Knowledge integration: The future of Technical Communication

Knowledge IntegrationThe Future of Technical Communications

Tristan David Bishop, Senior Principal Business Analyst

July 15, 2010

Introduction

Tristan David Bishop, Sr. Prin. Business Analyst

About the speaker:

Tristan David Bishop helps Symantec to deliver

"the right knowledge to the right customers at the

right time in the right language."

By integrating technical publishing best practices

with web delivery innovation, Tristan forges

solutions that optimize customer experience,

improving the corporate/customer relationship.

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Symantec

• Operates in more than 40 countries

• FY 2009 revenue = $6.2 billion (Enterprise=$4.4b, Consumer=$1.8b)

• Over 17,500 Team Members

• Revenue by Geography:

– Americas. . . . . . . . . . . . 55%

– EMEA. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30%

– APJ. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15%

• Secures half of the world‟s data

• Backs up half of the world‟s data

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Agenda

Changing Landscape1

2

Required Skills3

Knowledge Integration

Knowledge Integration at Symantec4

The Changing

Landscape

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The Changing Landscape

1. Mobile Communications

2. Content: Static to Dynamic

3. Topic-Based Publishing

4. Global Knowledge Requirements

5. Web-Based Support

6. User-Generated Content

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Established content practices are

undergoing profound and

fundamental changes

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Clarlone, Kadie and Laplante: Gilbane Group,

“Multilingual Communications as a Business Imperitive”

Mobile Communications

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Source: “Dr Hamadoun I. Touré, International Telecommunications' Union, Annual Report 2008”

News: Static to Dynamic

10

“Every big-city newspaper in

the U.S. is either in bankruptcy

or will be in bankruptcy in the

foreseeable future ... The

newspaper industry in the U.S.

is over." - Michael Wolff, Vanity Fair, Mar

18, 2010

Navigation: Static to Dynamic

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GPS will

grow to

>$70 Billion

by 2013

Handsets will

have 78%

GPS market

share by

2013

RNCOS E-Services Pvt.

Ltd, “World GPS Market

Forecast” 2/10

Directories: Static to Dynamic

• Hard-Copy Yellow Pages will lose 39% revenue over next five years

• Directory industry already trained 80% of sales staff to sell interactive products

• Reportlinker, "Say Goodbye to Yellow Pages", July 2008

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Product Content: Static to Dynamic

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“We have to become good at delivering highly targeted, „just in time‟ information: the right bit, at the right time, to help our reader answer a specific question and get on with a task”

Larry Kunz, SDI – Winner STC President‟s Award, 2010

Topic-Based Publishing

• Internet caused fundamental change

• Past = Books; Today = Topics

• Traditional delivery methods are OBSOLETE

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Poll #1

What doc delivery methods are in use at your org today?

a) Printed hard-copy manuals or sheets

b) Files on a CD or DVD (PDF, CHM, HTML)

c) Links to online web content

Select all that apply

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Time Travel

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We cannot continue blindly producing

manuals. Much of what we do as

technical writers needs to change to

meet the growing reality of

communication world-wide.

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Paula R. Stern, WritePoint Documentation Services

Global Knowledge Requirements

• Primary markets saturate

• Shareholders still expect revenue growth

• Company enters new locales

• Requires proactive global knowledge strategy

• English = Base language

• Automated QA of English source = maximizes MT

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With apologies to Gary Larson

Web-Based Tech Support

• New labor force entrants grew up with web access

• They expect web-based support

• Phone-based interactions rapidly decreasing

• Our profession is KEY to web-based, self-service support

• Tech Writers must repurpose manuals as topics for web

• Per Forrester, global average cost support phone interaction is $12. Self-service average interaction cost is $0.25

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User-Generated Content

• Early web = company writes, customer reads

• Today‟s web = both write (blogs, forums, wiki)

• Tomorrow‟s web? = both write and BOTH read (round-trip)

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Technical communicators must now

compete with information being

generated by the user community.

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Sarah O’Keefe, Scriptorium Publishing Services

Knowledge

Integration

We are entering a new era of product

content practices. Customers are

embraced as part of the content

lifecycle.

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Clarlone, Kadie and Laplante: Gilbane Group,

“Multilingual Communications as a Business Imperitive”

The Knowledge Integrator

A Knowledge Integrator will

partner with other teams across the organization

to gather content

that can proactively solve customer issues,

reducing the need for incoming support calls.

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Knowledge Integration

1. Gathering Content

2. Ensuring Accuracy

3. Ensuring Compliance

4. Delivering Repurposed Content

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Technical writers have an opportunity

to morph into the social conduit by

which companies interact with users

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Louis Marascio, LugIron Software Blog

Gathering Content

Seek key topics we didn‟t think to write

1. Review customer comments on published topics

2. Study web search results

3. Monitor Tech Support forums

4. Set up automated Keyword Alerts

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25% of Google search results

for the world‟s top 20 brands link to

user-generated content.

