Today was the day before the actual start of the Intelligent Content Conference in Palm Springs. There is a nice turnout of people here. Most from high tech, a few additional verticals are represented. Everyone looks like a tech writer. You know the look. (You can see my photo if you don’t.)
Ann Rockley started off the pre-conference with a bang, or as she called it, an eye-opener. Here is a rundown of some of the things I learned:
- Intelligent content is structurally rich and semantically categorized. It is also auto-discoverable, reusable, reconfigurable, and adaptable.
- Tag content with metadata to make it easily discoverable. (“Where the heck did I put that ?” is just not okay.)
- Your content is as intelligent as you make it, not as intelligent as you are.
- What is the point of your content? Yes, it needs to have a raison d’etre.
- Content could be a whole lot better if companies really thought through the various needs of the customer.
- Don’t be afraid of the word audit. It is important to know if you content is effective – audit it.
- Stop writing the same darn thing over and over and over.
- Optimize before you localize.
- Structure sets you free. It helps to unify your content.
- Biggest mistake made by DITA experts is believing that they do not need to model their content first.
There are many ways to write a recipe. My favorite is pumpkin cheesecake.- Automate processes whenever possible.
- Automatic reuse is exactly that. Content that can be identified and automatically reused.
- Repurpose content for multiple uses (eg., docs and training). Write it once, translate it once, use it many.
- Create a taxonomy –> organizing information for structure, search, discovery, usability and reuse.
- Folksonomy – A new term – Users create content and tag it themselves as they wish. Who knew?
If you’d like to see all of the tweets that were happening during the session (and there were alot of tweets), just click here.
Val Swisher is the Founder and CEO of Content Rules, Inc. Val enjoys helping companies solve complex content problems. She is a well-known expert in content strategy, structured authoring, global content, content development, and terminology management. Val believes content should be easy to read, cost-effective to create and translate, and efficient to manage. Her customers include industry giants such as Google, Cisco, Visa, Facebook, Roche, and IBM. Her fourth book, “The Personalization Paradox: Why Companies Fail (and How to Succeed) at Creating Personalized Experiences at Scale,” was published in 2021 by XML Press.
Val is on the Advisory Board for the Technical Communications Program at the University of North Texas. When not working with customers or students, Val can be found sitting behind her sewing machine working on her latest quilt. She also makes a mean hummus.
Val is on the Advisory Board for the Technical Communications Program at the University of North Texas. When not working with customers or students, Val can be found sitting behind her sewing machine working on her latest quilt. She also makes a mean hummus.
Latest posts by Val Swisher (see all)
- How to Make Conferences More Inclusive for the Hard of Hearing Community - December 2, 2024
- Preparing Content for AI: 6 Reasons Why You’re Not Ready - August 29, 2024
- How to Be Inclusive in the Workplace: My Experience as a Hard of Hearing Person - August 12, 2024
