Conference Speakers
Ann Adams
Ann Adams has been a computer trainer, programmer, software development manager and sales engineer. She has over twenty years experience in content management, software localization, machine language translation and SGML and XML authoring. She has spoken at XML, STC, Documation and LISA conferences. Ann is currently working on DITA authoring, content management, and translation processes for the printer division of Kyocera. Previous employers include Xerox, Symantec, and Wolters Kluwer.
Presentation: Improving Source Translation Quality with DITA and Content Management
Andrea L. Ames
Andrea L. Ames, M.S., is a Senior Technical Staff Member and Information Experience Strategist and Architect in the Information Management division of the IBM Software Group where she is responsible for driving broad initiatives to improve the total information experience. She has nearly 25 years of experience in technical communication, an M.S. degree in Science and Technical Communication from Drexel University, and a B.A. degree in English from Temple University. She is a Fellow and past President (2004-05) of STC, an ACM Distinguished Engineer, a senior member of IEEE, and a member of SWE, ASIS&T, IAI, UPA, and ATTW. She designed, coordinates, and teaches in the University of CA Extension/Santa Cruz certificate program in Technical Writing and Communication. She has published two award-winning technical books and more than 50 papers and articles, and she speaks regularly at conferences and professional organization meetings around the world.
Presentation:
Influence: The missing ingredient for content management
Information Architecture in the DITA World of Topic-Based Information
Steve Anderson
Steve Anderson has over 15 years of experience in technical communication, as a writer, manager, and tools developer. During that time, he has worked for a diverse group of organizations, including research, education, and technology. His last three years have been at Salesforce.com, implementing a documentation system using XML. Steve earned a B.S. in Technical Communication from the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology.
Presentation: An Introduction to Using XSLT with the DITA Open Toolkit
Matt Armstrong
Matt Armstrong is sales director of Asia Pacific at Author-it head office, Matt works with international organisations to re-structure and manage their documentation, content management and localization projects using the Author-it toolset. With a background in online learning Matt has helped companies gain improvements in their internal processes that knit together with their technology investments to reduce risk, cost, and redundancy. Client industries include manufacturing, banking, health, government, education, law, and technology. Matt peppers his calendar with speaking engagements and is a very approachable guy with a big bag of chocolate fish!
Presentation: Don’t Seek and You Will Find: Bringing content directly to your fingertips
France Baril
France Baril, owner of Architextus Inc., is a DITA/XML consultant as well as a documentation architect that helps organizations analyze their content and processes, select tools, learn about DITA and/or XML, manage the change process and develop supporting material (from DTDs or schemas to XSL transformations).
She has a unique background with a B.A. in Communication from University of Ottawa and a B.Sc. in Computer Science from Université de Sherbrooke. She worked as a Documentation Architect for 5 years at IXIASOFT, where she served as Product Manager for their DITA CMS Framework. Before that, France has worked as a multimedia developer, a trainer, and a technical documentation specialist.
Presentation: 7 Reuse Strategies for DITA
Suzanne Barr
Suzanne Barr manages tools, production, and editing for the Information Engineering department at Network Appliance. She has 20+ years of industry experience managing diverse groups including operations, writing, and tools. Sue has overseen the choice and implementation of XML authoring tools and the CMS at Network Appliance.
Presentation: Pilot Projects: What to ask yourself before you start and after you finish
Shawn Benham
Shawn Benham is currently the senior manager for Information Management Information Development at the IBM Silicon Valley Lab. Shawn has worked in the technical publications field for over 20 years. As an undergrad, Shawn had complete responsibility for three distinct product libraries. By 1988, he owned the information development and business planning tasks for multiple IBM MVS and AIX CAD/CAM software products. In 1993 he took on business planning and marketing assignments for his teams. In 1994 Shawn transferred to the Silicon Valley Lab and transitioned to database middleware information development. In the Fall of that year, Shawn took on a foreign assignment and worked for 3 months at an IBM Business Partner location in The Netherlands to help develop DataHub for Unix information. Shawn was promoted to Senior Software Engineer in 1999 and then immediately transitioned from development to management. Shawn's first management job was in Business Intelligence and DB2 LUW information development. During this time his teams were one of the first to develop dynamic HTML user assistance and deploy topic-based user information at IBM. Shawn remained technically engaged as a manager, submitting an invention disclosure in 2000 and in 2002, authored a chapter on IBM XML data management products that was published in the retail market. In 2003, Shawn transitioned to his management position in the Information Integration area. At that time Shawn's teams made significant strides in componentized information development approaches using SGML and XML markup.
