Preliminary Program

Transcription

Preliminary Program

THE
LavaCon Conference
ON CONTENT STRATEGY AND TECHCOMM MANAGEMENT
Preliminary Program
A gathering place for content
strategists, user experience
designers, documentation
managers, and other content
professionals LavaCon.org
October 18–21, 2015
New Orleans, LA
Schedule at a Glance
All sessions Monday-Wednesday will be broadcast live
and recorded in Adobe Connect. The
icon indicates
the session in each time slot that will include live video in
the broadcast. See http://lavacon.org/2015/lavacon-2015virtual-track for details.
Sunday, October 18, 2015
Pre-Conference Workshops
8:00–noon
Snakes and Ladders: Content Collaboration in the Real World
Nolwenn Kerzreho, Ixiasoft, and Joe Gollner, Gnostyx Research
REST API: Overview and Documentation Best Practices
Marta Rauch, Oracle
Honing Your Workplace Negotiation Skills
Jack Molisani, ProSpring Staffing, and Kit Brown-Hoekstra, Comgenesis
1:00–5:00
Creating a Content Strategy Ecosystem
Andrea Ames, IBM
Adaptive Content Modeling for Omnichannel User Experience (UX)
Noz Urbina, Urbina Consulting
New Manager Bootcamp
Eeshita Grover and Charles Rygula, Cisco Systems
Revenue Strategy 101: Unifying Your Content and Revenue Strategies
Christopher Ward, WebWorks
8:00–
Cocktails and New Orleans Drag Show
Mag’s 940 Bar and Cabaret, 940 Elysian Fields Avenue, New Orleans
~ followed by ~
Frenchmen Street Art Market and Jazz Club Crawl
619 Frenchmen Street, New Orleans
Monday, October 19, 2015
7:30–8:15
Registration, Continental Breakfast, Coffee
8:15–8:55
Welcome!
Jack Molisani, Executive Director, The LavaCon Conference
8:55–9:15
Veni, Vidi, Vici: Win the Battle for Content Ownership and Take Back Your Content Career
Victoria Koster-Lenhardt, Employment Consultant for Europe at US Department of State
9:30–10:30
Doc is Dead! How
Walkthroughs Changed
Saleforce’s Content
Strategy
Lila Giuili and Gavin Austin
Salesforce
Start with Empathy:
Content Strategy and
Design Thinking
Karin Ikavalko and
Catherine Walker, PayPal
Keeping the Content
Train on the Tracks (and
on Topic)
Robert D. Anderson, IBM
Kristen James Eberlein
Eberlein Consulting
The Internet of Things:
When Machines Interact
With Their Own Technical
Information
Scott Youngblom
Oberon Technologies
Win the Battle for
Content Ownership
(continued)
Victoria Koster-Lenhardt
Employment Consultant
for US Department of
State
10:45–11:45
Plan for Success:
Implement a Content
Triangle Framework
Al Martine
INKtopia (TechWhirl)
Improve the UX of Your
Content, and Prove It!
Pam Noreault and Tara
Knapp
ACI Worldwide
Content in an Agile World
Megan Gilhooly, Ping
Identity
Anne Grosvenor, INVIDI
Life with Guru D:
Adopting a DITA Mindset
and Converting Others
Liz Fraley, SSS
Scoping Level of Effort
and Getting the Right
Resources for the Job
Jason Kaufman
Irrevo
11:45-1:15
Networking Lunch, Exhibit Hall Open, Vendor Demos, Bier Garden Open
1:20–1:40
What Problem Are You Trying To Solve? Achieving Organization and User Goals Through Content
David Dylan Thomas, Senior Content Strategist, EPAM
1:40–2:00
How to Reach Those Who Hold the Power and Purse Strings
Noz Urbina, Principal Content Strategist, Urbina Consulting
2:45–3:45
Integrating Content
Planning and Delivery
Across the Enterprise
Connie Giordano
INKtopia (TechWhirl)
Successfully Delivering a
Personalized Content
Experience: From
Structured Content to
Multichannel Publishing
Jim Edmunds, Ingeniux
Suzanne Mescan, Vasont
Faster than Agile:
Replacing the Publishing
Process with Live
Content
Jang Graat
The Content Era
The Emerging 5th Model
for Content Creation:
Guided + Fluid DITA
Authoring
Les Burnham and Patrick
Baker, STILO
Achieving Organization
and User Goals through
Content (continued)
David Dylan Thomas
EPAM
Monday, October 19, 2015 (continued)
4:00–5:00
Improve Your Customer
Experience with Crosstouch Knowledge
Delivery
Gal Oron, Suite Solutions
Megan Gilhooly, Ping
Identity
Responsive Design:
Delivering Content-Rich
Customer Experiences
Julian Murfitt and Mark
Poston, Mekon
Triple Tag: Managed
Metadata and
Taxonomies for Content
Management
Chris McNulty
Microsoft
5:00-5:20
The State of Structured Authoring
Praveen Burri, Adobe Systems
5:20–6:00
Pre-Parade Cocktails
Exhibit Hall
6:00–6:30
Second Line Jazz Parade
Bourbon Street
6:30–
Welcome Reception
Bourbon Heat Club and Courtyard Restaurant, 711 Bourbon Street, New Orleans
7:30–
Kamikaze Karaoke
How DITA Can Advance
Your Structured Content
Strategy
Keith Schengili-Roberts
IXIASOFT
How to Reach Those Who
Hold the Power and
Purse Strings (continued)
Noz Urbina
Urbina Consulting
Tuesday, October 20, 2015
7:30–8:15
Continental Breakfast, Exhibit Hall Open, and Coffee
8:15–8:40
Content Strategy vs. Content Engineering: The Emerging Role of the Content Engineer
Cruce Saunders, Founder, Simple [A]
8:40–9:00
The Dark Arts of Content Leadership
Joe Gollner, President, Gnostyx Research
9:15–10:15
The Dark Arts of Content
Leadership (continued)
Joe Gollner
Gnostyx Research
Let’s Talk Technical
Marketing: Your Guide to
Content for the Entire
Customer Journey
Ari Hoffman
MindTouch
Why You Shouldn’t be
Scared to Work with a
Ghostwriter
Chantielle MacFarlane
Hyperwallet Systems
Making the Most of the
New Math Domains in
DITA 1.3
Aaron Guigar
Design Science
How to Manage Change
in Documentation (Time
Travel and Other
Techniques)
Jim Tivy
Bluestream Software
10:30–11:30
Repurposing Content for
Multichannel Publishing
Liz Fraley
Single-Sourcing Solutions
When Easy Isn’t Enough:
What Video Games Can
Teach Us About Content
Strategy and UX
John Caldwell and Ria
Hagan, Intuit
The Globalization of
Technical Writing: Threat
or Opportunity?
Barry Saiff
Saiff Solutions
Case Study: Converting
Legacy Content to DITA—
It’s Not Rocket Science!
Pam Noreault, ACI
Helen St. Denis, Stilo
Moving Your
Organization Up the
Knowledge Value Chain
Gal Oron and Joe Gelb
Suite Solutions
11:30–12:30
Exhibit Hall, Lunch
12:30–
12:55
Developing Your Organizational Power and Influence
Andrea Ames, Content Experience Strategist, IBM
12:55–1:15
The Art of Presenting to Upper-level Management
Tom Aldous, CEO, The Content Era
1:30–2:30
How Content Strategy
Can (Literally) Prove Its
Worth
Emily Shields
Facebook
Monkey See, Monkey Do:
Using Video to Support
Your Documentation
Allie Proff
Boeing
Winning Knowledge
Spaces = 1 Wiki + “Every
Page is Page One”
Nitza Hauser, Medidata
Solutions
Why Manufacturers Have
Been Left Behind by
Knowledge Management
and Content Delivery
Patrick Bosek
EasyDITA
The Art of Presenting to
Upper-level Management
(continued)
Tom Aldous
The Content Era
2:45–3:45
Preparing for Augmented
Reality: Moving from 2D
to 3D Documentation
Nabayan Roy
Autodesk Singapore
Accessibility Matters:
Making Your Products
Available to Everyone
Char James-Tanny
Schneider Electric
From Startup to the Big
Leagues: Enjoying the
Journey
Joseph Meyers and Meg
Miranda, Cisco Systems
Taming the Beast That is
Microsoft Word
Doug Gorman, Simply
XML
Bryan Lynn, 36Software
Tom Aldous, The Content
Era
Collect Metrics...Like a
Boss!
Chris Bridgen
Alcatel-Lucent
3:45–4:15
Break, Exhibit Hall, More Coffee!
Tuesday, October 20, 2015 (continued)
4:15–5:15
A Little Content Fish in a
Big Company Pond
Marli Mesibov
Content Strategist
5:15–6:30
Exhibotor Treasure Hunt and Network Reception
Exhibit Hall
8:00–
French Quarter Pub Crawl Tweet-up
Ditching Words: How
Interactive Media
Improves the User
Experience
Matt Sullivan
Tech Comm Tools
To be Announced
Case Study: Streamlining
the Translation Process to
Expand Your Global
Footprint
Don Rasky, Mitchell
International
Eric Shipman, MadCap
Software
The Communications
Manager’s Toolbox
Eeshita Grover
Cisco Systems
Wednesday, October 21, 2015
7:30–8:15
Continental Breakfast and Exhibit Hall
8:15–8:45
Content Strategy Triage: Who Lives? Who Dies? Who Do You Fight To Save?
Sarah O’Keefe, President, Scriptorium
9:00–10:00
Content Strategy Triage:
Who Lives? Who Dies?
Who Do You Fight To
Save? (continued)
Sarah O’Keefe, President,
Scriptorium
Get Out of Your Office!
Conducting Effective Site
Visits
Rhyne Armstrong
RouteMatch Software
Changing Your Authoring
Tool with Zero Downtime:
A Case Study in Change
Management
Deepa Aswani and Steve
Anderson, Salesforce
Writing for Machines
Fabrice LaCroix
Antidot
Efficient Translation
Management: Five
Metrics That Will Lead
Your Team to Continuous
Process Improvement
Scott Carothers, Kinetic
10:15–11:15
Online Customer Service
Marketing: A Content
Strategy Love Affair
Nikoletta Vecsei, EMC
Kirsten Gantenbein,
ExtraHop
Improving AX (Content
Author Experience)
Melissa Eggleston
UX and Content Strategist
Surviving Agile: A Case
Study in Failure (and
Success)
Andy Watson and Jocelyn
Emory, GENBAND
Coming Out: I Write in
Word and I Love It! And
You Can, Too!
Johanne Lavallée,
Ver-Mac
Lisa Pietrangeli,
36Software
How to Prevent an
International Incident:
Communicating with a
Global Team
Meredith Kramer, NetIQ
Paula Berger, Schneider
Electric
11:15–12:55
Exhibit Hall, Lunch, Zentangle® Workshop
12:55–1:15
How to Get What You Want When You Want It
Christopher Ward, Director of Sales, WebWorks
1:30–2:30
Managing and Reusing
Content
Cheri M. Hager
Information Mapping
Using Content Consumer
Data to Improve
Customer Engagement
and Increase Revenue
Demarcus Wells
Avalara
Bar Napkins and XML:
Eliminating the Hidden
Cost of Content
Conversion
Dustin Vaughn
Adobe Systems
Stalling at DITA—How Do
You Get to the Next Step?
Peggy Sanchez
Cray, Inc.
How to Get What You
Want When You Want It
(continued)
Christopher Ward, Director
of Sales, WebWorks
2:45–3:45
Need Information
Architects? You Can Grow
Your Own!
Beth Thomerson
Innovatia
Bite Sized Training:
Onboarding for
Generation Y and Z
Oded Ilan
Iridize
Wireframing, Mockups,
and Prototyping Made
Easy
John Collins
Atlassian
Translation Quality and
the Global Review Cycle:
People and Technology
Shannon Rose Farrell
Argos Multilingual
Shamus Dermody
XTM International
Social Me: Taking Control
of Your Online Image
Brenda Huettner
P-N Designs, Inc.
4:00–4:30
Closing Session:
Connections that Count: Building Relationships for Business Success
Alyssa Fox, Director of Information Development and Program Management, NetIQ
4:30–5:30
Prime Time Trivia!
Closing Social Event
8:00–
Tweet-Up
Sessions subject to change without notice.
Welcome to the 2015 LavaCon Conference
on Content Strategy and Tech Comm Management
LavaCon® is a gathering place for content strategists, user experience
designers, documentation managers, and other content professionals.
Our Mission
To help organizations increase revenue and decrease costs by solving
content-related business problems.
It’s one thing to hear people talk about content strategy and usability; it’s
another to meet peers who are successfully doing it. Our speakers are
practicing industry professionals who have volunteered to share their best
practices and lessons learned—both what worked and what didn’t.
Choose from over 80 sessions and workshops on how to plan, execute, and
manage enterprise content development projects.
New! All sessions in our 2015 program will be broadcast live and recorded for
future playback. The virtual track broadcast will include video of the speakers,
and the other breakout sessions will be in webinar format (slides and audio
only). We will have someone at the conference monitoring the chat windows,
so all sessions will be live and interactive.
Ready for four days of great sessions, amazing food, and plenty of
opportunities to network with your peers? See you in New Orleans!
Jack Molisani
Executive Director, The LavaCon Conference
facebook.com/LavaCon
Contents
Sponsors and Exhibitors . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
twitter.com/LavaCon
vimeo.com/LavaCon
google.com/LavaCon
Keynote Speakers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Session Descriptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Speakers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Exhibit Hall Map. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
Meeting Room Maps. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .68
Sponsors and Exhibitors
Many thanks to this year’s sponsors and exhibitors!
Diamond
Adobe Systems
Adobe revolutionizes how the world engages with ideas and
information. Adobe’s innovative solutions for technical
communicators are market-leading best-of-breed software, and
include:
• Adobe FrameMaker 12—Easily author, enrich, manage, and
publish XML/DITA content with this complete solution for
technical documentation.
• Adobe FrameMaker XML Author 12—Experience best-in-class
XML/DITA authoring with complete DTD support.
• Adobe RoboHelp 11—Easily create, manage and deliver rich, interactive content experiences across
screens.
• Adobe Technical Communication Suite 5 (TCS 5)—Deliver game-changing technical communication
with this future-ready toolkit.
• Adobe FrameMaker Publishing Server 12—Automatically publish technical content virtually
anywhere, from anywhere with this enterprise software.
Sapphire
Quadralay® Corporation
Quadralay Corporation, based in Austin, Texas, builds software and creates solutions for a variety of
content publishing and web based applications. The company was incorporated in 1992 and eventually
went on to graduate from the University of Texas’ prestigious Technology Incubator (ATI) program in 1996.
Since its founding the company has been a premier player in developing solutions for the Internet and
related web application programs.
The Company has prospered since its beginning and now provides services and products to thousands of
customers in over thirty five countries worldwide. It has also partnered with numerous companies to
collectively provide solutions to complex publishing and information deployment challenges.
WebWorks®
WebWorks is the brand under which Quadralay markets its products and services; the company utilizes
the registered name WebWorks as its corporate URL (webworks.com) and its toll-free telephone number
(877.8.WEBWORKS).
6 LavaCon | www.lavacon.org
The company’s WebWorks line of products and services enables the
automated delivery of online content into multiple formats, languages,
and devices, including the packaging and delivery of content into its
own exclusive web applications. These applications are designed for
providing online help using only standard web technologies that function with numerous web browsing
devices. WebWorks solutions are used by over 2,000 corporate customers in 6,000 locations across 35
countries.
Platinum
ProSpring Staffing
ProSpring is a staffing agency that specializes in engineers, project managers,
and content developers. Need a contract or perm Technical Writer, Content
Strategist, or User Experience Designer? Contact us at prospringstaffing.com.
Gold
MadCap Software
MadCap Software, Inc. is a trusted resource for the thousands of
companies around the globe that rely on its solutions for single-source
multi-channel authoring and publishing, multimedia, and translation
management. Whether delivering technical, policy, medical, marketing,
business, or human resources content, MadCap’s products are used to create corporate intranets, Help
systems, policy and procedure manuals, video tutorials, knowledge bases, eBooks, user guides, and more
to any format, including high-end print, online, desktop or mobile. MadCap services include product
training, consulting services, translation and localization, and an advanced developer certification
program. Headquartered in La Jolla, California, MadCap Software is home to some of the most
experienced software architects and product experts in the content development industry.
Argos Multilingual
Argos Multilingual was founded in Kraków, Poland in 1996. We began as a
translation company that specialized in Eastern European languages and
have since grown into a full-service Global Language Solutions provider,
servicing clients in the life sciences, industrial manufacturing and
software/hardware industries. Our business is built on three core values:
Quality at Source, Partnership Approach, and Technology Agnostic Solutions, as we are committed to
giving you choice while providing the best customized strategy to fit your business needs. Our business
and processes are ISO 9001, EN 15038, and EN ISO 13485 certified. With production centers in Kraków,
Poland, and Kansas City, USA, we bring value to you through our dedicated customer service and subject
matter expertise for your specialized industry.
For more information, head to our website at argosmultilingual.com. Or connect with us on Twitter,
Facebook, LinkedIn, or Google+.
