Here's a summary of the annual Technical Communication Industry Benchmarking Survey conducted by The Content Wrangler in the fourth quarter of 2012. The survey focused on the enterprise technical documentation and training needs of large, global, content-heavy organizations.

1. STRUCTURED
CONTENT 2012 TECHNICAL COMMUNICATION INDUSTRY
BENCHMARKING SURVEY
44%
of companies
create structured
XML content
SUMMARY RESULTS
Agile documentation adoption
DITA slow, not always successful
81%
of companies that The majority of technical documentation and training
create structured departments have not adopted an agile approach to creating
content use DITA and publishing content. Agile methods are based on iterative
and incremental cycles that promote adaptive planning,
evolutionary development, and flexible responses to change.
OTHER FLAVORS While 45% of companies surveyed claim to apply agile
30% use custom XML DTDs
development principles to TechComm projects, few do it
successfully. Typical challenges include organizational silos,
16% use DocBook lack of governance, differing approaches. The waterfall
development method is the dominant approach in use today.
Biggest challenge is the lack of content strategy
Our benchmarking survey • Inability to effectively reuse The next biggest challenges:
uncovered a wide variety of content
challenges facing companies that • Lack of governance
• Creation of inconsistent,
produce technical documentation inaccurate, or mediocre quality • Lack of time, money and
and training content. The biggest content resources
challenge identified was the lack of
a formal content strategy. • Producing content of unknown
customer value
Commonly cited symptoms of
• Process problems and production
organizations lacking a content bottlenecks
strategy include:
WHAT INNOVATIONS ARE YOU PLANNING FOR THE FUTURE?
21% 14% 11%
Moving to topic-based content models
like the Darwin Information Typing
The adoption of a component content
management system is the second
Creating video documentation and
training content is the third most
Architecture is the most common most common innovation planned for common innovation planned for the
innovation planned for the future— the future—cited by 14% of companies. future—cited by 11% of companies.
cited by 21% of companies.
DITA/XML CCMS VIDEO

2. Common methods of content reuse
Content reuse is the practice of using existing content components to develop
new “documents.” Although the majority of reusable content is text-based, any
content can be reused (such as graphics, charts, media). Text-based materials are the
easiest to reuse. You can reuse sections, paragraphs, sentences, or even words.
CONTENT There are three primary methods of reusing content employed by companies today.
REUSE Copy-and-paste
Most often, when an author realizes the need to reuse a piece of content, they copy it
from one document and paste it into another. This copy-and-paste form of content reuse
85%
is quite natural—even convenient—but introduces potential problems. Because the
content is actually cloned (duplicated in each document in which it is reused) and each
reused piece exists on its own (disconnected from its source content, unable to be easily
located, retrieved, and updated) copy-and-paste is the most error-prone, inefficient and
costly method of content reuse.
of companies reuse Manual reuse
documentation and In manual reuse—the most common form of content reuse—authors manually locate a
component of content, retrieve it, and reuse it, Manual reuse doesn’t rely on specific
training content technology. Although it can be accomplished without a content management system
(CMS), managing manual reuse is best accomplished with the help of a CMS.
5%
Manual reuse makes it easy for organizations to rapidly
reconfigure reusable content into new information
products. It works well for source language and
translated content. Manual reuse provides authors
with the greatest flexibility, but is problematic as it
usually results in the lowest incidence of reuse because
BENEFITS
it puts the burden of reusing content on the authors. If
of companies that authors lack motivation, if they are unaware that Increased consistency
reuse content have reusable components exist, or if they have trouble
30%
done so either to finding it, reuse may not occur.
“innovate” or Automatic reuse
“respond” to threats Automatic reuse is planned reuse. Specific content is
or opportunities identified as reusable in a specific location. Then the
content management system automatically inserts
quickly (auto-populates) the reusable content in the Ease of maintenance
appropriate locations in the document. The and updating
author does not have to determine whether
25%
the reusable content exists or search for
and retrieve it.
Automatic reuse ensures that content is
reused and reduces the burden on the
author to know that reusable content
exists, to find the reusable content, and to Lower total cost
insert it appropriately. This reuse method is
24%
dependent upon detailed information
models, reuse maps (identification of where
content is reused in an information set),
and support for dynamic delivery of content
through your content management system.
This means that automatic reuse is planned
for in advance, in the modeling and system
configuration stage. Authors do not
Reduced
determine reuse; the system determines localization cost
12%
reuse.
Source: “Managing Enterprise Content: A
Unified Content Strategy” by Ann Rockley and
Charles Cooper (2012, New Riders). Info:
www.managingenterprisecontent.com
2

