Lightweight DITA SC

As we discussed in the meeting yesterday, I'm kicking off a round of intros so we can all get to know each other a little better. I've been with DITA since day 1, and was the co-editor of the DITA 1.0 and 1.1 specification. I'm excited about lightweight DITA because it gives us a chance to apply the lessons we've learned with full DITA in crafting a high-functioning but lightweight architectural subset. My current role at IBM is one of content technology strategist, with a scope that lets me influence (but not necessarily direct) technology development across many different content development and delivery organizations, with both internal and external audiences. Lightweight DITA is a part of every content technology strategy deck I put together in IBM. It's a core piece of the architecture we need to allow content to be truly portable, across systems, skill sets, and formats. The highest priority scenarios I'm focusing on for IBM use (with help from other IBMers) are: - marketing content and HTML5 mappings - training content and EPUB mappings - developer content and both markdown and HTML5 mappings Michael Priestley, Senior Technical Staff Member (STSM) Enterprise Content Technology Strategist mpriestl@ca.ibm.com http://dita.xml.org/blog/michael-priestley

Hi All, I’ve been with DITA since v1.1. I’m primarily interested in lightweight DITA for use in a browser-based authoring environment. Many XML tools are very expensive and adoption and change management are difficult in large organizations. I want to promote structured content through an easier-to-author web-based environment. My role at Pelco by Schneider Electric is dedicated to Integration Partner support, but I have connections with the Pelco Tech Pubs department as well as Tech Pubs departments in the larger Schneider Electric family of companies, including SquareD, APC, Greybar, Invensys and more. DITA is key to Schneider Electric technical publications strategy, and I think we can make even more traction with the capabilities of Lightweight DITA. My highest priorities are: - browser-based authoring - browser-based direct rendering of XML (via XSL/CSS) Thanks and best regards, --Scott Scott Hudson         PELCO     by Schneider Electric         United States      Standards & Information Architect   Phone:   +1 970 282 1952     Mobile:   +1 720 369 2433      Email:   scott.hudson@schneider-electric.com Sites:   pdn.pelco.com , partnerfirst.pelco.com   On Sep 16, 2014, at 6:33 PM, Michael Priestley < mpriestl@ca.ibm.com > wrote: As we discussed in the meeting yesterday, I'm kicking off a round of intros so we can all get to know each other a little better. I've been with DITA since day 1, and was the co-editor of the DITA 1.0 and 1.1 specification. I'm excited about lightweight DITA because it gives us a chance to apply the lessons we've learned with full DITA in crafting a high-functioning but lightweight architectural subset. My current role at IBM is one of content technology strategist, with a scope that lets me influence (but not necessarily direct) technology development across many different content development and delivery organizations, with both internal and external audiences. Lightweight DITA is a part of every content technology strategy deck I put together in IBM. It's a core piece of the architecture we need to allow content to be truly portable, across systems, skill sets, and formats. The highest priority scenarios I'm focusing on for IBM use (with help from other IBMers) are: - marketing content and HTML5 mappings - training content and EPUB mappings - developer content and both markdown and HTML5 mappings Michael Priestley, Senior Technical Staff Member (STSM) Enterprise Content Technology Strategist mpriestl@ca.ibm.com http://dita.xml.org/blog/michael-priestley ______________________________________________________________________ This email has been scanned by the Symantec Email Security.cloud service. ______________________________________________________________________

Hi all, I've been working with XML for around 10 years, first mainly in stylesheet development and other services for publishers, last couple of years working on the XML editor called Xopus (good to hear it being mentioned in the call Monday!). I am relatively new to DITA, got into it with v1.2 when I started working for Xopus (now SDL). I've been in different roles here, consultant, user experience designer, and now mainly acting as product owner for Xopus/SDL LiveContent Create. My main interest in lightweight DITA is making it easier to author content. A product like Xopus can help in making more complex schema's like the full DITA easier to author. But with a simpler schema, authoring usability could take another leap. And actually not just authoring, other interaction with the content like stylesheet development or conversion into other file formats will benefit from a more straightforward structure as well. Fredrik Geers  Product Owner SDL LiveContent Create/SDL Xopus     SDL      (t)  +31 (0)20 201 0500    (e)  fgeers@sdl.com www.sdl.com SDL PLC confidential, all rights reserved. If you are not the intended recipient of this mail SDL requests and requires that you delete it without acting upon or copying any of its contents, and we further request that you advise us. SDL PLC is a public limited company registered in England and Wales. Registered number: 02675207. Registered address: Globe House, Clivemont Road, Maidenhead, Berkshire SL6 7DY, UK. This message has been scanned for malware by Websense. www.websense.com

