What if we could transform structured content into searchable, reusable, chunks of content that other groups could easily find from a highly trusted source such that they could reuse it in their slides, support sites, proposals, and emails? The potential for improved rigour and precision of Content 4.0 offers greater utility and effectiveness for content delivery. In this session, Rob Hanna explores the methods, technology, and use cases needed to support delivery of DITA/XML as microcontent across the enterprise.

1. Smarter Enterprise Collaboration through Content 4.0 and Microcontent
@PCASInc#microcontent

2. Rob Hanna
Co-Founder and Chief Information Architect at
Precision Content
Voted in the Top 25 Content Experience
Influencers for 2017
Helping organizations make their information
easier to use for more than 20 years
@PCASInc#microcontent

3. My goals today are to …
Discuss some of the
oncoming obstacles
and opportunities we
face in technical
communication
01
Show you how
microcontent
• improves usability and
precision of your content,
and
• future-proofs your content
for what lies ahead.
02
Start a conversation
about how we get
started with
microcontent
03
@PCASInc#microcontent

4. Future of Content 4.0
Despite our focus on simplifying the technology around content–
content itself is not getting simpler
Creating progressively smaller and smarter content components
Focus on answers that people are seeking
Information 4.0 for Industry 4.0 – Enabling Information Interoperability,
https://www.slideshare.net/jgollner/information-40-for-industry-40-
tcworld-2016
#microcontent
Joe Gollner
The Content Philosopher
Futurist
@PCASInc

5. Inescapable
trends in
technical
communication
Content becomes much
more precise & technical
Content creation becomes
much more collaborative
Content creation becomes
one part in a total system
Content activities become
much more complex
@PCASInc#microcontent
Joe Gollner
The Content Philosopher
Futurist

6. Brief history of
content
What goes around …
… comes around
One-to-OneOne-to-Many
CONTENT 1.0
One-to-Many More
CONTENT 2.0
Many-to-Many
CONTENT 3.0
Reach
Many to Many
+ Machines IoT
CONTENT 4.0
@PCASInc#microcontent

7. Complexity of content grows bigger
Scroll Codex Document Topic Block FactPage
@PCASInc#microcontent

8. Units of content get smaller
Scroll Codex Document Topic Block FactPage
@PCASInc#microcontent

9. Volume of content grows exponentially
1700 1900 2014 20201945
@PCASInc#microcontent
80% of this is Dark Data …
Inaccessible ROT
• R – redundant
• O – obsolete, or
• T – trivial

10. Welcome to the Digital Landfill
CONTENT CHAOS
@PCASInc#microcontent

11. What’s wrong?
WE HAVE TOO MUCH STUFF AND WE DON’T KNOW WHERE TO PUT IT
@PCASInc#microcontent

12. Our challenges
Our technical content
competes poorly with
other sources of
content
01
Too many places to
lose content
02
Other parts of the
business rely on
content on network
drives, email, and
word of mouth
03
Other parts of the
business are tasked
with re-creating our
content for their
various channels for
the content
04
@PCASInc#microcontent

13. What could help?
A NEW WAY OF LOOKING AT CONTENT FROM FUNDAMENTAL
COMPONENTS OF CONTENT
@PCASInc#microcontent

14. Google Micro-
Moments
https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/
micromoments/intro.html
Micro-Moments are multiplying–are you ready
for the future of marketing?
Perspective – May 2017
Micro-Moments Now: Why you should be the
advisor consumers are searching for
Perspective – Aug 2017
Micro-Moments Now: Why ‘near me’ intent is a
‘near you’ opportunity
Perspective – Aug 2017
@PCASInc#microcontent

15. Microlearning
Infographics as a form of
microlearning …
about microlearning
META!
@PCASInc#microcontent

16. Microformats
Are a loose technology layer that allows for the extraction of data from web pages for
repurposing of data in different contexts. The technology consists of small, semantic structures
that identify fragments of content that can be consumed as a microformat. Some examples
include
• hCalendar – for events
• hCard – for contact information
• hMedia - for audio/video content
• hAudio – for audio content
• hNews - for news content
• hProduct – for products, and
• hRecipe - for recipes and foodstuffs.
@PCASInc#microcontent

