Gary doesn’t name names in his blog, to his credit, so I can’t know who he’s talking about, but the business model he’s describing of a consultant that helps with tool selection, but can also resell software on request, applies to my organisation. So, in this post I’m rallying to defend my type of organisation generally, if not Mekon in particular. I’ve split it into 3 parts which I’ll release across the next 3 weeks: the analogy exposed (this post), how Mekon work to be the best XML Condom Consultants we can be, and finally a case study where our services prevented a nasty infection for one of our clients.

Before I go any further, let me say thanks, Gary, you should be in PR. “XML Condom Consultant” is simply brilliant. My blog is called “Analogically Speaking” because I really enjoy a good analogy. But what makes a brilliant one? An analogy is brilliant when it continues to work from many angles as you break it down. So like a good consultant, let’s attack this analogy analytically, shall we?

Condom vs. Consultant

Typical users

• Condom – In any situation where there are questions about the background, motivations and validity of the partner and their claims. As well, there are those who just want to have a sense of security and independent control over their situation and future.
• Consultant – Same thing. In the relationship between vendor and buyer, the buyer must always beware. Especially so if the vendor says they don’t need to be!

Usage drivers

• Condom – Protection against unwanted repercussions or poor choice of partners.
• Consultant – Definitely!

Usage context (when to use them)

• Condom – Generally speaking used in new relationships while trust and longer term compatibility is still being established.
• Consultant – And again…!

Risks of not using them

• Condom – Life changing, (potentially life-ending)
• Consultant – Career-changing (and, yes, potentially career-ending!)

Cost of using them

• Condom – You might be out a few quid, but usually a very sensible investment that totals only a small percentage of the overall investment involved (dinner, movie, taxis…)
• Consultant – Dead on. More below on this.

Risks of using them

• Condom – Your partner may not want to and complain.
• Consultant – Vendors may not like it, but you’re trying to please yourself, not them. (How much that part of the comparison applies is up to the reader!) Mekon is often called a ‘frenemy’ by some vendors, even sometimes after we’ve done joint projects. Some vendors clearly want to endear their organisation and products to us, but really everyone involved knows they would rather they had complete “deal control” (as it’s known in the industry).

I recently presented a keynote at the ISTC conference (now called Technical communications UK). In it I stressed the importance of protecting yourself when first embarking on a journey to content strategy. Why? Because we all know when you first start dating you need protection from uneducated, pressured or hasty decisions.

As the relationship builds and you know more about what you are getting into and your trust for your partner grows, your need for a condom, like your need for external guidance, will diminish.

If you know all about your partner and where he or she has been then maybe you can risk going for it unprotected on your first time. But, if it’s your first time ever, you would never want to trust your instincts on the credibility or motives of the partner you’re only just getting to know.

Maybe with experience you can spot a gem early on, but most people don’t have this breadth of experience and certainly don’t have time to investigate the full history. So, best to use the condom before committing yourself. Of course, you can understand those people who don’t want you to use a condom. They say its better without one. They say it slows things down and is a waste of money. Usually, it’s the pushy ones who have little regard for the other person’s well-being or their need to minimise risk that complain loudest, and it’s with those you really need to be cautious.

By Gary’s own admission we have all bought things that weren’t up to our expectation. One can argue that the more time you have to research your choice, and the more experience you have within the domain, the less likely you will make a mistake. Here, I think the XML Condom Consultant, at a fraction of the total solution cost, is solid investment that delivers peace of mind and avoids the regrettable outcomes.

Next week, Part 2: How Mekon organises itself to be the best most trust-worthy “XML Condom Consultants” we can be, and the subtle differences to the topic in the military/S1000D market. The week after, in Part 3, my blog will endeavour to prove it with a case study where a client could have had a nasty accident with a smart-looking vendor with a great reputation.

Stay tuned, and comments of course are invited!

If you were blessed with the forthcoming arrival of a new baby in your family, one of the early issues to consider would be how to carry the baby on trips to the shops. Perhaps, as a keen gardener, you already own a wheel barrow. A wheel barrow has ample space to fit a baby and with the addition of a blanket the comfort factor could be improved. However fitting it into the car would be a challenge and it really is not an elegant solution designed for your needs.

So why is it that software companies insist in considering software code management tools as a suitable repository for content. Source Safe through to Rational Clearcase to name two are ideal for managing software development code and in the Rational family, UML modelling as well, but don’t provide a good environment to support a modern content strategy using XML where re-use and multi language versions are required.

Modern Content Strategy demands more than simple version control, needing greater awareness of topic relationships, metadata, and the management of multimedia such as graphics at the very least. We have had some success with combining XMetaL with Source Safe to provide a simple but functional solution for DITA, so it’s not impossible. However, like the wheel barrow example, best results for managing your content are achieved using more tightly integrated solutions designed for the job. There are always other tools around that you can make do with, but would you consider carrying your baby in a wheel barrow? After all, many companies produce content to support their products and services which are as precious to them as your own baby to you.