Presentation: Information Architecture in the DITA World of Topic-Based Information
Renu Bhargava
Bio coming soon.
Presentation: The Playlist Model: Designing and delivering modular content
Anne Bovard
Anne Bovard is a Consultant with Comtech Services, Inc. She develops Information Models and style sheets and assists in content inventories, customer studies, and business cases. She also assists CIDM as a speaker coordinator for its tri-annual conference series and edits the CIDM’s monthly eNewsletter, Information Management News. Anne has a BS in Biology from Virginia Polytechnic Institute.
Presentation: Developing a Comprehensive Information Model
Maria Brownstein
Maria Brownstein has over 20 years of experience in the software development and technical communications fields. She has worked at small, privately-held companies, as well as large, public companies, such as IBM and Sybase, Inc. Maria is a senior engineering manager in the Technical Publications organization at Sybase. She manages both a writing team and a development team. Her writing team is primarily responsible for developing user assistance for the Eclipse-based developer platform product, Sybase WorkSpace, and the open-source Eclipse DTP project. The charter of the development team, Technical Publications Solutions, is two-fold: tools development and DITA transition. On the tools development side they have responsibility to define, build, and maintain a DITA-based authoring system and output mechanism that meets the needs of all Sybase pubs teams. One of the many supported outputs is Eclipse user assistance. On the DITA transition side, the team is responsible for defining the migration path to DITA, establishing and documenting Sybase’s DITA guidelines, and creating and delivering DITA training throughout the technical publications department.
Presentation: Authoring and Publishing DITA Content with Eclipse and the DITA Open Toolkit
Guanjun Cai
Guanjun Cai, Ph.D., is an information architect in the Information Management User Technologies of IBM Software Group. Guanjun helps provide strategic direction and architectural guidance for authoring, designing, and delivering the technical information of IM software for z/OS solutions. He is a frequent speaker at national and regional conferences on information development, strategic tools, and rhetoric.
Presentation: Authoring and Publishing DITA Content with Eclipse and the DITA Open Toolkit
Jim Cain
Jim Cain is a senior consultant for Jacquette Consulting, an information technology services company. Jim has eleven years of experience in software architecture, design, development, and systems integration. He has implemented content management solutions for the pharmaceutical and manufacturing industries, and is currently consulting with the educational publishing organization referenced in this presentation.
Presentation: Defining an Optimal Content Repurposing Systems Architecture
Dan Dionne
Dan Dionne is the Technical Team Lead for the UTS team at IBM's SVL laboratory. He is an authoring tools specialist, providing Level 1 support for writing teams, education in DITA and other authoring technologies, and implementation direction for authoring tools development with various corporate groups. He is a member of the DITA Advocates and has participated in developing both the messages specialization and the troubleshooting specialization.
Presentation: The DITA Troubleshooting Specialization
Sarah-Beth Doner
Sarah-Beth Doner is a Documentation Services Specialist for Research In Motion. She joined the Software Documentation group at RIM early in the implementation of their DITA CMS and took on responsibilities as a system administrator and tools specialist. She also provides training and documentation to support users of the CMS. Sarah-Beth graduated from the University of Waterloo with a degree in English Rhetoric & Professional Writing and a Digital Arts Communication Specialization.
Presentation: A Democratic Approach to Overcoming DITA & CMS Issues
Dan Dube
Dan Dube has 20 years of experience in business process reengineering and implementation of standards-based content management systems, including three years as the Founder and President of Lighthouse Solutions, an XML systems integration company. He led the successful deployment of approximately fifty XML-based content management and publishing systems around the world in a variety of industries, including telecommunications, legal publishing, aviation, automotive, insurance and software documentation. He designed and managed the implementation of automated localization systems based on XML components that are currently used in production at several Global 2000 companies.
