Seemingly appropriate for Cyber Monday, here’s another interesting survey from the folks at CIDM that focuses on how firms are incorporating social media into their user documentation (or not). Again, not DITA-specific, but of real interest to anyone who is working with technical communications these days. Here’s a link to the survey. Here’s the blurbRead More
In a presentation I gave a couple of years ago, I talked about how I found some user-generated content that ended up helping me far more than the user manual did to solve a problem I was having with my washing machine. The user-generated content was more to the point and helped me diagnose theRead More
In addition to DITA-capable Component Content Management Systems (CCMSes) and DITA-optimized XML editors, there are various other tools available to help documentation teams and individual technical writers who are working with DITA. In the work I have done as a consultant for Yellow Pencil, I often find that organizations require more sophisticated output features thanRead More
I had the opportunity last week of getting a preview of a new product that Samalander Software is planning to release today: DITA Xref Manager. Designed for small technical writing teams who are working without the benefit of a Content Management System (CMS), it automatically checks the validity of all xrefs contained within a ditamapRead More
The folks at easyDITA, who this past summer hosted the DITA Rockstar series of webinars are hosting a new free webinar to accompany a white paper called: DITA for Everyone – It’s Not Just for Tech Pubs!. While DITA has gained significant traction within the realm of Technical Publications, in many organizations it has notRead More
One other thing that emerged from the job posting information was that it matches a pattern I have seen before, suggesting that DITA is a “one size fits all” solution. The same pattern is seen here, with very-large, large and mid-size firms being those who are seeking people with DITA experience the most: As youRead More
In the last couple of articles in this series we have looked at the continuing growth in the use of DITA across the States, and at what appears to be solid evidence that DITA has become a mature platform within many of those same companies. This third article in the series looks at the typesRead More
As mentioned in the previous article there is steady growth in the job market for technical writers with DITA experience. What’s interesting is that there are further signs that DITA usage within firms is maturing, indicating that DITA is now out of the “early adoption” phase. The last time I did a DITA jobs surveyRead More
Job postings seeking DITA experience continue to grow while FrameMaker usage continues to decline. DocBook as a viable technical writing standard in the job market is dead. While it is clear that the majority of firms out there are still asking their writers to create their content in an unstructured manner, there is a clearRead More
While starting the process of updating my listing of DITA Tools, I ran across the fact that Samalander is seeking beta testers for a wide-range of largely DITA-related products. Since the tools listing is one of the more popular pages on this site, there are clearly people out there who would be interested in hearingRead More