2015 Conference on Content Strategy and Tech Comm Management 7
Twitter: twitter.com/ArgosMultiling
Facebook: facebook.com/ArgosMultilingual
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/argos-multilingual
Google+: google.com/+ArgosMultilingual
Silver
Antenna House
Founded over 30 years ago, Antenna House is a leader in the document
formatting industry. Our signature product, AH Formatter, is based on the
W3C recommendations for XSL-FO and CSS and has long been
recognized as the most powerful and proven standards based formatting
software available. AH Formatter has been expanded over the years to support over 60 languages,
including the newly supported Indic scripts. Today, AH Formatter is used to produce millions of pages
daily of technical, financial, user and a wide variety of other documentation for thousands of customers in
over 40 countries. The latest release of AH Formatter V6.2 now supports MathML V3.0 and features
enhanced support for layered PDFs, embedding multimedia, and numerous extensions. Learn more at
antennahouse.com.
Design Science
Design Science is the leading producer of math editing, display and accessibility
software for technical publishing. Stop by the Design Science booth in the
exhibit area to learn about the advantages of using MathML in your technical
content, and using MathFlow with tools like Oxygen, FrameMaker, XMetaL,
Content Mapper and more.
easyDITA
easyDITA is a one-of-a-kind product that makes collaboration fun—because
anyone and everyone can use it with little to no training. easyDITA has been
receiving rave reviews because it is so intuitive and user-friendly that even
SMEs use it with enthusiasm. Our customers tell us that easyDITA gives them the freedom to concentrate
on their writing instead of their tools. Now that’s more like it! Learn more at easyDITA.com.
Fluid Topics
Antidot is proud to introduce Fluid Topics, its new dynamic content publishing solution, transforming the
way users benefit from your technical documentation.
Break the bounds of static content, empower users and develop actionable
insights with Fluid Topics dynamic publishing. Our solution gives users the
power to find and navigate technical information from any source on any
device. By combining it from a variety of content silos, you create a unified
access point and enhance customer support. Fluid Topics gives life to digital
information so that your company, partners and users are free to dynamically
reuse, shape and share the content they need whenever they need it.
Fluid Topics also gives you the tools to examine how people actually use your documentation. Now you
know what they look for and what you should focus on.
Since 1999, Antidot has helped more than 150 clients in the areas of publishing, e-commerce, healthcare,
corporate portals and intranets.
For more information, visit fluidtopics.com.
FontoXML
FontoXML enables subject matter experts to produce structured and rich
content even with no knowledge of XML. FontoXML can be seamlessly
integrated into any tool your authors are used to. It handles large
documents and is compatible with any E-CMS. Visit FontoXML.com for more
details.
IXIASOFT
Founded in 1998, IXIASOFT is a trusted global leader in the XML content
management software industry. Its signature product DITA CMS is an
award winning, end-to-end component content management solution
(CCMS) deployed by industry leaders such as SAP®, ARM®, AMD and
BlackBerry®. From authoring to reviewing, localizing and publishing, DITA CMS provides all the tools
required for large, global organizations to support their entire DITA documentation process. IXIASOFT is
also the developer of TEXTML Server, a native XML database and powerful search engine. IXIASOFT
solutions are accessed by thousands of users worldwide in various vertical markets such as software, hitech, newspaper, and medical device manufacturing.
For more information, please visit ixiasoft.com or connect with IXIASOFT on Twitter and LinkedIn. Already
a DITA CMS user? Join the IXIASOFT DITA CMS User Group on LinkedIn.
Kinetic
Kinetic is the only company in the world that works exclusively on your
behalf—putting you, the translation buyer in full control—to improve
quality, shorten delivery times and lower translation expenses. We’re
revolutionizing the translation procurement and management process.
Our unique, vendor-independent translation process management software puts an end to the countless
phone calls, meetings, emails and texts it typically takes to manage multiple projects. It transforms the
translation buying process from a series of hurdles to a strategic competitive advantage in today’s global
marketplace for you and your company. What translation buyers want, Kinetic delivers. Learn more at
thetechnologyagency.com.
Mekon
Founded in 1990, Mekon are leading UK consultants and systems integrators. We are focused on
increasing the effectiveness of your content creation, management and delivery. Faced with insufficient
staff and ever increasing demand for output, organizations today often require some support to ensure
project success. That support should incorporate best practice, risk management and customer- and ROIled planning. Mekon provide a well-defined, end-to-end methodology and service that balances strategic
guidance and training with the technical capabilities to make a solution a reality. We specialize in systems
that allow reuse and recombination of content for flexible, scalable two-way publication, across multiple
formats and via the latest publishing media.
Experience with all the major publishing, DITA, S1000D and XML
technology vendors gives Mekon a unique and unbiased insight into which
technologies are suitable for specific client needs. We are one of the few
organizations to successfully implement XML in both the non-technical
enterprise content space and traditional technical and professional publishing. As a result, Mekon are
ideally placed to help you use your content as a strategic business asset. Learn more at mekon.com.
Oberon Technologies
Oberon Technologies partners with our customers and leading software suppliers to provide innovative
solutions for creating, sharing and delivering information. With hundreds of customers, we are known for
our integrity, accountability and commitment in every engagement.
Our solutions enable you to:
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Automate your content creation, sharing and delivery processes.
Deliver personalized information
Synchronize content across CMS, translation and publishing systems
Deliver your content to any device
Our services include:
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Content assessments and strategy
Systems/software analysis and integration
Software implementation, configuration and customization
(Authoring, Publishing, and Content Management software)
Custom dynamic-assembly publishing and delivery solutions
Scriptorium
Scriptorium helps companies with large amounts of technical
content streamline their publishing processes, which results
in cost reduction and quality improvements. If you are
responsible for technical content, you face a bewildering
array of possibilities: XML-based authoring, traditional help authoring tools, wikis, customer-generated
content, and much more. In a content strategy analysis, we review your existing content lifecycle, identify
requirements, and then recommend a solution that fits your organizational constraints.
SDL
SDL is the leader in global customer experience. We untangle the
complexity of managing your brand's digital footprint as it grows across
multiple languages, cultures, websites, devices and channels. With a
complete integrated cloud solution for content management, analytics,
language and documentation, SDL doesn't just bring your brand to the
world. We bring the world to your brand. Learn more at SDL.com.
Stilo International
Stilo International is the developer of Migrate, a cloud service that enables
subject matter experts to automate the conversion of their content from various
source formats including FrameMaker, Word, InDesign, and RoboHelp to DITA
XML. Stilo also developed AuthorBridge, a DITA authoring solution that enables
browser-based contributions to a CCMS at extremely low cost. Learn more at
stilo.com.
Vasont Systems
Vasont Systems provides component content management
software and XML data services to Fortune 1,000 companies and
global organizations from a variety of industries, including
manufacturing, technology, publishing, financial, and healthcare.
Since 1992, Vasont Systems has helped companies organize their critical business assets, manage
productivity, and disseminate information in many languages to multiple media channels while reducing
their costs by an average of 63% and shortening overall cycle times by 75% on average. The Company
has been named multiple times to the EContent 100 list of “best and brightest digital content companies.
Xeditor
Xeditor delivers a web-based and highly intuitive XML authoring platform that
not only satisfies end-users but also developers who need a modern and
extensible framework. The user-friendly front end leads authors intuitively
through a defined document structure with real-time validation. Our
innovative JavaScript architecture allows seamless integration into existing
technologies and systems (CMS, DMS, PIM, etc.) and may be configured for
any DTD/Schema. We currently provide out-of-box support for DITA, DocBook, and PI-Mod. Learn more at
xeditor.com.
Dakota Systems
Specializing in enterprise publishing and content management solutions,
Dakota Systems creates opportunities for customers to maximize the
return on their technology investment. Recognized as experts in the
industry, our consultants help organizations design the best solution for
their individual situation. Whether working with technical manuals or scientific journals, Dakota Systems'
proven analysis and development methodologies enables quick and cost effective integration of
customers' business intelligence with their publishing strategy. Learn more at daksys.com.
Iridize
Iridize is the professional solution for real-time training of web products. Our platform empowers product
owners to create to create interactive walkthroughs and guides “on top” of a product’s web interface in
order to train users, support them, and communicate with them. Iridize is used by organizations to train
employees and by product owners for their customers.
Easy to install and manage, Iridize provides product owners with continuous updates
about guide usage, user specific reporting, and powerful measurement tools.
The product is used today by large and small firms, as well as Fortune 500
companies. Our customers include Nuance Communication, Network for Good, and
Towers Watson—to name a few.
Whether you are an organization that wishes to:
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Quickly train and monitor new employees
Upgrade existing employees' knowledge
Increase customer and user satisfaction
Reduce support and training costs
Enhance communication with customers
Iridize is your professional choice.
Media Sponsors
EContent Magazine
EContent is a leading authority on the businesses of digital publishing,
media, and marketing, targeting executives and decision-makers in these
fast-changing markets. By covering the latest tools, strategies, and
thought-leaders in the digital content ecosystem, EContent magazine and
EContentmag.com keep professionals ahead of the curve in order to maximize their investment in digital
content strategies while building sustainable, profitable business models. Subscribe to our free eNEws
letter at econtentmag.com.
Social Media Examiner
The world’s largest online social media magazine, Social Media Examiner® helps millions of businesses
discover how to best use social media, blogs, and podcasts to connect with customers, drive traffic,
generate awareness, and increase sales.
Our mission is to help you navigate the constantly changing social
media jungle.
Our editorial team works with the world’s top social media pros to
bring you original and comprehensive articles, expert interviews,
reviews of the latest industry research and the news you need to
know to improve your social media marketing. Learn more at
socialmediaexaminer.com.
Other Sponsors
MindTouch
An open-source collaboration leader since 2005, MindTouch provides the world’s
most respected social knowledge base, with a focus on product help, support,
and technical documentation.
Great companies like Oracle, Cisco, Intuit, Paypal, Autodesk, Hewlett-Packard,
Mozilla, HTC, Viacom, Panasonic and EMC rely on MindTouch commercial
products. Learn more at mindtouch.com.
Exhibitors
Astoria Software
Astoria Software is the world's most successful Enterprise solution for XML
Component Content Management and the first to deliver both an Enterprisewide SaaS/On-Demand and an On-Premises approach to structured content
management. Cisco Systems, Teradata, Xylem (formerly ITT), Siemens
Healthcare, Northrop Grumman, LexisNexis, ShoreTel, and other Forbes
Global 2000 organizations rely on Astoria to meet increasingly competitive
demands for product documentation-high volume, accelerated time-tomarket, and globalized output. Astoria Component Content Management, whether On-Demand or OnPremise, is an enterprise-wide solution for Translation-Enabled Content Management, reducing
documentation costs up to 90%, compressing product launch times from months to weeks, and
generating productivity and management benefits with its flexible delivery model. Astoria Software, a
division of TransPerfect, Inc., is based in San Francisco, California.
Information Mapping
Founded over 40 years ago, Information Mapping is a world leader in solving critical documentation
issues for enterprise-level organizations and governments, enabling them to operate more efficiently and
profitably. The company offers a full suite of consulting services, training programs and software based on
its proprietary methodology, the Information Mapping® Method.
The Information Mapping® Method is a research-based, systematic approach
to analyzing, organizing and presenting clear and user-focused information. It
is widely recognized as an international content standard for creation,
management and deployment of mission-critical content. Information
Mapping provides organizations all over the world with measurable
improvements in compliance, safety, knowledge management, customer service and operational
efficiency.
For more information about Information Mapping, please visit our website at informationmapping.com/us.
Follow Information Mapping on Twitter and LinkedIn.
JustSystems
XMetaL Author Enterprise helps you get to market faster by bringing
structure and automation to content creation. Using XML standards, such as
the Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA), XMetaL enables authors
and contributors to collaborate effectively and repurpose high-value
information into the myriad of languages and formats your customers
demand. For more information, visit xmetal.com.
Saiff Solutions
Saiff Solutions is a technical writing outsourcing company based in the
Philippines, led by Founder and CEO Barry Saiff, a technical communications
leader with over 30 years of experience, most of it in the USA. Saiff Solutions
provides the best of both worlds — outstanding documentation with excellent
quality control, at a fraction of US rates. Find out more at saiffsolutions.com.
SimplyXML
Simply XML™ provides simple solutions for creating and publishing XML content.
Our goal is to allow everyone in the enterprise to take advantage of information
standards including DITA, NLM, DocBook, other industry or custom standards
by providing authors with simple, cost effective tools for creating, storing,
managing and publishing valid, high-quality XML from Microsoft® Word. We
believe that standards adoption and the related benefits will accelerate when the vast majority of authors
who use Microsoft Word can easily contribute content and documents to the corporate publishing system.
Simply XML offers software and related training that is changing the value proposition for this industry.
Learn more at simplyxml.com.
Single-Sourcing Solutions
Single-Sourcing Solutions specializes in everything related to dynamic
product information creation, publication, and delivery. With experts for
every piece and every phase of the single-source development
process, we have implemented single-sourcing systems from scratch
and have improved existing systems as well. Our unique partnership approach appeals to groups looking
to not only implement solutions or migrate to more innovative content structure, but to become experts
themselves.
SQUIDDS
SQUIDDS is a Technical Communications Solution provider and vendor of Finalyser® a collection of very
efficiently plug-ins and scripts for Adobe FrameMaker. TERM CHECK is part of this Finalyser family and
with UniTerm a package for one and hundreds of users in Terminology management and checking.
SQUIDDS is vendor of TechCommApp® the mobile TechComm App using
worldwide HTML5 responsive (Reverb) on 6 platforms: iOS, Android,
BlackBerry, Windows Mobile and Desktop PC (Windows) and Mac.
Georg Eck is the founder and CEO of SQUIDDS, a Technical Communications Solution provider, with over
25 years of experience in TechComm workflow strategies. He was the first Adobe Certified expert in
Germany, specializing in Tetra4D and WebWorks. His unique skills and expertize has allowed him to serve
the German Engineering Industry with some of the most advanced and complete DITA, 3D interactive PDF
and HTML5 publishing solutions. His success in Germany has earned him a current position at Technische
Hochschule, Nuremberg teaching “Scientific Publishing.”
TechWhirl
TechWhirl is an online resource for anyone interested in the
world of Content Management and Technical Communication.
experienced veterans, up-and-coming professionals,
students, and leaders in the business can explore TechWhirl to find new, compelling, thought-provoking,
and helpful information on creating and managing the information assets critical to every enterprise. From
educational and research content to the latest news, features, and commentary, TechWhirl offers
something for everyone who needs to know about technical communication and content management.
We love this stuff and think that you should, too, so visit us at TechWhirl.Com or @techwritertoday.
Suite Solutions
Suite Solutions helps you engage your customers by providing
quick access to relevant information. Our advanced intelligent
content delivery solutions and DITA Quick Start approach
allow you to quickly realize the benefits and ROI of XML-based
information. Our flagship product, SuiteShare, is a content delivery platform that delivers personalized
and consistent content to customers at all touchpoints, reducing customer effort and increasing brand
loyalty. Suite Solutions' one-stop DITA Quick Start services include style sheet development, content
conversion, training, consulting, information architecture guidance, custom integration, and support. Learn
more at suite-sol.com.
Zoupio
Discover Zoupio by Lexum, a completely new way of publishing your text-heavy documentation.
There’s no need to change your authoring process or active drafting software! Zoupio is a cloud-based,
white-label UI that seamlessly unites with your website or e-commerce portal. Zoupio integrates within
any structured workflow (DITA, XML, HTML, even MS Word) and revitalizes any long and complex
documentation. If your industry is complex and your documentation has hundreds and even thousands of
pages, then Zoupio can help redefine how your clients interact with your manuals.
Zoupio helps publishers propel their documentation to another level with layering
of textual and multi-media content within a collaborative and mobile-ready
environment. Beyond web help, users will not only learn from your
documentation, but they can also participate and share their knowledge with
fellow group members.
For over 20 years, Lexum has enabled the web publishing of over 10,000,000
pages of content on the public Internet and client intranets with private industry, professional editors,
international and domestic government entities, education, legal, and medical sectors, as well as the
telecommunications industry.
Bluestream
Bluestream's flag-ship product, XDocs, enables organizations of all sizes to
realize the benefits of DITA at a lower cost than the competition, with
comparable or better quality, thus offering unparalleled value. XDocs is an
out-of-the-box, DITA-enabled component content management system that
deploys in hours rather than weeks, is easy to use, and has a tight
integration with various XML editors. Its flexible unlimited user licensing and
optional modules, such as workflow, knowledge base, online reviewing, and translation manager, allow for
economical end-to-end content creation, management, and publishing. XDocs customers range from
Fortune 100 organizations seeking complex cross-departmental DITA solutions to small businesses
containing single-author documentation teams. Bluestream has been in business since 1997 and has
customers in many verticals, among them software, oil and gas, health care, military, manufacturing, and
finance. Learn more at bluestream.com.
Society for Technical Communication
The Society for Technical Communication is the world's largest and oldest professional
association dedicated to the advancement of the field of technical communication. For more
information, visit stc.org.
euroscript
euroscript is a leading provider of global content lifecycle
management solutions. euroscript divisions deliver comprehensive
solutions that help customers design, build and run content
management operations of all sizes. Thanks to its employees’ expertise in the fields of consulting, system
integration, language services as well as content and document management, euroscript is able to help
businesses worldwide to manage content more efficiently. In its 2014 Language Services Market Report
Common Sense Advisory ranks euroscript as the seventh largest language services firm globally. With a
market presence in 21 countries, euroscript serves customers in a variety of business sectors, including
the public sector, aerospace, defense and transport, manufacturing, life sciences, financial services, as
well as energy and environment.
