LavaCon Final Program.book

Transcription

LavaCon 2012
The LavaCon Conference on Digital Media and Content Strategies
Final Program
October 6–9, 2012
Portland, OR
Schedule at a Glance
Saturday October 6, 2012
8:00–1:00
Adobe Day (free event)
For info and to register, see http://bit.ly/LavaConAdobe
1:00–3:30
eBook Bootcamp
Tom McCluskey, Digital Bindery
1:00–4:30
Much Ado About Change
Chris Hester, Communication Management Consultant
Streamlining Business Processes Using Structured Business Process Modeling
Jackie Damrau, Software AG USA, Inc.
Sunday, October 7, 2012
7:30–8:15
Continental Breakfast
8:15–9:15
The State of The Industry: We’re Not in Kansas Anymore
Jack Molisani, The LavaCon Conference and Scott Abel, The Content Wrangler
Project Metrics and
Development Team Mgmt.
Content Strategy and
Content Management
Case Studies and
Roundtable Discussions
User Experience and
Multichannel Publishing
eBoosk, New Media and
Mobile Devices
9:30–10:30
Five Ways to Make
Executives Love Content
Development
Alan Porter
4Js Group
Exploring the World of
Content Reuse
Mark Lewis, Quark
Scott Abel, The Content
Wrangler
What Makes a Superhero?
Doing what Others Can't
and/or Won’t
Corey Ganser
MindTouch
Doing More with Less:
Meeting Your Content
Creation Needs with
FrameMaker 11
Kapil Verna
Adobe Systems
First Things First: Proper
Asset Management in
New Media Projects
Ken Circeo
Microsoft
10:45–11:45
KPIs and Metrics for
Managing Content
Developers
Bernard Aschwanden
Publishing Smarter
Moving Your Company from
Chaos to Content
Management
Pam Noreault
ACI Worldwide
Creating Single Source
Content for Classroom
Training and Online Help
Using Adobe RoboHelp
Beth Gerber, Lightext
An Adobe Partner
How to Deliver the Wrong
Information to the Wrong
Person at the Wrong Time
Michael Boses & Don Day
Contelligence
Assessing the MobileReadiness of Legacy Content
Linda Morone
Data Conversion Laboratory
11:45–1:00
Lunch Session:
Tomorrow Was Yesterday: Shaping the Future of Content Creation
Noz Urbina, Senior Consultant, Mekon Ltd.
1:00–2:00
Gaining Value from Global
Content Using a CMS
Brent Murphy, HewlettPackard, and Suzanne
Mescan, Vasont Systems
Giving Customers What
They Want: Integrating
Content in the Customer
Lifecycle
Noz Urbina
Mekon Ltd.
One CMS Does Not Fit All:
Multiple Roads to
Knowledge Management
Rhyne Armstrong
RouteMatch Software
Strategies for Multinational
Organizations
Joseph Bachana
DPCI
Every Problem is Not a Nail:
Choosing the Right Media
and Publishing Channels for
Your Content
Ken Circeo
Microsoft
2:15–3:15
How Documentation Teams
Can Use Web Analytics to
Expand their Corporate Value
Karen Buchanan and Bob
Zebian, IBM
The Three Pillars of a Good
Content Strategy: Analytics,
Optimization, and
Governance
Andrew Bredenkamp
Acrolinx
Content is Everyone’s Job:
Crowdsourcing Your Way to
Strategic Value
David Wilkins
Taleo
When Worlds Collide:
Improving the User
Experience by Applying
Progressive Information
Disclosure
Andrea Ames, IBM
From XML to eBooks Part I:
Overview
Richard Hamilton
XML Press
3:30–4:30
Integrated Project Teams
Joe Gollner
Gnostyx Research Inc
Measuring the Success
of Content Strategy with
Metadata
Jason Owen
IXIASOFT
Lightning Talks
David Caruso
Kit Brown-Hoekstra
Brenda Huettner
Roger Renteria
DUH! x 3: Maintaining
Accessibility while
Char James-Tanny
JTF Associates, Inc.
From XML to eBooks Part II:
The Devil is in the Details
Richard Hamilton
XML Press
4:45–5:30
And Then Everything Changed!
Tom Aldous, Adobe Systems
5:30–7:30
Network Reception and LavaCon 10th Anniversary Gala
Sponsored by Adobe Systems
Monday, October 8, 2012
7:30–8:00
8:00–9:00
Registration and Exhibit Area Open
Keynote Panel Discussion: The Content Revolution
Tom Aldous, Adobe Systems; Stephen Ryden-Lloyd, Innodata; David Ashton, SDL; Nolwenn Kerzreho, Componize
Moderator: Scott Abel, The Content Wrangler
Project Metrics and
9:15–10:15
How to Build a Winning
Business Case
Connie Giordano and Al
Martine, TechWhirl.com
Content Management
Tech Comm and Support That
Delivers Customer Happiness:
Field-tested Social Design
Patterns that Work
Aaron Fulkerson,
MindTouch
Case Studies and
“Why Can't We Just
Use Word?”
Donald Smith
Crowell Solutions
User Experience and
Multi-channel Publishing
And The Survey Says…How
Documentation Quality Affects
Brand Perception and Loyalt
Sharon Burton
Content Strategist
New Media and
Mobile Devices
Rethinking Content
From Paper to Tablets,
Mobile Screens and ePubs
Maxwell Hoffmann
Adobe Systems
10:30–11:30
Dr. Tech Comm, or How I
Learned to Stop Worrying
and Love Change
Management
Connie Giordano and Al
Martine, TechWhirl.com
Managing Content
Development Projects in
Agile-Like Environments
Bonni Graham
GlobalScholar
What’s In It For Me? Getting
Stakeholder Buy-in For
Single Source Projects
Liz Fraley
Single Sourcing Solutions
Include it All. Filter
Afterward.
Mark Baker
Analecta Communications
11:30–12:45
Lunch Session:
Print to Digital: The REAL Story
Stephen Ryden-Lloyd, Senior Vice President, Innodata
12:345–1:45
Vendor Demos and Exhibitor Meetings
Exhibit Hall
Creating eBooks from Global
Content
Dmitri Ragano
Herbalife
1:45–2:45
Ending the Cold War
Between MarComm and
TechComm
Sarah O’Keefe
Scriptorium
Content is Currency:
Developing Powerful
Content for Web and Mobile
Joe Wuebben
Content Launch
Gamification is Here: Build a
Winning Plan
Marta Rauch
Oracle
YouTube or Bust!
Creating Video Tutorials
Using the MadPak
Development Suite
Mike Hamilton
MadCap Software
Effective Tablet Strategies
for the Mobile User
Experience
JimStephen Ryden-Lloyd
Innodata
3:00–4:00
Influence Without Authority:
Applying the Art of
Motivation
Andrea Ames
IBM
How to Build Profitability in
Your Process
Emmelyn Wang
Virtual Bridges and
Christopher Ward
WebWorks
Using Internal Resources to
Coordinate a Multi-Language
Information Management
System
Fer O’Neil
ESET North America
Producing ProfessionalSounding Audio in
Video Tutorials
Tom Johnson
idratherbewriting.com
Making ePublications
Relevant
Rahel Bailie
Intentional Design
4:15–5:15
Galileo’s Dilemma: Satisfying Information Consumers in the Post-PC Era
Andrew Thomas, SDL International
5:30–6:30
SDL 2013 Globalization Challenge
Sponsored by SDL International
6:30–
PDX Content Strategy Meetup
An Evening with Ann Rockley
Tuesday, October 9, 2012: LavaCon/Content Strategy Applied
7:30–8:00
Stems
Exhibit Area Open
Project Metrics and
Content Management
Case Studies and
User Experience and
Multi-channel Publishing
New Media and
Mobile Devices
8:00–9:00
The Evolution of an
Empowered Content Team
Janet Isadore, PayPal
Mike Stevens, PayPal
Using Web 2.0 to Turn
Legacy Content into a
Revenue-generating
Corporate Asset
Pam Noreault
ACI Payment Systems
Estimating and Managing
CMS-Based Translation
Projects
Angelos Tzelepis
Localization Consultant
Optimizing your DITA
Content Model for
Translation
Amber Swope
DITA Strategies
New Voice, New Tone, New
Information Architecture:
Writing for the Modern
Developer
Keith Boyd
Microsoft
9:15–10:15
Expanding Your Sphere of
Influence: Lead a Document
Retention Policy SWAT Team
Johnette Hassell
Electronic Evidence Retrieval
Monitoring Social Media for
Documentation Customer
Feedback
Rhyne Armstrong
RouteMatch Software
GALA Panel: Localization
Trends for Global-Savvy
Content Teams
Moderator: Laura Brandon,
GALA Managing Director
Migrating to DITA: How
Automated Conversion
Works and Why it Matters
Patrick Baker
Stilo International
Developing for the Unknown
Neil Perlin
Hyper/Word Services
10:30–11:30
Building a Business Case for
Content Initiatives
Jack Molisani
ProSpring Technical Staffing
How to Produce
Amazing Webinars
Sharon Burton
Content Strategist
GALA Panel: Quality
Assurance Testing for
Localized Content
Moderator: Laura Brandon,
GALA Managing Director
Collaboration and
Instantiation: Engineering
Content in DITA XML
Cheri Mullins
Mullins Consulting at AMD
Putting Content into
Mobile Apps
Neil Perlin
Hyper/Word Services
11:45–12:45
Closing Session of LavaCon/Opening Session of Content Strategy Workshop
Future-proofing Your Content: The Importance of Content Strategy in an Increasingly Mobile World
Ann Rockley, The Rockley Group
Speakers and sessions subject to change without notice.
The
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Welcome to the 2012 LavaCon Conference on
Digital Media and Content Strategies
On behalf of the The LavaCon® Conference on Professional Development, let me
be the first to say welcome to our 2012 Conference on Digital Media and Content
Strategies—our 10th anniversary!
Our program offers over 60 breakout sessions and hands-on workshops on
content strategy, technical and corporate communication, and the workplace
survival skills you need to excel in the current economy.
These practical sessions offer techniques for managing people, projects,
and your career—techniques you can take back to the office and apply.
The program also offers plenty of time for networking, so be sure to bring your
business cards and build your professional network!
Jack Molisani
Executive Director
The LavaCon Conference
This document was created with Adobe Framemaker
Contents
Sponsors and Exhibitors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5
Sessions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Speakers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
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Sponsors and Exhibitors
Many thanks to our 2012 sponsors and exhibitors:
Diamond
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:
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Adobe FrameMaker 10: The industry-leading template-based authoring and publishing solution for
unstructured, structured, and XML/DITA/S1000D content.
Adobe RoboHelp 9: An easy-to-use solution for technical communicators to author, collaborate,
personalize, and optimize content for help systems, policies and procedures, and professional
knowledgebases for multichannel, multi-device publishing.
Adobe Technical Communication Suite 3.5 (TCS 3.5): A complete and integrated solution for authoring,
reviewing, managing, and publishing rich, engaging technical information and training content across
multiple channels and devices from a single source. Try TCS 3.5 now at
www.adobe.com/cfusion/tdrc/index.cfm?product=tcs
Platinum
Innodata offers a deep portfolio of consulting, technology, editorial and production services to the world’s
leading media, publishing, and information services companies.
With more than 1,500 subject matter experts, Innodata has been in the editorial services business for more
than a decade. With an in-depth understanding of technical, legal and scientific material, our subject matter
experts have used their skills and expertise to create abstracts, copyedit technical manuscripts, and research
and analyze legal briefs and financial applications.
For more information, visit www.innodata.com
SDL enables global businesses to engage with their customers in the language, the media, and at the moment
they choose. We help businesses manage their brands, drive global revenues, accelerate speed to market and
enrich their customers’ experience. SDL’s enterprise-ready innovative technology and service solutions span the
entire customer journey and include social listening and marketing analytics, campaign management, language
management and services, video and written content creation, web content management, dynamic technical
documentation publication, and eCommerce.
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SDL solutions drive global reach across multiple languages, cultures, channels and media. SDL has over 1,500
enterprise customers, 400 partners and a global infrastructure of 70 offices in 38 countries.
For more information, visit www.sdl.com
Componize is ECM software that optimizes the production, management and publishing of high-volume
documents such as product documentation and e-learning content. It allows large organizations to benefit from
the latest innovations in DITA Component Content Management. Spend less time organizing, searching for and
re-doing content, and more time creating real value through better reuse and faster, multi-channel production.
Componize is today modernizing business information management for AMD, SAP and NXP, among others.
More info at: www.componize.com
XML Authoring for Everyone!
oXygen XML Author provides visual XML editing both on the web and on the desktop. It is highly extensible
and configurable being integrated in many CMS solutions. It supports single source publishing for any XML
vocabulary and comes with ready to use support for the most popular frameworks including DocBook and DITA.
Become an XML Expert!
oXygen XML Developer provides all the tools needed when working with any XML or XML-related technology,
including visual XML schema editors, XSLT and XQuery debuggers, support for XML databases and web
services.
The ultimate XML editing experience!
oXygen XML Editor combines both the XML authoring and XML development support to a single integrated
environment resulting in a complete solution for working with anything in or related to XML.
For more information please visit www.oxygenxml.com
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Gold
Doc-To-Help automatically publishes content to desktop, Web, mobile device, and print formats that look like
you spent months designing them. All you need to do is write or import content in Microsoft Word®, HTML,
or Doc-To-Help’s editor and let Doc-To-Help do the rest. If you are worried about collaboration and content
management, rest easy. Doc-To-Help integrates with industry standard technologies such as Microsoft
SharePoint and Team Foundation Server. Learn more at http://www.doctohelp.com
Merrill Brink International (www.merrillbrink.com) is a leading provider of complete translation and language
solutions for global companies and law firms, with special expertise in serving the legal, financial, life
sciences, software, heavy machinery and corporate markets. A proven leader with more than 30 years of
experience, Merrill Brink offers a wide range of language solutions including translation, localization, desktop
publishing and globalization services.
Merrill Brink is recognized in the industry for its commitment to quality and its pioneering approach of
leveraging technology to reduce costs, eliminate redundant processes and accelerate translation life cycles.
Merrill Brink is certified to ISO 9001:2008; ISO 27001:2005 and ISO 13485:2003, and registered to EN
15038:2006 and ISO 14971:2007. Together, these standards provide assurance that the most stringent process
and quality standards for translation are followed. Merrill Brink International is a wholly owned subsidiary of
Merrill Corporation.
