ConVEx San Jose Presentations
The ConVEx San Jose program offers career-empowering knowledge, practical solutions, best practices, and the best networking in the industry.
IMPORTANT PROGRAMMING NOTE
The lineup and schedule posted here are based on current commitments from presenters and are subject to change.
Wednesday ~ April 9, 2025
Leading the Generative AI Technical Content Journey in Your Organization
Barreling down the tracks straight towards all technical documentation teams is generative AI. Many doc teams feel like they’re in a horse and buggy watching the AI train go by or like they’re being forced onto the train with no say on where it’s headed. At worst, teams feel stuck on the tracks watching the AI train bear down on them.
Instead of being an onlooker, a simple passenger, or getting run over by the generative AI train, doc teams can become a conductor, playing a role in driving the generative AI technical content experience in their organization.
In this presentation, we will share how our technical documentation team is a conductor of a generative AI train in our company. We’ll explain how we kick started a documentation-based LLM that is now available in-product to our customers. We’ll describe how we collaborated with data scientists and engineers to build and train the model and became involved in productizing, testing, and improving the model. We’ll also discuss how we have developed general standards for testing doc LLMs and for writing for LLMs.
Ashlee Brinan & Rajesh Sivanarayanan, Informatica
Ashlee Brinan has been in the technical documentation space for 25 years. She has been with Informatica for most of that time. She is now the Senior Director of Documentation at Informatica, leading the cloud documentation team, a technical multimedia content team, and the internal process and operational documentation team.
Ashlee is passionate about creating useful, helpful, and effective content in different formats that assists users. She is equally passionate about mentoring and coaching individuals who can collectively form a successful and collaborative team that creates great technical content.
In addition to her tech writing role, Ashlee has been part of Informatica’s IDEB (Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Belonging) steering committee and is now a member of a generative AI tiger team which is dedicated to expanding AI knowledge, understanding, and usage in the Informatica Products organization.
Rajesh Sivanarayanan is Director of Documentation at Informatica, with over 20 years of experience in technical writing. For the last 14 years at Informatica, Rajesh has been overseeing product documentation for various on-prem products and cloud services. He played a key role in leading a Documentation LLM testing strategy for CLAIRE GPT, Informatica’s AI-powered platform. Rajesh’s expertise in documentation strategy and AI integration makes him a valuable contributor to innovation in technical content delivery.
Content Conversion Hacks: Tips and Tricks for Success
During our journey from unstructured content to DITA, we decided to manage content conversions without outsourcing. I’ll discuss how we tackled this project, including strategic planning, what tools we used to help batch-process content, and what we learned along the way.
Adelheid Certik, Mizuho OSI
Adelheid Certik is Assistant Manager, Technical Writing, at Mizuho OSI. She leads a small but mighty team of technical writers to create, update, and release user documentation for medical devices. She has worked as a Technical Writer for 20 years in the medical device and semiconductor space, and has recently been leading her team through their transition from unstructured writing to structured topic-based writing using DITA.
How In-App Content Experience Accelerates Product Adoption
Accelerating product adoption is a key goal for any product development organization. In this presentation, I will demonstrate how content teams can play a crucial role in helping their organizations achieve this goal.
We will go through a journey of how we applied design thinking principles to define a content solution to empower our users with the contextually relevant information they need to succeed with our products. Through the course of this journey, we established:
– In-app content-specific development and governance practices to scale.
– Quantitative and qualitative data-oriented frameworks to help us measure and demonstrate success.
Aditi Kashikar, Automation Anywhere
Aditi brings over 18 years of experience in the product content space, having worked in diverse domains, such as enterprise content management, networking, and software automation.
She heads a global product content team at Automation Anywhere, a leader in enterprise automation.
She is passionate about enabling product adoption and customer success through content. She is equally passionate about building global, user-centric teams that are innovative and deliver exceptional content experiences.
A builder of strong partnerships with cross-functional stakeholders and technology vendors to drive innovation and continuous improvement.
She has participated in initiatives to share knowledge and give back to the community as a thought leader, speaker, trainer, and mentor.
Is DITA Just a Story?
At first glance the worlds of structured technical documentation and fiction would seem to be far removed from each other. Yet appearances can be deceiving. Is DITA’s Concept, Procedure and Reference model that different from a typical story’s three-act Beginning, Middle, and End?
In this presentation Alan J. Porter will leverage his 30+ years experience in technical publishing along with his work as an author of high-adventure short stories and novellas to compare and contrast the two models. Along the way he will discuss how storytelling techniques can be equally applied to DITA-based structured authoring resulting in more customer focused technical documentation.
Alan Porter, The Content Pool
Alan J. Porter is first and foremost a storyteller, with close to 40 fiction and non-fiction book publishing credits and hundreds of magazine articles. He is the Founder and Chief Content Officer of The Content Pool, that empowers brands to create exceptional customer experiences by leveraging their greatest hidden asset – the content.
He has held senior leadership roles in Content Operations, Product Marketing, and Customer Experience.
Named one of the Top 25 Content Strategy Influencers and a Digital Strategy thought leader.
Building AI Assistants for DITA XML Workflows
DITA can address many complex requirements and scenarios with its robust, topic-oriented, and information-typed content that can be reused and single-sourced. Managing a DITA project involves numerous tasks and areas that demand attention. Introducing an AI Assistant to handle some of these tasks can significantly alleviate this burden, enhancing efficiency and productivity.
Alexandru Jitianu, Syncro Soft, Oxygen XML Editor
Alex Jitianu has been working for more than 15 years for Syncro Soft Ltd., the producer of the popular Oxygen XML Editor. During this period, his main focus has been in the development of technical documentation tools and DITA specific support.
Love Your Agent of Change: Embracing Your Partner in Transformation
Last ConVEx we explored the value of the Curmudgeon-this year we’re focusing on the Agent of Change.
Business today is in a state of flux. If you want to remain relevant, you need to be ready to leverage new opportunities (like AI) and evolve to meet changing business needs. All successful transformation initiatives have one thing in common: an informed and responsive Agent of Change.
In this presentation, Amber Swope and Dan Schommer share a blueprint for working with or as Agents of Change. They draw on their experience in change initiatives to prepare you for navigating transformation, whether you’re the one initiating change, resisting it, or living somewhere in between.
Amber Swope, DITA Strategies
Amber Swope is an internationally recognized DITA expert and information architect. With over 20 years of experience in information development and 15 with DITA, Amber aids organizations in creating opportunity through IA. She helps teams build scalable IA solutions to future-enable their content and mentors team members to advance the IA as it evolves to meet new business needs.
Dan Schommer, Intuitive Stack
With over 20 years of project and program management experience working on large capital projects and programs, Dan Schommer has led cross functional teams in planning and executing building projects throughout the US and Puerto Rico with a total budget near $500M. Cross functional teams have included partners in Construction, IT, Design, Architecture, Marketing, GNFR and Deployment.
Skeleton Documents for Easier Modelling, Testing, and Output Styling
Your content likely has a skeleton or two in the closet. Expose them with the concept of a skeleton document! Often, we use several entire production content sets as examples when developing custom outputs. Or, when deploying a new content management system, we can’t start our output development because a usable conversion of our original content is not yet available. Later, when upgrading any part of our tools, be it using a newer DITA open toolkit, or upgrade to our authoring tools or content management system, we run through limited scenarios with real content, only to find later there’s an issue with some obscure material after the update is done. Everyone using DITA has a need to test content development processes and customizing or updating output plugins. Let’s learn how to make practical skeleton documents to use for these purposes. This document modeling method alone will help you think through and possibly implement some streamlined testing protocols for scenarios such as upgrades, updates, and customization at any point in your project, whether it is a new deployment, conversion, or minor tweaks to your custom outputs.
Amy Kidd, MadCap Software
Amy Kidd is currently a DITA Specialist at MadCap Software with the Professional Services team for the IXIA CCMS. She has a background in content creation and management including positions as Technical Writer, Documentation Manager, Product Manager, and Technology Manager, for software and hardware projects in the Industrial Automation and Computer Science industries. She still makes a mean burrito inspired from her very first job slinging tacos. You may know her from the Society for Technical Communication, where she has spoken at the STC – East Tennessee Chapter events. Her experience in the US Army in Information Systems just makes learning from her more fun because if you mess up the markup, you do pushups.
How to Meet Users with Content Using a Journey Map
In today’s digital landscape, timing the delivery of right content is crucial for engaging users and driving meaningful conversions to create a seamless user experience. This session will explore the powerful tool of journey mapping to meet users’ needs effectively throughout their touchpoints as well as interaction with your brand.
Anu Singh, Fiserv
Anu’s background as a Ph.D. in English Literature led her to believe in the enormity of the human mind, its thoughts, feelings and the social paradigm it creates and coexists in.
Anu can help you connect the dots between a great product experience and a successful product adoption for customers with a focus on enabling client’s success through adaptive and predictive information around their needs. She possesses numerous degrees and certifications, and loves reading about culture, new technologies and stories in the novel or short-story format.
Content Quality, the Key Ingredient to a Successful AI Implementation
AI is revolutionizing the way we design, develop, and support complex products. But there’s one critical factor that often goes unaddressed when it comes to successfully utilizing A.I.
During this presentation, I’ll explore:
- How AI is transforming product design and development.
- The key element crucial to leveraging A.I. effectively.
- Practical strategies to navigate challenges and seize opportunities in the AI landscape.
Berry Braster, Etteplan
Berry is the Technology Director at Etteplan, a technology service provider with over 4000 specialists in the fields of engineering, IoT and technical documentation. He has over 24 years of experience in technical content, his team has trained over 3500 writers and SMEs, and implemented content quality checking software in various industries.
From Writers to Engineers: The Evolution of Product Content Engineering
In this presentation, we’ll take a deep dive into the journey of transforming a team from technical writers into a fully-fledged Product Content Engineering (PCE) group. Starting with documentation, we progressed into tools development and finally into engineering, establishing unique best practices along the way. We’ll discuss the challenges we faced, the solutions we created, and how we’ve reshaped our role to contribute to both content strategy and technology. Attendees will learn about our evolution, how we’ve invented best practices for PCE, and actionable insights to apply in their own teams.
Beth Lemesany, ServiceNow
Beth Lemesany is the manager of the Product Content Engineering team at ServiceNow with 12 years in the TechPubs community. Beth and her team are dedicated to driving innovation at ServiceNow to enhance how internal partners reuse content so that customers can have a consistent experience across ServiceNow web properties, while enhancing the documentation writing and build processes for ServiceNow content creators.
