An electronic portfolio, also known as an e-portfolio or digital portfolio, is a collection of electronic evidence assembled and managed by a user, usually on the Web (also called Webfolio). Such electronic evidence may include inputted text, electronic files, images, multimedia, blog entries, and hyperlinks.

E-portfolios are both demonstrations of the user’s abilities and platforms for self-expression, and, if they are online, they can be maintained dynamically over time.

An e-portfolio can be seen as a type of learning record that provides actual evidence of achievement.

What I’ve learned is that more and more the changes of software particularly browser technology can make these obsolete over time. It actually becomes easier to keep a checklist of change management. I have four samples up at any given time – some have been up since 2003.

Interesting note: I met a new neighbor last weekend who needs a Federal contract fulfilled with a relevant accounting training I touched on seven years ago.

Flash and PDF seem to be the containers of choice. They’re always displayable regardless of which browsing technology is used – they all support the industry standard.

Charles Jeter’s ePortfolio links:

Tutorial – Completing Government Cost Accounting System Employee Timesheets (Adobe / Macromedia / Captivate / eHelp RoboDemo 2003)

Help File – Codo Software’s Laser Squad:Nemesis Tactics Guide (RoboHelp X5 FlashHelp, 2002 – 2003)

Rapid eLearning – Collaborative Blogging Overview (Articulate Studio 2009 with elements designed using GlobFX Swiff Chart Pro and Adobe Captivate, 2008)

Effective Curriculum Development – Securing Our eCity (multiple technology for Instructor Led Training, 2009 – 2010, shows results)

Corporate Blogwriting – Blogging in April on the ESET Threatblog (Microsoft Windows Live Writer / WordPress, 2010)

Cluetrain Manifesto Taken to the Streets

Check out SeeClickFix, a collaborative Google Maps-based application which takes city reporting to the next level. I see this working its way into the threads of user support just like Twitter has recently, just replace ‘user’ with ‘citizen’. Consumer complaints given transparency to all levels – KISS rule in place.

Simple, easy, point click and type your quick response. In fact, they now have a widget that takes the map embedding part of the problem and makes it easier for Web 2.0 users:

SeeClickFix.com encourages the posting of SeeClickFix maps on blogs and websites.

Great collaboration tool. I’m curious as to what corporate uses this might bring. And here’s a sneak-peak at a new feature on seeclickfix: http://www.seeclickfix.com/feeds.

What types of applications could this work well to address, or what do you see that you would have to counter?

FLOSS Manuals: The OTHER FM for PDFs

Some writers truly hate Adobe Acrobat and any tool that can do the job better is worth a shot, particularly if it’s open source and easily navigated. Flossmanuals.net introduces FLOSS which does a lot of the single desktop Acrobat Pro’s job – collaboratively and open source.

Could FLOSS be the new Acrobat Pro killer?

FLOSS could bridge the gaps between Subject Matter Expert (SME) authoring of content and true documentation. For the specific purpose of supporting open source collaborative efforts this is heaven sent. Most open-source dev teams are simply not able to have those wonderful team meetings for doc review either for financial or time management purposes.

Update: Anne Gentle’s site talks about an event called a Booksprint that FlossManuals.net is doing for technical writers in support of open source programs.

I’ve been reading Janet Swisher’s review of FLOSS Manuals. She examines the pros and cons of Wiki briefly and explains the problem / solution of FLOSS definitively:

You can write documentation using an open source word processor like OpenOffice.org Writer, but you still need a content management system of some kind to handle versioning of drafts and communication within a project community, and CMSs are complex to set up and maintain.

And so a divide has emerged, with open source programmers on one side, wishing somebody would come help write the docs, and potential writers on the other side, too intimidated or too busy to learn the tools to work on open source projects.

FLOSS Manuals bridges that divide, and does so in a way that is deeply rooted in the open source ethos of community and collaboration.

FLOSS and Wikis for Documentation

The implementation and administration of the wiki model always seems to be the insurmountable challenge, if one is to be found. Janet has a solid point regarding Stewart Mader’s viewpoint on wikis for documentation:

I’ve generally been skeptical of wiki advocates who say, “Oh yeah, and you can create documentation in a wiki, too”, because I’ve seen very few actual examples.

Janet’s link refers to an article by Stewart Mader regarding the specific issue of documentation within a wiki. This happens to be an area where Stewart Mader and I disagreed earlier this year. I haven’t heard of many live wikis truly impacting technical writing and Janet confirms this from her perspective as well.

I’m happy to report that Stewart, Janet, and I technically all win on this point.

FLOSS Manuals IS a wiki, but it’s purpose-built for creating documentation. Its founders have created an open-source standard of documentation that blends reading, writing, plus allowing output and redistribution of content, all efficiently administrated for the open-source community.

However, each manual must be managed separately and that’s where technical writing and document content management skills shine.

Flossmanuals: A Help Authoring Tool Killer?

This bears examining because there’s a lot to be said about context-sensitive help within applications as well as the authoring platform for help. Tom Johnson’s recent poll and the ensuing HATT debate shows a passionate user base for tools.

Janet states:

Flossmanuals.net is heavily oriented towards book-style manuals; you could use it for topic-oriented online help, but it might be a stretch—a HAT it is not. But now that there is FLOSS Manuals, there simply is no longer a technological reason for any open source project not to have documentation.

I agree with this. There’s a method to the madness when you’re writing online help files and formatting is a critical element which a formal HAT tool is designed for.

For now, FLOSS is free*, with a minor amount of techie magic necessary. I envision beginning tech writers using this to support their early projects for open source software and quickly learning the basics of the technical communication trade.

*From the Flossmanuals site:

Our principle aim is not to be a publisher but to create as many tools and outlets for quality free documentation as possible. If that means you wish to use the FM tool set but host or ‘publish’ under your own banner, then that’s excellent. We are very happy to offer you a documentation platform to meet all your documentation needs.

Of course, all this is for free software / open source software projects only. If you create proprietary software then…

Clearly this means that you need to talk to them before boldly profiting from this community.

Workflow Focused Help Authoring Tools

Figuring out the fastest and best workflow is something the MadCap and Adobe teams are each wrangling, however they have markedly different approaches.

MadCap’s Team Server solution is in development. Along with the expected release of the publication centered form of Flare, Blaze, this is their collaborative workflow answer.  