Crowell Solutions, Inc. is an IT professional services firm specializing in business intelligence and XML
technologies including S1000D and DITA. The RocketSled™ XML Editor is a robust, full-featured XML editor
that works completely inside Microsoft Word. To demonstrate this, we've created a custom XML Schema that
we use to author XML documents. This Schema is for demo purposes only, but it reflects the requirements of
one document type that could be found in an Engineering department of an Aerospace company. Here's a
screenshot of the XML Schema. To learn more, visit http://www.crowsol.com
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MadCap Software, Inc. is the leading software provider of technical communication tools for end-to-end
content development, delivery, and management. MadCap Software’s fully integrated suite of products
provide state-of-the-art content development and workflow solutions for multi-channel publishing for print,
online, desktop, and mobile documentation. Through its strategic partner Microsoft Corp., MadCap delivers
solutions optimized for Microsoft Windows, Visual Studio, and the .NET environment. Headquartered in La
Jolla, CA, MadCap is home to some of the most experienced software architects and product experts in the
documentation industry, including the original creators of RoboHelp.
Learn more at www.madcapsoftware.com
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 everincreasing demand for output, organizations today often require some support to ensure project success. That
support should incorporate best practice, risk management ,and customer- and ROI-led 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 un-biased 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.
To learn more, visit www.mekon.com
Data Conversion Laboratory (DCL) is a leader in organizing and converting content to modern formats for wide
access and new revenue streams. With expertise across many industries, DCL’s proprietary technology matched
with US-based project management teams solve clients’ complex conversion challenges securely, accurately,
and on-time. Serving the full range of businesses, governments, nonprofits, and individuals by future-proofing
all content, DCL started in 1981 and is a 100 Top Company in the Digital Content Industry for 2011–2012.
To learn more, visit www.dclab.com
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An enterprise collaboration leader since 2005, MindTouch turns your customers into happy users and product
experts with a cloud delivered social help center. Convert technical, help and product documentation into a two
way communication channel that increases support self-service and customer happiness. MindTouch software
includes a new kind of product help center, a knowledge base, support ticketing integration and a help button
that can be added to any web application in minutes. Millions use MindTouch every day
Learn more at www.mindtouch.com
Stilo International is the leading provider of cloud content conversion services, content conversion tools, and
content aggregation solutions that process content from diverse sources including SGML/XML, Word, InDesign,
FrameMaker and RoboHelp files, and convert to target publishing formats including DITA and custom XML.
Through advanced levels of automation we reduce cycle times, lower production costs and provide SMEs with
direct control over content quality. Operating from offices in the UK and Canada, we support customers in
Aerospace & Defense, Manufacturing, High Tech, Publishing, and Government. Visit us at LavaCon 2012 and
discover why Migrate is the DITA conversion service of choice for companies including IBM, Cisco Systems,
GLOBALFOUNDRIES, and STMicroelectronics.
To learn more, visit www.stilo.com
The ePublisher platform from Quadralay enables individuals and organizations to stay up to speed with their
users and easily deliver policy manuals, technical documentation, reference material, and other content in the
appropriate format for their audience. With ePublisher you get the most complete list of help authoring tool
formats available on the market.
Learn more at www.webworks.com
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IXIASOFT is a leading provider of XML content management software to organizations worldwide. IXIASOFT
offers the DITA CMS, a component content management solution designed specifically to author, manage,
review, localize and publish DITA-based technical documentation. The DITA CMS solution is based on TEXTML
Server, a native XML database also developed by IXIASOFT. Leading organizations such as AMD, ARM,
SolidWorks, Sybase and Varian use the DITA CMS to manage their documentation process.
For more information visit www.ixiasoft.com
Started in 1993, TechWhirl.Com (also known as Techwr-l) is the premier source of information and discussions
for technical writers and technical communicators throughout their careers.
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Technical Communications Feature Articles & Columns (www.techwhirl.com) cover the business of
technical communications, professional development, tech writing trends, and tools and technology.
TechWhirl Regular Columns (www.techwhirl.com/focus/columns) include Tips & Tricks and Geoff Hart’s
User’s Advocate.
Technical Writer Skills and How To pieces (techwhirl.com/focus/how-to/) provide guidance on creating
deliverables ranging from Style Guides to Software Requirements Specifications to online and
embedded help.
Techwr-l’s Email Discussion Group (www.techwr-l.com/about-technical-writing-discussion-groups.html)
is 3000+ TechWhirlers providing help and support to professionals at all levels of experience.
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Other Sponsors and Exhibitors
Headquartered in Pennsylvania, Vasont Systems is a leading provider of XML content management software
and data services backed by more than 60 years of experience in the information management and
publishing industry. Its Vasont® content management system enables organizations of all sizes to create,
manage, and store their multilingual content once for multi-channel delivery. Fortune 1,000 companies and
organizations from a variety of industries, including manufacturing, technology, publishing, and healthcare,
use Vasont to manage and produce multilingual technical documentation, product manuals, reference, and
training materials. Learn more at www.vasont.com
Acrolinx provides Content Quality Software that enables companies such as Adobe, Dell, Cisco, IBM, Philips,
and Siemens to make their content easier to comprehend, cheaper to translate, and easier to find. Built on a
powerful linguistic analytics engine, Acrolinx helps you analyze, measure, and improve the quality of the
content you deliver to your customers.
Acrolinx is built on a foundation of linguistic excellence. We have a passion for understanding language and
the complexities it brings to all levels of communication. Our expertise in language can help your
organization manage all forms of written communication—from enterprise to user-generated content.
Customers recognize this value as a core component that has helped them shape complex solutions for
information management. Learn more at www.acrolinx.com
At UC San Diego Extension, we believe great social and economic prosperity comes from integrating the
collective knowledge of the university, community leaders and professionals. Whether you’re starting a new
career, building a company, or developing a deeper appreciation of the world around you, Extension has the
resources you need to get started.
UC San Diego Extension’s Professional Certificate in Technical Communication prepares students for an entrylevel position by providing instruction in the most up-to-date knowledge and skills. The program is designed
and taught by technical communication professionals who are actively involved in the industry and can be
completed entirely online.
Learn more at extension.ucsd.edu/techcomm
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Bluestream
XML Content Solutions
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 outof-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 work flow, knowledge base, online reviewing, and translation manager allow for
economical end-to-end content creation, management, and publishing of content. 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 www.bluestream.com
The Globalization and Localization Association (GALA) is a non-profit membership association for the language
industry, providing resources, education and research for companies working with translation services,
language technology and content localization. GALA member companies are vendors and buyers of language
services and technologies from over 300 companies in 50 countries. Member companies deploy sophisticated
multilingual strategies and proven tools to take content and products to markets around the world. Visit
www.gala-global.org
Scott Abel is a content management strategist and social media choreographer with strengths in helping
organizations improve the way they author, maintain, publish and archive their information assets. I help clients
determine the best ways to efficiently manage their content lifecycles, including leveraging social media and
networking technologies.
I’m also a presenter at content industry conferences and a founding member/former executive director of
Content Management Professionals. And I co-produce several industry events, including Web Content Chicago
(www.webcontentconferences.com), Intelligent Content (www.intelligentcontentconference.com), and others.
The Content Wrangler is a popular destination for communication professionals seeking information about
content management. But I also maintain several social networking sites: The Content Wrangler Community on
Facebook and The Content Wrangler Community on Linkedin, both of which support a global network of
content professionals from around the world. I also have a very popular feed on Twitter.
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ProSpring Staffing provides engineers, project managers, and technical writers for high-tech companies and
government agencies. Our mission: to match highly-qualified candidates with innovative organizations so both
are happy with the result. We specialize in:
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Programmers and Engineers: hardware engineers, network engineers, software engineers, database
administrators, and other engineering professions.
Program and Project Managers: PMI-certified PMP project managers, program mangers, federal
contract managers, and other management professionals.
Technical Writers and Trainers: perm and contract technical writers, instructional designers, courseware
developers, technical trainers, eLearning specialists, and other communication professions.
Visit our website at www.ProSpringStaffing.com
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, customergenerated 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. For more
information, visit www.scriptorium.com
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Sessions and Workshops
Saturday, October 6
1:00–3:30/4:30
Workshops
eBook Bootcamp
Tom McCluskey, Digital Bindery
In this seminar, you will learn everything you need
to know about ebooks from a beginner’s
perspective. You will learn the vocabulary of digital
publishing, the differences between ebook formats
and ebook readers, why we need so many ISBNs
for one book, how to navigate through digital rights
management issues, the limitations and benefits of
“going digital,” and how to make the best creative
and business decisions for your specific work.
We will cover:
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Understanding ebook formats versus PDFs
Converting content into an ebook format
Selling and distributing ebooks
How to obtain an ISBN
What books make good candidates for going
digital
Piracy and copyright issues
Much Ado About Change
Chris Hester, Communication Management
Consultant
Once upon a time, a tech comm team was excited
about the idea of a content management system,
but not excited by the prospect of changing its
processes and technology. After hitting a few
roadblocks, the project leaders modified their
approach to managing change, which rekindled
team members’ interest in the project. This not only
increased the team’s productivity and brought the
project back on track, but also improved the
project's visibility in the organization.
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In this session, we’ll look at this case study and the
lessons learned about managing change while
managing projects. We'll also discuss methods and
examples for integrating projects and change,
identifying and assessing areas of change, and
supporting team members during projects.
Streamlining Business Processes Using
Structured Business Process Modeling
Jackie Damrau, Software AG USA, Inc.
In 2011, I presented on the topic of "Documenting
Business Processes Online using One Tool" that
excited the audience to view project documentation
in a different light. This year, I'd like to continue the
discussion by sharing more information about how
Structured Business Process Modeling helps
business analysts, developers, and QA testers to
see the requirements in a graphical form.
Structured Business Process Modeling requires an
attention to detail to show not only the "happy
path" of a requirement, but to identify the many
decision paths that a customer may encounter
when accessing your Web site or using your
specific digital media device.
In this presentation, I’ll cover the different modeling
approaches and the business process level
architecture pyramid, show an example of each
level of the pyramid, cover the common notation
used in two standards-based modeling methods:
EPC (Event-driven Process Chain) and BPMN
(Business Process Management Notation), and
conclude by sharing where one can gain more
information in the world of business process
management.
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Sunday, October 7
7:30–8:15
Continental Breakfast/Registration
8:15–9:15
The State of the Industry: We’re Not in Kansas Anymore
9:30–10:30
Breakout Sessions
Five Ways to Make Executives Love
Content Development
Alan Porter, 4Js Group
Exploring the World of Content Reuse
Mark Lewis, Quark
Scott Abel, The Content Wrangler
Your content is an asset worthy of the same
attention, management, and visibility as any other
strategic business asset, and as such there is a
strong case that it should be managed at a senior
executive level. However, being realistic, very few,
if any, companies are going to leap immediately
from undervaluing their content assets to having
them overseen and cared for at the highest levels of
the organizations.
Take a tour of some real world examples of content
reuse that show it’s not just for big teams of writers.
Lone writers can benefit from content reuse as well.
Scott and Mark walk through content metrics that
prove the benefit and ROI. They’ll use these
examples and metrics to show that a sound content
strategy can help a company achieve strategic
goals such as increased sales, improved branding
and reduced costs.
“We never get any respect,” is a refrain I’ve heard
over and over again during my time in the content
development industry. In fact I’ve even said it
myself a few times. The refrain is often followed by,
“no one really understands what we do or the value
we provide.” The unfortunate thing is that in a lot of
cases these refrains have some justification—but it
needn’t be that way.
First, you need to take steps toward raising the
profile of content design and development, deliver
quality content, and prove its value to the
organization. Once you have raised the level of
executive awareness, it’s easier to position the
need for an overall, business-driven content
strategy overseen and managed at a senior level.
This session will present a five-point action plan,
along with case study examples, to help you raise
the profile of what you do and make your
executives realize your value.
What Makes a Superhero?
Doing What Others Can't and/or Won't
Corey Ganser, MindTouch
In this session, Corey Ganser from MindTouch will
review how customer support departments,
technical writing teams, and product teams are
coming together through a centralized
documentation community. During this
presentation, Corey will present case studies from
customers like Zuora, Plato Learning, and
SuccessFactors highlighting metrics of success
along with the steps they took to get there.
Corey Ganser is the Customer Experience Manager
at MindTouch and engages with clients like Intuit,
PayPal, Autodesk, and SAP to help them deploy
their customer documentation communities.
Doing More With Less!
Meeting Your Content Creation Needs
with FrameMaker 11
Kapil Verma, Adobe Systems
Content development managers today have to
manage the tremendous changes happening in the
industry including migration to structured/XML
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authoring, making content available on mobile
devices (which are becoming more and more
ubiquitous), and a pressing need to do more with
less! On the one hand, many companies are
realizing the benefits of structured, topic-based
authoring as migrating to topic-based structured/
XML content can result in significant cost savings
and return on investment (ROI). However, there are
several factors managers should consider that,
depending on the decisions made, can significantly
dilute or further enhance the ROI of the move to
structured authoring. On the other hand, mobile is
posing important questions to content managers
around the consumer need to access content from
anywhere on any device. Lastly, in today’s
challenging economic environment, there is
increasing pressure on today’s technical
communicators to do more with fewer resources!
In this session, Kapil Verma, Sr. Product Manager
(FrameMaker line of products) will discuss how you
can deal with these challenges arming yourself with
FrameMaker 11 and related line of products. In this
session, you will have an opportunity to learn about
10:45–11:45
Metrics help identify the time, money, and
resources of any project. Documentation metrics
provide clear and unbiased data to quantify costs.
Learn to calculate metrics, and identify where they
can be reused. Define metrics for writing (including
traditional chapter based and reusable topics) and
present them in various ways beyond just a per
page model. Know your costs and be in control of
requests for new resources, updates to procedure,
changes in software tools, and much more. Present
from a position of authority knowing the time,
money, and resources your changes will save.