I grant you that selecting a CCMS is less emotional than buying your first pram. Is it practical for all my expected requirements, will it make me and my content (baby) look good? Can I take it where ever I want and meet the demands I don’t even know about? Can the less skilled users (husband) make full use of the solution? Oh, and I better ask my Mum what she recommends, because having never had a baby or a pram it must make sense to seek expert advice?

Well, they sound remarkably similar to me.

There are cases where one needs to improvise for a short term fix. Take David Cameron for instance, whose daughter Nancy improvised while on holiday by making a cot out a cardboard box for their new born baby.
It did the job but I don’t think the manufactures of Cots should be concerned

The event featured a good mix of interesting speakers and themes alike, thanks to the efforts of Mathew Ellison, and we’re glad we again chose to sponsor it.

One of the last sessions was a panel of vendors being given the opportunity to answer questions on key topics discussed during the event. On the whole the answers were thought-leading and interesting. Some were decidedly influenced by the loyalty to the products offered by the vendor, as you would probably expect. I enjoy seeing such bias as it reaffirms the principles and importance of Mekon’s vendor-independent approach.

Will DITA Change Our Lives?

One specific question which provoked stronger feelings for me was: is DITA here to stay and will it change our lives? (Or at least something along those lines.) Surprisingly, only one of the five vendors had anything to say on the subject, and the one that did speak (no names, no pack drill) said:

“Yes I am sure DITA is here to stay, but just like Docbook, which caused similar enthusiasm when it came out, DITA will not change our lives. In fact while I am sure it is a good standard, unless you run a business that has similar publishing needs to IBM I don’t think it is that useful for everyone.”

It’s not relevant as to who said this, and without a recording I am likely to have missed the exact wording, but the principle is as I write it. What concerns me is this:

1) Do other information specialist out there consider DITA as ground-breaking a step as Docbook? In other words, has DITA had as little impact as Docbook?

And

2) With IBM being one of the largest publishers of information/technical publications in the world, with multiple divisions operating in parallel, don’t most technical communicators face similar challenges to IBM? After all they write software, build hardware and provide services. Arguably not all of it is produced in DITA.

The key to my first point is that I would wager that if you took 10 companies producing rich DITA content, you could take an experienced content writer from any one of those companies and they would quickly get to grips with the content from the other companies. I really cannot believe the same could be said of 10 companies producing rich Docbook content due tot he extensive customisation such solutions implement to achieve their company goals and needs.

The other thought I pondered on is why did the other vendors have no opinion at all? Well, probably because they were principally focused on On-line help. Maybe DITA is seen as a risky competitor to their often proprietary online help tools. I have heard similar arguments hinging around ASD S1000D, which is the well established and successful standard for producing Military content. ASD S1000D is now also being adopted by civil aircraft manufactures. S1000D has not been so successful in attracting the non-military content creators, but one could probably write a book on that topic alone.

So What?

So what is my answer to the original question?

Simply put, DITA is the most significant change to affect technical communicators that I have seen in my 20 years in the industry. Not only will it be around for many a year, with the gradual enhancements as one would expect, DITA, along with the XML standard that underpins it, will improve our access to content beyond our wildest dreams. Just looking at all the authoring tools and component content managements systems that supporting DITA, and then the growing output and delivery technologies available, and you start to get a vision of where this critical mass is going.

For those of us who have been involved with technical publications for several years, the concept of dynamic publishing is not new. Mekon for one has developed dynamic publishing solutions for many years using SGML, XML, or a SQL database combined with tools such as E3, XyEnterprise XPP, Antenna House XSL Formatter and Quadralay Web Works to name but a few. Such solutions lend themselves very well to technical publication workflows, where content can be re-used for multiple products and document types, feeding through to several output or delivery formats.

In the past two years we have carried out many Content Strategy Audits at high tech and manufacturing companies. In all these companies the results of the audit showed the potential for re-use in marketing publications, and it is already well understood that marketing departments need to produce many different output formats. This is where the problem starts. Marketing have different design driven challenges than technical communications and hence use products like Adobe InDesign and QuarkXpress to produce the ever changing marketing communications information. They are not about to swap these traditional design tools for content driven tools such as Adobe FrameMaker, JustSystems XMetaL or PTC Arbortext Editor.

So all this lead up is to prepare you for what I believe is a fantastic step forward for marketing departments and their need to integrate with the wider tech comms content-driven workflows. Simply put, what has been missing is an XML content interface to allow marketing department to continue using their favoured layout tools and reap the benefit of this current XML revolution.

Quark Dynamic Publishing solution has the potential to be this missing link.

Ray Schiavone, Quark CEO, delivered the brief which indicates the importance they place on this product. Interestingly the demonstration showed In.Vision Xpress Author producing valid XML content, managed in an open source CMS, automatically publishing the content through predefined QuarkXpress templates to produce PDF and HTML output. Their plan is to add other output types, in particular mobile devices. I also heard that they are working on DITA support which is clearly where the market is going these days

Watch this space.