Dawn Bunting, ServiceNow
Dawn Bunting is a Principal Software Engineer at ServiceNow. Dawn started at ServiceNow in 2014 as a technical writer, and has lived the evolution from author to engineer. Dawn has been a devotee of software since Apple’s 1984 Macintosh commercial.
Power of Collaboration: Transforming Content Development for the Modern User
In an era where user expectations are at an all-time high, collaboration stands as a crucial pillar in transforming content development. This session will delve into the strategic advantages of fostering a collaborative environment among content creators, stakeholders, and users. Drawing from real-world examples, we will explore how organizations can optimize their content operations by identifying bottlenecks and leveraging collaborative practices to enhance efficiency and engagement.
Participants will learn how to implement a collaborative workflow that aligns with the principles of intelligent content, allowing teams to focus on high-value tasks rather than getting bogged down by operational inefficiencies. We will discuss the role of technology, including AI, in streamlining collaboration and enhancing content delivery.
By examining case studies from various industries, attendees will gain insights into creating a robust content strategy that not only meets user needs but also maximizes return on investment. Join us to discover how a collaborative approach can turn content development into a strategic advantage, empowering teams to deliver exceptional user experiences across the customer journey.
Bhavya Aggarwal, zipBoard Tech Inc
As the CEO of zipBoard, Bhavya Aggarwal drives innovation in collaborative content development solutions. With a focus on enhancing document management and review processes in the various industries, she leverages her extensive experience in project management and technology to streamline workflows and improve user engagement. Bhavya is passionate about empowering teams to achieve operational efficiency through collaboration, ensuring that content meets the evolving needs of clients. An advocate for the integration of advanced technologies like AI, visual collaboration in content strategies, she actively participates in industry discussions and conferences to share insights and best practices for transforming content development in the modern landscape.
Navigating Content Strategy in an Evolving Digital Landscape
Explore how Pega’s content strategy adapts to the constant shifting of digital trends and expectations of our documentation site users. From embracing content strategy basics to leveraging new technologies and tools, see how Pega has established a future-proof content strategy that is built for evolution.
Brandon Lamontagne, Pegasystems
Brandon brings well over a decade of expertise in content strategy, focusing on SEO, information architecture, and unifying content experiences. Passionate about helping users connect with their content, he excels in conducting thorough research to understand market trends and user needs. This research-driven approach informs projects that integrate data-driven practices with thoughtful information architecture, enhancing user engagement and visibility. Seasoned at aligning content with business goals, Brandon transforms complex digital ecosystems into cohesive, intuitive experiences with a commitment to evolving content strategies that drive traffic and ensure seamless user journeys across platforms.
Practical Large Scale Implementation Processing
Case Study: This presentation will describe the problem and solution (and journey) of content transformation to make NA content most suitable for the markets in which we support.
The solution used Gen AI and tool integrations.
Charles Dowdell, Komatsu North America
Charles has been involved in Technical Communications management for 25 years. He is veteran presenter at various conferences regarding Technical Communications. He is experienced in managing global teams, heavy equipment, medical devices and has traveled extensively around the world.
Unlocking DITA ROI: How to Build a Winning Business Case
DITA (Darwin Information Typing Architecture) is a powerful tool for managing technical content, but how do you get buy-in from decision-makers? This session presents how to build a compelling business case that demonstrates DITA’s potential for cost savings, scalability, and content reuse. You’ll learn how to present hard data and success stories to stakeholders, showing them the tangible ROI of DITA adoption. We’ll cover real-life case studies of companies that have seen significant transformations in their content strategies and bottom line through DITA.
Dipo Ajose-Coker
After relocating to France in 2005, Dipo completed an MA in Multilingual and Multimedia Document Conception at the Université Paris Cité. He then spent 18 years combining his love for language and IT skills in various roles, serving as a structured and unstructured content technical writer, DITA migration project leader, technical editor, and proofreader in the Fintech and MedTech device industries.
In 2021, Dipo transitioned into Content Creation and Marketing. Acting as the crucial link between developers and the end users, occupying the sweet spot between expectation and delivery, Dipo represents both the voice of the user and that of the software developer, acting as the quintessential middleman. Feel free to connect with and follow Dipo on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dipocoker/
Translation as a Feature Fueled by TechComm
Thanks to AI, many technology companies publishing software solutions helping companies managing some content such as CRMs, Web sites marketing campaigns, community management, corporate Intranet or collaboration platforms, propose Translation as a Feature (TaaF) as an option. Although the feature makes sense and despite the LLMs promises, the quality is not always satisfying especially for customer facing content leading to potential liabilities. At the same time, our TechComm industry is challenged by these innovative processes and technologies.
In this talk, I will present how to reconcile both worlds by leveraging the TechComm assets and quality to improve the efficiency of TaaF to deliver multilingual content in all corporate techno solutions. Beyond the vision, I will also introduce a practical application of this policy.
Dominique Trouche, WhP, A Languagewire Company
Dominique managed several multinational operations in various European countries, the US and South America, prior to joining WhP in 2005 as Managing Director. He opened the subsidiaries in Slovakia, China and North America. Heading Consulting and Innovation at WhP is an expert helping companies engage with their global audience using localization, specializing in: XML Technical documentation, especially DITA, and eLearning.
Content Ops - Enabling Information Architecture for AI
With the advent of AI influencing every aspect of content, organizations are realizing the power of Content Operations. The benefits and positive impact of Content Ops has become more and more front & center. We still want our authors to mostly focus on content creation and let our tools and CCMSs manage Content Ops and rarely want to worry about how those platforms work. But with the requirement of content to be dynamic, customizable, change/adapt real time, clear understanding and working knowledge of content operations can no longer be an after thought.
Eeshita Grover, Cisco
With 20+ years of experience in content creation, management, and strategy, I am passionate about leveraging the power of content to market, sell, communicate, and persuade our audiences.
At Cisco, I lead the end user content experience and deliverables for the Cisco Networking product portfolio.
Classification Madness : Applying a Corporate Taxonomy to DITA
ServiceNow maintains a corporate taxonomy for its products, which was only weakly reflected in the product documentation. As part of a larger corporate information customer satisfaction improvement initiative, Product Content implemented a process to classify the ServiceNow Platform product documentation using the taxonomy. This process involved both automatic and authored classification, including the use of SubjectScheme maps to drive both authoring and delivery of content on servicenow.com/docs. This paper presents the implementation decisions we made, describes how our classification processes works, and outlines the governance and maintenance processes for managing the classifications as the taxonomy and content evolves.
Eliot Kimber, ServiceNow
Eliot Kimber is a founding and current member of the DITA Technical Committee and a long-time speaker and writer on DITA and other structured markup subjects. Eliot has worked to apply DITA to many different industries, including commercial publishing as well as many different technical domains. Eliot is co-editor of ISO/IEC 10744:1996, HyTime, and a founding member of the W3C XML Working Group. When not bending DITA-based publishing systems to his will, Eliot lives in Austin, Texas with his wife and daughter. Eliot holds a black belt in Aikido and is an avid cook.
Scott Hudson, ServiceNow
Scott Hudson is a Senior Staff Technical Content Architect at ServiceNow. He is also a long-time member of the OASIS DocBook and DITA Technical Committees. He specializes in content architecture, optimizing the DITA authoring experience, creating author assistance using Schematron and Vale, and evaluating new information technologies. He is a shameless Sci-Fi geek and head referee for Colorado FIRST Lego League. Visit his blog at: http://shudson310.blogspot.com
Bridging Knowledge Gaps: Custom GPT Solutions for Technical Documentation
Technical communicators face the challenge of conveying complex concepts to beginners, experts, and those in between, while tailoring content to meet each audience’s specific needs. How do you ensure newcomers grasp the basics without losing advanced users? This session addresses this challenge using custom GPT models to adapt content for diverse audiences.
We will walk through the step-by-step process of building a custom GPT that addresses a practical technical communication need. Once built, it will transform a single piece of content into three distinct versions, specifically designed for beginner, intermediate, and expert users-in seconds.
By the end of the session, you will know how to:
- Develop effective documentation without requiring advanced coding skills
- Make your content strategy more adaptable
- Implement AI-driven solutions that result in more impactful documentation
- Brainstorm near-endless use cases for custom GPTs for your organization
Erin Servais, AI for Editors
Erin Servais is an editor and instructor who teaches editors to upskill with artificial intelligence. She serves on the board of directors for ACES: The Society for Editing and has taught editing at the University of California, San Diego. Erin has presented about editing and artificial intelligence for the Professional Editors Network, the Editorial Freelancers Association, Editors Canada, the Northwest Editors Guild, and the Book Industry Study Group, and she is a returning guest lecturer at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Journalism and Media. Since launching her AI for Editors course in August 2023, she has taught it to students in over 25 countries and now offers customized corporate training based on the curriculum.
Hitachi Vantara’s Journey to Next-Level Content Experience
Hitachi Vantara set out to revolutionize its Content Experience, driven by a vision crafted by the technical documentation team. From the outset, this transformation was to provide highly personalized experience and user journey but also how it reflects on the Hitachi Vantara brand and how well it ties in to business goals. To bring this vision to life, Hitachi Vantara needed more than just a portal-they required a flexible, future-proof platform capable of supporting diverse use cases across the organization and anticipating on fast-moving customer demands.
Choosing a powerful Content Delivery Platform didn’t just support Hitachi Vantara’s content strategy-it redefined how they connect with users, fostering ongoing innovation through co-creation with the chosen solution. Join us to discover how Hitachi Vantara’s approach to Content Experience is setting new standards across the industry.
Fabrice Lacroix, FluidTopics
Fabrice Lacroix is a serial entrepreneur and a web pioneer. He has been working for 25 years on the development of innovative solutions around search technology, content enrichment and AI. He is the founder of Fluid Topics, the leading Content Delivery Platform that reinvents how users search, read and interact with technical documentation.
Jyoti Ramchandra, Hitachi Vantara
Jyoti leads the technical publications team at Hitachi Vantara, where she champions customer success by delivering a world-class information experience. Her focus is on providing users with relevant product information at the right time and in the right format. With 25 years of experience in the technical writing field, she has identified and assessed the various factors that contribute to a great customer experience, emphasizing the importance of creating content that delivers value and relevance to customers in building brand loyalty.
Supercharging Maintenance Business Through Advanced DITA Delivery
Many industrial companies have heavy focus on maintenance business. With the introduction of connectivity, IoT and remote monitoring data, companies can monitor the status of equipment in real time, proceed to fix before breakage and implement condition based maintenance programs.
But where does the human fit into this? In many cases, the maintenance technicians are a crucial part of the maintenance business, performing preventive maintenance checks, repairing and replacing components, and troubleshooting. The data flowing from connected equipment can help them perform these tasks more efficiently and safely, but how do you turn the data flow into smart task-based information that properly guides them? By leveraging DITA delivery!