36Software
DITA isn’t for everyone. SmartDocs is.
SmartDocs is the only content management solution that allows
any type of writer in your company author, track, manage, and
reuse content without leaving their Microsoft Word environment. With SmartDocs, content is authored
once, approved once, and then reused over and over again wherever it is needed. And because your
writers stay in Word, anyone can benefit from your company’s approved content.
Your legacy Word content is ready for SmartDocs. SmartDocs is easy to get started right away. Take
advantage of content reuse directly in MS Word by incorporating features such as reusable snippets,
conditional text, and reusable variables. Automate document creation out of your approved content with
our most powerful, fully customizable feature SmartBuilders.
No lengthy content migration. Low learning curve. On-demand training. Easy. Take the guesswork out of
content reuse. Learn more at 36Software.com.
KantanMT
KantanMT.com is a leading SaaS based statistical machine translation platform that
enables the KantanMT community to develop and manage customised machine
translation engines in the cloud. The innovative technologies offered on KantanMT.com
allows members to easily build MT engines in over 750 language combinations,
seamlessly integrating into localization workflows and web applications. The secure,
highly scalable MT solutions are quick to deploy, so large volumes of content can be
translated on demand and to a high quality. KantanMT is based in the INVENT Building,
DCU Campus, Dublin 9, Ireland.
For more information, please visit kantanmt.com or send an email to [email protected]
Keynote Speakers
Tom Aldous
Tom Aldous, the Founder/CEO of The Content Era, has over 25 years of
experience in the Technical Communications industry. Besides being the
managing partner and lead XML/DITA/CMS consultant at Integrated
Technologies for over 20 years, Tom has also served as the Director of
TechComm Business Development, Evangelism and TechComm Consulting at
Adobe, as well as a SVP of Global Operations at Acrolinx. At Tom’s new venture,
The Content Era, his knowledge of content tools, markup languages and best
practices reduces cycle time and increases efficiency for his clients.
Andrea Ames
Andrea L. Ames, M.S., is a Senior Technical Staff Member and Enterprise Content
Experience Strategist, Architect, and Designer on IBM's Enterprise Content team
where she is responsible for driving broad initiatives to improve integrated
content experience. Prior to IBM, Andrea was a content strategy, architecture,
and usability consultant, helping large and small businesses to engineer their
product development processes to design and create content in ways that
enhance product usability, increase and accelerate user productivity, increase
product adoption and customer loyalty, and support business and marketing
goals.
Andrea has more than 30 years of experience in technical communication. She is
a Fellow and past President (2004-2005) of STC, a Distinguished Engineer of the
ACM (the first technical communicator to achieve this distinction), a Senior
Member of the IEEE, and a member of SWE, ASIS&T, IAI, UPA, and ATTW. Andrea
designed, coordinates, and teaches in the UCSC in Silicon Valley certificate
program in Technical Writing and Communication; she has published two awardwinning technical books and more than 50 papers and articles; and she speaks
regularly at conferences and professional organization meetings around the
world. Get all of her social connections, blog links, and more at about.me/
andrealames.
Kit Brown-Hoekstra
Katherine (Kit) Brown-Hoekstra is an STC Fellow and STC 2015-16 Society
Immediate Past President, an experienced consultant with over 25 years of
experience in technical communication, much of it working with localization
teams. As Principal of Comgenesis, LLC, Kit provides consulting and training to
her clients on a variety of topics, including localization, content strategy, and
content management. She speaks at conferences worldwide and publishes
regularly in industry magazines. Her blog is pangaeapapers.com.
Praveen Burri
Praveen Burri is a Product Manager at Adobe Systems, where he manages
product strategy and roadmap of Technical Communication Suite line of
products—more specifically FrameMaker. Prior to Adobe, Praveen worked on
disparate industries in various roles. He led front office IT projects at a
hedgefund and managed product strategy for seller facing portal at a
marketplace-based loyalty program provider. Praveen has keen interests in
technology innovations and Indian philosophy.
Alyssa Fox
Alyssa Fox is Director of Information Development and Program Management at
NetIQ Corporation in Houston, Texas. She has been involved in technical
communication for over 15 years. Her interests and skills include technical
communication, user experience, process improvement, project management,
and agile development practices. Alyssa is a member of User Experience
Professionals Association (UXPA), a senior member of Society for Technical
Communication (STC), and is currently serving as the STC Secretary.
Joe Gollner
Joe Gollner is the managing director of Gnostyx Research (www.gnostyx.com),
an independent supplier of objective guidance and open content technology
solutions. He has been a content gladiator for over 25 years, implementing
content technology solutions of every possible size and shape, and participating
in a wide range of standards activities. He blogs as the content philosopher
(www.gollner.ca) and continues to work on his magnum opus, a book about
engineering content. He’s also an avid and sometimes self-destructive trail
cyclist, a family man with four grown children, and something of a world traveler.
Vici is a US Government contractor consulting on overseas family member
employment issues. She supports more than 40 US embassies in Europe by
coaching family members of US Department of State staff on finding meaningful
work while living overseas. It's her latest stop in a journey that started with a job
in journalism in New York City. Vici worked at The Coca-Cola Company in Vienna
for 21 years, managing the Documentation Department for 16 years, then moved
into global corporate communications.
Jack Molisani
Jack Molisani is the Executive Director of the LavaCon Conference. He has been
organizing this conference for over 12 years. Originally, LavaCon was created as
a conference based on the island of Hawaii. Recently, this conference has made
its home in Portland, Austin, and now New Orleans.
Sarah O'Keefe
Sarah O’Keefe, President, is the chocoholic founder of Scriptorium Publishing
and a content strategy consultant. Scriptorium offers content strategy services to
help customers solve business problems and achieve strategic goals. Since
founding the organization in 1997, Sarah has worked with numerous
organizations to assess content issues, develop solutions, and implement new
technologies that unlock content value. She is the coauthor of Content Strategy
101: Transform Technical Content into a Business Asset.
Cruce Saunders
Founder and principal consultant at Simple [A], Cruce brings more than 15 years
leading firms focused on content delivery technology. [A] teams manage largescale content engineering engagements in partnership with global agencies.
Cruce has directed more than 250 application and content engineering
engagements. Author of Content Engineering for a Multichannel World, Cruce
advocates for content engineering practices, intelligent content, enterprise
adoption of intelligent content in order to build more human, personalized digital
experiences.
David Dylan Thomas
As a senior content strategist at EPAM, David Dylan Thomas has developed
strategies for major clients in entertainment, publishing, and retail. He is the
founder of Content Camp, co-organizer of Barcamp Philly, head of Content
Strategy Philly, and the creator, director, and co-producer of Developing Philly, a
web series about the rise of the Philadelphia tech community. He has given
lectures on such topics as the future of content in a post-ownership economy
and the hidden power of online links.
Noz Urbina
Noz Urbina is a globally recognized leader in the field of content strategy and
customer experience consultancy. He has designed interfaces and processes
that have saved organizations hundreds of thousands per year, recommended
solutions that have avoided headcount increases, and delivered dozens of
budget-winning internal presentations in a language to which executives can
relate. Above all, he has a passion for helping people communicate.
Christopher Ward
Christopher Ward, Director of Sales at WebWorks, specializes in helping small
teams accomplish big things by better aligning departmental processes with
overall company strategies. Christopher's experience in strategy development
began as an Analyst for U.S. Army Intelligence and then later moved in to the
corporate world when working for Dell computers.
Session Descriptions
Sunday, October 18
8:00–Noon
Snakes and Ladders: Content Collaboration in
the Real World
Nolwenn Kerzreho, Ixiasoft
Joe Gollner, Gnostyx Research Inc.
This workshop will equip participants with
planning tactics for laying out your next content
change initiative. The participants will leverage a
planning framework and participate in an
interactive process of identifying key project
opportunities and risks as well as exploring their
own project roadmap.
This workshop sets out to achieve these goals by
having a little fun. In the modern spirit of
gamification, the topic will be approached using
the familiar board game of Snakes and Ladders.
Essentially, Snakes are hazards that set you back
and ladders are strategies and tactics that help
you along towards your ultimate goal. The
workshop facilitators, as well as past workshop
participants, have contributed a library of game
building blocks and, over the course of this
workshop, participants will add their own.
Participants will also develop their own gameboard populated with the Snakes and Ladders
drawn from this expanded collection of building
blocks. The point here is for everyone to tap into,
and to benefit from, the project experiences of
other practitioners. And using a game model
helps to keep this process moving along quickly
so that the early steps in framing out a practical
content strategy can be accelerated.
Your workshop facilitators will kick things off by
introducing the typical organizational landscape
to be traversed, some examples of key Snakes
and Ladders you will encounter, the general rules
of the game, and the benefits that come with
winning. The results of the workshop will be
compiled and shared with all workshop
participants so that they can try it out for real
within their own organizations. This workshop, as
an exercise in collaborative learning, is designed
to help both new and experienced content
strategists, team leaders, and project managers.
REST API: Overview and Documentation Best
Practices
Marta Rauch, Oracle
Laptops are required to participate in the handson exercises in this workshop.
If you haven't yet documented a REST API, you
might be asked to do so soon. REST APIs are
growing quickly, with enterprise and finance the
fastest growing categories. The job market for
REST API writers is hot, and technical
communicators can increase their marketability
and value to their company by learning about
REST APIs. Be prepared by getting a head-start
on what you need to know!
Attend this session to:
• Get an introduction to REST APIs.
• Understand characteristics of the REST API
architectural style.
• Learn about pros and cons of REST API
implementation.
• Look at an example REST API and watch a
demonstration of performing operations on
a resource using the REST interface.
• Learn about emerging documentation best
practices for REST APIs.
Honing Your Workplace Negotiation Skills
Jack Molisani, ProSpring Staffing
Kit Brown-Hoekstra, Comgenesis
Negotiation. Just saying the word makes many
people quake in terror or withdraw in discomfort
because it feels adversarial to them. But, change
the word to collaboration and people smile and
Noon–1:00
Lunch (on your own)
1:00–5:00
Creating a Content Strategy Ecosystem
Andrea Ames, IBM
You've defined a content strategy, so all you have
left to do is implement it, right? Well, maybe. If
you're in an enterprise of any size, your strategy
encompasses far more than the content for which
you are personally responsible. The most critical
precursor to successfully implementing your
strategy is to define and develop the right cultural
ecosystem (people, processes, etc.) to ensure the
best information experience for your customers
while enabling your content creators to flourish
and be productive. Understanding the influencers
and inhibitors of that ecosystem will enable you to
create the best possible environment for
implementing your strategy.
lean in to hear more. And yet, that is what
negotiation really is-collaborative problemsolving. You have something someone else
needs and they have something you need.
Identifying how each person can get their needs
met in a way that satisfies both parties is the core
of what negotiation is all about. In this energetic
workshop, we will change the way you look at
negotiation, give you some tools that you can use
immediately, and opportunities to practice your
new skills.
At this workshop, you will gain the following:
• Understanding of how to negotiate and
when
• Techniques for effectively negotiating
• Practice in these types of negotiations:
• Salary
• Vendor
• Client
Join Andrea to learn more about:
• Understanding the end-to-end lifecycle of
your product/service to ensure efficient
business processes and methodologies
from the outside in, including
• Gathering, analyzing, and prioritizing
market and user requirements
• Understanding the business goals
affecting your strategy
• Effectively influencing the human
component of the ecosystem, including:
• Collaborating across the enterprise to
establish and maintain communication,
business controls, governance, and
standards
• Ensuring transparency, community, and
the organic growth of content
• Measuring success using metrics for internal
efficiency and external effectiveness
Adaptive Content Modeling for Omnichannel
User Experience (UX)
New Manager Bootcamp
Eeshita Grover and Charles Rygula, Cisco
Systems
One of today’s most daunting content delivery
challenges is adapting your message for
personalized, even context-specific distribution,
on a diverse array of target devices and channels.
This session will teach a proven methodology to
analyze, enrich and structure your content to help
authors create omnichannel, personalization and
automation-ready content.
In this session, you will be exposed to ideas and
techniques to adopt as a new Communications
Manager. Some of the key focus areas include,
getting to know my team, getting to know my
content, and what it is to play the role model.
Content modeling is the backbone of an
omnichannel content strategy. This session will
show you how it’s done, and connect the dots
between semantic content, content reuse,
responsive design, omnichannel and
multichannel delivery and user experience.
Single-source, multichannel content—also known
as “Single source of truth” or “COPE (create once,
publish everywhere)” content—is a bit of a holy
grail right now. Multichannel’s big brother
“omnichannel” is quickly gaining wider
awareness. Our trade is discussing content being
freed from the browser, available for reuse, and
accessible in apps, kiosks, responsive mobile
deliverables, eBooks and syndication services to
our partners—even in wearable technologies. All
this should improve the experience of users, and
of course, benefit the organizations that serve
them. Adaptive content unifies all these concepts
and makes such a paradigm possible.
This practical session will show you why you want
and need to have adaptive content structures to
optimize user experience today. Its hands-on
introductory exercises will help you model your
own content in a future-proof way.
8:00–
Through role play activities, you will be exposed
to some real life challenges, some up and downs
that you will be exposed to as a Communications
Manager.
Revenue Strategy 101: Unifying Your Content
and Revenue Strategies
Christopher Ward, WebWorks
This workshop will help you define content’s role
in a revenue generating strategy. We will identify
the major factors that have caused a paradigm
shift in the way businesses view of content: The
informed consumer, Big Data (the informed
business), and unprecedented access to
advanced technologies. With this understanding,
you will begin to build your own strategy that
aligns with your business goals. We will then
move into the next phase, which is how to have
the conversations that will transform the role of
content in your business. This proven
methodology will help bring those conversations
to the executive level, so you can uncover and
address the true obstacles to achieving your
goals. Make content the most pivotal asset to a
company’s continued success and position
yourself as a business leader.
Social Events
The evening starts with cocktails and a New
Orleans drag show at Mag’s 940 Bar and Cabaret,
940 Elysian Fields Avenue, in New Orleans. After
the show, we’ll explore the Frenchman Street Art
Market at 619 Frenchmen Street and go on a jazz
club crawl.
Monday, October 19
7:30–8:15
Registration, Continental Breakfast, Coffee
8:15–8:55
Welcome!
8:55–9:15
Veni, Vidi, Vici: Win the Battle for Content Ownership and
Take Back Your Content Career
Employment Consultant for Europe at US
Department of State
Vici’s most recent endeavors have involved
rolling out a mix of communication vehicles to
create a blended learning experience for a very
specific global audience. Her current job title
doesn’t have anything to do directly with a
communications function, but her success has
everything to do with the soft and hard
9:30–10:30
communication skills won fighting the battles in
newspaper and magazine publishing, techcomm,
corporate communications, and business
development.
Vici’s keynote and follow-up breakout session will
explain how she used her hard-earned wisdom to
avoid the war this time. It turns out that winning
the battle of content ownership is easier than you
might think!
Breakout Sessions
Doc is Dead! How Walkthroughs Changed
Saleforce’s Content Strategy
Lila Giuili and Gavin Austin, Salesforce
Customers no longer have the patience to read
online help or user guides. To help customers
better understand why they should use a variety
of features, and renew their subscription-based
apps, Salesforce conducted research to
determine the content types that engaged
customers most. The result—Salesforce changed
its content strategy.
In this session, you will learn:
• What types of interactive content we’re
creating at Salesforce
• Why Salesforce moved to interactive
content over documentation
• How a large company changed its content
strategy and how customers responded
Start with Empathy: Content Strategy and
Design Thinking
Karin Ikavalko and Catherine Walker, PayPal
Your brand’s voice is critical to building
meaningful relationships with customers. It turns
touchpoints into conversations and brings
meaning to your products and services. At PayPal,
we’ve been focusing on customer needs and
emotion in a new approach to content design.
Using empathy and design thinking, we created a
repeatable and scalable methodology that brings
voice and content strategy to the forefront of the
design process and hits the mark with customers.
Join us as we share how empathy can bring your
brand’s voice to life, transform your customer
experiences, and help you influence your teams.
This session will show you:
• Why it’s critical to balance customer needs
with business objectives and how you can
lead the charge.
• Ways to build empathy, connect with
customers, and make content strategy a key
part of your design process.
• An actionable approach to developing your
own methodology and influencing
stakeholders.
Keeping the Content Train on the Tracks (and
on Topic)
Robert D. Anderson, IBM
Kristen James Eberlein, Eberlein Consulting
How do you keep your content moving forward,
while you are weighed down with baggage from
the past? How do you change course when the
tracks ahead seem to have washed away? Come
hear the editors of the DITA 1.3 specification talk
about creative strategies they put into place to
streamline the process of developing a version of
the specification, improve the quality and usability
of the content, and get to their destination on
schedule.
• What process changes allowed us to add
new content quickly, while simultaneously
reducing page count
• How we dealt with the audience tug-of-war,
balancing precision and readability
• How we found the right incentives to
improve participation in this (entirely
volunteer-based) team effort
• How we managed to keep going after
running out of steam
The Internet of Things: When Machines
Interact With Their Own Technical Information
Scott Youngblom, Oberon Technologies
The focus on technical information to date has
typically been about your customer being able to
find the right content, quickly. As we move into
the age of the Internet of Things (IoT), the
discussion must move to how can machines
proactively push the correct information to your
customers. Imagine if a machine populated an
installation guide or curated its own service
information based on fault codes and other
environmental readings to increase first time fix
rate and overall customer satisfaction.