Presentation: Improving Source Translation Quality with DITA and Content Management
Peter Dykstra
Peter Dykstra is the founder and principal consultant at MetaphorX, a consultancy specializing in open source content management solutions for technical publishing. He is former senior vice president and director of product information for Donovan Data Systems, a New York- and London-based company supplying enterprise systems for the advertising and broadcast industries, where he managed writing groups and technical publishing systems. He is a senior member of the STC and has presented at STC and other industry conferences.
Presentation: Veni, Vidi, Wiki: How (and why) open source wikis are changing the face of technical publishing
Kristen James Eberlein
Kristen James Eberlein is an Information Architect and DITA Educator for Systems Documentation, Inc. in Durham, North Carolina. She develops DITA training, instructional materials, and best practices workshops. She worked for six years on contract at IBM as an information developer, team lead, and information architect, where she migrated several large libraries from SGML to DITA. A senior member of the Society of Technical Communication (STC), she has previously spoken at DITA East and DITA Europe. She also has presented “A Beginners Guide to Prototyping Online Information” several times at STC annual conferences.
Presentation: Using IBM Task Modeler to Create DITA-Based Information Sets
Jennifer Fell
Jennifer Fell is an information strategist and architect at IBM. She has over 15 years of technical communication experience, complimented by experience managing software development teams and user interface design projects. Jennifer has been an instructor in the University of California Extension, Santa Cruz, certificate program in technical communication. She is a senior member of the Society for Technical Communication (STC) and a member of the Information Architecture Institute (IAI) and the Usability Professionals Association (UPA).
Presentation: Information Architecture in the DITA World of Topic-Based Information
Sharon Fingold
Sharon Fingold manages tools, production, and editing for the Technical Communications and Localization Infrastructure organization at VMware, Inc. She has 20+ years of experience in the high tech industry as a technical writer, information development manager, and program manager. Sharon leads the DITA effort, including authoring tools and CMS selection and implementation.
Presentation: Strategy to Scale Global Documentation at VMware
Lori Fisher
Lori Fisher is Director of User Technology for the Information Management division at IBM's Silicon Valley Lab in San Jose, California. She manages a world-wide organization of information developers, information architects, editors, user experience professionals, and visual designers. Her organization is one of the early adopters of DITA and architected, topic-based writing. Lori is a Fellow of STC and has taught courses for managers of Information Development through UC Santa Cruz for over a decade.
Presentation: Information Architecture in the DITA World of Topic-Based Information
Elizabeth Fraley
Elizabeth (Liz) Fraley, President and founder of Single Sourcing Solutions, Inc., is an XML/Single-Sourcing Programmer/Architect. She architected, implemented, and advised on the implementation of XML authoring and publishing systems in both high-tech and government sectors, at both the sector and corporate levels.
Presentation: Content Reduction and Reuse in a Multi-Channel Publishing Environment
Steffen Frederiksen
Steffen Frederiksen (M.Sc. Economics) is a co-founder and director of Content Technologies. Currently, he is heading the development of the SharePoint-based DITA Exchange™ solution. He has worked internationally with XML-based content management solutions, software tools and topic-based writing methodologies for more than 10 years (yes, topic-based XML content before DITA). He is a frequent speaker at XML conferences around the world.
Presentation: Using SharePoint as the Complete DITA Content Collaboration Platform
Chip Gettinger
Chip Gettinger has over 20 years experience with publishing and content management solutions working closely with industry organizations, partners, and customers in leading the adoption of DITA. He received a bachelor's degree in Graphic Arts Technology, with a business emphasis, from Northern Illinois University.
Presentation: Successful Implementations of DITA and a CMS
William Gill
William Gill holds a degree in Education and a Bachelor of Science from Queens University. He has many years of experience in the Information Management field. His current role is to provide leadership for the development of Information Solutions for Innovatia's R&D program. William lives in Saint John, New Brunswick and is Atlantic Canada Chapter President for STC.