With smartly designed DITA tasks and advanced dynamic delivery, we can deliver real-time instructions to technicians to support their work. With the technicians getting the exact information that they need without having to look for it, their work is performed efficiently and that turns into value for maintenance business. Time is money, and in the context of industrial maintenance, it can translate into millions.
Hanna Heinonen, Kone Corporation
Hanna Heinonen is the Digital Content Lead and Service Product Owner for Technical Content Strategy and Technology at Kone Corporation, Finland. She is specialized in information architecture and design, user-centered, task-based documentation, DITA XML, and content management systems and tools. Hanna has researched what XR can offer to technical communications and has a PhD in Interactive Technology. Her current research interests include the industrial metaverse and GenAI, both in the context of technical communication.
DITA, iiRDS, Asset Administration Shell: Addressing Skills Shortages
DITA provides a structural framework for technical documentation, organizing content into thematic, standalone topics. These topics can be compiled into maps to create books or documents. However, with the looming skills shortage and a generational change in how data is consumed, there is an increasing demand for delivering context-relevant information to service personnel, helping them address one issue at a time. Furthermore, imagine associating information topics directly with sensor data or machine states. This cannot be achieved with DITA alone, as DITA lacks the ability to link information and create interconnected data graphs. By integrating iiRDS-based metadata into DITA, these capabilities can be unlocked. Using RDF-based schemas, it becomes easy to link and structure information in this way. In Europe, efforts are underway to standardize information structures for items such as the Digital Twin, facilitating the exchange of information between OEMs and suppliers. The relevant container structure for this is the Asset Administration Shell (AAS). Within the AAS, sub-models (currently 89 sub-models exist for different types of information, such as 3D CAD) standardize data. A specific sub-model, “Intelligent Information for Use,” has been developed to enable seamless semantic transfer and use of DITA topics via iiRDS between different parties.
Harald Stadlbauer, NINEFEB
Harald is General Manager of the NINEFEB Group of companies, dedicated to the advancement of Technical Communication, like Technical Documentation as well as eLearning to the intelligent delivery of it. He is actively engaged in developing iiRDS further as well as contributing to the AAS (Asset Administration Shell) submodels of the IDTA (Industrial Digital Twin Association).
John Waters, Jana Corp
John spent several years in the US Army as Maintenance Manager and Programme Manager. He switched to Technical Writing as Technical Publication Leader for GE Aviation. Finally, he is acting as S1000D Consultant for JANA Corporation and as S1000D Steering Committee Member.
Bridging the Gap Between TechDoc and FieldService and Support
While DITA was designed for content creation, iiRDS is designed for content delivery – a perfect combination. In our presentation, we will show how we automatically generate a generic content graph from DITA and then transform it into iiRDS to make the content retrievable more easily. This allows for much better and more targeted search results. We can even semi-automatically package relevant parts of the documentation to answer specific questions or fulfill specific use cases. In addition, Asset Administration Shell (AAS) submodels enable the automatic provision of additional metadata that enhances the iiRDS graph, e.g. directly selecting the right product variant for specific content. The AAS is regarded as the specific general tool to realize the Digital Product Passport requirements of the EU, with a submodel iiRDS inside, possible to extend DITA.
Our presentation is based on work for an international Bolter Miner manufacturer. The use case aims to support the service technician with intelligent content that allows a targeted search in the technical documentation and provides only the relevant parts and solutions for problems and indications of hazardous situations for a given support request.
Helmut Nagy, Semantic Web Company
Helmut is COO of Semantic Web Company (SWC), the provider of the PoolParty Semantic Suite. SWC is headquartered in Vienna, Austria, but operates globally. PoolParty Semantic Suite is used by over 200 organizations to provide semantic AI solutions. Helmut is a well-known expert in the field of knowledge management and semantic AI. He has worked with global organizations to help them develop and implement their knowledge and AI strategies. Helmut is co-author of The Knowledge Graph Cookbook.
Harald Stadlbauer, NINEFEB
Harald is General Manager of the NINEFEB Group of companies, dedicated to the advancement of Technical Communication, like Technical Documentation as well as eLearning to the intelligent delivery of it. He is actively engaged in developing iiRDS further as well as contributing to the AAS (Asset Administration Shell) submodels of the IDTA (Industrial Digital Twin Association).
Optimizing Content for Retrieval-Augmented Generation Solutions
When you create a retrieval augmented generation (RAG) solution, you must analyze the format and structure of the content to determine what preprocessing needs to be done. However, the content for many RAG solutions is a doc set that is actively being updated, in the process of being created, or still in the planning stage. If the content for your RAG solution is dynamic, then it can be adapted to be more accessible to generative AI models. Adapting content for generative AI can compensate for tooling limitations or even replace the need for some types of processing. We updated our writing style to accommodate AI based on testing our content in foundation model prompts and developed a feedback loop to improve poor model responses by updating our content. Furthermore, we found that some updates to our writing style for AI actually improved the content for our human readers. For example, our guidelines resulted in improved clarity and simplified formatting. By fully explaining diagrams in text, we conformed to accessibility guidelines and prevented the need for expensive image-to-text processing.
Inge Halilovic, IBM
Inge Halilovic has been a technical writer for over 30 years. She is currently a Senior Content Strategist at IBM. She worked on documentation and UI text for relational databases, data science tools, and data governance tools. She is currently working on the generative AI platform, watsonx.
She led an IBM-wide workstream to develop guidelines on how to adapt content for AI. Those guidelines are now part of IBM Style and implemented by content teams across IBM.
Inge is dedicated to developing new ways to improve content structure, content reuse, writer efficiency, and documentation processes. She leads a team of over 25 writers who single-source thousands of topics between 4 doc sets that are updated with weekly or monthly product releases.
Fighting Words: DITA and The Battle for Better Content
Reeling from a one-two punch of scattered and inaccessible content? Ready to transform chaotic content into a seamless user experience? Let’s hit the mat in this session, where Jake Campbell shares how he trained a scattered group of content using a combo of robust metadata and content filtering to publish player-specific rules guides. Get in the ring and find out how you can apply these lessons to your own content processes.
In this session, attendees will learn:
- How DITA makes your content more flexible
- How to use out-of-the-box DITA structures to streamline production and customize output
- How to map content to DITA
- How to build robust, relevant metadata
Jake Campbell, Scriptorium
Jake is a seasoned technical consultant specializing in multichannel publishing solutions through DITA systems and metadata. With a background in e-learning development and software QA testing, he excels at collaborating across disciplines to develop efficient workflows that align with business goals. Jake’s approach is process-driven and solution-focused, ensuring that organization’s receive clear, actionable outcomes that enhance their content delivery and operations. Outside of work, you’ll find Jake enjoying Korean food and playing and designing all manner of games-board, video, and more!
How We Live in the Shadows: Taxonomy in Large Wikis
Creating a complete, flexible, and usable information architecture (IA) strategy can be tricky at the best of times.
When trying to apply an IA strategy to an already existing, expansive, internal wiki used by 1,400 collaborators, it can feel like a Herculean effort to try and construct a taxonomy in an active environment.
Where do you start? What is your taxonomy going to look like? How do you maintain structure, quality, and modern documentation standards in a wiki environment where people are encouraged to do whatever they want, whenever they want?
Come join the Crunchyroll panel as we discuss how we implemented a modern and flexible IA strategy across a 40,000 page wiki, generated excitement and buy-in for our processes, and how we developed standard processes to maintain the infrastructure as easily as possible. We’ll share what went well, what could have gone better, and what we learned along the way.
Jeffrey Scattini, Crunchyroll
Jeff Scattini is a Senior Technical Documentation Manager at Crunchyroll. He prides himself of being the first technical writer Crunchyroll ever hired. Previously, he was one of the inaugural judges for the Customer Experience Recognition Awards (CERA) and has both presented at STC as well as been a part of an STC panel on emotional intelligence. He has worked for any number of start-ups, fortune 100 companies, and governmental agencies. His current claim to fame is authoring a number of Calm.com sleep stories.
Haley Helgesen, Crunchyroll
Haley Helgesen is a Senior Technical Writer at Crunchyroll. She has been fortunate to work with a variety of entertainment companies including EA Games and Blizzard Entertainment. Haley is also a MLIS student whose focus on information architecture, metadata, and HCI theory makes her a passionate and outspoken advocate on usable and accessible documentation systems. When not at work or school, she likes quilting and listening to Enya.
Lindsay Bachman, Crunchyroll
Lindsay Bachman is a Senior Technical Writer at Crunchyroll. She has had a long and varied career in instructional design and content development, professional certification development, and most recently in technical writing and editing. Lindsay is passionate about andragogy, content design, and content architecture and how the intersection of these disciplines informs technical communication. In her downtime, Lindsay enjoys reading, crafting, and putting together LEGO sets.
Tactics for Successful RAG Solutions
Generative AI is taking many industries by storm. Retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), in particular, has the potential to revolutionize readers’ content experience. The fuel for large language model (LLM) applications and RAG solutions is the content we produce for product documentation, support portals, marketing material, and so on. This panel will tackle discussions on how you can ensure your content is AI ready and update existing content in response to AI. In addition, we’ll touch on tooling for testing and evaluating how well your AI is performing.
Jenifer Schlotfeldt, IBM
Jenifer drives the docs business of IBM Cloud, from technology to tooling to content strategy. As the Senior Technical Staff Member in this space, she leads a team of software engineers, content engineers, and content designers who own the IBM Cloud Content Experience. Not only is the team supporting the continuous delivery of the IBM Cloud Docs and API Docs, but they also embrace DevOps and Design Thinking practices. More recently Jenifer has also been contributing to the AI strategy in IBM Cloud. She is also the co-author of “DITA Best Practices: A Roadmap for Writing, Editing, and Architecting in DITA” and author of several industry articles.
Sarah Packowski, IBM
Sarah joined IBM in 2000 as a developer. Currently, she designs, builds, and integrates AI solutions – including generative AI and specialized, video-search technologies – into processes and tools by day. With a background in robotics, image processing, and neural networks, Sarah experiments with alternative input devices, drones, and Smart Farm applications on a horse farm near Ottawa, Canada, as an inventor by night.
Inge Halilovic, IBM
Inge Halilovic has been a technical writer for over 30 years. She is currently a Senior Content Strategist at IBM. She worked on documentation and UI text for relational databases, data science tools, and data governance tools. She is currently working on the generative AI platform, watsonx.
She led an IBM-wide workstream to develop guidelines on how to adapt content for AI. Those guidelines are now part of IBM Style and implemented by content teams across IBM.
