Newsletter of the Society for Technical Communication, San Francisco Chapter
February/March 2007
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Newsletter of the Society for Technical Communication, San Francisco Chapter February/March 2007 |
Happy New Year and Happy St. Valentine's Day!
One of the funny things about newsletters is that it's so easy to bunch milestones you normally wouldn't associate together.
Since my last column we have celebrated the annual holiday bash at the London Wine Bar. It was a lot of fun celebrating with our friends and catching up with folks we hadn't seen for a while. Thanks to all who came, but let's not forget to stay in touch during the year as well.
The topics for our chapter meetings are set for the next few months -- how to build a business case (February), podcasting for technical communicators (March), and best writing practices for text requiring localization (April).
The San Francisco chapter is excited to announce (more details to follow) that we will have a special meet and greet plus panel on Thursday, April 12. Ann Rockley of the Rockley Group, Scott Able from CM Pros, and Sarah Milstein from O'Reilly media will gather to discuss "Trends and Technologies in Technical Communications." The discussion will discuss, among other things, trends in content management and Web 2.0 technologies. Please put this date on your calendar. We look forward to seeing you.
There are also a few other big events on the horizon. In April, the Gilbane and LISA conferences (content management and localization) are combined from the 10th through the 12th. On the 13th, the CM Pros Summit for content management professionals will be meeting. Then, the following week the O'Reilly Web 2.0 conference follows, making three really exciting events for technical communicators and I would start bugging your bosses now to give you some time off and to help pay for these events.
By the way, the topic of our February chapter meeting will help you make that business case...
Before getting into the main topic for this column, I'd like to put an extra plug in for the CM Pros Summit. I am one of the conference coordinators (and a speaker), so I know my point of view is clouded somewhat, but given that my last column and parts of this one are dedicated to content management issues, I don't feel bad plugging this event and this organization.
The STC has several SIGs that touch on these themes, and there's a local group devoted to DITA, but this organization looks at the entire content management industry, not just its impact on technical communicators. In my last column I pointed out some of the promises, perils, and pitfalls of content management and showed the many opportunities for creative technical communicators. What I didn't discuss is that content management touches many parts of an enterprise, not just technical writers. If you are looking for ways to grow into a broader role in a company, I'd invite you to check out this organization (www.cmprofessionals.org) and to attend the conference.
Which brings me to this newsletter's topic -- localization and globalization. One of the most dominant trends in technical communications is to integrate the workflow and technologies of localization on the one hand with technical communications on the other. The connection should be obvious, but I'm willing to bet that many businesses have not yet identified the value of integrating these processes.
The business case looks like this -- to the extent that you can reduce the amount of text to translate (either through single-sourcing or developing writing practices that allow for more exact matches when using translation memory) you can reduce the total cost of translation dramatically. Using content management technology allows you to not only reduce translation costs, but because your CM system can also generate your published output, you can lower production costs. Automating your production processes reduces the time-to-market for localized output as well.
Think about this nightmare scenario, which we have all experienced to some degree in one way or another: When creating an online help system with RoboHelp, you need to also produce a PDF version of the help. RoboHelp does an excellent job of allowing you to use conditional coding to generate different versions of your content, but its path to PDF is complex. Many companies export to Word, hand massage the document, and then convert to PDF. Now imagine having to repeat that process for each localized language for each release and you can see how inefficient the process is. Not only that, the possibility of introducing errors along the way is great. The other problem is that more and more of a writer's time is spent as a production specialist, rather than developing new content.
The promise of integrating content management and localization is that you manage only one source and that your CM system can automate your output, sparing you the pivot process through Word. Updating the translation memory is one step too, not update and then produce.
This dream comes at a cost, though. Significant savings can be found while writing the original source documentation (presumably in English). The degree to which writers use the same language and conventions throughout a document will lower the cost and increase the accuracy of translation. But it's not easy to get everyone to buy into this idea and the management burden for developing, implementing, and maintaining these best practices is significant. The full potential of this paradigm shift also pushes us more and more into structured authoring environments. Many writers don't want to make this shift and, again, there's a significant management burden for moving teams in this direction.
I always want to look at things in two ways. First -- what's the bottom line cost of pursing these opportunities? The return on investment may not be great enough. Second, I always ask: Where are the opportunities? In the last newsletter I suggested that many of the geeks amongst us become experts in XML authoring tools, XSLT transformations, or content management technologies.
This time I want to point out that the project managers and managers in our midst should see plenty of opportunity for advancement. Moving to content management and integrating your authoring and localization process disrupt our traditional authoring paradigms. Rise to the challenge! Show your companies how you can save some money!
If you don't feel up to the challenge all by yourself, you may need to bring in outside help. This step is probably alien to most of us. At the most we hire contractors to fill in our gaps when we need them. The costs of consultants are justifiable, but you'll need to learn to make that kind of a business case and demonstrate its importance to your company's bottom line.
In short, in this brave new global world, many technical communicators will have to become business leaders, not just writers.
We of the STC chapter have several opportunities to put our toes in the water. May I mention again that "How to build a business case" is the topic for our next meeting? That we have an expert in best writing practices for globalized products coming to visit in April? That CM Pros will meet in April in SF? That the chapter is hosting a "Trends and Technologies" event on April 12?
Carpe Diem! We live in exciting times in our industry!
Next newsletter -- what does Web 2.0 mean for technical communicators?
I hope to see all of you again soon.
Tim