Adobe seems to be several generations behind MadCap. Adobe’s answer to innovation seems to be to continue bundling new product lines into their Technical Communications Suite, plus to integrate what MadCap introduces as quickly as possible. If they can’t directly compete with innovation, bundling secondary products is another way to add value.

I can see that both are working towards collaboration tools – MadCap with X-Edit, Adobe with Acrobat and their newly acquired web-based collaborative tool, Buzzword.

My Opinion:

FLOSSManuals.net is a great place to start writing content for developers if you’re just starting out or would like to support a friend’s really cool application. I know of several for-profit companies that put out free widgets of one sort or another that don’t have tech writing staff. This would be perfect for that as well.

The other side of the coin is that it gives a good measure of what’s actually effective. While wiki implementation is challenging, on a cost scale when someone like FLOSSManuals is administrating it, it’s definitely worth exploring.

While not a HAT replacement, this model may work well to supplement a workflow.

In my five part segment last year I examined how well the XBox 360 might be combined into eLearning and also Technical Communication in general over this new settop box / gaming system. Now even more aspects are becoming compelling and pushing the advantages of the Microsoft XBox 360.

“Xbox LIVE is the world’s fastest-growing online social network on TV,” said John Schappert, corporate vice president of Interactive Entertainment LIVE, Software and Services Business at Microsoft. “We doubled our membership the past two years, growing from 3 million to 6 million, and then from 6 million to 12 million.

The Old Is The New

Understand that the ‘New XBox’ is the old XBox 360 with updates. As a matter of course, I believe it’s a short step away from using Silverlight content if it’s not already doing so in this update.

Instead of revamping the hardware within the box, MSFT poured resources into programming updated content and…

…leveraged the hot trends in internet connectivity and technology.

Hot Tech Trend: New Interface Methods – Xbox Style

I’ve been researching new interface methods as a hot tech trend for 2008 and I’m not disappointed with the new XBox . New interface methods are demo’ed in the Xbox 360’s “In The Movies”. Here’s a quick clip:

Now I don’t need cable at all…!

Get this – NetFlix is in agreement to stream over 10,000 movies across the XBox 360. Very cool. I have a strong feeling that DivX has a lot to do with this revolution.

So for consumers that don’t like to pay the extra $100 for the DVR / HD package, how about a $40 antenna for local HD signal, Netflix as a Starz / Encore movie replacement, and downloading the series you like when they’re online or on DVD from NetFlix.

XBox 360: Leveraging Family Time

Karaoke takes on a new aspect with Lips – yet another social interactive game for your online and in real life (IRL) friends. The last time I was over at a friend’s house with teenage kids, we all sat around and played a trivia game which was really cool. I think it’s a great way to do the family entertainment thing, rather than the old Milton-Bradley boardgames which I still enjoy but the kids want to pass up.

Xbox 360 LIVE Party – Cheap Online Collaboration?

While there aren’t many people who aren’t on Skype, a great concept copied from Sony’s Playstation is leveraging social networking across platforms for gaming.

I’ve seem some super collaboration se.tups from HP that this could compete with on a super low cost and low-tech level. This has a potential for eLearning and Blended Learning that is way beyond the pale.

Microsoft’s XBox 360 Experience notes this about LIVE Party:

Entertainment without limits. With LIVE Party, bring your favorite games, TV shows, movies and pictures to life by sharing those experiences with friends, wherever they are around the world.

Now if I could only get my XBox fixed since it’s been down with that hardware problem since April and I’ve been too busy to call their support system back (they were down the day I called) I’ll be testing all this content.

I’m a little late for this… But early for next week.

Kicking off with this great post:

The goal of many of the Web 2.0 tools is to reduce the overhead. Think of it as a “flat tax” for interactions, in that many of the philosophies of Web 2.0 are around transparency and participation, in addition, everyone is equal.

If you look at MySpace, LinkedIn, Youtube or other social networks, there is no hierarchy and pretty much everyone is equal (yes there are administrators for such systems who have greater powers).

Who keeps the Internet going? No one really, there are some agreed upon standards so that one computer can talk to another, and information can be displayed in a common format, and that is about it.

By the way, my condolences for this writer’s situation; I was in similar circumstances just last year with my dad.

Web 2.0 for Collaboration and Learning – This should be titled Web 2.0 Collaboration 101. Part of a six-week course set up in order to encourage exploration of the new and emerging technologies that are reshaping the way we use information.

Top Three Web 2.0 Tools for Online Education – A quick roundup which would get just about anyone started in basic collaboration online.

(8) Online Collaboration Tools – New Technologies and Web Services

9 Principles for Implementation: The Big Shift – Check out the principles for managing change. I think this applies across the spectrum and isn’t only limited to traditional schools.

Ten Trends: Educating Children for Tomorrow’s World – Specifically, Trend 3: Social and Intellectual Capital will become the Primary Economic Value in Society.

Death, Taxes, and Collaboration

Getting to the gut-check level of hard truth of whether all our TechComm lives will be forever changed – Is India (Outsourcing) Winning?

Recently I’ve been examining the outsourcing market in India. Part of this came out of my extremely detailed analysis of Adobe, however I also investigated innovation in India. One further study I recently did was analyzing the STC India earnings comparison between US / North American technical communicators and India-based technical communicators. 

J Schwan, Managing Partner of Solstice Consulting just returned from a meet and greet trip overseas to India.

I visited four different potential partners yesterday. One was a smaller startup of really smart software engineers, one was essentially a sweat shop (20 programmers packed in a 12×12 room, a very hot room) and the other two were large publicly traded companies.

I’m really glad I came because on paper, the first two firms looked the same and visiting their development center proved they were very, very different.

Here’s a sketchy SWOT analysis based on my research:

How I Analyzed

My working theses so far are based on the experiences I’ve had with outsourcing along with these analyses. I’ve also considered the first person points of view from rational professionals such as J Schwan who blog about their India business development.

And last, I’ve examined the focus of India-based Technical Communicators who have posted their thoughts about how their country should improve.

I grade the information from my sources the same way that I would any source of human intelligence as per my Naval Intelligence training background: they all get a score based on external source corroboration and other factors.

Strengths – India

Costs for skill development are much lower therefore costs for skilled knowledge workers are much lower.

