Archives of Past Meetings
Notes of (most) meetings dating back to 1999.
2005
5/16/05: Setting Up an Off-Shore Technical Writing Team in India
3/23/05: How to Start an Effective Customer Satisfaction Team
Who: Sonya Pelia, Program Manager, Cisco Systems Our first meeting of
2005 had one of the best turnouts in years. Apparantly, this is a
subject that resonates with many if not most companies in the Valley.
Sonya was kind enough to share with us her presentation slides.
Who: Round Table Thanks to Steve Rudman for
hosting! Meeting Notes
(courtesy of Linda O'Maley)
Where: Cisco Systems in San Jose
2004 [Top]
11/11/04: Year End 2004: The
State of Our Profession Today
Where: Mercury Interactive in Mountain View
2003 [Top]
10/21/03: More About the Offshoring
of Technical Publications
Who: Round Table Discussion
Where: Oracle, Redwood Shores. Sponsor: Angie Long
We repeated this topic for a second month since it is of great importance to all of us and so that we could get larger participation. That we did! Joining us were be members of the Publication Managers SIG of the STC. And additional BAPMF members attended in October to continue the process of educating ourselves about this issue. The discussion resulted in more good ideas to bear on this very important topic. Notes
Soon BAPMF will conduct a survey of the membership to get your opinion of what (if anything) BAPMF as a group and members individually should be doing about this issue.
9/16/03: What We Should be Doing about the Offshoring of Technical Publications
Who: Round Table Discussion
Where: Network Appliance, Sunnyvale. Sponsor: Pam Eaken
Offshoring is a reality today, and threatens to diminish the
prospects of Silicon Valley technical publications professionals
already in the field and those hoping to enter it. Some of the
offshoring trend might be inevitable, but there are drawbacks and
disadvantages to it.
This message needs to be conveyed in a process of education of our upper management.
The positive actions we can and should be taking are the focus of the September meeting.
7/24/03: RoundTable on Offshoring (Not BAPMF-Sponsored)
Who: Forty Technical
Publication Managers and representative/s from various trade associations.
Where: Ramada Inn, Sunnyvale
7/17/03: Maximizing FrameMaker-to-Acrobat Capabilities
Who: Shlomo Perets of
Microtype (www.microtype.com)
Where: Marimba in Mountain View. Sponsor: Craig Sherod
You can produce decent-quality
PDFs taking advantage of the native FrameMaker-to-Acrobat capabilities,
but you still need to know how to control the process to you best advantage
and how to avoid pitfalls.
However, if you're looking for high-quality interactive PDFs that go beyond
basic links and bookmarks, you can complement FrameMaker with add-ons
that enhance your PDFs tenfold, without complex coding. These are "TimeSavers.".
6/17/03: Tools for Managing Up using Effective Publication Metrics
Who: June Loy, round
table facilitator
Where: Electronics For Imaging, Foster City. Sponsor: Pat Yoshihiro
Presentation (PDF)
How can you prepare a case to your upper management to justify the resources you need to get the job done? How can you bolser your case with metrics?
5/20/03: Practical Documentation and Product Usability
Who: Ms. Frazier Berek, Usability Consultant FrazierBerek@Hotmail.com
Where: KLA-Tencor, San Jose. Sponsor: Vicki Soule
Presentation (PDF)
Usability needs to be studied and improved for virtually every product and its documentation. Frazier Berek has made a career championing usability even in companies that thought they couldn't afford it. It turns out they couldn't afford not to do it!
4/3/03: DocFrame, a Tool for Using XML Easily with FrameMaker 7.0
Who: Sarah O'Keefe, Scriptorium
Publishing Services
Where: Marimba Software Inc, Mountain View. Sponsor: Craig Sherrod
Presentation (PDF)
DocFrame provides an immediately usable set of tools to use in working with XML from FrameMaker 7.0: EDD (with ~75 elements as opposed to DocBook's ~400), formatting templates, I/O tools for round-tripping between XML and FrameMaker, and XSLT transforms to create HTML and HTML Help. Structured authoring techniques are required to make the best use of these tools.
3/25/03: Database Publishing with FrameMaker Server
Who: Ben Sloane, Finite
Matters Ltd.
Where: TIBCO Software Inc, Palo Alto. Sponsor: Suneeta Agarwal
Presentation (PDF)
Many industries are reaping benefits from setting up publishing software to integrate information from databases into published documentation. Mailings, directories, catalogs, "anything with a pattern," is a good candidate, according to Ben Sloane.
2/25/03: Employee Care and Retention Strategies for Managers
Who: Round Table, led by Darion Lawson
Where: TIBCO Software Inc, Palo Alto. Sponsor: Suneeta Agarwal
Notes by Linda O'Maley
According to a survey, money isn't among the top issues for employees. Appreciation, communication, support for their development, and a manager who goes to bat are top drivers of loyalty.
1/28/03: Job Hunting in Today's Market
Who: Andrew Davis of Synergistech
Communications
Where: KLA-Tencor, San Jose. Sponsor: Vicki Soule
Notes
Andrew pulled no punches in describing the challenges facing job hunters in the current tech downturn. Working from resumes submitted by two members, he identified key elements that get a resume selected and read.
2002 [Top]
7/18/02: If You Live on the Fault Line, the Masterpiece Won't Stand
Who: Jo Ann Hackos
Where: Sun Microsystems, Menlo Park
Notes
Although new technologies and techniques hold promise, they cannot realize their potential if they are built on immature organizational processes.
