Sarah O'Keefe discusses how you can improve business results with better technical communication.

1. background image
flickr: spierzchala
The
business
case
for
better
tech
comm
Sarah O’Keefe (@sarahokeefe)
Scriptorium Publishing (@scriptorium)

2. Sarah
O’Keefe
@sarahokeefe
❖ Founder and president, Scriptorium
Publishing, www.scriptorium.com
❖ Based in North Carolina
❖ Coauthor with Alan Pringle of Content
Strategy 101 (September 2012!)
❖ Interested in collision of content,
publishing, and technology

3. Before
we
begin…
❖ Everyone is muted except for the
presenter
❖ Please ask your questions through the
Questions area in the webcast interface
❖ The presentation is being recorded;
attendees do not appear in the
recording

4. Agenda
❖ Business case components
❖ Typical tech comm business cases
❖ Address legal and regulatory issues
❖ Control cost of tech comm
❖ Improve marketing and product
visibility

5. “They’ll
never
pay
for
that.”
flickr: johnloo

6. They
don’t
see
the
value.
flickr: jamescronin

7. Justify
your
approach.
flickr: bagsup

8. Business
case
components
❖ Current situation
❖ Recommendation
❖ Costs
❖ Benefits
❖ Risk assessment

9. Business
case
patterns
❖ Address legal and regulatory issues
❖ Control cost of tech comm
❖ Improve marketing and product
visibility

10. Legal
and
regulatory flickr: jdickert

11. Legal
and
regulatory
❖ More efficient compliance
❖ Avoid legal complications

12. Control
the
cost
of
tech
comm
❖ Efficient content development
❖ Reduce the cost of technical support
❖ Content collaboration

13. Myth:
Cheap
documentation
flickr: mjryall

14. Typical
problems
❖ Content is available only in a single
output format (usually PDF)
❖ Content is useless:
❖ “In the Name field, type the person’s
name.”
❖ Content is hard to understand, not
available in right languages

15. Cost
of
bad
content
❖ High call volume to technical support
❖ Product returns; lost sales
❖ Regulatory submission delayed or rejected
❖ Contradicts marketing
❖ Huge globalization costs
❖ Content duplication

16. Efficient
content
development
❖ Reuse
❖ Formatting and production
❖ Localization

17. Reuse
flickr: mikecogh

18. Formatting
and
production
flickr: a_cooper

19. Localization
flickr: ezioman

20. Scaling
your
content
workflow

21. Reducing
the
cost
of
technical
support
flickr: vitorcastillo

22. Call
deflection
flickr: billrice

23. Some
statistics
on
technical
support
❖ 6–20% of revenue (higher number for
smaller companies)
❖ $6–36 per transaction (lower number if
outsourced)
Source: Softletter and the Association of Support Professionals, www.asponline.com/tscr.pdf

24. $150,000
$112,500
Cost savings (per year)
1% call deflection
2% call deflection
$75,000
$37,500
$0
under $5M $5–$10M $10M+ $100M+
Company revenues

25. Obstacles
to
efficient
phone
support

26. A
troubling
pattern
flickr: pasukaru76

27. Conflict
between
tech
comm
and
tech
support flickr: jdhancock

28. Content
collaboration
flickr: smemon

29. Tech
comm
plus…
❖ Technical support
❖ Product design and development
❖ Training and education
❖ Software
❖ Online help
❖ Product interface labels

30. Collaboration
workflow

31. Marketing
and
product
visibility
❖ Supporting marketing with technical
content
❖ Increasing product visibility
❖ Building user community

32. flickr: shoppeolina
Reinforce
the
marketing
message

33. flickr: bokchoi-snowpea

34. http://www.tipsandtricks-hq.com/wordpress-estore-plugin-complete-solution-to-
sell-digital-products-from-your-wordpress-blog-securely-1059

35. Increase
product
visibility
flickr: frikitiki

36. Content
requirements
for
product
visibility
❖ Searchable
❖ Findable
❖ Discoverable

37. Building
user
community
flickr: roberto8080

38. flickr: tadsonbussey

39. Align
tech
comm
with
business
flickr: mulmatsherm

40. Business
cases
❖ The organization’s business goal is A.
❖ Tech comm needs to do B to support/
accomplish/improve A.
❖ Doing B will cost X and increase
revenue/save Y over n years.
❖ Y > X.

41. Sample
business
cases
❖ http://www.contentstrategy101.com/
❖ 8 case studies
❖ Sample cost calculations

42. Content Strategy 101
Transform Technical Content into a Business Asset
❖ Available September 2012
❖ Currently in final
proofreading/production/
panic stages
Sarah S. O’Keefe and Alan S. Pringle
Foreword by Ann Rockley
❖ Print, EPUB, and Kindle
❖ Or FREE on
www.contentstrategy101.com

43. Upcoming
events
❖ Content strategy for tech comm webcast with
Alan Pringle
❖ To DITA or not to DITA webcast with Alyssa
Fox and Toni Mantych
❖ Lavacon conference (Portland, OR)
❖ tekom/tcworld (Germany)
❖ Register/more information at
www.scriptorium.com/events

44. Questions?