Silicon Valley DITA Interest Group
» This group meets on the second Wednesday of each month. Join us for some networking, and a thought-provoking speaker followed by lively Q & A.
If you'd like to be notified of group meetings and events, feel free to join the SVDIG Yahoo group .. http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/svdig/.
For more information or to RSVP to the next meeting, contact Scott Prentice
Record crowd from the August 2008 meeting! Click and scroll down for full size image.
Happy SVDiggers from the August 2006 meeting!
Next Meeting
Topic: Quark DITA Studio: "DITA for the rest of us."
Speaker: Bill Kirk - Technical Services Consultant, Quark, Inc.
When: Wednesday, March 10, 2010 @ 7:00pm PST
Location: NetApp Building 4: 1330 Geneva Drive, Sunnyvale, CA 94089 .. MAP
Meet promptly at 7:00pm in the lobby. James Hom is our official NetApp escort.
» Important: Please RSVP to
Scott Prentice
.. we need a list of all attendees at least 30 hours ahead of time for security reasons.
Past Meetings
- February 10, 2010
- Topic: Show and Tell .. DITA-OT customizations
Speaker: You! (Yes .. you.)
References: www.xmldocs.info, Hacking the DITA Open Toolkit
Pics: djcline.com - January 13, 2010
- Topic: Options for generating AIR Help from DITA files, plus .. under the hood of the lmi-airhelp DITA OT plugin
Speaker: Scott Prentice, Leximation, Inc.
Presentation material: 2010-SVDIG-DITA_to_AIR.pdf [946KB]. - December 9, 2009
- Topic: Year-end wrap-up social at Pedro's Restaurant & Cantina
» Another fun time was had by all! - November 11, 2009
- Topic: DITA and Eclipse Help: Various Perspectives
Speakers: Brenda Oakley, Information Architect at Citrix; Laura Bellamy, Information Architect at VMWare; Mel Kiyama, IBM.
Presentation material: SVDIG_Eclipse_Bellamy.ppt [347KB]. - October 14, 2009
- Canceled
- September 9, 2009
- Topic: DITA and Dynamic Publishing: A Discussion About Market Trends in the Future
Speaker: Howard Schwartz, Ph.D., VP of Content Technologies for SDL XySoft. - August 12, 2009
- Topic: Roundtable discussion. Various topics.
Speaker: All - July 8, 2009
- Topic: Making a good start: Understanding DITA basics
Speaker: Joanne Grey, Sr. Technical Author at Maxiscale.
Presentation material: SVDIG_Prezo.zip [430KB]. - June 10, 2009
- Topic: The Perfect Conversion: FrameMaker to DITA in 365 Days
Speakers: Laura Bellamy and Yas Etessam of VMware.
Presentation material: TD5_Etessam_Bellamy_Final.ppt [861KB]. - May 13, 2009
- Topic: Roundtable discussion. Best practices for controlling content inclusion.
Speaker: All - April 8, 2009
- Topic: Moving Your Team to DITA
Speakers: Tim Bombosch and Tom Idleman of Lasselle-Ramsay, Katie Crick of Cisco. - March 11, 2009
- Canceled
- February 11, 2009
- Topic: The IBM Enterprise Content Management strategy around our adoption of DITA into our FileNet P8 product.
Speaker: John A. Grillos, IBM. - January 14, 2009
- Topic: How Salesforce.com uses DITA.
Speakers: Andrea Leszek, Director of Documentation, and Steven Anderson, Architect, at Salesforce.com. - December 10, 2008
- Topic: Year-end wrap-up social!
» A good time was had by all! - November 12, 2008
- Topic: All about the <shortdesc> element!
Speakers: Michelle Carey, Technical Editor for Content Management and Discovery at IBM, and Shannon Rouiller, Technical Editor and Information Architect at IBM.
Presentation material: Shortdesc.ppt [888KB]. - October 8, 2008
- Canceled
- September 10, 2008
- Topic: A day in the life of a technical content creator - Showcasing the steps a technical documentation department would undertake to leverage our "best in class" DITA CCM solution. Demo will cover content creation, review, editing, translation and multi-channel publishing.
