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Knowledge IntegrationThe Future of Technical Communications
Tristan David Bishop, Senior Principal Business Analyst
July 15, 2010
Introduction
Tristan David Bishop, Sr. Prin. Business Analyst
About the speaker:
Tristan David Bishop helps Symantec to deliver
"the right knowledge to the right customers at the
right time in the right language."
By integrating technical publishing best practices
with web delivery innovation, Tristan forges
solutions that optimize customer experience,
improving the corporate/customer relationship.
3
Symantec
• Operates in more than 40 countries
• FY 2009 revenue = $6.2 billion (Enterprise=$4.4b, Consumer=$1.8b)
• Over 17,500 Team Members
• Revenue by Geography:
– Americas. . . . . . . . . . . . 55%
– EMEA. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30%
– APJ. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15%
• Secures half of the world‟s data
• Backs up half of the world‟s data
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Agenda
Changing Landscape1
2
Required Skills3
Knowledge Integration
Knowledge Integration at Symantec4
The Changing
Landscape
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The Changing Landscape
1. Mobile Communications
2. Content: Static to Dynamic
3. Topic-Based Publishing
4. Global Knowledge Requirements
5. Web-Based Support
6. User-Generated Content
7
Established content practices are
undergoing profound and
fundamental changes
8
Clarlone, Kadie and Laplante: Gilbane Group,
“Multilingual Communications as a Business Imperitive”
Mobile Communications
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Source: “Dr Hamadoun I. Touré, International Telecommunications' Union, Annual Report 2008”
News: Static to Dynamic
10
“Every big-city newspaper in
the U.S. is either in bankruptcy
or will be in bankruptcy in the
foreseeable future ... The
newspaper industry in the U.S.
is over." - Michael Wolff, Vanity Fair, Mar
18, 2010
Navigation: Static to Dynamic
11
GPS will
grow to
>$70 Billion
by 2013
Handsets will
have 78%
GPS market
share by
2013
RNCOS E-Services Pvt.
Ltd, “World GPS Market
Forecast” 2/10
Directories: Static to Dynamic
• Hard-Copy Yellow Pages will lose 39% revenue over next five years
• Directory industry already trained 80% of sales staff to sell interactive products
• Reportlinker, "Say Goodbye to Yellow Pages", July 2008
12
Product Content: Static to Dynamic
13
“We have to become good at delivering highly targeted, „just in time‟ information: the right bit, at the right time, to help our reader answer a specific question and get on with a task”
Larry Kunz, SDI – Winner STC President‟s Award, 2010
Topic-Based Publishing
• Internet caused fundamental change
• Past = Books; Today = Topics
• Traditional delivery methods are OBSOLETE
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Poll #1
What doc delivery methods are in use at your org today?
a) Printed hard-copy manuals or sheets
b) Files on a CD or DVD (PDF, CHM, HTML)
c) Links to online web content
Select all that apply
15
Time Travel
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We cannot continue blindly producing
manuals. Much of what we do as
technical writers needs to change to
meet the growing reality of
communication world-wide.
17
Paula R. Stern, WritePoint Documentation Services
Global Knowledge Requirements
• Primary markets saturate
• Shareholders still expect revenue growth
• Company enters new locales
• Requires proactive global knowledge strategy
• English = Base language
• Automated QA of English source = maximizes MT
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With apologies to Gary Larson
Web-Based Tech Support
• New labor force entrants grew up with web access
• They expect web-based support
• Phone-based interactions rapidly decreasing
• Our profession is KEY to web-based, self-service support
• Tech Writers must repurpose manuals as topics for web
• Per Forrester, global average cost support phone interaction is $12. Self-service average interaction cost is $0.25
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User-Generated Content
• Early web = company writes, customer reads
• Today‟s web = both write (blogs, forums, wiki)
• Tomorrow‟s web? = both write and BOTH read (round-trip)
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Technical communicators must now
compete with information being
generated by the user community.
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Sarah O’Keefe, Scriptorium Publishing Services
Knowledge
Integration
We are entering a new era of product
content practices. Customers are
embraced as part of the content
lifecycle.
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Clarlone, Kadie and Laplante: Gilbane Group,
“Multilingual Communications as a Business Imperitive”
The Knowledge Integrator
A Knowledge Integrator will
partner with other teams across the organization
to gather content
that can proactively solve customer issues,
reducing the need for incoming support calls.
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Knowledge Integration
1. Gathering Content
2. Ensuring Accuracy
3. Ensuring Compliance
4. Delivering Repurposed Content
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Technical writers have an opportunity
to morph into the social conduit by
which companies interact with users
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Louis Marascio, LugIron Software Blog
Gathering Content
Seek key topics we didn‟t think to write
1. Review customer comments on published topics
2. Study web search results
3. Monitor Tech Support forums
4. Set up automated Keyword Alerts
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25% of Google search results
for the world‟s top 20 brands link to
user-generated content.
