Once more, but with meaning – how will the Semantic Web affect technical documentation and technical authors?

Web technologies expert, John Fintan Galvin, is claiming 2010 will be the year of the Semantic Web, when semantic technologies really take off. If that is the case, how could it be used by technical communicators to deliver better user assistance? The Semantic Web is all about the automation of connections between “resources” in a context-sensitive way…. Read more »

Ten key issues for CEOs of software companies

At Intellect (the trade association for UK technology companies) yesterday, there was a meeting looking at how UK software companies are faring in this current economic climate. At this event, a panel of software companies CEOs and directors discussed the key issues they are currently facing and the future economic climate for this industry sector. What struck me… Read more »

Manager’s guide to single sourcing: What’s the problem, why is there a need?

I thought it might be useful to look at a simple question: Why is there a need for single sourcing technical documentation? For people who aren’t technical authors, it’s often unclear why technical authors talk so much about “single sourcing”. Isn’t that just cutting and pasting? What’s the problem? In later posts we’ll look at the… Read more »

Announcing two new half-day DITA workshops – with case studies

Cherryleaf is delighted to announce two special DITA workshopspresented by one of the world’s leading experts in single sourcingand DITA.We’ve managed to persuade Tony Self – CEO of HyperWrite, Chair of the DITA Help standards committee and lecturer at Swinburne University, Melbourne – to make a detour on his way back from his presentation at… Read more »

Our DITA XML training course – Update

Carol is in the studio today, recording the audio track for the new, updated, version of our self-teach online course on DITA XML. She has to record 140(!) audio segments, which will take some time to complete. The development team will then match (within Abobe Captivate) these segments with the visuals and slides, ready, I… Read more »