CIDM News and Events

Conferences

News & Events

Technical Communication UK

Technical Communication UK is the new annual conference that aims to meet the needs of technical communicators, their managers and clients, from every corner of the industry. This conference is being held September 22-24, 2009, Eastwood Hall, Nottingham, United Kingdom.

WritersUA User Assistance Symposium

The WritersUA User Assistance Symposium brings you a full day of information-packed instruction from four acknowledged industry experts. A laser focus on user assistance has always been the defining characteristic of the events produced by WritersUA. September 29, 2009, 9am Eastern.

Web 2.0 Summit

It is no longer just about the Web. Now is the time to put the power of the Web to work—its technologies, its business models, and perhaps most importantly, its philosophies of openness, collective intelligence, and transparency. October 20-22, 2009, San Francisco, California.

XyEnterprise Announces Acquisition by SDL, Leader in Global Information Management (GIM) Solutions

XyEnterprise, a leading developer of award-winning XML component content management and multi-channel delivery solutions announced that it has been acquired by SDL, the leading provider of Global Information Management (GIM) solutions. With the backing of a large public company, geographical reach and considerable technology sales and development experience, XyEnterprise will be able to accelerate growth, streamline product development, expand sales and marketing, and leverage tighter integrations with SDL’s GIM technologies.

Really Strategies Acquires SaaS XML Content Management Provider DocZone.com®

Really Strategies, Inc. announced the successful acquisition of DocZone.com®, a SaaS XML content management provider. DocZone.com is known for its affordable DITA-based technical publications solution that is easy to configure and use. The acquisition will complement Really Strategies’ RSuite product line, offering publishers, media companies, and technical publishers an array of pricing and implementation models that fit their business needs.

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	DITA Europe Call for Speakers The Center for Information-Development Management and Dr. JoAnn Hackos announce a call for participation in the upcoming DITA Europe conference to take place 16–17 November 2009, in Munich, Germany. If you are interested in presenting at the conference, please complete the form and submit to Anne Bovard before 24 August 2009.

Are You Keeping Track? The Necessity of Management Metrics
JoAnn Hackos, Comtech Services, Inc.

CIDM has recently completed a productivity survey. In the survey, we asked if people are seeing positive or negative changes in productivity as they have implemented DITA and content management. As of today, we have had about 100 people respond to the survey. Even more interesting, however, is that more than 250 people have viewed the survey and decided not to respond. I will report on the survey in this newsletter after the Best Practices conference.

Read the article.

More articles

• How Do You Know When to Discontinue an Information Deliverable?—Survey Results—Joanne Griffith
• Move Over DITA—Chaos is Coming!—Alan Porter
• DESIGN IT! Forum 2009

August 2009 Best Practices Newsletter Table of Contents
Article	Author
Integrating Cost Effective Information in a Global Organization	Kristina Brinck, ITT Fluid Technology
Detecting and Invigorating a Complacent Organization	JoAnn Hackos, CIDM
How Do You Spell G-R-A-N-U-L-A-R-I-T-Y?	Kathryn Showers, Symitar
Moving into Someone Else's Single Sourcing House: Are We (Best) Practicing What We Preached?	Heidi Sandler, Siemens Building Technologies, Inc.
Best Practices from the Outside In	Sarahjane Clark, SDL XySoft
Book Review A Sense of Urgency	Bill Hackos, Comtech Services, Inc.
Content Management on the Other Side of the Fence: Copyright and Licensing Controls	Robert Minard, Eurofield Information Solutions
If you are not a CIDM member, you can subscribe to the Best Practices newsletter online. A subscription is $99 per year. For subscribers outside the US, the cost is $109. **Please note that the printed newsletter and the enewsletter do not contain the same content.**

How Do You Know When to Discontinue an Information Deliverable?—Survey Results
Joanne Griffith, ADP

Earlier this year, the Technical Publications team at a large Fortune 500 company surveyed a sample of clients to learn more about the client usage rates of the information deliverables (guides, quick reference cards, and online help) that the company provided for one of its products.

Read the article.

Move Over DITA—Chaos is Coming!
Alan Porter, WebWorks.com

I’ve never really questioned the need for hierarchical structure and imposed taxonomies until I watched my teenage daughter doing her homework several months ago.

Let me explain.

Read the article.

DESIGN IT! Forum 2009

JoAnn Hackos would like to present her speaking engagement at DESIGN IT! Forum 2009, August 27-28, Tokyo, Japan. She invites those who can attend this Japanese language event. Please pass this invitation along to fellow colleagues who are able to attend.

Read the announcement.