6/25/02: My Biggest Management Problem These Days
Who: Four Experts
Where: KLA-Tencor, San Jose. Sponsor: Vicki Soule
5/14/02: The Practical How-to of Section 508
Who: Gail Chappell,
Bob Silva and Cindy Bloch of Sun Microsystems; Simon Bate of Peregrine
Systems
Where: Sun Microsystems, Santa Clara.
Notes
Four practitioners share their experiences with producing materials that comply with Section 508.
4/18/02: Section 508: What It's About and How it Affects Technical Publications
Who: Earl Johnson
Where: Sun Microsystems, Santa Clara
Presentation
Section 508 says that Federal agencies must give preference to vendors of IT products who follow the law's guidelines in providing accessibility to persons with disabilities. The guidelines apply to documentation as well as products.
2/26/02: Cooking with XML
Who: Paul Tyson
Where: Network Appliance, Sunnyvale
Presentation
A close look at the technology and processes of structured documentation -- including DTD development, XML authoring tools, stylesheet development, and single-source delivery
1/29/02: How to Manage in Tough Economic Times
Who: Round Table
Where: Network Appliance, Sunnyvale
Tech Pubs Managers are being asked to do more with fewer resources. A panel discussion allowed us to compare notes on how we are coping.
2001 [Top]
11/01/01: Demo of Epiance XML Generator
Who: Jaya, of Epiance
Where:
Epiance Processor automatically produces XML files from GUI events, which can help automate the process of creating documentation.
10/01: A Custom Document Management System Using Documentum
Who: Amy Witherow, Cris Reeser, Marie Salet of Cadence Design
Systems
Where: Cadence Design Systems, San Jose
Notes
Cadence developed a user-friendly document management system using Documentum. It is integrated into the FrameMaker UI for the writers and automatically produces HTML and PDF files from FrameMaker source.
8/01: XML Documents in E-Commerce
Who: Jon Bosak of Sun Microsystems
Where:
Notes: HTML, PDF
(1.7 MB)
Jon spoke on current trends in the updated XML standards.
1/24/01: A Fine-Grained Document Management System
Who: Chip Gettinger, Lightspeed
Interactive
Where:
Chip gave a technical presentation of iEngine and its bridge to FrameMaker+SGML.
2000 [Top]
8/18/00: Pushing the Documentation Development Envelope
Who: Cheryl Solis, Senior Publications Manager at BEA Systems
Cheryl spoke about how her 45-person, seven-site tech pubs department has pushed the 'documentation development envelope' using FrameMaker+SGML, XML, Quadralay WebWorks Publisher, a Documentum-based document management system, and related implementations.
7/15/00: Documentation on the Internet
Who: Mike Hedblom of BroadVision
Mike led a panel discussion about how the delivery of documentation on The Internet affects the way we do our jobs. The discussion addressed several questions that included:
- How does the job of a documentation professional change when the Internet is your only distribution medium?
- Is the quality of content higher?
- How do you hire and manage writers to produce a different style of documentation?
6/23/00: How to Hire Good Candidates
Who: Panel discussion
Publications managers from small, medium, and large companies discussed how they evaluate candidates and persuade them to come aboard. Among the topics were a) which questions tell you most about a candidate's future effectiveness, b) what a candidate's behavior and preferences say about their attitude and potential contribution, and c) how to determine a candidate's hot buttons.
5/16/00: FrameMaker+SGML 6.0
Who: Kurt Matthews of Adobe and Doug Yagaloff of Caxton
A demo of the new features in FrameMaker 6, including its multi-book capability, improved Acrobat and XML output, and the significance of its integration with Quadralay's WebWorks Publisher Standard Edition (which now comes bundled).
4/00: A Print-on-Demand Process for Web-based Documentation
Who: Craig Sherod, Publications Manager, Marimba
Craig presented his company's print-on-demand process. Craig explained the important criteria for implementing such a process, described advantages and tradeoffs, and demonstrated how his company's clients access the print-on-demand system from the Internet.
3/00: Early Results and Analysis of the BAPMF Salary Survey
Who: Elizabeth Fox
Elizabeth presented early results from the BAPMF Salary Survey, which was conducted during Q1, 2000. Final results are planned for May 2000 and will be available to all interested parties free of charge.
2/00: What are Your Career Limiting Habits?
Who: Panel discussion
How are you at managing up in your organization? How do you manage a difficult boss or a difficult staff member? What are your career limiting habits?
1/00: BAPMF Business Meeting
Who: Panel discussion
We discussed the future of the BAPMF organization, sought volunteers to take on various tasks, identified meeting topics for the coming year, and planned the next several meetings.
1999 [Top]
12/99: Managing Remote Sites
Who: Panel discussion
How do you hire people, what is the reporting structure, and how do you deal with issues such as communication and applying standards? How do you, and others you know, solve the unique issues and problems imposed by distance.
10/99: The Monkey Wrench Conspiracy
Who: Art Ignacio, think3
Art explained and demonstrated an implementation of a computer-based training idea that was first conceived and developed seven years ago by the ITG group at Cadence. The current twist is that the training is embedded in a first-person action game. The product training is for thinkdesign, a mechanical CAD package from think3. It is also a marketing tool aimed at students and those recently out of school.
