Acrolinx In Technical Communication Plus

Conference: June 26-27, San Jose, CA

Webinar
22 May 2013 | 12pm ET (18pm CET)

eSeminar Hosted By Adobe and presented by Tom Aldous of Acrolinx

Link To Recorded Video

Date / Time – April 10, 2013 at NOON EST

I am looking forward to presenting this webinar sponsored by Adobe. So many people have asked me, “What is Acrolinx?”, “Can Content Optimization Be Automated”, “How Can I Get Reports On The Shape Of Our Content In Our Repository” and “Can I See a Demo Of The Technology?”.

On Wednesday April 10, 2013 I will be providing answers to all those questions in this fast paced webinar. Register now at http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/event/index.cfm?event=detail&id=2184057&loc=en_us

Today I am happy to announce our newest addition to the Acrolinx Team. Please join me in welcoming Allison Hepburn, our new Product Evangelist!

Allison comes to us from IBM where she served as their Technical Editing and Videography Team Lead. It was there that, among her many other duties, she was tasked with maintaining and improving the quality of IBM’s documentation using Acrolinx. Naturally, she quickly fell in love with our product’s capabilities and has been championing Acrolinx.

If you have any questions about Acrolinx in the workflow, I know that Allison’s “real world” use of Acrolinx in her former position will be extremely helpful. Be careful though, her enthusiasm is infectious.

Allison Hepburn, our new Product Evangelist can be reached at:

email – Allison.Hepburn@acrolinx.com

Linkedin – www.linkedin.com/in/allisonhepburn

Twitter – amhepburn

Tom Aldous

eSeminar Hosted By Adobe and presented by Tom Aldous of Acrolinx

Link To Recorded Video

Date – April 10, 2013

In our previous eSeminar, “The Evolution of Technical Communication Processes”, we talked about the next megatrend on the horizon.  Now it’s time to apply these concepts firsthand and fully realize the power of information quality control within one of the most powerful desktop publishing environments available today. Witness a powerful demonstration of how Acrolinx can enhance FrameMaker content far beyond where you thought it could go!

Content is king, as we all know, but many of those in the technical writing industry lack the means to truly prioritize their content. As a result, errors can escape the notice of even the most well-intentioned writers and editors. With Acrolinx, we’ll show you how to tighten your writing skills and nip these problems in the bud – from basic spelling and grammar errors, to more industry-specific problems like the use of deprecated terminology, branding violations, and ambiguous/superfluous phrases and vocabulary.  We’ll also show you how Acrolinx optimizes content reuse for purposes of consistency and localization/translation.

About the Presenter: Thomas Aldous is Senior Vice President of Global Operations at Acrolinx. A former Director of Business Development and Evangelism for Tech Comm Suite with Adobe, Tom has well over 20 years experience in high level consulting implimenting publishing solutions built around XML, DITA, FrameMaker and other products.

 eSeminar Hosted By Adobe and presented by Tom Aldous of Acrolinx

Link To Webinar Recording

Date – March 27, 2013 – RECORDED

Former Adobe Director – Business Development and Evangelism, Thomas Aldous, now Sr. Vice President, shares his perspective on where content is going. Having worked with DITA/XML and FrameMaker for years, Tom now has expanded his vision into how to optimize content and make it more useable. In his own words:

“In the couple of decades that I have been involved in the Technical Communications industry, there has been a very interesting migration of processes and workflows.

At first, simply creating our content in a word processor was a huge productivity enhancer. We then evolved further by creating our content in standardized templates in a desktop publishing system. Lately, consumers have adopted and adapted to a mobile content interactive experience using their new tablets and smart phones.

Single sourcing content to these multiple devices in an automated fashion is the current “holy grail”, but which approach is best? The current question that is begging to be asked is, so what is next?”

Knowing Tom, we can expect some highly original examples, images and useful metaphors for workflows that you probably have never thought of before. Be sure to attend this event, which is a precursor to an actual live demonstration of a dynamic solution, later in April.