Moving Your Company from Chaos to
Content Management
Pam Noreault, ACI Payment Systems
This session will share the details of how to take
large amounts of disparate content from numerous
writers over many years and get it into a consistent,
usable, and source-controlled format. You will gain
insight around how to research, create a content
management strategy, and deploy a solution. The
LavaCon
www.lavacon.org
First Things First: Proper Asset
Management for New Media Projects
Ken Circeo, Microsoft
Have you ever been overwhelmed by a video
project? Many factors, such as scripts, storyboards,
effects, animations, and voiceovers can quickly
become a management nightmare and drive up
your cost. So how do you handle all of those files?
What about prepping them for localization? This
session will provide metrics, guidelines, and helpful
hints for managing all of the assets—as well as
estimating the cost and time commitment—for
your new media projects.
Sessions
KPIs and Metrics for
Managing Content Developers
Bernard Aschwanden, Publishing Smarter
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the recently launched FrameMaker 11 version and
what’s new in this release, with several hands on
product demos. You will also see how you can
leverage the product’s new capabilities to create
and manage content faster, better; distribute it to a
wide variety of devices; and be more productive in
your daily activities.
case study will focus on why enterprises need a
content specialist, what this person’s initiatives
should be, and how this role can help change the
way writers create content, store content, and
communicate with customers. It will also discuss
the importance of forging strategic relationships
with key players, such as customer service, product
management, and software engineers.
In this session, you will learn how to:
•
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Correctly gather business requirements
Formulate business goals
Write a content strategy and determine what
to include
Deploy the solution
Measure the success
Creating Single Source Content for
Classroom Training and Online Help
Using Adobe RoboHelp
Beth Gerber, Lighttext
An Adobe Partner
Become more marketable by increasing your ability
to deliver a variety of services to a client from one
content source. Lightext will share its successful
The
techniques for creating content for both classroom
training and procedure communications without
duplication.
Using RoboHelp from Adobe Systems, learn how to
create valuable training materials (such as leaders’
guides and participants’ manuals) from your
existing project. We’ll demonstrate how to set up
your projects in a manner that will allow you to
utilize them as single source for your online help
and classroom tools thus saving time, eliminating
duplication, ensuring consistency and increasing
your value to your client or employer. This
presentation will be delivered using case studies of
existing clients. We will demonstrate how the
training and online products are marketed
throughout an organization.
How to Deliver the Wrong Information to
the Wrong Person at the Wrong Time
Michael Boses and Don Day
Contelligence Group
This session will offer a simple primer on how to
help good content go bad. It's surprisingly easy to
mess up content delivery, and we'll prove it by
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looking at some of the inappropriate and amusing
examples that are served up daily all over the
Internet. Using a simple three-step approach, you
too can be guaranteed to botch content delivery.
Communicators from marketing, technical, or other
fields probably insist on excellent content delivery.
We will give in to them and also prove that
delivering relevant, timely, and personalized
content is just as easy and demonstrate how it can
be done.
Assessing the Mobile-Readiness of Legacy
Content
Linda Morone, Data Conversion Labs
This session will address issues that organizations
of all types face, and strategies that should be
considered when preparing their legacy content for
today's highly mobile society. Whether publishing
instructional and technical manuals, user guides,
product specific documentation or eBooks…the
challenges are the same. The searchability,
flexibility and modulation of digital content enable
multichannel publishing today and into the future.
Lunch Session
Today Was Yesterday: Shaping the Future of Content Creation
Noz Urbina
Senior Consultant Trainer and Content Strategist, Mekon Ltd.
We can often struggle to think more than a few years ahead, and in turbulent economic and
political times, it’s tempting to focus on how we’ll get through the next year, rather than the
next decade. However, we’re in an industry that saw the iPad turn content on its head only
30 months before LavaCon 2012. We’ve been definitively shown: a few years can change
everything. What is science fiction now is in many cases only a few years away, but
yesterday’s science fiction is today’s domestic device. So has anything really changed? We
will look at this and other questions like:
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With the enormous emphasis on usability and
no-training designs, is the content creation
role going to exist in 10 to 20 years, and if so,
what will their responsibilities be?
How will commoditization, outsourcing,
crowd-sourcing and advances in automation
impact the communicator’s workplace?
•
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What skills do today’s communicators need to
thrive and survive tomorrow?
Can the pace of change really keep
accelerating?
Noz Urbina is a Senior Consultant, Trainer and Content Strategist for Mekon Ltd. With more than a decade of
activity in the content arena, he has provided services to Fortune 500 organizations and small-to-medium
enterprises, often around DITA and XML management systems. His expertise is brought into projects for
requirements analysis, management presentations, project planning and scoping, and tool selection support.
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He is a frequent speaker at conferences around the world, delivering keynotes, training, talks and seminars on
content strategy, technical communications and structured content best practices. Noz has held a number of
business development, technical services, and sales positions where he was able to develop his expertise in a
cutting-edge, efficiency-driven, business context.
1:00–2:00
Sessions
Gaining Value from Global Content
Using a Content Management System
Brent Murphy, Hewlett-Packard
Suzanne Mescan, Vasont Systems
Suzanne Mescan and Brent Murphy will share their
experience regarding the value proposition of
implementing and utilizing a CMS to manage
technical documentation for a global audience.
Starting in 2001, HP and Vasont Systems began a
journey to implement a component content
management solution within HP that would meet
their global technical documentation requirements
while adding value back to the company. Suzanne
and Brent will explore the value propositions that
were put forth when the project began and share
what value propositions have been realized over
the past ten years. In addition, they will also
examine and share those value propositions that
exist today and how companies who utilize a CMS
can benefit from these opportunities.
Giving Customers What They Want:
Integrating Content in the Customer
Lifecycle
Noz Urbina, Mekon Ltd.
Modern product development (especially in the
software industry) is a faster-paced and more
iterative process than ever before. In business-tobusiness and business-to-consumer markets,
globalization puts added pressures on innovation
and the ability to give specific audiences the
customer experience they are after.
Using both theory and case studies, this
presentation will address ways of increasing the
customer experience by:
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Being the user advocate in product design for
a more consistent, streamlined user
experience
Ensuring your content management process
can handle the future of content delivery embedded User Assistance (eUA) and
dynamic, multi-device, mobile-ready content
experiences
LavaCon
www.lavacon.org
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Using tech comm to bridge development,
support and content by soliciting and
actioning customer feedback
Structuring for success in the face of
diversifying, accelerating product
development requirements with topic-based
authoring, structure, metadata and content
management
One CMS Does Not Fit All: Multiple Roads
to Knowledge Management
Rhyne Armstrong, RouteMatch Software
Taking the wrong road can be dangerous. If you go
too far without making sure you are heading in the
right direction, you might end up somewhere that
can be harmful to your organization, your team, or
even to yourself. You know where you want to go,
where you are supposed to go, but how can you be
sure you are taking the road that is the best
possible choice? What if different participants need
to take different roads?
In this session, we will take a look down the many
roads we traversed to reach our company-wide
knowledge management goals. You will see how
we went through a lengthy discovery and
evaluation period to come up with the roadmap
that would get us to where we wanted to go, and
how we had to stop to ask for directions, many
times along the way. Now that we’ve arrived, is it
where we truly wanted to go?
Multichannel Publishing Strategies for
Multinational Organizations
Joseph Bachana, DPCI
In this session Mr. Bachana will present the
different strategies that global enterprise content
publishers and media companies are leveraging to
deliver content in print, Web, mobile, eReader and
tablet channels. He will cover real-world case
studies of how different organizations, such as
educational institutions, book and magazine
publishers, and new media companies, are
successfully “creating once, publishing
The
everywhere.” Included in the session will be
drawbacks and limitations to current technologies
or practices that impede execution.
Every Problem is Not a Nail: Choosing the
Right Media and Publishing Channels For
Your Content
Ken Circeo, Microsoft
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even a simple text article. What’s your strategy in
making that decision? This session will help you
understand the value of the various media available
to you, as well as provide a path for your decisionmaking process when faced with a content
publishing project.
Video can be eye-catching and buzz-worthy. But
how do you know if a video is right for your
content? Maybe a slide show would work better. Or
2:15–3:15
Sessions
How Documentation Teams Can Use Web
Analytics to Expand Their Corporate Value
Karen Buchanan and Bob Zebian, IBM
In this session, Karen Buchanan and Bob Zebian of
IBM will describe how Web analytics play an
increasing role in improving documentation
quality, and how documentation teams can expand
their value across the enterprise by sharing this
information with other teams such as Quality
Assurance, Development, Product Management,
and Executive Management.
This case study will describe the implementation of
Web analytics by the IBM Sterling Commerce
Information Development team. It will describe the
tools used, how results are analyzed and
improvements implemented, and how this
information benefits other teams.
The Three Pillars of a Good Content
Strategy: Analytics, Optimization and
Governance
Andrew Bredenkamp, Acrolinx
In this session, Andrew Bredenkamp from Acrolinx
will present a practical view of the key components
of making content strategy happen. Using concrete
real-life examples, the presentation will show how
executing on a content strategy means
implementing three aspects: governance,
optimization, and analytics.
Governance means setting standards and setting
up processes to ensure that standards are
maintained. Content Analytics are critical in
understanding where your content needs attention,
and delivering metrics and reporting on content.
The final piece of the puzzle is Content
Optimization, which involves ensuring that content
creators get the support they need in writing
content that is findable (“search-ready”),
translatable (“global-ready”), and in tune with its
target audience (“people-ready”).
Content is Everyone’s Job:
Crowdsourcing Your Way to Strategic Value
David Wilkins, Taleo
You are understaffed and under-resourced with no
headcount or budget increases coming anytime
soon. How in the world are you supposed to
increase your organizational influence when you
can’t even complete the core content tasks that
come at you every week? Welcome to my world!
As VP of Research for Taleo, I am responsible for
thought leadership, content development, all
aspects of global talent acquisition, hiring,
onboarding, performance, learning and
development, succession planning, and
compensation, as well as global macro-economic,
demographic, culture and technology trends—with
a team on one.
In this session, learn how we turned a tactical,
research-heavy content shop into a key influencer
of organizational and product strategy, a key
creator of press and market awareness, and key
enabler of consultative selling success and industry
credibility—in less than a year. Participants will
leave the session with a greater awareness of their
talent and content ecosystems, key strategies to tap
into underutilized content sources, tactics that
increase the value and utilization of content assets
within the business, and techniques that can help
you influence key decision makers within the
business or the prospect pool.
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When Worlds Collide: Improving the User
Experience by Applying Progressive
Information Disclosure
Andrea Ames, IBM
Do you often feel like there's more to developing
technical product content than user guides,
reference manuals, and contextual help? Do you
sometimes find that your information deliverables
are discontinuous or that the content is redundant
between them? Would you like to have more
impact on your business and the overall user
experience of your product through your content? If
so, join Andrea as she presents the human factors
concept of "progressive disclosure" and applies it to
the architecture and design of information!
Andrea will discuss how to approach your
information architecture and design from the user's
goals and the tasks that she needs to perform—
revealing just the information the user needs, just
when she needs it—so that you can positively affect
3:30–4:30
Lots of things are changing for content
professionals, but among the most important is the
fact that content has very much become a team
sport. This session will look into how the business
of content has changed over the last 20 years and
what this tells us about future trends. One of these
trends merits closer attention and that is the
emergence of, or at least the need for, integrated
content teams.
Drawing from models developed for “concurrent
engineering,” Joe Gollner will introduce
approaches to planning and conducting content
projects in ways that achieve great results and that
sidestep many of the challenges that organizations
find themselves saddled with. As an unexpected
outcome from this exploration, a picture
LavaCon
www.lavacon.org
From XML to eBooks, Part I: Overview
Richard Hamilton, XML Press
XML Press uses XML almost exclusively for book
production, generating eBooks from DocBook and
DITA using the same source used for the print
version. Part I of this two-part presentation will
outline our process, going from authoring to
editing to review to production. It will provide an
overview of the advantages of an XML tool chain
and outline the specific tool chain used by XML
Press. This presentation is meant to be a standalone presentation for managers and others who
want a high level understanding, or as an
introduction to Part II.
Sessions
Integrated Project Teams
Joe Gollner, Gnostyx Research Inc.
20
the design of the product and improve the user
experience. She'll also describe the teaminteraction considerations necessary to make the
approach successful in a real, team-oriented, crossfunctional product-development environment.
emergences of a new role for communicators and
one that makes communication skills more
important than ever. Attendees will take away
practical guidelines on how to establish an
integrated content team and an awareness of some
of the challenges, as well as opportunities, that
await the communicator within these
environments.
Measuring the Success of
Content Strategy with Metadata
Jason Owen, IXIASOFT
Content strategy sets how your organization will
use content to achieve its objectives. To determine
if your organization is successfully delivering on its
content strategy, metadata can be used to develop
key metrics.
The
Lightning Talks
David Caruso
Where Did That Idea Come From?
Kit Brown-Hoekstra
Changing The World
Brenda Huettner
Words are Hard: How to Persuade with Pictures
Roger Renteria
Save Yourself from Electronic and
Social Media Meltdown
DUH! x 3: Maintaining Accessibility
While Multichannel Publishing
Char James-Tanny, JTF Associates, Inc.
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allows us to take full advantage of it. DUH! x 3
continues the theme of DUH (Diverse,
Understandable, Human) and expands it. You’ll
learn what you can do to make your deliverables
accessible for content, layout, and presentation, no
matter what format you publish to.
From XML to eBooks, Part II:
The Devil is in the Details
Richard Hamilton, XML Press
Part II of this presentation will go into the details of
how XML Press develops eBooks using XML.
Topics will include: eBook structure and formats,
cascading style sheets, XML tool chains, potential
gotchas, and eBook distribution.
Note: Part I is not a prerequisite to Part II.
For years, we called it “single sourcing.” Now we
call it “multichannel publishing,” and the different
help authoring tools provide functionality that
4:45–5:30
Keynote Address: And Then Everything Changed!
Tom Aldous
Director of Business Development and Product
Evangelism, Adobe Systems
Ah, the good old days. Phones
were used solely for verbal
communication, and books were
printed on paper. The life and
work of a technical
communicator was more
predictable.
And then everything changed! No longer is a book
just printed; books now take on many forms and
are consumed on many different devices: print,
interactive pdf, tablets, and even smartphones!
It has been said that a picture is worth a thousand
words. That may be true, but today’s consumers
are demanding more than just a pretty static picture
to illustrate a concept. YouTube and other video
services have created an expectation for a richer,
more dynamic experience.
