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)

Never let it be said that MadCap Software is out of touch with the Technical Communication world in these tough times. Sharon Burton posts about MadCap’s soup kitchen for Technical Communicators. This menu’s got it going on with all the trimmings and none of the cost.

If anyone has an ounce of sense and thinks they remotely might have to swat around theories, buzzwords, or best practices across the desk from a hiring manager within the next eighteen months, you really need to hit up these free webinars.That means just about everyone, including freelancers.

Come in out of the cold, pull up a chair, and listen to industry experts like Sarah O’Keefe talk about killer concepts like DITA. And listen to Neil Perlin talk about HATs to do CMS.

For FREE.

By the way, all but one are technology agnostic. For those of you not already using MadCap Flare you won’t be left out in the cold. I promise people won’t point and snicker.

Categories, times and dates below the fold. Seats are limited I’m sure, so register early.

Topic Based-authoring: Doing more with less

15 January 2009 9am Pacific

https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/961665594

In this tool-independent webinar, you learn about topic-based authoring and how it can help you.

Advanced Publishing Techniques in Flare V4 or Blaze V1

29 January 2009 9am Pacific

https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/812049597

This webinar focuses on producing high quality, high value documents for your customers using Flare V4 or Blaze V1. Learn ways to efficiently assemble and deliver your content.

DITA 101 — Why the Buzz?

5 February 2009 9am Pacific

https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/598015341

In this tool-independent webinar, Sarah O’Keefe discusses DITA concepts, the business case, and typical scenarios where DITA is used to evaluate whether DITA makes sense for you.

Moving to Topic-based Authoring: Making the Business Case

12 February 2009 9am Pacific

https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/706899386

In this tool-independent webinar, Bonni Graham explains how to make the business case for topic-based authoring to your management. You know the savings, now you can show your boss!

Planning for Content Reuse: Best Practices for Legacy and New Content

24 February 9am Pacific

https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/647207434

In this tool-independent webinar, Eddie VanArsdall discusses Best Practices when planning the move to topic-based authoring.

Can your HAT be a Content Management System?

12 March 9am Pacific

https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/187845873

In this tool-independent webinar, Neil Perlin discusses how you might use the hidden features in your existing HAT tools as a Content Management System.

No Jedi Mind Tricks Necessary

Whether there are corporate profits or not the Grinch, it seems, has struck twice in one calendar year for Adobe (NASD: ADBE). You heard my forecast about Adobe’s 2008 earnings here in last year’s posts and who can forget my venting in 2007 regarding Adobe’s negative user support strategy.

Now they have to cut 8% of their global workforce. Looks like the San Diego office will be shut down from the tweets I’ve read and MDowney, the Flex evangelist I was following in my Flex vs. Silverlight series is moving on as well… Good luck to everyone.

From the San Francisco Chronicle: Adobe laying off 600 employees

Adobe Systems in San Jose is laying off 600 employees and will restructure its business, the company announced Wednesday after the stock market closed.

Bottom line analysis for 2009: Adobe will survive in one form or another however all their software programs may not.

No Compelling Reason To Upgrade

Without the Vista mandatory upgrade upswing working in Adobe’s favor, I stated that this year’s sales were going to be significantly lower. I said sell short because there was no compelling reason to upgrade and people would figure they could get by just fine with last year’s model of CS3.

Panic in the streets of Bangalore… MadCap Flare Emerges

Well, ‘panic’ is not entirely fair to state about the Mumbai area after their recent security fiasco. 

Gorillas in the Mists

MadCap Software is currently pounding Adobe on the Technical Communication workflow front. According to the MadCap October press release two independent blogging polls showed MadCap Flare to be the new Gorilla in the Game, promoted up from Chimpanzee:

Flare was identified as the authoring application of choice by more than 39 percent of respondents to the surveys conducted on behalf of the HAT-Matrix.com and I’d Rather Be Writing technical communications blogs.

The surveys represent the first time that Flare, which debuted in March 2006, has seen higher customer use than any other competing solution–including legacy applications that have been on the market for more than a decade.

Add to this the 2008 recession stone skipping across the water and it means sobering trends for ADBE, losing ground on several fronts. From the San Francisco Chronicle:

The layoffs are in progress and represent 8 percent of Adobe’s global workforce, a spokeswoman said. They will affect all regions and business units. Adobe plans to offer more details Dec. 16 during its regular earnings conference call.

I’m not wishing for anyone to be out of work this holiday season. I was initially made aware of this by backtracking the ever-increasing Google hits from my article that detailed last year’s Adobe Holiday season layoffs when I stated: 

Personally, I think this goes back to (my opinion) the unconscious Adobe strategy to offshore all assets. Eventually everyone not performing 80 hour workweeks will lose their jobs in San Diego in favor of India based talent.

