Be it Resolved: We are ready for Industry 4.0
The possibilities opened up by interlinked production units and smart parts will have a huge impact on information flow and make the case for smarter content. Encapsulated in the idea of “Industry 4.0”, also called “Smart Factory”, this fourth industrial revolution is currently a major business trend in Europe. Industry 4.0 increases the collaboration between machines during production, as well as between machines and users, during operation. In this environment, content needs to be able to flow across different platforms and devices and respond to changing context characteristics.
What can attendees expect to learn?
In this session four industry experts debate the preparedness of technical communicators to meet the demands of writing for both people and machines. Listen to their compelling arguments, vote on who wins, and then discuss what the debate outcome means to you personally.
Meet the Presenter
Dawn Stevens is Vice President of Operations and partner at Comtech Services and Associate Director of the Center for Information-Development Management. With over 25 years of experience, including 15 years at Comtech, Dawn has practical experience in virtually every role within a documentation and training department, including project management, instructional design, writing, editing, and multimedia programming. With both engineering and technical communication degrees, Dawn combines a solid technical foundation with strong writing and design skills to identify and remove the challenges her clients face in producing usable, technical information and training.
Joe Gollner is the Managing Director of Gnostyx Research Inc. (http://www.gnostyx.com) where he helps organizations to design and deploy scalable and sustainable content solutions. He has been active in the content management industry for over twenty-five years and has managed a wide variety of DITA projects over the last ten years. He is a graduate of Queens University (Mathematics and Literature) and the University of Oxford (Masters of Philosophy). He has also completed additional post-graduate programs in Knowledge Management, Business Analysis, and Project Management. He blogs on the nature of content as the Content Philosopher (www.gollner.ca) and, yes, he is still working on his book about “engineering content”. In 2014, he received the Matthew Arnold faculty award from the University of Oxford for his recent contributions to Digital Humanities.
Nolwenn Kerzreho is the Technical Account Manager for Europe at IXIASOFT (http://ixiasoft.com) and adjunct teacher for the technical communication specialization in the European Master’s in technical communication program at the Université Rennes 2 in France. She has been immersed in the business of communication for over 10 years and has, as both a trainer and an information architect, led a number of DITA adoption efforts. As an international speaker and tireless researcher, she explores the latest trends and techniques in structured authoring and how these changes will impact the next generation of technical writers and business communicators. Nolwenn works with customers around the world in clarifying their requirements and making the most out of DITA and component content management solutions.
Hannan Saltzman has served in various executive R&D and Product positions, focused on defining and building market leading enterprise products. In his last role, Hannan served as a Senior Product Manager at NICE Systems, helping large financial institutions identify compliance risks in mass amounts of unstructured customer communications by applying speech, text and transactional analytics. Prior to that, Hannan led NICE’s Situation Management solution to a global market leader position while helping enterprises improve operations with optimized knowledge delivery and response workflows. At Zoomin, Hannan and his team develop innovative products that help organizations reduce customer effort by providing personalized and consistent product information across customer touchpoints.
Since the beginning, I have been, paradoxically, communicating and shooting myself in the foot. I find that this combination leads to fascinating outcomes that have made me one of the most fortunate people I know. I’ve been in charge of a major cultural institution in New York City (it’s public radio station), have taught university in multiple countries on four continents, and get to speak at great events like this one.
I’m a lifelong learner, and that’s why I love my profession ─I get to learn so much!