Get the recording here!

Using Metadata to Deliver Findable Content 

This webinar aired on:

Thursday, December 5th, 2019

Episode 11

The best content in the world is no good if users can’t find it. If an answer is buried in an avalanche of content, it might as well not be there at all. How can you make sure your customers find the answers they need? This episode of IXIAtalks will help you understand how to leverage metadata to make your content searchable and findable, and how to use that same metadata to create a personalized customer experience (CX).

In this episode, Megan Gilhooly of Zoomin and Leigh White of IXIASOFT team up to explain how you can start by designing the optimum content search experience you’d like your customers to have. They will present examples of good and not-so-good taxonomies, and explain what makes them good or not. They will talk about the difference between marketing taxonomies and technical publication taxonomies, and give some tips on planning your taxonomy. The duo will also present methods for personalizing the CX using search weighting.

To make things a bit more concrete, Megan and Leigh will present one example of taxonomy development in the IXIASOFT CCMS and how Zoomin can then leverage that taxonomy metadata to create a faceted search. They will also show how to manage multiple content versions in a taxonomy and control updates.

Speaker

Megan Gilhooly

VP Customer Experience at Zoomin

Leigh White

DITA Specialist at IXIASOFT

Join us at Tcworld conference 2019 from November 12-14, 2019 in Stuttgart, Germany.

Robert Bredlau, Business Development Director, EMEA at IXIASOFT and Nolwenn Kerzreho, Technical Account Manager at IXIASOFT will give a tool presentation of our enterprise-class component content management system (CCMS) for structured content, based on the DITA standard at the conference.

Date: Wednesday, November 13th, 2019
Time: 2:00-2:45 pm CET

Join us at the DITA OT Day in Brussels, Belgium this fall.

DITA-OT day is a free event hosted by Oxygen XML Editor and is dedicated to the DITA Open Toolkit project.

More information to come.

Join us at the 2019 Content Management Strategies/ DITA Europe Conference.

Meet us at DITA Europe, the biggest tech solutions hub where information development experts from around the world will be waiting to connect with you! With over 50 presenters, the best content management solutions and 17 Sessions in the Technology Test Kitchen, we are confident that you will find what you are looking for.

Advice From The Front Line: Key considerations when planning a DITA Migration (panel)

Date: November 7, 2019
Time: 9:30-10:10 am

Learn more here.

DITA Without Complexity – Collaborating with Everyone (test kitchen)

Date: November 7, 2019
Time: 1:40-2:20 pm

Learn more here.

DITA Surprise: Unpacking Authoring Best Practices 

Date: November 8, 2019
Time: 9:00-9:40 am

Meet the presenter

Nolwenn Kerzreho is IXIASOFT’s technical account manager for EMEA and has over a decade of experience in the technical communication industry. An international speaker and author, Nolwenn helps documentation teams industrialize, rationalize and automate their documentation production to publish to web, mobile and print faster, enhance content consistency, reduce time-to-market and costs within controlled processes.

You can usually find Nolwenn behind her desk, at the IXIASOFT booth or speaking at various industry events, visiting customers around Europe or teaching at University Rennes 2, where she introduced the new curriculum for technical communication in 2012. Based in France, Nolwenn has international work experience in the chemical, Telecom, language, and high-tech industries.

Presentation abstract

DITA is designed to help writers produce consistent, easy-to-find, easy-to-consume content that is directly tailored to the user’s needs. This talk clarifies the best practices that are baked into the DITA standard: modularity, topic typing, mechanisms for reuse and conditions, single source, specialization…and how these principles impact the way writers design and create content. Technical writers and managers who are new to structured content and DITA will learn how it works in practice. The talk is in a show-and-tell format, and examples include migration samples to DITA “live.”

What can attendees expect to learn?

This presentation highlights the fundamental best practices that are baked into the DITA standard: topic-based modularized content, hazard formatting, topic types, instructions structures, linking them back to ISO standards and other best practices.

The audience should come out of the presentation able to articulate the benefits when designing modular structured standard content and break down those benefits into singular best practices or methods.

Learn more here.

Join us at LavaCon’s Content Strategy Conference from October 27-30, 2019.

