Reaching Perfection: Creating value in your content through change
Sir Winston Churchill once said, “To improve is to change, so to be perfect is to have changed often.” If perfection is reached by frequent change then an understanding of change is a vital capability within the wider scope of content management. Knowledge of what has changed, who has changed it, when, and why allows the content manager to create extra value at multiple points across the content lifecycle.
This presentation will look at where a knowledge of change is useful, what value can be created from it and how, exploring the different requirements present in different change identification scenarios. We will discuss the strengths and weaknesses of DITA’s features for representing change as well as the options for processing that change in DITA-OT, XMLmind’s DITA Converter, and custom stylesheets. Finally, we will look at how change identification can be automated and present some new ideas on how to reduce costs and provide added value through such automation.
What can attendees expect to learn?
A consistent understanding of the change that occurs throughout the life of a document presents its owner with opportunities. This presentation will identify and explain those opportunities.
Awareness of the different potential reasons for identifying change and the different requirements these reasons may place on the resulting output.
Increased depth of knowledge of DITA’s capabilities for representing change and of how that change can be used in further processing.
An understanding of the new opportunities that arise when handling changes as structured content, including selective processing to remove insignificant detail and creating customised change summaries and reports.
Meet the Presenter
Tristan is DeltaXML’s Product Manager with responsibility for future product direction. Over the last 10+ years, his work as a Senior Developer and Solutions Architect for DeltaXML has given him a deep understanding of the products and a passion for helping customers to make the most out of those products. Tristan is also a father of three beautiful girls, a movie-lover, and a keen runner.