Inge is dedicated to developing new ways to improve content structure, content reuse, writer efficiency, and documentation processes. She leads a team of over 25 writers who single-source thousands of topics between 4 doc sets that are updated with weekly or monthly product releases.
Navigating AI with Knowledge Graphs
At the beginning of 2023, a team involving Amber Swope, Lief Erickson, Mark Novembrino, and Joe Gregory-DeBernardi embarked on a mission to integrate AI into our information architecture and content strategy work. Distracted by the shiny newness of ChatGPT and the like, we jumped into the fray without thinking much about what it all meant. Two years later, we’ve revised our process and narrowed our approach. Our goal is to understand how knowledge graphs can support LLMs, and then to leverage that knowledge into content solutions. In this session, we’ll share our findings as they relate more specifically to knowledge graphs as presented by Joe Gregory-DeBernardi and Mark Novembrino.
Joe Gregory-DeBernardi, DeBonautics
Joe Gregory-DeBernardi is a DS partner for DITA Strategies, Inc. and an Information Architect specializing in taxonomy and metadata framework development in helping organizations connect online content and resources with their intended audiences. With nearly 18 years of experience developing scalable, enterprise content management & delivery platforms and 10 years of experience developing metadata frameworks and systems, Joe focuses on the data layer of information architecture in driving content management, findability, dynamic-delivery, and reporting capabilities forward for organizations.
Mark Novembrino, Number 9 Solutions
Mark has over 25 years’ experience working on XML and SGML projects in the networking, telecommunications, semiconductor, and aerospace industries.
Mark’s most recent and primary focus has been driving the implementation of DITA and content management systems at several large corporations.
Mark is passionate about helping companies reach beyond the nuts and bolts of their operations to fully realize a vision for the next-generation delivery of technical information.
All Hail the Trons - Supercharge Your Content Development
See what Pega has done to provide advanced XML editing with the power of Positron for AI-assistive authoring, Schematron for rule-based validation, and the Terminology Checker for consistent, precise content. Whether you’re a technical writer or developer, this session will equip you with practical skills to optimize your workflow and enhance content quality.
Joe Zucker, Pegasystems
With over two decades of expertise in content engineering and development, Joe is a prominent leader in crafting continuous delivery documentation toolchains centered on DITA XML content. As the current Director of Content Engineering at Pegasystems, Joe specializes in transforming content infrastructures through collaborative authoring with AI-assistive tools, ensuring an exceptional customer experience. With a distinguished career at companies such as ServiceNow, Automation Anywhere, and BlackLine, Joe has pioneered innovative solutions by leveraging DITA and Generative AI to optimize content delivery. These efforts align with business objectives, enhancing customer satisfaction and reducing support costs.
Jesse Buday, Pegasystems
Jesse Buday is a Principal Content engineer at Pegasystems. He has twenty years’ experience in technical documentation and tools platforms, including DITA environments at PTC, Rocket Software, and Pega. He holds a bachelor’s degree in English with a specialization in Technical Writing and Professional Communication from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
Delivering Targeted and Relevant Online Information
Users have no trouble finding information-they can simply open a manual or search online. The real challenge comes when they need to decide if the information they find, or receive from a chatbot, is truly relevant to their specific situation. Often, users encounter information meant for different tasks, product models, software/hardware variants, or user roles. While they can sometimes quickly dismiss irrelevant content, this process can be confusing and lead them to mistakenly believe some information applies to their case, when an expert would say otherwise. This tedious search process makes it difficult to find the right information and, in some cases, acting on incorrect information can even cause harm. Supporting users in finding relevant content for their specific machine model online is especially important with the introduction of the new EU Machinery Regulation 2023/1230. What if a content delivery portal could automatically filter out all irrelevant topics, ensuring that users only see information tailored to their work tasks, product model, software/hardware variant, and role in any given situation? In this presentation, we will showcase a topic-based content delivery portal aimed at improving user satisfaction. The design of the topic architecture and portal features is grounded in academic research.
Jonatan Lundin, Excosoft
Jonatan is a senior information architect specializing in technical communication, currently working at Excosoft in Sweden. He earned his PhD in 2020 from Mälardalen University, focusing on the design of manuals. With over 30 years of experience in the field, Jonatan has primarily worked with topic-based XML content management. As a former member of OASIS, he contributed to the development of DITA 1.2 through the Machine Industry Subcommittee. As a regular speaker at major technical communication conferences, including SIGDOC, ISDOC, tcworld, NORDIC Techkomm, STVY, FTI, DITA Europe, and STC India, Jonatan enjoys engaging with peers to explore design challenges and innovations in the field.
It's All About the Content!
As technical communicators, our most valuable skill is often problem solving: How can we take complicated information and distill it into something that helps our audience quickly achieve some goal? Regardless of the final medium, you can consistently develop good content when you apply some basic principles to this process. This presentation will take you on a journey through developing and correcting content. It will challenge you to not only brush up on your plain language skills but also apply critical thinking in all aspects of information development. Because let’s face it, even with all the latest technical innovations, successful communication is still based on one thing at its core: good content.
Kate Wheat, Rocket Software
Kate Wheat is a senior information developer at Rocket Software. With over 20 years experience writing technical information for mainframe database software, she is passionate about making technical information accessible. Constantly reading and learning, Kate earned several distinctions in the technical world by becoming a certified database administrator and being recognized as an IBM Champion.
Exploring the Impact of AI on Ideation in Content Design
As artificial intelligence (AI) tools become increasingly prevalent in information and content development, it is crucial to understand how these technologies shape content designers’ ideation processes. This presentation shares the results of a qualitative study involving structured interviews with 12 content professionals, exploring their experiences using AI for brainstorming, simplifying complex information, and creative problem-solving. The findings reveal that AI augments human creativity in ideation, with participants leveraging tools like ChatGPT and Claude to generate ideas, overcome creative blocks, and explore diverse writing styles. They also highlight AI’s value in simplifying documentation and its potential for triggering new ideas in problem-solving contexts. However, the study emphasizes the importance of human judgment in guiding the ideation process and ensuring the relevance and ethical alignment of AI-generated ideas. The presentation explores the evolving role of content designers in the age of AI, discussing how they can leverage these tools as creative partners while retaining control over content direction and integrity. It also addresses implications for content strategy, including the need for clear AI use guidelines, prompt engineering training, and collaboration between content designers, subject matter experts,
Lance Cummings, University of North Carolina Wilmington
Lance Cummings is a professor of English in the Professional Writing program at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. Dr. Cummings explores content and information development in technologically and culturally diverse contexts both in his research and teaching. His most recent work looks at how to leverage structured content with rhetorical strategies to improve the performance of generative AI technologies and shares his explorations in his newsletter, A Cyborgs Writing.
Tracking Translations…Tricky? Not with the IXIA CCMS
One of the most challenging jobs for Translation teams is keeping track of what has and has not been translated-what content has already been sent as part of another deliverable, what is out to the vendor and awaiting return, and what isn’t ready to go yet, to mention a few considerations. Add in the fact that multiple revisions of the same content could be in play at once, and things can get tricky very fast. With the introduction of Unified Localization, the IXIA CCMS seeks to simplify all of these challenges by providing a dashboard where Translation Coordinators can quickly and easily see the progress of each object in the project.
In this Test Kitchen, Leigh takes a small translation project from its first cycle through several subsequent cycles to show how readily Unified Localization provides the information that Translation teams need to work efficiently.
Leigh White, MadCap Software
Leigh is a Product Owner at MadCap Software, where she works with the Product Definition team to gather customer feedback, design features, communicate with the Development team and help drive IXIA CCMS releases that are robust, timely, and useful.
She is also is the author of “DITA For Print: A DITA Open Toolkit Workbook” and a contributor to “The Language of Content Strategy” and “The Language of Technical Communication.” Over her career, Leigh has been a DITA author, information architect, and DITA Open Toolkit fanatic and she advocates that effective technical communicators need to be more than writers; they need to be part programmer, part designer and part project manager.
A conference veteran, Leigh has spoken on XML, DITA, and content management systems at a number of conferences, including DITA North America/ConVEx, DITA Europe, Intelligent Content, Lavacon, the STC Summit, and Writers UA. In her spare time, she hikes, reads, and makes things from wood.
How a Small Company Uses DITA & iiRDS
Discover how Intuitive Stack uses DITA and iiRDS to drive its website. In this introductory session, we explore how iiRDS, an emerging standard for intelligent information exchange, helps drive smarter user experiences. We will explain how the company uses DITA as a data source managed in git, publishing automatically to the web via c-rex.net’s APIs. iiRDS metadata drives site navigation, dynamic content, and multilingual support, all while ensuring seamless integration with back-end systems. See how automated workflows take content delivery to the next level, offering a smarter, more efficient way to publish content.
Lief Erickson, Intuitive Stack
Lief is co-founder of Intuitive Stack, a content strategy consultancy for businesses with outdated technical documentation practices. He holds a master’s degree in Content Strategy from FH Joanneum (Austria), where he also teaches information architecture. With expertise in taxonomies, search optimization, and ContentOps, Lief has held roles as a technical writer and information architect. At Intuitive Stack, he helps organizations modernize their content strategy so they can focus on their next innovation.
Markus Wiedenmaier, C-REX
Markus is the CEO of C-REX.net, specializing in end-to-end automated processes that streamline content creation and delivery to customer portals or directly to machines. As an expert in iiRDS, Markus brings extensive knowledge of data services. With a deep focus on process automation and the customer experience, he leverages cutting-edge XML and DITA solutions to drive innovation in technical documentation.
Fish in the Water: Integrating Generative AI into Reuse Strategy
In the middle of implementing a nascent reuse strategy, your team is confronted with a new challenge: Your content will be ingested by a generative AI Large Language Model (LLM). You feel like a fish out of water, but what if you’re really a fish *in* the water? This session will outline one team’s experience discovering how applying structure and metadata to their content has prepared it for ingestion by the LLM, including shifts in reuse strategy (adjusting priorities), cross-team collaboration (staying top-of-mind for data science teams that have their own delivery targets), technical discoveries (optimizing outputs for ingestion), unexpected results (laughing at the early responses), and lessons learned from the experience. If you’ve implemented DITA or other XML structure with metadata, you may be more prepared than you think; and if you haven’t implemented structured content and metadata yet, this will give you another good reason to do so.
Lyndsey Lynch, Amazon.com
Starting in 2007, Lyndsey Lynch has led multiple teams developing software documentation for end users, service technicians, and administrators, while driving the adoption and implementation of structured authoring and XML component content management systems at GE Healthcare, Amazon Web Services, and Amazon.com. The work she enjoys most is collaborating with technical teams to improve the content authoring and customer information experience. There’s nothing quite as satisfying as correcting a persistent issue that plagues authors or users, whether it’s tech, process, or content-related. Outside of work, Lyndsey enjoys singing in a local church choir, trying out new recipes, and spending quality time with her family.
