Digital Transformation & the Business

of DITA

Joe Gollner | @joegollnerManaging Director

Gnostyx Research Inc.info@gnostyx.com

Digital Transformation & DITA

Digital Transformation (DX)?Digital Experience

What does DX potentially mean for DITA?

What can DITA bring to the table for DX?

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Digital Transformation (DX)Where the action is

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Digital Technology

Digital Strategy

Digital Disruption

Digital Economy

Digital Society

Digital Natives

Digital CompetitorsDigital Skills

Digital Entrants

Digital Agility

Digital Talent

Digital Traction

Digital Metrics

Digital Operations

Digital Product Lifecycle

Digital WorkforceDigital Process

Digital Design

Digital Literacy

Digital Maturity

Digital Impact

Digital Transformation

Digital OfferingsDigital Channels

Digital Information

Digital Platforms

Digital ServicesDigital Unicorns

Digital Organizations

Digital Innovation

Digital Lifecycle

Digital Monetization

Digital Capabilities

Digital World

Digital Awareness

Digital Consumption

Digital Leaders

Digital BusinessDigital Culture

Digital Capital

Digital Differentiation

Digital Flexibility

Digital Governance

Digital Partners

Digital Customers

Digital Industry

Digital Future

Digital Ecosystems

Digital Jobs

Digital Infrastructure

Digital Value Digital Supply Chain

Digital Mind

Digital Laggards

Digital Content

Digital Competence

Digital Era

Digital Framework

Digital Revolution

Digital Media

Digital Networks

Digital Communities

Digital Tribes

Digital Ventures

Digital Experiments

Digital Enterprise

Digital Nomads

Digital Crowd

Digital HumanitiesDigital Manufacturing

Digital Landfill

Digital Experience

Digital Landscape

The Evolution of Digital Technology

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Everything becomesdigital & integrated, accessible anywhere,& continuouslyaccumulating for future processing

Everyone works in &interacts through thesame digital landscape:owners, managers, developers, customers, users, competitors, partners, regulators…

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Information 1.0 Information 2.0 Information 3.0 Information 4.0

Empire of Documents Document Exchange Electronic Business Business Ecosystems

See: The Barnaclization of Systemshttp://www.gollner.ca/2008/12/the-barnaclization-of-systems.html

Digital Disruption & BarnaclizationBarnaclization

The accrual of individually beneficial innovations that progressively degrade overall system performance

Universal fate of all systems• Organizations, processes

technologies, economies, ideas

Calls for disruption

Legacy practices & investmentsCannot survive (without change)

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See: Content 4.0http://www.gollner.ca/2016/12/content_4-0.html

The Digital Enterprise

End-to-End Digitization

Human-Cyber-PhysicalSystems

Human guided automation

Completely virtualized

Technology becomes a marketplace commodity

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Digital Enterprise

Digital Operating Models

Digital Transformation Initiative World Economic Forum – 2017

Authoring Experience becomes Customer ExperienceSee Conway’s Law: “organizations which design systems ... are constrained to produce designs which are copies of the communication structures of these organizations” Melvin Conway (1967)

Digital Workforce

Distributed & Mobile

Diverse, on-demand & multi-generational

Bring-Your-Own-Device(BYOD)

Standardized & interchangeable tools

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Digital Information

Growing system complexity leads to:

Less end-user documentation

More real-time support service

More design & development documentation

More collaboration

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Tighter integration of technical, marketing & business communication practices

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Technologyinfrastructure& its managersare facing someof the biggestchanges

All IT functionsmoving to the cloud & beingbased on servicessupported byopen standards& technologies

Digital Infrastructure

Dion HinchcliffeZDNet Dec 2016

Endless Computing & Content

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Computers for Everyone,Everywhere

Case Study

endlessos.com

What DX Calls For in a Nutshell

TechnologyAbsolute portability, interoperability, scalability

Plug-ability into unlimited range of environments

Configured, managed, & used by non-specialists

OrganizationsContinuously reconfiguring to meet customer needs

Maximally efficient in leveraging talent & knowledge

Information“Relevance is the new currency” (McKinsey)

Omni-Channel Customer Information Experience

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Digital Transformation

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Tweetable Moment

Under #DigitalTransformationwe want to capitalize on what has worked wellwhile we leverage what is genuinely new.Trans-Form.

DX + DITAWhat does it change?

Anything? Everything?

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And DITA was born

2003 – Content Technology Vendor came to my office with one burning question: “How much DITA experience do you have?”

Sounded strange at the time

What does this question really mean?