I've been working with DITA since 2009, when I was made the lead of the DITA features team for PTC/Arbortext and joined the DITA TC. I'd been working on XML authoring and publishing systems since joining Arbortext in 2001. In my current position with Oberon, in addition to being a lead DITA consultant, I'm head of the product development team, and we're working on systems to manage and audit the delivery of DITA-based content to end users. My work on the DITA TC has varied, but it's safe to say my contributions have primarily had to do with keyref-related features. I was the primary author of the scoped key feature in DITA 1.3. My primary interest in lightweight DITA has to do with simplifying the process of getting information out of subject matter experts' heads and into the content ecosystem, so the aspects enabling content creation in HTML, Markdown, and Word are my first focus. Beyond that, I'm very interested in a simplified specialization infrastructure. Chris Chris Nitchie (734) 330-2978 chris.nitchie@oberontech.com www.oberontech.com Follow us:    

Thanks for kicking this off, Michael. My introduction to DITA came with an IBM beta-test in 2002, and then I started authoring DITA content in 2004. I've worn a lot of different hats -- author, team lead, information architect, build specialist, and most recently, DITA consultant. I've been involved with DITA work at OASIS since 2008. I have clients who don't need the overhead, weight, and complexity of full DITA. It's overkill for what they need to do. I think that having a common, lightweight DITA would enable tool vendors to support DITA much more easily and with much less development time. I'd dearly love to see a future in which one could save a Google doc as lightweight DITA or author lightweight DITA in an e-mail client or iPad app -- it would make my life much easier! Best, Kris Kristen James Eberlein Chair, OASIS DITA Technical Committee Principal consultant, Eberlein Consulting www.eberleinconsulting.com +1 919 682-2290; kriseberlein (skype)

Hello OASIS LW DITA! I've had the good fortune to have worked with Michael, Don, and the DITA team at IBM from the very start, including the initial content prototyping where we proved the fit for DITA with Lotus Notes help content. At OASIS, I led the sub-committee effort to develop the support in DITA 1.2 for learning and training content. I also co-chaired the DITA for Web subcommittee, which explored various use cases for expressing DITA content on the web, including HTML microformats, dynamic publishing, intelligent content, delivery to mobile devices, and the role of DITA content on blogs and wikis. From the outset, DITA has offered a direct and simple way to add meaning to content, and through that to enable collaboration and reuse of content at many levels. Lightweight DITA may finally let us build on that early promise, and open up DITA to the much wider world of content creators, in marketing, in technical development, in education, in publishing, in user experience design, and many more. I'm particularly interested in exploring these topics:  - DITA and HTML5 for educational publishing and EPUB  - simple DITA templates to allow educators to create curriculum plans, lessons, and learning modules  - DITA and plain-text dialects such as Markdown (for things like developer-created API specs)  - lightweight DITA templates for a much simpler set of learning and training content types I'm looking forward to many fruitful conversations with all of you going forward. Thanks. John ___________________________________ John Hunt Senior Technical Content Architect IBM Collaboration Solutions john_hunt@us.ibm.com

I worked at IBM with Michael in developing what became DITA. My local management, who could not grasp the significance of an Outstanding Innovation Award that our sponsor secured for our team, had my award plaque titled: in appreciation for: Lead Architect That Led Initial Architectural Team in Investigative Activities to Deploy External Package. I hope Michael's management has framed his contributions more meaningfully. After leading that Initial Architectural Team in getting DITA as a specification into OASIS and the original transforms into the open source DITA Open Toolkit, I focused on providing DITA authoring solutions to IBM's content contributors whose primary job is Not Technical Writing (aka, SMEs, support, developers, engineers, standards, policies, Web publishers, etc.) and prototyped a DITA Wiki before retiring in 2010. I've since consulted for DITA and web publishing services, and speak often on deployment challenges and solutions. My long-term project called expeDITA is an exploration of DITA's continuing role for writing communities outside of the usual reach of DITA adoption messaging. It's getting there, and the latest version will render LightWeight DITA (such as it is) and is ready to accept prototype editing approaches for it. Why am I excited for this activity? Lightweight DITA and other XML solutions like it are poised to provide publishing services that are still missing from the W3C-defined HTML architecture itself. For example, if you want to create adaptive content for the Web, there are no standard HTML-based solutions (but plenty of incompatible in-house and commercial hacks). XML along with community-bridging content standards like Lightweight DITA can shed light (and W3C standards-based tools) into that dark corner of the Web. -- Don R. Day Co-Founder, ContelligenceGroup.com Founding Chair, OASIS DITA Technical Committee LinkedIn: donrday    Twitter: @donrday About.me: Don R. Day    Skype: don.r.day Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information? --T.S. Eliot On 9/16/2014 7:33 PM, Michael Priestley wrote: As we discussed in the meeting yesterday, I'm kicking off a round of intros so we can all get to know each other a little better. I've been with DITA since day 1, and was the co-editor of the DITA 1.0 and 1.1 specification. I'm excited about lightweight DITA because it gives us a chance to apply the lessons we've learned with full DITA in crafting a high-functioning but lightweight architectural subset. My current role at IBM is one of content technology strategist, with a scope that lets me influence (but not necessarily direct) technology development across many different content development and delivery organizations, with both internal and external audiences. Lightweight DITA is a part of every content technology strategy deck I put together in IBM. It's a core piece of the architecture we need to allow content to be truly portable, across systems, skill sets, and formats. The highest priority scenarios I'm focusing on for IBM use (with help from other IBMers) are: - marketing content and HTML5 mappings - training content and EPUB mappings - developer content and both markdown and HTML5 mappings Michael Priestley, Senior Technical Staff Member (STSM) Enterprise Content Technology Strategist mpriestl@ca.ibm.com http://dita.xml.org/blog/michael-priestley

