Helping Arbortext Customers Get Started

After years of impartiality, we've decided to focus on what we do best: helping people get started. Regardless of your choice of doctype, we know that writers and publishers still need the right tools to be successful. We want to help people learn to take charge of their xml publishing projects.

After the acquisition of Arbortext by PTC, we saw an steady increase of new customers having problems implementing Arbortext based on insufficient information from inexperienced PTC sales staff and reseller-partners.

When I started working with Arbortext products, I was also learning XML, XSLT, publishing, content management, all at the same time. I was lucky enough to have a part-time expert consultant available to me to help get me started. She did the initial print stylesheet development, and taught me as she went. I was learning the technology while learning on a concrete example that, more importantly, was an actual deliverable! None of the training was generic or unrelated to what, eventually, I needed in order to deliver published documents on-time and with high quality print composition.

In addition, I was able to apply the lessons to begin the rest of the multi-channel outputs (3 versions of HTML, Palm Reader, and eReader) and have the expert consultant review my early work, help with hints to better optimize my code and polish my final output, as I took over and she phased out.

The expert was expensive, but we came in far, far under budget with respect to her. Having an expert do intensive training for me (as well as the early authoring staff), on our data, producing product-ready deliverables went a long way to getting me ready to maintain and enhance our publishing environment long-term.

It also got me ready a lot faster than we expected. We kept her on retainer for a period of time after the intensive training period. And we got our money's worth out of her. We were able to control our costs with regard to her: she was never sitting around or doing work that I was destined to do, or doing work that wasn't a product of her expertise.

It was a system that worked so well, we've been doing the same for our customers ever since.

We joined with PTC as a direct result of hearing customers cry out for temporary expertise that would help them get their staff proficient in the Arbortext products and technology. These were customers with limited budgets, that wanted to keep the work in-house, and grow the necessary expertise with existing staff resources.

We decided that we would answer the call and help customers who wanted what we wanted: working, polished, resusable content that could be published easily and efficiently with staff resources who were capable of making it happen.

The Complete Triangle

Attempting single sourcing with help from only one side is a recipe for disaster: Customers spend large amounts of money, resources and effort but don't get the system they expect. Customers should plan to research all three sides of the triangle and do a lot of planning from the start. Only then will they get a complete, extendable, and workable solution that benefits their entire company and sees return-on-investment from the very beginning.

Single-Source Solutions experts have implemented successful solutions by paying attention to all three sides of the triangle. Our implementers have presented at conferences and written papers about their previous experiences.

The Product Side: Vendors and Application-Specific Specialists

Product companies focus on developing full product suites to cover every possible customer. Their literature focuses on amazing application-specific features and why their products are the best choice for any environment. These companies work hard to sell products and consulting services to implement their full-scale systems.

Several vendors sponsor think tanks and white papers that help implementers understand the components to any single-sourcing system. Many provide resources for information on single sourcing and XML. Often these resources surpass the boundaries of their product line.

Some of the major players in the single-sourcing product space are:

* Arbortext
* Documentum
* XyVision
* More Vendors

The only problem with this side of the triangle is the problem that faces nearly every vendor. Competition is fierce. Products are expensive and generally so generic that it takes a considerable amount of customization before you have any sort of working environment. These companies do their best to make sure their products fit your requirements—rather than making sure that your requirements fit their product suites. It's a rare vendor indeed that recommends a competitive product instead of one of their own.

In the end, with any of these companies, customers will get an implementation that works. They all have professional services that provide expert implementation assistance. So, at that, they are very good. But this group too is missing the rest of the triangle. Often solutions are awkward and don't scale well to meet changing requirements as companies grow: they're focused on sales rather than the general theory and technology that are essential for a well-designed customer-specific solution. They miss the application-sepcific opportunities where documentation meets source development because they're desiging a system for the here-and-now. So again, we find that they are not alone.

The Technology Side: Programming Nuts and Bolts

The technology companies focus on XML as a programming language. The methods for code reuse, found in Object-Oriented programming literature, are similar to the methods used to achieve modular writing. Code reuse is the assertion that if you build generic objects they can be used and reused. It is the idea that you can isolate functionality into a module (function) and then use that module rather than rewriting the code. The ideas are the same. Unfortunately, the programming literature faces the same implementation gap, from the other side.

The XML programming books, which don’t describe its implementation as a language, describe the multitude of ways you can use XML. They tell you how to write the XML and how to process it: They do not tell you how to make XML work in a single sourcing environment. In addition, these books are not aimed at either of the groups that the single sourcing documentation targets. XML authors assume their readers have a programming background and already understand programming concepts.

* Books
* Online Resources

The only problem with this side of the triangle is that nearly all of the literature is technical in nature. Most books on XML contain information about programming XML applications—from programming XML compilers to web-services. At this, they are very good. But this group too is missing the rest of the triangle. The components that bridge the nuts and bolts of technology and real-world practice. And, once again, we find that they are not alone.

The Theory Side: The Information Management Consulting Companies

There are a lot management consultanting companies who specialize in best practices: the theory of singlesourcing. Their literature is full of information about strategies, document design techniques, and how to choose a tool or evaluate a product. These companies work to create standards and generalized rules for making single-sourcing work in traditional publishing environments.

These companies have excellent information on their websites about how to get cost savings through single-sourcing, how to write modularly, or how to structure your documentation. When you're first learning about single sourcing, you can't find better resources:

* S1000D Technical Publications Specification Maintenance Group (TPSMG) TPSMG is responsible for the development and maintenance of the ASD/A1A S1000D international specifications. S1000D describes a standard for the creation and publication for technical publications utilizing a common source database

* The Center for Information-Development Management Founded by Joann Hackos, the CIDM provides "a focused, expert, and progressive forum to support documentation, training, and customer service managers in creating high performance teams that produce effective and appropriate deliverables."

* The Rockley Group Members of the Rockley group work with clients to develop "information solutions through a unified content strategy, either for a particular project or across an enterprise. "

* Single Sourcing: Building Modular Documentation by Kurt Ament This is one of the only books that attempts to bridge the gap between the single-sourcing theorists and the technology developers.

Hackos, Rockley, Ament are, to a significant extent, the existing authorities in theoretical single-sourcing and information design. Their websites have everything the beginning single-sourcer could need. Their books (and conferences) are extremely useful. They are full of detailed information to teach managers, writers, and document designers how to think about single sourcing.

The only problem with this side of the triangle is that nearly all of the literature is theoretical in nature. Most books on single sourcing contain advice about planning, managing, and creating modular projects and documentation. At this, they are very good. What they’re all missing is the rest of the triangle. The components that bridge theory and practice. And they’re not alone.

The Single-Sourcing Triangle

Single sourcing is a simple idea that requires a very complex implementation. Single sourcing is a methodology, not a technology. XML is a technology, not a methodology. Bringing the two together is not obvious or well-defined. No one system that works for every customer. No one book describes how to put it all together. On this page, you will find places that will help you figure out where to start.

One of our goals is to help customers make the choices that will allow them to implement a system that scales. Necessarily, for any concrete project we must choose a set of tools and we must decide how to implement particular components.

At Single-Sourcing Solutions, we remain vendor-neutral and platform-agnostic. Most importantly, we avoid unnecessary customization, so that our customers can take advantage of new products and new technology down the road.

The Single-sourcing triangle includes the Information Management folks (theory), the Programming folks (technology), and the Vendors (products).