Join Tom Aldous, Director of Business
Development and Product Evangelism for Adobe’s
technical communication business, as he discusses
how to take advantage of these changes, and turn
the challenges into opportunities. Everything has
changed...for the better!
Tom Aldous is the new Adobe Product Evangelist for the Technical Communications Suite. Prior to coming to
Adobe, Tom was the President of Integrated Technologies, Inc. since its formation in 1989. Tom is a certified
Adobe FrameMaker, Acrobat and LifeCycle Forms Instructor. His speaking engagements include the STC
Annual Conference, DITA East / West and many other conferences.
5:30–7:30
Network Reception and LavaCon 10th Anniversary Gala
Sponsored by Adobe Systems:
2012 Conference on
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Adobe revolutionizes how the world engages with
ideas and information. Adobe’s innovative
solutions for technical communicators are marketleading best-of-breed software.
Monday, October 8
7:30–8:30
Continental Breakfast/Registration, Exhibit Hall Open
8:30–9:00
Keynote Panel Discussion: The Content Revolution
Panelists: Tom Aldous, Adobe Systems
Stephen Ryden-Lloyd, Innodata
David Ashton, SDL
Nolwenn Kerzreho, Componize
9:15–10:15
Sessions
How to Build a Winning Business Case
Connie Giordano and Al Martine, TechWhirl.com
Expanding the technical communication sphere of
influence requires a more holistic approach to
supporting the business organization than many in
the field are familiar with. There’s no argument
that technical communicators can add value,
contribute to the bottom line, and help build loyal,
fanatical customers. This session explores how
technical communicators can build the business
case(s) you need to take a more active visible role
in product development and business strategy by
speaking directly to management’s needs and
agenda.
We’ll discuss what skills that we already possess
(audience analysis, research, rhetoric and reason)
can be used to build business cases that develop
and expand your team, your influence in the
organization and your ability to support the goals
central to your company’s success.
We’ll discuss…
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What are “business cases?”
Knowing your audience
LavaCon
www.lavacon.org
Moderator: Scott Abel, The Content Wrangler
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Good and bad arguments
Key ingredients
Delivering your case
Role playing
Benefits of building business cases
Tech Comm and Support That Delivers
Customer Happiness: Field-tested Social
Design Patterns that Work
Aaron Fulkerson, MindTouch
Every company wants their customers to be
ecstatic with their products. The best way to
achieve customer happiness is to convert users into
product experts in the shortest time possible. Great
documentation can help, but applying social design
patterns to help and documentation has been
proven successful by companies like Zappos, Intuit,
Autodesk, Paypal, ExactTarget, Mozilla…. Fulkerson
will call upon these companies as real world
examples to demonstrate field tested social design
patterns that create thrilled user experts, product
advocates and successful businesses.
The
“Why Can't We Just Use Word?"
Donald Smith, Crowell Solutions
For many years, Crowell Solutions has been
helping enterprises with their Content Management
Solutions development and deployments. With
every deployment there came change; new tools,
processes and procedures. Change management
and adoption was vital to the success of every
project, success was reliant not only on people
learning how to use the new tools and
understanding the concepts of structured content,
but as well in their ability to embrace the changes
and put those changes into practice.
If we only had a dollar for every time we heard...
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“Why can't we do this in Word?”
“This would be so much easier for my team if
we could use Word.”
“Word can handle XML, can't it?”
The amount of requests inspired us to devote some
R&D time to the issue. We quickly found that not
only could we build an XML editor in Word, we
could make a robust XML editor capable of doing
everything that current XML editors do with several
added bonus, including the most important one: It's
easy.
In this session, Don Smith from Crowell Solutions
will show you just how easy it is to create DITA
documents and templates in RocketSled, an XML
editor in Word, and produce true WYSIWYG output,
another XML first.
And The Survey Says…
How Documentation Quality Affects
Brand Perception and Loyalty
Sharon Burton, Content Strategist
In the world of product development and
marketing, there is a myth that “no one reads the
product instructions.” Inherent to this assumption
is that product instructions are not important and
can be ignored, as they are of no value.
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Rethinking Content From Paper to Tablets,
Mobile Screens and ePubs
Maxwell Hoffmann, Adobe Systems
This session will cover several approaches to
breaking old authoring habits associated with
traditional computer screens and paper. It will also
show you how to envision content through the
smaller lens of a smart phone or tablet while
starting your project with essential information;
guidelines for expanding or contracting content for
larger screens and deeper information will also be
covered. Motivational techniques for getting your
staff on board with these new strategies will be
included in a presentation with brief, live software
demonstrations which illustrate key points.
Have you ever tried to “thumb” your way through a
9-item bulleted list on a smart phone? If so, you
have a sense of the changes needed for sensible
display of technical content for multiple screens.
We're all aware of the critical need to deliver
content to an increasing variety of smaller screens,
from shrinking tablets to smartphones. At the same
time, we often need to deliver a “fuller” version of
the same content to desktop HTML or, yes, even
PDF and paper.
Although there are a number of solutions to
achieve this goal, most of us have to shift to a new
mind set while writing or authoring content
destined for display that is a fraction of the real
estate provided by a traditional sheet of paper.
"Learn the rules, then choose the tools." We must
also satisfy consumers' shrinking attention span, as
well as the need for mission-critical information to
be swiftly found by "readers in motion" and
“readers at rest” in cubicles who have much
shorter attention spans due to the ever-increasing
Niagara or information they must navigate through.
The advent of HTML5 has moved our possibilities
beyond traditional tri-paned Help layout. Discover
how new workflows and tools can help you achieve
your goals.
This session looks at the results of a survey done in
mid 2012 and contains some surprising results and
actionable steps your company can make to
differentiate your products and your brand from
your competitors.
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10:30–11:30
Sessions
Dr. Tech Comm, or How I Learned to Stop
Worrying and Love Change Management
Connie Giordano and Al Martine, TechWhirl.com
Change management plays an increasingly
important role in organizations of all kinds, and can
strike fear in the hearts of the most intrepid of
communicators. For those who believe that
change, like resistance, is futile, this session serves
as a guide to overcoming your own resistance, and
embrace change management.
We’ll discuss what change management is in the
modern organization and how technical
communicators can and should play a pivotal role
in change management efforts. We’ll also cover
some philosophy, a bit of methodology and lots of
practical guidance. Because we know that change,
like war is “too important to be left to politicians.
They have neither the time, the training, nor the
inclination for strategic thought.”
Managing Content Development Projects in
Agile-Like Environments
Bonni Graham, GlobalScholar
Agile development is one of the hot new topics in
product development, representing a significant
change from the more traditional waterfall method.
Not everyone implements Agile in the same way
and the different implementations may require a
different approach to our traditional and wellunderstood documentation processes. How do
documentation managers and content authors fit
within this world? How do we adjust what we do to
continue to provide quality content in this new
world? This presentation explores some of the
different ways Agile can be implemented, and what
that means to your documentation efforts. Join us
for a lively discussion of current and recommended
practices and approaches.
What’s In It For Me? Getting Stakeholder
Buy-in for Single-source Projects
Liz Fraley, Single Sourcing Solutions
One of the biggest questions that people
considering moving to a single-source environment
have is: How do I get buy in? There are two sides to
this question: How do I get buy in from
management? How do I get buy in from my team?
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LavaCon
www.lavacon.org
Single-sourcing projects require new skill sets, new
roles, and significant changes that forces
productive and successful team members out of
their comfort zones. It requires resources,
dedication, and sponsorship from the enterprise as
well.
Some things can be driven from the bottom up and
some from the top, but regardless of where it starts,
moving to a single-sourcing environment requires
buy-in by all those whose process is affected
directly or indirectly.
An entire body of literature is dedicated to change
management. This presentation will share advice,
guidance, and lessons learned from a variety of
customers in a range of industries who have made
this transition.
Some of the issues covered in these case studies
include:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Keys to increasing adoption in writing teams
Lessons learned throughout the process
Strategies for rolling out new single-source
authoring tools
Typical tasks and roles
Strategies to facilitate and encourage new
skill acquisition
How to transition content authoring processes
Rolling out to distributed teams
Special issues with regard to outsourced
writing groups
Redesigning processes to address business
requirements for quality and traceability
Presenting to upper management
Include It All.
Filter Afterward.
Mark Baker, Analecta Communications
It is no longer the writer’s job to filter and organize
content for the reader. In the book world, the
physics and economics of paper meant that the
writer had to act as a filter, carefully selecting a
small and highly organized set of information to
provide to the reader. But on the web, the power to
filter and organize information passes into the
hands of the reader. Rather than seeking out
content silos and then searching within them,
readers prefer to Google the entire Web and then
The
select and filter the results they recieve. In the
words of David Weinberger, their prefered stategy
is, “include it all, filter afterward.”
Despite this, writers tend to approach the web as
simply another publishing medium, where they will
make filtered and ordered content available to
readers in a form that assumes the reader is looking
at their content in isolation. The reality is that most
readers are encountering their content as just one
item in a set of search results—they are including
eveything and filtering afterwards.
This session will explore this difference in user
behavior and suggest some ways that writers can
move toward creating content that is easier for
readers to filter and order for themselves.
®
Conference
Creating eBooks from Global Content
Dmitri Ragano, Herbalife
The book industry is going through a period of
massive experimentation. The rise of the eBook
creates new opportunities to reach global readers.
Authors can build their relationships with
audiences by leveraging several related content
management disciplines:
•
•
•
•
Digital book creation and distribution
Content management and translation
workflows
Social media
Online content marketing and search engine
optimization
This session will provide a survey of emerging
trends in the global eBook landscape.
11:30–12:45
Print to Digital: The REAL Story
Stephen Ryden-Lloyd
Senior Vice President, Innodata
Mr Ryden-Lloyd joined Innodata in 2009 and is a member of the executive management team. He brings the
experience of a twenty year career in the information and media industry and heads Innodata's Consulting
Practice. Mr Ryden-Lloyd's primary focus is on helping executives in customer organisations to lead and
deliver change, especially in connection with business processes and content technologies and by
implementing global sourcing strategies.
Previously, Mr Ryden-Lloyd led the global consulting practice in Media and Entertainment for one of India's
leading IT outsourcing service providers, a position he moved into after co-founding and then selling his
consulting firm, The Publishing Practice. Prior to this he worked in the publishing industry and for several
years at Penguin UK where he was Managing Editor, then led IT management of creative systems and finally
served as Director of Content Management and sat on Pearson's global CM strategy team.
He holds a BSc degree in biology (Manchester) and a BA in English (Birkbeck).
12:45–1:45
Vendor Demos and Exhibitor Meetings
1:45–2:45
Sessions
Ending the Cold War Between MarComm
and TechComm
Sarah O’Keefe, Scriptorium
thinks that marcomm is full of liars who don't
understand technology. Neither stereotype is
completely incorrect.
In many organizations, there is a cold war between
marcomm and techcomm. MarComm teams tend
to view TechComm teams as a bunch of introverted
nerds who can't communicate normally; techcomm
But MarComm and TechComm can no longer
afford this stand-off. On a corporate web site, any
discrepancy between marketing content and
technical content is quite obvious, and will
undermine both organizations' efforts to achieve
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their mission. To ensure that the content matches
across the enterprise, you need much better
alignment between the two groups.
In this session, Sarah will discuss various strategic
initiatives that require coordination between
marcomm and techcomm and discuss how to
begin to thaw out the relationship.
•
Content is Currency: Developing Powerful
Content for Web and Mobile
Joe Wuebben, Content Launch
•
How does a company use rich, call-to-action
content to explode conversions? How do smart
businesses generate quality traffic and convert that
traffic into sales, time and time again, without
breaking the bank?
Through the power of content marketing.
What types of content? Blog posts, videos, articles,
web pages, webinars, white papers, social content
and yes, mobile content. Quality content that is
focused on user needs and connects with its
intended audience is something many companies
aspire to, but few practice well. For most
companies, it requires a change in business/
marketing philosophy and a fervent devotion to
consistent content production. And with mobile
marketing coming on strong, its critical to get this
type of content right.
The reality is that most web content could be
crafted better and focused more on your customers
needs. In fact, most companies spend all their
energy and money thinking about the appearance
and the architecture of their sites and spend very
little time thinking about the actual content itself.
In this session, content marketing expert Jon
Wuebben shows you what content marketing is,
how you can tap into it for your business and in
turn, gain a competitive advantage.
Gamification is Here: Build a Winning Plan
Marta Rauch, Oracle
Enterprise gamification is a fast-growing field, and
technical communicators must be prepared.
Discover how Oracle applies gamification, and gain
skills for internal and customer-facing gamification
projects. Learn strategies, tips, and best practices
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for gamified user experience, and understand
essential skills for technical communicators. We'll
look at:
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•
•
•
How Oracle uses gamification to create
vibrant online customer communities
Oracle's use of gamification to stimulate
innovation at its Apps UX Gamification
Design Jam
Gamification principles and the impact on
user assistance
Effective user assistance architecture and
compelling gamification messages
Introducing your team to user assistance for
gamification
YouTube or Bust! Creating Video Tutorials
Using the MadPak Development Suite
Mike Hamilton, MadCap Software
Creating video tutorials is not hard, but there are
many details to understand. This presentation will
cover the most common mistakes in tutorial
creation and how to avoid them. The tutorial
creation process will be broken down into three
categories; recording visuals, recording audio, and
publishing choices. Best practices, success factors,
and mistakes to avoid will be covered in each of
those three categories. While MadCap Mimic will
be used for the demonstrations the concepts
covered will apply to any tool set used for
multimedia/tutorial creation.
Effective Tablet Strategies for the
Mobile User Experience
Stephen Ryden-Lloyd, Innodata
Rapid digital adoption is demanding 5 business
transformations. Content development,
technology, workflow, managing content assets,
and organizing for constant change are the new
realities for content providers. Understanding and
mastering of key future trends including content
aggregation, platform wars, a growing share of
information being viewed on tablets and mobile
devices and the interoperability of web, tablets and
smartphones will drive successful customer
engagement and competitive advantage for
enterprise content providers.
The
3:00–4:00
Conference
Sessions
Influence without Authority:
Applying the Art of Motivation
Andrea Ames, IBM
In this session, you will learn the critical skills
needed to influence people, and how develop an
influential leadership style. You will also learn
about support systems you can leverage to
maximize your successful growth in your influential
leadership style.