Sorry Adobe, No Freeloading From Microsoft’s OS Changes

Finally the insanity of upgrading a major suite like a brain-damaged maze rat hitting the lever for another piece of cheese has been closely examined by the bean-counters.

Again from the Chronicle:

“The global economic crisis significantly impacted our revenue during the fourth quarter,” Adobe’s president and chief executive officer, Shantanu Narayen, said in a statement. “We have taken action to reduce our operating costs and fine-tune the focus of our resources on key strategic priorities.”

Narayen said the chief cause of Adobe’s problems is weaker-than-expected demand for the company’s latest software, Creative Suite 4, which began shipping in October.

In short, economic buyers are looking at the WHY involved with an upgrade to a product every year and not seeing much substance. “Why are you wanting a new version of a product to do your job that you’re already going to do…?”

It simply means the value of the upgrade from CS2 or CS3 to CS4 isn’t compelling enough. I love this part of Narayen’s quote in the Chronicle:

The suite combines several tools used by illustrators and designers and is central to Adobe’s plans to create software that can connect the Web with PCs and phones.

Referring to the Adobe Media Player gambit they were trying to leverage against Microsoft? I’m going to lump that in with the Rich Internet Applications battle analyzed last year.

From CharlesJeter.com – Rich Internet Applications War Is Brewing last May:

Apparently Adobe is betting on its Flash penetration giving it an advantage in shoehorning users into downloading the Adobe Media Player, and Microsoft enjoys the simple advantage of being able to offer Windows Media Player as they have done for nearly ten cycles as an integrated part of the Windows operating system.

In short, Microsoft is continuing to severely pound Adobe in the Media Player world. Adobe is getting no traction with this tactic in this economy.

MSFT is still continuing to attack the Macromedia-originated Flex with Silverlight. Now that their Flex pitchman Downey is out of the Flex role he dominated, I’m wondering how MSFT will respond to this opening. If they’re smart, they’ll hire Downey to take apart his old firm. He has guts and he’s technically smart as well.

Where will Adobe turn? They’ve got plenty of money in the bank to ride this out, it might just be cutting back on innovation.

Theory: Adobe is not going to spend dev money where it’s failing

When your flagship product suite is not selling, what happens to the lower-tier products and the people who support them? They’re expendable. They get cut. 

The second part is directly in the TechComm world. Again, I predicted this last year:

If stock prices start slipping, where are they going to make their cuts? I am predicting that it’s now or never for RoboHelp; if they don’t perform by mid-2008, resources could be pulled off for other products that make a higher profit.

With RoboHelp sliding quickly to the middle of the pack of TechComm tools those resources may not be saved for a rainy day when they could be repurposed to save the company’s bottom line.

I expect axes to cut across new features and for sales of lower tier products like Adobe TCS to stay flat for a good two years.

By the way, Tom Johnson took an undeserved beating in the HATT forums about his survey, and his survey results were redeemed by Char’s hat-matrix.com evaluation.

RoboHelp is, by virtue of Adobe’s business model, going to have resources cut. Even Captivate is in jeopardy; sales figures are probably great but what has Captivate’s upgrade selling point been since the Technical Communications Suite (TCS) came out?

What is the compelling new feature set for TCS?

Bundling mid-grade products together to beat an emerging market leader has failed. According to the two surveys, that strategy just didn’t sell customers on the value of the Adobe TCS products. Even if overall sales are still high, the economic conditions mean the automatic buy orders aren’t going to be authorized.

What does that mean for Technical Communicators?

If you see names changing in the Tech Comm blog at Adobe, it might be time to learn another tool. Being able to add the MadCap Flare software list to your repertoire might net you the job you need should your position become affected by the economy. 

If you can wait another year for the suite upgrade then you do it when times are tough and every dollar counts. Or you migrate to another tool for cost or cost-benefit reasons.

What does this mean for Investors?

It means there’s enough confusion going on that other companies might pull significant market share away from Adobe. That weakens them and makes it easy for takeover.

Related Articles:

• Prove My Help Authoring Tools Survey Wrong <- IRBW
• HATT Survey Results <- Hat-Matrix.com
• Adobe & MadCap’s Cold War: Market Share
• Adobe and MadCap’s Cold War: Who’s the Superpower Today?
• Is MadCap Flare Now Leading Adobe RoboHelp In HAT War?
• Friday Comments Review: RoboHelp vs. Flare
• MadCap Software’s New Digs | More Adobe Layoffs
• My Position on Adobe and RoboHelp
• Adobe’s 3Q Profit Beats Predictions <- 2007

Great article by Michael Hughes, PhD in Instructional Technology.

User books died; if they had value in that form, companies would still print them and users would buy them. Yet PDFs still hang around like pathetic home town sports fans after the team has moved to the West Coast.

