2. Case Study: Regulatory Structured Content
Background
Regulatory Agency for the Energy Sector managing:
• Regulations
• Process Documentation
• Submissions
• Public Consultation Outcomes
• Judgments
Pressures:
• Growing volume & complexity of regulations & submissions
• Growing complexity of the consultation process
• To bring costs under control or even reduce them
• Maintain or even shorten the process cycle times
3. Case Study: Regulatory Structured Content
Three Key Ingredients
Top Tier Management Consulting Firm
• Conducted a comprehensive process review
• Collaborated with stakeholders to re-envision the future
Content Management Consulting Firm
• Facilitated a wide-ranging analysis & modeling activity
• Developed target content models with rich semantics
Content Management & Publishing Technology Vendors
• Engaged to tailor their tools to support
• The re-envisioned business process
• Fully customized authoring environments
• Sophisticated management & publishing services
6. What Went Wrong?
Over-indulgence in meaningful [semantic] markup
Insanely complex authoring experience
Insanely complex authoring tool customizations
Insanely complex authoring support tools
• Auto-complete
• Validation
• Packaging
Insanely complex processing scenarios [publishing]
Target vision disconnected from reality in key ways
Naively transgressed obvious legal boundaries
• Attempted to automate formatting submission after receipt
Generated unsustainable maintenance costs
7. Lessons Learned
<$ Element element-name >
Semantics come at a price and
must be associated with a concrete use
Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML)
defined a Document Type Definition (DTD) as
[organizing] “rules defined by an application”
8. Markup Considered Harmful
Is there any value in using meaningful [semantic] markup?
Theodor (Ted) Holm Nelson
and Infrastructures for Information, Inc.
11. Basic Markup: HTML
Formatting
Markup Content Models Processing & Results
Expedites
online delivery
Shouldn’t
+$
have cost
much but did Formatting -$
Minimum
investment
Didn’t get in XHTML Web Pages
the way…
12. Inline Semantic Markup
Different story
Content Models Processing & Results
Cost of
processing
semantic +$
markup is real -$
Semantics
Benefits
mainly seen in
+$
more filtered
formatting Formatting -$
The outcome XML / DITA Multiple Products
is debateable
13. Balanced Markup: Just Enough Semantics
Semantic Models Content Models Processing & Results
+$
Semantics -$
+$
Formatting -$
Semantic models provide semantic markup with the rigor needed to become really useful
14. Advanced Markup: Progression from Balanced
Semantic Models Content Models Processing & Results
+$
Semantics -$
+$
Formatting -$
More comprehensive semantic models co-evolve with inline semantic markup
16. Intelligent Content in a Normal Office
Two Answers
Even when you are trying to
not use XML, you are
probably using XML
• MS Office / SharePoint
Any application larger than
an eggcup will need to
interoperate with other
applications
• Exchanging information
• Permitting extensibility to
support interoperability Frankenstein goes mobile
18. Real Content Resists Definitive Categorization
Real
Content
Demands
Special
attention
19. The Human Face of Intelligent Content
The Web & XML united
Browser-based collaborative authoring
Strong object metadata
supporting discovery & selection
Container elements providing
semantic guidance
Content input as XHTML
using common widgets
Minimal inline semantic markup
Attractive benefits profile
Easily extensible over time
20. Asking Questions & Raising Objections
or just making connections…
Joe Gollner
Gnostyx Research Inc.
www.gnostyx.com
jag@gnostyx.com
The Content Philosopher Blog
www.gollner.ca