DITA struck a chordOffered the promise of a shared solution

Similar to, but not the same as, a standard

Vendors & customers wanted the same thing

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The Source of the Attraction

DITA provides something uniqueA compilation of core content & solution patterns inherited from past investments• Putting its arms around the whole problem

• Treating content as content

• Respecting the texture of technical knowledge

A practical combination of• Markup standard

• Working behavior (DITA OT)

• An active community of practitioners

• An engaged community of product vendors

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See: Putting Content in its Placehttp://www.gollner.ca/2014/04/putting-content-in-its-place.html

Putting Content & DITA at the Center

DITA as an open standard & shared solution for content

Content is potential informationPublished as information products

Content connectsData representations

Information transactions

Knowledge assets

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Information

Data

Knowledge

Content

See: The Anatomy of Knowledgehttp://www.gollner.ca/2010/10/the-anatomy-of-knowledge.html

An Old Lesson Gets More Important

Knowledge is what persistsCan be reused & reapplied when everything else changes• Business models

• Technology landscape

Digital TransformationDrives this lesson home

Content is the executable form of enterprise knowledge assets

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Technology

Business

Knowledge

Variability

Variability

Partners

ToolsIn

ten

t Re

su

lt

Content

See: The Content Lifecyclehttp://www.gollner.ca/2013/09/the-content-lifecycle.html

Digital Content Lifecycle

Adapting the Content Lifecycle in light of Digital Transformation

Balancing concerns• Internal / External

• Efficiency / Effectiveness

• Content / Metadata

Connected to main objectives of Enterprise activities• Role of Content Strategy

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ContentAcquisition

ContentManagement

ContentDelivery

ContentEngagement

ContentStrategy

Internal External

Author Experience Customer ExperienceEf

fici

en

cy

Effectiven

ess

Digital Enterprise Content Solutions

ConsequenceDITA finds itself in unfamiliar territory

DITA has to work with new players • Technology: mainstream, digital platforms

• Business: customer-centric value-chains

QuestionsCan DITA make this transition?

What needs to change for it to happen?

Are we ready to step onto this stage?

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KnowledgeIntegrated & Executable

AgileDevelopment

Digital Content

Solutions

The Future of DITA

Roadmap for DITA needs to reflectStrategic Positioning of DITA in this context

Continued focus on content challenges• Where DITA & content technologies are alone in

being able to provide working solutions

Sustainment of the synergistic relationship between the standard & the Open Toolkit

Constant refactoring of standard & toolkit• Applying lean patterns for managing complexity

• Aligning with mainstream digital tools & techniques

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What does this mean – short term?

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The focus falls on solution deploymentsDITA as part of digital ecosystems

Online authoring & collaboration

Heightened emphasis on• Authoring experience

• Dynamic delivery

• Engagement metrics

DITA configuration & management tools• Encapsulating the irreducible complexity of

handling content properly

What does this mean – long term?

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Evolution of core architectural aspectsPatterns for addressing full range of content requirements

Supporting processing mechanisms to enable content services for ecosystems

Evolution of expanded type librariesThe future holds more content models

Emphasize a selection “pull” design approach versus constrain/tailor

Models encompass Architectural Patterns, Content Structures, Representation Syntaxes, & Vocabulary Semantics with all having an intimate relationship to behavior

DITA as a Solution Platform

DITA emphasizesStanding as morethan a standard• Solution platform

Core Architecture• A robust handling of

modular, interlinked, versioned, reusable content

Expanding array of information application types

Complexity encapsulation

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DITAEnterpriseContentSolution

BusinessStrategy

MainstreamTechnology

CustomerValue

SpecializeModels

ExtendBehavior

CreateBehavior

StandardBehavior

SelectBehavior

CreateModels

StandardModels

SelectModels

Realities

Community ResourcesVolunteer effort

Herculean contributions by a small core team

Escalating DemandsPatterns supporting core content requirements

New markup & OT behavior requests

Backwards compatibility

Business Visibility“Content” not understood• Only indirectly appreciated

Solution VenuesMainstream technology platforms (changes every 5 years or so)

Very diverse range of users

Very diverse range of content types & applications

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Looking into the Distant Future

With “DITA 4.0” the focus of the standard will settle on the Architecture

Providing all content-enabled applications with a way to handle the complexity of content. This addresses the risk posed by alternative approaches, both standards-based and proprietary, that do not reflect or support the true nature of content.

DITA 4.0

In a 4.0 world, enabling & sustaining human-cyber-physical systems will call for content to be the interface between automation and the people who must be accountable for it. The same will be true for the behavior enabled by DITA. DITA configuration & customization will itself be driven by declarative (DITA) content.

from DITA Europe 2017

Reflections

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The Digital Revolution is being hypedThere is a lot of business posturing

There is a good reason though• Inescapable forces are at work

• Sitting this one out is not an option

DITA must join the party• DITA brings a unique & fundamental element

• DITA can provide the missing ingredient

• Digital Transformation depends on it

Joe Gollner | @joegollner | www.gollner.caManaging Director | Gnostyx Research Inc.@gnostyx | www.gnostyx.com | info@gnostyx.com