The Common Wisdom drives business but often is at odds with common sense. CXM is driving many companies to change business practices, particularly with the creation and delivery of technical content. This presentation talks about some common sense that challenges some of the common wisdom.

1. The Common Wisdom:
Reality-Based Notes from the DITA Underground
Andrew Thomas
Product Marketing Director
SDL LiveContent
@work_ajt Hashtag @LavaCon

2. Who Am I?
•
•
•
•
•
Father of two teenage boys
Recently adopted a rescue dog
Consumes all forms of media
Writes bad poetry
Implemented DITA at Adobe
for all product documentation
• Was Product Manager for
SDL WorldServer
• Is Product Marketer for
SDL LiveContent
• HUGE NERD
(HUGE)
Email: athomas@sdl.com | Twitter: @work_ajt | LinkedIn: andrewjthomas

3. First, Apologies…
CENSORED
Source: Toothpaste For Dinner.com

4. Why Am I Here?
• Common Sense vs. The
Common Wisdom
• Why CXM?
• Why DITA?
• What’s Next?

5. The Common Wisdom

6. But It’s Often Wrong
“In the early years of space flight, both Russians and
Americans used pencils in space. Unfortunately, pencil lead is
made of graphite, a highly conductive material. Snapped
graphite leads and particles in zero gravity are hugely
problematic, as they will get sucked into the air ventilation or
electronic equipment, easily causing shorts or fires in the pure
oxygen environment of a capsule.
After the fire in Apollo 1 which killed all the astronauts on board, NASA
required a writing instrument that wasn’t a fire hazard. Fisher spent over a
million dollars (of his own money) creating a pressurized ball point pen,
which NASA bought at $2.95 each. The Russian space program also
switched over from pencils shortly after.
40 years later snide morons on the internet still snigger
about it, because snide morons on the internet never
know what they are talking about.”
Source: basilton.tumblr.com

7. Why CXM?
7

8. Because Executives Say So!
46% customer satisfaction
33% customer loyalty
28% customer retention
Source: SDL CXM Survey of 700 respondents, 6 regions and languages, conducted in Q2 2013

9. Because Forrester Says So!
Age of
Information
Age of
Distribution
Age of
Manufacturing
Source: June 6, 2011, “Competitive Strategy In The Age Of The Customer” Forrester report
Age of the
Customer

10. And so does Aberdeen…
Industry Leaders in Customer Experience
30% tailor technical communications
for customers
13.4% year-over-year increase in revenue
82% automate
content delivery
through
component-based
methodology
Source: AberdeenGroup Analyst Insight Paper, June 2013
4 times more
likely to deliver
“live” content
(e.g. dynamic,
contextual)

11. And so does Aberdeen…
Industry Leaders in Customer Experience
3 times more likely to align content to
customer segments
67% are measuring content’s impact on CXM
68% year-over-year increase in
customer satisfaction
64% greater customer profit margin
Source: AberdeenGroup Analyst Insight Paper, June 2013

12. But Really, Because Your Customers Say So
• Consumer experiences are
driving business experiences
– Limited attention time
– Socially driven
– Omnichannel expectations
– Ubiquitous voice expectations

13. The Three Pillars of CXM
Insights
Contextual
Experiences
Orchestration
13

14. Insights
Your understanding
of your audiences’
interests and
motivations
14

15. Orchestration
YOU
ARE
HERE
Your ability to align
your organization
across channels,
markets, languages
15
and teams

16. Contextual Experiences
Creating relevant
experiences for your
customers regardless
16
of channel

17. Why DITA?
DIRECT VS
FLATTENED
CONTENT
REUSE
FUTURE
PROOF

18. Content Creators are here…
Research &
Development
Sales &
Marketing
Customer
Support
PRODUCT CONTENT
Training &
Learning

19. But need to get here
Marketing
Engineering
Training
& Learning
Partners
PRODUCT CONTENT
Field Service
Personnel
Support

20. The Problem
Flat & Static
Content
20
Locked in
Silos
Not available
on all devices
Confusing to
Customers

21. The Solution
Sales &
Marketing
Research &
Development
Customer
Support
Training &
Learning
Modular
Content
21
Stored
Centrally
Accessible to
All Departments
Formatted to
Customer’s Need

22. Recap from Last Year’s Survey
82% Essential to good customer service
79% Improves impression of product & brand
72% More likely to recommend a brand
79% More likely to purchase another product
Source: Golan Harris - Product Information Survey

23. What’s Next?
The Common Wisdom
Common Sense
• SME reviewers
• SME contributors
• Webpage analytics
• Content analytics
• Multimedia
• Rich media
• Responsive design
• Adaptive design
• Critical translation
• Complete localization
• Broadcast
• Listen and respond
• SEO
• Content Discovery

24. Optimization & Collaboration
• Automated quality checks
– Style Guides & Terminology
– Integrated with creation tools
• Empower SMEs
– WYSIWYG Interface
– Familiar UX
• Streamline Review
– Integrated with creation tools
– Centralized feedback loops

25. Rich Data
• Content is both larger and
smaller than the page
– Publication sets
– Multimedia & sub-topic
components (e.g. steps)
• Analyze breadcrumbs
– How do your customers traverse
your content?
– Where are they getting lost?
• Search history is crucial
– Zero-result searches
– Unused results
– Terminology mining

26. Rich Media
• YouTube is not enough
– Unbranded & uncontrolled
– Negative feedback & competitor
ads
• More than video
– Infused with metadata
– Integrated with other content
– Modular & reusable
• Context matters
– Omnichannel
– Segmented & personalized

27. Be Mobile
• Ubiquitous access
– No such thing as one channel
– PDFs are not acceptable!
– Responsive design is not enough
• Adaptive design is the future
– Pages & screen sizes are
irrelevant
– Focus on the experience
• Best opportunity to impress
– Integrate support
– Take advantage of mobile
contexts (GPS, camera)

28. Be Global
• Strategize
– Translate 100% of your content
– Manage reusable content
– Integrate machine translation
• Prioritize
– Let content analytics drive
decisions
– Quality metrics determine human
involvement
• Localize
– Determine best channels by region
– Use dynamic multimedia for greater
cultural relevance

29. Be Social
• Listen first
– Find customer conversations
– Gain insights from content
analytics
• Conversations are two-way
– Direct feedback loops
– Channel and language agnostic
• Enable sharing
– Build into your content
– Social channels are regional
– Work with Marketing!

30. Content Discovery
• Learn SEO
– No search results = wasted effort
– Structure helps
• SEO is only the beginning
– Faceted search
– Incorporate results from other
repositories (e.g. support
knowledgebase, marketing)
• Automate recommendations
– Retail has revolutionized this
– “See also” based on similar
customer behavior

31. Thank You!

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