Scriptorium hosts Tristan Bishop of Symantec as he discuses what technical writers need to do to keep up with transforming communication methods and rapid advances in global, mobile, and social dialog. Recorded 4-26-11.

1. Crafting Clarity in a climate of chaos
Tristan Bishop
Senior Principal Digital Strategist
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2. About Symantec
• Symantec helps consumers and organizations secure and
manage their information-driven world.
• Our software and services protect against more risks at more
points, more completely and efficiently, enabling confidence
wherever information is used or stored.
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3. About the speaker:
Inspired by efficient delivery of
effective content.
Strives to integrate techcomm best
practices with social media
developments
Tristan Bishop
aka “KnowledgeBishop” Goal is to forge solutions that optimize
customer experience.
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4. From Chaos to Clarity
1 The Trio of Transition
2 The InfoDev Impact
3 The Path to Progress
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5. The Trio of Transition
Nothing is as it was.
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6. The Trio of Transition
Global Mobile Social
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7. The Global Transition
• Only 13.5% of web users are in North America (NAM)
• Asia has three times more web users than NAM
• Over >1,000% growth in Latin America, the Middle East and Africa
Source: http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm
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8. Arguing against
globalization is like
arguing against the laws
of gravity.
Kofi Annan
Seventh Secretary-General,
United Nations
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9. The Mobile Transition
Global mobile adoption grew from 10% to 77% in ten years
Global mobile cellular subscriptions, total and
per 100 inhabitants, 2000-2010*
6000 100
90
5000 Subscriptions (in millions)
Subscriptions (million)
80
Per 100 inhabitants
Per 100 inhabitants
70
4000
60
3000 50
40
2000
30
20
1000
10
0 0
2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010*
*Estimates
Source: ITU World Telecommunication /ICT Indicators database
Access to mobile networks is now available to 90% of the world population
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10. The Mobile Transition
• By 2014, mobile will
overtake desktop in
• unit sales
• total users
• page views
Source:
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/morgan_stanley_
mobile_internet_market.php
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11. Mobile is the future …
Eric Schmidt
Mobile is the future …
Erick Tseng
Mobile is the future …
Mary Meeker
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12. The Rise of Mobile Data
Mobile Data Traffic To Rise 40-Fold Over Next Five Years
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13. The Social Transition
• One MILLION more
people will join Facebook
by tomorrow night
• One BILLION pieces of
content will be shared on
Facebook today
• 298,000 more people will
join Twitter in the next 24
hours
• 90 MILLION tweets will be
sent today
http://www.personalizemedia.com/the-count/
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14. Social Media is the
biggest shift since the
Industrial Revolution.
Erik Qualman, Socionomics
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15. The Social Transition
• It’s not just the Millennial generation
• Social Media is gaining ground in EVERY demographic
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16. The Rise of Social Search
Early in 2010, social web activity surpassed search activity
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17. The Rise of Social Search
• People used to search the general web for content
• Now they are searching social networks
• Is your content even THERE to be found?
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18. Business as Usual?
The Storms are Upon Us
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19. The InfoDev Impact
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20. The Fall of Static Content
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21. The Dynamic Content Era
• The web = real-time content
– Maps are dynamic
– Addresses are dynamic
– News is dynamic
– Documentation?
• In 2007, Symantec discovered
customers were 500% more
likely to search the web than to
locate official manuals
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22. The Data Explosion
• 2002: Had created 5
exabytes of online data
• 2011: Creating 5 exabytes
every 48 HOURS
• Your content is buried
Source: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/the_coming_data_explosion.php
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23. How Can We Cope With the Data Overload?
1. Social Sharing
2. Social Search
3. Social Support
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24. Social Sharing – All Channels
Nearly 30% of ALL social content shared is “How-To & Instructional”
Source: http://danzarella.com
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25. Social Search – Page Rank Changes
• Social Influence is now
helping DRIVE Search
• Google now uses social
media references as a signal
in search result ranking.
• Higher Twitter authority
results in higher SEO
prioritization.
http://searchengineland.com/what-social-signals-do-google-bing-really-count-55389
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26. Social Search – Linking to the Social Graph
• Conventional
search is
dominated by
advertisements
• Google has a
beta called
“Social” search
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27. Social Search – Pruning by the Social Graph
• Social search
prunes a result set
to the content
previously liked or
shared by the
user’s social graph
• The content is
validated by
RELATIONSHIP
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28. Social Support
• Voice-based
plummeting
• Text-based
skyrocketing
• Industry now less
than 38% voice-based
• TechComm content
can resolve
interactions for ALL
five text based
channels
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29. The Path to Progress
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30. Preparing for Global Delivery
• Craftsmanship MUST give way to
efficiencies
• Standardize content for easier
translation
• Run automated quality control
tools on source content
• Explore Machine Translation
options for first pass
• Explore crowd-sourcing or
community collaboration for
clean up
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31. Global Delivery at Symantec
• Data Driven Authoring using XML as the source
• Controlled Language QA during the authoring process
• Automated L10n Process with workflow
• Machine Translation as much as possible
• Coordinated delivery in multiple languages
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32. Preparing for Mobile Delivery
• Short, simple topics
• Modular content
• Search Engine Optimization
Content delivery MUST be optimized
for fewer “clicks” and smaller screens
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33. Mobile Delivery at Symantec
• Aligning User Centered Design teams and Information
Development teams for integrated mobile content strategy
• Prototyping XSL extracts for deployment to mobile endpoints
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34. Preparing for Social Delivery
• Establish InfoDev-specific social
media presence for content sharing
• Engage customers in relationships
with branded accounts, to prepare
for social search
• Push key topic URLs to the social web
to retain page rank
• Use URL shortening tools that
provide metrics and traffic analysis
(bit.ly, bit.ly+)
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35. Social Delivery at Symantec
• Piloting staffed accounts for social content delivery
• Identifying top support issues for each product
• Proactively pushing content via social to deflect calls
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36. The Storms will Converge: Global, Mobile, AND Social
• Worldwide, Facebook mobile users are twice as active
as non-mobile Facebook users
Source: http://digitalbuzz.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/Mobile-Stats-Social-Media.jpg
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37. Readiness is Required
1. Study the trends
2. Rethink your
strategy
3. Reconsider your
processes
4. Build a “hurricane-
resistant” content
delivery team
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38. Thank you!
Tristan Bishop
Copyright © 2010 Symantec Corporation. All rights reserved. Symantec and the Symantec Logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Symantec Corporation or its affiliates in
the U.S. and other countries. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners.
This document is provided for informational purposes only and is not intended as advertising. All warranties relating to the information in this document, either express or implied,
are disclaimed to the maximum extent allowed by law. The information in this document is subject to change without notice.
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