Skill development will remain low cost.

Distance Learning and eLearning efforts provided by US / EU based top tier schools such as MIT’s OpenCourseWare initiative (as reported earlier by Articulate QA lead Dave Mozealous’ blog) are providing higher level education globally – for free. India benefits by accessing those knowledge resources through their existing and expanding Information Communication Technology (ICT). 

From FoxNews’ Internet Opens Elite Colleges to All

The world’s top universities have come late to the world of online education, but they’re arriving at last, creating an all-you-can eat online buffet of information.

And mostly, they are giving it away.

MIT’s initiative is the largest, but the trend is spreading. More than 100 universities worldwide, including Johns Hopkins, Tufts and Notre Dame, have joined MIT in a consortium of schools promoting their own open courseware. You no longer need a Princeton ID to hear the prominent guests who speak regularly on campus, just an Internet connection. This month, Yale announced it would make material from seven popular courses available online, with 30 more to follow.

The India-based corporate social network will grow more influential and stronger.

As more F500 companies like Adobe (NASD: ADBE) base their operations out of India the social network which provides a cradle for business development will grow. Social networking is crucial for startups, and crucial for nontraditional business development.

Cost saving efforts are a core competency leading India innovation. Online collaboration and QA will assist maintaining the value of India-based operations while forward-deployed US and EU marketing teams interact with their customer base.

Here’s a new analysis from an outsourcing entrepreneur who also touches onto the other main focus of research I’ve had for 2007: Online Collaboration and Workflow Collaboration.

From  The Technology Edge: India is winning… 

After visiting these firms there are three major things I’ve determined.

1) All application development will eventually be over here. They’re not ready for it all yet, but they are coming up the learning curve fast and eventually will surpass the purely domestic US firms. In some ways, they already have as some of their CMM processes force them to focus on continuous improvement.

As collaboration software continues to improve and software development tools continue to mature, this will become more and more of a reality.

See the full article.

One of my key competitive analyses is the ability of a group to perform the OODA Loop. While collaboration tools will help assist the growth, it is fair to note that the internal pressures of the entire team translate into a weakness: Failure to get past the Observe – Orient step.

Weaknesses – India

From what I’ve directly observed and from what others have reported, the OODA Loop for business strategy within India-based business is easily broken.

This translates into a loss of maneuverability which in a competitive market, can easily be exploited. In Web 2.0 Tech Support: Part 4 I speak about the opportunity that MadCap software capitalized on after Adobe laid off its Tech Support team. MadCap has capitalized on the OO-OO-OO sound.

During my brief time working inside a user focus group for a major software company I observed the inability of the team to really listen to the problems I presented. This was contrary with the goals of the development of the software they presented, and it was my impression that nobody wanted to tell the boss any different than what they had already established.

I can’t tell whether this is cultural or based in the dysfunctional corporate cultures I’ve witnessed. I’m leaning towards a mix due to the caste system issues India still suffers from.

Innovation is not yet a competitive strength. You’re not going to see a new technology such as Google, but you would see an Indian Google that’s cheaper to operate.

J Schwan sees it this way:

Offshore firms are going to have to either partner or inorganically acquire this talent, but those roles will remain in the US (or wherever the business is).

Just like the clothing industry, the clothes may be made in China, but they’re still designed in New York.

Quality is questionable, however that is rapidly changing as more collaborative tools are developed. Tighter collaboration means that corporations who regularly outsource can be more involved at every level.

Risk in investment and venture capital is not as readily available to the entrepreneur as it is in the US or EU.

There has been a stigma against entrepreneurship within the Indian culture.

Where are the interesting product startups in India? |Technology and Business Startups in India

Honestly, except for a few startups, most of them don’t even seem to be a serious effort at all. Infact, it won’t be wrong to say that most of the startups (or lets call then dotcoms) are like “Look momma! Even-I-can-code” sites and lack the basic thought process that should go inside building a great product.

Opportunity

Infrastructure improvements can be and already are subsidized by EU / US based corporations. These improvements raise the bar for education while keeping costs low as additional entry level knowledge workers are trained. This in turn creates a flow of skilled labor with career progression – all at five to seven times less cost than the traditional EU / US worker.

Cost savings like that can not be ignored.

Collaborative tool development is of great interest to companies who focus on core competency in outsourcing. Part of their trade secrets / intellectual property will be the workflow they manage to provide solutions to their clients.

Bernard Lunn’s article I quoted in my analyses states the opportunities best:

Today’s successful (meaning currently lucrative) innovation in India tends to be at the process and business level. These companies use technology extensively, they are technology driven and enabled, but the technology innovation is more incremental than disruptive and still uses lower cost labor as a core advantage.

As J Schwan mentions, mid-range hotels are nonexistant. One of my Indian friends told me about her surname, Patels run hotels. Well, Patels – get busy there and make it happen.

Threats to India

The threats to India-based development are fuzzier and come from several arcs.  One glaring issue is the matter of social infrastructure. Some of the threats to business with India are internal – infrastructure is no small issue. Education, poverty, population, and unemployment are all major issues.

Eventually the societal pressures between the classes will have to be addressed. The infrastructure is truly third world, and there is very little middle class. You either have or you don’t. If you are one of the don’t-haves, your children stand very little chance to get out of that category. Unfortunately appears to result in a 21st century continuation of the caste system.

The originator of my New Black Gold of India article, Rahul Prabhakar stated quite a bit about this in his contributions to the white paper. He caught my attention with his article What Ails India.Rahul has been published in many periodicals.

…Home to the second largest population in the world today, only next to China; India leads the pack if density of population is to be considered. The country’s total land area is half to that of China.

Consequently, its per capita income is recorded at a low of $3400 when measured by the purchasing power parity and $820 at nominal rate; thus attributing towards a low-income economy.

…It is essential to empower people via education. Provisions should be made for making higher education compulsory and free of charge in rural and backward areas. Similar measures can be taken for promoting adult education, whilst providing land, electricity, and other necessities at subsidised rates for setting up schools in these areas.

…Consider this: The Economist reports that, (‘India on fire’) in Bangalore, water is now available for less than three hours a day, compared with 20 hours in the early 1980’s. As has been buttressed by T.K. Arun, columnist with The Economic Times, India cannot thrive with the size of the urban population restricted to 28% figure as at present.