• How to prepare your content for IoT
• How to add intelligence to your content
• How devices can push content to customers
Win the Battle for Content Ownership
(continued)
Victoria Koster-Lenhardt, Employment Consultant
for US Department of State
Vici’s most recent endeavors have involved
rolling out a mix of communication vehicles to
create a blended learning experience for a very
specific global audience. Her current job title
doesn’t have anything to do directly with a
communications function, but her success has
everything to do with the soft and hard
communication skills won fighting the battles in
newspaper and magazine publishing, techcomm,
corporate communications, and business
development.
Vici’s keynote and this follow-up breakout session
explain how she used her hard-earned wisdom to
avoid the war this time. It turns out that winning
the battle of content ownership is easier than you
might think!
10:45–11:45
Breakout Sessions
Plan for Success: Implement a Content
Triangle Framework
Al Martine, INKtopia (TechWhirl)
Rather than thinking about Content Strategy as a
fully baked cake, why not think about content in
its core parts: the technology used to manage it,
the approach being used to guide its
development and the techniques used by your
authors to create it.
By looking at the content triangle technology,
strategy and development you’ll be able to
assess what you do today and make
comprehensive decisions on where you want to
go tomorrow. Our framework allows business
managers and content strategists to diagnose
and provide strategic recommendations for
improving their companies & avoiding the bigbang changes that doom so many business plans
and initiatives.
During this session, we will:
• Review content technologies types
(creation, management, publishing and
distribution)
• Cover business and content development
strategies
• Content creation approaches
• Talk through scenarios for improving your
company’s triangle and the case for each
improvement.
Improve the UX of Your Content, and Prove
It!
Pam Noreault and Tara Knapp, ACI Worldwide
Users are your biggest advocates when you
involve them in your efforts to improve content
quality. Users can convince writers, who may be
stuck in their “old ways,” to adopt new ideas and
methodologies.
We’ll take you through our UPLift evolution to:
•
•
•
•
Improve content.
Create model documents.
Implement a repeatable methodology.
Validate our models with customers.
What you will learn:
• Our UPLift methodology
• What our before and after models look like
• How we engaged our customers to validate/
test our UPLifted content
• What metrics we gathered and the results
we touted
• Challenges, lessons learned, and how our
(re)evolution continues
You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll learn from our
missteps, and you’ll see our testing results.
Content in an Agile World
Megan Gilhooly, Ping Identity
Anne Grosvenor, INVIDI
The company is moving to Agile development.
What’s a Technical Communications team to do?
Two content professionals-turned-certified Scrum
Masters discuss various options and suggestions
for making the move to Agile. In this session, you
will discover:
• How DITA makes Agile possible
• Which parts of Scrum work well for content
development
• How to tweak Scrum artifacts that aren’t a
natural fit
• How to do Scrum even if your company isn’t
Life with Guru D: Adopting a DITA Mindset
and Converting Others
Liz Fraley, Single-Sourcing Solutions
DITA methodology is often difficult for people to
grasp. It does require a complete shift in how you
view and author your content. You can’t take a
book and shove it over. It doesn't work like that.
You need to deconstruct and then reconstruct in
the new architecture. It doesn’t always mean that
all of the content you had before is scrapped.
Some can be salvaged. But you need to look at it
from the DITA viewpoint to pull content in rather
than looking at it from the Book Brain and trying
to shove it all in.
Additionally, you need to keep constant diligence
is paying attention to the tendency to “fudge
things” to make it work the way you want. DITA is
not a tool; it is an architecture. Yet time and time
again people fall down the trap of “tricking the
software” to do things that are not germane.
Over the years, I have worked with so many
people making this transition, and the stories of
what they have done to shift their mindset from
Book Brain to DITA cult member can save a
struggling author. If you are managing a team and
trying to help them navigate to success, then
understanding what Book Brain is, how to spot it
in others (as well as yourself), and how to help
others make the transition is priceless. It can save
you hours, if not months, of struggle.
For this session, Liz will share entertaining and
informative real-life stories as anecdotes to aid
the learning.
Scoping Level of Effort and Getting the Right
Resources for the Job
Jason Kaufman, Irrevo
In this session, you will learn proven methods
used for scoping the level of effort involved in
achieving successful content project outcomes.
You will also learn how to leverage this data to
strengthen the case for the resources needed to
successfully deliver on project goals.
11:45–1:15
Networking Lunch, Exhibit Hall and Bier Garden Open,
Vendor Demos
1:20–1:40
What Problem Are You Trying to Solve? Achieving
Organization and User Goals Through Content
David Dylan Thomas
Senior Content Strategist, EPAM
Thomas will share the exercises he lead
stakeholders through, such as:
In this session, Senior Content Strategist David
Dylan Thomas will walk you through a case study
where content, UX, and design teams joined
forces in a way that increased a client’s sales by
200%. Through a carefully crafted hands-on
workshop approach, the development team
identified organization and user needs and
discovered together—with stakeholders—how
content could achieve project and organization
objectives.
• What business problem are you trying to
solve?
• Why are you creating content?
• What do your users really care about?
• How can we tell if we achieved the project
goals (success criteria)?
In this hands-on interactive session, you will do
similar exercises yourselves to see just how
powerful (and simple) it is to gather insights into
organization objectives and get stakeholders
invested in the solution you’re creating.
1:40–2:00
How to Reach Those Who Hold the Power and Purse
Strings
Noz Urbina
Principal Content Strategist, Urbina Consulting
A jam-packed introduction piece to the full
session to follow in the afternoon. We’ll address
the true nature of strategy (it’s not about your pay
grade) and how to address a mixed managerial
2:45–3:45
landscape. The short and long sessions on this
topic feature unique content and are designed to
work together. This session features some proven
key tips and techniques to the positioning of
content up the organization chart and help you
move your initiative forward.
Breakout Sessions
Integrating Content Planning and Delivery
Across the Enterprise
Connie Giordano, INKtopia (TechWhirl)
You know that getting content out of
organizational silos is a good thing. An integrated
approach benefits the whole organization. The
hard part comes when it’s time to go from idea to
execution. Solo efforts had their place, but now
it’s time to orchestrate this content production for
maximum effect.
This session will provide you with tools and
inspiration to produce a symphony that is music
to the ears of your customers and your
management:
• What’s in your company’s repertoire?
• The challenge of arranging pieces fit for
your players and audience.
• Auditions and Rehearsals: Pulling the right
talent, instruments, and program together.
• Handling the reviews, and the rest of the
season.
• Performing with a garage-band budget.
Join Connie Giordano for a practical approach
delivering great content as well-tuned orchestra.
Successfully Delivering a Personalized
Content Experience
Jim Edmunds, Ingeniux
Suzanne Mescan, Vasont
Content is moving quickly from traditional print to
print and digital channels. The key to delivering
these projects is to ensure that content is
authored once and reused intelligently across all
channels including print, web, and mobile in a
personalized fashion. Many projects focus on the
authoring challenge in isolation and
personalization as a secondary concern. For
today’s projects to be successful, it is vital that an
integrated approach to personalized content is
considered at both the authoring and publishing
level. In this presentation, you will learn:
• Core requirements needed for personalized
projects
• Essential elements for success
• How to target content by categories (e.g.,
product, audience, sector)
• The important role that personalization plays
within effective CXM strategies
Faster than Agile: Replacing the Publishing
Process with Live Content
Jang Graat, The Content Era
This presentation aims to reset your minds when
it comes to publishing large bodies of content.
Instead of simply following the examples of agile
development from our software departments,
there may be opportunities to do away with scrum
masters, sprints and automated builds. We will
investigate the differences between software and
content and see what agile, or faster than agile,
opportunities can be derived from revisiting our
most basic preconceptions about publishing. The
presentation includes a live demo, a proof of
concept that live documents can be created and
maintained with a fraction of the work involved in
old-fashioned publication cycles. The demo even
includes in-browser targeted reviewing by subject
matter experts and versioning on the server.
• That information is not software
• That on-demand publishing is much more
effective
• That expensive content management
systems are not always required
• How structured content can be accessed by
human and non-human readers alike
• That effective technical information is alive
(and kicking)
The Emerging 5th Model for Content Creation:
Guided + Fluid DITA Authoring
Les Burnham and Patrick Baker, Stilo
DITA implementations in large organizations have
typically been confined to the domain of tech
docs. Unfortunately there are several barriers to
the more widespread adoption of DITA, including
the cost and availability of appropriate authoring
tools. SMEs who make occasional content
contributions don’t want to know about DITA or its
complexities, or invest a lot of time and effort
learning new tools.
4:00–5:00
Up until now, there has traditionally been four
classic models of content authoring: free-form,
form-driven, structure-driven and template-driven.
All have their relative merits, but still fall short of
what is required for widespread enterprise DITA
adoption.
In this session, you will learn about an emerging
5th model for content creation—guided DITA
authoring. We will demonstrate how
AuthorBridge, a new web-based editor, can
provide the best of all four classic models and
more, while providing a paradigm shift in the
affordability of structured content authoring.
Achieving Organization and User Goals
through Content (continued)
David Dylan Thomas, EPAM
In the continuation of this keynote address,
Senior Content Strategist David Dylan Thomas
will walk you through a case study where content,
UX, and design teams joined forces in a way that
increased a client’s sales by 200%. Through a
carefully crafted hands-on workshop approach,
the development team identified organization and
user needs and discovered together—with
stakeholders—how content could achieve project
and organization objectives.
Thomas will share the exercises he lead
stakeholders through, such as “What business
problem are your trying to solve?”, “WHY are you
creating content?”, “What do your users really
care about?”, and “How can we tell if we achieved
the project goals (success criteria)?”
In this hands-on interactive session, you will do
similar exercises yourselves to see just how
powerful (and simple) it is to gather insights into
organization objectives and get stakeholders
invested in the solution you’re creating.
Breakout Sessions
Improve Your Customer Experience with
Cross-touch Knowledge Delivery
Gal Oron, Suite Solutions
Megan Gilhooly, Ping Identity
According to Econsultancy's Digital Intelligence
Briefing, over 80% of companies see the delivery
of excellent customer service as the primary way
to truly differentiate over competition. In looking
to provide a truly personal and interactive
customer experience, organizations are
revolutionizing the delivery and access of product
documentation and shifting away from
cumbersome PDF books. Today's end users
access product content through more than six
different touchpoints to find information, submit
questions, share knowledge and get answers
across various channels and platforms. In this
webinar, we will explore how companies can
deliver personalized and consistent product
documentation across all customer touchpoints to
include web search, documentation portals,
support knowledge bases, contact centers, and
social customer communities while providing a
cohesive and consistent user experience.
Responsive Design: Delivering Content-Rich
Customer Experiences
Julian Murfitt and Mark Poston, Mekon
Many of the websites we browse as consumers
provide a customer experience far in excess of
those found in the B2B market place. Simply put,
when browsing the web, consumers are getting a
personalized experience--whether they want it or
not.
Social networking and online shopping sites use
various techniques to deliver content or products
that are tailored to you. Consequently our natural
expectations are changing and yet too few B2B
sites meeting this expectation.
So how does achieving this customer experience
translate to content? What needs to be
considered to deliver content in the same way as
those other sites? This presentation looks at the
business case for delivering a more personalized
customer experience and provides examples of
how authors can enhance content with metadata
in order to facilitate these experiences.
There are times when a completely standalone
solution can be delivered. But it is also common
that documentation needs to be integrated with
an existing web site, and while needing to keep
documentation up to date and in sync, there is a
need to integrate with other backend systems.
This presentation also explores the relationship
between different systems within an organization
such as CRM and how they can work together to
provide a single coherent solution that is
seamless to the customer.
Triple Tag: Managed Metadata and
Taxonomies for Content Management
Chris McNultry, Microsoft
Information architecture gets easier with the
second edition of Managed Metadata Service in
SharePoint 2013. This session will assume a base
familiarity with metadata, and will dive ahead to
the newest functions—extended properties,
pinning, and hashtags. Attendees will learn about
architecture and usage for content management,
catalogs, social networking, library and site
navigation. We’ll also be diving into upgrade,
governance, scripting, and development. Next,
we’ll use taxonomy in ECM workflow and review
the industry standard “Dublin Core” metadata and
how to use and adapt it in a SharePoint world,
along with best and worst practices. Finally—how
tagging is established for content on Delve
Boards using the Office Graph.
How DITA Can Advance Your Structured
Content Strategy
Keith Schengili-Roberts, IXIASOFT
What does DITA have to offer Content Strategists?
Plenty as it turns out, and more than just content
reuse and dynamic multi-channel publishing. DITA
provides built-in content consistency, more
efficient multi-language translation, and even the
ability to handle a myriad of product and version
outputs. The updated DITA 1.3 specification
includes additional features designed with user
interaction in mind, including targeted
troubleshooting, improving the ability to add
metadata to content—aiding with Search Engine
Optimization—and linking across different
deliverable types. From a content management
perspective there’s also new metadata for
keeping track of releases, branch filtering, and
more control over handling a diverse set of
publication outputs.
How to Reach Those Who Hold the Power and
Purse Strings (continued)
The full session leading off from the earlier
keynote. This session is back by popular demand
from LavaCon 2013:
It seems sometimes like management
engagement with your content strategy is like a
great mystical prize sealed up in the highest
tower of a maze-like castle; and there’s a huge
moat; and the whole thing is on top of a mountain.
To actually reach it is a challenge that will in itself
take a strategy, special tools (and weapons?), and
a great mountain-climbing, maze-solving team.
5:00–5:20
Noz Urbina shares some of his experience on
how we can get closer to our content strategy
objectives by not falling at the first barrier: getting
the necessary support to develop and implement
it. Based on a career
selling content strategies into a diverse range of
organizations—from a few hundred staff to tensof-thousands—some of his tips will involve
judicious use of common sense, and others will
be potentially surprising.
Learn how you can storm that castle, and claim
your prize.
The State of Structured Authoring
Praveen Burri
Adobe Systems
Businesses are demanding for increased
efficiency in content development. These
demands are evident from the stable software
budgets but increased workloads. Structured
authoring has emerged as a predominant solution
to satisfy such demands. By separating content
from form and by incorporating modular or topic-
based authoring, writers benefit by reusing
content and in reducing publishing and
localization costs.
In this session, we will learn about trends in
structured authoring and benefits that are being
realized by its users. We will also analyze how
content authoring, collaboration and publishing
workflows are changing within organizations that
have already employed structured authoring.
5:20–6:00
Pre-Parade Cocktails (Exhibit Hall)
6:00–6:30
Second Line Jazz Parade
We will line up with the band in the lobby and walk to the Welcome Reception on Bourbon Street. Total
distance: 10 blocks.
6:30–
Welcome Reception
The reception will be held at the Bourbon Heat Club and Courtyard Restaurant at 711 Bourbon Street.
7:30–
Kamikaze Karaoke
Tuesday, October 20
7:30–8:15
Continental Breakfast, Exhibit Hall Open, and Coffee
8:15–8:40
Content Strategy vs. Content Engineering: The Emerging
Role of the Content Engineer
Cruce Saunders
Founder, Simple [A]
The Content Engineer now plays a central role in
delivering intelligent content, and the role has
shown itself as critical to successful Customer
Experience Management, personalization, and
content publishing to multiple platforms and
channels.
8:40–9:00
In this session, you will learn about:
• The territory covered by Content Strategy
and Content Engineering practices
• How to distinguish between Content
Strategy and Content Engineering functions
• Why Content Engineering is an
organizational function that cannot be left
out without tremendous project cost
• How to build a Content Engineering practice
with existing staff
• Key Content Engineering deliverables and
functions
• A call for intelligent content, and more
human digital experiences
Joe Gollner
President, Gnostyx Research
In an increasingly sophisticated and integrated
world, the work of content professionals has
become very challenging as budgets shrink,
timeframes shorten, needs evolve, and products
grow in complexity. In this session, you will learn
about:
• What makes content such a special resource
in organizations today;
• How the role of content professionals is
being recognized as one that builds
connections across functions and
organizations;
• What challenges will confront you as a
content professional as you are asked to
work closely with an expanding array of
teams;
• What tactics you can use to break down
barriers, to mend fences, and to win over
reluctant stakeholders; and,
• What content leadership means and why
you will increasingly need to start
developing this skill.
9:15–10:15
In this session, special attention will be given to
showcasing some of the many foes that you will
encounter on your journeys and what to do about
them.
Breakout Sessions
(continued)
Joe Gollner, Gnostyx Research
Let’s Talk Technical Marketing: Your Guide to
Content for the Entire Customer Journey
Ari Hoffman, MindTouch
In an increasingly sophisticated and integrated
world, the work of content professionals has
become very challenging as budgets shrink,
timeframes shorten, needs evolve, and products
grow in complexity. In this session, you will learn
about:
In today's search driven world, we tend to look at
Marketing as the answer to new business
development. We overlook the power that
product and support can play in marketing and
sales.
• What makes content such a special resource
in organizations today;
• How the role of content professionals is
being recognized as one that builds
connections across functions and
organizations;
• What challenges will confront you as a
content professional as you are asked to
work closely with an expanding array of
teams;
• What tactics you can use to break down
barriers, to mend fences, and to win over
reluctant stakeholders; and,
• What content leadership means and why
you will increasingly need to start
developing this skill.
