At our meeting two Wednesdays ago, my colleague Leona Campbell shared her experiences taking an Advanced DITA class, which led into an interesting discussion of what post-basic DITA education means these days. Anecdotally, it seems early adopters of DITA have tended to be self-educated fearless types who are comfortable learning from the spec and reaching out to user groups for help from other highly technical users. DITA workshops and classes, however, often seem to cover the concepts of structured and topic-based authoring, what the DITA OT is, and some simple authoring and conversion tasks: they also tend to have a focus on migration, probably because so many DITA projects start with the problem of moving all the old junk out of whatever format it’s in. Finally, there’s often an evangelical component, because it’s no small thing to stop doing whatever you were doing before, and do something as skills-intensive as DITA instead.

However, as DITA matures, its users are a more diverse crowd with more diverse needs. (For example, all three of us writers at Jive Software inherited an existing DITA implementation rather than spearheading a migration.) In our discussion, we said we’d like to see some classes covering the structure of the toolkit and how it can/should be modified for real life implementations. Some more ideas that were floated:

• What are the best practices for file setup?
• How should you plan for upgrades?
• Is it realistic to store all your files in the same directory?
• How do you know when you need a CMS, and if you haven’t sold your company on having one yet, are there any best practices to avoid making it harder when you finally do?
• How do filtered builds work and what are some useful examples?
• What are some common mistakes of DITA implementation and how could you avoid them?

What would YOU like to learn/wish you had learned from DITA training, versus the school of hard knocks? Feel free to respond here.

After a rousing first meeting of PDX DITA User’s Group last summer, we’ve continued to meet monthly, albeit with small attendance at each of the two subsequent meetings. All three meetings have been eye-opening for us as hosts. We at Jive are the inheritors of a relatively small and minimally managed DITA implementation, so learning about what larger organizations are doing is fascinating and helpful, although (working in a group with only three writers) it sometimes seems that other people’s DITA experiences take place in some alternate universe where there are armies of writers wearing shiny space-age uniforms.

We’d like to get more critical mass to drive this effort forward. PDX has plenty of technical communicators using DITA who can benefit from the groupthink. If you’re one of them, please come on out to an upcoming meeting so you can help drive this in a good direction.

Here are some topics that have come up in these small, informal discussions. We’d love to know which of them you think would make a good enough subject to tempt you to come out. Or, add your own.

Proposed Discussions

• CMS: When do you know you need one?
• Planning for a CMS implementation
• How does DITA change the roles in your writing group?
• Using DITA to collaborate with non-Tech Docs groups
• DITA and translation
• Quantifying costs and savings from DITA implementation
• DITA and social Help

Add your topics in comments. We’re going to make a greater effort from here on out to avoid coinciding with STC Willamette Chapter meetings. Our next meeting will be February 29th, from 6:30-8:00, in our office at 915 SW Stark, and will feature Leona Campbell presenting informally on her recent experience attending Advanced DITA Training including DITA 1.2 at Comtech. We’d appreciate a heads-up if you’re coming, and we’ll provide pizza, beer, and a nice view of Powells Books from our 5th floor balcony. (We cannot be responsible for any book-shopping costs incurred by this combination of factors.) Hope to see you here!

Calling all DITA XML users and gurus in the greater Portland area for an initial meetup at the Jive Software building, 915 SW Stark in downtown Portland from 6:30-8:00. Beer and pizza will be provided. We’ll share information about past and current projects and brainstorm agenda for future meetings.

For more information, email Marya DeVoto at marya.devoto@jivesoftware.com.

This blog is for people in Portland, OR and environs who publish technical documentation using DITA XML, or who teach other people how to do that, or who just really love saying DITA. (Some people find that amusing.) If you don’t know what the Darwin Information Typing Architecture and the DITA Standard are, you might start by visiting DITAXML.org.