Our very own Keith Schengili Roberts, Senior DITA Content Strategist, will speak at the conference.

DITA Worst Practices: The Sequel

Date: October 29, 2019
Time: 3:15-4:15 pm

Meet the Presenter

Keith is IXISOFT’s Senior DITA Content Strategist. Keith is also an award-winning lecturer on Information Architecture at the University of Toronto’s School for Continuing Education. He is the Chair of the OASIS DITA Adoption Committee, and regularly presents at conferences, works with customers. Keith continuously researches how DITA is being used and then shares those results with the community. Keith’s popular industry blog DITAWriter.com has become a focal point on DITA resources.

Presentation Abstract

This presentation is designed as an instructive and funny lesson on what not to do when implementing DITA within a documentation team. The original DITA Worst Practices was very popular at Lavacon 2017, and has proven to resonate with many DITA technical writers and managers who either saw it at Lavacon or in subsequent webinars. Since then, Keith has found new stories that will both entertain and horrify (from a DITA perspective) listeners. ‘I hope that some of these stories will strike a chord with people who may find themselves in similar situations, and give them enough information to change course before they become a “worst practice” story themselves.’

IXIASOFT is proud to be a platinum sponsor at LavaCon 2019.

Get the recording

How to Channel the Knowledge of Technical Experts into Perfectly Crafted Content

This webinar aired on:

Thursday, October 24th, 2019

Episode 10

Subject matter experts (SMEs) are increasingly being asked to contribute more content directly for product documentation. But SMEs are not technical writers. Their work often needs to be corrected for style, terminology usage, and to ensure the message reflects the company brand. What is the solution to this perennial problem?

Join Keith Schengili-Roberts (IXIASOFT) and Philipp Baur (Congree), to discuss why SMEs are increasingly being asked to contribute directly to technical documentation, the typical issues they encounter, and how they can be overcome using an electronic style guide with linguistic intelligence within the IXIASOFT CCMS.

Speaker

Philipp Baur

Product Manager at Congree Language Technologies

Keith Schengili-Roberts

Senior DITA Content Strategist at IXIASOFT

Join us at NORDIC TechKomm in Copenhagen this fall.

NORDIC TechKomm is a two-day event help from September 25-26 and that gathers experts from all Europe to discuss trends and topics in the field of technical communication.

IXIASOFT is proud to be a Silver Plus sponsor at the conference.

Get the recording here!

Custom Business Rules for DITA Projects

This webinar aired on:

Thursday, September 19th, 2019 at 11:00 AM EDT

Episode 9

Join Octavian Nadolu during IXIAtalks episode 9 for a step-by-step guide to getting started with Schematron and Schematron Quick Fixes.

Schematron and Schematron QuickFix (SQF) languages can be used to improve efficiency and quality when editing DITA documents. You can define actions that will add complex structure in your documents, or make modifications in multiple places, or actions that will convert a structure into another. These changes are made by keeping the document structure valid and conforming to your project specification, and will help the content writer add content more easily and without making mistakes. Learn this and more during our webinar!

Speaker

Octavian Nadolu

Software Architect at Syncro Soft

Join us at CIDM Best Practices in Austin, TX from September 9-11.

CIDM Best Practices is hosting its 21st conference this fall, a great occasion to meet managers of information development and discuss the challengees encountered along with the best solutions available.

Get the webinar here!

Reasons to Move to Structured Content…and How!

This webinar aired on:
Thursday, August 8, 2019 at 11:00 AM EDT

Episode 8

If you work with legacy content tools, you’ll be sure to learn something new from IXIAtalks: Episode 8.

Join Manager of Consulting at JANA Inc. Don Bridges to cover the main reasons (including business drivers) why you may want to consider moving to structured content. We’ll explore the cost justification of structured content, and wrap up with several best practices for changing technology.

Speaker

Don Bridges

Manager – Consulting at JANA Inc.

Get the webinar here!

Customer Experience and Omnichannel Content Strategy

This webinar originally aired on:
Friday, June 7, 2019

Episode 7

Are you looking for ways to deliver outstanding experience to your customers?

Then you might consider checking out IXIAtalks: Episode 7 to learn the key role of technical content in doing so.

