Towards content lakes

One of the trends in both data and content management is the move away from silos. In data management circles, there is a trend towards the collection and aggregation of customer data into “data lakes”. According to Margaret Rouse, a data lake is: A storage repository that holds a vast amount of raw data in its… Read more »

All our online courses – at a discounted, bundle price

You can now sign up for all of Cherryleaf’s popular online training courses at a discounted price! This bundle provides you with access to: Cherryleaf’s Technical Author/Technical Writing online training course DITA fundamentals Single sourcing and content reuse training course Introduction to Content Strategy course By purchasing this bundle, you’ll save £180 ex VAT. That’s a… Read more »

Cutting and pasting content into Word documents – Is there a better way?

Earlier this week, we were helping a large company finalise a bid document where they were required to use a Word file sent by their client. This involved taking content from the company’s repository of standard documents on SharePoint, and from emails, plus writing down information provided verbally by the Subject Matter Experts. The bid writing team had to cut the relevant content from… Read more »

A technical communication user’s hierarchy of needs

At the TCUK 2015 conference, Rachel Johnston mentioned the idea of a content maturity model. We thought we’d take this idea and ask: Could we develop a model that illustrates a hierarchy of needs for users of technical communication (and in particular, User Assistance)? A model of what? We suggest calling this model a technical communication user’s hierarchy of needs…. Read more »

Reflections on the TCUK15 conference

I was one of the presenters at last week’s Technical Communication UK 2015 (TCUK) conference. TCUK is the Institute of Scientific and Technical Communicators’ (ISTC’s) annual conference for everyone involved in writing, editing, illustrating, delivering and publishing technical information. It’s an opportunity for Technical Communicators from the UK and mainland Europe to meet up and mingle,… Read more »