Additionally a new post on his site quotes a member of their guild:

To put the work culture differences into perspective, Samartha Vashishtha, Senior Technical Writer at HCL Technologies, offers some useful insights,

“Yes, layoffs are a part of the U.S. work culture, but there are several things one can find solace in. Social security and unemployment benefits come to my mind immediately. Compare that to India, where unemployment benefits exist only in name.

Even if you are able to bypass the government machinery to collect the pittance, that would not pay for anything! In a country of a billion people, where a sizeable number spend their lives working for their next meal, the danger of being reduced to nothing is real.

There is no subsidized healthcare for the elderly; the cost of living is mounting by the day. Just some of the reasons why people feel about their jobs here the way they do.

I am not saying that the clash of the working cultures does not exist; I only want to emphasize that the problems of these two democracies are fundamentally different.”

Blame it on the culture, but many companies in India still cannot differentiate between a person who was “laid off” and a person who was “fired.”

The largest threat to India winning the outsourcing battle is internal – realizing that they cannot expand the cities past their current figure means that the societal pressures must be addressed in order for India’s growth to be scalable.

Additionally, nobody is going to risk their necks in a job and ‘champion’ any positions that might get them fired – if unemployment is as described.

Therefore it might be safe to assume that the innovation will be limited for quite some time, however process development will be refined to a pure state of collaboration.

Thoughts?

When Twitter first came out, I wondered if it would ever fit into the mainstream. I had no interest because, in the words of one article, people were Twittering what they had for breakfast and other complete nonsense.

I didn’t see the use for me. Why would I waste the time to Tweet (send a short Twitter message) a meal or read someone else’s Tweets. Maybe for a celebrity, but not for me.

That was until the October 2007 wildfires. Being able to receive evacuation notices and gauge the amount of progress and success of the effort was critical to all San Diegans. We were all connected. We were informed. Twitter, and the adoption by tech-savvy EMS teams made that a reality.

Being able to receive it all on my cell phone in SMS short message format was, in my opinion, priceless.

Shortly I’ll start beta testing a similar product created by a San Diego company. This Twitter successor has some greater potential in the realm of audio and pictures – MMS vs. SMS technology along with the standard Twitter features.

While this already exists in several products on the market, I know the people involved with this one so I’ll see what they have going on that’s different. There’s definitely a podcast in it somewhere.

Twitter and Blogging

It’s been long used for updating your ‘power commenters’ about a new blog post. Debbie Weil’s BlogWrite for CEOs latest blogging tip:

The way to get attention for your blog these days is to tweet your new blog post to your “followers” on Twitter.

According to Wikipedia, prominent usage of Twitter has included emergency personnel and others:

Many organizations (such as the Los Angeles Fire Department^[5]) have embraced the technology and put it to use in situations such as the October 2007 California wildfires.

Prominent Twitter users include U.S. presidential candidates Ron Paul,^[6] John Edwards, Barack Obama,^[7] and Hillary Clinton.^[8]

Higher education is also using the technology to relay important information to students in a more timely manner. Such is the case with The University of Texas at San Antonio College of Engineering.^[9]

Twitter and Technical Communication

I’m gathering information about Twitter or other SMS usage with TechComm. Could you see any use for Twitter with Technical Communication? Perhaps in notifying team members on a time crunch that updates are ready to review?

Or Twitter missing a link – is it yet one more piece of technology which hasn’t quite matured enough?

While I’ve been working feverishly these past two months on my NorCal project, Paul Pehrson talks about MadCap’s Blaze beta on his blog Technically Speaking » Early Review: MadCap Blaze. He specifically mentions MadCap’s new collaborative workflow tool:

If your reviewers don’t have Blaze or Flare installed, MadCap is introducing a new product called X-Edit Express — a free tool your reviewers can use to review, make suggestions and light edits, and submit back to you. All my SMEs can install X-Edit Express, and I can use Blaze/Flare to submit the file to them for editing.

They open it in X-Edit Express, do their review, and click Save. The file will show up again for me as being reviewed. I can open it to see what changes/annocations they made.

X-Edit Express isn’t available for review yet, but I’ll give you my comments on that one once I’ve had a chance to evaluate the program.

Replacement for Microsoft Word or…?

I can see Blaze being useful and complementary to Word however X-Edit pushes the envelope. Sharon has a great couple of workflow diagrams on her blogpost: Beta, beta, everywhere which show where it belongs in the workflow.

In my December 2007 MadCap corporate headquarters visit and subsequent interview of Mike Hamilton we talked about workflow and specifically about Word.

I think one of the tougher questions I asked him was whether or not it was an intent of MadCap Software to compete with Word. In my podcast program we find the relevant segment within the Hamilton podcast:

27:00 (minutes through podcast)
Mike answers the question about Word competing with Flare or Blaze. Since the MadCap –products are a complete workflow, does it compete with Word?

28:15
Getting granular about Word vs. Flare in typical generic user usage – where the breakpoint comes in.

30:15
Strategy and policy for supporting new Microsoft releases. Mike includes Internet Explorer web browser, Word, and operating system support in his answer.

Briefly, Mike answered that MadCap was not looking to create a Word replacement and that MadCap intended to work with Microsoft products as a valued Microsoft partner. My opinion is that… X-Edit was designed with a specific (ahem) industry problem in mind…

Hey SME, Don’t touch that template!

IMO, X-Edit fits well in preserving a doc template so it can’t be horked down by fatfingering.

With Sharon’s website showing the template form of X-edit and Mike’s previous statement I figure that either Word or X-Edit will be great for sourcing information and X-Edit Express wraps it up for those who don’t need to write it, just read and be heard.

Killer Application: Helping begin corporate conversations…

Ann Gentle has a complementary article about corporate conversations which IMO, is a critical application for this tool.

Imagine the Technical Support staff having a Web 2.0 window into documentation, becoming empowered to review the docs as they are published and implement troubleshooting into a software workflow.

Here’s yet another great article from Just Write Click >> Technical writers and conversations:

I had an “ah ha” moment at SXSW Interactive, when one of the social media metrics panelists Rohit Bhargava said he sees three areas or channels for measurable conversations – Public Relations, Marketing (Sales), and Customer Support.

