Intentional Design Inc.

Content management/content strategy conference provides great breadth of expertise

So you’re being asked to structure your content in XML, perhaps DITA, so you can do more with it. Now you find out that the “more” part includes areas you’re not really familiar with. Maybe that includes providing traveling technicians with up-to-date technical data by syndicating your content so they get automatic downloads? Or maybe it means interoperating with the knowledge base. Or finding a learning management system that can play nicely with DITA, and being able to publish to the Web, and being able to … overwhelmed already? How many conferences would you have to attend to cover all of these areas? Just one – the Content Convergence and Integration ™ conference being held in Vancouver, March 12-14, 2008. (For those of you who remember when I managed the wildly successful STC 2002 Region 7 conference, think along those lines, but now I have six more years of experience!)

A lot of thought has gone into the program to make sure that delegates get a conference experience that builds on each day’s sessions. By the end of the conference, you shouldn’t feel like you’ve run from session to session, piecing together a quilt from which you can bring back a lesson or two to the office. Instead, you should feel like you’ve been provided a cohesive narrative from which you can choose your options.

Day 1 is about content: the demands being made on it, how to make good decisions around structuring it, and so on.
Day 2 is about technology: what technologies can you put into play to make your content work for you?
Day 3 is about the implications for your end users: intended and unintended consequences for your customers, your organization, and your brand?

Plenary speakers include Salim Ismail, Head of Brickhouse, the Yahoo! innovation incubator, Michael Fergusson, Chief Products and Innovation Officer at Uniserve, and Liz Danzico, Editor Emeritus of Boxes and Arrows. And from the We’ve invited other industry greats such as Bob Boiko, author of The Content Management Bible, and Ann Rockley, author of Managing Enterprise Content, to participate.

That’s not to say that the other thirty-some speakers aren’t worth mentioning. But sign up for the RSS feed on the conference site and get to know them for yourself.

Hope to see you at the conference!