17. Microcontent
(4.0 molecular content)
Is content that is
◦ about one primary idea, fact, or concept
◦ easily scannable
◦ labelled for clear identification and meaning,
and
◦ appropriately written and formatted for use
anywhere and any time it is needed.
It’s not microcontent just because it’s small
@PCASInc#microcontent

18. Examples of
microcontent
Google Featured Snippets
RSS Feeds
Product Tiles
Advanced Organizers
@PCASInc#microcontent

19. Microcontent
technology
Range of
existing
technology
options for
packaging and delivery
of microcontent
Web CMS
tools
Social media
RSS
Newer
technology
designed to
serve microcontent to
the enterprise for
effective collaboration
between teams
WittyParrot
@PCASInc#microcontent

20. WittyParrot
Microcontent collaboration tools
@PCASInc#microcontent

21. What’s holding
us back?
The availability of microcontent and our
ability to create it is our biggest
obstacle
Where is it going
to come from?
Who is going to
write it?
@PCASInc#microcontent

22. What if …
@PCASInc#microcontent
… we could repurpose our technical content
by automatically bursting sections into
microcontent for the enterprise to use?
But our content isn’t ready!
We would get a lot of noise if we just burst
every section into microcontent.

23. What if …
@PCASInc#microcontent
… we started by authoring every topic we
wrote with blocks of microcontent?
Focusing on authoring smaller, more
concise content components.

24. Getting there
#microcontent @PCASInc

25. Structured building blocks of information
@PCASInc#microcontent

26. Meeting 2 sets of fundamental needs
The Human Brain
Technology
Find
Understand
Use, and
Retain
Integrate
Search
Process, and
Reuse
Well-structured content helps
@PCASInc#microcontent

27. Compare technology vs methodology
Structured Writing Structured Markup
• Coined by Robert Horn in the 1960’s as a means
of analyzing, organizing, and presenting
information for optimal human consumption
• Promotes patterns for format and syntax that
become easily recognizable and predictable
• Relies on consistently labelling and chunking
information into easily scannable text
• Introduces universal information typing based
on intended reader response
• Allows authors to mark up words, phrases, and
sections of content for presentation and for
meaning for consumption by machines
• Is validated using standard sets of rules that
specify consistent and predictable patterns
• Specifies what content goes where but does not
limit or restrict how the content is written
• Provides a rich underlying metadata layer for
capturing properties related to the content
@PCASInc#microcontent

28. Feed the brain what it needs when it needs it
@PCASInc#microcontent

29. Left and right
hemispheres of
the brain
Appealing to creativity or
emotion versus logic
Language Arts
for Information
(LAFI)
Language Arts for
Personal Response
(LAFPR)
@PCASInc#microcontent

30. Language Arts
LANGUAGE ARTS FOR PERSONAL RESPONSE
To emotionally engage the reader
Techniques:
◦ narrative style
◦ varied vocabulary and sentence structure
◦ withholding information
Writer-driven
Meant to be READ
LANGUAGE ARTS FOR INFORMATION
To convey information that readers use
Techniques:
◦ consistent modular structure
◦ concise, direct vocabulary
◦ use of graphics
Reader-driven
Meant to be USED
Feed the brain what it needs when it needs it
@PCASInc#microcontent

31. IKEA
Instructions:
LAFI
@PCASInc#microcontent

32. Ikea Instructions: LAFPR
If novelist Michael Ondaatje wrote Ikea instructions ….
“The eel-shaped talisman squirms inside the raspy recycled
box. A series of quarter turns – clock hands marking time –
bonds back to base. An alphabet of connections in English and
French. A into groove B. C slots into D. Chipboard hurdles
communicating Swedish hegemony.”
Author/parodist: Geoff Thomas
Globe & Mail, August 27, 2009
@PCASInc#microcontent

33. Consider your
job application
LAFPR or LAFI?
Cover letter
Résumé
@PCASInc#microcontent

34. Organizing information
PRIMARY CLASSIFICATION AROUND INFORMATION TYPES

35. Mapping our
brain function to
content
Procedural
Working
Semantic
Budson and Price,
2005, New England
Journal of Medicine
@PCASInc#microcontent