Learn how to leverage your product and support
content as a Marketing goldmine. Unlock the
Search Engine potential of your “How To's” and
FAQs to engage your customers throughout the
entire customer journey. Transform static PDFs
into a rich, dynamic self-service channel where
prospects and customers can self-educate and
watch as the sales cycle shortens and your NPS
(Net Promoter Score) increases.
Why You Shouldn’t be Scared to Work with a
Ghostwriter
Chantielle MacFarlane, Hyperwallet Systems
In this session, Chantielle will bust out the proton
pack and provide you with an inside look at how
to properly engage a ghostwriter within your
organization. Citing real-world examples from her
In the continuation of this keynote address,
special attention will be given to showcasing
some of the many foes that you will encounter on
your journeys and what to do about them.
role as the Lead Content Strategist at Hyperwallet
Systems Inc., Chantielle will educate session
participants on:
• How a ghostwriter can improve the quality of
your organization’s content
• The benefits of including ghosts in strategic
planning
• Tactics/tools for executing ghosted projects
You’ll leave the session armed with road maps for
managing executive/ghost interactions, as well as
actionable approaches for nurturing phantoms
into fully visible members of your content team.
Making the Most of the New Math Domains in
DITA 1.3
Aaron Guigar, Design Science
Although many organizations have long been
using MathML with DITA, DITA 1.3 will include new
math domains standardizing inclusion of
mathematics in DITA content. This is great news if
you have any math in your content: It means that
the amount of time needed to implement DITA will
be shorter, and it also allows you to capitalize on
your transition to XML for mathematical content.
10:30–11:30
Using MathML in DITA, you’ll be able to make
document-wide style changes to your equations,
localize your mathematical content, and re-use or
adapt the mathematics as needed.
During this session, you will learn about the
following:
• What are the benefits of MathML in DITA?
• How to use the new DITA math domains
• What tools can be used to publish DITA
MathML
How to Manage Change in Documentation
(Time Travel and Other Techniques)
Jim Tivy, Bluestream Software
Change in products and procedures is a constant
in organizations. New features are being added to
products in an every changing world. In a multiple
product release environment, product releases
may be happening in sequence or in parallel. In
this session, Jim will present a survey of the
problems and solutions in managing change in
documentation using DITA and CMS
technologies.
Breakout Sessions
Repurposing Content for Multichannel
Publishing
Liz Fraley, Single-Sourcing Solutions
When Easy Isn’t Enough: What Video Games
can Teach Us About Content Strategy and UX
John Caldwell and Ria Hagan, Intuit
When Management decides to go to an XML
publishing system, it’s not always clear to the
authoring and editing staff why the decision was
made. Ever wonder why they choose to go this
route? In this presentation, we’re going to talk
about some of the reasons companies choose to
go away from desktop publishing systems to
something more dynamic, so that you not only
understand it better but can get excited about the
change.
When there’s no meaning in our UX, especially in
our content, our customers are likely to drift away.
We can’t just make it “easy.” Game designers and
writers have faced the same problems we have as
content strategists, and they’ve found ingenious
ways to create an all-important emotional
connection with their audience—a “silver arrow.”
Join John Caldwell and Ria Hagan as they share
some of the powerful things narrative video
games can teach us about content strategy,
including the importance of the “non-player
character” and the evolution of content in the
digital age.
During this session, you will learn:
• Why we need to accept that people are
irrational
• How your customers, like the players of
video games, are telling themselves a story
about the experience
• Why there needs to be both “magic” and
“meaning” in the experience
• The power of creating a set of aspirational
principles based on emotion
The Globalization of Technical Writing: Threat
or Opportunity?
Barry Saiff, Saiff Solutions
Is outsourcing content development right for your
organization? How do you tell? The growth of
outsourcing is driven by powerful economic
forces. How outsourcing decisions are made —
and how outsourcing is managed – will largely
determine the impact, positive or negative, of
outsourcing on an organization.
In this session, we will explore the ins and outs of
technical writing outsourcing. How is outsourcing
changing the profession? How can you play an
effective role in influencing outsourcing decisions
that can impact your organization and your
career?
In this session you will learn:
• The key success factors for technical writing
outsourcing
• The pitfalls to watch out for, and how you
can you avoid them
• What does your organization stand to gain,
or lose?
• What will happen to technical writing as a
profession?
Case Study: Converting Legacy Content to
DITA—It’s Not Rocket Science!
Pam Noreault, ACI
Helen St. Denis, Stilo
In this case study session, Pamela Noreault from
ACI Worldwide (the market leader in banking and
payments software products) and Les Burnham
from Stilo International, will share a first-hand look
at how ACI approached the task of converting
85,000 pages of legacy content as an integral
part of their DITA implementation project.
Pam and Les will share insightful tips, tricks, best
practices and valuable metrics, ensuring you
come away with a better understanding of what it
takes to convert content to DITA – and the
realization that it really isn’t rocket science!
Moving Your Organization up the Knowledge
Value Chain
Gal Oron and Joe Gelb, Suite Solutions
As organizations migrate more of their content to
structure, they increasingly seek to leverage that
investment to overcome business challenges:
providing quick access to relevant knowledge,
joining disparate silos, and gaining business
insights from how customers use content.
In this presentation, we will present a Knowledge
Value Maturity Model that portrays the key tracks
leading to increased business value and helps
you build an incremental and actionable roadmap
to optimize your content use at a world-class
level. We will walk you through a “day in the life”
of a world-class organization that uses this model
to leverage their structured content infrastructure
for enhancing customer and partner interactions
and reaping tangible business benefits.
You will learn:
• How to craft a long-term content roadmap
for your organization
• How others in the industry are maximizing
the value of their content
• Several use cases for optimizing your own
content use
Many companies shy away from implementing
DITA due to the false perception that converting
legacy content to the DITA standard is expensive
and tedious.
11:30–12:30
Exhibit Hall, Lunch
12:30–12:55
Developing Your Organizational Power and Influence
Andrea Ames
Content Experience Strategist, IBM
Becoming influential and powerful within your
organization is not magic, a talent that you must
be born with, or an unreachable goal for the mere
mortal. Applying a few key concepts using some
basic tools and techniques can greatly improve
your influence quotient.
12:55–1:15
The Art of Presenting to Upper-level Management
Tom Aldous
CEO, The Content Era
You’ve traveled to conferences, sat through
product demonstrations and eaten a metric ton of
continental breakfast to get the opportunity to
see what some of the best products in the world
can do to improve your quality of life at work.
Finally, you find it. What do you do now?
Unless you are the sole decision maker for your
company, there is usually a ladder you have to
scale, a mountain you have to climb and the
1:30–2:30
In this TED-like talk, Andrea will share the most
critical approaches that she's found to boost
influence and increase power at work. Join her for
a few KPIs (key performance indicators), an
entertaining story or two, and maybe even a
surprise cape!
always demotivating corporate procurement
policy. What if you knew how to navigate this
“gauntlet”, and champion your idea all the way to
successful procurement?
Tom will be walking you through the management
decision making process and giving you tips on
how to build the right business case, talk to the
right people and eventually gain executive
sponsorship.
Breakout Sessions
How Content Strategy Can (Literally) Prove Its
Worth
Emily Shields, Facebook
their tracks. This talk will get into specifics on how
content strategy can lead directly to more money,
using real examples and metrics from Facebook.
Someone read your words. They clicked your
links. And they decided to buy your stuff. So why
did they quit at the very end? Even when
someone has already decided to spend their
hard-earned money with you, there are lots of
basic content mistakes that can stop people in
Monkey See, Monkey Do: Using Video to
Support Your Documentation
Allie Proff, Boeing
If a picture is worth a thousand words (as well as
some likes, retweets, and +1s), then how much is a
video worth?
Ever find yourself on YouTube, looking to learn
how to do something?
Join Allie as she shares her experiences creating
and using short help videos and tutorials to
improve her target audience’s learning
experience.
Some of the topics include:
•
•
•
•
•
Why video?
What tool is right for me?
Common setup options.
Editing and publishing recommendations.
Resources and real-world examples.
Winning Knowledge Spaces = 1 Wiki + “Every
Page is Page One”
Nitza Hauser, Medidata Solutions
This case study will tell the story of a company’s
move to wiki authoring and delivery, based on
“Every Page is Page One” principles. Combining
theory with practice, you will hear about the
challenge, the steps to plan and implement the
solution, and lessons learned. Most importantly –
you will be able to view real live examples of the
implementation, and understand how key
principles of Every Page is Page One were
applied.
You will:
• Hear why we chose a wiki-based solution
• Understand the importance of Every Page is
Page One principles
• See how they were incorporated into the
planning and execution of our knowledge
system
• Watch actual examples from the
implementation which address a few key
principles
• Learn about workflow and pathfinder topics,
and how they were implemented
• Get practical advice on overcoming common
implementation problems
Why Manufacturers Have Been Left Behind by
Knowledge Management and Content
Delivery
Patrick Bosek, EasyDITA
Many manufacturers face a unique set of
challenges with their product information and the
systems designed to deliver this information to
customers and prospects.
The root of the challenge is product variants. The
fact that products must be delivered in many
configurations means that product content must
be delivered in many configurations. But most
delivery systems (e.g., wikis, help portals,
webhelp from help-authoring-tools) don’t enable
this situation. On the contrary, they produce
confused results, piles of nearly-the-same output,
and terrible search experience.
So, what happens? We revert back to PDF. Not
ideal.
• How do we effectively deliver product and
product variant content on the web?
• How do we ensure users receive content for
the right version and variation of a product?
• Can any of this work with Google?
We’ll explore these questions as we look at
publishing high quality product content in a web
delivery world.
The Art of Presenting to Upper-level
Management (continued)
Tom Aldous, The Content Era
You’ve traveled to conferences, sat through
product demonstrations and eaten a metric ton of
continental breakfast to get the opportunity to
see what some of the best products in the world
can do to improve your quality of life at work.
Finally, you find it. What do you do now?
Unless you are the sole decision maker for your
company, there is usually a ladder you have to
scale, a mountain you have to climb and the
always demotivating corporate procurement
policy. What if you knew how to navigate this
“gauntlet”, and champion your idea all the way to
successful procurement?
Tom will be walking you through the management
decision making process and giving you tips on
how to build the right business case, talk to the
right people and eventually gain executive
sponsorship.
2:45–3:45
Breakout Sessions
Preparing for Augmented Reality: Moving
from 2D to 3D Documentation
Nabayan Roy, Autodesk Singapore
In 2005, we predicted that you could open up the
hood of your car, point your device at the engine
to (a) identify the part and (b) call up instructions
on how to repair/replace a part.
unemployment (over 60%), $8 trillion in
disposable income, and is most ignored by
mainstream content developers. And it's a group
that anyone can join at any time (temporarily/
permanently).
We’re not quite there yet, but we need to start
laying the groundwork to move from twodimensional (2D) to three-dimensional (3D)
documentation.
Our job is to make sure that everyone can
understand the content we create. And for the
most part, we are successful—except when it
comes to people with disabilities. (Or people
using devices and websites in ways that we didn’t
plan on, such as a traveler trying to view a
restaurant’s website when hungry.)
The Maintenance Repair Overhaul (MRO) industry,
in particular, is challenged by 2D documentation—
up to 50% of a technician’s shift can be wasted
finding and reading procedural information. As a
consequence, technicians lose focus, lose
efficiency, and increase costs.
During this session, you’ll see examples of what it
means to be a person with a disability when using
websites, mobile devices, and documents. And
you’ll learn some things that you can do now to
make your information more accessible, using
WCAG 2.0 as a reference.
The future of technical documentation will be
authoring and delivering 3D-enhanced instruction
manuals.
In this hands-on session, you will learn:
• Why companies need to change the way
they provide user assistance in the future
• The component parts of 3D-based user
assistance
• How Autodesk software helps in creating 3D
content
• About the process, including a demo
Accessibility Matters: Making Your Products
Available to Everyone
Char James-Tanny, Schneider Electric
The World Health Organization currently
estimates that globally, 1 billion people have at
least one disability. Yet this group has the highest
From Startup to the Big Leagues: Enjoying the
Journey
Joseph Meyers and Meg Miranda, Cisco Systems
We’ve each worked at startups that were
subsequently acquired by big companies. We’ve
learned a few things along the way.
In this session you will learn:
• Our experience before, during and after the
acquisition process.
• What you can do now to make potential
transitions easier for you and your team.
• The many facets of preparation and
adaptation.
Taming the Beast That is Microsoft Word
Doug Gorman, Simply XML
Bryan Lynn, 36Software
Tom Aldous, The Content Era
Content Architectures are now changing at the
enterprise level to allow reuse and flexible
publishing to PDF, HTML, ePUB, and more.
Organizations recognize the need for a standard
architecture. But, with the vast majority of authors
creating content in MS Word, standards are hard
to implement and the cost of intermediate editing
is prohibitive. Most non-technical staff will not use
a traditional XML editor and have primary roles to
fill every day. In this session, attendees will learn
about the issues when moving from out-of-control
Word to a content standard. We will briefly
highlight two approaches to getting control of
Word-based content. One approach is entirely MS
Word-based and the other uses MS Word on the
authoring side with XML in the background.
Collect Metrics...Like a Boss!
Chris Bridgen, Alcatel-Lucent
You probably know what metrics your boss wants
from the team. Do you know what your boss’s
boss wants? Or what her boss wants? How can
you be sure that the metrics you are collecting
and the KPIs you are measuring actually matter to
anyone? Learn about three key measures higher
ups value without learning them from a nervewracking skip-skip-skip level meeting, and
understand how those measure make the CDOC
group look like business geniuses.
3:45–4:15
Break, Exhibit Hall, More Coffee!
4:15–5:15
Breakout Sessions
A Little Content Fish in a Big Company Pond
Marli Mesibov, Content Strategist
When I worked at a design agency, I always had
internal support from my team, even when
working with difficult clients. Then I moved to
Fidelity, a giant enterprise where our clients were
our managers and superiors. I learned to hate and
fear the phrase “we know it’s a problem, but we
won’t/can’t/don’t want to try to fix it.”
I lost faith, and I lost interest in my work for
months. When I awoke from my stupor, it was
thanks to a conference, a book, and a plan. Now I
want to save others from getting lost in the big
pond.
In this talk, you will learn:
• How to make a “design problem” into a
“company problem”
• How to walk the fine line between useless
gossip and necessary rabble rousing
• How to recognize when process is helpful,
and when it’s harmful—and how to fix it
Ditching Words: How Interactive Media
Improves the User Experience
Matt Sullivan, Tech Comm Tools
Do your procedures take longer to write than the
procedures should take to complete? Do your
writers then spend even more time defending
their style and jargon choices?
Style guides help but often there’s no one answer,
and navigating jargon can be tough, especially
when you toss localization into the mix.
Here’s a thought: Give the user an experience
instead of describing the experience to them.
In this session we will look at how interactive
media can address those issues. You will learn to:
• Analyze for cumbersome content.
• Use QR codes in print and physical
environments to improve access.
• Use dynamic filtering to avoid “sipping from
the firehose.”
• Deploy content on media servers (Wistia,
Vimeo, YouTube) to reduce load times for
content.
Case Study: Streamlining the Translation
Process to Expand Your Global Footprint
Don Rasky, Mitchell International
Eric Shipman, MadCap Software
Don Rasky, Sr. Technical Writer at Mitchell
International, Inc., a leading provider of claims
management and collision repair processes, and
Eric Shipman, Senior Technical Support Engineer
of MadCap Software, will discuss how they
worked together to develop a streamlined
translation strategy scalable for organizations
around the world.
Recognizing the need to move away from their
antiquated online-translation tools, Mitchell
embarked on an extensive research, request for
proposal (RFP), and evaluation process to identify
the translation and localization service provider
that could best support its needs. With upwards of
5,000 pages of documentation to be translated,
quality combined with customer service was
critical to the company's evaluation process.
In this session, Don will provide an overview of
their search for a translation partner and how they
established a results-focused RFP process, a
consistent evaluation process and a thorough
cost analysis. Finally, key results will be
presented, including how Mitchell published
nearly 50 multilingual Help file deployments for
North America and Europe in 2014 alone—to
French, Canadian French, Spanish, and German.
The Communications Manager’s Toolbox
Eeshita Grover, Cisco Systems
This session focuses on building a keen focus on
vision and strategy for your team as a
Communications Manager. You will learn
techniques you can use to impact rate of adoption
for your product and creating an environment for
innovation. We will discuss parameters to build a
holistic team and the path towards defining your
team’s brand and presence. We will also learn key
aspects for managing performance including
criteria and expectations for the rock stars and
the ‘not quite’.
5:15–6:30
Exhibitor Treasure Hunt and Network Reception
(Exhibit Hall)
8:00–
French Quarter Pub Crawl Tweet-up
Wednesday, October 21
7:30–8:15
Continental Breakfast and Exhibit Hall
8:15–8:45
Content Strategy Triage: Who Lives? Who Dies? Who Do
You Fight To Save?
Sarah O’Keefe
President, Scriptorium
Triage means quickly evaluating patients to
maximize everyone's chance of survival.
Hopeless cases are ignored and noncritical
9:00–10:00
patients are deferred. The goal is to find those
patients for whom quick treatment is the
difference between life and death.