Quintus in The Gladiator says “A people ought to know when they’ve been defeated.”

PDFs should get the wake-up call.

Of course the good doctor began his article stating it’s not every single PDF he hates:

Not all PDFs; that would be over the top. I just hate user manuals that are distributed as PDFs. From User Assistance: Why I Hate PDFs

Hat tip to Char James-Tanny’s Helpstuff blog where Char posts many well written tips on PDF user manuals:

If you’re going to distribute an online PDF as a user’s manual instead of one of the many appropriate online formats, then at least make it easy for your users.

A great discussion has started over on MonkeyPi about the Sun Tech Writer who is suing regarding unfair work exemptions. I replied there but this is a far lengthier topic than the comments deserve.

Exempt Tech Writing: How To Not Get Sued

Personally, I tend to view this as a problem that needs a solution. Were I negotiating this matter I would bring up two specific issues which could have prevented this from occurring, or which could lessen the expectations of management.

First, one thing that Adobe does do right is that they allow telecommuting. This allows a 60 hour work week to be reasonably managed along with a busy life schedule because employees can manage their lives around the time they put in on their home systems.

Second, by having a workflow that allows input remotely without endless face to face meetings (the absolute largest waste of time I observed while working as a tech writer for a nameless military contractor) and proper collaboration, a lot of this time saved reflects working smarter, not harder.

Getting Granular about Exempt Status

I found the following definition of exempt status online:

EXEMPT means the job is NOT subject to payment for overtime hours worked. Employer policy may elect to compensate incumbents in these jobs for their overtime, but there are no restrictions on rates used or quantity of hours paid to incumbents in exempt jobs.

Overtime requirements apply to the JOB not the EMPLOYEE. It is the responsibility content of the job that determines if incumbent employees must be paid for the overtime they work.

There is a Highly Compensated Job exempt status but it only applies to Public-Sector Employees.

Legally, exempt employees are due overtime in California law if it can be proven that they regularly cannot complete their normal assigned tasks without working overtime. Two years ago a roommate of mine ended up winning a similar judgement simply by making a phone call to an attorney and having them contact the HR department where he was working.

What it takes to document your situation is at the very least, logging your hours worked along with the tasks you are assigned. Regardless of exempt/non-exempt status, in California the Overtime law states that you cannot be expected to be working for free, which is what regular overtime without pay is.

Summing up, legally Sun is responsible, at least to one employee. The judge’s court order has the attorneys searching for a second employee, a reasonable request given the frequency with which John Edwards-like trial lawyers tend to overuse the class action.

The lawyers will win one person’s case, that’s a given. A landmark ‘blow for Sun techcomms’ it may not be unless they find another employee to sign on the line.

Yet, as this attorney states on his blog in reference to the IT lawsuits:

In this situation, is it any wonder that, increasingly, some California companies are moving jobs across the border to work in other states where employees don’t have to be paid special overtime rates?

Just like the ridiculously high workers’ compensation rates hurt job creation in California several years ago, the overtime pay requirements are doing the same thing in the IT industry.

Below the fold are the boring legalese text from the California Labor site… You’ve been warned!

The California exemption that Sun can attempt to use is:

professional exemption 

A person employed in a professional capacity means any employee who meets all of the following requirements:

Who is licensed or certified by the State of California and is primarily engaged in the practice of one of the following recognized professions: law, medicine, dentistry, optometry, architecture, engineering, teaching, or accounting, or

Who is primarily engaged in an occupation commonly recognized as a learned or artistic profession. “Learned or artistic profession” means an employee who is primarily engaged in the performance of:

Work requiring knowledge of an advance type in a field or science or learning customarily acquired by a prolonged course of specialized intellectual instruction and study, as distinguished from a general academic education and from an apprenticeship, and from training in the performance of routine mental, manual, or physical processes, or work that is an essential part of or necessarily incident to any of the above work; or

Work that is original and creative in character in a recognized field of artistic endeavor (as opposed to work which can be produced by a person endowed with general manual or intellectual ability and training), and the result of which depends primarily on the invention, imagination, or talent of the employee or work that is an essential part of or necessarily incident to any of the above work; and

Whose work is predominantly intellectual and varied in character (as opposed to routine mental, manual, mechanical, or physical work) and is of such character that the output produced or the result accomplished cannot be standardized in relation to a given period of time.

Who customarily and regularly exercised discretion an independent judgment in the performance of duties set forth above.

