Past Webinars

  • Recorded on January 11, 2023

          The results have been collected, analyzed, and discussed. Now it’s time to share the results and our observations with you. Join Dawn Stevens as she shares the results of the 2022 CIDM Benchmark Survey on translation and localization practices in our community. She’ll examine the trends and answer questions such as: 
    • What strategies, processes, and measurements do companies use to ensure the quality of translated content? 
    • What content components do companies translate—just body text or do they translate images, metadata, and video too? 
    • Which are the most common languages into which technical publications are translated? 
    • How much do companies spend on translation and does cost affect translation decisions? 
    • Which translation tools do companies use now? 
    • What activities do companies depend on their LSPs to perform? 
      Presented by: Dawn Stevens, President, Comtech Services and Director of CIDM has 28 years of practical experience in virtually every role within a documentation and training department, including project management, instructional design, writing, editing, and multimedia programming. Dawn is the perfect advisor to identify and remove the challenges you face in producing usable, technical information and training content. With both engineering and technical communication degrees, Dawn combines her solid technical foundation with strong writing and design skills to lead our team of consultants and specialists in providing the expertise you need.    
  • March 3, 2021 This webinar is free. Agile development makes specific demands on documentation teams, whose content creators need to be nimble, describe features in a piece-meal fashion, and find ways to report on their content development progress. Structured content is ideally suited to these needs. But experience has shown that some teams find it hard to move fully to an Agile methodology, often using an uneasy mix of waterfall and Agile processes. Precision Content’s Keith Schengili-Roberts will talk about the current state of Agile and structured content, and also give an introduction to the Iterative and Incremental Development (IID) methodology, a recent Agile offshoot that works well for technical writing teams. If you are wondering about what the impacts are of working with Agile or are simply looking to optimize your DITA-based documentation processes, this presentation is for you! Presented by: Keith Schengili-Roberts is a Content Specialist and Information Architect at Precision Content. Keith is also an award-winning lecturer on Information Architecture at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Information, and the Chair of the OASIS DITA Adoption Committee. He is also the writer behind the “DITAWriter.com” website, which has long been a useful resource for those working with the DITA XML standard. He lives in the north end of Toronto with his long-time girlfriend Dhan and her two noisy green-cheeked conures.
  • Recorded on May 24, 2023 
    Stilo logo   In this webinar, we'll discuss the benefits of using Stilo Migrate for automated content conversion. With Stilo Migrate, you can save time and resources by eliminating manual content conversion. We will discuss how an automated conversion is superior to a manual conversion in avoiding headaches such as incorrect styling and automatic table conversions. Join us to learn how Stilo Migrate can streamline your content conversion process and save you valuable time and resources. Presented by Jacob Brennan Jacob Brennan Jacob Brennan is a Technical Sales Product Specialist at Stilo. He works with Stilo Migrate customers and aids in converting their legacy content to DITA. Jacob is a recent graduate from the University of Ottawa holding a BASc. in Mechanical Engineering and a BSc. in Computing Technology.
  • June 10, 2021 The Xpublisher editorial system organizes every piece of content – regardless of how it will be used later – to provide fast, error-free, and highly cost-effective multichannel digital and print publishing. Preparing your content for a variety of formats and channels couldn’t be easier. In this webinar, Thomas Werzmirzowsky will present new ways of DITA integration with Xpublisher. Xpublisher offers the best possible data quality with XML-based data management and is a pioneer for the challenges of the future by presenting new solutions: the simple creation, management, and publication with DITA. Presented by: Thomas Werzmirzowsky is founder and Chief Technology Officer at Xpublisher GmbH, a leading software provider specialized in the area of XML publishing. Since 2009, the company has been advising numerous leading international companies and organizations from the aerospace, technology, education, publishing, public administration and many other industries in the area of multichannel publishing and accompanying them on their way to digitization.