Keith Schengili-Roberts, senior DITA content strategist at IXIASOFT, explores how you can build a content strategy that flips perceptions about technical content as a cost center and demonstrates how it contributes to business growth.

Speaker

Keith Schengili-Roberts

Senior DITA Content Strategist at IXIASOFT

Recommendation of documents digitization  to improve operational efficiency

The seminar will be segmented in two parts. The first part will be led by NEC Management Partner Co., Ltd. General Manager, Atsuya Araki about data conversion of craftsmanship. The second part will be hosted by IXIASOFT Representative Director, Nobutoshi Murata.

Get the recording here!

The Path to Information 4.0

Date:

Thursday, May 9, 2019

Time:
11:00 AM – 12:00 PM EDT

Episode 6

What if you could get highly personalized and contextualized information tailored to your situation, location, and even mood?

As the informational response to the Fourth Industrial Revolution, Information 4.0 intends to do just that. It aims to offer new information paradigms that also call on technologies like artificial intelligence. We don’t yet have tools for all of this, but we can decide right now what we want them to do.

Join Ray Gallon, president of the Information 4.0 Consortium and The Transformation Society, to explore using molecular content to build customized information that will still need to make sense, hang together, be useful to users, and stay inside professional and ethical guidelines.

The webinar will leave plenty of room for Q & A so you can add your voice to the discussion!

Speaker

Ray Gallon

President of the Information 4.0 Consortium and The Transformation Society

Join us at the 21st annual DITA North America conference
this April in Durham, North Carolina

Another ISO Standard! IEEE-ISO 82 079

Date:
April 11, 2019
Time:
11:00 AM – 12:00 PM EDT

Episode 5

Join DITA expert Nolwenn Kerzreho and documentation specialist Marie-Louise Flacke to learn more about the insights and impacts a new ISO standard on your organization.

With 10 focused questions & answers, you’ll discover the main changes you can expect from the standard’s requirements. Some questions will make you smile, some will give you food for thought, and some will give the edge you need to better train your team and even enforce your current documentation efforts towards meaningful and user-focused content.

The webinar will leave plenty of room for Q&A so you can add your voice to the discussion! Marie-Louise and Nolwenn will be pleased to answer your feedback and questions.

Speakers

Nolwenn Kerzreho

Technical Account Manager for Europe at IXIASOFT

Marie-Louise Flacke

Documentation Specialist and Instructor at Awel-A-Ben

Sydney Jones

Madame Speaker / Head of Marketing Communications at IXIASOFT

Watch Webinar

Date:
March 5, 2019
Time:
11:00 AM – 12:00 PM EDT

Episode 4

By now it’s well known you can obtain useful DITA production metrics.
But measuring reuse in particular is tricky, since there are many ways to measure it.

Do you measure reused topics between incremental versions of the same document or not? If a bookmap shares the same map as another, do you count the map along with all of its topics? And what about images—would you consider using your company logo and an illustration of a part for a product to be equivalent instances of reuse?

This co-presentation by IXIASOFT Senior DITA Content Strategist Keith Schengili-Roberts and Ericsson’s Information Architect Sari Eklund explores the creation, rationale and use of two separate but complementary DITA metrics that focus on content reuse.

Speakers

Keith Schengili-Roberts

Senior DITA Content Strategist at IXIASOFT

Sari Eklund

Information Architect at Ericsson

Sydney Jones

Madame Speaker / Head of Marketing Communications at IXIASOFT

Watch Webinar

Date: January 24, 2019
Time: 11:00 AM – 12:00 PM EDT

Episode 3

Tune in to IXIAtalks: Episode 3 to unpack the meaning of a content inventory and audit, explore the differences between the two, and learn why both are crucial to a successful content strategy.

Learn how to get started with your own inventories and audits with simple content examples from DITA Specialist Leigh White.

See you January 24th!

Speakers

Leigh White

DITA Specialist at IXIASOFT

Sydney Jones

Madame Speaker / Head of Marketing Communications at IXIASOFT

Join us at CIDM’s IDEAS Online Conference, January 22-23, 2019. IXIASOFT is honoured to speak at this event.

Demonstrating Reuse Payoffs

Presented by Sharon Figueira, IXIASOFT pre-sales consultant & Keith Schengili-Roberts, IXIASOFT market researcher and DITA evangelist.