Who earns a monthly salary equivalent to no less than two times the state minimum wage for full-time employment. Full-time employment means 40 hours per week as defined in Labor Code Section 515(c).

or this one (exempt only from IWC order 14)

Any employee who is engaged in work that is primarily intellectual, managerial, or creative, and which requires exercise of discretion and independent judgment, and for which the remuneration is not less than two times the monthly State minimum wage for full time employment

Regarding the requirement for the exemption to apply that the employee “customarily and regularly exercises discretion and independent judgment,” this phrase means the comparison and evaluation of possible courses of conduct and acting or making a decision after the various possibilities have been considered. The employee must have the authority or power to make an independent choice, free from immediate direction or supervision and with respect to matters of significance.

For the learned professions, an advanced academic degree (above the bachelor level) is a standard prerequisite.

For the artistic professions, work in a “recognized field of artistic endeavor” includes such fields as music, writing, the theater, and the plastic and graphic arts.

Questions may arise why the law which covers employees in the computer software field doesn’t allow for exemption. The exemptions don’t apply to technical writers. Even if you only write labels for the CDs.

Simply put:

employee in the computer software field

Except as provided below in paragraph 5, an employee in the computer software field who is paid on an hourly basis shall be exempt under the professional exemption, if all of the following apply:

1. The employee is primarily engaged in work that is intellectual or creative and requires the exercise of discretion and independent judgment.
2. The employee is primarily engaged in duties that consist of one or more of the following:
   • The application of systems analysis techniques and procedures, including consulting with users, to determine hardware, software, or system functional specifications.
   • The design, development, documentation, analysis, creation, testing, or modification of computer systems or programs, including prototypes, based on and related to, user or system design specifications.
   • The documentation, testing, creation, or modification of computer programs related to the design of software or hardware for computer operating systems.
3. The employee is highly skilled and is proficient in the theoretical and practical application of highly specialized information to computer systems analysis, programming, and software engineering. A job title shall not be determinative of the applicability of the exemption.
4. The employee’s hourly rate of pay is not less than $41.00 [the rate in effect on September 19, 2000]. The Division of Labor Statistics and Research shall adjust this pay rate on October 1 of each year to be effective on January 1 of the following year by an amount equal to the percentage increase in the California Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers. Click here for adjusted rate information (pdf) (doc).
5. The exemption described above does not apply to an employee if any of the following apply:
   1. The employee is a trainee or employee in an entry-level position who is learning to become proficient in the theoretical and practical application of highly specialized information to computer systems analysis, programming, and software engineering.
   2. The employee is in a computer-related occupation but has not attained the level of skill and expertise necessary to work independently and without close supervision.
   3. The employee is engaged in the operation of computers or in the manufacture, repair, or maintenance of computer hardware and related equipment.
   4. The employee is an engineer, drafter, machinist, or other professional whose work is highly dependent upon or facilitated by the use of computers and computer software programs and who is skilled in computer-aided design software, including CAD/CAM, but who is not in a computer systems analysis or programming occupation.
   5. The employee is a writer engaged in writing material, including box labels, product descriptions, documentation, promotional material, setup and installation instructions, and other similar written information, either for print or for onscreen media or who writes or provides content material intended to be read by customers, subscribers, or visitors to computer-related media such as the World Wide Web or CD-ROMS.
   6. The employee is engaged in any of the activities set forth in nos. 1 through 4 above for the purpose of creating imagery for effect used in the motion picture, television, or theatrical industry.

Continued from eDMS Roshambo Part 2: Wikis vs eDMS posted a couple months ago. Sorry for the delay.

…And now you understand my RoShamBo comparison. Wiki, according to the authors I quoted in eDMS Roshambo Part 2 beats plain desktop publishing. In fact, Stewart Mader has an excellent book out that’s on my next-to-read-list.

Wikipatterns by Stewart Mader Read more about this book…

And as we remember from my eDMS Roshambo Part 2 quote from Dan’s blog, Dan Ortega feels that with the proper corporate restraint wikis can work well within a corporation.

This is with caveats, and not all of them are limited to technology. There are significant conflicting social elements regarding wiki implementation as well which is a point that Stewart Mader and I both agree upon.

Sacha Chua from The Orange Chair discusses this dilemma in It’s the culture, not the technology:

Corporate culture isn’t something you can change in a few months. You can’t install goodwill. You can’t enable cooperation.

In short, if you work in a hostile corporate environment, wikis might not be the best method to collaborate. Then again, in such an environment there’s probably zero collaboration going on at all.

Wiki Strength: Wiki Usage Resolves Siloed Content Challenge

No more of that developed content (.doc, .pdf, .fm) shoved somewhere on the eDMS or intranet with only desktop tools to edit it with. A wiki provides a single authoring framework that all can use.

Wiki Weaknesses: Homogenizing, Updating, and Repurposing Content

The primary objection / weakness that I have of a wiki integration is in single-sourcing and repurposing the resulting content.