Presentation: Single Sourcing and eLearning Content: From XML to DITA
Joe Gollner
Joe Gollner is the Vice President e-Publishing Solutions for Stilo, where he leads an interdisciplinary team in designing, developing, and deploying content management and publishing solutions. Joe came to Stilo through the acquisition, in 2004, of XIA Systems Corporation, a highly-regarded XML solution provider that he had founded in 1998. He has been a practitioner with, and advocate for, open information standards since 1987 and has successfully implemented over 100 large-scale content management and publishing solutions, with several of these solutions winning awards for innovation in their respective industry sectors. He has worked closely with such industry leaders as Boeing, Samsung, Nokia, Alcatel-Lucent, the US Department of Defense, the Canadian Government, InContext Systems, and NATO Headquarters. For many years he acted as the chair of the XML World series of Conferences and he used this venue to champion a pragmatic approach to leveraging standards to achieve business goals. He was educated in a wide variety of subjects at Queen's University (BA Literature and Mathematics) and the University of Oxford (Master's of Philosophy). On the more practical side, he has also completed graduate programs in project management, business analysis, and knowledge management.
Presentation: The Ins and Outs of Content Migration
Harvey Greenberg
Harvey Greenberg is a Principal Technical Project Manager with XyEnterprise, and resident XML evangelist. He is responsible for worldwide support of a distributed sales and partner network, across all three product platforms. He is also responsible for supporting a diverse customer base that spans multiple industries and disciplines. Previously he managed publications and publishing technology at Standard & Poor's, having concluded a career in operations research and program management for the US Air Force.
Presentation: Putting the 'M' in CMS
JoAnn Hackos
JoAnn Hackos, PhD, is President of Comtech Services, Inc., and Executive Director of The Center for Information-Development Management (CIDM). She is a founding member with IBM of the Technical Committee for DITA at OASIS, co-editor of the DITA specification, and Chair of the OASIS DITA Translation Subcommittee.
Presentations:
Content Management: Where did we come from? Where are we going?
Getting Enterprise Buy-In to XML Content Management
Eric Hennum
Erik Hennum is a member of the OASIS DITA Technical Committee and works for IBM on XML and RDF information models and their processing. For DITA, he has played a significant role in defining domain specialization, in the API, Java API, and Taxonomy specializations, and in the precursors to the Bookmap specialization and the DITA Open Toolkit.
Workshop:
Hands-on Specialization
Laura Hood
Laura Hood is a Technical Writer for Research In Motion. She joined the Software Documentation Group at RIM as part of the pilot team that moved content into the Software Documentation group’s new DITA CMS. Laura writes documentation for end users of BlackBerry smartphones, and she creates and maintains all of her deliverables from the CMS in more than 30 languages. Laura graduated from Wilfrid Laurier University with a double Honours degree in English and History.
Presentation: A Democratic Approach to Overcoming DITA & CMS Issues
Nancy Howe
Nancy Howe has been an information developer, project lead, and information architect with Teradata Information Engineering for 4 years. She also has experience as a system analyst and programmer.
Presentation: After the Pilot Project, What Next?
Carolyn Inkster
Carolyn Inkster is an Information Development Team Lead in the Information Management division of the IBM Software Group. She is responsible for delivering z/OS and Multiplatform product information for DB2 and IMS Tools. She has been authoring in DITA since December 2003. She holds a Masters in Technical and Professional Writing from Northeastern University and a Bachelor of Arts in English from Connecticut College. Carolyn leads a DITA Advocates group internally within IBM. She also led the Silicon Valley DITA Advocates Special Interest Group (DITA SIG) in 2006.
Presentations:
The DITA Troubleshooting Specialization
Improving Code Quality with DITA Code Reviews
Eileen Jones
Eileen Jones is the Corporate User Technologies management lead for IBM's Total Information Experience (TIE)/Information Development (ID) corporate mission. In partnership with Bernice Casey (Distinguished Engineer), Eileen is responsible for the User Experience of all IBM-delivered technical content. The Corporate TIE/ID team leads the IBM technical information community, the development of our internal and external information standards, and the development of TIE/ID tools/technologies. Eileen has held a variety of information management positions since joining IBM nine years ago. She has managed first-line and second-line ID teams in Tivoli, as well as the Software Group team that developed and led the IBM Software Group ID community. Her specialty is in developing and driving organizational cohesiveness, efficiency and effectiveness.
