Information Management News
Volume 5, Issue 12
December, 2005

A monthly e-newsletter from The Center for Information-Development Management (CIDM)
JoAnn T. Hackos, PhD, CIDM Director
http://www.infomanagementcenter.com

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Is DITA Going to Tip?
JoAnn Hackos, PhD
CIDM Director

www.infomanagementcenter.com

It might be too early to ask the key question: Is DITA going to tip? After all, DITA became an OASIS standard early in 2005. Before that, it was a glimmer inside IBM. Some four years ago, DITA began to be evangelized by Dave Schell, myself, and a few others. But when I invited Dave to speak at the 2001 Best Practices conference and included his brief vignette about DITA in my 2002 Content Management book, the most common response was “DITA who?”

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More articles
The Effect of DITA on Information-Development Roles—Jen Linton
Political Map of Stakeholders—Vesa Purho
When Life Depends on Clear Instructions—Irene Etzkorn

December 2005 Best Practices Newsletter Table of Contents
Article	Author
A Business Case for Authoring Content in the Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA)	Visnja Beg, IBM Canada Ltd., Amber Swope, IBM Corporation
Director’s Column	JoAnn Hackos, CIDM
Editing Strategies for Content Authored in DITA	Ronnie Seagren, IBM Canada Ltd., David Steinmetz, IBM Corporation, and Donna Sutarno, IBM Canada Ltd.
Managing the Move to Authoring in DITA	Hadar Hawk and Amber Swope, IBM Corporation
The Role of an Information Architect in the Technical Information-Development World	JoAnn Hackos, Comtech Services, Inc.
Making Project Management a Valiant Voyage	Mike Eleder, Lucent Technologies
Why DITA Alone Just Won’t Do	Jon Parsons, XyEnterprise Solutions, Inc.
Building a Strong CMS Business Case: Selling the Sizzle and the Steak	Charlotte Robidoux and Patrick Waychoff, Hewlett-Packard Company
You can purchase the Best Practices newsletter online even if you aren’t a CIDM member. 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 Effect of DITA on Information-Development Roles
Jen Linton
Comtech Services, Inc.

In your information-development organization, you and your staff members may wear many hats. They can include manager, writer, editor, graphics specialist, production specialist, project manager, usability specialist, and many more. When you decide to change to a topic-based writing architecture such as Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA), some of these roles may require different definitions and responsibilities. I have identified five of the main roles and how they might be affected.

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Political Map of Stakeholders
Vesa Purho
Nokia

Those who participated in the CIDM Best Practices conference in September 2005 know all about using organization politics to help drive important initiatives through their organization. Creating the political map can seem a daunting task when there are many players involved. Stakeholder mapping can be used as a tool to limit the number of players before creating your actual political map.

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When Life Depends on Clear Instructions
Irene Etzkorn
Siegel & Gale, LLC

You are in a 25th floor hotel room and the fire alarm goes off in the middle of the night. You study the “you are here” diagram on the back of the door to find out where the nearest exit is. If it is like most of these diagrams, it looks more like a maze than an escape map. Just as your panic rises, the all-clear signal rings and disaster is averted, but no thanks to the information card. Still anxious on your trip home, you examine the escape procedures card in the seatback of the airplane and realize that it, too, is useless.

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Feedback
Have you found this issue useful? Got a great story idea? We’d like your input and suggestions. Please contact lisa.finger@comtech-serv.com about any comments you may have.

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The Center for Information-Development Management
The Center for Information-Development Management (CIDM) is an organization of information-development, training, and support managers across the United States and internationally. The CIDM is directed by Dr. JoAnn Hackos, international leader in the management of the design, development, and dissemination of information to customers and employees. Under her leadership, the CIDM conducts benchmark studies among member organizations and elsewhere, sponsors research into information development and its management, and gathers and disseminates results and resources through newsletters, the web, seminars, two annual conferences, and research white papers. The CIDM facilitates the sharing of information among the most skilled managers in the information industry.

If you are interested in reading more in-depth articles, you should consider subscribing to the Best Practices newsletter at www.infomanagementcenter.com/masterindex.shtml.

©2005 by The Center for Information-Development Management. All rights reserved.
Tel. 303-232-7586  Fax. 303-232-0659