Bringing exported content out into XML or another form is possible in some wikis but the end product still requires some sort of editing tool such as Microsoft Word, Adobe FrameMaker, or MadCap Blaze. Now you run into some issues.

The content’s single sourcing is critical, and if it’s updated in the wiki getting the changes into the technical communicator’s source working files could become a devastating bottleneck. 

The second weakness of a wiki is in the editing tool itself. The integration of concepts such as snippets and variables doesn’t currently existi in wiki editing. 

I would also add that the snippet suggestions and many other ‘homogenizing’ methods that MadCap’s Analyzer offers allow significant time savings in structuring content. This is a capability that the wikis I’ve seen don’t have and I consider this to be a particular weakness when overall content structure is considered due to the time required to get ‘er done.

Wiki content needs to be cleaned up if it’s going to see the outside world. I think behind the firewall a wiki gives everyone something to work with but there’s still considerable work to be done prior to integrating raw text into a corporate presence.

So even with a wiki there is still a workflow requiring a tool, and usage feedback can still be examined within the published online resources.

With RoboHelp or Flare the WYSIWYG is very sophisticated, the result of both product’s design team experience with help authoring. With a better editing tool for XML Flare tends to overrule both RoboHelp and straight wiki collaboration with the MadPak suite which has that killer app Capture, which takes the image variables into consideration so graphic inclusion isn’t such a chore.

I came across a few letters authored in Word 2.0 from my final cruise in 1995 and it got me thinking about my roots in TechComm. Have you had any experiences which led you towards TechComm which stand out?

Yep… Everyone Has a Story…

The initial knowledge management / content wrangling that I learned prior to using specific software tools was through my time in the service in the 1990s. I would have loved tools that MadCap, Articulate and Adobe now make for that. This was even before Microsoft Word and PowerPoint were adopted!

When looking at the time spent in communication simply in my collateral, non-aircrew duties, it seems that my “part-time job” of about 40 hours a week was a Technical Communicator. Somehow I managed to fit flying into this, probably due to the seven day work week that we military folks enjoyed while being deployed.

Workflow of a Typical Aircrew Technical Communicator

While I was in the military, we didn’t have a job description of Technical Communicator however once I was out of training and ‘in the fleet’ we were required to:

Produce 1/2 hour to 1 hour of weekly training of a tactical nature. (7 hours per week content review, analysis, and writing).

Produce weekly training relevant to our collateral duties. One of my collateral duties was Safety, another 2 1/2 hour to 3 hours per week for a weekly 1/2 hour standup lecture (we called them briefs) and practical testing.

Write Naval Aviation Training & Operations Standards (NATOPS) corrections to publications and submit the same through our chain of command. Variable time spent on this, all depending on what needed addressing. Figure another 1/2 to 2 hours per week. Here’s a great example of an organic NATOPS test…

Plan and conduct daily flight crew briefings – again, daily 1/2 hour in length taking all relevant tactical threat, aircrew safety of flight, weather, operations area data, and other related data. You know, going over things that can get you killed when flying or just walking to the aircraft. (3.5 hours to 7 hours per week).

I also had the squadron Communications collateral duty. Before email – working under the Communications Officer (3 hours / day). 21 hours per week in arranging and maintaining the printed squadron communications log – message traffic in and out of the squadron that had to be signed off by all department heads and the executive team (XO and CO for those vets out there).

This was a pain but fun to laugh at now that it’s been replaced mostly by email. Imagine taking all the emails you get every day, printing them out at one end of the aircraft carrier on demand (typically updated three times a day including at midnight).

Then tediously hand filing them into a massive two hole punched clipboard, updating the cc: list and attn: list to make sure the department heads could read the handwritten notes of the Skipper and XO.

I took no end of abuse (mostly good natured) from the mistakes that my subordinate did.

Not to mention Public Affairs tasking such as presentations for schools, distinguished visitors, guiding tours, etc. Most of this was while we were in port somewhere like Singapore, Vancouver, Hong Kong, etc. and was great PR work for Uncle Sam’s Canoe Club.

So Others May Live…

Most of my friends that stayed in went SAR, similar to that movie The Guardian. I appropriate the motto of the SAR Rescue Swimmer because it was drilled into all of us Aircrew that if we documented our jobs well, ‘others may live’…

It shouldn’t be surprising that a few of my fellow aircrewmen have become Technical Communicators with government contractors. Just about everyone who stayed in for a second tour had an instructor tour, which was more formal training for three years in length.

Those who stayed in their entire careers ended up doing more than one instructor tour, not to mention all the time they spent collating the documentation and acting as a Docs Manager for all the output from the junior aircrew.

I’ll be doing a series on Government consulting and contracting for TechComm later this week, and I’m seriously considering leveraging my contacts for performing this in the near future.

Have you had any experiences which led you towards TechComm which stand out?

What do you need to get started?