Presentation: Content Excellence and the Total User Experience
Judy Kessler
Judy Kessler, Staff Technical Writer at Sybase, Inc., has more than 30 years of experience in software documentation, as a writer, editor, and manager in the US and abroad, joining Sybase in 1998. Currently, she serves as Transition Lead for Sybase’s move to DITA, responsible for developing guidelines and training for information architects, authors, and managers, leading pubs advisory councils, and advocating for DITA throughout the organization. She has presented at the Boston DITA User’s Group, Boston STC, CIDM Showcase, and Content Management Strategies 2007.
Presentation: Complex Maps for Componentized Products
Denise Kiser
Denise Kiser, Ph.D., is Director of Technical Communications and Localization at VMware, a leading provider of virtualization solutions. VMware is one of the fastest growing software companies, with over 4,500 employees at 40 offices worldwide. Denise’s team of over 75 writers and localization project managers are located in the US, Europe, and Asia. Prior to joining VMware, Denise built the Technical Publications organization at Vitria. As Director of Information Products at Sybase, Denise spearheaded Sybase’s conversion to structured documentation and electronic documentation delivery. At VMware Denise’s organization is implementing a DITA solution and enabling translation of all documentation into multiple languages. Denise has a Ph.D. in Science and Mathematics Education from the University of California at Berkeley.
Presentation: Strategy to Scale Global Documentation at VMware
Robert Lankford
Robert Lankford joined Information Development as a Systems Analyst in 1995. His responsibilities over the intervening years have covered hardware support, application planning/development, and web mastering. Robert has a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science from the University of Kentucky College of Engineering. He lives in Lexington, Kentucky with his wife and two children (and 2 hamsters, 1 fish, 3 dachshunds...).
Presentation: Implementing a CMS to help manage what your current CMS doesn't
Fred Lass
Fred Lass has been involved in publishing for over 25 years. Fred’s work has been focused on the management and configuration of automated, database-driven publishing solutions. While working with major publishers like McGraw-Hill and Bertelsmann AG, Fred developed a further focus on managing structured content—SGML and XML.
As a Senior Solutions Architect for Astoria Software, Fred’s primary responsibilities are customer deployments of Astoria’s Content Management System. Managing Astoria’s On-Demand deployments requires expert knowledge of DITA, as well as the associated tool sets like editing/authoring applications and the DITA Open Toolkit.
Working with Astoria customers, Fred takes responsibility for training users and configuring Astoria’s Content Management System, including workflow, output routines, and the configuration of Astoria’s Translation Management feature. In addition, Fred works with customers to institute best practices for managing variable content, conditional content, and integration with content originating in SAP and similar systems.
Presentation: Successful Implementations of DITA and a CMS
Raymond Lei
Raymond Lei is a senior information architect with almost 8 years experience in information development. As an information architect and manager at Huawei, he has lead the DITA migration project at Huawei over the past 3 years. He has comprehensive experience in DITA implementation, from technical solutions to business challenges.
Presentation: Implementing DITA in the Real World
Suzanne Mescan
Suzanne Mescan, Vice President of Marketing at Vasont Systems, is responsible for Vasont’s overall marketing and public relations efforts. She has worked for more than 20 years in all aspects of the information management and publishing industry. Suzanne has authored numerous articles about content management for industry publications and has delivered presentations for the Content Management Strategies conference, Philadelphia XML Users Group, Vasont Users’ Group, and in numerous industry webinars. She earned a BS in Marketing from The Pennsylvania State University.
Presentation: All I Really Need to Know About Successful Content Management I Learned in Kindergarten
Frank Miller
Frank Miller is a Senior Consultant with Comtech Services, Inc. He has more than 10 years experience in publishing and currently manages and implements enterprise content management solutions. He also instructs Comtech’s series of DITA workshops.
Presentation:
Developing a Comprehensive Information Model
Reducing Translation Costs with Scalable Vector Graphics
Martha Morgan
Martha Morgan leads the Architecture Design team at Network Appliance and led one of the DITA pilot projects in Network Appliance's Information Engineering department. A technical writer and editor for over 20 years, Martha has also developed administrator and API documentation for AOL, Netscape, and Candle Corporation.
