Webinar

  • August 26, 2021 With the plethora of content available to users today, it’s often a wonder that they are able to find any relevant information to their queries. In fact, it’s the most common complaint Comtech hears when conducting user studies for our clients: “I can’t find what I’m looking for in a reasonable amount of time.” What can we as technical writers do to address that complaint? We hear a lot about taxonomies and metadata and their potential influence in making our content more findable. However, Google uses over 200 ranking factors in its search algorithm that go well beyond this basic categorization. Surprisingly, a significant number of these ranking factors fall clearly within the realm of a technical writer’s responsibilities. In this rapid fire webinar, Dawn presents dozens of proven and speculative factors that you as a technical writer can address to optimize your content for findability. Presented by: Dawn Stevens is the President, and owner of Comtech Services and the Director of the Center for Information-Development Management. With over 32 years of experience, including 20 years at Comtech, Dawn has practical experience in virtually every role within a documentation and training department, including project management, instructional design, writing, editing, and multimedia programming. With both engineering and technical communication degrees, Dawn combines a solid technical foundation with strong writing and design skills to identify and remove the challenges her clients face in producing usable, technical information and training.
  • April 30, 2019 Consumers have more avenues than ever before to find the content they need. Are you trying to decipher how content trends are impacting your business? Do you need to respond to a rapidly changing digital marketplace? Join us to discover how changing content development and delivery requirements are affecting your business today. Learn how others in the information-development community are planning to respond to new customer demands for innovative approaches to development and delivery. In its seventh year of collecting data, the Center for Information-Development Management (CIDM) and Data Conversion Laboratory (DCL) asked managers, information architects, writers, training developers, and more how they are addressing the challenges of meeting customer information needs. During the webinar we walk through the results of the 2019 Trends Survey, a study we have been conducting since 2012. We trace the changes in how we think about developing and delivering content. 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. Mark Gross, President, Data Conversion Laboratory, is a recognized authority on XML implementation and document conversion. Mark also serves as Project Executive, with overall responsibility for resource management and planning. Prior to joining DCL in 1981, Mark was with the consulting practice of Arthur Young & Co. Mark has a BS in Engineering from Columbia University and an MBA from New York University. He has also taught at the New York University Graduate School of Business, the New School, and Pace University. He is a frequent speaker on the topic of automated conversions to XML and SGML.
  • May 12, 2020 In its eighth year of collecting data, the Center for Information-Development Management (CIDM) and Data Conversion Laboratory (DCL) asked managers, information architects, writers, training developers, and more how they are addressing the challenges of meeting customer information needs. During the webinar we walk through the results of the 2020 Trends Survey, a study we have been conducting since 2012. We trace the changes in how we think about developing and delivering content. Learn how others in the information-development community are planning to respond to new customer demands for innovative approaches to development and delivery. 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. Mark Gross, President, Data Conversion Laboratory, is a recognized authority on XML implementation and document conversion. Mark also serves as Project Executive, with overall responsibility for resource management and planning. Prior to joining DCL in 1981, Mark was with the consulting practice of Arthur Young & Co. Mark has a BS in Engineering from Columbia University and an MBA from New York University. He has also taught at the New York University Graduate School of Business, the New School, and Pace University. He is a frequent speaker on the topic of automated conversions to XML and SGML.
  • Recorded on September 13, 2023 

       
    Beyond the hype, what can GenAI truly do for you today? In this webinar, we will unveil six practical use cases showcasing the remarkable impact of AI in revolutionizing the world of Tech Doc.
    Join Fabrice Lacroix, CEO of Fluid Topics, in an insightful talk supported by two decades of research and development in LLM and AI. Gain valuable knowledge on how to enhance the tech doc workflow, from content creation to validation, translation, publishing, searching, and reading.
     