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Aarons, Edwards, & Lanier - "Search Engine Strategies magazine", June 2009
• InfoDev must connect with Dev, QA and Support
• Build close relationships
• Arrange for rapid cross-checks by SMEs
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Ensuring Accuracy
Ensuring Brand Compliance
• Know your corporate branding requirements
• Build close relationship with Marketing/Branding
• Ensure that repurposed content is compliant
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Delivering Repurposed Content
• Distribute to target customers
– Post to online KB for browsing
– Initiate L10n for key topics
– Push into local installations (Live Update)
– Optimize for mobile viewing
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Required Skills
Why pursue new skills?
• Cost Cutting continues (RIFs, Outsourcing)
• We need to show measurable business value
• Become ready to step into Knowledge Integrator role
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Required Skills
1. Topic-Based Writing
2. XML Publishing
3. Social Media Experience
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Topic-Based Writing Skills
• Study best practices for topic-based authoring
• Learn industry-standard content models
• Study DITA core types (“concept”, “task” and “reference”)
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XML Publishing Skills
• Develop XML publishing skills
• Understand the node hierarchy
• Data - not pages
• WYSWIG DTP = EOL
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XML has won. All major office suites
now save their documents in zipped
XML by default.
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Elliotte Rusty Harold, Polytechnic University, “XML Predictions: IBM.com” 2/5/08
Social Media Skills
A few Statistics:
• Over 50% of the world‟s population is under 30-years-old
• 96% of them have joined a social network
• If Facebook were a country it would be the world‟s 3rd largest (behind China and India)
• More than 80,000 websites have implemented FacebookConnect since December 2008
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Social Media Skills
• Explore leading Social Media networks
• Create basic user profile at prominent sites
• See new data exchange methods in action
• Metatags = driving the future of our industry
– Twitter “trending topics”
– Twitter #hashtags
– Facebook “Connect”
– LinkedIn “recommendations”
– Stumbleupon “favorites”
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Poll #2
Which Knowledge Integration skills have you already attained?
a) Topic-based publishing
b) XML publishing
c) Social Media
Select all that apply
40
Knowledge
Integration at
Symantec
Case Study: Symantec Backup Exec
• Market-leading Windows data protection
• 1.5 million global customers
• Documentation in 11 languages
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BE InfoDev - Customer Survey
• 2007 – Pubs team surveyed several hundred customers
• Web search had become primary knowledge access method
The number of customers who "often"
sought information about BE via Google was 500% higher
than those who "often" sought information via the PDF manuals.
Pubs checked “Google” results, didn‟t find our PDFs first
In response, we initiated effort to modernize delivery channels
In 2008, began delivering content as stand-alone web topics
BEWS InfoDev – Web Topic Results
• Two years later, BEWS InfoDev now has 4,857 topics on the web
• February 2010 had 1.6 million hits
• Web topic hits exceed PDF manual hits by ratio of
26 to 1
March 31, 2010
Backup Exec - Web Topic Hits
Symantec - Knowledge Data Flow
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Knowledge Delivery in 2010
• Deploying InQuira Information Manager for web KM
• Topics will be tracked and scored by usefulness
• We will receive direct customer feedback
• We will learn if there are missing topics
4646
Global Self-Service in 2010
• We already have translated XML topics stored in our CMS
• We will now deliver them to the web through the InQuira KMS
• InfoDev will facilitate self-service support across global markets
• We hope to drive down incoming support call volumes, saving money for the company
4747
Backup Exec: Knowledge Integration
• Content redeployment effort = profound success
• Will tune our published topics based on customer feedback
• Can now look toward user-generated content
– Backup Exec FAQ
– BE TekTips forum (>33k members)
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Backup Exec: Knowledge Integration
• Building customer communities
• InfoDev can seek out trending issues within:
– Backup Exec blog comments
– Backup Exec forum discussion
– Community Feed
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Conclusion
In Summary
• Communication has changed forever (global and instant)
• Our jobs will never be the same
• We can drive value into our companies by becoming Knowledge Integrators
• We‟d be wise to proactively seek any skills we yet need
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SYMANTEC PROPRIETARY/CONFIDENTIAL – INTERNAL USE ONLY
Copyright © 2008 Symantec Corporation. All rights reserved.
Thank You!
SYMANTEC PROPRIETARY/CONFIDENTIAL – INTERNAL USE ONLY
Copyright © 2008 Symantec Corporation. All rights reserved.
Thank You!
SYMANTEC PROPRIETARY/CONFIDENTIAL – INTERNAL USE ONLY
Copyright © 2008 Symantec Corporation. All rights reserved.
Thank You!
Tristan David Bishop
(321) 696-3618
Twitter: @KnowledgeBishop