For me, those three categories crystallized this connection: where our role as tech pubs is strongest in an organization, that’s where we might start successful conversations.

… Tech support seems the best alignment for many companies, as Charles Jeter’s follow-up points out. Tech publications that drive down support costs are another area where value proof lies.

Ann, you’re on a great thread with the conversations bit. Getting corporate cultures to open up and use Web 2.0 smartly is critical to their success against their competition.

Threat Assessment – Adobe TCS will lose even more ground…

My opinion is that Blaze coupled with X-Edit Express is what we called in the military a ‘Force Multiplier’. It’s another technological smart bomb, just like MadCap’s newly released Analyzer.

It will help the overall workflow of the Technical Communications Manager / Team Lead by allowing their subject matter experts (SMEs) to comment freely without impacting the installed software cost. This is a low (zero) cost high yield product befitting a hard look.

If this were the 1980s and the Cold War, X-Edit Express would be Star Wars or the smart bomb. As it stands, it’s just another reason not to renew the licensing on existing Adobe Acrobat Professional.

I’ll have to try it before I claim it beats the DevBlog concept, but I won’t be shocked if it kills my old workflow standby and raises the bar for MadCap’s competition.

I figure that X-Edit Express will compete with Adobe Acrobat’s reviewing workflow and will easily compete with the ‘next generation’ of Adobe’s Technical Communication Suite as Adobe moves towards true single-sourcing. 

As a free tool for reviewers it removes the requirement of a licensed copy of Adobe Acrobat for reviewing. It also swings into the single-sourcing workflow that FrameMaker so desperately needs – with a wrecking ball.

I’ll be watching Paul’s blog closely for more industry information – he’s really stepped up as an MVP in the MadCap community.

Mike, Sharon, that name has got to go…

Okay, I hate to knock MadCap, but I hate the X-Edit  / X-Edit Express name already.

On the (very) bright side this is what you get when your core competencies are user experience and programming and the brain trust won’t (waste)spend a lot of money on marketing weenies.

I’m sure the product will work excellent regardless of its name, I’m just being picky. 

My two cents: Stick with the tradition of a one or two syllable name.

Flare. Blaze. Mimic. Capture. All sound memorable. Like Rocky. Legend. Matrix. Halo. 

Besides, MadCap’s not staffed by ‘haters’. They can take a ding or two from little old me!

Related posts (some external):

• MadCap’s VP Mike Hamilton Speaks! (Dec 7th, 2007)
• DevBlog Collaboration | Your Internal Process Holy Grail
• Web 2.0: one man writes » Conversation V.I.P.s
• Technically Speaking » Early Review: MadCap Blaze
• Sharon’s MadCap Blog » Beta, beta, everywhere
• Communication from DMN » Staying on top of changes
• Just Write Click » Technical writers and conversations

Continuing our discussion from eDMS Roshambo Part 1 | Reviving PnP Workflow and eDMS Online Content Management with Analyzer, Electronic Document Management Systems (eDMS) has a large presence in enterprise server software. Companies which rely on Policy and Procedure (PnP) compliance must handle and update internal documentation to comply with Federal, State and industry standards.

All of that costs money. These eDMS servers are not cheap. There are also SaaS models that keep it affordable, but the monthly cost is still fairly high. Most are direct enterprise models with onsite installation and maintenance. Integration of these eDMS systems is, as you might imagine, somewhat intensive.

Wikis versus eDMS / DMS – (Electronic) Document Management System

The power of wikis in a corporation is hotly debated, however the concepts of wiki collaboration are widely accepted. The question becomes how to get there.

Currently the position on Wiki collaboration has been carefully pushed back and forth – see How Wikipedia Works (Or Doesn’t) | Can Corporations Use Wikis? where the Stanford Business School sources put forth their objections to Corporate Wiki use.

Update Jan 21: My thoughts on Wikis in Corporations are disputed by none less than Stewart Mader!

Stewart’s book, Wikipatterns, is attractive and is first on my soon-to-read list. I actually stood in Barnes & Noble less than a month ago and my mom held it up and asked me if I wanted it. I couldn’t since I was unfortunately buried in research. Check out Stewart Mader’s well-worded rebuttal of my comments.

Now that Stewart has mentioned my site I’m holding out to buy an autographed version of Wikipatterns.

Let’s look at the eDMS collaboration workflow first.

From Wikipedia on Workflow within a DMS:

Workflow is a complex problem and some document management systems have a built in workflow module. There are different types of workflow. Usage depends on the environment the EDMS is applied to.

Manual workflow requires a user to view the document and decide who to send it to.

Rules-based workflow allows an administrator to create a rule that dictates the flow of the document through an organization: for instance, an invoice passes through an approval process and then is routed to the accounts payable department.

Dynamic rules allow for branches to be created in a workflow process. A simple example would be to enter an invoice amount and if the amount is lower than a certain set amount, it follows different routes through the organization.

From Wikipedia on Collaboration within a DMS:

Collaboration should be inherent in a EDMS. Documents should be capable of being retrieved by an authorized user and worked on. Access should be blocked to other users while work is being performed on the document.

This brings its own challenges, particularly if the document is large in scope, right? Which is where things tend to fall apart. Bringing all these different parts of a ‘document’ together, with the right styles in both appearance and verbage is where docs managers and info architects usually have job security.

It also happens to be where MadCap is targeting the usate of their improved MadPak with the Analyzer.

Rock Paper Scissors (RoShamBo): Wiki beats separate desktop tools & an eDMS

So here’s one blogger’s recent take on why to use a Wiki to do collaboration.

From Blog on Wiki Patterns: Why using a wiki instead of email or documents will multiply your collaboration effectiveness:

Because of its complex structure, the EDMS tends to compartmentalize content instead of letting relationships emerge, so it becomes a veritable black hole.

The wiki does a much better job because it allows emergent organization of content – people don’t have to decide which folder or section to put it in, they can tag it so it appears alongside other similar content. Also in a wiki, the fact that you put content directly on a page instead of uploading a file means it requires less effort for someone else to find it.

If it’s on a page, I can:

1. see it immediately, and
2. add to or edit it immediately.

The fact that I can see it immediately means I’m less likely to get distracted by the mechanics associated with downloading, opening, etc., so I’m more likely to remember something I might want to add. Then, the fact that I can edit it so easily means I’m more likely to make my contribution.

