Comments on: Why I Wasn’t Sold on Single Sourcing (and Why I’m Changing My Mind) http://www.gryphonmountain.net/2009/11/why-i-wasnt-sold-on-single-sourcing-and-why-im-changing-my-mind/ Technical Communication and Other Writing Topics (by Ben Minson) Sun, 14 Mar 2010 12:52:54 -0500 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: David Linton http://www.gryphonmountain.net/2009/11/why-i-wasnt-sold-on-single-sourcing-and-why-im-changing-my-mind/comment-page-1/#comment-39763 David Linton Fri, 04 Dec 2009 12:59:52 +0000 http://www.gryphonmountain.net/?p=779#comment-39763 "I’m changing my mind about single sourcing content. It’s about serving up different combinations of information to meet different audiences’ needs." This is spot on. And sometimes the information must be presented differently, or even rewritten, for different audiences' needs. That doesn't stop it being single sourcing. “I’m changing my mind about single sourcing content. It’s about serving up different combinations of information to meet different audiences’ needs.”

This is spot on. And sometimes the information must be presented differently, or even rewritten, for different audiences’ needs. That doesn’t stop it being single sourcing.

]]> By: Ben http://www.gryphonmountain.net/2009/11/why-i-wasnt-sold-on-single-sourcing-and-why-im-changing-my-mind/comment-page-1/#comment-38789 Ben Fri, 20 Nov 2009 02:28:02 +0000 http://www.gryphonmountain.net/?p=779#comment-38789 That's a benefit to single sourcing that I hadn't thought of—maximizing the use of content to make up for fewer team members. Even if you have more team members, it could reduce redundancy among team members' work. But that takes some additional coordination. That’s a benefit to single sourcing that I hadn’t thought of—maximizing the use of content to make up for fewer team members. Even if you have more team members, it could reduce redundancy among team members’ work. But that takes some additional coordination.

]]> By: Sean Brierley http://www.gryphonmountain.net/2009/11/why-i-wasnt-sold-on-single-sourcing-and-why-im-changing-my-mind/comment-page-1/#comment-38695 Sean Brierley Wed, 18 Nov 2009 03:42:02 +0000 http://www.gryphonmountain.net/?p=779#comment-38695 Hi, Single sourcing really works, provided you set it up correctly. I do not use it now for a variety of reasons, but I have been very successful with single sourcing in the past and the techniques I used then are useful even now in a non-single-sourcing environment. My experience was with FrameMaker and WebWorks Publisher, but I'm sure there are other techniques that work almost as well . Cheers, Sean Hi,

Single sourcing really works, provided you set it up correctly.

I do not use it now for a variety of reasons, but I have been very successful with single sourcing in the past and the techniques I used then are useful even now in a non-single-sourcing environment.

My experience was with FrameMaker and WebWorks Publisher, but I’m sure there are other techniques that work almost as well .

Cheers,

Sean

]]> By: Kirsty http://www.gryphonmountain.net/2009/11/why-i-wasnt-sold-on-single-sourcing-and-why-im-changing-my-mind/comment-page-1/#comment-38693 Kirsty Wed, 18 Nov 2009 03:00:37 +0000 http://www.gryphonmountain.net/?p=779#comment-38693 Hey Ben, I'm a big fan of single-sourcing, and we're still working on implementing it successfully. I'd actually call producing online help and the user guide from the same content repurposing rather than single-sourcing, but that's probably getting into some nit picking. We do single source to a degree between our online help and our training books (still a work in progress). We are trying to reuse the task or activity steps from the help in the training books, with content like business processes staying mainly only in the help and scenarios only being in the training. Our team has been cut down this year, and our scope of work hasn't really been reduced. So we have to use the ideas we were trying with our former larger team, but it's more crucial now that we don't have x number of people devoted to training material and y number of people to the help. Or, with some products, we don't have the luxury of employing a separate instructional designer who can create training materials. Our user guides are generally a PDF form of the help. Not perhaps the most ideal user experience, but our core focus is on the online help, and we produce the PDFs because customers want to be able to print. Hey Ben,
I’m a big fan of single-sourcing, and we’re still working on implementing it successfully. I’d actually call producing online help and the user guide from the same content repurposing rather than single-sourcing, but that’s probably getting into some nit picking.
We do single source to a degree between our online help and our training books (still a work in progress). We are trying to reuse the task or activity steps from the help in the training books, with content like business processes staying mainly only in the help and scenarios only being in the training. Our team has been cut down this year, and our scope of work hasn’t really been reduced. So we have to use the ideas we were trying with our former larger team, but it’s more crucial now that we don’t have x number of people devoted to training material and y number of people to the help. Or, with some products, we don’t have the luxury of employing a separate instructional designer who can create training materials.
Our user guides are generally a PDF form of the help. Not perhaps the most ideal user experience, but our core focus is on the online help, and we produce the PDFs because customers want to be able to print.

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