The Docs Pipeline of the (Near) Future
This presentation explores the changing landscape of technical documentation pipelines, focusing on three emerging tool categories set to revolutionize the field: content generation, content testing, and content self-healing. The speaker, Manny Silva, outlines the current state of CCMS and docs-as-code pipelines before diving into the challenges faced by technical writers today. The presentation then introduces innovative tools designed to automate routine tasks, enhance accuracy, and accelerate document creation and maintenance.
Content generation tools assist in rapidly producing initial drafts based on various inputs, while content testing tools automatically validate documentation against product interfaces. The most advanced category, content self-healing tools, promises to autonomously identify and resolve common documentation issues. The integration of these tools within existing pipelines is discussed, highlighting their potential to transform the role of technical writers. By automating routine tasks, these advancements empower writers to focus on high-value activities, ultimately leading to more accurate, comprehensive, and maintainable documentation and writers who can elevate their strategic importance in their organizations.
Manny Silva, Skyflow
Technical writer by day, engineer by night, and father everywhere in between, Manny wears many (figurative) hats. Head of Docs at Skyflow, codifier of Docs as Tests, and creator of Doc Detective, he’s passionate about intuitive and scalable developer experiences and likes diving into the deep end as the 0th user.
Who Are you Talking To? The Evolution of our Audience
Our readers have changed. Indeed, they are often not readers at all. Sometimes they are viewers and increasingly they are not even human. What does this mean for communication professionals? How do we need to adapt to the new realities of today and to what is coming just over the horizon? This session will attempt to deconstruct how our readership has evolved over the last few decades, where things stand today, and where things are likely to go in the future. It is a useful exercise in addition to being fascinating. One of the key factors in play, of course, is the role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) as an audience and as a mediator with audiences. There are demographic changes in play as well as changes in the technology landscape – both the tools we use to communicate and the environments within which people engage with our information products. Recent and current case studies will be used to illuminate aspects of this question and to provoke some discussions as the attendees will doubtless have their own perspectives and experiences to contribute. The business of communication is about reaching our audiences so, in a time of great change, it is a good idea to explore this question – who are we talking to, really, and how will this change now that AI is in the mix?
Joe Gollner, Gnostyx Research Inc.
Joe is the Managing Director of Gnostyx Research Inc. (http://www.gnostyx.com) where he specializes in providing objective and research-based guidance on the development, management, and strategic use of content technologies. In this field, he is a veteran implementer with over 30 years of experience, and he is well-known for mixing leading-edge ideas (and all too frequently concocting them) with highly pragmatic implementation tactics. He has Masters degrees from both the University of Oxford (Literature) and McGill University (Management), blogs about Content and Management (http://www.gollner.ca), and is pursuing doctoral research into the role of AI-enabled text analytics in the management of organizations.
Transforming Content Creation: Innovative Applications of AI and Prompt Engineering
Technical communicators are uniquely positioned to leverage AI-powered tools to enhance clarity, consistency, and efficiency. This presentation explores practical strategies for transforming content creation through innovative applications of prompt engineering and AI Assistants. By utilizing AI-driven methodologies, technical communicators can streamline workflows, generate high-quality content, and maintain ethical and factual accuracy in documentation.
The session introduces core concepts in prompt engineering, including prompt structuring, chaining, and AI Intuition™—the ability to recognize when AI can add value to the content process. We’ll cover techniques to guide AI models toward producing precise and contextually accurate responses, ensuring that AI outputs align with the strategic goals of content creators and organizations alike. Attendees will gain insights into developing customized prompt frameworks, using context windows effectively, and creating a PromptBase™ to manage and evolve prompt libraries over time.
The presentation will include:
- Core Principles of Prompt Engineering: Key frameworks for crafting prompts that generate effective, reliable AI-driven content.
- Real-World Use Cases: Examples of AI applied in tasks such as content summarization, SEO optimization, and translation.
- Ethical Considerations: Addressing the importance of human oversight and “Human Verification™” to maintain quality and integrity in AI outputs.
- Hands-On Demos: Demonstrations of generative AI tools showcasing content transformation techniques, prompt chaining, and addressing AI “drift” and hallucinations.
- Scalable AI Strategies: Starting with pilot projects and iterating to create a sustainable, AI-powered content strategy.
Jason Kaufman, Irrevo
Jason Kaufman is a renowned Content Strategy Expert and the President of Irrevo (a technical writing staffing and consultancy), with over 20 years of experience in enhancing customer satisfaction and reducing support costs for leading organizations. Passionate about AI-driven technologies, he revolutionizes organizations’ approaches by leveraging innovative content strategies. As a visionary, Jason collaborates with enterprises, specializing in AI integration, knowledge engineering, and content management. His expertise spans writing, reviewing, summarizing, and analyzing content using AI. With KCS and AI for Decision Making certifications, he combines technical writing, leadership, and cutting-edge AI solutions for lasting positive impacts on companies and customers. He is also the publisher of EverythingAI news, check out EverythingAI on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/newsletters/7054141840194764800/.
A Journey for Your Content - DITA for Learning Environments
Information about a product is often created separately. One for technical documentation and one for the training. This leads to different representations of instructions and, in the worst case, leading to liability risks. We demonstrate how these information containers can be broken down and how a DITA topic can be transformed into a DITA learning object. This facilitating the reuse of information objects from a user manual in a e-learning. We also show how the DITA learning content can be transferred to an LMS. The use of the same content, benefits such in the increase efficiency and ensures consistency, scalability, and accessibility.
Martina Schmidt, NINEFEB
Technical Writer at NINEFEB for 4 years.
Previously, 10 years as a Technical Writer and Training Coordinator at a machinery and plant engineering company.
Experience with various XML-based CCMSs.
Education:
Universities of applied sciences Wr. Neustadt (Austria), industrial Engineering (Diploma)
Universities of applied sciences Wr. Neustadt (Austria), technical Product Management (Master degree)
Universities of applied sciences Graz (Austria) technical documentation (Master degree)
Barbara Kalous, NINEFEB
Technical Writer and Translator at NINEFEB since 2017.
Previously, 11 years as a Technical Writer in the fields of intralogistics and machinery and plant engineering.
Experience with various XML-based CCMSs.
Education:
Danube University Krems (Austria), Knowledge Management (Master degree)
University of Graz (Austria), Theoretical and Applied Translation Studies (Diploma)
Content Migration and the Illusion of Instant Structure
Adopting structured content and component-based authoring promises enhanced consistency, reusability, and efficiency. However, a common misconception persists: that migrating unstructured content into a component content management system automatically yields well-structured, reusable components.
This presentation challenges this assumption, revealing the intricate process behind effective content componentization. We’ll explore why migration alone is insufficient and discuss the planning, oversight, and human effort required to create truly valuable content components.
Drawing from real-world experiences, we’ll cover:
- The hidden complexities in content migration projects
- The role of automation in content conversion (and its limitations)
- Best practices for overcoming challenges
This session aims to equip you with the knowledge and perspective to navigate confidently through your journey to structured content. While the process can be complex, the long-term benefits of structured, component-based content far outweigh the initial investment.
Join us to learn how to transform your content migration from a mere file transfer into a strategic opportunity for content optimization and reuse.
Max Swisher, Content Rules
Max Swisher is the Director of Technology at Content Rules, Inc., where he oversees the implementation of technologies to support their customers. With years of experience in content strategy, Max provides effective content solutions for large companies in a variety of industries, including finance, high-tech, manufacturing, life sciences, and hospitality. In his free time, he enjoys working on his car, playing the pipe organ, and caring for his cats Nova and Suki.
Graph-Driven RAG AI Powered by DITA
Can generative AI benefit from structured content? What role play knowledge graphs in this? And what does all of that have to do with DITA? After they discovered the shortcomings of vector-based RAG there is a buzz in the industry around knowledge graph-driven retrieval-augmented generation (Graph RAG). This session will put the question of whether and how DITA fits into that equation. Michael Iantosca and Helmut Nagy demonstrate a full-scale implementation of a graph-driven RAG based on intelligent structured content. Presented by Iantosca as graph AI theory, just as generative AI blasted into the mainstream, this session explains how DITA was used to automate the construction and maintenance of a scalable knowledge graph to drive generative AI applications along with a fully functional advanced neuro-symbolic chatbot that supports what other models lack: the ability to do inferencing and reasoning. Not a show-and-tell session, but an in-depth review of how the model and solution were built, the theory behind it, and how other teams can replicate it. Several years ago, some audacious Markdown maven declared that DITA was getting “long in the tooth”. Now, at the dawn of neuro-symbolic generative AI, it turns out that DITA was indeed, the future.
Michael Iantosca, Avalara
Michael Iantosca is the Senior Director of Content Platforms at Avalara Inc. Michael spent 38 of his 43 years at IBM as a ‘content pioneer’ leading the design and development of advanced content management systems and technology that began at the very dawn of the structured content revolution in the early 80s. Dual trained as a content professional and systems engineer, he led the charge building some of the earliest content platforms based SGML and DITA and formed the team at IBM that invented DITA.
Helmut Nagy, Semantic Web Company
Helmut is COO of Semantic Web Company (SWC), the provider of the PoolParty Semantic Suite. SWC is headquartered in Vienna, Austria, but operates globally. PoolParty Semantic Suite is used by over 200 organizations to provide semantic AI solutions. Helmut is a well-known expert in the field of knowledge management and semantic AI. He has worked with global organizations to help them develop and implement their knowledge and AI strategies. Helmut is co-author of The Knowledge Graph Cookbook.
Case Study: Migrating Globalized Structured Content for Consistency and Flexibility
This case study explores a content migration project involving thousands of procedures transferred between content management systems with differing architectures. The goal was to standardize content, reduce duplication, and ensure consistency, while preserving essential regional differences, such as equipment variations and legal requirements.
We tackled these challenges through a combination of editorial review, automated conversion, and manual post-migration adjustments. The process involved consolidating shared content while maintaining regional variations, using batch processing to optimize workflows. The project delivered significant improvements in content consistency, maintainability, and translation costs.
This session will provide insights into balancing global content standardization with regional flexibility and practical approaches for managing large-scale migrations.
Mike Rice, Content Rules
Mike leverages his background as an information architect, an ethnographic practitioner, and an award-winning contributor to the field of user-centered product design. This experience gives him a broad perspective, seeing the strategic changes needed to enhance content creation, management, translation, and user experiences.