How to Build Profitability in Your Process
Christopher Ward, WebWorks
Emmelyn Wang, Virtual Bridges
A new way to look at content creation workflow.
How a technical expert can extend the process with
creative information gathering to increase
customer retention and product value. We will
discuss how online help and other customer facing
content, when developed properly, transforms you
and your team into a profit center for your
company.
Using Internal Resources to Coordinate a
Multi-Language Information Management
System
Fer O’Neil, ESET North America
This session will present my Technical
Communication department’s ongoing efforts to
manage our global Knowledge Management
System (KMS) and the eight languages that we
currently support.
4:15–5:15
®
I will present on the successes and setbacks that I
encounter as a technical writer who develops
content in English and then coordinates the
translations to the other supported languages. My
company does not outsource translations; it uses
internal and external translators (e.g., employees in
global offices) to localize content to their specific
markets. The session will explain this process and
discuss how a technical writer can successfully
coordinate global translations using an IMS.
Producing Professional-Sounding
Audio in Video Tutorials
Tom Johnson, idratherbewriting.com
No matter what tool you use to create video
tutorials, getting the voice right—sounding
professional, clear, and friendly—is an art. You
have to know the type of microphone to use, how
to read your script sounding natural and at ease
(often while driving the mouse), how to postprocess your audio track without ending up with
choppy background shifts, and how to sync the
voice with the timing of the video actions.
Making ePublications Relevant
Rahel Bailie, Intentional Design
It's an exciting time to be creating digital
publications, as the possibilities are as vast as one's
imagination. The challenges of organizations will to
be to channel their efforts into making sure that
their digital publications (ebooks and other
epublications) help them advance their business
objectives while delighting their audiences.
Galileo's Dilemma: Satisfying Information Consumers in the
Post-PC Era
Andrew Thomas
Director of Product Marketing for Structured Content Technologies, SDL International
Andrew Thomas is the Director of Product Marketing for Structured Content Technologies
at SDL. Andrew has worked with XML for a wide variety of content, from marketing
materials, to printed manuals and web applications. He has witnessed first-hand the
diversity of structured content and how it can empower businesses and customer
engagement. Before joining SDL, Andrew was a language intelligence solutions manager
for Adobe Systems and oversaw the translation process for their DITA content.
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5:30–6:30
SDL Globalization Challenge
The Globalization Challenge is a quiz-style competition to find the team with the most overall knowledge of
global markets, content, globalization and localization.
This year’s Challenge will contain a twist—sudden death karaoke!
Teams of two will go head-to-head against other localization professionals...all in the name of fun,
professional recognition and a chance to win a paid trip to Santa Clara for the finals in March 2013.
Last year’s Globalization Challenge featured teams from Adobe, Apple, Dell, ExactTarget, Google, HP, Intel,
KCI, Mincom, National Instruments and Research in Motion, among others, with KCI as the winning team.
Pair up with a teammate and register today at www.sdl.com/g11nchallenge
6:30–
28
LavaCon
www.lavacon.org
PDX MeetUp: An Evening with Ann Rockley
The
®
Conference
Tuesday, October 9
7:30–8:00
Continental Breakfast, Exhibit Hall Open
8:00–9:00
Sessions
The Evolution of an Empowered
Content Team
Mike Stevens and Janet Isadore, PayPal
This session focuses on how PayPal’s Global
Content team evolved to be highly valued partners
with product management and user experience,
engaged early and participating actively in one of
the companies most strategic programs. We’ll talk
about:
•
•
•
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Hiring and developing top content talent
Developing and managing perception of
content’s strategic value
Driving effective collaboration
Results in terms of employee motivation,
retention, and career development
Using Web 2.0 to Turn Legacy Content Into
a Revenue-Generating Corporate Asset
Pam Noreault, ACI Payment Systems
Technical content creators and documentation
teams are usually company cost centers. Web 2.0
changes this landscape. With research, strategic
planning, and customer analysis, you can take your
legacy content and turn it into a revenue-generating
corporate asset. This session will provide research
and details surrounding one or two such
implementations. Additionally, the session will
provide implementation ideas, ideas for generating
revenue with your content, and typical cost savings.
In this session, you will learn how to:
•
•
•
•
•
Implement research initiatives
Complete customer analysis
Create a strategic plan
Understand available options and tools
Generate ideas for determining how your
content can generate revenue
Planning and Managing Translation Projects
Angelos Tzelepis, Localization Consultant
How the translation/localization sausage is made,
and how you can make your life easier. Whether or
not your text is in a CMS, whether or not you have
re-use potential, whether or not you have DTP
needs. Learn the terminology to help you write
better RFI and RFP, the questions to ask your
vendor, how to budget and negotiate, how to
define requirements, and more.
Optimizing Your DITA Content Model for
Translation
Amber Swope, DITA Strategies
Although moving to XML will help you save
translation costs, you may still be paying more that
you should because your content model may not
have the proper level of semantic granularity.
Come learn how to optimize your DITA content
model to remove ambiguity and increase your
translation savings.
New Voice, New Tone, New Information
Architecture: Writing For The Modern
Developer
Keith Boyd, Microsoft
In this session, Keith Boyd will describe the lengths
that the Windows Content Publishing team went to
in order to attract a new generation of developers
and designers to the Windows platform. At the
onset of the Windows 8 project, the Content
Publishing team found itself with more questions
than answers. In a world with numerous platform
choices, how do you craft documentation that
appeals to the sensibilities of a “modern”
developer? How do you craft a voice and tone that’s
appealing and easy to read, yet retains its technical
accuracy and doesn’t increase localization costs?
And how do you organize content in a way that
recognizes the unique lifecycle of the .99 cent app?
See how the Windows team tackled those
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challenges, and hear how they’re tracking the
efficacy of their efforts through actionable feedback
and other metrics.
9:15–10:15
Sessions
Expanding Your Sphere of Influence:
Lead a Document Retention Policy
SWAT Team
Johnette Hassell, Electronic Evidence Retrieval
It has been estimated that 90% of all new
information is generated electronically. Nowhere is
this more evident than in businesses. Since 2006,
they have faced the need to manage and store their
electronic information in new ways. The 2006
amendments to the federal rules of civil procedure
make it important for any organization that faces
potential litigation to have certain procedures and
practices in place—before any litigation occurs,
even when the organization is the defendant.
When litigation occurs, these changes also impose
more critical procedures and practices. Until these
changes, most organizations were poorly prepared
for these responsibilities.
In this presentation we will discuss these new
responsibilities and the new types of staff needed
to ensure they are met. We will also discuss how
you can make the transition from human resources,
project management, technical communication and
other positions to fill these new roles and broaden
your sphere of influence in your organization.
Monitoring Social Media for Documentation
Customer Feedback
Rhyne Armstrong, RouteMatch Software
Your marketing department uses social media to
monitor your brand and your company's
reputation. Did you know that you can also monitor
those sites and networks to get feedback that your
documentation team can use? In this session, we
will discuss the various sites and methods you can
use to help your documentation team improve their
products, your department's awareness, and your
value to your customers and to your organization.
GALA Panel: Localization Trends For
Global-Savvy Content Teams
Tobias Scherf, PTIGlobal
Marc Johnson, TransPerfect/Translations.com
Laura Brandon, GALA Managing Director
(moderator)
If you are faced with pressures to go to market
faster and in more languages, then you need to
stay abreast of the trends affecting the translation
industry. The face of the localization sector is
evolving rapidly with new technologies and new
models of production to take your content global.
Come hear some of the latest innovations and
trends that are changing the way teams manage
content—things that can help your team build
global savvy.
This panel discussion is presented by the
Globalization and Localization Association, the
largest global non-profit association within the
language industry, providing resources, education,
ideas and research for companies working with
translation services, language technology and
content localization. GALA member companies are
vendors and buyers of language services and
technologies. They deploy sophisticated
multilingual strategies and proven tools to take
content and products to markets around the world.
The panel will give insight on the following trends:
•
•
•
•
Content translation readiness
Integration considerations (connecting
authoring systems to translation systems)
Faster, cheaper, smarter (machine translation
and other developments)
Workflow readiness (the latest in keeping
projects lean and nimble)
Migrating to DITA: How Automated
Conversion Works and Why Tt Matters
Patrick Baker, Stilo International
An important consideration when moving to DITA,
or any other structured authoring system, is the
conversion of your existing content to the new
format. Most organizations have to make the
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The
change while still continuing to meet their regular
product release cycles, and usually without much in
the way of added staff or resources. So how does
one go about making an informed decision as to
the best approach to select for content conversion?
The premise of this presentation is that knowledge
is the key to effective content conversion. The
better the conversion process understands the
content, the better it can apply correct and precise
semantic markup. What is the role of the subject
matter experts in this process, and how can they
influence the automation? This presentation will
discuss how an improved understanding of content
can be achieved through automation, and provide
the foundation for a successful conversion strategy.
Developing For The Unknown
Neil Perlin, Hyper/Word Services
Today, we create content that might go out as
online help and PDF. Tomorrow… Mobile?
Dynamic online help? Metadata-driven intelligent
10:30–11:30
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Conference
content? Some output just being developed now?
Who in 1992 foresaw the growth of the web? Why
does it matter?
In the past, we used control files incorrectly, and set
up projects inefficiently, and violated standards,
and got away with it because we had time to make
mistakes and fix them. But today’s ROI and time-tomarket pressures require us more and more to
create content that can be used on whatever
outputs and display devices the future may bring.
Many of the features and technologies needed to
do this have been built into our tools for years but
have not been used correctly (or at all), or are little
known because few people needed them. Others
are just emerging. So, to avoid repeating the
mistakes of the past, this presentation looks at the
required changes in philosophy, coding, standards,
and methodologies we need to use to future-proof
our content.
Sessions
Building a Business Case for Content
Initiatives
Jack Molisani, ProSpring Staffing
Do you think it’s obvious that investing in content
development/ management now will save your
company money in the long run?
Are you frustrated when management doesn’t
instantly agree?
Building a business case for resources can be
challenging, especially if you have few (if any)
credible industry metrics to quote. This session
includes case studies, metrics, and hard-won
lessons learned about how to build a business case
to fund content initiatives.
How to Produce Amazing Webinars
Sharon Burton, Content Strategist
Webinars can add value to your company and
position your company as the industry leader. But
what specific steps do you need to take to make
sure your webinars are compelling and run
smoothly? How can technical communicators add
value to these lead generating events? What do you
need to know to make sure your webinar series has
the industry impact you need?
This presentation will provide you with specific
steps from Sharon Burton's new book, 8 Steps to
Amazing Webinars, published by XML Press to
show you what you need to know. Additionally, one
attendee will win a copy of the new book.
GALA Panel, Continued:
Quality Assurance Testing for Localized
Content
Moderator: Laura Brandon, GALA Managing
Director
Collaboration and Instantiation:
Engineering Content in DITA XM
Cheri Mullins, Mullins Consulting at AMD
AMD is an engineering company. Technical
documents at AMD largely are written by engineers
for engineers about engineering. However, even for
such a tightly-defined target audience, it is possible
to miss the mark when demand outstrips
resources.
In order to meet increasing demands for new
products, new releases, and customizations, AMD
takes a modular and collaborative approach to
product development. To be equally flexible in
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developing the information content that supports
and documents their engineering products, AMD
chose to implement DITA XML.
However positive engineers are about innovation
overall, we all, nonetheless, tend to resist any
changes that accompany innovation. And changes
in documentation development can be difficult to
sell in any case, particularly when the benefits of
such changes can seem abstract. Benefits such as
consistency, reuse, and even cost-savings aside,
acceptance—or rejection—by the individual content
authors is a critical factor for a successful
implementation of new processes, tools, and
technologies.
In the initiative to move to DITA XML, AMD has
identified not only the big-picture benefits, but also
some concrete advantages for content authors.
Documents are changing from being created to
being engineered, from being written by an author
to being authored by collaboration. This
presentation highlights some of the innovations—
in both technology and approach—that AMD is
implementing as part of the move to a sustainable,
collaborative DITA XML model for engineering
content.
11:45–12:45
Pulling Content Into Mobile Apps
Neil Perlin, Hyper/Word Services
Today, we can reuse the content from our online
help projects in many outputs and formats
including two types of mobile—eBooks and web
apps—by using familiar tools like RoboHelp and
Flare. Native mobile apps aren’t in this picture and
don’t seem to belong because they’re text-light. Or
are they? The reality is that we can’t be sure that a
company may not need a true native app that
contains a lot of text. How can we integrate textheavy native apps into our single sourcing content
workflow without having to buy new tools and
generally turn things upside down?
In this presentation, we’ll first look at the distinction
between web apps, which our current authoring
tools support, and native apps, which they don’t.
Yet… This presentation is somewhat speculative,
but it follows the path that tech comm followed
with online help and web development in their
early days.
Closing Session LavaCon/
Opening Session Content Strategy Workshop
Future-Proofing Your Content: The Importance of Content
Strategy in an Increasingly Mobile World
Ann Rockley
President, The Rockley Group
Ann Rockley is President of The Rockley Group, Inc. She has an international reputation for
developing multichannel content strategies and digital publishing solutions. She has been
instrumental in establishing the field in eContent, content reuse, intelligent content
strategies for multiplatform delivery, eBooks, and content management best practices.
Rockley is a frequent contributor to trade and industry publications and a keynote speaker
at numerous conferences in North America, Europe, and Asia-Pacific.
Ann led Content Management Professionals, an international organization that fosters the
sharing of content management information, practices, and strategies to a prestigious eContent 100 award in
2005. Known as the "mother" of content strategy, she introduced the concept of content strategy with her
best-selling book, Managing Enterprise Content: A Unified Content Strategy, now in its second edition. Ann
was ranked among the top five most influential content strategists in 2010. Ann is also the primary author for
DITA 101, and eBooks 101.
Ann has a Master of Information Science from the University of Toronto and is a Fellow of the Society for
Technical Communication.
She can be reached at [email protected], www.rockley.com, and on Twitter: @arockley.