Presentation: Pilot Projects: What to ask yourself before you start and after you finish
David Muir
David Muir has been a User Technologies Leader at IBM since June 2007. His responsibilities include the overall information delivery strategy (authoring tools and delivery systems) as well as the prioritization and planning for infrastructure. Previously, as manager of System i Application Development Tools and Compilers, he was responsible for the delivery of workstation-based tools and server-based compilers. This included the WebSphere Development Studio family of products. David assumed this position in March 2006. Prior to that, David managed the Information Development team for the same set of products. David joined IBM in 1992 as an Information Developer. He had previously been a technical writer in the Information Services division of a major real estate development company. David graduated from Ryerson University in 1989 with a bachelor’s degree in Radio & Television Arts. He graduated from Trent University in 1986 with a bachelor’s degree in Computer Studies/Philosophy.
Presentations:
Authoring and Publishing DITA Content with Eclipse and the DITA Open Toolkit
Content Excellence and the Total User Experience
Teresa Mulvihill
Teresa Mulvihill has a Bachelor of Science in International Communications and Technology from the University of Washington in Seattle and over eleven years experience in technical communications. Her expertise lies in XML publishing for hardware and software companies of all sizes. She has worked in the US, Spain, France, Switzerland, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Bulgaria, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan.
Presentation: DocBook vs. DITA: Will the real standard please stand up?
Meryl Natchez
Meryl Natchez has been CEO of TechProse since 1982. TechProse places technical writers, instructional designers, project managers and programmers on a contract basis. TechProse also provides turnkey solutions to clients for entire corporate communication projects.
Presentation: Influence: The missing ingredient for content management
Christine Nay
Bio coming soon.
Presentation: The Playlist Model: Designing and delivering modular content
Padma Neppalli
Padma Neppalli is the Information Development Manager for the Intel Software Solutions Group. She manages a distributed documentation team consisting of 24 writers and two XML engineers. She has been with Intel for 14 years and has been managing the Information Development team for over seven years. Since year 2005, she has been heavily involved in driving the migration effort to structured XML and in managing the implementation of a DITA-based XML infrastructure and CMS to publish and manage her group’s content. After numerous challenges she is proud to report that they’ve successfully implemented an XML publishing solution using DITA OT, Xmetal for XML Authoring, EMC Documentum for content management, and EMC/Flatirons CTS technology for server-side publishing.
Presentation:
From Unstructured to Structured, From HTML/FRAME to XML: A case study
Bruce Nevin
Bruce Nevin is a Program Manager and Information Architect for Cisco Systems, reporting in to the Service Provider Technology Group. Bruce has 28 years of experience in technical documentation as a writer, online help developer, manager, infrastructure developer, and XML information architect, working continuously for the "same" employer from his start with Bolt Beranek & Newman in January 1982 through the acquisition of BBN's LightStream subsidiary by Cisco in January 1995. Bruce earned degrees in linguistics from the University of Pennsylvania (BA 1968, MA 1970, Ph.D. 1998), and wrote and edited two volumes on formal and computational linguistics published in 2002, among other research and writings.
Presentation: Business Drivers for Changing to DITA
Maria Ortmann
Maria Ortmann has been training and consulting in Information Systems and Technology since 1997. She has developed courseware, technical manuals, and web based and instructor led classes for both government and private industry. Maria is an expert in creating and implementing custom training, and is a member of the American Society for Training and Development.
Presentation: Content Reduction and Reuse in a Multi-Channel Publishing Environment
Jamie Roberts
Jamie Roberts is the IBM Content Board Chair, and in this capacity he helps a large and varied content-providing community implement IBM's information strategy. In his career at IBM, he has also been responsible for User Assistance architecture across a large set of IBM products, and has helped develop UA mechanisms.
Presentation: Content Excellence and the Total User Experience
Charlotte Robidoux
Charlotte Robidoux leads HP teams in implementing single-sourcing for the HP StorageWorks Division. She designs, develops, and manages strategies for content reuse and content management system implementation. Charlotte is a recipient of The Center for Information-Development Management "Rare Bird" award for the development of a project tracking database. She frequently gives presentations at industry conferences on the subject of content management.
