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

Recorded Link

Webinar
12 March 2013, 12 pm ET (18 CET)

Introduction To Acrolinx

Free Recording Of eSeminar: http://www.acrolinx.com/watch_webinar/items/introduction-to-acrolinx-773.html

Presenter:
Michael Klemme, Senior Solutions Architect, Acrolinx

Date:
Wednesday, February 27, 2013, 4-5 pm CET (10 am ET)

Description:
In this webinar you’ll learn about the Acrolinx content optimization software. We’ll demonstrate how Acrolinx improves content quality throughout your organization and how it helps you to establish more efficient and cost-effective processes. Built on a powerful linguistic analytics engine, Acrolinx helps you create content that is consistent, stylistically correct and employs the correct terminology. Acrolinx can be implemented in almost any environment or department, from technical documentation to product development and support to marketing and search engine optimization (SEO).

Acrolinx features include:

• Spell and grammar checking
• Style and terminology checking
• Multilingual terminology management
• Reusable text modules
• User-friendly operation

Benefits for your organization include:

• Reduced translation costs
• Accurate and consistent content
• Search Engine Optimization
• Automated reporting

This webinar is intended for anyone interested in getting a first look at the Acrolinx software. Successful companies including Adobe, Cisco, IBM, Philips, and Siemens rely on Acrolinx as their foundation for content communication.

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!

After you publish to whatever screen, it’s about the content. Why not optimize it for your target audience? Http://www.acrolinx.com

Training my new boss

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

Kent Taylor, Acrolinx shared this with me this morning. Hopefully you find it useful.

A Quality Management System (ISO 9001, 6-Sigma, Kaizen, TQM, etc.) can have a big impact on quality, productivity, and cycle time in medium and large Writing Organizations. If you have never done a process audit, you will almost certainly be amazed at the amount of duplicative, and unnecessary activity that takes place in the overall content supply chain. You’ll also find bottlenecks and roadblocks that consume valuable cycle time.

The core tenets of all the Quality Management Systems are simple and straightforward:

• Know and document your processes and quality standards.

• Objectively measure and track in-process quality (Quality Assurance – real-time feedback to people as they do their job.)

• Objectively measure and track quality at handoff points (Quality Control – independent metrics and reports)

• Make and document changes to your process, and observe changes to quality, productivity, and cycle-time metrics. Formalize and deploy the changes that have positive impacts on your metrics.

• Implementation of a Quality Management System takes some time and effort, but can result in on-going cost and time savings that you will be proud to show your management. And you will have metrics to show quality improvements as well!

• The conventional measurement of quality reflects how well you conform to your own standards. In the tech writing world, standards generally consist of the dictionary (for spelling of common words), perhaps some terminology guidelines (for company- or domain-specific words and phrases), the accepted rules of grammar, and a company style guide.

• Measuring conformance objectively and cost-effectively is the hard part. Identifying and tracking all of the misspellings, typos, grammar, and style issues manually is neither objective nor cost-effective, but there are tools that can help.

• Spell checkers and grammar checkers can provide some help in terms of Quality Assurance, but require considerable manual effort to create Quality Control reports. And they are limited in terms of style and terminology checking. At the other end of the spectrum, you will find tools like the Acrolinx Content Quality Solution. This toolkit provides both Quality Assurance and aggregated Quality Control reports that identify and track all spelling and grammar issues, as well as deviations from your company’s style and terminology standards.

Bottom line: The application of proven quality management practices in your technical writing environment can significantly improve overall quality and consistency of your content, while providing cost and cycle-time reductions of projected 10% to 25% or more.

Sometimes the best things are the least expected.

It’s with mixed emotions that I am announcing my departure from Adobe Systems, Inc. After 2 awesome years of working at Adobe, I’ve decided to move on to a new challenge. Beginning January 28th, I will take the role of Senior Vice President of Global Operations at Acrolinx. It is there that I hope to bring the same value and innovation that I provided to Adobe as Director of TechComm Business Development and Evangelism.

When Adobe approached me two years ago, I was delighted to join the team. These were the very same people I had known and worked with throughout the many years I was President of Integrated Technologies, Inc. As colleagues we’ve inevitably grown closer during my tenure, and I will certainly miss working with the Adobe TechComm Team on a daily basis. Together we’ve accomplished quite a bit in the world of technical communications over the last 2 years. I know that the Adobe TechComm team will have continued success in the years to come. There’s no doubt in my mind that Adobe’s Technical Communications division has an excellent future ahead of it; and that FrameMaker, RoboHelp and the Technical Communication Suite will continue to remain leaders in the world of technical writing and publishing. Moving forward, you should reach out to Saibal Bhattacharjee for any Adobe Tech Comm Evangelism questions and Ashish Cherian for any Adobe Tech Comm Business Development items. I do want everyone to also know that they can always reach out to me for advice and help.

Those of you that already know about and use Acrolinx will have no problem understanding why I’m undergoing this transition. Acrolinx provides content quality software that employs incredible technology that optimizes and enhances content in a multitude of languages. Their usage of linguistics tech provides users with both a better understanding of how to more effectively communicate internally within an organization, as well as with customers by way of analytics, metrics, and governance. These practices not only lead to better quality of content, but enhanced Search Engine Optimization (SEO), less waste of resources, and increased reuse of content.

After over two decades of experience with Adobe FrameMaker, Acrolinx’s deeply rooted focus on improved content matter and streamlined workflows immediately drew me to their product — and when I was offered the position, the technology and the opportunity were too good to pass up.

As SVP of Global Operations, my goal is to bring this technology to the forefront of the TechComm conversation and expand into exciting new markets. We already have quite a bit planned for the year ahead, and I can’t wait to get started. In a couple of weeks, Acrolinx and I will be at the Intelligent Content Conference in San Francisco. If you’re in the area, swing on in to check out our booth, catch some presentations and demos, or just chat. I look forward to it.

See you again soon…

Tom Aldous
Sr VP of Global Operations – Acrolinx
tom.aldous@acrolinx.com
http://twitter.com/@tmaldous
http://www.linkedin.com/in/tmaldous (Let’s Connect)
http://tmaldous.com/
508-463-3405