    Presented by Fabrice Lacroix

    Fabrice Lacroix is a serial entrepreneur and a technology pioneer. He has been working for 25 years on the development of innovative solutions around search technology, content enrichment and AI. He is the founder of Fluid Topics, the leading Content Delivery Platform that reinvents how users search, read and interact with technical documentation.
  • February 6, 2019 With Salesforce supporting many customer-centric processes, it must be able to leverage the technical documentation that’s needed to increase efficiency of these processes. And yet, despite being built around a comprehensive and extensible data model, Salesforce is not equipped for storing and delivering technical content. So what should you do when you are asked to integrate tech doc inside Salesforce? Fortunately, options are available for solving this challenge and making relevant technical content available to support staff and customers. Presented by: Fabrice Lacroix is a known Web pioneer and the founder of Antidot, the company that puts enterprise content to work. As an entrepreneur, he has been working for 25 years on the development of the Internet and of the Web through several major companies.
  • June 16, 2020 Unlike a decade ago, organizations face few barriers to entry if they want to develop structured content in a DITA-based ecosystem. The increasing adoption of Git as a content platform, and the maturing of DITA-focused products like oXygen have removed many of the cost barriers to implementing DITA in an elegant and scalable way. Whether a stop on a longer-term transition to a CCMS or the final destination, a mostly open-source DITA tool chain can be a valuable proving ground for a sophisticated content strategy. In this presentation, you’ll learn how process, information design, scalable repository design, and smart use of oXygen and Git can be more than a short-term solution. You will also learn where Git falls short and when you should be using a DITA CCMS. Presented by: Frank Miller president/ founder of Ryffine is an industry thought-leader whose career has focused on leading enterprise client engagements and building an information development community, Frank has been involved in dozens of successful DITA implementations. In addition to partnering with many leading names in the information development and content management spaces, Frank enjoys sharing his insights on trends and facilitating the adoption of best practices throughout the community. Presented by: Rik Page is EMEA Sales and Marketing Director at Bluestream Software and has been working with both component content and document management solutions since 200. During this time, he has worked with custom DTDs and Schemas, S1000D, iSpec2200 and since 2005 DITA. Rik's practical experience ranges from data capture/content creation through to dynamic multichannel delivery. This has been achieved in a wide range of industries including banking and finance, manufacturing, central government, and education. A keen advocate of technology and innovation Rik has taken part in multiple consultancy projects and helped formulate solutions all over the world.
  • Recorded on August 3, 2022

    Harmonizer is a powerful tool created by Data Conversion Laboratory that analyzes large document collections to identify content reuse across multiple content sets and source formats. Understanding the volume and nature of duplication in content is invaluable to effectively implement a reuse-based content model like DITA or S1000D. Harmonizer dives deeper into content analysis and can evaluate, identify, and report not only on duplication at the paragraph level but also duplication within specific XML elements such as topics, tasks, concepts, etc. Flexibility in the level of comparison is particularly useful for performing periodic health checks on structured content to diagnose reuse issues or other issues that can arise after DITA or S1000D conversion.

    This webinar will demonstrate Harmonizer’s role in performing a health check and speak to use cases that are important for any organization who has invested in DITA or S1000D. Christopher Hill, product manager for Harmonizer and structured content expert, will also detail new licensing models for the software that enable self-serve content health checkups that improve documentation workflows and ensure your investment in markup continues to return healthy results.