  • December 14, 2021 Attend this webinar if you’re looking to:
    • Provide your audience with content that is accurate and compliant
    • Align your global workforce with One Voice
    • Accelerate your time to market thanks to less time for review and editing
    • Reduce your source content and translations by 40%
    • Show industry credibility by complying with industry standards to help open new markets
    With Heretto, Schematron, and HyperSTE you will get one platform to create, manage, and personalize your enterprise knowledge for any audience, on any channel, and in any language. Join us on December 14, where we will discuss these values as well as how they are delivered. Presented by: Berry Braster has been in the technical documentation field for over 18 years and has helped implement content strategies, including the use of DITA and HyperSTE controlled language software. As Technology Director, Berry is involved with connecting technical documentation to IoT, and how to leverage on technologies like Augmented and Virtual Reality. Jarod Sickler is the Documentation Manager and a Customer Success Manager at Heretto. He’s also a Ph.D. candidate in philosophy at the University of Rochester, specializing in metaphysics and epistemology. His dissertation focuses on the role and importance of the grounding relation in the overall metaphysical structure of epistemic justification. Slowly but surely, he’s making progress on his thesis. If you’re in the market for an effective sleep aid, he’ll happily share his research with you. Whether it’s in his research, documentation, or customer implementations, Jarod enjoys thinking through complex problems and finding the simplest and yet most powerful solution. In his spare time, Jarod tries to convince his kids that he’s still cool. They aren’t buying it.
  • June 10, 2020 Abstract World has seen a very different modus operandi in the last couple of months. This only emphasizes the fact that collaborating without physically being in the same space is fast becoming the norm where team members are either located in different geographical locations or are working from home. At this time, a smooth review and collaboration process for technical content can be a real boon to your organization. In this session, Ayush Gupta, Product Manager at Adobe, will discuss how organizations can transform their mundane, time consuming and cyclic review process into a more meaningful, error-free and productive collaboration experience for Content Creators and Subject Matter Experts (SMEs). Key takeaways:
    • Why rethink about current review processes
    • What are the benefits of adopting online review process for DITA content
    • What are the basic tenets and features of an online review process
    • A walkthrough of a typical collaborative review workflow and how to make it an experience for business users
    Presented by: Ayush Gupta is a Product Manager for XML Documentation for Adobe Experience Manager at Adobe. He is responsible for the product roadmap, prioritization, customer success, partner relationships, and go-to-market strategy. Ayush has 10+ years of experience working in the technology industry and extensive experience in building and scaling enterprise products. Ayush Gupta on LinkedIn
  • Recorded on February 7, 2024
      When should regression testing be performed? Regression analysis of PDFs allows you to test system changes, changes to CMS, changes to stylesheet, changes to formatting software, and changes to graphic software. Regression testing should take place anytime your system, hardware, or software changes to determine if what was correct in the output is still correct in output. Changes may result in content disappearing, incorrect formatting, changes to the integrity of images and tables, and many other (sometimes subtle) issues that invalidate the reliability of the document. Antenna House Regression Testing System is for Automated – Fast – Accurate PDF to PDF & Image to Image Visual Comparisons

