2017 by TechCommGeekMom

Recently, Adobe held a virtual press conference for the 2017 Release of the Adobe Technical Communications Suite, which launched on 31 January 2017. While the Suite continues to include the latest versions of Captivate, Acrobat, and Presenter, it’s RoboHelp (RH), the XML documentation add-on for Adobe Experience Manager (AEM), and its flagship product in the suite, FrameMaker (FM) and its related FrameMaker Server that have all received updates with this newest release.

FrameMaker itself has been around for thirty years now, but it’s been especially in the last few years that significant changes has been made to accommodate DITA support, multi-channel and mobile publishing, and support from right-to-left (RTL) languages.

With the 2017 Release, Adobe’s main objective was to provide new features while simplifying current features that would help with productivity and keep the end users in mind.

I found that now that I have a better understanding of the structured authoring views from my recent DITA course, I could see these products with a fresher perspective while I attended this virtual press conference, and better appreciate the upgrades.

The main attraction for the virtual press conference was FrameMaker, as the product has had some major overhauls, including new features centered around the authoring experience. I won’t go into all of the features, as there’s too much to review, but several of them made a big impression on me. FM has been a complicated tool to use for many years, but it seems to me that with each new release, the tool becomes more user-friendly for those who aren’t as deeply entrenched with all the bells and whistles. The new interface is more modern and usable, and there’s easier access to recent items through the Browse Computer or repository feature. This gives you access to all resources like tutorials, guides, and online help. It also allows you to access structured and unstructured items in one page. Even within the Search function, there is better auto-complete functionality which shows predictive results based on user typing through responsive HTML5 output.

An important upgrade in this 2017 release is that menus have been optimized and reorganized, with more commands to improve discover-ability. My favorite new feature within these new menu changes is that the “Special” menu is gone, and the much more logical “Insert” menu has been added. This is something that has sorely been needed for a long time to be more user-friendly interface! Why, just today I was in a different Adobe tool, and I looked to insert an image, and that particular app (a Creative Cloud app) didn’t have an “Insert” menu at all! Insert menus are commonly used in apps almost universally now, that this was a long time coming. It makes inserting objects more intuitive for an app that’s not always that intuitive. It’s one of those “DUH!” things that I’m glad Adobe has fixed for FrameMaker. The Insert menu provides one stop for inserting images, files, variables, elements, equations…you name it! For example, all that needs to be done to insert an image into a document is to go to Insert-> Image and it’s done! You don’t need DPI settings change, as the DPI settings are retained, but they can be changed. You can also do a “drag and drop” of an image into a document easily. All you do is add to your project, then drag the image into the page, and it adapts to the page. You can still adjust the size in object properties if needed. The object properties dialog is improved, as there is an option to maintain aspect ration, DPI can be set inline, and apply a check inline. The “Element” menu is also enhanced. New options have been added to insert, wrap, and change. The Insert drop down is great! It has everything you need, and will likely be heavily used.

Shortcuts for productivity got a boost, as there is a new Command Search feature that is accessed through the <F7> button and very easy to use. All shortcuts are also now listed next to menu commands so that power users can learn them more easily. <CTRL-1> provides a list of where you are within the structure of your structured authoring, which is rather convenient. Commands that are applicable globally, such as borders, text symbols, rulers, grid lines, and hotspot indicators that impact all open docs both structured and unstructured are viewable now, although there are some limitations with structured views.

PODS have also has some upgrades as well. A new paragraph designer table allows you to create new styles easily in the pod. Styling icons in table and paragraph designers have been replaced with labeled buttons, configurable options have been reorganized and relabeled, and redundant command operations have been removed. Additionally, adding or editing a conditional tag now happens thru a dialog. The former “Select” drop down list has been replaced by Filter icon. Color and background columns have been removed. Conditional takes are listed with their close to final formatting, with tooltips displayed for conditional tags listed in the pod. Several catalog PODS are also redesigned, with old buttons replaced with icons. Deletion has been made intuitive by removing extra options.

These changes have allowed the project management of a given project much easier, as now it’s easier to organize content such as a DITA map, book, topic, image, TOC, or index files related to a project in a single place whereby you can drag and drop files from Windows Explorer.

Structured Authoring gets some boosts as well. The Status bar now provides information about the exact path of the current element in your structured document. You can show or hide content from the structure view for a cleaner view as you work. Some of the new Insert menu options have been added for structured authoring, such as the Insert>Cross-Reference function, which should be very handy. There is also an improved DITA Keyspace Manager, whereby if any DITA map is opened, it gets populated automatically in drop down. The ability to search for a keyspace by entering the 1st few characters.