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®
Conference
Speakers
Scott Abel
President, The Content Wrangler
Scott Abel ([email protected]),
aka The Content Wrangler, is an
internationally recognized
content management strategist
and social networking
choreographer whose strengths
lie in helping global
organizations improve the way they author,
maintain, and deliver information. In addition to his
popular business blog,
www.TheContentWrangler.com, an online resource
for content professionals with an interest in content
management, content standards, and content
technologies, Scott maintains several online
communities on Facebook (www.facebook.com/
scottpatrickabel) and Linkedin (www.linkedin.com/
in/scottabel), and is a popular and influential
technology blogger on Twitter (@scottabel).
He also manages the social networking activities for
several software and services firms in the high
technology and digital mobile publishing arenas.
Scott writes regularly for trade and industry
publications, blogs, and newsletters. He also coproduces several content industry events, including
the Web Content conference in Chicago
(www.webcontentconferences.com) and Intelligent
Content conference
(www.intelligentcontent2011.com) in Palm Springs,
CA. He’s also a popular dance music mashup artist,
dj, and music producer who has been spinning
since 1982.
Andrea Ames
Senior Technical Staff Member and Information
Experience Strategist and Architect, IBM
Andrea L. Ames, M.S., is a Senior
Technical Staff Member and
Information Experience Strategist
and Architect at IBM where she is
responsible for driving broad
initiatives to improve the total
information experience. Prior to
IBM, Andrea was an information strategy,
architecture, and usability consultant, helping large
and small businesses to engineer their product
development processes to design and create
information 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 25 years of experience in technical
communication. She is a Fellow and past President
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
University of California Extension (Santa Cruz)
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. Friend her on Facebook
(www.facebook.com/alames), follow her on Twitter
(@aames), and give her a reason (your readership!)
to post more regularly to her blog at
www.thinkmorewriteless.wordpress.com
Tom Aldous
TCS Product Evangelist, Adobe Systems
Tom Aldous is the new Adobe
Product Evangelist for the
Technical Communications Suite.
Prior to coming to Adobe, Tom
was the President of Integrated
Technologies, Inc. since its
formation in 1989. Tom is a
certified Adobe FrameMaker, Acrobat and LifeCycle
Forms Instructor. His speaking engagements
include the STC Annual Conference, DITA East /
West and many other conferences.
Rhyne Armstrong
Director of Documentation, RouteMatch
Software
Robert Rhyne Armstrong is
Director of Documentation at
RouteMatch Software. He has 18
years experience in the technical
communication field; often
moving from the core discipline
of technical writing to the
outlying roles of corporate communication, product
marketing, and user experience design. Over the
last several years, Robert has consulted on social
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head-first into emerging technologies and
communication trends. He is a senior member of
the Society for Technical Communication, serving
on the Community Affairs Committee and on the
leadership council of the Atlanta Chapter. Robert
resides in Alpharetta, GA where he spends most of
his time shuttling any of his four kids to soccer,
ballet, or gymnastics. He is a rabid soccer fan, a
youth athletics coach, and a follower and alumnus
of the University of South Carolina.
Bernard Aschwanden
President, Publishing Smarter
Bernard Aschwanden is a
publishing technologies expert
and author. A Certified Technical
Trainer, he teaches XML, DITA,
content management,
minimalism, and topic based
writing. He helps clients analyze
and convert legacy docs, review workflow, and
identify best practices, to reduce costs and discover
savings.
Joseph Bachana
Founder, DPCI
Joe Bachana began his career in
the late 1980s at the New York
Times in its Production
Technology Group. He furthered
his career at the Associated Press
as technical services manager for
AP AdSend, the digital delivery
system from advertisers to AP member
newspapers. Mr. Bachana went on to be senior
Project Manager at I.M.A.G.E. Inc, then Senior
Account Manager at Inacom, before founding DPCI
in April, 1999.
A native of New York, Mr. Bachana is a graduate of
both Brown (BA) and Columbia (GS) Universities
and holds PMP certification from the Project
Management Institute. He enjoys writing and
speaking about various trends in content
technologies, on project management best
practices, and also on his insights into the
operations of running the business of DPCI.
Mark Baker
Analecta Communications
Mark Baker provides consulting
services and training in
structured writing and topicbased authoring through his
company, Analecta
Communications, Inc.
(www.analecta.com). He has
been practicing and implementing structured
writing since the SGML days, and gave his first
paper on topic-based authoring at SGML 95, under
the title “Component Based Information
Development.” His previous positions include
Manager of Information Engineering Methods at
Nortel and Director of Communications for SGML
pioneer OmniMark Technologies. He blogs on
topic-based authoring at everypageispageone.com.
He is also the creator of the SPFE (“spiffy”)
architecture for structured authoring and
publishing, which is described at SPFE.info. He
tweets as @mbakeranalecta
Patrick Baker
Vice President, Development and Professional
Services, Stilo International
Patrick Baker is VP, Development
and Professional Services at Stilo
International, where he heads
product development and is
actively engaged in the
successful deployment of content
conversion solutions for
publishing clients. Patrick has been associated with
best practices for complex content conversion for
over a decade, and has successfully delivered
custom solutions on behalf of organizations in the
automotive, airline, defence and commercial
publishing sectors. With a B.Sc. degree in
Mathematics and a M.Sc. in Computer Science
from McGill University, he leads an expert team of
highly talented content conversion specialists at
Stilo.
Rahel Bailie
Principal, Intentional Design Inc.
Integrator of content strategy,
requirements analysis,
information architecture, and
content management to increase
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The
ROI of product lifecycle content. Aficionado of
content structure and standards. Founder of
Intentional Design, Fellow of STC.
Michael Boses
Co-founder, Contelligence Group
Michael Boses is a business
analyst, product designer, and
solution architect whose
experience spans multiple
industries, government, and
defense. Michael Co-founded
In.vision Research Corporation,
and as CTO was responsible for product design as
well as process reengineering and solution
architecture on key customer initiatives. After
Quark acquired In.vision in 2008, Michael served as
Quark's Director of XML Products before cofounding the Contelligence Group.
Keith Boyd
Senior Content Publishing Manager, Microsoft
In his role as Senior Content
Publishing Manager at Microsoft,
Keith Boyd manages a team of
Programming-Writers, Technical
Editors, and Content Project
Managers that produce the
developer documentation (API
reference, conceptual guidance, design principles,
etc.) for Microsoft Windows.
Keith is a 12-year Microsoft veteran, having spent
his entire career in the technical publications space.
Over the course of those 12 years, he’s managed
nearly every developer content portfolio in the
Windows division, including Internet Explorer,
Windows Live, the Windows Driver Kit, DirectX,
Windows Presentation Foundation, and most
recently, the Metro style app development
platform. In addition to his professional work, Keith
remains active at his alma-mater (Western
Washington University), where he’s President-Elect
of the Alumni Association. When he’s not headsdown in a technical publication or in yet another
meeting, Keith is spending time at home with his
wife, Leslie, and three young boys.
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Laura Brandon
Managing Director, Globalization and
Localization Association (GALA)
Laura Brandon is the Managing
Director of the Globalization and
Localization Association (GALA),
the largest global organization
within the language industry.
Under her stewardship, the
association has grown from its
initial 15 founding member companies to more
than 300 companies in 50 countries. Laura oversees
management of the association, including
development of member programs, industry
advocacy, and the annual international Language of
Business conference.
Andrew Bredenkamp
President, Acrolinx
Andrew Bredenkamp is president
and founder of Acrolinx. Andrew
has over 20 years of experience
in multilingual information
development. Before starting
Acrolinx, Andrew was Head of
the Technology Transfer Centre
at the German Research Center for Artificial
Intelligence (DFKI) Language Technology Lab.
Andrew holds degrees in technical translation and
linguistics and a Ph.D. in Computational Linguistics.
He is on the advisory board of a number of
organizations, including Translators without
Borders and The Centre for Next Generation
Localisation (CNGL).
Karen Buchanan
Senior Manager of the Information Development
Team for Sterling Commerce Products, IBM
Karen Buchanan is Senior
Manager of the Information
Development Team for the IBM
Sterling Commerce products in
IBM's Industry Solutions
Software Group, where she leads
4 teams of 50 writers, editors, and
information architects across multiple US locations
and Bangalore, India. Karen holds a BA in English
from Bowling Green State University and an MBA
from Franklin University. She has worked in various
technical writing and documentation team lead and
management roles for more than 20 years.
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Sharon Burton
Content Strategist
Sharon Burton is a nationally
recognized expert, public
speaker, and instructor in the
field of business and technical
communication. With 20 years of
experience in the field, she has
consulted with companies large
and small, such as Pitney Bowes, Royal, and
Hewlett Packard, to improve their product
documentation and documentation workflow. Most
recently, she is using her experience in helping
companies develop excellent webinar series.
Sharon has received numerous honors for her
work, including the distinction of Associate Fellow
by the Society for Technical Communication. She
was recently identified as the eighteenth most
influential person in the world on the topics of
technical communication and content strategy by
MindTouch, Inc.
Sharon is a Ph.D candidate in Cultural
Anthropology and an adjunct professor at the
University of California, Riverside, teaching
technical communications to engineering majors
and post-graduates. A sometimes newspaper
columnist and essayist, her articles on life in
Southern California have appeared in such
periodicals as the Los Angeles Times, the Inland
Empire Weekly, and the Inland Valley Voice
newspapers.
She can be reached at [email protected].
Ken Circeo
Senior Content Publisher, Microsoft
Ken Circeo is a Senior Content
Publisher at Microsoft,
specializing in new media for
communications software. As an
11-year Microsoft veteran, Ken
has helped to usher in the era of
new media for the software giant,
first evangelizing the merits of audio and video
content, and then creating processes that have
come to be adopted throughout the company. Prior
to joining Microsoft, Ken was a technical writer at
WordPerfect, Novell, and NetDocuments. He has
also written more than 200 articles for various
publications, including InfoWorld, PC Mech, and
News 3X/400.
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Jackie Damrau
ARIS Trainer for Global Education Services—The
Americas, Software AG USA, Inc.
Jackie Damrau is an ARIS Trainer
for Global Education Services—
The Americas at Software AG
USA, Inc. She has more than 20
years of technical communication
experience. She is a Fellow of the
Society for Technical
Communication (STC), member of the STC Lone
Star Community and the Instructional Design &
Learning SIG, general manager of the STC
International Summit Awards, and the Book Review
Editor for Technical Communication. Jackie enjoys
reading literature and philosophy. Find her on
LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com/in/jackiedamrau) or
Twitter (@damrauja).
Don Day
Co-founder, Contelligence Group
Don Day is co-founder of the
Contelligence Group. He has led
enterprise innovation efforts for
more than 20 years resulting in
multiple patents, official
recognition for his contribution to
reengineering IBM's information
assets, and designation as an OASIS Distinguished
Contributor for his efforts convening and leading
the OASIS Darwin Information Typing Architecture
(DITA) Technical Committee. Don provides
consulting on strategy, technology, and best
practices for optimizing the value and usefulness of
unstructured data.
Liz Fraley
CEO, Single Sourcing Solutions, Inc.
Before founding Single-Sourcing Solutions, Liz
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. For
over a decade, she has architected and
implemented the single-sourcing systems for
government and high tech companies. Specializing
in practical development and deployment, she is a
strong advocate of designing architectures that
directly improve organizational efficiency,
productivity, and interoperability. She presents
regularly at industry and vendor conferences and is
very active in the software engineering user
The
communities: SF Bay ACM council member, SF Bay
Arbortext PTC/User group charter member, and
host of both a blog and a podcast that focus on
strategies, skills, and resources for the user
community. She holds degrees in Computer
Science and English from the University of College
Park and a Masters in English from the University of
Southern Mississippi.
She holds degrees in Computer Science and
English from the University of College Park and a
Masters in English from the University of Southern
Mississippi.
Aaron Fulkerson
Founder and CEO, MindTouch
As CEO of MindTouch, Aaron has
grown the company from a small
free, open source project into a
widely respected brand in social
business software with millions
of users around the globe and an
impressive list of customers. He
was a member of Microsoft's Advanced Strategies
and Policies division where he worked on
distributed systems research reporting to Microsoft
Chief Strategy Officer, Craig Mundie. Aaron has
also helped launch several non-profits and
businesses outside the software industry.
He also has been a contributing writer at CNN,
Fortune, Gigaom, ReadWriteWeb, TechWeb,
CMSWire and Forbes Magazine. He has been
tapped by the White House to inform national
education policy and he has been invited to the eG8 to inform international technology policy. He is
a sought after and dynamic public speaker who has
presented at dozens of technology and business
conferences. Aaron graduated from UNC-Chapel
Hill with a BS in Computer Science. You can find
Aaron on Linkedin (www.linkedin.com/in/
aaronfulkerson) and Twitter (www.twitter.com/
Roebot).
Corey Ganser
Customer Experience Manager, MindTouch
As the Product Marketing
Specialist at MindTouch, Corey
educates and promotes effective
uses of technology to help users
manage, grow, and engage
others with their content.
Included in Corey's 10 years of
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business and IT experience, are 5 years dedicated
to establishing and managing the Customer
Support department at MindTouch. During this
time, he supported customers like Intel, Intuit,
Palm, NASA, Washington Post, and Paypal and
routinely returned 96% satisfaction results from
these and other MindTouch customers. Corey
received his bachelor’s in Entrepreneurship at the
University of St. Thomas in Saint Paul, MN, and
currently resides in San Diego, CA.
Beth Gerber
Co-owner and President, Lightext
An Adobe Partner
Beth Gerber is co-owner and
President of Lightext, Inc., a firm
that specializes in quality
consulting in the areas of policy
and procedure development,
curriculum design and training
delivery. Beth began her career
as a Vice President for Home Savings of America in
California and was responsible for training,
procedures and loan servicing operational
departments. In 1994, Beth took her expertise and
opened a consulting company that models her
commitment to high standards in the writing and
training profession.
Lightext today has a consulting staff of over 25
highly skilled professionals. They work with clients
to develop and deliver customized training and
policy and procedure solutions. Several of these
companies outsource their entire training and
procedure departments to Lightext for ongoing
support and maintenance. Lightext prides itself in
its ability to ascertain a client’s total learning needs
and provide a comprehensive solution that
maximizes the use of resources, thus reducing cost
and redundancy.
In 2010, the consulting business expanded through
the opening of the Lightext Training Center,
certified by Adobe Systems. The training center
offers courses for Learning Professionals in the
writing and training world, including Policy and
Procedure Development, Curriculum Design,
Presentation Skills, and select Adobe products such
as RoboHelp and Captivate.