Beyond his professional life, Mike enjoys outdoor adventures camping and backpacking. But, he feels equally at home whether he’s visiting Brooklyn or the Adirondacks. He also sings lead in an barbershop chorus.
A Journey to Docs as Code and Back Again
This presentation describes how, in less than 3 years, our small team of technical writers moved all of our DITA structured content from a legacy content management system (CCMS), into a file system “docs as code” environment and then moved again to a full-featured CCMS that we are using now. In this “story” I describe the assumptions and logic that led to a decision to migrate each time. I also detail the failures, successes and overall lessons-learned from the process. Some of the primary details include:
1. A short description of each of our content environments, including a list of the tools and processes we used, with pros and cons of each.
2. How our DITA-structured content worked for us during migration and, in some cases, slowed us down.
3. How we made a business case for each migration – how we justified the costs, predicted costs-savings, and gained support from management.
4. Tips and reflections on things we would do differently, if doing it all again!
Mike McGinnis, Tridium
I lead a small team of technical writers at Tridium, a software and technology company in Richmond, VA. Over the past 14 years our technical writing team has moved from unstructured to structured authoring, moving into and growing with DITA. We have worked both with and without a CCMS to support Tridium’ s products in the network controls domain.
Playing for BBC: Building your Business Case
Are you struggling to get a budget for your team and don’t know where to start? Are you swamped by acronyms such as ROI, Business Case, SWOT? You are not alone! Building a great business case will guide you through the process.
Nolwenn Kerzreho has been working in the DITA CCMS space for over 15 years and has helped documentation leads and content strategy through their shift to unified content frameworks. This presentation aims at supplying the audience with tools (and a few tricks) to help you get the budget you want.
Nolwenn Kerzreho, IXIASOFT, a company by MadCap Software
Nolwenn Kerzreho is IXIA CCMS Solution Architect for MadCap in Europe, Middle-East and Asia. Nolwenn has almost two decades of experience in the content industry and has taught technical communication in various universities in France for the past 15 years.
An international speaker and author, Nolwenn helps customers realize the benefits of unified content management and full-scale deliveries.
IXIA CCMS is a leading global enterprise-class DITA Component Content Management System which supports Fortune 500 organizations in fostering efficiencies and delivering great content experience.
Driven UX: How We Made Content Shine
We all strive for our content to shine. In this interactive session, Pam will share the highs and lows of her latest content journey, both successes and setbacks. Join her to hear compelling stories and valuable lessons learned along the way. Audience participation is not just welcomed but essential, as Pam believes in learning together through shared experiences and storytelling.
Pam Noreault, Ellucian
Pam Noreault is a Principal Information Architect at Ellucian. She has over 25 years of experience in technical communications, education, and management. She specializes in content strategy, customer engagement, content conversions, and social networking strategies. Pam has an undergraduate degree in education from The Ohio State University and a master’s degree in English and Professional Writing from Wright State University.
Context-Aware Structured Content to Mitigate Hallucinations
Managers of large-scale, complex content collections increasingly implement structured content initiatives to optimize accessibility, consistency, and reuse across platforms. However, when leveraged by Large Language Models (LLMs) structured content can lead to hallucinations without proper contextual anchoring-resulting in incorrect or misleading information. This session will focus on how to avoid these risks by enhancing content structuring practices to include context-aware metadata and semantic enrichment.
The presentation will explore how applying FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) principles to content can mitigate hallucination risks. Attendees will learn techniques for ensuring that structured content remains tightly coupled with its source context, whether it’s through improved ontologies, metadata-driven relationships, or content validation against trusted sources.
Paula Land, Enterprise Knowledge LLC
Paula Land is Principal Consultant for Content Strategy and Operations at Enterprise Knowledge. Her decades of experience as a consultant and in-house content strategist leading content audit projects lead to the publication of her book Content Audits and Inventories: A Handbook for Content Analysis, the seminal work on this topic. At EK, Paula works on content strategy, content analysis, content governance, and content operations projects, including projects incorporating analysis of content for AI readiness, for clients in software, manufacturing, telecommunications, and financial services to enable effective strategies that deliver value to end users and ROI to content stakeholders.
Overcoming Challenges - Editing DITA XML Content with AI Tools
The DITA XML standard is recognized for good reason for its versatile reuse capabilities which allow creating content which is consistent and can be used to single source the entire publication needs of a company.
AI editing tools can bring lots of extra benefits for technical documentation writers, capabilities for re-writing content to improve readability, grammar checking, content generation, generating reports and much more.
But how do these benefits interact with the DITA XML features (content reuse, specialization) and how can AI tools be developed to work better with these DITA XMl specific features?
Radu Coravu,Syncro Soft, Oxygen XML Editor
Radu Coravu is a DITA XML expert working on oXygen XML Editor. During the last years, his main focus has been on the development of the visual XML Author editing environment and the specific-DITA support provided by oXygen, combined with working on the Oxygen AI Positron add-on which adds specific AI functionality for editing DITA XML content.
He provides support for complex integrations and helps steer the product in the right direction, all this with some development on the side.
Designing Curricular Transformation in Technical Communication Through Industry and Academia
Digital transformation and AI adoption workflows across the content industry represent a fast-maturing facet of technical communication. Despite widespread usage of these workflows across sectors in industry, educational programs in technical communication have struggled to keep up with changes and few offer curricular pathways that prepare students for work as modern content professionals.
We have been working to define four disciplinary areas that shape how technical communication interacts with the content industry-content design, content strategy, content engineering, and content operations-for the purpose of providing educators a way to talk about what content is, does, and needs to be. We propose approaches to think about competency and curriculum development needs for undergraduate academic programs.
In this presentation, we share our research on designing curricular pathways for preparing a new generation of content professionals and invite audience participants to offer feedback on our articulation of what we have labeled as the content discipline and to help us develop tracks for competencies and curriculum development.
Rebekka Andersen, University of California, Davis
Rebekka Andersen is an associate professor in the University Writing Program at the University of California, Davis, where she teaches courses in professional and technical communication and serves as the Associate Director for Professional Writing. Her research focuses on strategies for building stronger connections between academia and industry as well as on implications of digital transformations, particularly around content, for education and research in professional communication. She regularly presents her research at both industry and academic conferences and serves on the editorial boards or reviewer boards of several journals in the field of professional and technical communication. She also serves on the steering committee of the ACM SIGDOC Committee on Structured Authoring and Content Management and on the Technical Communication Advisory Board at the University of Minnesota.
Carlos Evia, Virginia Tech
Carlos Evia is a professor of communication and director of the Academy of Transdisciplinary Studies at Virginia Tech, where he is also associate dean for transdisciplinary initiatives and chief technology officer in the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences. A mediocre studio session DJ turned decent entertainment journalist, Carlos moved to the intersection of information technology and the humanities with early jobs as database designer and technical writer. In his academic career, he has been a professor of English (technical communication) and communication (digital publishing and content strategy) and an award-winning researcher in transdisciplinary technical communication and content operations. He is the author of “Creating Intelligent Content with Lightweight DITA,” editor of “Content Operations from Start to Scale,” and contributor to the Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) and Lightweight DITA (LwDITA) standards for digital content. A proud Mexican American, Carlos taught himself how to speak English by watching Sesame Street and (not simultaneously) reading MAD Magazine.
5 Keys to Successful Content Transformation
If your content ecosystem consists of unstructured, long-form content, chances are high that (a) people spend hours trying to find information and (b) your organization is looking to AI solutions to help people find answers faster.
As technologies emerge faster than humans can think, content stewardship becomes ever more important. Most enterprise content is full of inaccuracies, inconsistencies, and redundancies that have interfered with findability for decades. Now, AI solutions are shining a spotlight on those issues by providing wrong or contradictory answers. When the AI can’t find an answer, it hallucinates in an attempt to provide you with something, anything at all. The problem is that even AI, despite its ability to process information at unprecedented speed, cannot make up for issues in the source content.
In this session, you’ll learn the five keys to successfully transforming your content so that you get the most ROI from your investment in AI solutions. These keys apply whether you deploy an internal copilot to people get their work done or a sophisticated chatbot to help your customers find accurate information quickly. Hint: DITA XML plays a huge role in this effort.
Regina Lynn Preciado, Content Rules
Regina Lynn Preciado is the Senior Director of Content Strategy Solutions at Content Rules. She leads content strategy teams to help our customers adopt structured content successfully and to prepare their content for AI. Whether the business objective is to reduce risk, streamline process, deliver personalized experiences at scale, or implement AI solutions, Regina has helped organizations of all sizes achieve their content reuse and automation goals. She lives a dogspotting lifestyle.
Preparing for AI: Are We Ready for What's Next?
After more than two years, corporations are still struggling to determine exactly how generative AI will help to shape their futures. This spurs the question, “is the technology ready for us?”. More likely though we should be asking if we are ready for the technology. Many of us have seen compelling demonstrations of what is possible, each footnoted with the caveat that your mileage may vary. Beware of the familiar adage: Garbage-in-Garbage-out. But who can tell you exactly what garbage looks like? Semantic enrichment, knowledge models, and metadata will only carry your content so far towards machine-readiness. It’s the precision of the content itself that will make all the difference.
Join Rob Hanna for this presentation as he walks you through his approach to benchmarking and evaluating human performance on technical content. Rob will walk you through before and after content and discuss usability lab methods and results.
Afterall, if you can’t figure it out, how do you expect a machine to figure it out?
Rob Hanna, Precision Content Authoring Solutions
Rob Hanna has dedicated his professional life to improving outcomes for teams embarking on structured authoring projects. Over the past 30 years, he has worked with many large corporations on DITA and CCMS projects to bring their teams into structure and drive operational efficiencies. He has taught metadata and taxonomies at the University of Toronto and private courses on structured authoring, DITA, and information architecture. In 2013, Rob founded Precision Content in Toronto, Canada, to build a team of writers, developers, and IAs to continue his mission to raise the bar in Technical Communication.
Linting Strings – Running Style Checks on UI Text
How do we make sure that user interface text follows the company style guide?
If you work at a large company, you may have access to style checks via your CMS, localization management platform, or commercial language quality tools – but what if you don’t have that kind of budget?
Many of these solutions are designed to work with long-form text in technical documentation, support articles, or other web content – but what about UI text?
How can we catch errors in the design phase before UI concepts are handed off to developers? How can we help developers to follow best practices and custom style rules? How can we make sure the content team notices when strings are updated? How can we build content quality gates into our review workflows?
We’ll explore how open-source tools can be used to streamline the QA process, allowing lone writers, small teams, and larger organizations to keep UI copy consistent, and do more with less.
