tekom-Jahrestagung 2012 - ActiveDoc

Content Strategies
CS 6
Presentation
Transforming Technical Content
into a Business Asset
Sarah S. O’Keefe, Scriptorium Publishing, Raleigh-Durham, USA
Technical content is often the last in line for investment and innovation,
but poor content has profound effects inside and outside the organization.
Before relegating technical content to the “necessary evil” role with
minimal investment, consider whether it might actually be less expensive
to create high-quality technical information.
The issues to consider are:
−−
The real cost of low-cost documentation
−−
How to create an efficient content development process
−−
Whether high-quality documentation can lower the cost of technical
support
−−
The most cost-effective way to share technical content across the
enterprise
The fallacy of low-cost documentation
In many organizations, management pays as little attention as possible
to content. Content development is assigned to administrative staff
using whatever tools are lying around (usually Microsoft Office) or outsourced
to the lowest bidder.
It is acceptable to assess your organization’s content requirements and
embark on a strategy of producing indifferent content cheaply (the
“meh” strategy). The vast majority of organizations who adopt a laissezfaire
attitude, however, have not thought through the implications.
Here are some typical business problems that have bad documentation
as their root cause:
−−
Call volume to technical support is high.
−−
Product returns are high and sales are lost.
−−
Missing content.
−−
Cannot deliver required formats.
−−
Ugly content contradicts premium product messaging.
−−
Huge globalization costs.
−−
Technical support and other internal organizations are creating content
that duplicates documentation.
Efficient technical content development
The process of creating technical information includes writing text,
creating graphics, recording audio, and the like. A basic prerequisite for
good content strategy is that the content should be of good quality—accurate,
concise, and complete.
An efficient workflow with professional technical communicators creating
high-value information is typically the least expensive option (better,
faster, and cheaper). This correlation is explained by the following
factors:
−−
Reuse versus copy and paste. Copying and pasting is quick and easy
initially, but it is hard to maintain over time because of information
duplication.
tekom-Jahrestagung 2012
59