That’s the real power of the wiki.

I’ve already talked in a previous post about the disadvantages of PDF or other ‘black hole’ technologies with information.

Wikis provide a similar advantage to a help authoring workflow I was using five years ago with RoboEngine / RoboHelp and currently use MadCap Flare to author. So that’s nothing new, as long as that content can be repurposed and isn’t siloed the end user is helped quicker and it’s easier to update and distribute.

My Personal History Lessons in eDMS Pain

I remember my position at a San Diego based defense contractor once required setting up an intranet. As all the interests were voiced, one was insistent upon using SharePoint, a then-two year old technology from Microsoft.

Having been directly from eHelp for this position, I was more than familiar with RoboHelp X4 (they were soon to launch X5) and since we had a copy of this plus the RoboEngine, I was not exactly thrilled at the concept of managing yet another dedicated IIS server technology. Not to mention the two month long tedious install, testing, and configuration of the 2003 SharePoint Portal Server (SPPS).

The end result was, after assurances that the champion of the SharePoint concept was going to manage it, we ended up piloting the SPPS. Maintaining it was a nightmare, and unfortunately fell to me to implement. That version was tedious to update, to say the least.

Maintaining the SPPS files was a pain also, and unfortunately the hard pusher behind the adoption of the SPPS technology rather inconveniently found other work to do once SPPS was up and running. I can still hear him saying, “Oh, I’ll maintain it…”

A few years after I had left, I found out from employees who had recently departed that people preferred not the RoboEngine, not the SharePoint, but simple usage of the RoboHelp-generated company intranet which I’d whipped up in an afternoon.

This intranet was mainly designed to support HR document location and new employee introduction. Linked files within this format were easily searchable (I used index words within the topics and descriptive filenames) and it outlived the remnants of both the RoboEngine, which was plagued with restarts and failures and the SharePoint implementation.

eDMS Lesson learned

Intranets need to follow the KISS rule and be kept simple, or they will fail under their own weight.

eDMS Pains Summarized

The problems are that you stick all your docs in here, and maybe someone will find them, but we may/may not give you a search method, and indexing for search… well, let’s just say changes to those docs might show up tomorrow or next week.

Not to mention you don’t know who’s looking at what and without usage statistics you’re really not targeting your information properly for updating.

And last but not least, without a method to gain active feedback such as a blog has with Comments, improvements have to be emailed in, stored, reviewed, collated, etc. and they fall through the cracks or take a long time to accomplish.

Everyone knows what Roshambo is – rock, paper, scissors. It’s a quick to learn children’s game with its basic roots in human psychology. Apply this to an area, say Policy and Procedure.

Documentation Management or What’s with all this stuff on the H Drive?!?

The existing concepts – eDMS with separate DMS documents, implementing and overseeing a corporate wiki, or the RoboHelp Server each have different strengths.

There’s a great article pointing out the pros and cons of eDMS vs Wikis that I have planned for Part 2.

With Part 3 I’ll go into the history and technology of the RoboInfo Server – a/k/a RoboEngine a/k/a RoboServer a/k/a RoboHelp Enterprise

So now we have a nice easy Roshambo with strengths and weaknesses in each. I’ll also wrap up with where I will be recommending my clients to improve their procedures.

Existing Paradigm: eDMS

Within an eDMS Word documents, disparate help files, PDFs are all available yet siloed with content that cannot yet be single sourced. Editing workflows vary from product to product but none are core technology and are stagnant in quality. The eDMS price point is upwards from $10,000 for the India-based developers into the mid five or low six figures for top of the line eDMS integration.

So cost is a weakness. It’s also risky for a middle manager to have to make recommendations on adopting usage. Editing is normally either a multi-desktop tool evolution or some sort of half-baked internal editing tool within the eDMS.

Proposed use: Wikis.

Wikis are easy for multiple users to use, however dealing with recommended corrections tends to lead towards anarchy without consistent management and oversight. Not a lot of corporations are thrilled about the open-editing functionality and that limits Wiki adoption currently.

I’ve not seen much to change my views from the research I did last year, How Wikipedia Works (Or Doesn’t) | Can Corporations Use Wikis?

Dan from Astoria has a great position contrary to mine. He feels that existing corporate controls will tend to triumph over the anarchy.

So if you take the notion of a corporate blog and loosen the filters to “evolve” it to a wiki, is this the equivalent of letting a pack of hyenas into your living room?

A lot of pundits seem to think so, however, with the proper review and approve mechanisms there is no reason to assume you can’t maintain the same level of control. The benefits of a wiki as an input mechanism to a documentation process that had previously been behind an information firewall are vast.

My response is in the comments and basically states that if a corporation is willing to listen to the unvarnished truth without punishing the contributors, they will be able to get the wiki job done.

I personally am skeptical about corporations not killing the messenger.

Yesterday’s Faded Glory: RoboInfo Server / RoboHelp Enterprise

RoboHelp / RoboInfo with the RoboServer is one method I’ve used for the past few years. RoboHelp can import content in, but it’s siloed and wrapped in proprietary format once it’s in. With the RoboServer other source information can be indexed. The Adobe Technical Communications Suite (Adobe TCS) brings things to ‘almost single source’.

In my opinion the Adobe TCS strategy with bundling the Acrobat 3D is that people will start drawing all of their documentation instead of writing it. Sort of like IKEA furniture instructions. I am beginning to believe that Adobe doesn’t know the true definition of Technical Communication, or they are attempting to change that definition.

Disrupting the Doc Management Roshambo – Analzyer and MadPak

MadCap’s solution set of the MadPak with their Feedback Server has been making a debut with its innovative Web 2.0 interface. Now, with the addition of the soon to release MadCap Analyzer, we’re looking at a true Roshambo contest for data management and documentation managers. 

After sitting down to take a sneak peek at the MadCap Analyzer, I’m realizing that workflows as we know them for documentation are about to make an abrupt shift upwards in efficiency. As far as I know, MadCap’s Analyzer will release sometime this January.

Analyzer is breaking that rock-paper-scissors deadlock with a wrecking ball.

Since keeping documentation as simple as possible is the hardest task to accomplish, Analyzer allows a Documentation Manager the capability to review consistency quickly, a task that would normally take hours or days to complete is now a matter of minutes and can be run on a daily basis.