Content strategy triage involves prioritizing
content strategy efforts. Which ideas are dead on
arrival? Which ideas cannot be saved? What
problems can be deferred until later? Where will
early action make the biggest difference?
Breakout Sessions
Content Strategy Triage: Who Lives? Who
Dies? Who Do You Fight To Save?
(continued)
Sarah O’Keefe, Scriptorium
Triage means quickly evaluating patients to
maximize everyone's chance of survival.
Hopeless cases are ignored and noncritical
patients are deferred. The goal is to find those
patients for whom quick treatment is the
difference between life and death.
Content strategy triage involves prioritizing
content strategy efforts. Which ideas are dead on
arrival? Which ideas cannot be saved? What
problems can be deferred until later? Where will
early action make the biggest difference?
Get Out of Your Office! Conducting Effective
Site Visits
Rhyne Armstrong, RouteMatch Software
The day has come when we are no longer bound
a desk when it comes to learning about our
customers and clients. Whether you work for
yourself or an organization, getting out of the
office and meeting with customers offers valuable
insight to learning how solutions are deployed,
how user-assistance is used, and how your
customers work.
In this session, we will discuss:
• Building a business case for conducting
visits
• Planning for a successful visit
• Tips you can use to make sure you get the
most out of the time you spend with your
clients
• How your visit can turn into much more than
info to help you improve your content
Changing Your Authoring Tool with Zero
Downtime: A Case Study in Change
Management
Deepa Aswani and Steve Anderson, Salesforce
with it. Through a set of examples, Fabrice will
show the benefits and limits of structured content,
and how structured content impacts what modern
tools and algorithms can do.
Last year, the entire Salesforce documentation
team of 70+ writers switched to Oxygen Author in
a single day, with zero downtime.
Efficient Translation Management: Five
Metrics That Will Lead Your Team to
Continuous Process Improvement
Scott Carothers, Kinetic
In this case study, you’ll see how we made this
happen:
• Managing change for a large doc team—
scope, moving pieces
• Why zero downtime = awesome (and
necessary, in our case)
• Planning: automation, DITA, and
communications
• Training, rollout, and post-rollout support
Writing for Machines
Fabrice LaCroix, Antidot
Historically, technical content has been written for
humans. But with the rise of artificial intelligence,
machines will consume this content to solve
problems automatically or help solve problems.
This means that machines need to leverage the
content in the easiest, most unambiguous way
possible.
Structured content authoring has been created to
optimize the writing process (minimize cost and
increase reuse). But this way of writing has a lot of
impact on what algorithms and content can do
10:15–11:15
What steps is your localization team taking to
consistently improve the translation process? Is
each project tracked through each stage with
comprehensive metrics? Whether projects are
tracked manually or automatically, five specific
metrics will give you a clear picture of which areas
have the most room for improvement, and what
changes are needed to improve efficiency and
further elevate the performance of your
enterprise translation process.
In this session, you will be provided actionable
details on:
• Which specific translation metrics hold the
most value to your Enterprise
• How and when to analyze the metrics
• Quantifying data to validate the
performance of all involved, and
continuously improve the process
• Clarity, accountability, and process
improvement are the three keywords that
describe this LavaCon-exclusive
presentation
Breakout Sessions
Online Customer Service Marketing: A
Content Strategy Love Affair
Nikoletta Vecsei, EMC
Kirsten Gantenbein, ExtraHop
Discover how a passion for helping customers
can bring together two unlikely partners (from
marketing and technical writing) and help break
all the rules of silo-d content creation in the
process.
Many companies are starting to notice that their
social-savvy customers are expecting a more
personalized content experience from them. To
deliver this type of content, however, technical
(post-sales) and marketing (pre-sales)
departments must begin collaborating with each
other. In this lecture, we’ll talk about how
marketing strategies can help solve challenges
with technical content curation, content
distribution, and UX research. We’ll provide
insights into how social customer service can
serve as a new multichannel digital platform in
your content strategy. Finally, we’ll share a social
media case study with results and metrics to
inspire others.
Improving AX (Content Author Experience)
Melissa Eggleston, UX and Content Strategist
Have you high-fived a content author today?
Content authors are critical in the quest for great
content and UX. Improving AX (content author
experience) can often better UX. Great AX also
increases the happiness of everyone involved in
the content development process. If we spend so
much time working, we may as well make it as
joyful as possible.
We’ll discuss the differences and similarities of
these types of content authors:
•
•
•
•
Writers
Photographers
Videographers
Graphic designers
Learn what these key people typically dislike and
what they want instead from the people who hire
them.
Since writing her first online articles about soccer
in 1997, Melissa has been in both the “manager”
and “managed” roles in large and small
organizations. She has ideas that will help you
better your content author relationships
immediately. Let’s move toward a blissful
experience in content development – unicorns
and rainbows included.
Surviving Agile: A Case Study in Failure (and
Success)
Andy Watson and Jocelyn Emory, GENBAND
Agile software development may work well for
design teams, but the impacts to the
documentation teams are usually not considered
when changing methodologies. Our company
moved half of its products from a 9-month
Waterfall release cycle to a 1- to 4-month agile
cycle overnight and expected us to adapt our
process and planning. If your company is about to
make (or has already made) the switch, learn from
our mistakes (and a few best practices).
• The challenges our team experienced
moving from waterfall to agile development
methodologies
• Our successes and failures as we tried, on
multiple iterations, to work within agile
• Where we are now as we continue to try to
improve our processes
• How agile design and doc would work
together in a perfect world
Coming Out: I Write in Word and I Love It! And
You Can, Too!
Johanne Lavallée, Ver-Mac
Lisa Pietrangeli, 36Software
Sometimes DITA, rather than breaking silos, just
creates one more. Johanne was asked for a
content reuse solution but her needs and DITA
conditions quickly locked horns. Is it possible to
stay in Word with SmartDocs and keep
exchanging files with other colleagues? This is a
use case of a solo writer with simple needs and a
little time, discussing how easy it was to start
reusing quickly; so easy the solution is catching
on with proposal writers. She will describe the
operation of the snippets, variables and
conditional texts, the challenges of working in two
languages with variables, and what remains to be
done.
You will learn about a content reuse strategy
within Word for your customers, your team, and
even the whole company, right away, with no
conversion period. You will also take home
strategies for variables with different genders
inside, a challenge for DITA writers as well.
How to Prevent an International Incident:
Communicating with a Global Team
Meredith Kramer, NetIQ
Paula Berger, Schneider Electric
Technical communication has gone global. Today
we work on teams with subject matter experts
and writing colleagues in other time zones and
different environments. Communication is always
key to working successfully, but it’s even more
important on global teams.
Global teams really are different. Gain insight into
dealing with practical issues that come up when
you’re working with people you’ve most likely
never met. Learn behaviors and approaches that
will help you avoid having a frustrated team,
missed deadlines, and a blown budget – all due
to communication issues.
11:15–12:55
Exhibit Hall, Lunch, Zentangle® Workshop
12:55–1:15
Christopher Ward
Director of Sales, WebWorks
What is missing in your day-to-day work life that is
keeping you from your goals? I bet you have that
all figured out, but you are stuck on how to get it.
“We don’t have it in the budget, but maybe next
year.” “There is a spending freeze right now in the
department.” “The company is pulling resources
to fund another project.” We have heard them all
1:30–2:30
before, but have we stopped to really think about
those answers? Requesting resources is never as
simple as just asking for them. I want to teach you
how to position yourself so you can get the
company’s buy-in no matter what the situation.
We will go over a simple five-step process that
anyone can execute, but it is powerful enough to
tackle the most hostile environments.
Breakout Sessions
Managing and Reusing Content
Cheri Hager, Information Mapping
Successful strategies for managing and reusing
content can provide organizations with strategic
advantage and yield significant increases in
operational efficiency.
In this session we will:
• Discuss how Information Mapping US (IM
US) has specifically helped organizations in
different industries redesign the
organizational structures of their information
and present it so that it is easier to author
and use, equating to lower costs across the
organization.
• Introduce the basic features of the
Information Mapping® Method, a proven
topic-based authoring methodology.
• Demonstrate, using examples and exercises,
techniques for designing structured modular
content that is easy to manage and
repurpose.
Using Content Consumer Data to Improve
Customer Engagement and Increase
Revenue
Demarcus Wells, Avalara
We will discuss how utilizing value-based content
to positively engage consumers throughout the
customer journey has transformed the way
Avalara approaches our sales cycle. Through a
strategic use of self-service content, Avalara has
accelerated the sales cycle, as well as improved
our customer retention and upsells while
simultaneously cutting support costs.
Bar Napkins and XML: Eliminating the Hidden
Cost of Content Conversion
Dustin Vaughn, Adobe Systems
companies. How do you make the leap to
publishing dynamic content? What are the next
steps? Who can help?
Hidden costs are often associated with major
purchases like vehicles and homes, and they can
result in an “actual” price that is dramatically
higher than what is initially quoted. In the same
way, an XML workflow includes a major cost that
often goes unnoticed—the ongoing cost of
converting content provided by an SME. In this
session, we will discuss how to dramatically
reduce this cost and how it positively impacts the
SME, the technical writer, and the organization.
In this session, you will learn how the Cray
Technical Publication department went from
multiple tools, styles, and output to a new
infrastructure using DITA and a Component
Content Management System (CCMS) and now
producing dynamic content to the web. Although
this is a case study you will learn to manage and
define:
Stalling at DITA—How Do You Get to the Next
Step?
Peggy Sanchez, Cray, Inc.
Implementation of DITA is one thing for a
technical publication department but what about
after the implementation – where’s all the great
advantages of DITA? If you are still producing
PDFs after your implementation, you are not
alone. This is the stalling point for many
2:45–3:45
•
•
•
•
Expectations
Tools
Challenges
Results
(continued)
Christopher Ward, Director of Sales, WebWorks
In this session, we will explore the five-step
process deeper and go over exercises to help us
put it in to practice. When we are finished,
everyone in the room should be able to have a
value-based conversation to help improve their
results when asking for needed resources.
Breakout Sessions
Need Information Architects? You Can Grow
Your Own!
Beth Thomerson, Innovatia
As content becomes more multi-dimensional, it’s
no longer enough – for content consumers or
creators – to organize it in a hierarchical manner
and consider it “good to go.” With the proliferation
of multiple, interconnected devices, technology is
becoming more pervasive.
Because traditional information environments/
content strategies can’t scale or properly reflect
pervasive information environments, information
architects play a critical role in helping devise the
right content designs that will scale. Finding the
right person to help your organization can take
months to find, and many more months to
understand your business, customers, challenges,
and strategic vision. What if you could spend less
time and budget to find/ramp-up an external
resource, and develop your in-house talent
instead? In this presentation, we’ll share our
approach to “growing your own” information
architects.
Bite Sized Training: Onboarding for
Generation Y and Z
Oded Ilan, Iridize
Generation Y are your junior employees, your
entrepreneurs, your clients. They are the
scaffolding of a business and the backbone of
your customer base, and Generation Z is right
behind them. While these two generations are far
from similar, in one sense they show a clear
pattern:
• Shortening of their attention span
(Generation Z has an attention span of eight
seconds)
• Multi-source content consumption
• Content exchange via short—even image
based—communication
Yet we, as product owners, are tasked with
training these employees and customers in how
to use products that have become essential to the
workplace and to day-to-day lives.
In this talk, Oded will discuss the differences
between training and teaching, talk about bitesized content in communication and describe
how walkthroughs are a way to combine training
and the MO of Generations Y and Z.
Wireframing, Mockups, and Prototyping Made
Easy
John Collins, Atlassian
Your career may revolve around words, but
knowing a little about sketching can help you
understand complicated concepts, communicate
more efficiently, drive improvements to the
products you work on—or move your career in a
new direction!
Learn how technical writers, content strategists,
and others can improve user experiences with
sketching, making mockups, and even creating
interactive prototypes—without touching
Photoshop or software code.
• The difference between sketches, mockups,
and prototypes
• Basic tools available to help create mockups
and prototypes
• How to quickly make basic sketches
Translation Quality and the Global Review
Cycle: People and Technology
Shannon Rose Farrell, Argos Multilingual
Shamus Dermody, XTM International
How in the world can you ensure true translation
quality when there is such pressure to deliver
amidst the looming deadlines, the tightened
budgets, and the ever-pressing quality demands
of our industries? While we are constantly
spinning plates trying to keep content flowing
through various human hands that are battling
existing technology systems, is it even possible to
still deliver to the demand? In this session, we will
dive into how focusing on the global review cycle
can achieve the translation quality that your
industry demands. We will be showcasing lessons
learned, industry best practices, and how to
integrate new and innovative global technology
solutions. We all know that translation quality is of
the utmost importance in order to launch
products and services globally. That is why we are
here, to help you see the light at the end of the
global translation quality tunnel.
In this session, you will learn about:
• Integrating global review into your
translation management system (TMS)
• Best practices for linguistic quality
assurance (LGA)
• Lessons learned from the global in-country
review process
• How to obtain translation quality metrics
Social Me: Taking Control of Your Online
Image
Brenda Huettner, P-N Designs, Inc.
Everyone has an online presence, even those
who don’t use social media. Our online personas
are becoming more important to our overall
careers. We’ve all heard horror stories about
embarrassing old online photos showing up years
later at a bad time, but there are also stories
about incredible good that’s come from online
communities.
In this session:
• We’ll review some of the more popular
social tools and the way they can be used
effectively.
• We’ll share stories that highlight both great
successes and miserable failures in online
branding.
• You’ll learn about how to tap into the social
networks that may already be talking about
you.
• You’ll take home some concrete action items
that help you build the reputation you want.
4:00–4:30
Closing Session
Connections that Count: Building Relationships for
Business Success
Alyssa Fox
Director of Information Development and
Program Management, NetIQ
“The most important single ingredient in the
formula of success is knowing how to get along
with people.” (Theodore Roosevelt)
It’s not who you know, it’s what you do once you
know them. Nix superficial networking and focus
on engaging with others in mutually beneficial
relationships to move your career forward.
Whether you’re trying to move up in an
organization or enhance your career by adopting
additional responsibilities in different areas, real
success is impossible without the collaboration
and motivation these relationships give us.
Come learn the top five qualities you need to
build relationships that contribute to successful
career growth, and how to cultivate those
qualities.
4:30–5:30
Closing Social Event: Prime Time Trivia!
8:00–
Tweet-Up
Speakers
Robert D. Anderson
Robert has spent over 15 years working on SGML/XML publishing tools at IBM; 13
of those years have been spent primarily with DITA or the DITA Open Toolkit.
Robert is co-editor of the DITA 1.1, 1.2, and 1.3 specifications, making him one of
those rare developers who has to use the tools that he supports. If you're not
careful, he will tell you (and show you!) how he uses DITA to publish his music
collection and book library.
Steve Anderson
After many years of writing technical documentation, Steve moved into software
development, focused on information delivery. He currently leads a small team
that creates all the tools and processes for developing and delivering
documentation for Salesforce.
Rhyne Armstrong
Rhyne Armstrong is a frequent client visitor, spending about a week a month
researching client issues, solving nagging problems, and working to improve
product management, support, and communications processes. He has been in
the Tech Comm, marketing, and product management field for the last 23 years
and plans to eventually figure out exactly what he wants to do when he grows
up. Rhyne is the Director of Communications and Product Evangelism for
RouteMatch Software, lives in Atlanta, and works hard to juggle his day job with
his other roles: father of four, stage manager, and soccer/ballet dad.
Deepa Aswani
Deepa has spent nearly 13 years creating technical content in various formats,
including commercial publications and e-learning. She led the Oxygen rollout
and training for the Salesforce doc team. Currently, she writes documentation for
Salesforce Communities.
Gavin Austin
Gavin Austin is a Lead Technical Writer at Salesforce, where he writes everything
from UI text to API developer guides. Since 2008, he has delivered a number of
highly-rated presentations at Writers UA, STC Summits, Agile2013, Intelligent
Content Conference, Blue Shield of California, and San Francisco State
University.
Patrick Baker
Patrick heads up all new product development at Stilo and is actively engaged in
the successful deployment of content processing solutions. Major ongoing
product developments include OmniMark, the leading high-performance content
processing platform, Migrate, the world's first cloud XML content conversion
service and AuthorBridge, for web-based content creation. He has been
associated with best practices for complex content processing for over a decade
and has successfully delivered custom solutions to organizations in automotive,
aerospace and defense and commercial publishing.
Patrick holds a B.Sc. In Mathematics and a M.Sc. In Computer Science from
McGill University.
Paula Berger
Paula has built and managed teams, groups, projects, and organizations all over
the world. After 20 years as a Founding Principal at SOLUTIONS, she became
the Executive Director of a global industry consortium, where she built a
worldwide community of technology standards professionals. She is currently in
technical publications at Schneider Electric, working on a global product team
and leading a team of writers in India. Paula is a Fellow and past International
President of STC.
Patrick Bosek
Patrick is a co-founder of Jorsek LLC, a company primarily focused on its flagship
product easyDITA. Since beginning with Jorsek LLC in 2005 Patrick, has worked
on a wide range of projects all focused on improving authoring, production, and
distribution of content. Most recently, his primary focus has been perfecting
easyDITA and generally advancing the product documentation industry.
Patrick is a software industry professional specializing in developing,
productizing, and solving problems with product content software. He is a highly
skilled developer, thoughtful manager, passionate customer advocate.