Roger Fienhold Sheen, infotexture
Roger is a Content Operations consultant helping teams to design product information that is easy to understand, re-use, and maintain. He advises clients on how writers, designers, and developers can work together to create high-quality product content.
In his spare time, he serves as the documentation lead for the DITA Open Toolkit project.
Question-Driven Content Design: Strategy for the Age of RAG
Retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) is an effective method for leveraging the power of large language models (LLMs) while reducing the risk of harmful output and hallucination. Many companies are scrambling to build customer-support RAG solutions as fast as they can.
The fuel for those RAG solutions is the content we write, so our content is more valuable now than ever! But there’s a problem: Traditional content design approaches don’t guarantee RAG success. To ensure RAG success, content design teams must add a new step to our process: Test whether our content answers real user questions.
Specifically, we need to: 1) collect real user questions from support tickets, user communities, anywhere we can; 2) test whether the RAG solutions grounded in our content can answer those questions successfully; and 3) adjust our content as needed. Those tactical adjustments will sometimes feel uncomfortable because they won’t always fit our existing information architecture and writing style.
This presentation explores the impact RAG will have on our content design work and how we need to adapt. Topics will include: how RAG works, why testing with real user questions is so important, and ways to incorporate collecting and testing questions into our workflow.
Sarah Packowski, IBM
Sarah Packowski joined IBM in 2000 as a developer. Currently, she designs, builds, and integrates AI solutions – including generative AI and specialized, video-search technologies – into processes and tools by day. With a background in robotics, image processing, and neural networks, Sarah experiments with alternative input devices, drones, and Smart Farm applications on a horse farm near Ottawa, Canada, as an inventor by night.
Our New CCMS: Land of Discovery
Building on our previous 3 ConVEx presentations, we’ll share the highlights of the next stage on our journey. What have we learned in the past year with the implementation of our new CCMS? We’ll talk about testing, stylesheets, user onboarding and support, translations, user permissions, content analysis, reuse strategies, and more!
Sarah Rowe, Baxter
Sarah has a passion for increasing efficiency with technology. She is a self-motivated mom of twins whose superpower is figuring out systems and processes. Sarah is a CCMS admin and senior technical writer for Baxter, a global manufacturer of medical devices and therapies. She has a Master’s in Information Technology and is a member of CIDM and STC.
Bobbi Werner, Baxter
Bobbi Werner is Senior Manager, Technical Communication, at Baxter’s Front Line Care division. She leads a team of technical writers, illustrators, and specialists to create, update, and release user documentation for medical devices. Bobbi is a member of CIDM and STC. She is an STC Fellow and currently serves as Treasurer on the STC Executive Board.
So Much Waste, so Little Strategy: Enterprise Customer Content
For your customers to effectively use your products and services, it’s critical that technical, learning, and support content are fully integrated across content types. This “enabling” content helps your customers get their work done. Inside your organization, you almost certainly have three (or more!) organizations that are producing this content. Most likely, they each use a content authoring system that is optimized for their specific use case. And those content authoring systems work in isolation.
This is unacceptable.
We need to build out unified content operations so that we can single-source content components in a repository. Content objects such as instructions, definitions, and assessments can then be assembled from this single source of truth. Additionally, we must create shared infrastructure to deliver a unified customer experience; for example, enterprise taxonomy, localization, and design systems.
Unfortunately, we currently don’t have a solution for unified content. Instead, we must combine incompatible software systems. This presentation is a call to action to start working on an enterprise content operations approach.
In this session, attendees will learn:
* The current state of software for enterprise customer content
* The challenges of integration across incompatible systems
* A vision of the unified content future
Sarah O’Keefe, Scriptorium
Sarah O’Keefe is the founder and CEO of Scriptorium. Driven by learning and exploration, she takes pride in providing a meaningful contribution to the world of customer-facing content and beyond. As a pioneer in the content industry, she is a globally recognized author and speaker.
Office to DITA: Transforming Content for Reuse and Multichannel Publishing
Is your organization struggling with departments siloed in creating customer-facing content in MS Office? How do you enforce consistency in style, grammar, and structure to provide a unified customer experience? How do you keep pace with rapid product updates, ensuring your documents reflect the latest information? And more importantly, how can you easily adapt that content for multichannel publishing, localization, and accessibility?
In this session, we’ll explore a transformative solution: using AI-driven conversion tools to migrate MS Office content to DITA. This conversion is more than just moving files-it’s a leap toward content reuse, faster updates, and a seamless publishing experience across formats and languages.
Attendees will learn how AI-powered transforms streamline this process, ensuring that your content is not only structured for efficiency but also positioned to scale effortlessly across regions, devices, and platforms.
This presentation will equip you with a clear roadmap to modernize your documentation workflows, making your content ready for the future of technical communication.
Scott Hudson, ServiceNow
Scott Hudson is a Senior Staff Technical Content Architect at ServiceNow. He is also a long-time member of the OASIS DocBook and DITA Technical Committees. He specializes in content architecture, optimizing the DITA authoring experience, creating author assistance using Schematron and Vale, and evaluating new information technologies. He is a shameless Sci-Fi geek and head referee for Colorado FIRST Lego League. Visit his blog at: http://shudson310.blogspot.com
Eliot Kimber, ServiceNow
Eliot Kimber is a founding and current member of the DITA Technical Committee and a long-time speaker and writer on DITA and other structured markup subjects. Eliot has worked to apply DITA to many different industries, including commercial publishing as well as many different technical domains. Eliot is co-editor of ISO/IEC 10744:1996, HyTime, and a founding member of the W3C XML Working Group. When not bending DITA-based publishing systems to his will, Eliot lives in Austin, Texas with his wife and daughter. Eliot holds a black belt in Aikido and is an avid cook.
Building Trust into GenAI Responses for Customer's Questions
GenAI-based systems, including assistive search, chatbots, and agents, are built upon the organization’s knowledge base content. Technical writers’ meticulously crafted content is now utilized by these systems to generate responses to customer queries. However, technical writers lack direct control over the responses generated by GenAI-based systems, raising concerns about the potential for misinformation and erosion of trust in the content. This presentation addresses the evolving role of technical writers in ensuring the accuracy of responses produced by GenAI-based systems and in building and maintaining trust with customers.
Selvaraaju Murugesan, Kavai.co
Selvaraaju (Selva) Murugesan received the B.Eng. degree in Mechatronics Engineering (Gold medalist) from Anna University, India in 2004 and the M.Eng. degree from LaTrobe University, Australia, in 2008. He has received his Ph.D. degree in Computational mathematics, LaTrobe University. Currently he is working as the Head of Data Science at Document360. He leads Artificial Intelligence product feature development that leverages data analytics to generate actionable insights across all components of documentation lifecycle. He also speaks at Tekom conferences and delivers technical presentations across the globe.
One Small Step, One Giant Leap
What are the document types delivered by Synopsys?
What is the volume of documents delivered by Synopsys?
Evolution to DITA – Challenges?
How is DITA helping us?
It will be a great pleasure to share our DITA journey.
Snehal Borole, Synopsys
* A seasoned technical writer with 10+ years of experience in the industry.
* Currently working as a Staff Technical Writer at Synopsys Inc
* Specialized in technical writing and document infrastructure development.
* Qualification: M.Tech Electronics & Telecommunication Engineering
Ritu Saxena, Synopsys
* A highly experienced leader for technical writers with an industry expertise of 20 years.
* Qualification: M.Tech. Computer Science
* Work Experience: Currently working as Technical Publications Manager at Synopsys Inc
* Specialized in deploying DITA strategies for the team with various tools.
Getting to Yes
NextGen Healthcare had a content problem. But they didn’t know it was a problem. Their product documentation was created using everything from Word and Confluence to Oxygen and Salesforce Knowledge. It was stored in Chum files, on desktops, in One Drive and everywhere in between. Because of the siloed nature of the organization, Knowledge Articles and user guides were written by anyone and everyone. The technical writing team was scattered among a variety of managers. Historically, there was no content strategy and content management principles were absent. In short, everyone was doing their own thing. Not only did this cause issues with customer service, sales and product development, but also compliance. The US Federal government requires healthcare, and other industries, to document and follow processes and procedures. As a healthcare software company, we needed to follow a holistic process and that required more than just policies. After implementing process improvements, style guides, team trainings and workflows, it was time to tackle the biggest problem. One tool to rule them all. Sometimes the hardest part of choosing a CCMS is convincing your organization that you need one.
tbd, NextGen Healthcare
SEO Magic: Defining Site URL Structures for Search Engines
Search systems like Google use URL structure details, such as path depth and keyword use, to rank site search results. Unfortunately, many DITA-based sites do not have optimal URL structures. In this session we’ll cover the basics of search engine optimization (SEO) as it relates to URL structure, and the information architecture that goes into defining what an optimized URL structure looks like. We’ll show how DITA allows us to decouple the structure of the underlying source repositories from the URLs presented to our Readers, and not incidentally, to search engines.
Tom Berry, ServiceNow
Tom Berry strives to get people the information they need to do their job at the moment they need it. He has always been curious about the connections between seemingly disparate topics, as evidenced early on by his dual major in electrical engineering and neurobiology. Over a convoluted career, he has been a technical writer, support engineer, instructional designer and teacher, and is currently a software engineer. Tom holds US patent 11,372,920: Generating Relational Charts with Accessibility for Visually-Impaired Users. He lives in Gig Harbor, Washington (USA) with his wife, two daughters, and a varying number of cats.
Eliot Kimber, ServiceNow
Eliot Kimber is a founding and current member of the DITA Technical Committee and a long-time speaker and writer on DITA and other structured markup subjects. Eliot has worked to apply DITA to many different industries, including commercial publishing as well as many different technical domains. Eliot is co-editor of ISO/IEC 10744:1996, HyTime, and a founding member of the W3C XML Working Group. When not bending DITA-based publishing systems to his will, Eliot lives in Austin, Texas with his wife and daughter. Eliot holds a black belt in Aikido and is an avid cook.
Content Development and GenAI: Myth or Reality
As Generative AI has dominated the public debate in the last two year, myths, misconceptions, euphoria and fears have arisen.
This presentation will shed light on some of these aspects and present practical use cases. They also relate to the improvement of text quality and in particular to the development of a terminological basis, where linguistic intelligence and Generative AI go hand in hand.
Torsten Machert, Congree Language Technologies
Torsten studied Russian and Spanish at the Humboldt University in Berlin. He spent 20+ years in the CMS industry before joining Congree.
Bridges Not Barriers: Reaching Across Silos
AI is revolutionizing the user experience to finally deliver on the promise of providing the right content, to the right place, in the right format. However, fragmentation of our content, systems, and processes will impede progress if we don’t break down barriers and reach across silos.
