lavacon 2013 keynote: the common wisdom
TRANSCRIPT
@work_ajt Hashtag @LavaCon
The Common Wisdom:Reality-Based Notes from the DITA Underground
Andrew Thomas
Product Marketing Director
SDL LiveContent
• 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: [email protected] | Twitter: @work_ajt | LinkedIn: andrewjthomas
Who Am I?
• Common Sense vs. The Common Wisdom
• Why CXM?
• Why DITA?
• What’s Next?
Why Am I Here?
The Common Wisdom
“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.”
But It’s Often Wrong
Source: basilton.tumblr.com
Why CXM?
7
Source: SDL CXM Survey of 700 respondents, 6 regions and languages, conducted in Q2 2013
46% customer satisfaction
33% customer loyalty
28% customer retention
Because Executives Say So!
Source: June 6, 2011, “Competitive Strategy In The Age Of The Customer” Forrester report
Age of Manufacturing
Age of Distribution
Age of Information
Age of the Customer
Because Forrester Says So!
Industry Leaders in Customer Experience
And so does Aberdeen…
Source: AberdeenGroup Analyst Insight Paper, June 2013
4 times more likely to deliver “live” content (e.g. dynamic, contextual)
82% automate content delivery through component-based methodology
13.4% year-over-year increase in revenue
30% tailor technical communications for customers
And so does Aberdeen…
Source: AberdeenGroup Analyst Insight Paper, June 2013
3 times more likely to align content to customer segments
67% are measuring content’s impact on CXM
64% greater customer profit margin
68% year-over-year increase in customer satisfaction
Industry Leaders in Customer Experience
• Consumer experiences are driving business experiences–Limited attention time
–Socially driven
–Omnichannel expectations
–Ubiquitous voice expectations
But Really, Because Your Customers Say So
The Three Pillars of CXM
13
Insights
Orchestration
Contextual Experiences
Insights
14
Your understanding of your audiences’
interests and motivations
Orchestration
15
Your ability to align your organization across channels,
markets, languages and teams
YOUARE
HERE
Contextual Experiences
16
Creating relevant experiences for your
customers regardless of channel
• Flat vs. Dynamic
• Chunking / re-use
• Future proof
Why DITA?
DIRECT VSFLATTENED
CONTENTREUSE
FUTURE PROOF
• XML has been hard up until now–Maybe a little history of XML usage here?
–Maybe some stats on XML growth? (not sure if those even exist)
• Primary roadblock has been the steep learning curve–XML editing tools are complex
–XML is not user friendly
• How do we solve that?
Content Creators are here…
Sales & Marketing
Customer Support
Research & Development
Training & Learning
PRODUCT CONTENT
• XML has been hard up until now–Maybe a little history of XML usage here?
–Maybe some stats on XML growth? (not sure if those even exist)
• Primary roadblock has been the steep learning curve–XML editing tools are complex
–XML is not user friendly
• How do we solve that?
But need to get here
Marketing
Support
Engineering
Field ServicePersonnel
Training& Learning
Partners
PRODUCT CONTENT
The Problem
20
Flat & StaticContent
Locked inSilos
Confusing toCustomers
Not availableon all devices
The Solution
21
Modular Content
Stored Centrally
Formatted to Customer’s Need
Accessible toAll Departments
Sales &Marketing
Research &Development
CustomerSupport
Training &Learning
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
The Common Wisdom
• SME reviewers
• Webpage analytics
• Multimedia
• Responsive design
• Critical translation
• Broadcast
• SEO
Common Sense
• SME contributors
• Content analytics
• Rich media
• Adaptive design
• Complete localization
• Listen and respond
• Content Discovery
What’s Next?
• 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
Optimization & Collaboration
• 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
Rich Data
• 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
Rich Media
• 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)
Be Mobile
• 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
Be Global
• 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!
Be Social
• 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
Content Discovery
Thank You!
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