I've been working with DITA since about 2006, and before that I was doing XML-based documentation systems. I plan and implement all kinds of documentation systems and tools on many platforms and CCMSes. I started as a cartoonist and tech writer in the early days of the PC era (and that era is close to over now, isn't it?). I'm working with Eliot Kimber on the DITA for Small Teams project where we are going to use the eXist XML database and GitHub to put together something like a free DITA CMS. Right now I'm working on Git commit hooks and playing with eXist. I'm really interested in lightweight authoring of structured content. I have one client where I had trained a bright non-tech writer to use Oxygen to edit DITA files, and bring in content from engineers who were using Word. Bright as she is, this person struggled with it and it resulted in the client asking me to downgrade the DITA system to MadCap Flare, which I did. I believe Lightweight DITA could probably have saved this DITA system. I can think of several other uses for Lightweight DITA in projects I am working on. Mark Giffin Mark Giffin Consulting, Inc. http://markgiffin.com/

As a consultant I've been working with DITA since 2006. My roots with markup languages actually antedates SGML, which is inexplicable given how young I am.   My interest in lightweight DITA derives largely from an experience with one client over several years. We set out to implement a 'center of excellence' within a department. The project was put on hold several times, and cancelled twice, due to budget cuts, a merger, reductions in staff, and reorganizations. The actual implementation evolved into a fully functional (if rather minimal) DITA implementation supporting all of three tech writers.   I'm also interested in specialization, particularly why some organizations see only complexity and thus fall short of an optimal DITA implementation. Perception matters greatly.   More peripheral to this subcommittee is my interest in translation and localization of DITA content. I'm currently co-editor of the XLIFF spec, with primary responsibility for maintaining the schema files.     Tom Comerford tom@supratext.com LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/tomcomerford   +1 856 787 9090   Supratext LLC 43 Michaelson Drive Mount Laurel, NJ 08054   www.supratext.com  

Hi everyone,   I've been paying attention to DITA since we started working seriously on DITA support in XMetaL about 2005 or so, and representing JustSystems on the OASIS TC since around the beginning of work on DITA 1.3. I cringe a little when I think about when I started working with markup.   Similar to Kris's experience (and probably everyone's), we've seen many XMetaL customers for whom the complexity of DITA is overkill. We've long thought about providing a "simplified DITA" user experience in XMetaL, but have not had the resources to bring anything to the market. Having a simplified standard DITA vocabulary out there would be a very useful thing for us and other vendors, not only to spare us the resources of developing our own, but so as to promote interoperability.   I'll be participating to provide any expertise I can about authoring requirements, and to bring the work of the committee back to our R&D team for consideration. (Though I'll be off to somewhat of a quiet start due to being out of the office for possibly 7 of the next 9 Mondays!) From our perspective, there's a lot of "doesn't matter" what the spec might turn out to be -- whatever it is, I hope we'll enable authoring in it -- but I'll be watching for any situations where it actually does.   mag   From: dita-lightweight-dita@lists.oasis-open.org [mailto:dita-lightweight-dita@lists.oasis-open.org] On Behalf Of Michael Priestley Sent: Tuesday, September 16, 2014 5:34 PM To: dita-lightweight-dita@lists.oasis-open.org Subject: [dita-lightweight-dita] My intro for the list   As we discussed in the meeting yesterday, I'm kicking off a round of intros so we can all get to know each other a little better. I've been with DITA since day 1, and was the co-editor of the DITA 1.0 and 1.1 specification. I'm excited about lightweight DITA because it gives us a chance to apply the lessons we've learned with full DITA in crafting a high-functioning but lightweight architectural subset. My current role at IBM is one of content technology strategist, with a scope that lets me influence (but not necessarily direct) technology development across many different content development and delivery organizations, with both internal and external audiences. Lightweight DITA is a part of every content technology strategy deck I put together in IBM. It's a core piece of the architecture we need to allow content to be truly portable, across systems, skill sets, and formats. The highest priority scenarios I'm focusing on for IBM use (with help from other IBMers) are: - marketing content and HTML5 mappings - training content and EPUB mappings - developer content and both markdown and HTML5 mappings Michael Priestley, Senior Technical Staff Member (STSM) Enterprise Content Technology Strategist mpriestl@ca.ibm.com http://dita.xml.org/blog/michael-priestley