To keep up with the rapid changes in technology, high resolutions displays are supported now! Support for 4K resolution is now available, and allows the application to scale automatically. No separate setting is required to adjust resolution, so icons are now more sharp and size will scale automatically with the screen resolution.

Publishing features have not been forgotten, as they include brand new responsive HTML5 layouts that are modern, frameless layouts with a redefined browsing experience, are fully customizable, and can easily match the look and feel of your corporate website template. The navigation is search driven, and you also have the ability to add favorites while still being fully accessible (508 compliant).

New publishing features include the introduction of basic HTML5 formatting without any JavaScript or layout, with the look and feel controlled by CSS. This makes publishing lightweight and easy to share. Text searches within searchable vector graphics (SVG) can now be done, and supported in HTML5, as the information in the SVG files can be read and displayed as part of search results. Multimedia files are managed in assets folder in published output. Inline styles have been cleaned up, including the introduction of a setting for Excel inline styles from published output. You can publish topics to a single folder–an important organization feature. Content personalization has been improved with DITA attribute support in dynamic content filters in the indexes, and a new dialog has been introduced to select conditional attributes.

Wow, that’s a lot right there!

All these changes are great for the FrameMaker app, but what about the FrameMaker Publishing Server? No worries! The 2017 release of the FrameMaker manage remote publishing, and can publish bi-directional content across formats and devices, so it can integrate with any CMS.

RoboHelp has brand-new, responsive HTML5 layouts as well, also incorporating modern, frame-less layouts with a redefined browsing experience that’s fully customizable. The Search autocomplete is also functional here in RoboHelp as well, allowing for search in responsive HTML5 output that shows predictive results based on user typing by segment first–which is a unique feature, gives contextual results, can indicate the number of occurrences of an entered word or phrase which helps in narrowing down the matching results, and can even correct spelling mistakes as you type in the search. The new authoring features include thumbnail support for images, folder imports for baggage files, and variable view toggling.

The Adobe Technical Communications Suite 2017 Release (TCS 2017) includes these latest versions of FrameMaker and RoboHelp, as well as the latest versions of Acrobat Pro, Captivate, and Presenter, which went bought together in the Suite, provide a 58% savings over buying the tools separately.

While not formally part of the Technical Communications Suite, it’s also important to mention that the Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) XML Documentation Add-On 2.0 version has been released. If you are using AEM as your CMS or CCMS, you can host your tech and marketing content that’s written up in FrameMaker more easily through the integration of this add-on. This add-on allows for content sharing and reuse which lends itself to consistent user experience and reduced total cost of ownership. Higher content velocity helps to drive enterprise publishing features, such as batch publishing, baseline publishing, and post-publishing workflows. Enhanced review and collaboration capabilities include web-based inline review, web editor enhancements that help with content management capabilities and document life-cycle management.

If you want more information about TCS 2017, you can click on the Adobe advertisement in the right column, or email the Adobe TCS team directly at techcomm@adobe.com.

Additionally, there is a 2017 Release Launch Webinar on 15 February 2017. It’s free! Learn more and register for the event on the Adobe Event website.

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4 Lessons Learned (About Learning) From Blogging

Posted on February 10, 2017 by TechCommGeekMom

Blogs provide great insight and are a helpful educational tool. But did you know the act of blogging can teach us something, too? Danielle Villegas explains.

Source: 4 Lessons Learned (About Learning) From Blogging

Thanks to Phylise Banner, Jennifer Hofmann, and InSync Training for the opportunity to write this article for InSync Training’s blog, Body Language in the Bandwidth.

I based this article on the many years I’ve been writing here on TechCommGeekMom and other blogs I’ve written over time. I hope there’s helpful information for you here! It’s a quick read, and I enjoyed writing it.

–TechCommGeekMom

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2016 TechCommGeekMom Year in Review: Yeah, it could’ve been better.

Posted on January 13, 2017 by TechCommGeekMom

Bored girl expressing, "Seriously though, do you think it could've been worse?" — Seriously though, do you think it could’ve been worse?

As 2017 gets going, I realized that I haven’t written a whole lot in the past year. Why? Simple–not a whole lot to write about, frankly. 2016 was a rough year in many ways, but there were some good elements, too.

