Agile Methodology and New Product Development: Taking a new product idea and turning it into a delivered product is quite challenging and it has lots of unknowns to deal with. Using agile methodology for these projects is desirable but very challenging due to a number of risk factors. Most common risks that are likely to impact a new product development using agile methodology are:

1. Changing core requirements

2. Unknown technical challenges that have not been verified with a prototype

3. Incomplete system architecture

4. Lack of framework for continuous integration

Developer Advisory Services for ISVs : Agile Methodology and New Product Development: Four Key Issues

There’s also Jesse Ezell’s Silverlight thread of research…

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.

Don’t say I didn’t tell you about this coming up… Clearly IE8 and Silverlight is a triple threat when looking towards adoption of RIA.

From The Register:

TechEd 2008 Bill Gates has announced the next betas of Internet Explorer 8 and Silverlight 2 while outlining plans from Microsoft on development services…

The second beta of Microsoft Silverlight cross-browser media player and development platform will be released by the end of this week under a Go Live license. 

A Go Live license lets developers use pre-release code in real-world applications, but without the safety net of Microsoft support.

The second beta had been promised for the second half of 2008, so it’s… early!

As for Bill Gates’ last day, this YouTube video is pretty good with some great celeb cameos.

FWIW, GoLive is pretty cool. I’ve been working on a review for some time updating us on Silverlight and GoLive. With all the hubbub going on for me we’ll see how that looks for later this week.

Related Articles:

Rich Internet Applications War Is Brewing

Adobe FLEX vs Microsoft Silverlight Part 1

More about Silverlight – Microsoft’s Flex / Flash Competitor

How to convert 60 million users to Silverlight quickly

My LMS / eLearning Disruptive Technology Concept

Halo 3, XBox and Technical Communication? (Part 5)

Microsoft Releases Silverlight, Extends Support to Linux

CharlesJeter.com Category: Rich Internet Applications

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.

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

LB, this is for you… The clock started ticking when I SMS’d you so you realize how quickly someone can aggregate thoughts and collaborate with others.

I’m posting this real time to show an example of how quick and easy it is to update content. Below the fold, begin to realize how you can kill your email strings forever with a blog…

Web 2.0 The machine is using… us

Start with this… Best five minute summary around.

The single most important thing to remember is that once your content within XML is able to be repurposed virtually anywhere. 

Yes, watch the movie – it’s about four minutes long or so, and explains much better than my writing can.

After you’ve finished this, here are some of the best points from my last year’s research.

If a tech writer can, through the use of a simple devblog, keep everyone informed and stop the email forwarding that plagues software development, all will start off on the right foot.

Each of my clients has access 24/7 to the latest tasks accomplished. Change requests are posted as comments, which keeps everyone on their toes.

Using these techniques I’ve discovered makes things get done faster, better, and people save money. It’s a crazy concept, but I’m pushing collaboration and techniques to move us beyond stifling bureaucratic logjams found so often within corporations.

First

Read Company blogging 101, a simple guide to starting to blog without shooting yourself in the foot.

DevBlog Collaboration | Your Internal Process Holy Grail

Using these techniques I’ve discovered makes things get done faster, better, and people save money. It’s a crazy concept, but I’m pushing collaboration and techniques to move us beyond stifling bureaucratic logjams found so often within corporations.

With the expectation of your audience changing into a more interactive view, the Help Authoring you’re performing will start shifting towards a more nimble creation. I’m envisioning a Workflow Collaboration that will blend review of the documentation within a blog.

There’s a sweet spot between the user familiarity of an email and the openness and collaboration capabilities of a wiki; I tend to use a DevBlog instead. DevBlogs, or development-based blogging, has an adoption rate of about 60% of my client base and allow remote collaboration and concept review.

Second

From Adobe and MadCap’s Cold War: Who’s the Superpower Today?:

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.

Third

From Web 2.0 – MadCap Feedback is the KISS principle at work…:

Of course the magic behind any server based help file all happens behind the scenes in the user statistics just like Adobe RoboHelp Server, you get to know what people are looking at so you can focus your resources on restructuring those hot spots.

Additionally, your engineering team knows where best to look at fixing the GUI issues they may be guessing at.

Fourth

Simple Instructions Work Best and Sell Products

Just an example of what a short video can do to inform and instruct. Embedded in a blog, it’s simply more hyperlinked content.

Continuing from eDMS Roshambo Part 4 | Feedback with the wiki versus the MadPak with Feedback Service.

Wikis clobber eDMS when it comes to collaboration. Wikis are great but getting the end result into a user manual format still requires an external tool.

Rock Paper Scissors (RoShamBo): Wiki vs the MadPak, Analyzer, and Feedback Service

There are strengths to not having a Wiki model introduced right away into a corporation. Dan Ortega mentions corporate policy holding back the anarchy, however it helps considerably when there is a gradual move towards the Wiki model. 

MadCap is halfway through the Wiki model already with just the MadPak. Add to that the Analyzer and Feedback Server/Service’s Web 2.0 features, you’ve got yourself a good step past Wiki as far as maintaining positive control over the content.

With Analyzer you’re looking at a Documentation Manager’s dream package.

I think the key element is… how much time would this all save each role a Technical Communicator has. Let alone the workflow’s editing search and correction time.

Cost – $1200 for the MadPak and $400/quarter for the Feedback Service ($1600/year) so you don’t even need to host a server and stress the IIS configuration. No pricing on Analyzer is yet available. I really should get some sort of Amazon Buy-now button for this stuff.