Speaker: Henry Calhoun of XyEnterprise.
Notes: Notes, commentary, and pics - courtesy of DJ Cline - August 13, 2008
- Topic: Editing DITA Content (presentation and discussion).
Speakers: Michelle Carey, Technical Editor for Content Management and Discovery at IBM, and Shannon Rouiller, Technical Editor and Information Architect at IBM.
Presentation material: Editing_DITA.ppt [285KB].
Notes: Notes, commentary, and pics - courtesy of DJ Cline - July 9, 2008
- Topic: Roundtable discussion.
Speaker: All - June 11, 2008
- Topic: The Product Content Ecosystem: Extending DITA Beyond NetApp.
Speaker: James Hom, Engineering Program Manager, NetApp.
Presentation materials: NetAppJamesHom20080611.pdf [1755KB]. - May 14, 2008
- Topic: From FrameMaker to DITA in Small Steps.
Speakers: Chiye Yamamoto and Phil Grisier, both Senior Technical Writers at PayPal - April 9, 2008
- Topic: Roundtable discussion.
Speaker: All - March 12, 2008
- Topic: Roundtable discussion on file naming conventions.
Speaker: All (notes - courtesy of Eric Armstrong) - February 13, 2008
- Topic: Using DITA with XDocs XML CMS.
Speaker: Nenad Furtula, VP Product Management of Bluestream XML Data Solutions - January 9, 2008
- Topic: An introduction to the DITA Troubleshooting specialization.
Speaker: Carolyn Henry and Dan Dionne of IBM - December 12, 2007
- Topic: Year-end wrap-up social
Speaker: All - November 14, 2007
- Topic: Customizing the output of the Open Toolkit
Speaker: Robert Anderson, IBM Authoring Tools Development, Chief Architect, DITA Open Toolkit
Presentation: video - courtesy of ditausers.org! - October 10, 2007
- Topic: Roundtable discussion on ways we are customizing the OT
Speaker: Everyone! - September 12, 2007
- Topic: Making the most of DITA Users.org (and a tour the DITA Infocenter and Wiki).
Speaker: Bob Doyle, Founder of DITA Users, President and CEO of skyBuilders, (and many others). - August 8, 2007
- Topic: First look at Adobe's latest technologies that support DITA/XML.
Speaker: Max Dunn of Silicon Publishing.
Presentation materials: PublishingDITA.pdf [668KB]. - July 11, 2007
- Topic: DITA Code Reviews.
Speaker: Megan Bock, Jenifer Schlotfeldt and Shannon Rouiller of IBM.
Presentation materials: CodeReviewDITA_SIG.ppt [430KB]. - June 13, 2007
- Topic: Round table discussion - migrating to DITA: tips and techniques.
Speaker: All.
Presentation handout/notes: Tips and Techniques on Migrating to DITA (DITA version) - May 9, 2007
- Topic: Localization and DITA.
Speaker: Mark Ambrose, of SDL International (the makers of Trados). - April 11, 2007
- Topic: The pros and cons of using DITA with a CMS.
Speaker: Bret Freeman, of JustSystems/XMetaL. - March 14, 2007
- Topic: Content Reuse at the Element Level.
Speaker: Megan Bock, IBM.
Presentation materials: reuse.ppt [52KB]. - February 21, 2007
- Topic: Group discussion on things learned at the DITA 2007 conference.
Speaker: All.
Referenced materials: Erik Hennum's presentation on "Specialization by Example" specbyex.pdf [421KB]. (See www.ditamap.com/presentations.php?event=2 for others.) - January 10, 2007
- Topic: Using the DITA API Specializations to create a common schema for API reference material.
Speaker: Puny Sen, Information Architect at Adobe Systems, Inc. - December 13, 2006
- Topic: The Best of Both Worlds: Publishing DITA with Adobe Rendition Technologies.
Speaker: Max Dunn, President of Silicon Publishing, Inc. - Nov 8, 2006
- Topic: Enhancing the management of your DITA content with a Content Management System.
Speaker: Fred Lass, a Senior Solutions Architect at Astoria Software.
Presentation materials: SVDITA_Users_Nov-8-2006.ppt [1165KB]. - Oct 11, 2006
- Topic: DITA taxonomy specialization and subject classification (including comparison with indexing and glossary).