Charlotte has 17 years of experience in technical communication. She began her career in technical communications as a consultant for Washington, DC., firms holding contracts with the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, Environmental Protection Agency, and others. Charlotte earned a BA in English from Holy Cross, an MA in writing from Georgetown University, and a Ph.D. in rhetoric and technical communication from The Catholic University of America.
Presentation: All I Really Need to Know About Successful Content Management I Learned in Kindergarten
Shannon Rouiller
Shannon Rouiller is a technical editor and information architect in IBM's Information Management software group. She has 20 years of experience in information development and holds a BS in Mathematics from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. Shannon is a member of the DITA advocates group at IBM's Silicon Valley Laboratory and is a co-author of Developing Quality Technical Information. Shannon can be reached at shannonr@us.ibm.com.
Presentation: Improving Code Quality with DITA Code Reviews
Keith Schengili-Roberts
Keith Schengili-Roberts is the Manager of Documentation and Localization at AMD for the Graphics Products Group. Prior to gaining this role, he worked as the Information Architect, redesigning the documentation delivery and the processes behind them. Keith is an award-winning lecturer on Information Architecture and Information Management at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Information Studies Professional Learning Centre. He is also the author of four professional technical titles, the most recent being Core CSS, 2nd Edition.
Presentation: Staged Production and Quality Documentation within a DITA–Based CMS
Howard Schwartz
Howard Schwartz, Ph.D., is VP of Enterprise Solutions for SDL International, a leader in global information management. Howard provides strategic and best practices consulting to enterprise clients improving processes related to global content management. A veteran of ten years in the globalization industry, Howard has played multiple executive leadership roles. At Trados, the recognized industry leader in globalization technology, Howard was part of the core executive team and VP of Business Consulting. Earlier, Howard was part of the original executive leadership of Uniscape, acquired by Trados, the first company to provide Internet-based access to globalization technology. Earlier in his career, Howard was a technical writer and publications manager for Genesys Telecommunications. Howard has a Ph.D. from Brown University, has published and edited several books, and has taught at Stanford and Indiana Universities.
Presentation: Strategy to Scale Global Documentation at VMware
Elizabeth (Liz) Semmelmeyer
Elizabeth (Liz) Semmelmeyer is a Principal Information Developer for the Storage Foundation, Data Center Management group at Symantec. Since joining Symantec, Liz led the first pilot project to convert FrameMaker and man page content into DocBook XML. She is currently writing a new documentation set using topic-based writing where a significant amount of the content is shared with another product. Liz has worked as a technical communicator for both small and large enterprise companies writing and maintaining administrator’s guides and online help systems.
Presentation: Pleasures and Pitfalls of Content Management for Enterprise Product Documentation
Eric Severson
Eric Severson, an internationally-recognized XML pioneer, has over twenty years of industry experience including senior management and technical leadership positions in IBM's content management group and Interleaf. Eric is currently CTO and co-founder of Flatirons Solutions, where he leads a consulting and systems integration group focused on XML-based publishing.
Presentation: Best Practices for DITA in a Global Economy
Colleen Smith
Colleen Smith has managed a team of information developers at Teradata Corporation for 13 years. Her team successfully implemented a CMS/DITA pilot project solution in 2007. Now they are collaborating with other Teradata organizations to expand the solution.
Presentation: After the Pilot Project, What Next?
Amber Swope
Amber Swope is a Principal Consultant in JustSystems’ Content Lifecycle Solutions practice, where she applies her information architecture and DITA experience to help clients address their content-related business challenges. Amber is an experienced information architect with almost 20 years in the information development field. She has supported teams through the full information development lifecycle from identifying use cases to deliverable publication. Her experience includes architecting and developing information for companies of various sizes, from a 17-person startup to IBM, as well as managing teams and projects. At IBM, she led the first HTML to DITA migration project for the Rational division and implemented DITA in a production environment. Amber is a member of the OASIS DITA Technical Committee and participating on the Learning and Training Specialization subcommittee. Amber has authored numerous papers and articles on information design, development, and architecture and presented at leading industry conferences. Amber holds a Masters in Technical and Professional Writing and a Certificate in Computer Technical Writing from Northeastern University.