Chris Bridgen
Chris Bridgen has been managing things for years. Managing to irritate his
teenage son with corny puns, mostly. When not inducing groans at home, he is
the strategist for the 200+, worldwide CDOC organization at telecommunications
vendor and IP giant Alcatel-Lucent.
Les Burnham
Les Burnham has overseen the development and marketing of SGML/XML
content processing technologies and solutions across industry sectors including
publishing, aerospace and defense, high-tech, engineering and government. He
initiated the development of Stilo’s AuthorBridge for web-based content creation
and the Migrate cloud conversion service, to help address the requirements of
organizations including IBM, Cisco, Oracle and EMC.
Les holds a BSc. Jnt. Hons in Mathematics/ Operational Research from Leeds
University. Studied Computer Science and Statistics as an undergraduate,
undertook an MBA program at Cranfield School of Management, and recently
completed studies in Philosophy at Oxford University.
John Caldwell
John Caldwell is a Content Design Strategist at Intuit. He is the UX content lead
for all of Intuit's web and mobile TurboTax applications. Leveraging provocation
from creative leaders outside of Intuit, including those from the video game
industry, John has implemented an aspirational new content strategy that has
increased the level of emotional engagement between TurboTax and its
customers.
John is a writing and innovation coach with over 20 years' experience as a
professional writer and editor. In addition to user experience and marketing, he
has worked in magazine and broadcast journalism, and continues to write on a
wide array of topics, from tech to travel.
Scott Carothers
Scott Carothers, Senior Globalization Executive at Kinetic, is a 30-year veteran of
corporate marketing, with a specific focus on technical solutions, innovations
and software. His start was on a genesis team introducing one of the first DOS
PC-based graphics software; successfully placing the product into 300 Fortune
500 companies. He has since evolved into cutting-edge translation technology
and digital asset management solutions. Scott is based in Louisville, KY, USA.
John Collins
John Collins works for Atlassian as a member of the design team. He's a senior
technical writer on the HipChat team in Austin, TX. Prior to Atlassian, John was at
Rosetta Stone, where he learned the importance of combining content and user
experience, first as a technical writer and then as senior UX content strategist.
John loves being at the intersection of content, localization, and user
experience. He's spoken at a number of conferences, and he's always happy
talking shop. You can find him on Twitter @jrc_collins and occasionally blogging
at www.intersectUX.com/blog.
Shamus Dermody
Shamus is the Client Solutions Director at XTM International and has 15 years’
experience in the translation/localization industry, primarily in translation
technology. He has a Graduate Diploma in Translation and Localization from the
University of Limerick. Shamus specializes in business advisory in the area of
translation management systems.
Kristen Eberlein
Kris is Chair of the OASIS DITA Technical Committee and owner of Eberlein
Consulting LLC, a company that helps people develop or refine their DITA
implementations. She also is co-editor of the DITA 1.2 and 1.3 specifications.
Trained as a historian, she's worn almost all the content worker hats you can
imagine: Information developer, team lead, information architect, toolsmith…
When not herding cats, she cooks, quilts, and enjoys her Mini Cooper S.
Jim Edmunds
Jim Edmunds is the founder and CEO of Ingeniux, a leading web experience
management software company that delivers connected content, community,
and collaboration solutions. Jim has over 20 years' experience designing
software products and digital content, and prior to starting Ingeniux held
leadership positions at Electronic Arts, MSNBC and Asymetrix. As a speaker, Jim
focuses on the intersection between content management and user experience,
with an emphasis on structuring content as a way to make content more relevant
and accessible.
Melissa Eggleston
As a content strategist and UX specialist, Melissa Eggleston helps people and
organizations create user-friendly digital experiences with memorable content.
In 1997, she wrote her first online stories about soccer and broke all the rules we
now know about writing for the web.
She has developed content for all types of organizations - from businesses in
San Francisco to non-profits in New York City. She also provides UX research
and strategy for the UX-Shop in Durham, NC. Melissa previously worked for Duke
University and Bloomberg News.
Jocelyn Emory
Jocelyn Emory is Senior Manager of Multimedia Technical Documentation in the
telecommunications industry at GENBAND. With over 25 years in technical
documentation, Jocelyn oversees content development for 13 programs; 7 are
developed using Agile methodologies. She is a graduate of the Art Institute of
Dallas with a degree in Visual Communications.
Shannon Rose Farrell
Shannon Rose Farrell got her start at a small software company, where she
developed an appetite for international business and processes. From there, she
entered into the localization realm where she found a true passion for helping
multinational companies realize their global potential through innovative quality
processes and cutting-edge technology solutions. Shannon is now the managing
director of North America for Argos Multilingual, helping to further their US
presence by building dynamic teams to support their exponential growth
throughout the industry.
Liz Fraley
Liz Fraley, founder of Single-Sourcing Solutions, has worked in both high-tech
and government sectors, developing and delivering technical design and
strategy of authoring and publishing solutions as a Single-Source/XML Architect/
Programmer. Specializing in practical development and deployment, she
advocates designing architectures that directly improve organizational efficiency,
productivity, and interoperability. She's the founder of TC Camp, the
unconference for content creators, consumers, and the people who support
them. If you ask her, she'll say she's a gardener who's happiest when those
around her are flourishing.
Kirsten Gantenbein
Kirsten is a microbiologist turned technical writer, content strategist, and UX
advocate. She loves solving complex problems, and has a passion for translating
technical information into consumable content. Follow her @kirstengant.
Joe Gelb
Joe Gelb, the President and Head of Business Development at Suite Solutions,
has over 20 years of experience helping enterprises implement, maintain and
capitalize on structured content. At Suite Solutions, he has spearheaded the
development of advanced technology solutions for product content delivery. Joe
believes that a key to success in any business is empowering customers with the
knowledge they need to succeed in their goals.
Megan Gilhooly
As Director of Information Experience, Megan Gilhooly oversees the technical
documentation and training teams at Ping Identity, a Denver-based company that
develops identity and authentication platforms for enterprises. Prior to Ping,
Megan was Director of Technical Communications at INVIDI Technologies.
Throughout her career, Megan has served as employee and consultant to
various software companies, building technical communications products and
processes. As a former online retail business owner and Certified Scrum Master,
Megan brings a unique perspective to managing information development and
communication teams. She has a BA in Speech Communication, an MS in
Journalism, an MS in Strategic Management, and a Masters Certificate in
Technical Communication.
Connie Giordano
Connie Giordano performs a dual role as Executive Editor of TechWhirl and
content strategy consultant/content services partner through INKtopia Limited,
the parent company of TechWhirl.
With more than 25 years performing a balancing act between technical and
marketing communications, Connie offers a unique blend of cross-functional
experience in knowledge management, process design, and business analysis
to clients and readers alike. Her work crosses industries as well, including
software development, financial services, telecom, retail, healthcare, and
government. Connie received her Master of Arts in Organizational
Communication from Queens University, and only recently discovered that she
enjoys editing content nearly as much as creating it.
Lila Giuili
Lila Giuili is a Staff Technical Writer at Salesforce. For almost a decade, Lila has
been developing user assistance and training programs that empower
customers to achieve their goals. Lila has presented at the Intelligent Content
Conference and CIDM Content Management Strategies/DITA North America.
Doug Gorman
Doug has spent the last few decades working at the intersection between
structured writing and structured mark-up. As the former CEO of Information
Mapping and the current CEO of Simply XML, he has helped large and small
global organizations to adopt content standards and get control of their
published content to improve the reader experience and to save money.
Jang F.M. Graat
Jang F.M. Graat, Chief Technologist at The Content Era, studied physics,
psychology, and philosophy before embarking on a fast-track career in the hightech computer business. He has almost 30 years' experience in all aspects of
technical information as an author, trainer, consultant, and information architect.
Known for his excellent presentation skills and revolutionary ideas, Jang’s
nickname is “the Geek Philosopher.” He lives in Amsterdam with his princess,
two cats, and a bunch of musical instruments.
Anne Grosvenor
Anne Grosvenor is a content strategy professional with experience in content
strategy and management, information architecture and taxonomy, and DITA
(Darwin Information Typing Architecture). As Director of Technical
Communications at INVIDI, Anne has overseen content strategy, architecture,
and delivery methods to ensure best-in-class user experience. Prior to INVIDI,
Anne worked as a consultant helping clients design, develop, and implement
DITA solutions. Anne has a Bachelor of Science from Virginia Polytechnic
Institute. She is also a Certified Scrum Master.
Eeshita Grover
Eeshita Grover is an experienced professional of 18+ years with a career equally
divided across writing, teaching, and leading content creation and delivery
teams. Eeshita has been with Cisco for the past 10 years building and driving
innovative content strategies with an emphasis on delivery for the web, mobile
web, and video. Eeshita has led content design using DITA for the various
content types and their presentation for ease of consumption. Leading a change
in mindset of writing teams has been one of the key contributors to her success.
Aaron Guigar
Aaron Guigar is the Business Development Manager at Design Science. Aaron's
primary focus is to build awareness of MathML and Design Science's MathFlow
software. He gets fired up about math, and is excited to work with content
strategists to learn their processes and challenges. Aaron graduated from
Lawrence University of Appleton Wisconsin with a BA, majoring in Computer
Science and Mathematics. You can read more about Aaron on LinkedIn
(www.linkedin.com/in/aaronguigar/).
Ria Hagan
Ria Hagan is a UX Content Designer with Intuit, specializing in content creation
for high impact design. Over the past 12 years, Ria has worked to bring the
importance of relationship building through the written word to the forefront of
the design process, demonstrating how well crafted content can be a powerful
revenue generating tool.
Ria has a passion for video games that began in the early days of console
gaming with Spy Hunter on her Commodore 64.
Cheri Hager
Cheri Hager has over 18 years’ experience in helping organizations achieve
better control over their business-critical information. In mid-2001, she joined
Information Mapping, Inc., a company founded by structured authoring pioneer
Robert E. Horn, to bring his research-based Information Mapping® Method for
structured authoring to the marketplace. The Method is now a content standard
within large enterprises and government entities around the world, and more
than 600,000 people have been trained to use Information Mapping techniques.
Over the years, Cheri has worked with Information Mapping's clients to analyze
and streamline processes, manage projects, coach and develop associates, and
design and develop documentation, curriculum, training presentations, and web
content. She has worked with organizations within the government, health care,
insurance, technology, oil and gas, pharmaceutical, retail, and other serviceoriented industries.
Nitza Hauser
Nitza Hauser is Senior Director of Technical Communication Services at
Medidata Solutions. She has been a Technical Communicator for over a decade,
and a freelance translator and system programmer prior to that, and brings her
extensive experience in the software industry together with a global perspective
to technical communication.
Nitza is the immediate past president of the STC NY Metro chapter. She currently
serves on the NJIT Board of Visitors, as an adviser for the Master of Science in
Professional and Technical Communications (MSPTC) program.
Ari Hoffman
As the Customer Success Onboarding Manager for MindTouch, Ari Hoffman
prioritizes customer success at the heart of all of his business endeavors. He
focuses on value-based support to turn customers into product experts.
MindTouch hired Ari for his collaborative approach to business and his influence
in the startup community.
Ari is a member of the board of advisors for the Vet Tech Venture Group and a
lead organizer for 1 Million Cups, San Diego. He is also an owner/creator of
several companies in the U.S., including BLOCK Risers, MatGames,
DarnGoodWorld, and GOBIE h2o.
Brenda Huettner
Brenda Huettner is an independent technical communication consultant who has
worked for the past 25 years as a writer, editor, trainer, and manager, for both
software and hardware companies. She’s a principal of Microwaves101.com, an
online encyclopedia of microwave engineering knowledge. Brenda is a Fellow of
the Society for Technical Communication, and a Senior Member of IEEE, active in
the Professional Communication Society, the Engineering Management council,
and the Tucson section. She’s also a member of the Usability Professionals
Association. In addition to supporting the documentation needs of her clients,
Brenda has published several books and articles, and presented half-day, fullday, and multi-day courses on writing, project management, usability, and career
management. She also participates in NASA’s volunteer Solar System
Ambassador and OSIRIS-ReX Ambassador programs.
Karin Ikavalko
People and their stories inspire me. Karin is passionate about creating
empowering and empathetic experiences—for real people, real lives—and the
strategic thinking that helps us get there. For the past 14 years, she has been
writing, editing, crafting style guides, evangelizing terminology, collaborating
with design teams, and solving problems. Most recently at PayPal, Karin has
been leading the consumer content design team, where she champions PayPal’s
voice, advocates for customer empathy, and writes some of the engaging
content you'll see when you log in to your PayPal account.
Oded Ilan
Even before graduating from the university in 1999, Oded spent four years as a
high school teacher. Following graduation, he worked in various high-tech
industries as a business developer. Oded still believe that his hardest sell to date
was convincing children to purchase education. Getting the message across,
creating appealing, yet meaningful, content, and delivering the correct story to
the customers has always been a passion of Oded’s. As Iridize’s Chief Marketing
Officer, Oded sees, first-hand, how technology helps the training and
documentation landscape with a new approach.
Char James-Tanny
Currently working in Technical Publications at Schneider Electric, Char has over
35 years of experience as a technical communicator. She has spoken around the
world on topics including accessibility, Help authoring concepts and tools, social
media, web standards, collaboration, and technology. She is a member of the
Boston Accessibility Group and the Primary Coordinator of the Boston
Accessibility Event.
Jason Kaufman
For over 17 years, Jason has helped global enterprises implement knowledge
programs, systems, and best practices to reduce support costs, improve overall
customer experience, and drive online support success. He's KCS certified and a
judge for the ASP's “The Year's Ten Best Web Support Sites.
Nolwenn Kerzreho
Nolwenn Kerzreho has been immersed in the business of communication for
over 10 years and has, as both a trainer and an information architect, led a
number of DITA adoption efforts. Leveraging this practical experience, she acts
as the Technical Account Manager (Europe) for Ixiasoft, where she helps
customers to realize the benefits of structured content, cross-silo collaboration,
and DITA content management. For several years, she has also been a lead
instructor in technical communication for the Université Rennes 2 in Brittany
(France), where she introduced DITA in 2009. As an international speaker and
active researcher, she continues to explore the latest trends and techniques in
structured authoring and how these changes will impact the next generation of
technical writers.
Tara Knapp
Tara Knapp is a supervisor of User Experience at ACI Worldwide and has 20
years' experience in training, communications, and technical writing. Her
interests include technical communication, user experience, process
improvement, agile development practices, and swing dancing. Tara is a member
of Scrum Alliance and ATD. She has a MA in English from Creighton University
and a MPA in Public Policy Administration from the University of Nebraska.
Meredith Kramer
Meredith Kramer, an Information Development Manager at NetIQ, has worked in
the technical communication industry for 16 years and has held several positions
on global teams for more than 10 years.
She has spearheaded efforts to promote Information Development teams while
transitioning to an agile development methodology and has helped bridge the
communication gap on global teams.
Fabrice LaCroix
Fabrice’ career is intimately linked to the development of the Internet and of the
Web. He began as a system developer in the telecom industry, and in 1994 he
takes part in the creation of the first French ISP as CTO, developing many
breakthrough technologies. Convinced that the future is in the data more than in
the infrastructure, keen on innovation and entrepreneurship, Fabrice creates
Antidot in 1999.
Fabrice is also a board member of different companies, investors and
organizations where he shares his views on innovation and the evolution of the
software industry. Fabrice graduated from ENSIMAG and holds a Master in
Computing from the Imperial College London.
Johanne Lavallée
Johanne Lavallée is a senior technical writer for Signalisation Ver-Mac, in
Quebec, Canada. She started writing in 1997 officially; really started at 10 with the
Commodore 64, noting functions on a paper pad for the whole family. In 18 years,
she has used all the possible technical writing tools, in English and French,
mostly as a lone writer. One of the beta testers for MadCap Flare, she has
worked in developer teams most of her life. Her specialization in Word prompted
a blog in French on AGILE writing in Word at http://wordagile.blogspot.ca now
available in English.
Bryan Lynn
Before founding 36Software and developing SmartDocs, Bryan spent nearly 10
years working in corporate environments designing, developing, and
implementing content management solutions. Bryan has extensive experience
helping writing teams work more efficiently, providing authoring environments
that are user-focused, developing tools that guarantee companies will put out
more consistent and higher quality content, and minimizing the costs associated
with creating and managing documentation.
Chantielle MacFarlane
Chantielle is the Lead Content Strategist at Hyperwallet Systems Inc., a
payments technology company headquartered in San Francisco. The former
Head Honcho of Inklyo, an online content development platform designed to
connect marketing consultants, agencies, and brands with professional writers,
Chantielle has spent the better part of a decade ghosting on behalf of individuals
and corporate entities. A huge fan of coffee, dinosaurs, and sarcasm, you can
creep Chantielle on Twitter at @chantiellemac.
Al Martine
Al Martine is co-owner and Director of Business Development and Operations for
TechWhirl. TechWhirl is an online company helping the world explore the world of
content management and technical communications. Al has over 15 years'
experience in Management Consulting and industry experience ranging from
non-profit management to managing global teams for Fortune 500
transformation projects.
He has an MBA from London Business School and is passionate about helping
company leaders, their teams and the world in general leverage people,
processes and technologies to create outstanding customer experiences. At
TechWhirl, Al leverages his strategy; change management and operations
background to help the company create outstanding content for its readers and
remarkable promotional opportunities for its business partners.