36. How information typing works
Information needs to be typed according to the intended reader
response to that content
The same collection of information can be written in a number of
different ways depending upon how we want the intended audience
to use that information
@PCASInc#microcontent

37. Making a cup of tea
2nd Person, present tense
3rd Person, present tense
1st Person, past tense
What is the
Intended Reader
Response?
to instruct you on how to make tea.
to describe to you how tea is made.
to engage you in a story about making tea.
@PCASInc#microcontent

38. Adapted DITA topic types and structures
Concept, task, and reference are
considerably constrained but essentially
the same
All topics are authored using blocks and
titles
New sub-blocks introduced
Each block is assigned an information type
@PCASInc#microcontent

39. New Precision Content® information types
PROCESS
Specialized from Task
Introduces
◦ Stages
◦ Actors, and
◦ Actions
PRINCIPLE
Specialized from Topic
Introduces
◦ Principle Statement
◦ Applicability
◦ Outcome, and
◦ Resolution
@PCASInc#microcontent

40. Information types listed by function
Reference
◦ DESCRIBES things the reader
needs to KNOW
Task
◦ INSTRUCTS the reader on
HOW TO DO things
Concept
◦ EXPLAINS things the reader
needs to UNDERSTAND
Process
◦ DEMONSTRATES to the reader
how things WORK, and
Principle
◦ ADVISES the reader about
what they need TO DO or NOT
DO and WHEN.
@PCASInc#microcontent

41. @PCASInc
Information types
Reference
Principle
Task
Process
Concept
“We will be flying at
an altitude of
35,000 feet.”
“Always put on your
oxygen mask before
assisting other
passengers.”
“To open the
emergency exit,
look out the
window, pull the
lever, and push out
the exit door.”
“In the event of loss
of cabin pressure,
an oxygen mask will
drop from the
overhead
compartment.”
“On the left side of the
plane you can see a
typical example of a
cumulonimbus cloud.”
Flight safety briefing
#microcontent

42. Information Type examples
If the goal of the information is to …
Then use the
information type …
Reference
Concept
Principle
Process
Task
Principle
Reference
Task
• list the nutritional facts for Cherry Cola
• explain what a soft drink is
• warn you not to drop a Mentos in your Cola bottle
• illustrate how Cola is bottled
• instruct you on how to safely open your can of Cola
• advise you on the best practices for recycling cans
• tell the customer this week’s sale price for Cola
• show you how you can turn your Cola can into a nifty craft project
@PCASInc#microcontent

43. Information types inform writing style
How topics
and blocks
are titled
1
Block and
topic
construction
2
Proper voice
and tense
3
Specific
authoring
models
4
Rules for
short
descriptions
5
@PCASInc#microcontent

44. Topics and blocks
Consider what happens if
we focuses writing at the
block-level within topics
The short description
supports the title of the
topic as a block
Every block is an
information type
supporting the topic
Task Topic
Task title
Task body
Context
Purpose
Prerequisites
Steps
Post-requisites
Result
Primary Block
Blocks
REFERENCE
PRINCIPLE
TASK
PRINCIPLE
REFERENCE
#microcontent

45. Conclusion
@PCASInc#microcontent

46. Microcontent will change how we work with
information
Creating and publishing microcontent to your enterprise
◦ improves usability and precision of your content, and
◦ future-proofs your content for what lies ahead.
Do you want to see your high-value microcontent published by
◦ Sales and marketing
◦ Learning and development, or
◦ Technical publications?
@PCASInc#microcontent

47. Infinitely adaptable
CONTENT CONTENTMENT
@PCASInc#microcontent

48. See me for discounts on tickets to IDW
Preparing
Content for
Intelligent
Machines
Rob Hanna
November 30, 2017

49. Questions?
ROB HANNA
CO-FOUNDER & PRESIDENT –
PRECISION CONTENT
ROB@PRECISIONCONTENT.COM
@SINGLESOURCEROR
DROP BY OUR BOOTH
Ask me about …
@PCASInc#microcontent