The Federal government requires that all applicants for Federal grants and cooperative agreements with the exception of individuals other than sole proprietors, have a DUNS number.

That means that if you’re an S Corporation or a C Corporation, or in any way shape or form NOT working as a d/b/a sole proprietorship you will need your DUNS number. 

Great… What is a @#@# DUNS Number

Sounds difficult, doesn’t it? Let me shortcut this for you: Before you can bid on anything as a small business, you must have a DUNS number.

Getting a DUNS number is free and takes only a few minutes. Just click beneath the fold…

Getting your DUNS Online for free

Try this nifty D&B DUNS web form: D&B Web Form for DUNS Number Request. See the bottom for the information you’ll need.

Quoting From whitehouse.gov  the steps are simple:

To Obtain Your DUNS Number by phone: Call D&B using the toll-free number, 1-866-705-5711 and indicate that you are a Federal grant applicant/prospective applicant.

Obtaining a DUNS number is absolutely free for all entities doing business with the Federal government.

This includes grant and cooperative agreement applicants/prospective applicants and Federal contractors. Be certain that you identify yourself as a Federal grant applicant/prospective applicant.

D&B will ask you to provide the information listed below and will immediately assign you a number, free of charge.

Please call the dedicated toll-free DUNS Number request line for Federal grant and cooperative agreement applicants or prospective grant applicants at:

1-866-705-5711

The number is staffed from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. (local time of the caller when calling from within the continental United States).

You will need to provide the following information:

• Legal Name
• Headquarters name and address for your organization
• Doing business as (DBA) or other name by which your organization is commonly known or recognized
• Physical Address, City, State and Zip Code
• Mailing Address(is separate from Headquarters and/or physical address)
• Telephone Number
• Contact Name and Title
• Number of Employees at your physical location
• The process to request number takes about 5-10 minutes.
• A DUNS number will be assigned at the conclusion of the call.
My next article will go into answering their request for proposal and contract review. I may have my local Juris Doctor do a guest blogging for that one – he’s had much more experience than I have.

When you find new authors it’s exciting to read their viewpoints. I initially started this blog with a thread of analysis of Adobe’s RoboHelp 6 release with which I was thoroughly underwhelmed. I had been watching the discussion on MonkeyPi previously, and part of the enjoyment of blogging is responding to what I call distributed discussions.

Back to RoboHelp vs. Flare: The Blog Review

It’s interesting that today’s examples are all from Utah. Being a former Coloradan for several years I have to say it’s nice to see some of the Rocky Mountain crowd. Now let’s enjoy some distributed discussion of RoboHelp 7 and MadCap’s marketing.

First, a view from Paul Pehrson on RoboHelp 7’s competitive abilities with his analysis of Adobe playing the innovation catch-up game:

RoboHelp is now in catch-up mode trying to figure out how to emulate the innovative features in MadCap’s product suite. Now it is MadCap pushing the innovation envelope here.

Will RH be able to maintain pace with MadCap’s one (or more) releases per year? Will RH be able to come out with new features that aren’t already in Flare?

Maybe so, but RH 7 wasn’t proof of that yet. Again, it will be interesting to have this discussion in two years and see where the major players are at.

I found Ben Minson’s blog when he guest posted to Tom Johnson’s blog. Ben posted a critical thesis about MadCap’s marketing which, by the way, is a great opinion piece.

The thing that has bothered me the most about what has happened with RoboHelp and Flare is MadCap’s marketing approach, which caused “Flare” and “MadCap” to leave a bad taste in my mouth.

Granted, Macromedia’s treatment of the original RoboHelp team was probably less than professional. However, Hamilton seemed to make it his quest to blow RoboHelp to smithereens. It wasn’t business—it was personal. If he could carry that little ring to Mount Doom and throw it in the fire, it would be worth everything that happened in between.

In my research into my Web 2.0 Technical Support series about MadCap Software I hadn’t seen anything untoward expressed online or in print. They did, however, carry a gag gift of the die kadov tag die T-shirt, an inside joke about RoboHelp’s shortcomings.

In fact, in my podcast with Mike Hamilton in December 2007 he was neutral about Adobe. I asked Mike H. several tough and somewhat leading questions about RoboHelp and Adobe. Before, during, and after the podcast he never said anything truly outside the norm, and in fact was more generous than I was in his analysis regarding the level of dedication that Adobe may have with RoboHelp.

In my podcast program we find the relevant segment within the Hamilton podcast:

10:10
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.”

11:40
Why I started analyzing the space closer: MadCap’s openness in summer 2007.

12:10
Thoughts on other blogger’s views about Adobe’s Technical Communications Suite (TCS) launch. Mike responds by comparing integration of tools within Flare and within Adobe TCS – Example of Capture’s integration with Flare to support the concept of single sourcing workflow.

