Really Strategies Blog

Quick thought on XBRL

I was just reading Mark Logic CEO Dave Kellogg's post on XBRL and Microsoft's claim to be the first company to use it.  After taking a look at the filing from Dave's blog link, it struck me that:

- The poor pilot companies that are outputting XBRL - presumably by hand!  This is clearly no language to be editing or even converting without software/system support.

- Wouldn't it be great to have a publishing oriented XML CMS like RSuite to help author, edit, and pull required information together! 

Achieving automation: InDesign/InCopy to XML

InDesign and InCopy are built for desktop publishing - giving great power to design and editorial.  This is all great news.  However, it makes exporting XML rather tricky - particularly the development of fully automated XML exports.  Sure you can capture XML coming out of these applications, but can you really push that XML into your CMS without having text processing look at it? 

We've looked at this over many projects and the key issue is, of course, the discipline required by each group in the process.  If they don't follow the rules, then their content might not match what your CMS is looking for.  A deck must be labeled as a deck somehow.  Likewise, a B-Head or run-in head must be labeled appropriately. There are also customer or genre specific structures and metadata that must be maintained - with paragraph or character styles (or one of several other techniques).

The point is that you can't look over everyone's shoulder.  Styling and other structure related errors are bound to creep into your content on occasion.   If you only want to accept well structured XML, then you need the capability to automatically identify errors and only ingest acceptable documents.

While you can create scripts to QC the content during production, this poses a scripting update problem every time you want to change your format structure (every time you do a redesign, perhaps).  And while scripting is extremely powerful in CS2 & CS3, it is pretty low level stuff and time consuming to produce anything complicated.  It is also problematic if you don't have a specialist on staff.  Better to write scripts once and move QC somewhere else.

So what to do?  One solution is a Schema (or DTD) validation technique that allows this QC operation to proceed during an automated export.  The Schema will be more restrictive than just looking at Adobe structures - it will overlay structures specific to your content.  And while updating a schema requires some technical knowhow, it is more straight forward and much faster than updating scripting of any kind.  The reason, of course, is that this is what Schemas are meant to do well.

Using a Schema to validate InDesign/InCopy content can detect a surprising number of human errors with styling and other structuring techniques.  Not all errors, but it can do a solid job if your content is moderately complex.  Content flows into an interim format and is validated before being transformed into its final form in your CMS.  This means that valid content can be fully automated from InDesign to the CMS.  Invalid documents can be automatically siphoned off for review and correction by production.  Users can then be retrained if necessary.

Beats checking every exported document ad nauseum, doesn't it?  Especially at 2am.

Online-only success story

Last April (2007), International Data Group (IDG) transitioned its magazine, InfoWorld, into an online only publication. A year later, the company reports

...the InfoWorld Web site is generating ad revenue of $1.6 million a month with operating profit margins of 37 percent. A year earlier, when it had both print and online versions, InfoWorld had a slight operating loss on monthly revenue of $1.5 million.

My colleagues and I attempt to track the demise of print publications  that have been discontinued in favor of sole digital delivery of the content. There's always a twinge of sadness documenting this trend, so it was nice to finally read this report in The New York Times.

An interesting content experiment

German publisher Bertelsmann is publishing "The One-Volume Wikipedia Encyclopedia" in print. The book will go on sale in September for 19.95 euros. The initial print run is anticipated to be about 20,000 copies and Bertelsmann agreed to pay one euro per copy sold for use of the Wikipedia name.

“We think of it as an encyclopedic yearbook,” Dr. Beate Varnhorn [editor in charge of Bertelsmann’s reference works] said, leaving open the possibility of new editions if the 2008 version is successful.

It will be interesting to see what happens this fall.

Inhalt Wiederverwendung auf Deutsch...viel Glück.

Read the full story here.

Earth Day Webinar | Content Recycling with RSuite

On Earth day, April 22nd, Lisa Bos will present:

Content Recycling with RSuite CMS

Reduce production time and streamline your workflow.
Learn how RSuite can automate common workflow steps and integrate business rules, requiring human interaction only when an exception condition occurs.

Re-use your content at any level, from abstracts to Word files.
See how RSuite offers re-use at the XML element level and manages many other content types, including Word files, images, InDesign, InCopy, PDFs, etc.

Recycle text, images, searches, workflow, XQuery statements.
Discover new ways to use your content, whether creating parallel renditions in multiple formats or creating dynamic content assemblies

Webinar Details
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
2:00 PM - 3:00 PM EDT
Register here

Word 2007 add-in for NLM DTD

Something to keep an eye on for STM publishers . . .