Presentation: Managing Links with Relationship Tables
Hal Trent
Hal Trent serves as a Consultant, Style Sheet Developer, and Web Information Manager at Comtech Services, Inc. He has experience in XML CMS implementations for a variety of businesses and academic institutions and is currently focusing on SVG and DITA. Hal has a BS in Biology from Roanoke College and an MS in Information Systems from DePaul University.
Presentation: Reducing Translation Costs with Scalable Vector Graphics
Bjorn von Euler
Bjorn von Euler is the Director of Corporate Communications for ITT Corporation’s Fluid Technology and Motion & Flow Control groups. He has spent more than 35 successful years in the marketing and communications field, with the last half of them serving ITT in various growth positions at ITT Flygt and ITT Fluid Technology. Bjorn holds a Masters Degree in Communications and Marketing from University of Stockholm. Occasionally, he has had the pleasure of lecturing in Branding, PR/Issue handling and internal as well as international communications at Stockholm’s Folk Universitet and many other institutions.
Presentation:
Getting Enterprise Buy-In to XML Content Management
Ron Watson
Ron Watson is currently responsible for the processes and worldwide use of Product Data Lifecycle Management (PDLM), supporting tools throughout ITT. As the Director of PDLM, Ron leads strategy and plan development, implementations, and provides corporate-level support for Product Data related processes and it’s more than 20 supporting applications. During his over 25-year career at ITT, Ron has held a variety of positions ranging from a designer/engineer of electro-mechanical equipment, to support engineer, to CAD administrator and system administrator.
In 2004, Ron led a team that launched the “ITT Global Vault”, a platform that is the foundation of ITT’s Product Development System for creating, collaborating, communicating, and managing product data. In 2006, in coordination with one of ITT’s largest businesses, he helped conceptualize and develop the framework for what would become the Global Enterprise Content Management System (GECM) for the automation of product documentation worldwide. This expanded Global Vault includes world class processes supported by PTC Arbortext and Isodraw for content creation, Astoria for Component Management and Idiom World Server for Translation Memory Services. Fully integrated, this is a state-of-the-art platform is used to support a defined set of processes that enable the secure sharing of product data information across the globe.
Presentation:
Getting Enterprise Buy-In to XML Content Management
Scott Wolff
Scott Wolff is principal of WOLFF & Associates, a consulting firm which provides services to support a wide range of organizations transitioning from non-structured Word and FrameMaker publication environments to reusable structured-authoring processes based on XML and DITA. Services include; ROI analysis, business transformation planning, persona and task analysis, information modeling, format analysis, DITA specializations and DTD development, XSL-FO and Styler development, and application requirements planning and selection. Prior to starting WOLFF & Associates, Scott worked for Hewlett-Packard Co. for 17 years as a software engineer, CMS Program Manager, Technical Publication Manager, and a Manufacturing Engineer and Manager. Scott holds a BS in Industrial Engineering an MS in Computer Science, and an ME in Manufacturing Engineering.
Presentation: Selecting a DITA CMS
Carol Woronow
Carol Woronow is a Principal Information Developer for the Storage Foundation, Data Center Management group at Symantec. Carol has a multi-disciplined background in a variety of technical positions as well as in technical writing. She holds Masters degrees in both English and Computer Science. During the past 20 years, she has written and maintained administrator’s documents used at many large enterprise data centers, including government, universities, banks, online trading, and online auctions. Venturing into Content Management last year, she paved new ground, but fell into a few pits.
Presentation: Pleasures and Pitfalls of Content Management for Enterprise Product Documentation
Andrzej Zydroń
Andrzej Zydroń is one of the leading experts on XML Localisation and Localisation Open Standards. Born in England and educated in France, he began his IT career in 1976. Currently he is CTO of XML-INTL and is involved in developing the next generation of localisation and authoring systems based on advanced linguistic technology. Andrzej is a member of the British Computer Society and sits on the OASIS technical committees for Translation Web Services, XLIFF, and DITA Translation as well as the LISA OSCAR GMX/V, SRX, TMX, xml:tm, and TBX technical committees. He also sits as an invited expert on the W3C ITS (Internationalization Tag Set) technical committee.
Presentation: OAXAL—Beyond DITA
|
