CIDM News and Events

Conferences

Upcoming Workshops

Minimalism: Creating Manuals People Can Use
July 13-14, 2010
Boulder, Colorado

Minimalism is the first step to creating user friendly content that is fully structured. It is designed for anyone faced with manuals that users complain are too big and too detailed—or that aren't used at all.

Advanced DITA Training including DITA 1.2
July 20-21, 2010
San Mateo, California

In this workshop, you are introduced to the transforms and style sheets necessary to publish DITA documents. You will gain the technical knowledge necessary to structure and style DITA content for delivery to HTML, PDF, and other desirable formats.

Developing Quality Documentation in an Agile Environment
August 19-20, 2010
Hillsboro, Oregon

Developing quality documentation in an Agile environment requires a firm understanding of how Agile works and how to use the system to ensure that you are creating "just enough" documentation that meets customer needs.

Upcoming Webinars

DITA Specialization: Tools for Visual Support

Presented by instinctools
June 10, 2010, 3pm GMT

Click here for recorded webinars.

Announcements

• Read the white paper about eComPress leading the way in Electronic Publishing Security

• Pro/ENGINEER Routed Systems Designer 9.0 Offers Integrated Simulation and Productivity Gains

• acrolinx Announces New Global Management Structure

• DocZone Announces New Pay-Per-Page Licensing Model

Click here for more announcements.

CIDM is now on Facebook! Click here to join our group.

CIDM is LinkedIn!

Rare Bird Applications Now Open The Rare Bird Award recognizes outstanding managers and their teams. The applications should describe thoroughly an innovative practice in which your organization has been engaged. The members of the judging panel look for detailed descriptions of the practice and concrete evidence that the innovation has led to organizational change. Click here to submit your Best Practice for consideration. The submission deadline is July 14.

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 15–16 November 2010, in Vienna, Austria. If you are interested in presenting at the conference, please complete the form and submit to Lisa Lambert before 24 August 2010.

Part 1 of 6: Oblivious Organizations and Content Management: Not yet ready for prime time
JoAnn Hackos, Comtech Services, Inc.

Gert Kindergarten, marketing director at Hyperactive Software, has just returned from the Content Management Strategies conference. He attended two sessions espousing the advantages of moving documents into a content-management system and using XML markup to enable reuse and repurposing. He announces to his staff that the company needs to "get into" content management right away for all its marketing and customer documents, especially the product manuals. His senior writer suggests calling in a consulting team to help.

Read the article.

More articles

• The Role of Culture and Communication in the Content Management System Adoption Process—Rebekka Andersen
• 7 Signs that an Organization Should Use DITA —Su-Laine Yeo
• Social Networking and the Information Developer: How to Get Started—Lori Fisher

June 2010 Best Practices Newsletter Table of Contents
Article	Author
A Coach Approach to Leadership: Empowering others during uncertainty and change	Rosanne Scriffignano, ADP, Inc.
New Characteristics for the IPMM	JoAnn Hackos, CIDM
How Much Does Document Conversion Really Cost?—A Guide to Conversion Cost Variables	Don Bridges, Data Conversion Laboratory, Inc.
Productivity Counts: Measuring the effectiveness and productivity of your team members	JoAnn Hackos, Comtech Services, Inc.
Creating a Customer Survey	Bill Tilley, Symantec Corporation
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.**

The Role of Culture and Communication in the Content Management System Adoption Process
Rebekka Andersen, University of California, Davis

Why are so many content management system (CMS) implementations plagued with problems? Why, despite the growing number of available best practices resources and training opportunities, are so many information developers struggling to plan for and carry out CMS implementations? Surely, insufficient training, resources, and readiness come to mind; however, my research suggests that culture and communication play a much bigger role than we tend to think.

Read the article.

7 Signs that an Organization Should Use DITA
Su-Laine Yeo, JustSystems, Inc.
Reprinted with permission from JustSystems, Inc.

Organizations seeking higher-quality information, reduced publishing costs, faster delivery, and other improvements in their document authoring process often investigate the Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) specification. DITA defines an XML architecture for designing, writing, managing and publishing many kinds of information in print, on the web, and in applications.

Read the article.

Social Networking and the Information Developer: How to get started
Lori Fisher, IBM Corporation

Do you think social networking is just for your kids, or something the Marketing Department handles for your company? Think again! As Information Development managers, we need to be familiar with various social networking mechanisms currently in use and how they may be influencing our customers’ expectations of the information experience we provide. Further, we need to begin integrating “community” experiences into our information deliverables and leveraging these to improve customer satisfaction with our content. Community technologies can enrich the customer experience with our online product documentation and other related external customer services.

Read the article.

CIDM is calling for contributions to the bimonthly publication, Best Practices. Please contact our Editor, Lisa Larson, for more information.