I’ll post a review of Analyzer shortly, having first seen its close to release version just this week.

What I’m guessing is that the MadPak will fit nicely into an existing eDMS solution, bringing Web 2.0 capabilities and advanced authoring assistance directly into the documentation team’s grasp.

My proposed adoption: For managers who have eDMS, use of the MadPak with the new Analyzer will make their doc teams sing their praises louder than Vikings sending heros off to Valhalla.

For small companies who have data silos and have a need for single sourcing that data, FrameMaker, Word, and RoboHelp content can all be aggregated with MadPak. That’s if you’re planning on spending less money later on by having all the information in one place.

For Wiki proponents, read my article How Wikipedia Works (Or Doesn’t) | Can Corporations Use Wikis? because the quoted Harvard Business School professors do the Wiki adoption point much better justice than I could in one or two paragraphs.

RapideL Enhance, which works with Microsoft Word to generate Flash-based courses, but this is a big step forward.

There’s no doubt that desktop tools such as Articulate and Captivate have their advantages, not least in terms of performance, the ease with which large files can be manipulated, and the freedom they allow for authors to work offline. I would have no hesitation for reaching for one of these tools if I was working on a project alone.

Where online tools have the edge is when you’re working collaboratively as a team – writers, graphic designers, subject-experts, a/v specialists, reviewers and so on – and when you are likely to be producing a large number of modules that share assets such as text, images, audio and Flash movies.

Working online, any member of the team can view the current status of a module, add new elements or suggest changes. There’s only ever one current version and this can be exported at any time for deployment on an LMS or on CD-ROM.

Wow. Somehow I’m not the only one who’s seen the blending and fusion of Technical Support and Technical Writing. Technical Support through Web 2.0 supplies a conversation to their users who are in desperate need of help.

Repurposing that conversation’s content provides a cornerstone for a savvy company’s knowledge base. An interesting concept for Technical Communicators to consider, along with figuring out the workflow to make life easier and not overwhelming.

Content, Technology, and Instruction – The User Assistance Triangle

I’ve always thought Technical Communication breaks into three distinct user assistance skill sets – Content, Technology, and Instruction.

Rarely have I seen those who master all three and it is difficult to imagine how many years Technical Communicators train, through independent writing along with formal college, eventually through the Masters degree level for most.

The frustration point seems to come for most in attempting to adapt to the technology that is changing much more rapidly than the English language does; providing the challenge in honing that side of the triangle.

Technology Consulting – Filling In The Knowledge Gap

Technical Communicators and Instructional Designers that I’ve had the pleasure to work with hire consultants (such as my company provides) for the Technology side. We in turn listen to what they need to accomplish and either train them directly in how to accomplish that, create the workflow for them, or do the tasks to get the job done.

Stateside Tech Support – Fashionable Yet Again

Career Technical Support technicians and engineers however, trend successfully into the Instruction and Technology elements. With a successful Knowledge Base and product usage demonstrations, the crossover into Content is complete.

A seasoned Technical Writer could easily reshape that Content and really make it shine even in is the age of wikipedia and Web 2.0 pushing Content out. 

From one man writes » Conversation V.I.P.s

I left a comment on the Cherryleaf blog, which I’ll expand on here, but the jist was that I think Technical Communicators are (can be, should be) the social web of the workplace…

…Whether we like it or not, our primary role SHOULD become information guardians. That will mean less writing, and more knowledge/information management and architecture.

It will mean a shifting of skill sets towards new areas, where there is no best practise only gut feel, and the embracing of openness.

Information will still need to be filtered, focussed and published, but once you’ve set it free, you’ll also need to nurture it as it develops. The delivery of information, naturally, becomes paramount.

We are the ONLY people (in the IT space) that can fill this role properly, and so getting a foot on the rung now will stand us in good stead.

Embracing Web 2.0, and thinking about content rather than documents is a small step but a vital one.

And my favorite part which reinforces the same threads of my entire site’s thesis:

Might the lines between technical support and technical authors start to cross over?
Yes. There are already signs that this is happening. Ultimately, a conversation friendly company won’t care WHO is doing the talking, as long as the conversation is taking place.

What we’re looking at is, in this writer/technician’s humble opinion, is the new requirement of the skill set of effective written communication within the ranks of Support Technicians. This is a change that is going to require stronger skills within the support ranks than merely answering phone calls, although that will always be part of their jobs.

Web 2.0: Making Elite Technical Support Compelling

This effective communication beyond the firewall is a competitive edge. The first-language English speaking population may actually make a comeback in Technical Support and keep their positions stateside if that edge is valid.

When it comes to your company’s Technical Support, those who can reach out with Web 2.0 and touch their audience will reap the rewards. Those elite Technician’s companies will flourish as their audience, the existing users along with the potential new customers of their services, comes to trust their judgement and in turn, trust the company who employs them.

They will become the heavy hitters among the front lines of a corporation’s marketing force simply through doing their job correctly and communicating effectively on a personal basis with those they support.

We’re seeing the beginning of a shift in thinking. Outsourcing technical support to those who cannot communicate effectively within Web 2.0’s framework doesn’t engender the same loyalty to a user community. Corporate Authenticity will play an even stronger role in customer loyalty because those who are not authentic aren’t going to play well with savvy consumers who don’t want to arbitrarily plunk down hard cash every year for ‘mandatory upgrades’. 

gaming,elearning,xbox,xbox live,xbox marketplace,adobe captivate

Let’s look into the eLearning concept of Technical Communication in our XBox example. eLearning teams are more familiarly known as Instructional Design in some corporations.

eLearning and Gaming: made for each other

Game-like learning was one important pillar of the Game Developer’s Conference in March 2007. I attended the GDC this year, and learned that Gaming is always something to watch closely for new inspiration in eLearning. Integrating gameplay into learning simply makes it more attractive for your audience.

Dance Dance Revolution (multi-platform) has quickly become a standard in schools for physical education class and for use during free time.

For anyone remotely interested in eLearning, gaming concepts are hot and becoming mainstream. Education through gaming – that’s really become the crown jewel of interactive entertainment. It’s a value add when a successful brand of product (game) can be used to actually improve someone’s education and/or lifestyle.

eLearning and Gaming: Adobe Captivate

Captivate Product Marketing Manager Silke Fleischer has constantly advocated the ‘soft skills’ potential of her product. The roleplaying elements of soft skills constantly remind me of the old text-based adventures / MUDs or that groundbreaking text game Zork.