We went into other discussion of workflow…

34:30
Remembering RoboHelp: we each discuss where RoboHelp came from and why it’s so different from this model MadCap’s following. Mike elaborates on the competitive edge MadCap has right now in integrating all of their products.

36:40
Mike believes that both RoboHelp and Flare will be around for a long long time, of course he and I differ on this viewpoint. He does mention the caveat of how much innovation Adobe puts into RoboHelp being questionable which we both agree upon completely.

Here’s Ben’s post of A Little More about RoboHelp and Flare. 

What I remember reading at the time this was going on, though, indicated that Hamilton was pretty skeptical of Adobe’s ability and commitment to carry RoboHelp forward. In the podcast, Hamilton mentions advantages of Flare that RoboHelp 7 also has.

Macromedia clearly set RoboHelp back by shelving it, but Adobe has pushed it forward.

Ben posted a well-thought out analysis in the second post of his series. [What follows is a repost of my comments to Ben’s blogpost.

Regarding preference, I couldn’t agree more that ‘everyone has a nose’ fits the bill. Here’s my schnozz, poked into everyone’s business. Here’s my take on tech support between the two companies in the past year.

Regarding the capability to perform the best service for the customer (meaning the purchaser of the software) currently I think there’s no competition for MadCap. Then again, I know them. I don’t know who supports RoboHelp, but I used to. When they worked stateside and still understood the product, that is.

Rock

Regarding the capability to develop features through dollars spent in innovation – the jury is out with that. Adobe’s strategy is to offshore $200 million in development dollars to India. That gives you 5 to 7 times more bang for the buck – something like a billion dollars worth of development.

Paper

Sort of like that Aliens movie where the Hicks character said to nuke the site from orbit in order to be sure.

MadCap’s strategy has a bit more finesse. According to my interviews with their staff, they have been focusing on making the features that improve the workflow for technical communication.

Scissors – Here are the endgame strategies:

Adobe’s endgame – Adobe’s Ro-sham-bo move to the MadCap innovation is that they can throw more dollars and developers at the situation, therefore they can attempt to duplicate whatever features prove marketable.

MadCap’s Ro-sham-bo endgame move?

MadCap’s got all new code, and Adobe’s middle management probably doesn’t have the balls to make the judgement call to pony up the money it takes to completely revamp RoboHelp.

Adobe simply – after three years without a release that features requested innovation that isn’t simply a competitive match – that Adobe’s customer base will get sick and tired of renewing their contracts just to get the 14.0 or 15.0 release of a code base that originated in 1997.

Moral of the story

If you’ve got old code, you better have damn good support. If you’ve got new code and killer award winning support and innovation, it’s like a trifecta.

Related Posts:

Indiana Jones & TechComm?!?

My first impression of government Technical Communicators  while in the military brought to mind that last scene in the classic film Raiders of the Lost Ark where, after the entire film’s adventures the Ark of the Covenant is being (air finger quotes) examined by top men.

Indy asks who, and the reply is the same: Top. Men.

As the film cuts away, we see the famous box holding the Ark being wheeled down the hall of a warehouse.

I tended to think of Technical Communication within the Government as being the same. Content repositories being siloed. It was hard to access and in the worst case in recent history, being responsible for the events of 9/11 according to the 9/11 Commission’s report. Agency A couldn’t communicate with Agency B in time to bring actionable information to bear, therefore… We all know the rest of the story.

How interested is the dotGov in listening to TechComm consultants?

Cause and effect being what it is, it’s been in everyone’s best interest to streamline the information.

Military Technical Communication? Is that an oxymoron?

TechComm has been going on since the first typewriters were adopted by the military. With tools like DITA and XML, dotmil Technical Communication has potential it has in the 21st Century. I’ve been in contact with several levels of dotgov and dotmil Technical Communicators in the past fifteen years.

Doing business with the military is not something that majority of the Technical Communicators deal with regularly. However… With the tremendous reliance on technology, there is an equal or greater reliance upon training for new technology adopted by the military.

There’s always the savvy TechComm services provider who comes across a dotgov or dotmil bid that’s just too good to pass up on, and this article is meant for you.

Consultants who own their own company – this article is for you.

Technical Communicators working for temporary staffing companies – this article is for you. You may end up having to work with contractors or directly for the military as part of a contract.

Exiting military members who are looking for careers outside – this article is also for you.

Demand for TechComm is best defined as both a push and pull of the technology.

While I was at eHelp Corporation I had the pleasure of dealing with several government contractors at SPAWAR and what is now Rockwell Collins. I used to talk to the NASA docs manager regularly and many case studies have been written about the dotgov and dotmil usage of Technical Communication.