About the Presenter: Thomas Aldous is Senior Vice President of Global Operations atAcrolinx. A former Director of Business Development and Evangelism for Tech Comm Suite with Adobe, Tom has well over 20 years experience in high level consulting implimenting publishing solutions built around XML, DITA, FrameMaker and other products

Register - 2-part SERIES: DITA Specialization

When - January 08-10, 2013

Section 1 – Tuesday, January 08,2013 RECORDED VIDEO PRESENTATION

Section 2 - Thursday, January 10,2013 RECORDED VIDEO PRESENTATION

Topic-based and structured authoring offer many advantages, especially with DITA. Many people feel that they must adhere to the “standard” definition of DITA. While this can be the best route in some instances, there are tremendous advantages in DITA Specialization, which can automate a variety of tasks associated with document structure and formatting. Benefits of DITA Specialization can be magnified by the number of target languages that you translate into. This 2-part series will cover first the strategy and planning phases, then show actual live examples of DITA Customization.

Session 1) Modeling DITA Specialization
In this session, we examine the process of analyzing your DITA needs and determining where specialization is most appropriate and potentially the most powerful. Find out how to analyze your content and build the right road map before beginning the specialization process.

Session 2) DITA Specialization: live, dynamic examples

This second session will focus on actual working examples of specialized DITA in FrameMaker 11. You will see live documents with relatively simple specialization that enables a variety of transformations to occur automatically.

Your “take-aways” from this series will be (a) determining if DITA Specialization is right for you and (b) how to actually accomplish it. Join Adobe’s Tom Aldous, Director, Global TechComm Business Development and Product Evangelism, as he guides us on this fascinating technical journey. Before joining Adobe, Tom spent over 20 years as a consultant, frequently specializing in complex DITA and XML projects which required specialization for industries ranging from nuclear power to financial.

Find Out How to Write XSLT Statements for XML to XML Transformations in a 5-part eSeminars Series

June 28, 2012 – July 19, 2012 – Recorded

I recieve inquires about how to move a workflow from unstructured content (be it MSWord or FrameMaker) to an XML one often. The process requires several steps, but once mastered you will be able to “Unleash The Protential Within Your Documentation”.

This is where FrameMaker becomes automagical.

It is very important that you follow the series start to finish. I will bring a sample document through the full process and create all necessary system files. I will provide all files created on my blog.

Unstructured To XML Workflow Series Part 1:

Creating A FrameMaker Conversion Table 

https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/event/index.cfm?event=register%5Fno%5Fsession&id=1832114&loc=en%5Fus

Unstructured To XML Workflow Series Part 2:

Creating A FrameMaker Conversion Table

https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/event/index.cfm?event=register%5Fno%5Fsession&id=1839616&loc=en%5Fus

Unstructured To XML Workflow Series Part 3:

Creating A FrameMaker Conversion Table

https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/event/index.cfm?id=1844301&loc=en%5Fus&event=register%5Fno%5Fsession

Unstructured To XML Workflow Series Part 4:

Element Definition Document (EDD) – Home Grown or a Standard

https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/event/index.cfm?loc=en%5Fus&id=1855039&event=register%5Fno%5Fsession

Unstructured To XML Workflow Series Part 5:

Creating your Structured Template from an Unstructured One

https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/event/index.cfm?id=1855043&event=register%5Fno%5Fsession&loc=en%5Fus

Unstructured To XML Workflow Series Part 6:

Structure Applications and What Is Necessary and How To Create

https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/event/index.cfm?loc=en%5Fus&event=register%5Fno%5Fsession&id=1863995

Unstructured To XML Workflow Series Part 7:

Save As XML, Now What?

https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/event/index.cfm?event=register%5Fno%5Fsession&id=1877651&loc=en%5Fus

I will be taking you through all the steps and workflow requirements to move you from anUnstructured To an XML / FrameMaker 10 workflow. It is going to be an instructional series.

Spread the word!

I was asked to pass on the news about this great job opportunity at Mentor Graphics’ Technical Publications Department.

The position is based in Wilsonville, Oregon at their corporate headquarters.

If you don’t know about Mentor Graphics, you should do a little research. Great Company, great products, great opportunity!

Link to the opening: http://ch.tbe.taleo.net/CH08/ats/careers/requisition.jsp?org=MENTOR&cws=1&rid=1023