    Presented by: headshot of smiling man with short dark hair and glassesChristopher Hill, Technical Product and Project Manager at Data Conversion Laboratory – [email protected] Christopher Hill has 18 years of experience working in publishing and content management. He started his career as a high school teacher but moved into the world of corporate training teaching a range of software and XML courses. He has written and conducted many training courses, was a founding employee of one of the first hosted content management systems and lead the user experience redesign for an enterprise CMS. He now manages the Harmonizer product for Data Conversion Laboratory.    
  • November 18, 2020 Learn how HubSpot Academy, the world’s leader in providing inbound sales, marketing and customer service education, adopted DITA to help solve their content creation, conversion and output needs. HubSpot’s use case is exciting and unique as it pushes the boundaries of what we typically associate with DITA. Rather than producing typical technical documentation, HubSpot is using DITA to produce:
    • Complete lessons, courses, and certifications
    • Learning assessments
    • Powerpoint outputs
    • And localizing that content in five languages
    Think you know DITA? Just wait till you see the level of flexibility and scalability that HubSpot was able to bring to their content operations through the implementation of the DITA standard. This presentation will describe the implementation as it relates to changes in processes, tools, and employee behavior and skills. Presented by: Maria McCarthy started her career as an electrical engineer, with a B.S.in Electrical Engineering and Physics. She worked in the nuclear industry, and transitioned to project management in networks and communications. While raising 4 children, she saw the great need for STEM education, and wanted to help drive equity in education. Maria completed her M.Ed in curriculum and instruction and changed my career path to STEM education, curriculum development and instructional design. She spent time in the secondary and post-secondary classroom. Maria loves delivering professional development to adult learners, developing eLearning, and managing learning content management systems. She is passionate about eLearning and thrives on learning about new technologies and innovating together with others. At HubSpot, she manages the Academy Operations teams, which includes learning and development, content editing, localization processes, and the content management system. Jarod Sickler is the Documentation Manager and a Customer Success Manager at Jorsek Inc., makers of easyDITA, where he oversees the Jorsek documentation site and is involved in managing complex customer implementations of easyDITA. Simultaneously, he’s a PhD 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.
  • April 6, 2022 Content reuse is one of the many advantages of moving to DITA and a structured standard. It helps us reduce the amount of overall content we have, improve consistency, and decrease redundancy. However, it is difficult to visualize this value before the conversion takes place. Estimates can be off, and it is hardly ever clear how much content we can actually reuse from our documentation. Typos and partial matches only complicate our futile estimates. Narrowing the scope of this approximation by investigating similar matches in our source content before conversion can provide valuable insight to the potential benefits of moving to a structured standard. Join TJ Dhaliwal in this session as he uses Stilo’s Analyzer and Migrate to investigate source content for similar and exact matches. Then, further use that information to plan for conrefs, keyrefs, and topicrefs before any transformation takes place. Conclude by deduplicating exact topic matches and realizing some of the potential that was uncovered in the beginning.   Presented by: TJ Dhaliwal is a Technical Sales Product Specialist at Stilo, helping customers uncover solutions to their content conversion needs. With a strong technical background in engineering combined with a passion for public speaking, he’s been able to successfully bridge the gaps between project stakeholders. As a problem solver, TJ has helped several enterprise-level companies convert tens of thousands of pages of their content to DITA.  He’s recently taken lead on and helped bring to market Stilo’s newest product, Analyzer.
  • April 14, 2021 Unsurprisingly, when it comes to the money your company spends producing technical documentation, your management knows the cost down to the penny. And when it comes to investing in THE content delivery solution that will streamline your work process, unleash your content, and transform your user experience, one question will arise without a doubt: “How much?” Meaning: “How much will it cost?" This can be a completely different conversation if you can turn it into “how much it will save” and “how much additional revenue it will bring to the company." In this webinar, we will give you a clear picture of the cost savings and gains a content delivery platform such as Fluid Topics can generate across three areas: customer and partner service, employee productivity, and client satisfaction. We will also give you access to a tool that will help you navigate scenarios and determine how long it will take to achieve a return on your investment by customizing the calculator’s numbers to fit your situation. Presented by: Geraldine Boulez is passionate about new technologies and their ability to solve people and business problems. This is what has led her to product management, marketing and business development positions in fast-growing tech companies and innovative corporations for over twenty years. Geraldine is VP of Marketing at Fluid Topics, the leading Content Delivery Platform that reinvents how users search, read and interact with technical documentation.
  • October 20, 2021 Semantics add unique benefits for content, especially within organizations utilizing structured content. Whether content is for detailed product documentation, polished marketing materials, or accurate, insightful employee enablement, all audiences gain by quickly finding what they want. While improving findability is key, providing accurate information recommendations dramatically increases relevancy with minimal use of personal data. From pages to personal assistants, reuse metrics to insights, content that connects to core semantics—the real-world ideas and objects it refers to—becomes truly intelligent. But, of course, benefits like this don't come from just pushing a button—or can they? During this webinar, Joe and Chip will discuss that while machine learning is a good start, it may not give customers the full value, clarity, or futureproofing required. So we challenged ourselves to productize a semantic AI approach that drives a polished end-user experience—and also appeals to busy editorial teams who care about quality but need to beat deadlines. We'll also examine emerging best practices for the practical adoption of semantic AI within your organization. Learn how RWS built a layered solution for Tridion, combining it with the power of semantic AI. These innovations fuse a powerful partnership of Tridion for content management excellence with PoolParty for taxonomy management. The results provide content teams with the power, automation, and accuracy of modern semantics with human validation.   Presented by: Chip Gettinger is VP Global Solutions Consulting at RWS, managing a team that works with customers in maximizing global content with RWS. He has experience working with customers to develop global content strategies, business ROI adoption drivers, change management, and technology adoption for component content management systems. He speaks and blogs about customer successes working closely with industry standards, partners, and customers in technology solutions and deployments. Joe Pairman is Senior Product Manager, Tridion Docs. By looking at customers' underlying needs, and recognizing technical opportunities, he has built truly innovative solutions with strategic value. Joe designed and led the development of a personalized guidance app that helped millions of users without requiring any of their data. He also integrated a knowledge model with granular structured content to automatically give data integrators a broad overview of their available implementation options and next actions. Most recently, Joe brings the power of his first B2B product love –Tridion Docs – to a whole new market and user sector of smart specialists who don't have time to learn structured authoring. Product work is more than just building features – it's bringing people together to shape vision, plans, and priorities across the whole software lifecycle, in a way that keeps the original value when the ground situation inevitably changes. Joe has learned to get things done with solid, secure, engineering without losing track of the path to greater customer value.
  • Recorded on February 28, 2024  
    Stilo logo
    For beginners in DITA XML or for those dealing with ongoing content migration, we provide an easy solution to get up-and-running with your own customized conversion pipeline using our automated Migrate SaaS tool. Register to attend a short 45-minute demo with Stilo’s CTO, Jackson Klein, to learn how this can be accomplished.
      Presented by: Jackson Klein, Stilo
    Jackson has more than 20 years of technical leadership, strategic direction and oversight for successful planning and execution of all stages of R&D, product development and lifecycle. He is responsible for developing and championing Stilo’s technology strategy across all functions of the organization and contributing to Stilo’s long-term vision.
    Prior to joining Stilo, Jackson managed and led R&D teams to develop and successfully launch software products in the field of design, simulation and analysis of photonic integrated circuits, communication systems and networks. Jackson holds a M.S and a Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from State University of Campinas, Brazil and an MBA from the University of Ottawa.
       
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