There are reasons for centralizing teams, systems, and workflows across content groups. There are just as many reasons to fine-tune operations to fit the unique needs of each discipline. We need hybrid operating models to specialize the delivery domain-specific business outcomes where required and centralize everywhere else.
Local optimization at the domain level won’t achieve the enterprise outcomes or business agility you need to deliver a competitive advantage. Building AI capabilities will benefit from centralization due to cost and limited resources. Instead, we need to apply a centralized and decentralized administrative model, based on the needs of the user and the content.
In this session, we show you where to look for areas of collaboration (think enhanced search and discovery, tech investments, and AI solutions). We provide guidance on building a compelling proposal for investing in this new way of working. We share strategies for building partnerships across silos between centralized and specialized operations.
Val Swisher, Content Rules
Val Swisher is the Founder and CEO of Content Rules, Inc. Val enjoys helping companies solve complex content problems. She is a well-known expert in content strategy, structured authoring, global content, content development, and terminology management. Val believes content should be easy to read, cost-effective to create, and efficient to manage. Her customers include industry giants such as Google, Cisco, Visa, Meta, and Roche. Her latest book is The Personalization Paradox: Why Companies Fail (and How to Succeed) at Creating Personalized Experiences at Scale (XML Press, 2021).
Val is on the Advisory Board for the Technical Communications Program at the University of North Texas. When not working with customers or students, Val can be found sitting behind her sewing machine working on her latest quilt. She also makes a mean hummus.
Leslie Farinella, Content Rules
Leslie Farinella joined as President of Content Rules in Oct 2024.
With a background in engineering, software development, process optimization, content strategy, and instructional design, Leslie has spent the last 25 years solving complex business problems within Fortune 1000 companies – first working as a consultant and then delivering technical solutions while serving as Chief Strategy Officer at Xyleme, a leading CCMS for Learning.
Leslie believes that value generation is about mastering the ability to identify the crux of the problem through a deep understanding of the user experience, devising a feasible path forward, and then executing that plan with laser precision using a mix of business processes, change management, and technology.
When she’s not solving problems, you can find Leslie outside – reading, gardening, or walking on the beach.
Cross-Silo Collaboration: From Roadblocks to Results
Cross-silo collaboration is often easier said than done, but it’s vital for delivering effective, user-centric content. This session will focus on overcoming common challenges of working across different teams and departments, from misaligned priorities to communication barriers.
Kat Reierson, Docusign
With over a decade of experience as a technical writer and manager, Kat Reierson leads a team at Docusign in crafting user-friendly product content. Dedicated to simplifying complex technical information, fostering collaboration, and driving process improvement, Kat is committed to excellence. Beyond work, Kat is an avid adventurer who loves exploring the outdoors with her Bernese Mountain dogs. She is passionate about giving back through volunteer work and supporting professional organizations that have shaped her career.
Preparing Your Organization for AI: Essential Tips for Success
Artificial Intelligence is reshaping how content is created, accessed, and used. But before jumping into AI initiatives, how do you prepare your content, your teams, and your organization for success? Join our expert panel featuring Sarah O’Keefe (Scriptorium), Marianne Calilhanna (DCL), and Dipo Ajose-Coker as they dive into the essentials of getting AI-ready. From content access to content intelligence and assistance, learn practical tips on what to watch out for, how to leverage AI effectively, and how to navigate the challenges ahead. Prepare to empower your content strategy for an AI-driven future.
Dipo Ajose-Coker
After relocating to France in 2005, Dipo completed an MA in Multilingual and Multimedia Document Conception at the Université Paris Cité. He then spent 18 years combining his love for language and IT skills in various roles, serving as a structured and unstructured content technical writer, DITA migration project leader, technical editor, and proofreader in the Fintech and MedTech device industries.
In 2021, Dipo transitioned into Content Creation and Marketing. Acting as the crucial link between developers and the end users, occupying the sweet spot between expectation and delivery, Dipo represents both the voice of the user and that of the software developer, acting as the quintessential middleman. Feel free to connect with and follow Dipo on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dipocoker/
Sarah O’Keefe, Scriptorium
Sarah O’Keefe is the founder and CEO of Scriptorium. Driven by learning and exploration, she takes pride in providing a meaningful contribution to the world of customer-facing content and beyond. As a pioneer in the content industry, she is a globally recognized author and speaker.
Marianne Calilhanna, Data Conversation Laboratories
Marianne is a content and technology professional with 30+ years of marketing, editorial, product development, publishing, and change management experience. Marianne manages Data Conversion Laboratory’s marketing activities, which comprises sharing the company’s success stories in a way that is meaningful to the industries DCL serves. She publishes the monthly DCL newsletter, develops content for and produces the DCL Learning Series, exhibits and sponsors industry events, manages the corporate website, and takes part in transforming DCL’s broad list of services into pragmatic products that support content structure and content interchange.
Building a Bulletproof Business Case for Structured Content in 2025
Organizations are increasingly recognizing the need for structured content to streamline their operations and enhance their content strategy. This presentation explores the intersection of structured content and Content Operations (Content Ops), demonstrating how this powerful combination can drive efficiency, consistency, and scalability in content creation and delivery.
We’ll provide a comprehensive framework for building a compelling business case that articulates the tangible benefits of implementing structured content within a content ops framework, helping you gain buy-in from stakeholders and position your organization for success in the digital age.
Patrick Bosek, Heretto
Patrick is a co-founder and CEO of Heretto, an industry-leading SaaS solution for content operations. Since beginning Heretto in 2005, Patrick has worked on a wide range of projects all focused on improving authoring, production, and distribution of content. Patrick is a software industry professional specializing in developing, productizing, and solving problems with product content software. He is a skilled developer, thoughtful manager, and passionate customer advocate.
GenAI and You! A Review of CIDM’s 2024 Benchmark Survey on Generative AI
Generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) broke through to the masses in 2022 with the promise of revolutionizing many aspects of business, art, and literature. An industry survey conducted by The Center for Information Development Management (CIDM) sought to understand the impact of GenAI in the technical communication industry two years into this revolution.
Join Comtech Services’ Senior Consultants Amanda Patterson and Dana Aubin in this session to learn about the results of the survey including industry trends, approaches, and concerns. We will also present data on how CIDM members compare to the rest of the industry and explore what these results mean for the tech comm field.
Dana Aubin & Amanda Patterson, Comtech Services
Dana Aubin is a Senior Consultant at Comtech Services with almost 20 years of experience in technical writing, content strategy, and information modeling. She is based in Denver, Colorado, and enjoys gluten-free baking, teaching her old dog new tricks, and giving history tours at her local cemeteries.
Dr. Amanda Patterson is an AI enthusiast and accomplished technical communicator specializing in developing technical communication strategies for the manufacturing sector.
Her expertise encompasses leading technical writing teams, enhancing process efficiencies, and implementing advanced software solutions. Additionally, she plays an active role in the Society for Technical Communication (STC) and the Center for Information-Development Management (CIDM), demonstrating her commitment to the field through leadership, conference contributions, and publications.
Right-to-Repair: What It Means for Consumers and Tech Writers
Scott Abel breaks down the right-to-repair movement, focusing on new and upcoming regulations that require companies to make repair documentation freely available for products such as vacuum cleaners, iPhones, washers, dryers, and other electronics. He explores how these laws, designed to empower consumers to fix their own devices, impact the technical documentation industry. Scott also discusses how businesses can adopt advanced information management practices to ensure compliance with these regulations, both in the U.S. and internationally, while supporting customer satisfaction and sustainability goals.
Scott Abel, The Content Wrangler
Dubbed “The Content Wrangler,” Scott Abel is the Founder and President of The Content Wrangler Inc, a global content strategy consultancy. Scott Abel is a content management strategist and exponential growth evangelist. He specializes in helping content-heavy organizations improve the way they author, maintain, publish and archive their information assets.
Scott publishes a series of content strategy books for XML Press and is the producer of several content industry events including Technical Documentation Roundup and Information Development World.
Goal-oriented Content Delivery: Beyond AI, Search, and “One Right Answer”
Tech docs users have goals or “jobs to be done” that a single page cannot answer. Writers are challenged to design content for sophisticated tasks that require reference information, scenarios, and guidance across different media for many contexts while following unpredictable paths. And it’s not enough to rely just on search, curated hyperlinks, taxonomy, varying page lengths, or even AI.
There isn’t always one right approach nor one right answer. Sophisticated user goals require a combination of techniques to create a flexible, scalable, and trustable information model. Join this presentation to learn the real needs of complex users tasks and how to map them to usable metadata. See what AI can do to suggest appropriate content and where it struggles. Consider suitable goal-oriented solutions for your own organization’s needs and see how this approach is being used in practice by RWS.
Alvin Reyes, RWS
As a business architect with RWS, Alvin consults with enterprise customers to improve their end-to-end Content Supply Chain across Web, Structured Content, and Language technology and processes. Starting as a Tridion customer, he has since shared over 300 blog posts on Tridion Sites and content technology.
Metadata, iiRDS and DITA
Technical documentation and metadata have been a powerful team for a while, enabling single-source-publishing and increasing the efficiency of content creators. Now metadata is reshaping the content supply chain and opening up business opportunities. Looking at use cases from the industry, we will see how metadata standards like iiRDS and VDI 2770 affect procurement, help automate content creation processes, and are becoming an asset when competing for customers. You will learn about iiRDS, how it benefits companies from different industries, and how it can be easily used with DITA. Industry examples include companies from the sectors of mechanical and chemical engineering.
Mark Schubert, Parson AG
Technical documentation and metadata have been a powerful team for a while, enabling single-source-publishing and increasing the efficiency of content creators. Now metadata is reshaping the content supply chain and opening up business opportunities. Looking at use cases from the industry, we will see how metadata standards like iiRDS and VDI 2770 affect procurement, help automate content creation processes, and are becoming an asset when competing for customers. You will learn about iiRDS, how it benefits companies from different industries, and how it can be easily used with DITA. Industry examples include companies from the sectors of mechanical and chemical engineering.
DITA Content Delivery- Core Success Factors
The session provides attendees with an overview of core factors for content delivery success when publishing DITA based content. Attendees will gain insight into essential areas that should be evaluated in the assessment of delivery options.
These areas have been gathered from real world client stories- the presentation will highlight the issues these areas create if they are not addressed correctly.
Core Topics include
- Rapid Publishing
- Need for DITA Map comprehension
- Delivery Tier Metadata
- Effective Publishing Updates
- Headless Delivery
- Third Party Integration approaches: Salesforce and Zendesk
Andrew Douglas, Bluestream Content Solutions
bio coming soon
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