Beth is an experienced presenter providing
recommendations and new solutions to
management teams as well as facilitating
workshops and training courses. In addition, she
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has co-hosted several webinars with Adobe
Systems in the area of policy and procedure and
training solutions.
Beth has a Bachelor’s degree in Business
Administration from the University of the Pacific
and is a member of the Society for Technical
Communication. Through Lightext she has
developed a strong client list, including First
Republic Bank, City National Bank, Central Pacific
Bank, Union Bank, Far East National Bank,
Grandpoint Bank, Prospect Mortgage, Korn/Ferry
International, One West Bank, PennyMac Mortgage
Corporation, Wells Fargo, Mitsubishi Motors Credit,
Capital Source Bank, Oaktree Capital Management,
The Loan Depot and PMC Bancorp, to name a few.
Connie Giordano
Partner, INKtopia Limited
Manager of TechWhirl and Tech Writer Today
Connie Giordano, a partner in
INKtopia Limited, serves as Editor
of TechWhirl's Tech Writer Today
online magazine. She has been a
list member and contributor since
the days when 14,400 baud was
high speed communications, and
Windows 95 was state-of-the-art.
Connie serves at the Editor for TechWhirl's Tech
Writer Today online magazine, as well as a frequent
contributor. If you find a typo or an awkwardly
worded sentence, flame her rather than Al or the
SWU. She's also the list moderator, which means
all those years fighting with her sisters growing up
is finally paying off. Connie attained a Master of
Arts in Organizational Communication from
Queens University, and actually started on the
"dark side" with an undergraduate degree in Mass
Communications/Advertising. She can change hats
faster than a NASCAR driver at a press conference,
switching between technical writer, knowledge
manager, information designer, product manager,
pubs manager, project communications lead, UI
designer, communications consultant, and change
management specialist, among others.
In addition to TechWhirl, Connie owns The Right
Words and spends daylight hours doing change
management, knowledge management and
content management for really Big Financial
Services companies, and a variety of really cool
small businesses. Contact her at
[email protected] or LinkedIn or Twitter
@cpgiordano.
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Joe Gollner
Director, Gnostyx Research
Joe Gollner is the Director of
Gnostyx Research Inc., a
company he founded to help
organizations come to grips with
their content in ways that are
sustainable and scalable. His
particular specialty revolves
around leveraging open standards and intelligent
content technologies to build solutions that connect
the myriad of sources and processes that underlie
how an enterprise performs and what it publishes.
Along this line, he has led over 100 content
management initiatives during the last twenty
years, with several of these representing the high
water mark in the industry for sophistication and
scale.
Among these projects are some of the first
business applications of the web, starting in 1992.
His customers have tended to exhibit a distinctively
technical bent and examples include Boeing, NATO
Headquarters, Schlumberger, Xerox, Nokia,
Samsung and the Russian Academy of Science.
Going further into the past and showcasing a not
altogether healthy diversity of influences, he was
an artillery officer in the Canadian army and
graduated from the University of Oxford with a
Masters of Philosophy. Perhaps as an inevitable
consequence of this history, he posts minor tomes
on the nature of content through his blog, The
Content Philosopher (www.gollner.ca).
He is supposed to be working on a book about
Engineering Content, which he hopes to put out
early in 2013.
Bonni Graham
Senior Manager, User Experience, GlobalScholar
Bonni Graham is well known in
the Technical Communication
field. Having also run her own
business, as well as
documentation groups both large
and small for various employers,
Bonni also feels she has earned a
combat MBA and a combat PMP certification. Bonni
is Senior Manager, User Experience for
GlobalScholar. In addition, she teaches at two
University of California campuses, including a class
in managing documentation projects. In her
copious free time, Bonni crochets, raises her family,
and sleeps (sometimes).
The
Mike Hamilton
Vice President, Product Management
MadCap Software
Prior to joining MadCap Software,
Michael Hamilton served as the
Product Manager for
Macromedia’s award-winning
RoboHelp product line. As product
manager of RoboHelp for most of
its life, Mike gathered input and
feedback from the customer community and
guided ongoing development of the various
RoboHelp products. Mike joined the RoboHelp
family in 1999 as a founding member of the
Training Solutions Program team, where he coauthored the certified training materials supporting
the RoboHelp family.
Mike has over ten years of experience in training,
technical communication, multimedia
development, and software development at several
organizations including Cymer, a leading supplier
of laser illumination sources to the semiconductor
industry, National Steel & Shipbuilding and the US
Navy.
Mike is often a featured speaker at industry events,
including the WinWriters Online Help Conferences,
STC (the Society for Technical Communication)
Annual International Conference, Forum 2000
London, the Annual Australasian Online
Documentation Conferences, the European Online
Documentation Conferences, and many more
events. He has also appeared at the Microsoft
Campus and STC regional conferences and events.
Mike is also frequently quoted in technology
articles in various trade publications.
Richard Hamilton
Publisher, XML Press
Richard Hamilton is Publisher at
XML Press. He began his career at
Bell Laboratories developing
computer software and has
worked at AT&T, Unix System
Laboratories, Novell, and HewlettPackard in jobs ranging from
software development to product management to
documentation management. In 2008 he founded
XML Press, which is dedicated to producing high
quality publications for technical communicators,
managers, marketers, and the engineers who
support their work.
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Richard is the author of Managing Writers: A RealWorld Guide to Managing Technical
Documentation and editor of DocBook 5: The
Definitive Guide. He is a member of the DocBook
and DITA technical committees at OASIS Open.
Johnette Hassell
President, Electronic Evidence Retrieval, LLC
Johnette Hassell, PhD, is
president of Electronic Evidence
Retrieval, LLC, headquartered in
New Orleans, Louisiana. She
served on the faculty of Tulane
University's School of
Engineering for 27 years, serving
as Department Chair of the Department of
Computer Science and Assistant Dean for
Undergraduate Recruitment and Retention.
Dr. Hassell has more than 24 years experience as a
national consultant in computer forensics and
expert witness in areas ranging from telephony to
maritime shipping to manufacturing. She has
authored textbooks and numerous journal articles,
and provides computer forensics training to
attorneys and other legal professionals. An expert
in e-discovery, she has lectured widely on the
consequences of the newly amended Federal Rules
of Civil Procedure.
Chris Hester
Communication Management Consultant
Chris Hester is a content and
communication consultant and
has worked with organizations on
software implementation, content
strategy, and content
management projects. She is an
Associate Fellow of STC, a
member of STC Chicago, and has presented at local
and national conferences.
Maxwell Hoffmann
Product Evangelist, Adobe Systems
Maxwell Hoffmann is Adobe
System's Product Evangelist for
Tech Comm. A former product
manager for FrameMaker at
Frame Technology (prior to
product acquisition by Adobe),
Hoffmann also spent a dozen
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years managing complex, multi-lingual production
in the language translation industry with output to
print, Help and ePubs. Hoffmann has also provided
face-to-face, hands-on training to over 1,200 people
in scalable authoring solutions and has written
several White Papers that were voluntarily
translated into German, Japanese and Korean. He
has managed projects in DITA, XML as well as
authoring tools ranging from Word, InDesign,
Quark Express to structured FrameMaker.
Hoffmann is based in a virtual office near Portland,
Oregon and can be followed on Twitter as
@maxwellhoffmann and @AdobeTCS.
Janet Isadore
Director, Global Content, PayPal
Janet Isadore leads PayPal’s
Global Content team, part of User
Experience and Design at PayPal.
She supports the work of more
than 100 web writers, technical
writers, editors, linguists, and
program managers responsible
for writing and localizing the product content on the
PayPal web sites around the world.
Before joining PayPal in 2006, Janet worked in
publishing. She started in academic book
publishing for the University of California, and then
moved to technical publishing for high-tech
companies in the Silicon Valley. Publishing web
content for PayPal brings together her passion for
building and supporting global teams and
participating in the evolution of publishing and
technology.
Janet has a BA in Asian Studies from Wellesley
College and a MA in Journalism from University of
California, Berkeley.
Char James-Tanny
President, JTF Associates, Inc.
Char James-Tanny is president of
JTF Associates, Inc. and has
more than 30 years of experience
as a technical communicator. She
speaks around the world on
topics including Help authoring
concepts and tools, accessibility,
social media, web standards, collaboration, and
technology. Char has been a Microsoft MVP since
2002.
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Marc Johnson
Division President, TransPerfect/
Translations.com
Marc Johnson is Division
President of Translations.com's
Oregon production group. He
was a localization engineer at
Hewlett-Packard Company before
becoming Chief Information
Officer of the Oregon division in
the late 90s. He has lived in Asia and Europe and
speaks Japanese and French with anyone who has
the patience for it. He holds a degree in
mathematics from the University of California at
Santa Cruz.
Tom Johnson
Senior Technical Writer, LDS Church,
Blogger, I’d Rather be Writing
Tom Johnson is a senior
technical writer for the LDS
Church in Utah. At work, Tom
manages a community of more
than 100 volunteer writers who
contribute to the LDSTech blog
and wiki, tech.lds.org. Tom also
writes a popular blog on technical communication,
idratherbewriting.com, which has almost 4,000
readers. In 2012, MindTouch named him the most
influential technical communicator. Although Tom
creates a variety of outputs—quick reference
guides, screencasts, and websites—his favorite
deliverable is writing, particularly personal essays.
Tom is also a WordPress consultant. He can be
reached at [email protected].
Mark Lewis
DITA Project Manager for Usability and
Product Evangelist, Quark
Mark is the author of the DITA
Metrics 101 book that proves the
savings and high content reuse
percentages possible with DITA's
structured, topic-based
architecture. Mark is a
contributing author of DITA 101
Second Edition by the Rockley Group. His DITA
metrics model was a JoAnn Hackos-Rare Bird
Award 2009 Competitor. Mark manages the DITA
Metrics LinkedIn group. He has presented on
The
technical writing, DITA, ROI and object oriented
design topics at Intelligent Content, DITA North
America, STC, and other national conferences. He
and John Hunt co-chaired the OASIS DITA for the
Web subcommittee. He has received Society for
Technical Communication (STC) awards for
Distinguished Chapter Service and the Florida
Technical Communications Competition. Mark is
the DITA Product Manager for Usability and a
product evangelist for Quark.
Al Martine
INKtopic Limited
Manager of TechWhirl and Tech Writer Today
A former non-profit fundraiser
and change management
consultant (the friendly and
useful type, not the evil type) and
now he's the head of TechWhirl
Janitorial Services. If it’s going
well or poorly with TechWhirl’s
websites he’s probably the one to thank or blame.
Al has his undergraduate in marketing from West
Virginia University and MBA from London Business
School. When he's not working on the sites, he can
be found cheering on the Mountaineers, taking a
nice long run or looking for life’s ultimate question.
He can be reached by writing nearly any email
address to TechWhirl or on his personal blog,
World Sojourner : 3760or on his Twitter account
@AlMartine.
Tom McCluskey
Co-founder, Digital Bindery
Tom McCluskey has been
fascinated by the potential of
electronic literature since first
reading Neal Stephenson's
Diamond Age, but was
disappointed by the state of
design when ebooks began to
gain popularity. Tom became well-versed in book
design while earning his master's degree in book
publishing from Portland State University, where
he was a member of the design department as well
as the founder of the digital content department for
the student-run Ooligan Press. He and Amanda
Gomm co-founded Digital Bindery in 2010 to try to
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bring the exacting standards of print book design to
the world of ebooks. Tom's likes include semantic
markup, Garamond, and standards compliance.
Cheri Mullins
Information Architect, Mullins Consulting
Cheri Mullins is an information
architect, a writer, an educator, a
content strategist, and a
researcher. Whatever route she
takes, she typically finds herself
at the intersections of
technology, culture, and
language in an ever shrinking and expanding
world. A principal at Mullins Consulting, she
currently is dedicating most of her professional
time to the Content Information Architecture DITA
XML initiative at Advanced Micro Devices in Austin,
Texas. Other research projects currently clamoring
for her attention are in the areas of international
technical communication and outsourcing, cultural
communication, and DITA XML.
Suzanne Mescan
Vice President of Marketing, Vasont Systems
Suzanne Mescan is Vasont
Systems’ Vice President of
Marketing, with responsibility for
the Company's overall marketing
and public relations efforts. For
more than 25 years, she has
worked in all aspects of the
information management and publishing industry,
including content management, editorial, art and
design, project management, prepress production,
printing and binding.
Suzanne has authored numerous articles about
content management for industry publications and
has delivered presentations for the CM Strategies/
DITA North America, AIIM, LavaCon and DocTrain
conferences; Philadelphia XML Users Group
Meeting; Vasont Users' Group Meetings; and in
numerous industry webinars. She was also a
contributing author for the book, Virtual
Collaborative Writing in the Workplace: ComputerMediated Communication Technologies and
Processes by Beth L. Hewett and Charlotte
Robidoux (Eds.). Suzanne earned a BS in Marketing
from The Pennsylvania State University.
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Jack Molisani
President, ProSpring Technical Staffing
Executive Director, The LavaCon Conference
Jack Molisani has been a project
officer in the Space Division of
the United States Air Force, a
project manager in a multimillion dollar software company
and currently is the president of
ProSpring Technical Staffing, a
technical staffing company specializing in
engineers, technical project managers and
technical writers. Jack has a BSE in Computer
Engineering from Tulane University and is a Fellow
of the Society for Technical Communication. A
dynamic and entertaining speaker, Jack has spoken
on technical communication, project management
and career development to more than 50
organizations and chapters in the US and Europe.
Linda Morone
Senior Vice President of Sales & Marketing
Data Conversion Laboratory
Linda Morone, Senior Vice
President of Sales & Marketing at
Data Conversion Laboratory, is
responsible for overseeing all of
DCL’s sales and marketing
activities. Linda focuses her
attention on helping clients
organize and convert their content to electronic
documents, populate databases, and publish on the
web, while establishing and developing strategic
partnerships across industries.
Linda joined the DCL team in the spring of 2011,
bringing with her 25 years of experience in
managing the sales efforts of digital media, webbased solutions, technology, and data
management services.