The main question in Instructional Design (ID) and any training syllabus is how fast can someone learn, how well will they retain what they learn and how much will it cost.

Captivate went a long way in giving people a quick method to create these ‘choose your own adventure’ types of soft skills training scenarios.

Building up training scenarios within a program like Captivate teaches your potential Customer Service rep audience those face to face skills that everyone needs to learn without the time intensive one on one instruction.

Make demos for the software tutorials – Captivate has some good competition with Camtasia and MadCap’s Mimic – and your GUI-based learning is covered. Soft skills are more in the eLearning realm, and some Learning Management Systems (LMS) address this but Captivate makes it easier, IMHO.

XBox Live: Achievements – LMS for Gamers?!?

In order to fully understand and grasp the potential of the soft skills training that Captivate offers and cross reference that with our latest thread, one has to understand the potential of the XBox Live profiles and the Achievements.

Economists always talk about incentives, and incentivizing something. XBox Live does this with the Achievements.

As an aside, the book Freakanomics is the quickest and most entertaining way I’ve found to learn basic economic principles by the way – I have it on ipod and in book form and have used it as a gift two years ago.

Back to the Xbox Halo 3 article:

Since Halo 3 launched, gamers have unlocked more than 30 million achievements. In its first week alone, Halo 3 drove a record number of Xbox LIVE Gold Memberships as hundreds of thousands of new members gathered online to collectively compete and complete the game.

The concept is simple: You play the games, you have fun. You play the games and achieve objectives, you get Achievements. But if you play the games well with others, you get Achievements worth more points than single play.

Why are the XBox Achievements so appealing?

I think the appeal is that it breaks down goals into smaller bits. There are lessons learned there for ID teams everywhere. Gaming is fine, goals need to be defined clearly and as simply as possible (single sentence works within the Achievement section), and team-based learning within the right framework can build stronger teams along with completion of the objective.

Bottom line: If you can incentivize learning past the traditional and obvious reasons of self improvement, people will work together in ad hoc teams and problem solve their ways out of just about anything.

Community Incentives: Achievements

Microsoft is incentivizing its gaming community to become a community. Play single player games all you like, you take those earned Achievement points with you when you (MSFT hopes) inevitably go online with Xbox Live Gold. Xbox Live Silver is something everyone gets – a way to get your updates online, check your friends out, etc. Basic service vs premium service.

Recently I watched four thirtysomethings and two fortysomethings work for an entire four hour stretch to finish objectives in a one hour mission get 40 Achievement points in GRAW2 – Ghost Recon Adv Warfare 2.

For those gamers out there, this was for the Ultimate Defender achievement, meaning you have to face impossible odds for exactly sixty minutes and defend an objective.

As a test study for the Achievement segment of this blog post, I tried to get the Ultimate Defender.

OT: I’ve got an entire help file written for a squad based game under my belt from five years ago, so the tactics were easy for me to grasp. Communicating those tactics… well, I left that to the other more ’seasoned’ players who had rank on me.

My objectives I communicated to those who wanted to listen were simple, one sentence in nature.

So the failure rate was pretty high; imagine having to coordinate up to sixteen diverse players aged twelve to fifty to do what the Army or Marines do every day – but without the discipline and tactics they have instilled with their core basic training.

Hence the study on who actually achieved it, and how they did it. The teamwork however… Hey, I was there right alongside them. With a lousy DSL connection and everything. Of course I have yet to break a thousand points but then again, I have a family and this blog and that construction project so I’ve been more than a little busy.

How do you incentivize users to work well together with virtually no common training?

This was for 40 points. One of the gamers had 21,000 points already. Two others were in the 11,000 range. But you get a cool little badge icon in your profile and bragging rights. I have to say, given the data available I’m guessing the 40 points were the icing on top of an already very rewarding game.

Basically the Achievements still work to incentivize retention and gameplay. Of course it should go without saying that the content of the games are still paramount; but with competition like the Wii and PS3 Xbox has its niche well defended.

The achievements also made operating within the system more fun than, say, shooting all your teammates less than five minutes before the end of the game. Player Killing – PK’ing in game terms. Clearly antisocial behavior can’t be rewarded. For a really funny example of PK’ing, SouthPark has an episode featuring World of Warcraft which… well, even if you don’t like SouthPark it explains it all far better than I could.

XBox has a way to handle potential PK’ers also. Feedback. Hmm. Sounds like just about everyone’s interested in Feedback which leaves me wondering if the Cluetrain has left the station at Adobe. Microsoft gets it…

Check out this Workflow Collaboration online site…

Approver.com makes it easy to share documents with coworkers.

You can use Approver.com to create or upload documents, then invite friends or colleagues to provide feedback. You receive alerts when others review your document, leave comments or upload new versions.

If you ever sent someone a document as an email attachment and wondered if it ever got there, Approver.com offers a handy alternative.

So I’ll be checking this out first time I get a chance. I haven’t had a chance to even clear out my email box lately, so apologies to those affected!

adobe robohelp,technical communication,workflow collaboration,online collaboration

Quoted from Adobe Adds Collaborative Word Processor to Arsenal | Groundhog Tech News

The war for the future of online-connected desktop applications opened some new battlefronts today. At its Adobe MAX conference currently taking place in Chicago, the San Jose, California-based company announced a new, collaborative word processing acquisition and several other developments targeted to this new arena.

Things are getting interesting! Check out Buzzword’s blog | Adobe to acquire Virtual Ubiquity:

This announcement certainly signals a long and prosperous future for Buzzword. Now that Buzzword is becoming part of the Adobe family, you can be even more confident of the security and reliability of your documents over the long haul. If you have friends and collaborators with whom you want to work on documents, send them to buzzword.com. As mentioned in a previous blog post, we’ve opened up our new account process so anyone interested will be able to get an account.

I’m wondering personally how many release cycles it will take for this to get integrated into their Technical Communication products, and how well it will compete with Word.

After all, the standard for collaborative word processing is Microsoft Office Word 2007. I had been debating about editing my blogs with Word…