Talking tech pubs with JM – internal drivers

12Nov08

J and I discussed the following factors that we see driving tech pubs transformation, which I categorized as external and internal in origin. Internal drivers operating within organizations include:

• Speed

Publications groups (and probably any groups that produce content) are being asked to work faster, not only due to shorter product cycles and agile development methodologies, but to move toward continuous publishing; updating and releasing docs only in sync with product releases is becoming an untenable position within organizations where frequently updated web content sets the standard for all content providers.

J’s team uses a continuous publishing model to deliver frequently updated content, and we agreed that tech pubs can use continuous publishing as continuous improvement, to identify and focus on the essential content that must accompany the initial release, and fill in additional content over time, potentially allowing user feedback to help identify gaps and prioritize the follow-on efforts. The continuous publishing model also provides opportunities to increase relevance by integrating community comments and contributions.

• L10N / GllN

Even smaller organizations are adopting global strategies, and localization costs are decreasing, due to automation. These factors are leading to greater demand on tech pubs to develop, contribute, and/or respond to L10N / GllN initiatives. Many tech pubs groups have already worked through localization issues, tools, and the particular needs of technical content, and are well-positioned to play a more prominent, even leadership, role either in developing a localization strategy, or in collaboration with a separate globalization team. Organizations are looking to tech pubs groups to understand their own requirements, and develop and promote their own plans in this area; tech pubs groups can score points by having a comprehensive strategy in place, especially if it leverages investments that support single-sourcing, re-use, etc.

• Content Management

Content management is another area of growing awareness within organizations. Just as with localization, tech pubs groups that do not understand their own requirements and develop and promote their own plans will be at risk to combat or conform to enterprise-wide content management initiatives that do not address their needs. Additionally, the pressure to share content among multiple departments and business units will only increase; the days of insulated tech pubs silos are numbered. J and I readily agreed that component content management (CCM) is key to meeting both current demands on tech pubs, and to realizing future opportunities. CCM is not as widely understood within the tech pubs community, and outside of tech pubs, it is almost completely unknown. Most content management systems are designed for document management or web content; CCM systems are designed to manage components of documents as separate objects that can be arbitrarily updated, aggregated, translated, etc.

• Compliance / legal

This is an important aspect of technical communication that is often overlooked; there is a ‘bread and butter’ value that tech pubs supplies as part of the product release, both 508 and contractual for customers and partners; however innovative it might be to put all documentation on a wiki or let the user community write what most interests them, organizations will probably always need resources to produce ‘branded’ doc. J pointed out that her team spends resources making sure that all APIs are documented, rather than using automation to document all of them at a certain level, and then using talented programmer/writers to really enhance the APIs that are most interesting to customers. Again, this is an area in which tech pubs’ expertise can potentially elevate the discussion and reset priorities, resulting in enhanced productivity and ROI.

Next post will discuss external drivers; the factors that are driving user community behavior, and the impact that user behavior will have on the future of tech pubs.

Filed under: Monetization, ROI   |  2 Comments