Brent Murphy
Business Manager, Hewlett-Packard
Brent Murphy is a Business
Manager at the Hewlett-Packard
Company (HP) with over 16 years
of experience in content
management related fields. For
the past eight years, he has been
responsible for Hewlett-Packard's
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horizontal component content management
strategy and solution implementation. Brent has
successfully led multiple Hewlett-Packard
businesses through the adoption and
implementation of component content
management resulting in a cohesive solution and
strategy within the company. Over Brent's 20-year
career at Hewlett-Packard, he has focused on taking
manually intensive technical writing processes and
converting them into automated processes through
technology. He resides in Boise, Idaho with his
family.
Pam Noreault
ACI Worldwide
Pam has 20 years of experience in
communications, content management, and
technical writing. She specializes in content reuse,
topic-based content creation, DITA conversions,
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, teaching Technical
Communications courses at the local college, or
hiking with her dogs. Pam has a BS in English/
Spanish Education from The Ohio State University
and a MA in English/Professional Writing from
Wright State University.
Cheri Mullins
Information Architect, Mullins Consulting
Cheri Mullins is an information
architect, a writer, an educator, a
content strategist, and a
researcher. Whatever route she
takes, she typically finds herself
at the intersections of
technology, culture, and
language in an ever shrinking and expanding
world. A principal at Mullins Consulting, she
currently is dedicating most of her professional
time to the Content Information Architecture DITA
XML initiative at Advanced Micro Devices in Austin,
Texas. Other research projects currently clamoring
for her attention are in the areas of international
technical communication and outsourcing, cultural
communication, and DITA XML.
The
Sarah O'Keefe
President, Scriptorium Publishing
Sarah O’Keefe is the chocoholic
founder of Scriptorium
Publishing. Scriptorium
specializes in streamlining
publishing processes for clients
in telecommunications, defense,
technology, and other contentrich industries. Typical projects are content strategy
for technical communication, XML implementation,
and build automation for publishing systems.
As a speaker, Sarah strives to balance
entertainment and information. In 2002, she
received her Certified Technical Trainer (CTT+)
accreditation from CompTIA. Her presentations at
international, national, and regional conferences
(including STC, tekom, and WritersUA) have
consistently earned high ratings.
Sarah is the primary contributor to Scriptorium’s
blog, Palimpsest. Her official publishing credits
include Publishing Fundamentals: FrameMaker 7
(originally published as FrameMaker 7: The
Complete Reference), The WebWorks Publisher
Cookbook, Technical Writing 101, FrameMaker
5.5.6 for Dummies, and numerous white papers.
Fer O’Neil
Knowledgebase Technical Writer, ESET North
America
Fer O’Neil is a Knowledgebase
Technical Writer at a security
software company in San Diego,
California. His company currently
has offices on five continents and
translates support
documentation into eight
languages. He is presently working toward an MA
in English, Technical Communications degree at
Minnesota State University, Mankato.
Jason Owen
DITA Specialist, Ixiasoft
Jason Owen is a DITA Specialist
at IXIASOFT, a CCMS vendor
based in Montreal. He is an
experienced documentation
architect with a unique set of
knowledge and skills for leading
®
Conference
the development of technical information. His
knowledge and skills are based on the principles
that documentation should be user-centered and
easily findable. Prior to joining IXIASOFT, Jason
was the Information Architect at TruePosition.
Neil Perlin
President, Hyper/Word Services
Neil Perlin is an internationally
known consultant, strategist,
trainer, and developer for online
content in all forms ranging from
traditional online help to mobile.
Neil helps clients design their
content, select outputs,
understand the coding, and select and learn
authoring tools. To do this, he brings 33 years of
experience in technical communication, with 27
focused on online in formats and tools past,
present, and future (having represented the Society
for Technical Communication to the WorldWide
Web Consortium).
Neil writes columns and articles for the Society for
Technical Communication and is a popular
conference speaker. He is Adobe Certified for
RoboHelp and Captivate, Madcap Certified for Flare
and Mimic, and Viziapps Certified for the Viziapps
native mobile app development platform. He
provides these services through his consulting
company, Hyper/Word Services. He also spends a
lot of time in business travel, which lets him
indulge his road hobby—searching out BBQ joints.
Alan J. Porter
Technical and Business Communications
Consultant, 4Js Group
Alan J. Porter has 20 plus years
experience in corporate
communications, marketing, and
content development in both the
UK and the USA. Alan is a
catalyst for change with a strong
track record in developing new ideas, embracing
emerging technologies, and introducing
operational improvements. He has been involved in
the development and adoption of various industry
standards, and is a regular speaker at industry
conferences. He is also a published author with
several books, comics and numerous magazine
articles to his name.
2012 Conference on
43
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®
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Dmitri Ragano
Manager of Customer Ordering Systems,
Herbalife
Dmitri Ragano is a writer and
Internet strategist based in Irvine,
California. He works at Herbalife
International, where he currently
manages consumer ordering
systems and previously led the
creation of a content
management infrastructure that publishes to sites
in over 40 languages. Previously, he worked in
global Internet consulting at Razorfish, advising
corporate clients such as Sony, Nissan, Nokia,
Vodafone and Cisco Systems. He is also a
published journalist, screenwriter and author. His
most recent novel Employee of the Year is available
on Amazon.com.
Marta Rauch
Principal Information Developer, Oracle
Marta Rauch is a Principal
Information Developer at Oracle,
where she leads the Planning ID
team and participates in
corporate gamification initiatives.
She enjoys presenting at
conferences throughout the U.S.
and Europe, and has published articles in the Best
Practices journal of the Center for InformationDevelopment Management and STC Intercom. With
over 20 years of experience in technical
communication, Marta has received 15 STC awards
for individual and team projects at the local,
national, and international level. An STC senior
member and mentor for the Silicon Valley Chapter,
she holds a Certificate in Technical Writing from the
University of California Extension and a BA from
Stanford University.
Ann Rockley
President, The Rockley Group
Ann Rockley is President of The
Rockley Group, Inc. She has an
international reputation for
developing multichannel content
strategies and digital publishing
solutions. She has been
instrumental in establishing the
field in eContent, content reuse, intelligent content
strategies for multiplatform delivery, eBooks, and
44
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www.lavacon.org
content management best practices. Rockley is a
frequent contributor to trade and industry
publications and a keynote speaker at numerous
conferences in North America, Europe, and AsiaPacific.
Ann led Content Management Professionals, an
international organization that fosters the sharing
of content management information, practices, and
strategies to a prestigious eContent 100 award in
2005. Known as the "mother" of content strategy,
she introduced the concept of content strategy with
her best-selling book, Managing Enterprise
Content: A Unified Content Strategy, now in its
second edition. Ann was ranked among the top five
most influential content strategists in 2010. Ann is
also the primary author for DITA 101, and eBooks
101.
Ann has a Master of Information Science from the
University of Toronto and is a Fellow of the Society
for Technical Communication. She can be reached
at [email protected], www.rockley.com,
@arockley.
Tobias Scherf
Localization Division Head, PTIGlobal
Tobias has 16 years of
professional experience in
business management and in
localization. His Localization
experience began 9 years ago in
the field of Quality Assurance,
from which he shifted into
Localization Engineering.
Prior to his career in localization, Tobias managed
the Purchasing Department and had heavy
involvement in Sales at Schreiber Metallbau GmbH
in Germany. There he effectively increased the
company's margins by cutting purchase expenses
and pushed the IT infrastructure forward to keep
the company ahead of its competition.
He joined PTIGlobal's staff in 2006 as lead
localization engineer. His expertise and leadership
qualities helped position him at the head of the
Localization Division where he successfully
manages all aspects of operations.
Tobias holds a Business Management degree from
Handwerkskammer Stuttgart, Germany and has
earned a Bachelor's Degree in computer science
from the University of Portland in Oregon.
The
Donald Smith
Senior Vice President, Crowell Solutions
Donald Smith, Ph.D, serves as
Senior Vice President for Crowell
Solutions. Don has over 10 years
experience designing and
implementing data models for
XML-based systems. Don's work
has spanned a range of
industries, including publications, aerospace,
defense intelligence, and automotive. He possesses
expertise in XML Schema and RDF/OWL
information design. Don’s current passion is in
evangelizing RocketSled™, our full-featured XML
editor that operates in MS Word.
Mike Stevens
Manager, Global Content, PayPal
Mike Stevens leads a group of
content strategists and the
technical documentation writers
for the Global Content team, part
of Global Design in Global
Products and Experience, at
PayPal.
Mike has been writing and managing writers in
successful high tech companies for 15 years. Since
joining PayPal in 2003, Mike has written for and
supported writers working in the Marketplaces,
Merchant, Risk, Reporting, and Checkout business
units. Before joining PayPal, he created end user
and technical documentation for Deltanet,
SupportSoft, and various start-ups around the San
Francisco Bay Area. Mike has a degree in Literature
from the University of Houston. He is deeply
passionate about music, literature, film, baseball,
and basketball. And zombies.
Amber Swope
DITA Strategies
Amber Swope is an
internationally-recognized expert
on the Darwin Information
Typing Architecture (DITA) who
specializes in helping teams
design and implement unified
content development
environments for XML content.
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Conference
These environments provide custom, integrated
support for authoring, storing, publishing, and
localizing content. With over 20 years of experience
in the information development field and seven
years of DITA expertise, Amber helps team develop
and optimize their environments to improve
efficiency and reduce costs.
In addition to co-authoring the DITA Maturity
Model, Amber has authored numerous papers and
articles on information design, development, and
architecture and presented at leading industry
conferences. Amber holds a Masters in Technical
and Professional Writing and a Certificate in
Computer Technical Writing from Northeastern
University.
Andrew Thomas
Director of Product Marketing for Structured
Content Technologies, SDL International
Andrew Thomas is the Director of
Product Marketing for Structured
Content Technologies at SDL.
Andrew has worked with XML for
a wide variety of content, from
marketing materials, to printed
manuals and web applications.
He has witnessed firsthand the diversity of
structured content and how it can empower
businesses and customer engagement. Before
joining SDL, Andrew was a language intelligence
solutions manager for Adobe Systems and
oversaw the translation process for their DITA
content.
Angelos Tzelepis
Localization Consultant
Angelos Tzelepis is a 17-year
veteran of the G.I.L.T.
(Globalization /
Internationalization / Localization
/ Translation) industry. He has
focused on desktop publishing,
content management systems,
content re-use, process improvement, quality
assurance and metrics, ISO procedures, training,
language as an accessibility issue, and more. He
really likes talking about translation, design, and
doing things better.
2012 Conference on
45
The
®
Conference
Noz Urbina
Senior Consultant, Trainer and Content Strategist
Mekon Ltd.
Noz Urbina is a Senior
Consultant, Trainer and Content
Strategist for Mekon Ltd. During
over a decade of activity in the
content arena, he has provided
services to Fortune 500
organisations and small-tomedium enterprises, often around DITA and XML
management systems. His expertise is brought into
projects for requirements analysis, management
presentations, project planning and scoping, and
tool selection support.
He is a frequent speaker at conferences around the
world, delivering keynotes, training, talks and
seminars on content strategy, technical
communications and structured content best
practices. Noz has held a number of business
development, technical services, and sales
positions where he was able to develop his
expertise in a cutting-edge, efficiency-driven,
business context.
Christopher Ward
Director of Sales, WebWorks
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.
For over the last three years he has been working
for Webworks and enjoying getting to know the
Technical Communications Industry. His diverse
experiences allow Christopher recognize untapped
potential in a company’s overall business strategy
and help them achieve that potential.
46
LavaCon
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David Wilkins
Vice President, Taleo
David Wilkins has been a thought
leader in the online community
and corporate learning industries
for more than 15 years. Through
the development of awardwinning simulation technology,
LMS solutions, and social
collaboration offerings, he has pioneered many
innovative approaches to solve common workplace
challenges, such as employee productivity and
performance, recruiting and retention, and
corporate communications.
In his current role as Vice President of Taleo
Research, David is responsible for primary and
secondary research in the Talent Management and
broader HR space as well as the communication of
research findings through papers, webinars, and
various social channels. David is an active speaker
at industry conferences and has written articles for
CLO Magazine, Training Magazine, and Talent
Management magazine. Over the last two years, he
has spoken at over 30 regional and national events
as a social learning thought leader. David has also
keynoted major industry events, including Training
and ASTD conferences.
rejected.
Emmelyn Wang
Technical Communications Specialist
Virtual Bridges
Emmelyn has lived and worked in
Silicon Hills for the past 12 years
at companies including IBM and
SMSC. She is an alumnae of The
University of Texas. While
earning her M.A. with a Major in
Technical Communication (TC)
from Texas State University, she specialized in
international and cross-cultural TC. She also
champions content strategy, usability, and
localization best practices and teaches TC at the
college level. She regularly mentors junior college
students and professionals in Austin and San
Antonio who are entering the TC field. She
currently serves as Vice President of the local
chapter of the Society for Technical
Communication (STC). She has also served as
Director of Programs and Education with the Austin
and San Antonio chapters of the STC. Emmelyn's
previous role as Content Strategist at Dovetail
The
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Conference
Software included spearheading information
development efforts for the design, creation and,
care of content across the company. She is
currently the Technical Communications Specialist
for the Austin Ventures start-up, Virtual Bridges.
mobile marketing, SEO copywriting and
entrepreneurship. Jon has an MBA in International
Marketing from Thunderbird, The American
Graduate School of International Management. He
is also the author of Content Rich: Writing Your
Way to Wealth on the Web.
Jon Wuebben
CEO, Content Launch
Find out more at contentiscurrency.com and
contentlaunch.com.
Jon Wuebben is the CEO of
Content Launch, a web content
development, content strategy
and marketing firm that provides
content for hundreds of
companies, digital agencies and
web designers around the world.
His new book, “Content is Currency: Developing
Powerful Content for Web & Mobile,” helps
businesses everywhere learn how to plan, create,
distribute and manage content.
Jon has spoken at the Online Marketing Summit,
New Media Expo, Shop.org Annual Conference,
Media Relations Summit and for many
organizations and industry groups. Speaking topics
include content marketing, social media strategy,
Bob Zebian
Advisory Software Engineer in the IBM Software
Group, Sterling Commerce
Bob Zebian is an Advisory
Software Engineer in the IBM
Software Group, Sterling
Commerce. Bob holds a BA in
English from Penn State. He has
worked in the Information
Development field for 30 years.
He has spoken at several conferences and written
several papers about subjects such as DITA and
Web analytics.
2012 Conference on
47

LavaCon Final Program.book

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