3. Customers are ?
Online Support Communities
editing and
creating content
Companies are finding interesting
ways to leverage the power of the
53% of companies provide customers with
access to an online support forum or
online community
32%
crowd to help them create, update,
and improve documentation and
training content.
20% of companies allow their of companies rely on their
customers to edit documentation customer service or technical
and training content. Many of these support staff to monitor online
firms use wiki-based tools that support forums and online
provide customers with web-based communities
editing capability. Edits usually
20%
of companies distribute responsibility across
undergo a review and approval
multiple roles (marketing, support, customer
process, although 8% of firms allow
service, technical communication, training,
“trusted” customers to edit and
and subject matter experts
publish corrections without formal
review.
The level of scrutiny customer-
10% of companies employonline support forums
manager to monitor
a dedicated community
submitted edits undergo before
going “live” is not only a matter of More than one-third of those of proper infrastructure and/or
trust, it is also directly linked to the companies encourage customers to do technology (18%) are also commonly
type of content being produced and so. cited reasons for customers not being
the liability or non-compliance risk allowed to create content.
associated with customers editing The reasons for not allowing
that content. customers to create content are Interestingly, about 10% of companies
usually related to concerns about say their customers are creating
Similarly, 17% of companies today quality (30%), liability and regulatory documentation and training (and
allow customers to create compliance concerns (22%). Lack of publishing them online) without their
documentation and training content. management support (18%) and lack approval.
CUSTOMER FEEDBACK AND RATINGS
While the mechanisms put in place to Companies that do it well enjoy many
help customers provide feedback benefits, the most valuable include:
about documentation and training improved customer support scores
content vary widely — from old school (47%), improved content quality
approaches like surveys and (17%), support call deflection (16%),
interviews to newer methods like blog reduced support call volume (13%),
comments and Facebook-style “likes” and reduced average call handling
— organizations that use reactions time (12%).
from customers to improve content
quality say they are looking for ways Additional improvements include:
to gather immediate feedback. They’re spotting problems with product
also looking for ways to put that design, spotting process problems, as
feedback to good use. well as a reduction in negative
feedback and complaints.

4. Adobe FrameMaker Is Most Used Product
authoring tools go, FrameMaker is
used more than Microsoft Word THE TOP TEN MOST USED
(35%) and XMetaL Author (11%). SOFTWARE PRODUCTS
Snagit captures the second spot
TechSmith Snagit proves to be the 1. Adobe FrameMaker 41%
second most popular tool used by
technical communication and 2. TechSmith Snagit 35%
training pros. 35% of companies that
•••
produce technical documentation and 3. Microsoft Word 35%
training have it in their tool chest.
We asked survey respondents the
following question: “What software Microsoft is still in the mix
4. Adobe Acrobat Pro 28%
tools does your company use to Microsoft Word is the third most used
create, manage and deliver software product. 35% of companies 5. Adobe Captivate 20%
documentation and training use Word — often along side other
content?” authoring tools. Its Office-mate and 6. Adobe RoboHelp 19%
code-sharing cousin, PowerPoint also
As it turns out, technical
communication and training
holds a spot in the top ten with 11% of 7. TechSmith Camtasia 12%
companies using the software for
departments use a wide variety of
training and other purposes.
tools to get the job done. Software 8. XMetaL Author 11%
varies based on the type of work
Adobe is the dominant force
performed and the industry sector
served.
28% of companies surveyed use 9. Microsoft PowerPoint 11%
Acrobat Pro to create documentation
The top ten most common tools are and training deliverables, making it 10. Adobe Photoshop 11%
manufactured by four companies (see the fourth most commonly used tool.
list at right). Adobe leads the pack
Adobe also holds the fifth spot with
with five of the top ten tools.
Captivate—the most often used screen
Microsoft and TechSmith have two
recording tool (20%)—and the sixth
tools each on the list; JustSystems
spot with online help mainstay,
has one.
RoboHelp.
Adobe FrameMaker is most used
XML Authoring with XMetaL
Companies that create technical
11% of companies use XMetaL for
documentation are most likely to do
XML authoring, making it the 8th
so with the help of Adobe
most used tool among those surveyed.
FrameMaker (41%). As far as
DISCLAIMER AND ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
2012 Technical Communication Industry
Benchmarking Survey Summary
This is a summary of the 2012 Technical Communication Industry Benchmarking Survey
(conducted by The Content Wrangler, Inc.) an informal, web-based survey that compares
responses from over 500 companies from countries around the globe. The results are not
scientific, but do provide us with meaningful data points and help us spot trends. The majority of survey respondents work for firms in the
computer software and hardware sector (63%), followed by the financial services sector (9%), life sciences and healthcare (9%) ,
telecommunication (5%), publishing and media (3%) and others. This summary is provided for informational purposes only. The Content
Wrangler, Inc. is not providing advice, nor do we warrant the accuracy or completeness of this information. The results of the survey do not in
any way constitute an endorsement or recommendation of any of the brands, methods, products or approaches mentioned. Use due diligence
whenever deciding whether or not to adopt new information management tools, techniques or processes.
Questions? Email: scott@thecontentwrangler.com Office: 415.857.2235 The Content Wrangler
The Content Wrangler 4153 24th Street Suite 4, San Francisco CA 94114