    Presented by Michael Miller

    Headshot of man with short hair wearing glasses

    Michael Miller is Vice President of Antenna House, Inc., a company that has developed one of the leading standards‐based (XSL‐FO and CSS) document formatting software products on the market today. Michael has a degree in Printing Engineering and Management and has been involved in high‐end composition, document formatting, and document management for over 40 years. He has an extensive background with structured data, including SGML, XML, S1000D, and DITA. During his career, he has worked in Europe and North America and has been involved in the implementations of some of the largest fully automated publishing and document formatting projects.

  • April 21, 2021 The Plain Writing Act of 2010 requires federal agencies to follow plain language guidelines for government documentation. In addition, Section 508 standards require all information and communications technology to be accessible to disabled users. Besides meeting these requirements, are there other advantages for technical writers who use plain language? Yes, there are! Brenda Inman and Deb Bissantz will explore examples of overly verbose information that can be written using plain language to convey the information more clearly. While exploring these examples, Brenda and Deb will also share benefits, guidelines, and tips for using plain language. What can the audience expect to learn? Attendees will learn to recognize opportunities for using plain language, such as when to use a $0.50 word instead of a $5.00 word. Attendees will also learn tips for writing clear, concise information using plain language. Presented by: Deb Bissantz is a Content Services manager for GlobalLink CCMS. Deb’s mission is to partner with organizations to make the most of their DITA and component content management solutions. Before joining GlobalLink CCMS, Deb worked with and authored DITA content for many years. As a writer and tools administrator, she helped several organizations migrate technical documentation to DITA and to a CCMS. Deb is a voting member of the DITA Technical Committee. Brenda Inman is the Director of Technical Publications for Robotics and Digital Solutions at Ethicon, part of the Johnson & Johnson family of companies. Brenda has worked in the medical device her entire career mostly within technical publications and localization and also has experience in clinical research and regulatory affairs. Brenda’s experience within technical publications and localization includes writing user manual content, implementation of content management systems, and setting up best practices for writing and localization.
  • May 13, 2020 There is an explosion of content today. But what makes your content stand out is – relevance and searchability. To ensure that customers don’t have to spend hours searching through your content, metadata is key. And to know what metadata to add while authoring, a well-established taxonomy is key. To design a truly best-in-class content search experience metadata and taxonomy need to work in tandem. In this webinar we will showcase:
    • How to leverage metadata to make your content searchable
    • What is the difference between good and bad taxonomies
    • A live example of taxonomy development using Adobe Experience Manager
    Presented by: As Senior Solution Consultant at Adobe, Divraj Singh lead consulting for Adobe’s CCMS offering – XML Documentation for Adobe Experience Manager. Divraj has over 12 years of software development and technical management experience. He is seasoned expert in the field of content management with experience of working on various WCMS systems and enterprise solutions. He has worked on various software products spanning different technologies involving mobile-web, analytics, personalization, social applicable to several domains like finance, marketing, retail and healthcare.
  • Recorded on November 16, 2022
    colorful box next the words Kaleidoscope - Taking your content global

    Multilingual content is fundamental for successful communication with other people, cultures, and markets. Naturally, the quality of translations is of central importance. Often, these quality assurance processes are unsystematic and rely on spontaneous “feedback” from in-country reviewers. However, more often than not, these review processes lead to long waiting times, frustrating discussions, no real process improvements, and thus impede strategic and sustainable language quality management.

    We share how

    • to define translation quality
    • to measure translation quality
    • to involve and instruct all stakeholders
    • to manage translation quality actively and sustainably

    Join us to learn which aspects and stakeholders you need to take into consideration on your way to successful quality management of multilingual content.

    Presented by Klaus Fleischmann Klaus Fleischmann studied translation and IT in Vienna, holds an MA in Conference Interpreting from Monterey, California, and a MAS in Technical Communication from Krems, Austria. In 1996, he founded Austria-based Kaleidoscope, a company implementing content, translation, and terminology management processes for internationally active companies. Kaleidoscope develops online collaboration software for enterprise-level terminology workflow, translator query management, in-country review etc., making the translation quality process comprehensible and strategically manageable. In 2007, he became CEO of Austria´s leading LSP, Eurocom Translation Services. Always active in the industry, Klaus got voted into the Gala Board of Directors in 2015 and 2017.
  • Recorded on January 11, 2024

    There are many different situations when you might convert content from one form into another, from a one-off migration project, converting everything from a legacy format into an open XML standard, all the way to regularly converting third-party content to bring it into your internal CMS. The tools used to convert vary. Maybe you’re using a vendor to convert content for you, or perhaps you wrote your own XSLT suite, which you manage in-house. Whichever route you take and whatever the purpose of your conversion, there is always a risk that content may be lost or corrupted during conversion. In this webinar, Tristan from DeltaXML will walk through some of the pitfalls of content conversion and show how their new tool, ConversionQA, can help you ensure that your content conversion hasn’t misplaced a single character.

    Presented by: Tristan Mitchell, DeltaXML Tristan is Product Director at DeltaXML, a technology company with world-leading software products for the management of change in structured content. He has a deep understanding of DeltaXML’s product suite and loves to help customers create extra value in their content using change management. Tristan is a father to three daughters, a movie lover, and a keen runner.    
  • Recorded on December 1, 2022
    Stilo logo   One of the main benefits of using a structured format such as DITA is the ability to reuse content, but realizing where reuse is beneficial and estimating the probable savings can be a tedious and time-consuming task. In this webinar, we demonstrate how you can identify reusable or redundant content in your own documentation and pinpoint potential cost savings using detailed graphical reports with Stilo’s Analyzer. Presented by Jacob Brennan Jacob Brennan Jacob Brennan is a Technical Sales Product Specialist at Stilo. He works with Stilo Migrate customers and aids in converting their legacy content to DITA. Jacob is a recent graduate from the University of Ottawa holding a BASc. in Mechanical Engineering and a BSc. in Computing Technology.
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