Hello everyone, I am (one of the) philosopher(s) of the group. I have studied Psychology and Philosophy (plus some Physics) before embarking on a fast-track career in the high-tech computer industry. I have always been drawn to the newer-than-new, with a keen eye on the usefulness of technologies - which very often comes from unexpected corners. In my professional career, I have spent more than 25 years (of which 20 as a self-employed consultant) writing manuals, creating course materials and delivering training courses in a wide variety of industries all over the globe. In the past years, my work has evolved to programming all kinds of solutions to make tech writing more efficient, ranging from small utilities in FrameMaker to full-blown custom component content management systems (adding another C to the acronym here). Currently (if the paid work does not eat up all my time) I am working on a new paradigm in tech writing, where there may be thousands of topics but no table of contents or maps. I embraced DITA when I first saw it but have yet to get a true paid DITA project with real customers, as the hurdles for the adoption of DITA are still too high for most small and medium sized companies who are not working in the software development domain. Writing manuals using high-tech software concepts is simply a couple of bridges too far for those clients. Nevertheless, I have gotten several small companies into a DITA-inspired, minimized structure using FrameMaker and my own set of scripts that make it work in much the same way the DITA OT does, without all the commandline stuff that would scare the hell out of those poor authors. Apart from the size of the vocabulary in lightweight DITA, I am most interested in making lw-DITA sellable through a concise, clear introduction and through tooling that does away with all the geekiness that still shows around anything to do with DITA and the DITA OT at the moment. Lightweight DITA, which in my view should probably be called DITA-lite (for a variety of reasons I will go into at a later stage), should be as daunting as a newborn kitten. Even though you might know it may well grow into a powerful lion, you simply want to hold and cuddle it while it is still young. That might in fact be a much better logo for DITA-lite than the finch, which does not have a lot of cuddliness about it. So, I will be concentrating on clear concepts, ease of use and options for marketing DITA-lite. I would love to see it becoming a technology that all my clients would love to use. Kind regards Jang JANG Communication Technical Documentation Specialist Amsterdam - Netherlands Cell +31 6 4685 4996 http://www.jang.nl On 17 Sep 2014, at 02:33, Michael Priestley <mpriestl@ca.ibm.com> wrote: > As we discussed in the meeting yesterday, I'm kicking off a round of intros so we can all get to know each other a little better. > > I've been with DITA since day 1, and was the co-editor of the DITA 1.0 and 1.1 specification. I'm excited about lightweight DITA because it gives us a chance to apply the lessons we've learned with full DITA in crafting a high-functioning but lightweight architectural subset. > > My current role at IBM is one of content technology strategist, with a scope that lets me influence (but not necessarily direct) technology development across many different content development and delivery organizations, with both internal and external audiences. Lightweight DITA is a part of every content technology strategy deck I put together in IBM. It's a core piece of the architecture we need to allow content to be truly portable, across systems, skill sets, and formats. > > The highest priority scenarios I'm focusing on for IBM use (with help from other IBMers) are: > > - marketing content and HTML5 mappings > - training content and EPUB mappings > - developer content and both markdown and HTML5 mappings > > Michael Priestley, Senior Technical Staff Member (STSM) > Enterprise Content Technology Strategist > mpriestl@ca.ibm.com > http://dita.xml.org/blog/michael-priestley