When Al isn't planning, writing or developing for TechWhirl, he can be found
cheering on the WVU Mountaineers, enjoying a fine (or not so fine) wine or going
for a nice run.
Chris McNulty
Chris McNulty is a Sr. Product Manager for SharePoint and Office 365 at
Microsoft. Chris’ experience as CTO includes companies as diverse as Dell
Software/Quest, and Cryptzone/HiSoftware, helping to shape solutions for
collaboration, migration, administration, security, compliance, governance and
accessibility. Previously, he was recognized in 2013-2015 as a Microsoft
SharePoint MVP, MCTS, MCSE, MSA and an MVTSP; and led the SharePoint
consulting practice at KMA, a Boston based Microsoft Gold Partner. A frequent
speaker at events around the globe, Chris is the author of the SharePoint 2013
Consultant's Handbook, among other books. He also blogs at http://
www.chrismcnulty.net/blog Recently, he was recognized by Harmon.ie at the
Ignite Conference as one of the Top 25 Office 365 Influencers in the community
today. Chris holds an MBA from Boston College in Investment Management and
has over twenty years' experience in financial services technology with John
Hancock, State Street, GMO and Santander.
Suzanne Mescan
Suzanne Mescan is Vasont Systems' Director of Marketing, with responsibility for
the Company's marketing and public relations efforts. For more than 25 years,
she worked in all aspects of the information management and publishing
industry, from content management to editorial and production. Suzanne has
authored numerous articles about content management for industry publications
and has delivered presentations for the CM Strategies/DITA North America,
Intelligent Content, AIIM, and LavaCon conferences, as well as in industry-related
group meetings and webinars. She was also a contributing author for the book,
Virtual Collaborative Writing in the Workplace: Computer-Mediated
Communication Technologies and Processes by Beth L. Hewett and Charlotte
Robidoux (Eds.).
Marli Mesibov
Marli Mesibov is the Director of Content Strategy at the design and UX agency
Mad*Pow. Her work spans strategy and experiences across websites, web
applications, and mobile for enterprise companies and startups. She is the
managing editor at UX Booth, and a frequent conference speaker. Marli can also
be found on Twitter, where she shares thoughts on UX Design, content strategy,
and Muppets. You can learn more about her and her work at http://marli.us.
Joe Meyers
Meg Miranda and Joe Meyers have a combined 50+ years of technical writing
experience in and around Silicon Valley. We like our work and our jobs, and we
enjoy helping others. We've worked at many companies large and small,
including Apple, Reuters, Visa, Oracle, Informix, HP, Ampex, IBM. We are now
both in the Data Virtualization Business Unit at Cisco.
Meg Miranda
Meg Miranda and Joe Meyers have a combined 50+ years of technical writing
experience in and around Silicon Valley. We like our work and our jobs, and we
enjoy helping others. We've worked at many companies large and small,
including Apple, Reuters, Visa, Oracle, Informix, HP, Ampex, IBM. We are now
both in the Data Virtualization Business Unit at Cisco.
Julian Murfitt
Julian is CEO and co-founder of Mekon Ltd., a systems integration and content
strategy consultancy. Originally trained as a mechanical engineer, he worked as
a solutions architect during the 1980s. In 1990, Julian formed Mekon to capitalize
on the growing demand for technical document solutions. He led the
development of the first structured (XML) standard for aeronautical information
publications (AIPs) used in civil aviation authorities, along with several large civil
aviation documentation projects. Julian is active in the S1000D and DITA
communities and is a former council member of the Institute for Scientific and
Technical Communicators (ISTC). He was the keynote presenter at DITA Europe
2007 and the 2010 ISTC conference.
Pam Noreault
Pam is a Sr. Manager of Information Development at ACI Worldwide. Pam has
20+ years' experience in communications, content management, and technical
writing. She specializes in content reuse, topic-based content, DITA conversions,
using social media in business, and trends in user assistance. When she's not
researching and implementing new ways to involve customers in user
assistance, she can be found presenting at conferences or hiking with her dogs.
Pam has a BS in English/Spanish Ed from The Ohio State University and a MA in
English/Professional Writing from Wright State University.
Gal Oron
Gal has proven success in leading and scaling global enterprise software
companies. Prior to serving as CEO at Suite Solutions, Gal was a partner in
Trigger Partners, an investment company specializing in technology companies
in Israel and in Brazil. Before his work at Trigger, Gal led M&A transactions at
VERINT (NASDAQ: VRNT), a leader in customer engagement optimization.
Previously Gal served for nine years in various executive management positions
at Orsus, a pioneer and market leader in the field of Situation Management. Gal
served as President of Orsus for four of those years, leading its acquisition by
NICE Systems (NASDAQ: NICE).
Lisa Pietrangeli
Lisa Pietrangeli is a managing partner and executive director at 36Software. At
36, Lisa specializes in working with clients to develop customized content
development strategies. Lisa brings over 14 years of experience to 36Software,
having worked extensively with companies around the world, helping them to
streamline their content development and localization processes.
Before joining 36Software, Lisa was director of global client solutions at
Language Intelligence, where she worked with clients to develop
internationalization strategies for all stages of the content development process,
from authoring through to translation. Her extensive experience has included
everything from project management, resource selection and management, to
business development, localization consulting and managing client relationships.
Her experience, combined with her analytical skills, make Lisa an ideal partner
with whom to evaluate content development and localization processes,
develop proof of concept, and tailor solutions for organizations of all types and
sizes.
Mark Poston
Mark is a senior technical consultant for Mekon with over 19 years experience in
content and publishing. He has a broad knowledge and understanding of the
publishing requirements of clients. As publishing technologies have changed,
the innovative solutions he has worked on have reflected these changes. He is
now heavily involved in the presales, analysis, design, and implementation of
XML publishing solutions, many of which are based around DITA. Mark is
technical lead for Mekon's DITA-based dynamic delivery framework DITAweb,
and an InDesign XML plugin for the DITA Open Toolkit. He has also recently
worked on several solutions delivering content to mobile devices.
Allie Proff
Allie has been communicating technical knowledge for over fifteen years,
whether it be in the U.S. Navy, as a high school math teacher, or a writer/editor at
The Boeing Company.
At Boeing, she helps engineers and analysts write and produce their process
instructions and user help in a variety of formats, including video demonstration
as well as SharePoint sites and conventional Word documents. However, she's
also passionate about organizing and sharing information in general no matter
what form it takes.
Don Rasky
Don Rasky is a Senior Technical Writer at Mitchell International, Inc. in San Diego,
California. His most recent adventures have seen him take the lead in a content
conversion from RoboHelp X5, InDesign, and FrameMaker to MadCap Flare. He
also coordinated the implementation of MadCap Lingo and multi-lingual help at
Mitchell.
Marta Rauch
Marta Rauch is a Senior Principal Information Developer at Oracle, where she
develops content for mobile and cloud products, including API docs. She enjoys
sharing content strategy best practices with worldwide audiences, and
contributed to The Language of Content Strategy, by Rahel Bailie and Scott Abel.
Marta has received 15 STC awards at the regional and international level, and is
an STC Associate Fellow and Vice President of the Silicon Valley Chapter. With
over 111,000 social media connections, she is ranked by CircleCount in the top
170 U.S. women and top 450 worldwide on Google+.
Nabayan Roy
Nabayan Roy is a Senior Learning Content Developer and a lead API Writer at
Autodesk, Singapore. He has been involved in technical communication for
nearly 14 years in various roles, such as Information Architect, Content Strategist,
and Programmer Writer. His interests include agile and lean content, user and
developer experience (UX/DX), 3D printing and AR, social content, and project
management. He is also a Certified ScrumMaster (CSM).
Nabayan has previously presented at Autodesk Technical Summit, Shanghai and
Content Strategy Applied (CSA), London.
Charles Rygula
Charles has over 20 years of experience in the areas of technical content
development and management (people, project, and product). During this time,
he's worked for both small and large companies predominantly in the
Telecommunications industry. While his “do what it takes” attitude has afforded
him a number of opportunities, he is currently a Sr. Documentation Manager at
Cisco Systems, Inc.
Barry Saiff
After leading technical writing teams for some of the largest US companies,
Barry Saiff moved to the Philippines to start Saiff Solutions, a technical writing
outsourcing firm based in Tagaytay City, Philippines. Barry has experienced
technical writing outsourcing from both sides—as a technical communications
leader in the USA, and as a manager of offshore technical writers and customer
liaison in the Philippines.
Barry has written articles about technical writing outsourcing and led webinars
on the topic. He has consulted for a variety of companies to help them improve
their content and content development processes. For more information, see
http://www.saiffsolutions.com.
Helen St. Denis
Helen originally joined Stilo as a technical editor in the documentation team and
now works closely with our Migrate customers, helping to analyze their legacy
content, configure dedicated conversion portals, and provide training and
support on an ongoing basis. Over a period of several years, she has helped to
convert many thousands of pages from FrameMaker, Word, RoboHelp, and
InDesign files to DITA and other XML formats.
Helen holds a BA in English from St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish,
Nova Scotia, and has pursued graduate studies at Queen's University in
Kingston, Ontario.
Peggy Sanchez
Peggy Sanchez is the senior manager of the Technical Publications department
of Cray Inc. She has been a tech writer for over ten years and a manager for five.
She has been involved in three different companies moving to DITA (each at
varying stages) and successfully led her team to adopt DITA. With the adoption of
DITA and the CCMS, the team has been able to increase their production by
40%. She is the project manager of the implementation of the CCMS and
documentation portal and for the overhaul of the customer portal for Cray.
Peggy has a bachelor's in Scientific and Technical Communication and a Masters
in Management of Technology. She lives in St. Paul Minnesota and has three
backyard chickens, Lily, Chloe, and Pearl.
Keith Schengili-Roberts
Keith is a DITA Information Architect at IXIASOFT, DITA evangelist and technical
writing nerd. Keith is also an award-winning lecturer on Information Architecture
at the University of Toronto's iSchool, and Durham College. He is also an active
member of the OASIS DITA Technical Committee, and can often be found
presenting at conferences, working with customers, and researching how DITA is
being used and sharing those results with the DITA community. Keith's popular
industry blog DITAWriter.com has become a focal point on DITA resources and
best practices. Connect with Keith on Twitter @KeithIXIASOFT.
Emily Shields
Emily Shields is a content strategist at Facebook with experience on ads
payments, payments growth and friend sharing. She knows very fancy data
phrases like “stat sig” and “haircut,” which she sometimes uses in meetings
when she wants people to know how important and popular she is.
Eric Shipman
Eric is a Senior Technical Support Engineer at MadCap Software in La Jolla,
California. As a senior support engineer, Eric is proficient with the MadCap
Software suite of products and helps provide technical support to hundreds of
customers each month. Prior to joining MadCap Software, Eric was a technical
support representative for Apple with certifications in Mac OS X and iOS. Eric
also has a bachelor’s of science in Mass Communication from State University of
New York at Oneonta.
Matt Sullivan
Through his company, Tech Comm Tools, Matt has been helping teams with
video and interactive media for over ten years.
Matt regularly lectures to tech comm groups and conferences across the country
on mobile, web, and interactive topics. He also regularly trains groups on Adobe
tech comm software.
Matt also gives webinars on behalf of Adobe. The webinar recordings are
available at http://bit.ly/tcs-webinars. His video work is also featured on the
adobe.com website.
In 2015, Matt changed his focus from classroom training to online courseware.
This creates value for students with a deeper, project-based curricula, delivered
over a longer period of time. Courseware also allows for a lower price point than
traditional classroom models.
Matt offers a full Tech Comm Video course, which explores ways to deliver
interactive and video documentation.
See http://training.techcommtools.com for a list of free and paid online courses.
Beth Thomerson
Beth Thomerson is a senior leader in Innovatia's technical documentation
practice. A certified Scrum Master, she has managed writing teams since 2000;
the past 10 years focused on supporting writers in Agile development
environments. Beth and her teams work with clients to plan and implement
content strategies that result in quality deliverables that exceed expectations.
She supports innovation through personal and team research on emerging
technologies, information architecture, design, single-sourcing, and just-in-time
content.
Beth attended North Carolina State University and earned a Bachelor's degree in
Communication from Mississippi State University. Beth and her husband reside in
beautiful southern New Hampshire.
Jim Tivy
Jim has been working in IT for 30 years, holding mostly technical positions, often
focused on database system internals. Jim encountered XML in 1999 and
designed the first commercial XML database, XStreamDb. As part of this
initiative, Jim was a member of the W3C XQuery working group and wrote a
chapter in the book, XQuery From the Experts. In 2005, Jim became involved
with DITA as Bluestream added support for DITA to the XDocs XML CMS. Since
then, Jim has taken a lead role on further features of the XDocs XML CMS. Jim is
currently a member of the OASIS DITA TC.
Dustin Vaughn
Dustin Vaughn is a Solutions Consulting Manager for Adobe who manages a
team of experts in Adobe’s Technical Communication, eLearning, and Creative
products. Dustin has served as a panelist, speaker, and Adobe representative at
various industry conferences. He designs, develops, and hosts technical,
solution-oriented pre-sales demonstrations for strategic global customers. Dustin
also worked as a solution designer and presenter for a cross-organizational and
multi-product project designed for a key US Government client.
Nikoletta Vecsei
Niki is a Social and Community Engagement Manager at EMC with a wealth of
digital and content marketing experience for start-ups and Fortune 500
companies alike. Originally from Europe, her experience spans across two
continents. Follow @nikschen.
Catherine Walker
I love creating compelling customer experiences and empowering others to
think differently. After cutting my teeth at a digital agency, I joined PayPal as a
Content Strategist, bringing design thinking and customer advocacy to every
challenge. Now, I lead a cross-functional team of designers focused on helping
customers through critical moments in our Resolution Center.
Andy Watson
Andy Watson has over 15 years experience in Technical Communication in the
telecommunications industry. He project manages the documentation for seven
programs implemented with Agile. He has a BS in Computer Science from Texas
A&M University and MS in Information Design and Communication from
Southern Polytechnic State University.
Demarcus Wells
Demarcus Wells has focused on Customer Success at Avalara for over 10 years.
With deep prior technical experience and a BS in Information Technology, he has
spent the last several years managing programs and technical projects specific
to the customer experience. He has worked extensively with various knowledge
and documentation systems for internal and external use. Current duties also
include targeting operational efficiencies with automation in our CRM and other
critical systems for the Customer Success Teams. His goal-driven approach
allows him the ability to strategize at a high level and nose dive into the weeds
when necessary for organizational solutions.
Scott Youngblom
Scott Youngblom is a co-founder of Oberon Technologies, a leading provider of
provides expert services and software to help organizations create and deliver
structured content that is optimized for the web, mobile devices, and consumer
needs. Scott has over 18 of experience with automated publishing solutions and
deep knowledge of various “best-of-breed” software publishing technologies.
Scott has been a trusted partner for many Fortune 2000 organizations with
initiatives to increase company revenue, decrease expenses, improve
operational efficiency, and meet regulatory compliance and quality standards,
Scott has been a trusted partner. Scott has worked across varied industries with
companies including John Deere, Pearson Publishing, Abbott Laboratories, Eli
Lilly, Johnson Controls, Department of Defense, Northwestern Life, Social
Security Administration, General Motors, and many others.
Exhibit Hall Map
BOURBON STREET BALCONY
5
9
23
10
11
12
22
21
13
20
15
19
16 17
18
25
4
Reg Desk
1
2
29
26
27
3
39 38
30
31
Grand Ballroom
Bier
Garden
28
IBERVILLE STREET
8
32
33
36
37
35
34
1
appsoft Technologies
16 Dakota Systems
29 JustSystems
2
Saiff Solutions
17 euroscript Inc.
30
STC
3
Antenna House
18 Oberon Technologies
31
Argos Multilingual
4
Vasont
19 Antidot
32
SDL
5-7 Adobe Systems
20 ProSpring Staffing
33 Suite Solutions
8
Design Science
21 FontoXML
34
9
TechWhirl
22 Kinetic
35 Bluestream
10 Information Mapping
23 Mekon
36 KantanMT
11 Scriptorium
25 Simply XML
37 Barista and Bar
12 Single Sourcing
26 EasyDITA
38 36 Software
13 WebWorks
27 Astoria Software
39 Stilo International
15 IXIASOFT
28 MadCap Software
Zoupio by Lexum
Meeting Room Maps
FIRST FLOOR/LOBBY
BOURBON STREET
Service Elevator
LOBBY
CANAL STREET
Service Corridor
ST. CHARLES A
ST. CHARLES B
LOBBY
SECOND FLOOR
BOURBON STREET
BOURBON BALCONY B
BOURBON BALCONY C
GRAND
BALLROOM B
Women
Men
Elevators
IBERVILLE STREET
GRAND GALLERY
Phones
GRAND
BALLROOM A
GRAND
BALLROOM C
GRAND
BALLROOM D
Freight
Elevator
SECOND FLOOR MEZZANINE
BOURBON STREET
BOURBON
Men
Women
TOULOUSE A
BURGUNDY
TOULOUSE B
Freight
Elevator
BIENVILLE
IBERVILLE
IBERVILLE STREET
ROYAL
BOARDROOM
CANAL STREET
CHARTRES
ST. ANN
Elevators
ST. LOUIS
Phones
CONTI
facebook.com/LavaCon
twitter.com/LavaCon
vimeo.com/LavaCon
google.com/LavaCon
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Preliminary Program

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