Speaker: Erik Hennum, of IBM.
Presentation materials: DITATaxonomyClassification.zip [778KB]. - Sep 13, 2006
- Topic: Information Architecture 101
Speaker: Jennifer Fell, of IBM.
Presentation materials: JFell_Information_Architecture.ppt [300KB]. - Aug 9, 2006
- Topic: Supertasks in DITA
Speaker: Megan Bock, of IBM.
Presentation materials: supertasksInDITA.plain.ppt [720KB]
Sample files: sampleFilesSimulated.zip [90KB], sampleFilesTypical.zip [90KB], and sampleFilesCopyToAttribute.zip [92MB]. - Jul 12, 2006
- Topic: Implementing DITA: Production Notes from a Real-World DITA Open Toolkit Project
Speakers: Anna van Raaphorst, Content Specialist and Richard (Dick) Johnson, Technology Specialist at VR Communications, Inc., consultancy for multichannel communications solutions.
Presentation materials: ImplementingDITA.pdf [139KB] - Jun 14, 2006
- Topic: Using DITA with FrameMaker
Speaker: Scott Prentice, Leximation Inc.
Presentation materials: Using_DITA_with_FM.pdf [75KB] - May 10, 2006
- Topic: Task Modeler Demo
Speaker: Fred Sampson, IBM Silicon Valley Lab.
Presentation materials: TaskModeler4_SVDIG.ppt [1.1MB] - Apr 12, 2006
- Topic: Open discussion and recap of the DITA track
presentations from the Content Management Strategies Conference in
San Francisco
Speaker: All
Presentation materials: none - Mar 8, 2006
- Topic: Business Partnering and DITA
Speaker: Carolyn Henry and Mary Paquet, IBM Silicon Valley Lab.
Presentation materials: DITA_BusPartners_Final_SIG.ppt [0.7MB] - Feb 8, 2006
- Topic: Implementing Content Reuse in DITA: The Nuts and Bolts
Speaker: Dan Dionne, UTS Technical Team Lead, IBM Silicon Valley Lab.
Presentation materials: Implementing_Content_Reuse_in_DITA.ppt [0.1MB] - Jan 11, 2006
- Topic: Getting Results: a writing manager’s perspective on how moving to DITA adds value to a business
Speaker: Shawn Benham, Manager, Integrated Information Development (BWGA), IBM WebSphere Information Integrator.
Presentation materials: Getting_Results_DITA.ppt [0.4MB] - Dec 14, 2005
- Canceled
- Nov 9, 2005
- Topic: Components and You: Leveraging DITA to Provide Componentized Information
Speaker: Skyla Loomis, IBM Silicon Valley Lab, SV DITA SIG President, IBM DITA Advocate, Information Development
Presentation materials: DITAandcomponentizedinformation-11092005.ppt [0.4MB] - Oct 12, 2005
- Topic: Overcoming Barriers to DITA Adoption: A Demonstration of XMetaL Author DITA Edition
Speaker: Yas Etessam, Blast Radius, www.xmetal.com
Presentation: XMetaL_DITA_SIG.pps [1.2MB] - Sep 13, 2005
- Topic: DITA Specialization: The how, when, and why with a few brief examples
Speaker: Erik Hennum, IBM
Presentation materials: SpecializationWhyWhenHow.ppt [0.6MB] - Aug 10, 2005
- Topic: Globalizing your documentation with DITA
Speaker: Andrew Thomas, Adobe
Presentation materials: dita_sig_presentation.pdf [0.2MB] - Jul 13, 2005
- Topic: Overview of what the DITA TC has been up to lately and the top 5 changes that were
identified for future improvements to the DITA standard.
Speaker: Yas Etessam, Blast Radius
Topic: Overview of best practices for using ditamaps and relationship tables to manage linking.
Speaker: Carolyn Henry, IBM
Presentation materials: DITASIG_Prez.ppt [0.7MB] - Jun 08, 2005
- Dinner, drinks, and DITA! Meet other DITA users, share good food, and set goals for our newly-forming Silicon Valley DITA SIG.