It’s hard to write about things when you feel like nothing is inspiring you or giving you little motivation. I remember feeling excited about tech comm for the first few years, and it was much easier, as I was learning new things constantly. Now, while there is still a lot for me to learn, it’s not quite as much in some instances. It’s probably like anything else, in that movements go in waves, and the mobile wave first took hold right about the time I started to study tech comm and get involved in tech comm. Now, it’s something that we take for granted, like electricity or running water in developed countries. There are still things to discover, but the wave of innovation and adapting to the changes to those innovations–both professionally and socially–have generally passed. We’ve adapted, for the most part. The use of mobile devices like mobile phones and tablets are common place now. Almost everyone has a smart phone. And many companies–not all, but most–have adapted their content and UX to have responsive design to adapt to different devices. E-learning has gone back to basics with m-learning by re-adapting chunking and also using responsive design and better UX.

From my view, the initial thrill is over, and we are now settling into the “new normal”. Things that were new and exciting have now become everyday, or have morphed into what they will be. For example, when social media really started to take off, it was an opportunity to create content that could be shared easily in sound bytes or blurbs in a more viral manner than conventional media. It was an opportunity to use content to incite a two-way conversation to discuss and share. Now, social media strategists don’t use social media for discussion, but rather as another marketing medium. Content strategists have been…shall we say…strongly encouraged to look at content as a marketing asset, and look towards content marketing. Content marketers, however, are not content strategists who have some understanding of marketing, but rather it’s expected that they are full-fledged marketers that have some understanding of content. (Trust me. I’ve read the job descriptions posted for many companies.) Both social media and content marketing are things I looked at doing seriously with my career. But as time went on, it was apparent that corporate expectations were shifting, and that these jobs were really meant for business people who were marketers and trained in marketing, not technical communicators. While I have some good sense about business, marketing, and customer service after many years, I don’t consider myself a business person per se. In other words, I would never get an MBA because business topics bore the hell out of me, and there are others who can look and do that sort of thing better than me.

This past year was a year of experimentation for me. When I got out of grad school almost five years ago, I wanted to be an instructional designer until I found that there was no such position as an entry-level instructional designer. I fell back into doing what I had done for years, but with stronger knowledge and experience, which was content strategy and management. I’d been happy doing that work, but always wanted to expand my skills. When I was released from my long-term contract doing content management in 2015, I saw it as an opportunity to do something different. I could start over, if you will. I was hired to do a knowledge management job, but the position was a misnomer. It really didn’t do anything close to knowledge management, and in the end, the projects they had brought me on board for were cancelled, and my contract ended in early 2016.

I was able to pick myself up quickly, taking a copywriting technical writer position. While I definitely had the ability to do the job, I found that my best writing abilities and UX/UI skills couldn’t be used to their fullest potential. I’m used to writing more than two sentences at a time, or re-labeling a button using a single word. I knew I had more to offer than what was required with no opportunities to contribute more than that, so I let that contract expire.

After trying those two other avenues, I found a short-term job doing content strategy and management again. Oh, it was exciting for me! I felt so comfortable doing that kind of work, and I felt confident again in my abilities. I was right to trust my instincts–that there was more to me than writing two sentences at a time, and doing something that I like doing. That, in itself, was a big discovery.

So, through this period of self-discovery, it was rough. I was unhappy with the work I was doing, unhappy with my lack of progress in a positive direction professionally, began to doubt my professional self-worth, and felt conflicted about next steps. Okay, so I’m still working through some of it, but I think the worst is (hopefully) over.

This isn’t to say that it’s all been bad. From those events, I can say that I learned what I’m good at, and what I’m not good at. I learned what I like and don’t like. I started to have a better understanding of my self-worth, at least professionally. Those are big realizations in themselves.

There were also other good things that happened that proved to be positive challenges. I had post-weight loss surgery, and recovered from that well. I’d never had major surgery in my life (and will be avoiding it in every way possible in the future), and found strength within myself to recover quickly and push myself. I attended three conferences in 2016, namely CONDUIT, TC Camp – East, and the STC Summit. All went well, and it gave me a chance to learn and reaffirm my passion for tech comm, meet and network with old and new colleagues, and remind me that this is the profession where I belong. I got more involved in my local STC chapter, and now I’m the vice-president of the chapter, and working my way up the STC food chain, as one might say. I’ve been in charge of STC-Philadelphia Metro Chapter’s programming this year, and I’m also co-chair of their conference, CONDUIT, so it’s been very busy for me that way as well, as I gain some new soft skills–and enhance ones I already had.