Microsoft released a add-in for Word 2007—called the Article Authoring add-in—that assists in creating XML in the NLM DTD.  You can also import a NLM DTD XML document and load it into Word. It seems to be targeted to the authoring point of view, that is, the add-in is designed for the authoring stage, as opposed to the production/editing stage, where  more common (and robust) Word-based tools, like Inera eXtyles, live.  I assume it could also fit into the editing stage, which seems a much more likely place for this thing to happen.

But before you jump in too quickly, realize that even Microsoft warns that the add-in is a beta and not production ready.  And Inera has some cautionary words about Word 2007.

Other links:

• Download the plug-in  
• A blog from Pablo Fernicola, the Microsoft product manager, overseeing the project.
• A video demo of the add-in (from the blog)
• I'll be bookmarking anything I see on my del.icio.us links

Book sales up 7.2% in January 2008

The American Association of Publishers reported this week that book sales saw a 7.2% increase for the month of January 2008. The breakdown looks like this

• Adult hardcover category -  $94.4 million sales
• Adult paperback category -  $135.2 million sales
• Adult mass market category - $65.3 million sales
• Children’s/young adult paperback category - $34.0 million sales

Read the entire press release to see all the figures, including university press figures and professional and scholarly publishing stats.

Personally, I'm so happy to hear that people are reading more (assuming they are actually reading the purchased books!) in this age of TV-induced ADD, fast food culture, and headline news from sound clips. And I recognized last night that I am at my happiest when I read books to my two small children.

Professionally, this supports my stance that book publishers need to XMLize content so they can aptly re-use, search, deliver, enhance, and understand their most valuable assets.

Job jobs jobs

We'll be updating our sites soon to reflect that we're hiring. If you're looking, please consider us. It's hard to find personable and talented XML/publishing experts, and we need a bunch. As a consulting company, we had (and still have) the luxury of building up talent over time, and working with some of the best independent consultants around. As a software company, we have to grow more quickly, and it's a challenge. Any advice on finding people in this space is appreciated!

*****

We'll be posting something roughly like this:

We’re growing fast and need people to fill a variety of roles, including:

• Project manager/business analyst
• Quality engineer
• Software architect
• Software engineer
• Sales engineer
• System administrator
• Technical writer
• Web/UI engineer

Required qualifications vary by role, but experience and interest in XML and publishing are the common theme and are especially important for our architects, sales engineers, and analysts. For those roles, if our blog resonates with you, then you’re a likely candidate. For other roles, personality and general experience with the role are of more importance. Other skill sets that will help you get an interview include: Java, Ajax, XQuery, XSL, Adobe Creative Suite customizations, XML schema development, DITA, workflow management, and spoken Mandarin or Cantonese.

We solve interesting problems, learn constantly, have strong opinions about what we do, enjoy and respect each other, multi-task, are mostly self-directing, and work really hard. We care more about our customers than most companies. We hire people that fit our culture. You wouldn’t be happy here if this description doesn’t sound like you.

For most of these roles, we strongly prefer candidates who can work out of our office in the Philadelphia suburbs. But, if you’re unusually qualified and located elsewhere, we’d still like to talk to you.

Submit resumes here.

Open Publish 2008 - April 23 to 24

Open Publish 2008 is an event focused on both the management and implementation issues relating to publishing technology based on open standards.

The conference, now in its second year, offers pre-conference tutorials as well as management and technical tracks. The complete schedule, including registration information, can be found here.

Really Strategies' consultant Eliot Kimber will keynote the event and lead a tutorial:

Keynote: Sustainable XML for Publishing Applications: DITA Makes It Possible
Tutorial: Applying DITA to Narrative Documents

 

Preview of DITA Learning Specialization in Action

Almost exactly two years ago I posted here with enthusiasm for the idea of using DITA to produce topic-based learning objects. Well, yesterday I participated in an OASIS DITA Learning and Training Content Specialization Subcommittee conference call and caught an early glimpse of the group's work in action.

During the call John Hunt demonstrated DITA to SCORM content and manifest publishing using the Open Toolkit. After publishing, he packaged the content and loaded it into the SCORM conformance test suite without errors. Next he showed functional Learning Management System navigation, discussed best practices for integrating relational topic links, and for a finale demonstrated dynamic sequencing based on pre-assessment test results. Nice! For those who have not been keeping track, support for the DITA Learning and Training Content Specialization will be included in the forthcoming DITA 1.2 release.

So while last time around I could only speculate on the natural fit between DITA and SCORM (I am currently fond of saying they go together like peanut butter and chocolate), now I can quote a colleague with confidence and say "it just works!"