Date: Tuesday, January 22
Time: 12:00 PM –1:00 PM Pacific Time

Reuse is the gateway to efficient, controlled, quality content which is easy to maintain and fast to update. It’s so obvious to the information professional and yet so difficult to engage management and get their support, especially in organizations where tech pubs are barely visible (unless there is a problem of course…).

What can attendees expect to learn?

This presentation discusses the key factors that command VP attention, how to engage successfully with management, and how to demonstrate the big pay-offs your team can deliver with a reuse strategy to convince budget holders. The presentation will include some tools that you can use to build a business case to sell content reuse to your management team.

Winter Agenda – Day 1

Join us at the 2018 DITAFesta in Tokyo.

Creating Content Experience Ecosystems

Date: November 15 – 16, 2018
Time: N/A

DITAFesta is a conference where experts in the content management industry meet and exchange best practices, learn about new content management software solutions and expand their tech network.

Join us at the 2018 Content Management Strategies/ DITA Europe Conference.

Adding the Time Dimension to Product Documentation Management

Date: November 5 – 6, 2018
Time: N/A

Meet us at DITA Europe, the biggest tech solutions hub where information development experts from around the world will be waiting to connect with you! With over 30 speakers, the best content management solutions and 13 Sessions in the Technology Test Kitchen, we are confident that you will find what you are looking for.

Meet the Presenter

Nolwenn Kerzreho has over a decade of experience in the technical communication industry, and is IXIASOFT’s technical account manager for Europe. She teaches technical communication at European Master in Translation at University Rennes 2, where she introduced DITA in 2009. Based in France, Nolwenn has international work experience in the chemical, language, telecom, and high-tech industries. An international author and speaker, Nolwenn holds a Master’s degree in Technical Communication, Terminology, Translation, and Project Management.

Presentation Abstract

When moving to DITA, most organizations will analyze how to best reuse content throughout their product documentation. Upon discovery, most also realize how product content has different constraints and provenance: legal, development and labs, safety, and training. This model, however, will only get you so far. In order to maximise reuse and consistency and enable easier management, organisations must think about the entire lifecycle of the product content and anticipate how it can meet the needs of users throughout its existence.

It’s time for documentation managers to model the different lifecycles for their documentation sets.

What can attendees expect to learn?

This presentation focuses on complex documentation management challenges and how to best solve them by providing a challenge statement and a corresponding pattern.

Watch

Date: November 1, 2018
Time: 11:00 AM – 12:00 PM EDT

Episode 2

It’s no secret; getting the review you need for high quality documentation can be tough.

When you are working towards a deadline on highly technical content a proactive, collaborative reviewer is critical. Episode 2 of IXIAtalks explores the impact of bad review and the dire consequences it can have for the quality of technical documentation. Join IXIASOFT’s own Sharon Figueira to discover the reasons behind this common issue, and the ways in which technical writers and subject matter experts (SMEs) can improve their collaboration and benefit the documentation and the customer.

Speakers

Sharon Figueira

Pre-Sales Technical Consultant for North America at IXIASOFT

Sydney Jones

Madame Speaker / Head of Marketing Communications at IXIASOFT

Join us at the STVY Fall Seminar 2018: What Works Best for Your Products?

Creating Content Experience Ecosystems

Date: November 1 – 2 , 2018
Time: N/A

Discover new cost-effective ways to deliver content to customers at the 2018 STVY Fall Seminar. Learn how these developments have given birth to several new buzzwords, including Information 4.0, Big Data, Chatbots, VR, AR, and AI, and which words are most suitable for your products.

Join IXIASOFT in attending the STVY Fall Seminar 2018 where expert speakers will introduce new technologies and help pair solutions with the appropriate product.

What can attendees expect to learn?

Sessions will be held around the following topics:

• Documentation with a chatbot
• AI
• Publishing
• XR
• Document Management

Join us at LavaCon’s Content Strategy Conference from October 21 – 24, 2018.

