The document presents the findings of a survey regarding the adoption of structured authoring and content management systems (CMS) in technical communication, highlighting an increase in implementation from 29% in 2009 to 42% in 2011. It discusses the challenges faced during CMS adoption, including project complexity and the immaturity of certain technologies, while noting significant productivity gains and cost reductions for some users. Additionally, it mentions that issues with user experience and resistance to change are prevalent among organizations transitioning to structured workflows.

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flickr: thelastminute
Sarah O’Keefe, Scriptorium Publishing
Monday, May 9, 2011

2. ❖ Everyone is muted except for the
presenter
❖ Please ask your questions through the
Questions area in the webcast interface
❖ The presentation is being recorded;
attendees do not appear in the
recording.
Monday, May 9, 2011

3. ❖ Founder and president, Scriptorium
Publishing
❖ Content strategy for
tech comm
❖ Interested in collision of
content, publishing, and
technology
Monday, May 9, 2011

4. ❖ Survey conducted via web
(surveymonkey.com)
❖ January and February 2011
❖ Recruited participants through direct email,
Twitter, blog posts, and word of mouth
❖ Approximately 200 completed survey
❖ Almost identical to 2009 survey
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5. ❖ A publishing workflow that lets you
define and automatically enforce
consistent organization of information;
implementations are generally based on
Extensible Markup Language (XML)
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6. ❖ “Have you implemented structured
authoring, or do you plan to do so?”
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8. ❖ Have implemented
❖ 2009: 29%
❖ 2011: 42%
❖ Undecided
❖ 2009: 21%
❖ 2011: 10%
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9. ❖ Choose the most important reason for
moving to structure.
❖ Original survey included compliance
and personalization, but those were the
bottom two choices.
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12. not
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14. ❖ “Doesn’t make sense in a single-author
environment.”
❖ “The payoff just isn’t there.”
❖ “No compelling benefits…”
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15. ❖ “Too much change…”
❖ “Not even thinking inside the box, let
alone outside”
❖ “Not sure how it will impact us.”
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17. ❖ “Automated daily publishing”
❖ “Reduction of total content”
❖ “Step toward separating content from
presentation”
❖ “Short time to provide more languages”
❖ “Easier workflow
❖ “Rebranding, variants”
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19. ❖ 2009 result: $106,000
❖ 2011 result: $124,500
❖ 2011 non-DITA: $69,000
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20. ❖ More CMS = more cost
❖ More realistic about costs?
❖ Reuse requires CMS?
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21. ❖ Specialization
❖ Complex output requirements,
especially PDF
❖ Legacy documentation conversion
❖ Content management systems
implementation
❖ Large number of contributors
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24. ❖ “What CMS do you (or will you) use?”
❖ 33–34%: Do not use
❖ Other responses: Astoria, Author-it,
Contenta, Docato, Documentum,
IXIASOFT, Schema ST4, SharePoint,
SiberLogic, Subversion, TIM-RS,
Trisoft, Vasont, XDocs, and many,
many more.
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25. ❖ Past implementers:
❖ 50%: Do not use a CMS
❖ Leaders: Astoria, Vasont, IXIASOFT,
XDocs
❖ Current implementers:
❖ 36%: Do not use a CMS
❖ Leaders: Astoria, SharePoint, Trisoft
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27. ❖ “Not realizing the scope of the effort.”
❖ “Not planning for CMS integration.”
❖ “Lack of testing.”
❖ “Involving the marketing department.”
❖ “Implementing in a live production
environment with the wrong tools, which were
still being decided upon during live project
development. Disaster!”
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28. ❖ “Trying to use inexperienced offshore labor to
do conversion/editing/development.”
❖ “Not using a vendor to convert our legacy
documentation.”
❖ “Too little time reserved for conversion.”
❖ “Insufficient imposition of consistency in styles
before conversion to DITA. Insufficient
imposition of consistency in procedures before
conversion to DITA.”
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29. ❖ Document conversion a huge problem.
❖ Project complexity much higher than
anticipated.
❖ Many complaints about “the wrong
CMS.”
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30. ❖ “General immaturity of many products in
the XML/DITA space.”
❖ “The lack of excitement and initiative
shown by DITA authors.”
❖ “The lack of enthusiasm among
management.”
❖ “Major reduction of translation costs,
over 50%.”
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31. ❖ “One author never really understood topics.”
❖ “Productivity increased from 800 pages per
writer per year to 3200+ pages per writer per
year.”
❖ “Excessive amount of time spent using
structured tools to enter content.
Productivity has been reduced by an average
of 40 percent.”
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32. ❖ “People have responded very positively
to our new and improved
documentation, when we didn't expect
that many people to notice or to take
the time to respond.”
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33. ❖ Issues with tools
❖ Lack of maturity
❖ Difficult to use
❖ Change resistance…or not
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34. ❖ scriptorium.com/resources/webcasts for
the webcast recording in a day or two
❖ Check scriptorium.com/events for
upcoming events
Monday, May 9, 2011

35. ❖ Sarah O’Keefe,
okeefe@scriptorium.com
Twitter: @sarahokeefe
Monday, May 9, 2011

36. Monday, May 9, 2011