The DocTrain conferences are a technical communicators think-tank- which is an odd place for an ad agency to be making a presentation- but, when you grok the importance of good support systems in delivering a memorable brand experience- it starts to make sense.
Our presentation was well attended, with heavy hitters from the corporate world and the open source community- as well as a lot of technical communicators who wanted to learn a faster way to communicate with their customers.
The Synopsis started like this:
The lines between a “Blog” and a “Website” are blurring faster than a speeding bullet, yet many business people still think blogs are platforms for personal publishing and self-expression, when in fact, they may be the most powerful tool to connect with your customers on the ‘net today.
Blogzilla: Why Blogs Are The Monster In The Business Closet - Sessions - DocTrain East 2008.
The key concept of modern technical writers could be referred to as Publishing 2.0 - where it’s critical that the content be separate from the presentation, so it can be easily updated and more importantly, delivered through multiple platforms.
The idea of structuring content- using the DITA (Darwin Information Typing Architecture) standard is so far removed from advertising and marketing, that few ad agencies would fit in at this event- but, if you are a large marketer looking to be ubiquotious in your delivery of message, across multiple platforms, languages and culture there is really no other way to control your message.
We proposed that using a WordPress Content Management System may be one way to work quickly at responding to new issues in the marketplace as a “scratch pad” for ideas and content that needs to be refined, typed and structured for general delivery. Speed of response is absolutely critical, as is having Google think your companies site is the first place to look for information concerning your products or services.
Failure to respond instantly is no longer an option.
We saw all kinds of other really interesting applications of technology and strategies for delivery of corporate communications, more on those as the presentation decks are available.
Here is ours: