stc india 2013 don day-being relevant in 2028

B Y

D O N D A Y , C O N T E L L I G E N C E G R O U P L L C

Being Relevant in 2028:Strategies for Future Proofing Your

Content

11/14/2014Copyright © 2013 Contelligence Group, LLC

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Premise

Today, it is a given that your content may be published in many formats.

Tomorrow, it is inevitable that your content will be repurposed in ways that you have not imagined.

Is it ready for that future?


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We live in a disposable culture

60 million Snapchat images are exchanged and then deleted every day

Social media tools encourage thinking “in the moment”

We are trained to be conscientious as writers, but bad habits can cling to us!

How to be watchful against “disposable culture” in our writing


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How long is documentation life cycle?

Will someone be reading your content many years from now, say in 2028?

Tablet and phone apps (part of our disposable culture) often have short life cycles (months)

Banking and reservation applications must always be operational; some components may have been developed 30 years ago

Future use of that content may look nothing like how you deliver content today


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Case in point

Web sites with fixed layout are not mobile friendly

Responsive Web Design covers more devices

With wearable computing, what does the future hold? Google Glass, smart watches, near field radio


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We Prepare by Future Proofing

Common definition:

Providing hooks for plugging in future updates

Preferred definition:

Following good architectural principles that will persist

Durable content!

Two aspects of durability:

Medium: will the format still be around in 2028? (Rosetta Stone example)

Message: will anyone care what I write about today in 2028?


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Don’s Strategies for Future Proofed Content

1. Don’t try to anticipate the future; use architecture

2. Follow the lead of your product

3. Context-Free Content

4. Transition-Free Content

5. Content vs Presentation vs Context

6. Provide indexing, metadata and semantic properties

7. Colloquial, affected style shows its age

8. Content is a business asset


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1. Don’t try to anticipate the future:You might be creating new work there!

Wrong predictions can be expensive to fix later on

The most important principle: Good Architecture

For example: Open Standards – formats that are not tied to

proprietary tools or services

Design Patterns – describing common problems and their solutions in a general way

Templates – the basic solution for consistency across types of content

Guidelines – architectural principles for authors to follow (versus rules for tools)


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2. Follow the lead of your product

Product architecture is usually stable;

Information about a motor or an API will rarely change

Product user interfaces may change, influenced by:

Fashions and materials

Regulations

User experience improvements

Paradox:

The less showy parts of a product are most likely to still be in publication years from now.

Follow the architecture.


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3. Context-Free Content

No dependencies on required previous reading

Clear and self-dependent title, description text, and supporting images

Follow best practice recommendations: Developing Quality Technical Information:

http://www.amazon.com/Developing-Quality-Technical-Information-Handbook/dp/0131477498

Nielsen research: http://www.useit.com/articles/write-for-reuse/

CIDM Best Practices: http://www.infomanagementcenter.com/

Every Page is Page One: http://everypageispageone.com/


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http://www.amazon.com/Developing-Quality-Technical-Information-Handbook/dp/0131477498

http://www.useit.com/articles/write-for-reuse/

http://www.infomanagementcenter.com/

http://everypageispageone.com/

4. Transition-Free Content

Today’s transitions are tomorrow’s speed bumps “See the next chapter”, “See below”

“Next we will look at…”, “Previously we discussed…”

When content on either side of a transition needs to be reused independently, cleaning up the transition is costly

Good information design can minimize relational dependencies

This point is a special case of the “#3. Context Free” rule which I can refer to with a link to avoid use of a transitional phrase.


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5. Content vs Presentation vs Context

Presentation (formatting) and Context (linking, placement) are “orthogonal” to Content

Orthogonal refers to separation of concerns: Prefer the writing system’s management of Presentation

Use paragraph and character styles vs individual font overrides

Prefer the writing system’s management of Context Navigational: reading sequences, related information Relational: parent/child links, related concepts, related terms, etc.

For Content, focus on: Structure

Use styles or markup to describe “what it is,” not “what it looks like”

Identity Indexing or properties that enable selective retrieval, ideally on

semantic sub-structure (for example, terms in a glossary)


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6. Provide sufficient indexing, metadata and semantic properties

Can someone actually find this component in a search?

Can this component be retrieved by query for use in a sidebar on a Web page?

Adaptive content is all about enabling content to be selected and used in new ways at finer granularity than just “the page”


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7. Colloquial, affected style shows its age

Compare this 1870 definition of geology: Of what materials is the earth composed, and in what manner are

these materials arranged? These are the first inquiries with which Geology is occupied, a science which derives its name from the Greek ge, the earth, and logos, a discourse. Previously to experience we might have imagined that investigations of this kind would relate exclusively to the mineral kingdom, and to the various rocks, soils, and metals, which occur upon the surface of the earth, or at various depths beneath it. But, in pursuing such researches, we soon find ourselves led on to consider the successive changes which have taken place in the former state of the earth's surface and interior, and the causes which have given rise to these changes; and, what is still more singular and unexpected, we soon become engaged in researches into the history of the animate creation, or of the various tribes of animals and plants which have, at different periods of the past, inhabited the globe. 1870 definition of "Geology" (Elements of Geology, http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/3772/pg3772.html)


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7. Affected style, continued

With this modern definition:

the science that deals with the dynamics and physical history of the earth, the rocks of which it is composed, and the physical, chemical, and biological changes that the earth has undergone or is undergoing. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/geology


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8. Content is a business asset

The content you create is intellectual property—it is literally part of the business

It has value as a corporate asset—it is part of the product

It has value as a personal achievement—it is part of your canon of experience

Would you build a place of work with anything less than the best bricks?


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Parting thought:

Tape a bank deposit slip next to your workstation.

Whenever you hit “Save,” you are making a deposit into a sort of savings account.

Make sure that what you deposit has the qualities for providing that future value!


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Questions?


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Contact info

Don R. Day

Co-Founder, ContelligenceGroup.com

Co-Chair, OASIS DITA Technical Committee

LinkedIn: donrday Twitter: @donrday

About.me: donrday Skype: don.r.day

"Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?

Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?"

--T.S. Eliot


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mailto:[email protected]

http://contelligencegroup.com/

http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/tc_home.php?wg_abbrev=dita

http://www.linkedin.com/in/donrday

http://twitter.com/in/donrday

stc india 2013 don day-being relevant in 2028

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