Hi all, I got into DITA about 7 years ago. I was wrestling with SGML-based manuals  in Structured Frame — the implementation was supposed to be hooked up to a  CMS but as outsourced providers we didn’t have that available, so had to  looking up individual element IDs manually from a huge Excel sheet. Despite the difficulties of that particular situation, I realized there  was a lot of potential to this structured content stuff, read around XML  in general, and then started trying out some personal projects in DITA. I lead the DITA implementation at HTC, and we did some very exciting things  with delivery to a native app and personalized tips, various incarnations  of the corporate website, and a knowledge base for call center staff. One  of my focuses was improving the authoring experience. I did a fair bit  with constraints and editor macros / CSS, as well as a specialized simple  FAQ topic. From time to time we tweaked our reuse practices too, removing manual steps and making life easier for authors . I joined Mekon early this  year, and I’m working with a number of customers who are interested in  lightweight authoring approaches. I tend to go for a lightweight approach to personal projects and have used  Markdown quite a lot. My blog is based on the Pelican static site  generator, and all the posts are Markdown files with minimal metadata at  the top. I’d be interested in helping with a Markdown mapping to  Lightweight DITA, as well as contributing to the discussion on what exactly should be in the core of Lightweight DITA and what should be left to individual organizations to specialize. —  Joe Pairman Mekon Ltd. Tel: +44-20-8722-8400 Mobile: +44-7472-745-063 From: Michael Priestley < mpriestl@ca.ibm.com > Date: Wednesday, September 17, 2014 at 1:33 AM To: dita-lightweight-dita@lists.oasis-open.org < dita-lightweight-dita@lists.oasis-open.org > Subject: [dita-lightweight-dita] My intro for the list As we discussed in the meeting yesterday, I'm kicking off a round of intros so we can all get to know each other a little better. I've been with DITA since day 1, and was the co-editor of the DITA 1.0 and 1.1 specification. I'm excited about lightweight DITA because it gives us a chance to apply the lessons we've learned with full DITA in crafting a high-functioning
but lightweight architectural subset. My current role at IBM is one of content technology strategist, with a scope that lets me influence (but not necessarily direct) technology development across many different content development and delivery organizations, with
both internal and external audiences. Lightweight DITA is a part of every content technology strategy deck I put together in IBM. It's a core piece of the architecture we need to allow content to be truly portable, across systems, skill sets, and formats. The highest priority scenarios I'm focusing on for IBM use (with help from other IBMers) are: - marketing content and HTML5 mappings - training content and EPUB mappings - developer content and both markdown and HTML5 mappings Michael Priestley, Senior Technical Staff Member (STSM)
Enterprise Content Technology Strategist
mpriestl@ca.ibm.com http://dita.xml.org/blog/michael-priestley

Hi there,   I have been working with DITA since it was a Beta at IBM and currently provide consulting services to lead teams through DITA implementation. My current focus in on helping non-technical writers, including instructional designers and technical support representatives, leverage the standard. Although my expertise lies in developing the information architecture, I do provide assistance in other implementation areas.   Many of the teams I support struggle with the complexity of the architecture and the resulting complexity in the authoring tools. As the others have mentioned, I would like to see a standard, easier-to-use flavor of DITA so that more people can more easily use it.   My apologies for not attending the meetings, but I have been traveling during the time for every meeting thus far. I will have a better attendance record later in the year.   Have a great day, A   From: dita-lightweight-dita@lists.oasis-open.org [mailto:dita-lightweight-dita@lists.oasis-open.org] On Behalf Of Michael Priestley Sent: Tuesday, September 16, 2014 5:34 PM To: dita-lightweight-dita@lists.oasis-open.org Subject: [dita-lightweight-dita] My intro for the list   As we discussed in the meeting yesterday, I'm kicking off a round of intros so we can all get to know each other a little better. I've been with DITA since day 1, and was the co-editor of the DITA 1.0 and 1.1 specification. I'm excited about lightweight DITA because it gives us a chance to apply the lessons we've learned with full DITA in crafting a high-functioning but lightweight architectural subset. My current role at IBM is one of content technology strategist, with a scope that lets me influence (but not necessarily direct) technology development across many different content development and delivery organizations, with both internal and external audiences. Lightweight DITA is a part of every content technology strategy deck I put together in IBM. It's a core piece of the architecture we need to allow content to be truly portable, across systems, skill sets, and formats. The highest priority scenarios I'm focusing on for IBM use (with help from other IBMers) are: - marketing content and HTML5 mappings - training content and EPUB mappings - developer content and both markdown and HTML5 mappings Michael Priestley, Senior Technical Staff Member (STSM) Enterprise Content Technology Strategist mpriestl@ca.ibm.com http://dita.xml.org/blog/michael-priestley