The election outcome put me in a very bad funk for the latter part of 2016. Dealing with my teenage autistic son has been more challenging than ever. End of the year holidays also don’t put me in a happy mood, usually. It’s usually a stressful time on a number of levels, and I couldn’t wait for the year to be over.

While in many respects, the start of 2017 is a chance to start fresh again, it’s an artificial starting point. I say that because we can start over fresh anytime we want to, if you think about it. It could be in the middle of August, or the end of March, or anytime, really. But with the stress of the holidays and year-end activities, January 1st was as good a date as any to start over, and it’s not something that is only on one day. Fresh starts can take days, weeks, or months. I’ve made some big decisions going forward that will take some time. I will need to be more patient with myself in achieving those goals. I am going to have many challenges, but I have support from my family and my colleagues to move forward in the direction I am intending.

The number one thing that I’ve decided that I need to do in 2017 is I have to get to a place in my life where I can be happy with what I do, and do what I enjoy. That’s easier said than done. To that end, I’m going to focus more on building up my independent consulting business, which I had intended to start after that long-term contract ended in 2015. I got majorly side-tracked in 2016, so 2017 is going to be focused on getting back on track with that. No agency contract distractions like in the past year. I’m going to do it on my own, using entrepreneurship and networking skills. It may be slow going to start, but I have a few good leads so far. Time will tell if they work out successfully. I know I’ll put my full efforts into any projects I do get. I’ll also be learning, both independently and with help, how to run a successful business. Hopefully, this will encourage the spark for me to write here more often about things that are going on that I see in tech comm, and how I view things that I’m learning in the process. I had a recent head-start with my adventures in learning DITA. My initial plans are to continue to train and practice using DITA. I’m also going to be learning Drupal next month, as that seems to be a widely used CMS in my area with some of the leading employers in the area. I’m hoping that adding DITA and Drupal to my “arsenal” of skills will be helpful for my business. I’ll attending CONDUIT and the STC Summit for sure this year, strengthening my professional ties and knowledge. I’ll be working hard still for the STC-PMC, as I intend to run for President of the group this year (we’ll see how that goes!).

Outside of my professional life, there are some hurdles along the way as well, but my goal this year is, well, to get through this year unscathed, or better off than I am now. I don’t mean just financially or professionally, but personally as well. It’s going to be a rebuilding year, and I hope that this time next year, I’ll be a little more upbeat about things, and I will have been able to share more with you over the course of the year.

What are your professional goals this year? Include your comments below.

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Confessions of a Failed Technical Communicator

Posted on December 10, 2016 by TechCommGeekMom

homer_confession — Really, Father, my only sins are beer, donuts, beer, donuts, not knowing DITA, beer, donuts…

“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned! I am a failure in technical communications.”

OK, perhaps in many eyes, I haven’t been a failure in technical communications. It will be five years this spring since I graduated with my Masters degree in Professional and Technical Communication from NJIT. In many ways, that feels like it was just yesterday, and I’m still a “new graduate”. But with the change this year in my STC Membership that’s moved from “Student” to “New Professional” to “Classic”, I supposed I’m not anymore.

While graduate school gave me a good foundation to move forward, I learned very quickly that I needed to continue to educate myself. As I attended conferences and presentations, and paid attention to discussions in social media, I found out that graduate school lessons barely cut the surface. I’ve tried my best to continue my studies by attending as many webinars, conferences, and presentations that I can. I even took another university graduate certificate course on digital marketing, hoping to get some insight that might help me going forward.

However, in the end, I failed to do one thing that might actually boost what I’m doing as a fledgling content strategist, and thus, my confession: I needed to learn DITA.

For those of you who don’t know what DITA is, it’s the acronym for Darwin Information Typing Architecture, and it’s a commonly used method for creating structured authoring using XML coding. The idea is that documentation done using DITA methods will allow for single-sourcing for content elements, and equally make it easier to integrate that content into print or digital outputs in a super-organized, modular way. It’s a standard that helps because it’s generic to almost any system out there. Any system that can read XML can read a DITA document, for the most part. When moving from one system to another, the content can stay intact if done using DITA/XML methods.

I don’t remember learning much about DITA in grad school, other than understanding what it was in general as I explained it above. I never learned the details. In my work life so far, I haven’t needed it. It’s always been unstructured authoring. I try to take some small steps to create some single-sourcing content when possible in content management systems, but that was hard to do sometimes. One of my recent jobs made me realize that we needed some sort of structured authoring done, but I didn’t know how to go about it. We created our own coding tags to describe things going on in copy decks. It wasn’t the best, but it was better than nothing.

