MadCap’s VP Mike Hamilton Speaks! (Dec 7th, 2007)

madcap flare,madcap blaze,madcap feedback server,madcap analyzer,adobe,adobe robohelp,technical communication,workflow collaboration,technical writing,tech writing,help authoring,product management

Okay, without further ado, here’s the 39 minute MP3 podcast of MadCap VP Mike Hamilton from December 7th at the new MadCap offices located in La Jolla, California!

Here’s a program listing times and events for navigating the podcast.

Some of the highlights include:

Adobe layoffs in San Diego the previous day contrasted with MadCap’s office expansion.

Wiki model not ruled out: Mike talks about Web 2.0 and wiki models / blog style commenting currently available with MadCap’s Feedback Server.

MadCap Analyzer explained – so good it’s scary? Mike explains that Analyzer is key for maintaining consistency within a project, particularly larger ones with 20,000 to 30,000 topics.

Clarifies MadCap’s focus on Adobe: “…we don’t care what Adobe does, we’re focused on solving the problems of the technical writing community… I want to dispel any myth that we’re chasing Adobe.”

Mike elaborates on the competitive edge MadCap has right now in integrating all of their products.

Word vs. Flare? Mike answers the question about Word competing with Flare or Blaze and gets granular about Word & Flare in typical generic user usage, explaining where the breakpoint comes in for the average workload.

Strategy and policy for supporting new Microsoft releases. Mike includes Internet Explorer web browser, Word, and operating system support in his answer.

Is Blaze the sledgehammer I’m thinking it may become? Mike answers this along with explaining how MadCap’s internal programming workflow allows them to release both Blaze and a Flare release simultaneously.

Strategy and policy for supporting new Microsoft releases. Mike includes Internet Explorer web browser, Word, and operating system support in his answer.

… and much more, including the much awaited 7777 Fay Avenue Office Space story as related by Mike.

Here’s a link to the previous blog post from the visit.

Note: Being an amateur at this whole podcast interviewing thing I neglected to follow up with Mike about DITA. I’ll hit that up next time or ask him to comment below on the MadCap focus of DITA. Sorry folks.

Comments? Feel free to start a discussion.