Chapter Summaries

Managing Enterprise Content: Chapter 1

Chapter one discusses the large volumes of content that organizations put to support their products, services and business processes. It is important to get the content out to the right people at the right time as well as in a format that is understandable to your audience. While concentrating on the format a writer must always think of who is going to be reading it and what are they going to use it for.

The content comes from many different departments within an organization. It comes in forms such as newsletters, brochures, training material, press releases, speeches, product information, etc. These materials are published through various media and require different formats. It is important for an organization not to get trapped in a content silo where none of the departments interact with each other on content being put out therefore creating a cycle of creating and recreating. Many times the information is changed during each recreation. Lack of awareness of others working on the same content, shortage of time and inconsistent amounts of information are leading contributors which create these content silos. The effects of content silos can result in increased costs, reduced quality and possibly ineffective materials. Some of the effects of content silo are as follows:

• poor communication
• lack of sharing
• reduced awareness
• lack of standardization and consistency, higher cost of content
• creation, management and delivery
• content users suffer

One solution is to establish a unified content strategy. A unified content strategy is a repeatable method which helps in identifying all content requirements at the beginning, creating consistently structured content for reuse, managing the content in one location and putting it all together on demand to meet the customers' needs. It all begins by analyzing your audience, their information needs, processes and technology. You need to think about who needs and uses what information, how the users are currently supported by the information and how to produce the information. You have to realize what information is can be reused across information products and what elements are unique to a particular information product. Information such as a product description can be considered reusable information. Authors can then share responsibilities for writing core and reusable content. The technology used must be based on the business needs in order to support a unified strategy. By have all content coming from a definitive source you can be sure authors are not wasting time searching for content and the most accurate content is always used. Some of the benefits of unified content are:

• faster time to market
• better use of resources
• reduced costs
• improved quality and usability of content
• increased opportunity to innovate
• improved workplace satisfaction
• increased customer satisfaction

To implement a unified content strategy means to think about creating, managing and storing content in new ways. A unified content strategy consists of a content management system, reusable content and unified processes. Content management is not only concerns technology, but is also about the nature of your business and content, people, processes and tools. By having reusable content an author can mix-and-match content to meet the specific information needs. Unified processes is simply ensuring that all departments are aware of what content exists (authors can reuse existing content automatically), all processes are repeatable and transparent no matter which department and which authors are using them. A unified content strategy works everywhere content is used, stored and managed in an organization. The following are some of the areas where content strategy can work in a business:

• customer data
• web site and e-commerce portal
• product support and training materials
• policies and procedures
• proposals
• regulatory reports

In conclusion, a unified content strategy can include content created by a single department, several departments, an organization or an entire enterprise. It can be started in one small area and then expanded into others slowly. The best path to take is whatever works best for your organization.

Comments:

1. Content silos are a result pressures and structure of an organization.
2. The content process itself is one that often occurs in isolation which creates many inconsistencies and possibly extra work.
3. Poor communication can happen when one group fails to inform another group that something has changed.
4. The lack of sharing amongst authors can result in inconsistencies, mixed messages to the customer and increased costs due to each other recreating a new document every time.
5. When information that is the same, similar or related exists in multiple places, it can differ in content and message. Users can't always tell which is correct.
6. Authors can avoid the issue of format by using style sheets to convert the product description to the proper format. This doesn't take away creativity, but instead allows creativity where it has the most value.
7. A unified content can benefit the company by freeing up time and allowing authors to focus on innovation. This can improve the quality of the content and make your product stand out in the marketplace.
8. Product support materials can form a continuum that takes you through marketing materials through training, product support, troubleshooting and problem solving.
9. A company's web site represents key information and unified content strategy ensures the web content is managed effectively.
10. Companies can benefit by unified content strategy for their large reports. It will ensure that the content is accurate wherever it appears.

Guidelines for Developing Instructions – Chapter 1

This chapter is the introduction to the book. It talks about the purpose of the book which is to provide guidelines to help personnel who may write instructions for products. The instructions can be step-by-step or serve as a reference that only use it when they are in dire need of information. The book will give examples of instructional materials such as: assembly procedures, "how to" manuals, user's manuals, shop manuals, etc. The book does not encourage the use of commonly accepted task analysis. The chapter states that most instructions are procedural and the guidelines can be useful to authors of all documents.

It discusses how there are a wide range of products and there are just as many writers assigned to write the instructions for those same products. Much of the time the quality of the instructions greatly affects the care and use of products by the consumer. A lack of standard for instructions is one of the reasons why many products are not supported by usable instructions. The guidelines throughout the remaining chapters are based on the principles connected to meeting the informational needs of the users.

Helping writers develop procedural material is the primary focus of the book. Step-by-step instructions are needed because these instructions are the main need of users of products. The book contains rules of both underlying principles and specific guidelines based on principles. The reader will be able to customize the guidelines when necessary by referring to the underlying principles.

The remaining portion of the introduction goes into what each chapter will detail. It also discusses that the appendix provides a checklist based on the rules of the various chapters. One can evaluate instructions through this checklist and will be able to determine if revision of usability is necessary as well as provide assistance for writing new instructions.

Comments:

1. It is recommended that writers learn the principles in Chapter 3 and use them to adjust various guidelines as needed.
2. Of the presentation principles, the text-graphic format is the most effective application when working with step-by-step instructions.
3. Chapter 5 covers the ground rules for graphics.
4. Chapter 6, Language Control, covers the text portion of the format.
5. Fixed list command verbs are required with the use of the format.
6. Chapter 6 contains a basic list of 87 command verbs and definitions.
7. The introduction says that Chapter 8 is a very important chapter as it presents a recommended process for creating instructions and then making sure they are technically correct and usable.
8. Writers will sometimes work with subject matter experts which results in the responsibility of the instructions to be shared equally.
9. Chapter 8 also provides a systematic way to develop procedures.
10. Special modifications can be found in Chapter 9.

Barker, Chapter 1.

This chapter is a good introduction to software documentation and gives many examples of how one is created. It explains the 3 forms of software documentation, and the benefits of each. Depending on how experienced your user is and what the document is meant for will determine which form to choose.

Tutorials-used to teach users basic actions

Procedural-used to guide users through specific tasks

Reference-used to supply information to users about the program

Barker also says that there should be a connection between the old software and the new. This way the user will be able to benefit more from correct usage of this software. The steps he describes for production of a successful software manual are re-visited throughout the book.

Barker talks about Task Orientation, which is very important because it is meant to help the user to be more comfortable with the software in the workplace. Many users simply read through the one task they need to know and then skip the rest, and the user cannot be efficient with the software this way. This is illustrated when Barker explains the difference between a default user and a task-oriented user.

Default user-notion that a user needs to know the program works in order to apply it at their job. This person is thought of as anyone who uses a computer.

Task-oriented user-one whose software use fits with his work environment. This user would make the program more versatile for use in the workplace. Having this user as the targeted audience for your manual makes the user feel more responsible and more challenged, while still having enough information. Knowing the difference between these two and applying it to your writing is the big challenge with creating software documentation.