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Aarons, Edwards, & Lanier - "Search Engine Strategies magazine", June 2009

• InfoDev must connect with Dev, QA and Support

• Build close relationships

• Arrange for rapid cross-checks by SMEs

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Ensuring Accuracy

Ensuring Brand Compliance

• Know your corporate branding requirements

• Build close relationship with Marketing/Branding

• Ensure that repurposed content is compliant

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Delivering Repurposed Content

• Distribute to target customers

– Post to online KB for browsing

– Initiate L10n for key topics

– Push into local installations (Live Update)

– Optimize for mobile viewing

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Required Skills

Why pursue new skills?

• Cost Cutting continues (RIFs, Outsourcing)

• We need to show measurable business value

• Become ready to step into Knowledge Integrator role

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Required Skills

1. Topic-Based Writing

2. XML Publishing

3. Social Media Experience

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Topic-Based Writing Skills

• Study best practices for topic-based authoring

• Learn industry-standard content models

• Study DITA core types (“concept”, “task” and “reference”)

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XML Publishing Skills

• Develop XML publishing skills

• Understand the node hierarchy

• Data - not pages

• WYSWIG DTP = EOL

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XML has won. All major office suites

now save their documents in zipped

XML by default.

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Elliotte Rusty Harold, Polytechnic University, “XML Predictions: IBM.com” 2/5/08

Social Media Skills

A few Statistics:

• Over 50% of the world‟s population is under 30-years-old

• 96% of them have joined a social network

• If Facebook were a country it would be the world‟s 3rd largest (behind China and India)

• More than 80,000 websites have implemented FacebookConnect since December 2008

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Social Media Skills

• Explore leading Social Media networks

• Create basic user profile at prominent sites

• See new data exchange methods in action

• Metatags = driving the future of our industry

– Twitter “trending topics”

– Twitter #hashtags

– Facebook “Connect”

– LinkedIn “recommendations”

– Stumbleupon “favorites”

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Poll #2

Which Knowledge Integration skills have you already attained?

a) Topic-based publishing

b) XML publishing

c) Social Media

Select all that apply

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Knowledge

Integration at

Symantec

Case Study: Symantec Backup Exec

• Market-leading Windows data protection

• 1.5 million global customers

• Documentation in 11 languages

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BE InfoDev - Customer Survey

• 2007 – Pubs team surveyed several hundred customers

• Web search had become primary knowledge access method

The number of customers who "often"

sought information about BE via Google was 500% higher

than those who "often" sought information via the PDF manuals.

Pubs checked “Google” results, didn‟t find our PDFs first

In response, we initiated effort to modernize delivery channels

In 2008, began delivering content as stand-alone web topics

BEWS InfoDev – Web Topic Results

• Two years later, BEWS InfoDev now has 4,857 topics on the web

• February 2010 had 1.6 million hits

• Web topic hits exceed PDF manual hits by ratio of

26 to 1

March 31, 2010

Backup Exec - Web Topic Hits

Symantec - Knowledge Data Flow

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Knowledge Delivery in 2010

• Deploying InQuira Information Manager for web KM

• Topics will be tracked and scored by usefulness

• We will receive direct customer feedback

• We will learn if there are missing topics

4646

Global Self-Service in 2010

• We already have translated XML topics stored in our CMS

• We will now deliver them to the web through the InQuira KMS

• InfoDev will facilitate self-service support across global markets

• We hope to drive down incoming support call volumes, saving money for the company

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Backup Exec: Knowledge Integration

• Content redeployment effort = profound success

• Will tune our published topics based on customer feedback

• Can now look toward user-generated content

– Backup Exec FAQ

– BE TekTips forum (>33k members)

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Backup Exec: Knowledge Integration

• Building customer communities

• InfoDev can seek out trending issues within:

– Backup Exec blog comments

– Backup Exec forum discussion

– Community Feed

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Conclusion

In Summary

• Communication has changed forever (global and instant)

• Our jobs will never be the same

• We can drive value into our companies by becoming Knowledge Integrators

• We‟d be wise to proactively seek any skills we yet need

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SYMANTEC PROPRIETARY/CONFIDENTIAL – INTERNAL USE ONLY

Copyright © 2008 Symantec Corporation. All rights reserved.

Thank You!

SYMANTEC PROPRIETARY/CONFIDENTIAL – INTERNAL USE ONLY

Copyright © 2008 Symantec Corporation. All rights reserved.

Thank You!

SYMANTEC PROPRIETARY/CONFIDENTIAL – INTERNAL USE ONLY

Copyright © 2008 Symantec Corporation. All rights reserved.

Thank You!

Tristan David Bishop

tristan_bishop@symantec.com

(321) 696-3618

Twitter: @KnowledgeBishop