Some of the instructors who taught me got out of the service and continued to work in Technical Communication, some for General Atomics and other defense contractors.

Looking At dotmil TechComm Pull:

Technical Communication is pulled by the dotmils and dotgovs as part of the contract process. Savvy military liaisons will realize the value of a good help file and technical support. This leads into the fulfillment of contract requirements for the best possible value.

Government contractors usually have full time positions. Freelance consultants should capitalize on new government technology that’s being adopted.

An IEEE paper from 1991 titled Operation Desert Storm: Emergence of the Need for Technical Communication defines the role TechComm played nearly eighteen years ago.

From the abstract:

…Desert Shield, and subsequently Desert Storm, represented turning points in joining technical communicators with the scientists and engineers into a cohesive team, an after effect likely to continue.

Top military and civilian managers had the foresight to include technical communicators on the R&D team at CRDEC and the results were strategies that improved quality of communication and succeeded in conveying needed scientific and engineering information.

I might add, as one of the GenX’ers who was over there in 1992 post Desert Storm that this was before the Internet. Before Web 2.0, before email was adopted widely, and right about the time we were converting from Wordstar.  I was one of the early adopters in our squadron to Microsoft Word 2.0!

Examining The dotmil TechComm Push:

As a ‘push’ from software providers, rapid eLearning is something that, according to the statistics, fits well within the dotmil user group.

Of note is that most operational units within the Navy, for instance, fit the small organization demographic identified as those who are going towards online training.

* E-learning has grown dramatically. The use of self-study e-learning now accounts for 20% of student hours, up from last year’s figure of 15%.

This growth is driven largely by an increase in online training among small organizations (100-999 employees), which are acquiring the skills and technology to make online training a reality.

The average size of a squadron or cruiser complement is 250 people. Unit sized application of rapid eLearning is a smart way to shape adoption of technology.  I used Computer Based-Training in 1990 in the military. The Navy was early adopters of this technology and I expect them to continue seeking organic eLearning through software and procedure documentation.

Technical Support Documentation

Obviously it’s desirable to provide training and how-to advice at the closest point as possible. Hence TechComm and in particular rapid eLearning methods.

What are some of your best examples you feel should be savings us all some tax dollars? Any best practices you think could help?

In parts 2 and 3 we’ll be looking at ways to get involved on the small, consultant level.

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

Another successful example of Web 2.0 Tech Support usage as we’ve discussed earlier: HATT post 69635 Re: flare evaluation

I am nearing the end of my evaluation period with Flare (just 9 days
left!)

Here are my comments:

The MadCap (Flare) people came out of the woodwork to support me,
whereas Adobe (RoboHelp) never uttered a peep – even though I
downloaded free trials of both and have posted several times in this
group. It reminded me of the good ol’ days of Blue Sky Software
(original owners and the creators of RH) and I was delighted to learn
that MadCap is sort of a reincarnation of Blue Sky.

If you liked hearing that Regina, you should check out my blog article with pics of the new/old place and the podcast with Mike Hamilton done last December.

In my opinion, Rahul writes with better clarity than about 80% of America’s high school graduates and probably with better structure than I do.

He’s a professional and does quite well in an industry that the STC India figures show has consistently increased in wage by 20 – 30% between surveys.

From Rahul Prabhakar – when the muse strikes!: the new black gold of India

According to Prabhakar, Bangalore is the frontrunner amongst all Indian cities working on technical writing ’simply because most (technology-related) multinationals are based there’.

‘With no university courses, technical writers in India are left to the wolves. They are made to learn the ropes on their own,’ laments Prabhakar. But despite the lack of training possibilities, ‘India’s participation in the world of technical writing is something that everyone is talking about.’

I’ll be looking into trends of how the technical writing pipeline differs in India than in North America with later posts. Suffice to say, I think that there is real competition coming from India and it’s going to have an impact globally.

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.

Why is the SEC interested in Adobe’s Corporate Authenticity and RoboHelp?

In the same manner as Ikea’s technical writing is nearly wordless I’m just going to post this picture of the Security and Exchanges Commission (SEC) accessing my site’s Is RoboHelp Dead… Again?!? article and the Corporate Authenticity category this week and let the audience decide its importance.

Talk amongst yourselves…

Vivek Jain, [Group Product Manager] I’m sure it’s nothing to be worried about. The SEC doesn’t have jurisdiction in Bangalore, India.

Is this for real?!? Afraid so…

If anyone wants it I’ll email the .xps directly to you if you feel the need to validate this. I think I have a server log also. (unsure if it included January in my December one). By the way, checking my site today, I found overlooked someone else logging on from a government web site in Washington. I’ll keep that to myself for the moment.

PS: According to my stats I was crunching before that virus hit my system the Is RoboHelp Dead… Again?!? article is the top linked-to article of 2007.