In the past year, I’ve tried to figure out ways to continue to improve my skills, and make myself more marketable as a content strategist/content manager. I talked to the leading experts in the field. (It’s one of the benefits of getting involved with the STC and attending STC events–you get to know these people personally.) And the one thing that seemed to come back to me again and again was that I had a good resume, and I have some great skills under my belt, and they knew that I was a good writer from this blog. The biggest sore spot in my skill set was that I lacked an important skill–knowing DITA and using it. And while I looked for jobs in my area that included DITA practices (I think I’ve only seen one listing in three years), I’ve been assured that if I could learn DITA, the remote/telecommuting possibilities could be much better for me. And since remote opportunities are my best bet right now, I have to do what I need to do to make that happen.

So, as the saying goes, I bit the bullet. Fortunately, the STC was promoting a course about DITA Essentials taught by Bernard Aschwanden, the Immediate Past-President of the STC, and the proprietor of Publishing Smarter. Bernard’s a great instructor, and he’s taking it nice and slow. One of the best parts of the course is hands-on experience, even if it’s in the simplest ways. That’s the way I tend to learn best–learn the logistics of how something is done, then I need to learn to do the work through trial and error. Last week’s assignment was particularly challenging for me. While I understood what I had to do conceptually, since I was also trying to familiarize myself with a few XML editors at the same time while applying what I wanted to do with my assignment, I got very frustrated. I sent in my assignment, along with notes about where I was getting frustrated and needing some guidance. Bernard assured me that all would be well, and asked me if he could use what I had turned in for my assignment for the most recent class. He also warned me to have a glass of wine ready while taking class, because I’d be needing it. Yikes!

I was told to prepare for the onslaught of big corrections to my DITA homework with a glass of wine. I took the suggestion seriously, thankfully.

The glass of wine was done by the end of the class, and yes, he ripped my assignment apart, but it was okay in the end. I knew there were problems with it, and he showed me where my original thought process was correct, but I didn’t know how to execute it properly. One of the mistakes I was making was my use of XML tags, particularly using the correct ones. While the XML editing apps all have guidance features to help you with using correct tags in certain situations, I still wasn’t using the best choices. Most of that was because I’m not familiar with what these XML tags mean, so I was using them at face value. For example, I was using a step example tag in part of my content, and Bernard understood why I used it, but felt that the way I used it was incorrect, and didn’t allow for cleaner coding. Okay, I can deal with that, especially when he demonstrated the correction.

So, as much as I’m struggling with DITA, I do understand the essential concepts behind it now. My biggest problem is learning how to use it beyond the most elementary tasks. I haven’t had any “real world” scenarios to date when I could implement and learn how to use the XML editors and use DITA practices in writing or rewriting content. I need to figure out how to find content and start having a way to truly play with something so that I can get the full experience of that trial and error to master DITA.

After the STC course that Bernard is teaching, I plan to follow-up with Scriptorium’s DITA tutorials as well, and see if I can learn some more about XML coding. I have a lot to do to figure this out, but I know that in the end, this will be a big skill that will make a lot of difference in how I approach content. The content strategist skills I already have acquired have helped me frame DITA much more easily than if I learned this with no prior knowledge. But, I can tell that I still have a long way to go before I feel that I’ve mastered this.

So, this ends my confession. I have needed to learn DITA. If it’s not taught in university classes in technical writing, it should be. I think it would have saved me a lot of frustration, and provided more opportunities for me sooner. If I can get a better handle on this, I’m hoping that I can start exploring how XML Editors can integrate with CMSs, like Adobe CQ. I’m not an Adobe AEM developer (I’m not a developer at all!), but I know how to create websites and pages with AEM, and hopefully I can start figuring out how to integrate those skills with DITA skills. I was told by one mentor, that would make me a very desirable job candidate, and I think she’s onto something. Of course, I need to brush up on my AEM skills, since it’s been a couple of years since I’ve used them regularly, but with all things, once you master them, it’s like riding a bicycle. You might be a little unstable at first, but you never quite forget how to do it once you get started back into it again.

Here’s hoping that in 2017, DITA will become a “bicycle” skill for me. I’ll go say a few rounds of the Rosary in the meantime for my penance.

(What do you think? How important is DITA in technical writing? I’ve heard some say it’s a passing trend, and others say that its usage continues to grow. Include your comments below.)