Adobe STC Summit Interviews 6: Think Global, Reclaim Content Strategy & FrameMaker Saves the Day

In this week’s installment of more Thought Leader interview’s from this year’s STC Summit, we cover a variety of topics, ranging from why “tech writers” should reclaim content strategy, why we should focus on business issues, and how important it is to think globally.

Rahel Baile: Reclaiming Content Strategy

Rahel Baile reminds of something critical in this STC/Adobe booth interview: technical communicators need to reclaim content strategy. This space has been widely claimed be marketing people because they are outgoing and part of content strategy is editorial. However, a good portion of content strategy is “technical”, and we as tech comm professionals need to reclaim that space, which is ours. Both sides, marketing and editorial, are needed.

http://tv.adobe.com/embed/1370/19869/

Sarah O’Keefe: Tech Communicators Need to Focus on the Business

In this STC/Adobe booth interview, Sara O’Keefe raises some important issues. “We need to make a shift over to being identified as people who make content which affects the business.” Sarah would like to see more of a focus on case studies and how a solution would actually affect the overall business. How does info need to be produced in a fashion that will make it effective. It may no longer be just a tech manual.

http://tv.adobe.com/embed/1370/19870/

Matt Sullivan: Publishing Fundamental, Unstructured FrameMaker Book

In this STC/Adobe booth interview, Matt Sullivan, co-author of “Publishing Fundamentals…” describes the process that he went through to update the book from a much earlier version of FrameMaker to current FrameMaker 11. Matt describes how this book can be a great reference for FrameMaker users, old and new.

http://tv.adobe.com/embed/1370/19868/

Kenneth Risdon: Adobe FrameMaker Saves the Day

In this STC/Adobe interview, Risdon describes a 1,000 page project that had 50 different scientists contributing and was a year overdue. The conversion to FrameMaker “saved” the project by providing sturdy document structure and many features not found in competitive products. Microsoft Word was rejected because the 1,000 page content cause major problems with swapping order and updating massive cross references and index entries.

http://tv.adobe.com/embed/1370/19867/

Val Swisher: Think Global, Act Local

In this STC/Adobe booth interview, Val Swisher explains why we need to “Think Global, Act Local.” Clearly, if this thought is held in mind at the beginning of a project, rather than making globalization and localization an after thought, content can move more swiftly and inexpensively to consumers regardless of language or locale.

http://tv.adobe.com/embed/1370/19871/

Watch for more episodes coming soon

Our mission is not only to deliver the best single source publishing tools possible, but also to enlighten, inform and inspire existing and potential customers. You may have noticed that the vast majority of these Adobe booth interviews from the STC Summit don’t even mention our products! We really appreciate the positive feedback we’ve received so far, and you that you personally benefit from these videos as much as we have.