Creating Content Experience Ecosystems

Date: October 21 – 24, 2018
Time: N/A

This conference started in Hawaii as a way to get senior content professionals, content strategists, and documentation managers out of the office and working on their professional development. Its main goal is to create a community where content professionals can learn, share, explore, and make connections with translation, consulting, and tool vendors.

What can attendees expect to learn?

This year, keynote speakers include Karen McGrane, Michael Goldberg, Jim Edmunds, and Megan Gilhooly. The presentations aim to educate attendees about rapidly changing technology, customer demographics, and new tools circulating the market.

Join us at the TCC Symposium in Kyoto.

Creating Content Experience Ecosystems

Date: October 3 – 5, 2018
Time: N/A

Meet us at the TCC Symposium for an in depth DITA learning experience.

What can attendees expect to learn?

You can find interesting talks by IXIASOFT’s very own:

• Hirohide Honda-san on October 4^th at 2 pm – 3 pm 
• Nobu Murata in a panel discussion about Dynamic Delivery on October 4^th at 3:30 pm – 4:30 pm 

Join us at the CIDM’s new one-day regional conference on September 26, 2018. IXIASOFT is honored to speak at this event.

“Highlight Reel” of Innovative and Successful Strategies in Information Development

Date: September 26, 2018
Time: N/A

This conference will showcase the best of the best in information development.

What can attendees expect to learn?

Attendees can expect to learn about current trends in the industry, future developments, and best practices. Sessions are meant to be educational, not market-focused.

Watch Webinar

IXIASOFT is thrilled to present our first ever webinar series. IXIAtalks is a monthly series dedicated to DITA, technical documentation and, of course, our very own IXIASOFT CCMS. Each month, a guest speaker is invited to share their knowledge about hot topics related to technical communications. Episode one — “The Rise of the SME” — features world-renowned DITA expert Keith Schengili-Roberts.

Date: September 12, 2018
Time: 11:00 AM – 11:35 AM EDT

Episode 1

The subject matter expert (SME) is a key player on technical documentation teams. But it hasn’t always been this way. Dig deep with Senior DITA Content Strategist Keith Schengili-Roberts, Product Owner Tristan Lépée, and madame speaker Sydney Jones to discover the reasons and implications behind “the rise of the SME” in the very first episode of IXIAtalks. Get a sneak peak of IXIASOFT CCMS in action with an in-depth demo at the end of the webinar.

Speakers

Keith Schengili-Roberts

Senior DITA Content Strategist at IXIASOFT

Tristan Lépée

Product Owner / Lead UX at IXIASOFT

Sydney Jones

Madame Speaker / Head of Marketing Communications at IXIASOFT

Join us this August at the Technical Communication Symposium at Tokyo Gakugei University (Koganei Campus). IXIASOFT is honored to speak at this event.

Connecting Audiences through New Technologies

Date: August 28 – 29, 2018
Time: 9:00 AM – 6:00 PM

What can attendees expect to learn?

This conference will discuss how people and goods are connected through emerging technologies such as AI, IoT and M2M, and how to extract value from large amounts of bi-directional data.

https://ideas.infomanagementcenter.com/2018-winter-agenda-day-2/
Join us at the CIDM’s Winter IDEAS Online Conference, January 23 – 24, 2018. IXIASOFT is honored to be a sponsor and speaker.

Fashioning Style Guides for Your Technical Communications Team

by Keith Schengili-Roberts, IXIASOFT Market Researcher and DITA Evangelist

Date: Wednesday, January 24
Time: 11:00 AM – 12:00 PM Pacific Time

Having problems with inconsistently written documentation? Is there a distinct difference in the tone along with the look-and-feel of your user manuals? If the answer is yes, you need to develop a style guide for your technical writing team. Keith Schengili-Roberts (IXIASOFT) talks about what they are, why you need them, and how to get started in creating one. While not focusing exclusively on DITA, Keith discusses why a separate DITA style guide—for the consistent expression of your content at the XML-level—should also be considered a requirement for any technical communications team working with this standard.

What can attendees expect to learn?

While DITA and content reuse can help ensure content consistency, having a style guide is a sure way to provide your technical writing team with the information they need to provide a consistent tone in the documentation they produce. This presentation focuses on the foundations and resources to help build two distinct types of style guides: one for general writing purposes, and the other for proper coding in DITA XML.