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by Douglas Dow
In a warm-up for her many STC conference sessions, Ann Rockley delivered an energetic presentation on "Cost-effective Single Sourcing" to an enthusiastic audience.
Before the presentation, however, chapter members witnessed the installation of officers for the 2003-2004 membership year. From right to left below, installed officers include Debbie Wiles, president; Jackie Damrau, 1st Vice President (with a stand-in Jackie, as the real one was off on a cruise); Louellen Coker, 2nd Vice President (with a more life-like stand-in in the person of Sandy Schriever); Mike Hiatt, Treasurer; Brenda Barrett, Secretary; and Marty Vick, Parliamentarian.
No sooner had new President Debbie Wiles taken the gavel than she presented Immediate Past President Kathryn Poe with a shower of gifts. Turning the tables, Kathryn then presented Debbie with many useful aids for her tenure as chapter president. In the picture below right, while Debbie tests the official gavel on her forehead, Kathryn presents Debbie with the marbles she's already lost.
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Oh, the Presentation
With varying levels of single sourcing expertise in the audience, Ann Rockley began her presentation with a short definition of single sourcing and a depiction of how it works. By creating building blocks of content, we can apply uniform content throughout the product documentation suite.
Ann identified three levels at which single sourcing can be implemented.
Why should we reuse content? Re-use increases consistency. (At my place of work, I once examined an old reference manual of data tables and field definitions. I discovered no less than six variations for a single field definition, ranging from a single typo, to a harmless rewording, to totally false information.) Reuse also reduces development and maintenance costs, not to mention the cost of translation. (Imagine the cost of translating all those variations!)
Just as there are levels of single sourcing, there are types of re-use. Opportunistic reuse depends upon the author to know of the element's existence, to retrieve it, and to use it (for Level 2 single sourcing). Systematic reuse is automatic, wherein reusable content is automatically inserted in the appropriate locations within the authoring template (for Level 3 single sourcing). Systematic reuse requires that you model and tag the information.
The up-front effort for a single-sourcing project can be expensive. Return on investment (ROI) will depend on your business goals and the scope of your effort. You can't calculate ROI until you know what your current costs are. That means gathering metrics. But as a rule, Ann sees a minimum of 25% savings in the firms in which she consults. Companies that translate generally recoup costs in a year. Those that don't translate recoup costs in about 18 to 24 months.
Known for her frank opinions on the many tools and techniques available for single sourcing, Ann focused on low-cost technology options. These include solutions that are authoring tools alone, those that include content management, and those that provide a database.
Low-cost authoring tools include FrameMaker, e-Help, Author IT, and Epic. All have single sourcing capabilities, such as multi-media publishing. E-Help includes section-level reuse, where Author IT is (in Workgroup and Enterprise editions) a content management system (CMS) as well. Epic provides a native XML editing tool.
Implicit with single sourcing is content management. As mentioned, Author IT provides a CMS. One new vendor worth watching is Siberlogic, which provides an XML-based CMS, along with integration with popular authoring tools. One little-known choice is the single-seat license for Documentum. At $600, it is a well-kept secret, and one worth looking into.
Ann closed by saying that single sourcing is an effective way to create and manage content, using a write once/use many model. It takes work to show ROI. You must know your percentage of reuse and determine your existing and future costs. However, viable low cost solutions indeed exist.
More Drawing Winners