As far as the industry tools are currently set, MadCap Analyzer could save upwards of $50k – $80k a year in tech writer time and other software. That’s pretty hefty, although at the time I’m writing this MadCap hasn’t set a price for the Analyzer.

Note: Pricing for Analyzer is pretty cheap, as I edit this article I find that it’s only about $200 or so to upgrade.

Updating Any Content Effectively Requires Feedback Data

Wiki strength is that anyone can provide feedback or edit content. The passive feedback of viewed pages falls under another product’s reporting (AWStats or WebTrends to name a couple).

Let’s examine the potential benefits that usage statistics and feedback could make to eDMS and/or wiki content. The two we’ll look at are Adobe RoboServer and MadCap’s Feedback Server.

Both provide feedback about page usage and search terms. This allows content creators and technical writers to evaluate which areas to focus their attention on, sort of like a triage, but MadCap’s goes a step or two farther and adds a Web 2.0 aspect with the addition of Comments pages within the web interface.

Understanding the origins of the RoboServer and Feedback Server comes in handy when comparing their technologies.

History Lesson: From DynaHelp to RoboEngine to RoboServer & Feedback Server

Eight years ago the current RoboServer was known as Dynahelp. The RoboHelp Enterprise component RoboEngine was derived from DynaHelp, a Blue Sky Software (BSS) / eHelp product that launched in 2000. Dynahelp was used by companies such as American Airlines and was an enterprise solution.

From destinationCRM’s July 2000 article DynaHelp’s Smart Web-Site Improvement Tool:

DynaHelp, [is] a server-based help tool that not only steers users through a site, gently assisting them when they become stuck or confused, but also gathers data on particularly troublesome interface and usability problems and reports the problems back to webmasters.

DynaHelp’s database makes a record of every user request for assistance and sends reports on these problematic areas back to the webmaster, explains Steven Jacobs, a Web-site designer and consultant on usable design. ”

A DynaHelp site gets more usable the more the site is used,” said Jacobs. “But you don’t have to frustrate your customers to find out how not to frustrate them.

DynaHelp was, as I understood the BSS corporate history, one of the main reasons that BSS changed its name to eHelp right around the time of the dotcom/dot-bomb in 2000. In late 2001 eHelp restructured and returned leadership back to Jorgen Lien, the founder after the core DynaHelp project failed during the dotbomb era. I could be wrong about the dates, it was before my time.

Jorgen brought eHelp back to the basics it made money on, and the core DynaHelp technology was adapted into RoboEngine, part of which was sold as the RoboInfo Server, a Policy and Procedure eDMS powerhouse at a market disrupting price point.

RoboInfo Server allowed users to index all their existing documentation, use the RoboHelp GUI and develop intranets with searchable linked content. All this for only a couple thousand dollars made it attractive.

History lesson: Competitive workflow five to seven years ago

RoboServer’s full purpose seven years ago (2001) when they introduced it was to make that existing content searchable. It was a $20,000 search engine that did natural language search (NLS) all packaged and sold for $2000.

That was disruptive on its own two legs, but add to it the online help and reporting, and it got better and better. But now it’s old.

According to Vivek Jain, Group Product Manager, RoboServer’s innovation apparently is in fixing its bugs (See Vivek’s Quality IS Innovation post on Adobe’s TechComm blog) however even that’s not compelling with the botched and blurry Captivate import into RoboHelp. Not to mention the quality of the product’s online help.

RoboHelp X4(?) and X5 (2003) made PDF import along with .doc file import possible so you could repurpose existing archived content. You could get a license for those for about $1000.

You can still get a license for X5 for around $350. OR you can buy the Adobe TechCommSuite for something under $800.

Those solutions will keep you at the same workflow competitive to Wiki. Versus desktop applications and a black hole of an intranet, you’re much better off. But it’s old. It’s not hip, with it, and let’s face it, the ‘innovation’ of RoboServer has been in trying to keep it running through the new Microsoft incarnations of NT server technology and their updates.

Or… Like in Star Wars, now experience the TRUE Power of the Dark Side

Here we are in 2008. It’s a far cry from 2000 and the launch of DynaHelp.

I’m betting on this year’s killer app for workflow being MadCap’s Flare 3.0 equipped with Analyzer and the Feedback Server, which I reviewed a few months ago. So we’ll look at the Magic Box being either Flare or Blaze.

Now, the real power of a true Collaborative Workflow with various forms of content would be:

First, that the Subject Matter Experts could use the tool of their choice, (FrameMaker, Word, etc.) and update the content at any time regardless of where it sits,

…and your magic box would then, on a cron set (for apache users), or IIS script set command line interface (CLI) schedule update your content automatically,

…leaving the Technical Communicator free to do her/his real job; concentrate on structure and form rather than the nuts and bolts behind the structure and form.

It gets better, not only can you search, but with Feedback you’re able to get the results you want passively; you can see what search terms people are using.

The Wiki without wiki anarchy: Feedback’s Comments.

Each topic has the ability to maintain those Comments and the Technical Communicator can see comments as they happen. Which means they can do updates… real time.

Output and feedback options are available both inside and outside the firewall.

See my podcast with Mike Hamilton, MadCap VP for specific details about his recommended workflows and Mike states that he doesn’t rule out a wiki model in the future. He also gives good 411 about what you can do today with his products while minimizing the anarchy that a wiki could become.

And with the Analyzer, bringing all that disparate content under control (content wrangling, as one blogger calls it) is made super simple and cost efficient because you can match up your similar phrases and frequently used terms and homogenize the entire project.

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?

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?

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.

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.